Manhunt. Volume 14, Number 1, February/March, 1966

Carl Rieger’s body was not found by the parking lot attendant until the next day. The police were not surprised. They even found the ice pick. It was a very ordinary ice pick and of course any prints had been wiped away.

They found it sticking in Carl Rieger’s left eye.

It was the middle of the afternoon and the visiting hour at Green Valley Sanitarium. Every seat in the waiting room was occupied so the man leaned his back against the wall and waited.

Finally a gray haired nurse in a white starched uniform called his name and he followed her down a long corridor. Through the open doors he could see the visitors and patients talking in subdued voices. It was so quiet in the hall he could hear the rustle of the nurse’s starched uniform.

“It was a terrible thing,” the nurse said.

“I would rather not talk about it,” he said.

“Of course. But you mustn’t give up hope. The withdrawal isn’t always permanent. Many patients recover completely from the shock they received.”

“I would rather not talk about it.”

“Of course.”

The nurse led him out on a wide flagstone veranda. From the veranda he could see green grass that descended to a grove of eucalyptus trees. It was very beautiful and still.

He felt better. It was a fine sanitarium. The nurse was right. There was always the chance of recovery. The nurse left him and he walked to the end of the veranda where a girl with yellow hair sat in a chaise lounge. She was looking off towards the grove of trees with the sunlight reflected in her hair and singing in the sweet, childish tone of a little girl.

He pressed her hand very gently and knelt beside her.

“The last one is dead,” he said.

Cathy smiled, without understanding the words of the strange man and continued her song.

Joseph was smiling at his daughter but there were tears in his eyes.

The Last Fix by Jack Belck

After forty years on the side of The Law... he’d finally found the courage to turn down a fix.

* * *

“See you around, Ward,” the fat, red-faced man said slipping off his stool. He gave the Sheriff’s broad shoulder a hearty thump and puffed over to the cash register to pay his check.

Sheriff Ward Cogan barely grunted in reply, his thoughts wandering through the haze of forty years’ memories, memories of all the other fat men, and the thin ones, the young, the old, the shy, the brash, who had slapped him on the back and called him by his first name because he was the law. And they were all sons, daughters, wives, in-laws and what-have-you of the politicians, the powers in the state. They all wanted the same thing: special consideration.

Cogan stared morosely into his steaming coffee mug, glad the diner’s crowd had thinned out and he could spread his elbows. The fat man was a poker pal of the State Police Captain up at the barracks, so he’d have to remember the name and pass it on to his deputies. They would write it down in their books with “S.C.” after it, and then they’d wave the fat one on instead of stopping him for speeding. “S.C.” rated a smile that turned a cop into a nobody who bowed and scraped to the people with influence.

“About the only citizens you can still pick up if they do something wrong are the migratory farm workers,” Cogan reflected, wondering how long it would be before they had somebody behind them so they could also put in the Fix.

Beyond the noise of clattering dishes, the pulsating racket coming from the chrome-finned jukebox, and the chatter of waitresses above the dinging of pinball machines, the phone rang. Its feeble, tenor bell clawed through the jumble of sounds and caught the ear of the stringy short-order cook, who slipped around the end of the counter and yanked the receiver off the hook.

“It’s for you, Sheriff.”

Feeling the weight of his sixty years, Cogan backed off the stool and took the phone from the cook.

“Cogan... Good God! All right, Fred. Be right there.”

Two and a half minutes would get him to Walker Street if the snow wasn’t too slippery. He nudged the cruiser out of the diner parking lot, flicked on the lights and laid a gentle foot on the gas pedal. Years ago he would have thrown gravel as he took off, blinker light flashing, the siren rising to its nasty screech under the prodding of the floorboard button. Now he made an efficient, quiet departure, lacking drama and reflecting how little excitement there was to a cop’s life.

Walker Street was in the nicer part of town and there would be complaints if the cops were inconsiderate enough to use a siren and disturb folks watching TV. Besides, the damn siren attracted crowds of blood-thirsty vultures, eager gossips, and helpful well-wishers, half of whom would yell, “Hi, Sheriff,” as he tried to do his job.