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

“Hell with that!” Woody’s eyes were huge in his narrow face. “I gotta get this off my chest, now I’ve gone this far. I never felt so bad in my whole life like I did these past coupla days.” He swallowed hard. “It was like this, see? Tiny backs out of the bedroom into the great room. Alla time, Gianelli — or whatever his name was — has a damned huge forty-five on him. So when Tiny backs through the door and spots me, he starts talkin’ to the guy. To keep his attention, you know? Then when the guy comes through the door, I’m flat against the wall. As soon as he’s all the way in, I rap him with the knee kicker.”

“Some rap,” Kat said. “You stove in the back of his skull.”

“That made us both sick, sick and scared. We panicked. Rolled him in a piece of the old carpet and stowed him in the truck until quittin’ time. Then we drove out to the east end of the island and waited till it got dark.”

“Sure takes a long time to get dark,” Tiny said.

Woody shot him an impatient look. “When it did, we carried him out on one of the docks and dropped him in. Figured the tide’d carry him out into the Gulf.”

“And the gun?” Kat asked.

“Threw that in, too. A diver could find it.”

“What you didn’t know,” she said, “is that a body first sinks, then comes back up a few days later. You’re both under arrest,” she said conversationally.

Woody’s voice was suddenly scratchy. “For murder?”

“For various,” she said. “Sit down, both of you. I’ve got to cuff you. Regulations.” She fished in her handbag. She had only one pair, so she cuffed Woody’s skinny wrist to Tiny’s huge one. Neither one, to her immense relief, showed the slightest sign of resistance.

Then, on impulse, she nodded toward the phone on the divider. “Is that hooked up?”

“Guess so,” Woody said. “Realtor sits in here on weekends.”

She couldn’t resist. When Moby Duck answered his phone in the squad room, she said sweetly, “Any progress?”

“Damn right!” he boomed. “Got an assist lined up from the FBI to help us figure out the wound pattern. That’s a big step forward. So what have you done?”

“Oh, found out what the murder weapon was, though I think this case could end up being a matter of self-defense.”

“Jeez, what was the weapon?”

She ignored him. “Also determined who the victim was — and he just might have been the series burglar you’ve been beating your brains out to find.”

“Wha— Who—”

“And I know who did him in. There are two of them.”

Silence, then, “Come on, woman, give!” Duckworth bellowed.

“Read them the Miranda, and I have them shackled here with me.”

“Where?” Duckworth sounded as if he were strangling. “How?” Another silence. Then he said, much quieter, “You kidding me, Detective?”

“Would I ever kid you, Moby?”

His voice sounded as if he’d just been hit in the gut as he asked, “Do you need backup?”

She gave him a silvery chuckle. “That could be helpful, Detective Duckworth. We’re at Four thirty-six Paperbark, and we’ll wait.”

Grinding the Ghost by Clayton Emery

When it comes to creating an authentic atmosphere for the historical mystery Clayton Emery ranks with the best in the genre. He shares with writers like Britain’s Paul Doherty a lack of squeamishness in portraying the grislier side of medieval life, with all its sights, sounds, and smells. In this new adventure of Robin Hood, the outlaw and the ever-astute Marian have got to solve a traditional whodunit...

* * *

“Unclean! ’Ware! ’Ware the leper!”

Robin and Marian needed no more warning. They backed down the narrow road to a trough where an ash had toppled, slid under it amidst brush. Robin drew a cross in the dirt with his right toe. “Hie then! Get yourself by and gone!”

Husband and wife watched the pathetic figure straggle past. Clad in a hooded robe gray with filth, the leper hobbled on crippled feet. A tin bell atop his tall staff clanked mournfully. “Unclean! Unclean! ’Ware the leper!”

Shuffle, shuffle, the unseen feet plodded through new-fallen leaves of oak and ash and beech and elm. Robin and Marian waited until the pariah was out of sight, then took to the road again.

“There but for the grace of God,” Robin breathed. “They should be cast away from decent folk altogether.”

Marian asked. “I don’t abide the notion sick people have sinned, you know. It doesn’t take the wrath of God to unbalance your humours.”

“Only God could curse you with leprosy.” Robin swung his bow as they walked. He kept an arrow crooked alongside in case they flushed game. “It’s the worst fate there is. You’re neither alive nor dead, wandering like a ghost, yet shackled with worldly woes.”