Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

“Insane perhaps, but hardly random. If the third killing was random, why didn’t he simply kill Montoto instead of knocking him out? It was safer and more certain than killing someone later at the cathedral, where escape would be difficult. No, Captain, the third killing was far from random, and that means the first two may not have been random either.”

“What could they possibly have had in common?”

“They all had asthma.”

Enrique Montoto, wearing a neat white pharmacist’s coat, glanced up as Michael Vlado entered the little drugstore down the street from the tourist hotels. He smiled and asked, “May I help you?” Then he said, “It’s Vlado, isn’t it? I didn’t know you were still in town.”

“I’m just wrapping up a few loose ends about the killings.”

“What would those be?” he asked with a smile.

“You told me you could smell a faint spicy odor just before the killer knocked you unconscious, but when I tried on your hood later I could smell nothing except the strong odor of the fabric itself. I wondered if your so-called spicy odor was an attempt to implicate Gypsies in the killings. I wondered if you had really been replaced at all. Perhaps in the instant before his death Juan Diaz saw his killer’s face and it was not the face of a stranger after all. Perhaps it was the face of his good friend Enrique.”

“Why should I kill him?” the druggist asked. His smile had faded.

“Samantha Mercer, the first victim’s daughter, told me that the next victim was an elderly Gypsy with asthma. Later Nunzio told me that Juan Diaz had an asthmatic wheeze. And Samantha told me her mother was taking potassium iodide, a common medication to loosen phlegm in asthmatics. What if all three received the wrong medication through some terrible error? What if the druggist responsible for the error decided to cover his tracks by killing them, in a brutal manner so there’d be no doubts, no detailed autopsy that might uncover the deadly medication they’d been given?”

“You are accusing me of this?” He’d retreated behind his counter, putting it between him and Michael. “Why would they come here for their medication, even if your fairy tale is true?”

“Carla Mercer went to a drugstore near her hotel the night she died, for antacid tablets. The old Gypsy used to come to the tourist hotels to beg for money. And Juan Diaz might naturally patronize the store of his good friend Enrique. They all came here, and later, when you realized what you’d done, you killed them all. You had time, apparently, because it was a slow-acting poison they were taking. You stalked them and killed them and made it appear the work of some mad serial killer. You had their names and addresses, of course, so you knew where to find them. Mrs. Mercer had to die first, before she returned to England. You saved Juan Diaz till last because he was your friend.”

The slender man nodded, as if remembering. “I didn’t want to kill him. I swore I wouldn’t unless he showed signs that the poison was affecting him. When those signs came, he had to die. I lured him out of line in the back of the cathedral and when he saw the sharpened bayonet he was certain it was someone else. He pulled off my hood to see, but of course it was his old friend Enrique after all.”

“You could have told them the truth, taken back the poison before it was fatal.”

“And have my whole life ruined? They would have called the police, sued me, hounded me to my grave. It was better that they die like this. They were dying anyway.” His hand came out from behind the counter, holding not a bloody bayonet but a small Beretta pistol. “And now one more Gypsy dies, trying to steal drugs.”

“The police are outside,” Michael told him. “They’ve heard every word you’ve said.”

The door opened and Captain Lerida entered the drugstore. For a moment Enrique seemed confused. Then he put down his pistol and smiled, the perfect businessman. “May I help you today?” he asked.

Talked Out of It by Barbara Callahan