Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 122, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 745 & 746, September/October 2003

“Shot in the chest — once, like a handgun, close range. I’m on probation, man. Killed my ex-wife ’bout five years ago — manslaughter. The police weren’t gonna believe me.”

“So you dumped her.”

“I freaked, man. Two weeks I’ve been hiding out, but nobody looked for me. There was nothing on the news. So I came back tonight. Figured I’d do a better job. But shit, I wouldn’t kill her! We had plans. She was gonna...” He hesitated, staring down at the glistening black bundle that used to be a young woman.

“She was going to what?”

He licked his lips. “Blackmail. This rich guy, been sleeping with her since she was a kid. Guess his image was important to him. She told him a hundred grand, or she was gonna tell the town, cause a big scandal. She was sure he’d pay, told me she’d cut me in.”

Tejeda looked up. He must’ve sensed my anger turning elsewhere. “You believe me, don’t you? Hell yes. It was the rich guy that killed her. I don’t know shit, man. I just met her. Hell, I contract for money. Last thing I would do is invite a hit to my home.”

“Either you killed her,” I said, “or you messed up the crime scene so bad the real killer might never be caught. Either way, you deserve the police. Get back up the hill.”

He protested, pleaded, threatened, begged. But I had the shotgun.

After I’d tied Frank’s hands and ankles, I called the Bexar County Sheriff’s Department. Then I called the Pauersteins’ home number.

Zuli Cruz answered.

There wasn’t much choice, so I told her the news.

I would’ve been okay had she wailed out her grief, but she took the news of her daughter’s death in stony silence. Five cars went by on the highway before she spoke.

“You have the killer?” she asked.

I told her about Frank Tejeda, his plea of innocence, his story of blackmail.

“The police won’t believe him,” I said. “Do you?”

More silence.

“Zuli, I’m sorry. But how long have you known Dr. Pauerstein was sleeping with your daughter?”

She hung up the phone, and my mouth tasted like sand.

A few minutes later, the old man with the chain saw came over to see what was going on. Why had I hogtied his neighbor on the front porch?

I told him.

“Damn,” he said. “I thought the woman left.”

“No. She’s dead by the creek. I just saw her.”

The old man scratched his head. “But I saw her drive away. Came in after he did that night. Left after he did the next morning. Don’t see a car like hers too often here, reason I remember.”

The world did a little shift. I said, “Describe the car.”

“BMW. Green convertible BMW.”

“Hold Frank for the police,” I told him. “He moves, use the chain saw.”

“Where the hell you going?”

But I was already running for my car.

I should’ve known something was wrong from the stillness of the Pauerstein house. In the darkness, its two front windows blazed yellow, so the place seemed to be watching, alert like an owl on the hunt. Only one of the convertible BMWs was in the driveway. I hoped that meant Dr. Pauerstein was still at work.

I found Mrs. Pauerstein and Zuli sitting in the spotless kitchen, staring despondently at a .45 automatic on the table between them. My first impression: They had known where Dr. Pauerstein kept his gun. They’d taken it from its hiding place. Now they were trying to decide what to do when he came home. They looked like wax figures of people on their way to the guillotine.

“My husband,” Mrs. Pauerstein said, without looking up. “If it’s true, I won’t defend what he did.”

“You don’t have to,” I said. “He didn’t kill anyone.”

Zuli looked at me, then, for the first time. I couldn’t tell if she’d been crying. Her eyes were as dark and inscrutable as a dust storm.

Her sleeves were rolled up, her meaty hands almost white with cleaning-chemical residue. The grip of the .45 was also dusted white. She must have been the one who retrieved the gun.

“Mrs. Pauerstein, you killed Alva,” I said. “You followed her to the bar on Halloween night, watched her leave with the man in a yellow truck, trailed them to the Salado Inn. You stayed outside in your car all night, nursing your anger, trying to decide what to do. Then the man left, just before daylight. You went into his cottage and shot Alva Cruz in his bed.”

Zuli stared at her employer. It was as if the maid had just noticed something horrible that had been under her nose for years — as if Mrs. Pauerstein were one of the doctor’s photographs, a face that had been cut away from the muscle, stretched into a mask.

“Alva had threatened to make a scene,” I said. “She demanded money, or she’d tell the town that she’d been your husband’s lover since she was a minor. Maybe she could prove it, maybe she couldn’t. But it wouldn’t matter. It would hurt his image. More importantly, it would hurt yours. You wanted her dead. You’d probably wanted her dead for years — the family’s dirty little secret.”