Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 811 & 812, March/April 2009

“Then we found the dog cages in the basement,” Big Sis said. “And plastic containers filled with greenbacks. And human hair. He had kids imprisoned in there. And ransomed them for money.”

“What did you do with the money?” I asked stupidly.

The Sisters looked at each other. Then they looked at me. “Can’t remember,” Big Sis said.

“What money?” Less Big Sis asked.

“Maybe we left it for the FBI to find,” Big Sis said.

A joke. We laughed.

I remembered that the Sisters sometimes drove to Boston to help out with the National Battered Women Club. Maybe I had struck a sister-lode of goodness.

Big Sis was talking again. “We went back to Shanigan Island when Nurse told us he had returned. We went armed, of course. Doc Shanigan didn’t expect us. He seemed kind of nervous, scared, you might say. Even so, we had to work on him a bit. He confessed all right. On his knees, crying. He told us where the bodies were. We didn’t dig them up. Too much work and we would leave traces. We didn’t want to hang around too long, our Bad Cat was in full sight. Folks might see the boat and get ideas.

“So,” Less Big Sis said, “it wasn’t a good day for Fastbuck Freddie. We kept him chained down in our basement while we got the recliner from the dump and had the squeezes help create that work of art on the channel marker.”

“And then you emptied a few clips,” I said. “Jeezum, I wouldn’t like to mess with you guys.”

“You’re welcome,” Big Sis said.

“Just don’t mess with little kids,” Little Sis said. “It brings out bad things in us.”

“I’m sorry now,” Big Sis said, “having the squeezes paddling the Bad Cat around that marker, with us firing away.”

“You know the song, don’t you?” Less Big Sis asked.

The Sisters and I sang it together. We gave the song a new name. “Wake for Freddie.” All three of us have good voices. I thought of ways to improvise on the melody when the Bunkport Musicals would be playing again in the Thirsty Dolphin. Maybe send a recording to Elizabeth.

Row row row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily merrily merrily
Life is but a dream.

Parson Pennywick Takes the Waters by Amy Myers

The Parson Pennywick of this story (and the previous EQMM tale “Parson Pennywick and the Whirligig,”) is only one of several historical characters created for her crime fiction by former publishing executive Amy Myers. She has also given us Victorian chef Auguste Didier, Victorian chimney sweep Tom Wasp, and her own rendering, in a detecting role, of the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. Ms. Myers’s latest novels are Tom Wasp and the Murdered Stunner (Five Star) and Murder in the Mist (Severn House).

* * *

“Something is amiss on the Walks, Caleb.”

Looking most agitated, Parson Jacob Dale came into his parlour, where I was taking my breakfast. My old friend and host had just returned from conducting the daily service in the church. He is an elderly man, of even greater years than mine own, and not in good health. “It requires your assistance,” he continued ominously.

“Of what nature?” I asked cautiously. My stay in his parsonage on Mount Pleasant in the delightful spa of Tunbridge Wells was a yearly delight, and I would help where I could, although the coffee and toast before me had greater appeal.

“I cannot say.” Jacob looked at me helplessly. “It centred on the bookseller’s store, so Lady Mopford informed me. A threat of death, she cried. Send for Parson Pennywick.”

I have some small local reputation for successful intervention in such situations, and unsought though that honour is, I find my services called upon from time to time. Lady Mopford, whom I knew from previous visits, was a better source of accurate information than the London Gazette.

“Threat to whom?” I asked.

“I do not know.”

Poor Jacob finds matters outside the daily norm distressing. He is more at ease with his learned books than with the problems of his flock, dearly though he would like to help.

“You could take the waters, Parson Pennywick,” Jacob’s delightful daughter Dorothea teased me, attracted by the unusual hullabaloo.

“Thank you, but I put my faith in rhubarb powder.”