Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1999

“Anyway, according to him, he only went out with Rosejoy twice, once to dinner and another time she dragged him to Shakespeare in the Park. The way he talked, he sounded like he was bored out of his skull with Ms. Precious, so I asked him who the gal was he brought to the funeral and he said she’s his steady now, name’s Ellie. Ellie Bevans, got her address here plus the buddies’ numbers. I don’t know, Edison, but I don’t feel it. He impresses me as a swinger, and from what I hear of our Ms. Precious, I don’t figure she was.”

“Maybe not, but she managed to get herself pregnant. Did you ask him about the assault that cost her her teeth? What did he say to that?”

“He looked me straight in the eye and said no way, he never laid a hand on her. He said he’s got a temper, all right, but he’s gotta feel passionate about something before hell start swinging. That’s the word he used, passionate. To tell you the truth, Ben, I don’t think she was his type. Like I said, he’s a swinger. Want me to pay a call on this Ellie Bevans? Or will you take it?”

“You, I guess. I’ve got some other fish to fry. What color were his eyes?”

“His eyes? Oh yeah, that grey business. Web, his eyes aren’t grey, no way. They’re blue — dark blue, more like purple. They say Liz Taylor’s eyes are purple; so are Wilson’s. Like I say, I don’t figure he’s our boy. Maybe Eps?”

I shook my head. “I’ve a hunch that Ms. Florence Henderson will check out as advertised. Cornell is — I figure Fiona Precious latched onto him because he’s safe, if you know what I mean.”

“Safe?”

“On the gay side. Women like gay men; they’re usually bright and charming and no problem in the bedroom department. Fenster said Rosejoy was concerned about her mother’s attachment to Cornell. I don’t think she should have given it much worry time. Maybe Fiona didn’t know. If she didn’t, she was double naive. Wilson would have gotten the message. You figure that’s his bag, too?”

George shook his head. “No way. So now what? Who’s next?”

“Back to square one. The lab got a DNA sample of the fetus. When we connect the killer to the crime, a match will help to cinch it. But first we need another DNA to make the comparison, and we can’t get that until we’ve made some kind of a case — that’s our catch twenty-two.”

At suppertime I microwaved a Stouffer’s chicken special and opened the diary. It had been burning a hole in my pocket all day.

She’d begun it in January on New Year’s Day. She’d been to a New Year’s Eve party, she said, a party sponsored by the Fairland Historical Society. She’d gone alone — “Jeffrey hasn’t called in weeks. I guess I’m not his type, but I don’t care. I don’t think he’s my type either. I thought when I met him that he was exciting, but he’s not. He’s trying to look exciting, he manages that, but inside he’s just ignorant. And crude. My mother was right.”

She’d met some people at the party. She mentioned a man who was writing a book about old Fair-land and another man who had asked her to dance. (“He’s a really good slow dancer; slow dancing is nice.”) A husband and wife pair of ecologists were worth noting by name (“Heath and Beverly Porter, they’ve moved up here from the Miami area”) as was Eddie Armstrong, an attorney who thought H. Dietrich Fenster was “an old charlatan, I don’t know how a nice girl like you can work for that old man.”

“I told him,” she noted, “that Mr. Fenster was the kindest, most intelligent man I know, and Mr. Armstrong looked at me like I was crazy. I’m going to tell Mr. Fenster. That man shouldn’t be allowed to go around saying such things. Maybe we can sue him?”

In February she went out with the dancing man, by name Henry Davis, and had “a pleasant time, but isn’t it sad that he’s so shallow? Mr. Fenster says somewhere in this world there’s a soulmate for everyone. Maybe I should enroll in one of those computer dating clubs?”

Come March she accepted an invitation to Phantom of the Opera, coming to Orlando in April. The invitation came from one Charles Evers, who turned out to be the man writing the book about old Fairland. Seemed Charles Evers had sought out H. Dietrich for an interview, at which time Charles and Rosejoy renewed their seemingly platonic acquaintance.

I found myself yawning by the time I got to April. If the girl had been four months pregnant, she had to do something to get that way and soon, time was awastin’.