King of Murder (3 page)

“No, she wouldn't be an easy victim. Plus the fact that her mother is a private investigator and her father is a police lieutenant.”

He smiled his commanding smile, showing his pointed teeth. “Yes,” he said, “that would make it challenging.”

“Beware! Beware!”

“I hear your parrot in the background,” Meat said. “He must be upset about something.”

“He's always upset about something. He's been yelling, ‘Beware' ever since I got home. And guess what else he's started doing?”

“I can't.”

“He's learned to make the exact sound of a telephone ringing. That's why I called you. I heard the phone ringing, and when I picked it up, I heard the dial tone. So I knew it was Tarot. Anyway, I already had the phone in my hand so I called you.”

“Well, I'm glad you did.” A might-as-well call, he imagined, was better than no call.

“Me, too, because I was sitting here with my granny glasses on, trying to think, when all of a sudden it worked. I did think of something.”

“What?”

“I was thinking about Mathias King and his books. And I realized we need to get copies of those books and read them more carefully and see if they were real murders.”

“That sounds reasonable.”

“One was A Slash of Life, and what was the other one?”

“A Sip of Death? That was about the apple and snake goblet.”

“Yes! So tomorrow afternoon we'll go to your uncle Neiman's used-book store.”

“Death's Door?” Meat asked, stalling for time.

“He hasn't changed the name?”

“No.”

“I thought maybe with all the trouble he might have.”

“It was named by his customers. They voted. The choices were Little Shop of Horrors, Murder for Sale, or Death's Door. Anyway, I can't go tomorrow. I have to go to the d-dentist.”

Herculeah knew that Meat always stuttered when he was lying, but then having to go to the dentist could make one stutter as well.

“I didn't know the dentist was open on Saturday afternoon.”

“Just for t-toothaches.”

“Oh, I hate to have those.” She sighed. “I always have more fun when you're along.”

“Yeah, it must have been a lot of fun this afternoon to watch me get strangled.” Maybe, he thought, it would have been better if he had been strangled. Then he wouldn't have to do what he had to do tomorrow.

“Actually, Meat, it happened so fast I hardly saw it.” She paused. “It makes you realize ... I mean, Meat, the man was once a magician. He could kill someone before they knew what was happening.”

“Yeah, you're lying there dead going, Well, now I know what happened. Some consolation.”

“You're not in a very good mood tonight.”

Meat thought that was putting it mildly. He remembered that it was only this afternoon, when they were entering Hidden Treasures, that he had wished—just once—he could surprise Herculeah. Well, he was getting his wish, and like in those old fairy tales, you got your wish and lost everything.

“I'd better let you go. I'll try to get the books tomorrow. Which one do you want to read—A Slash of Life or A Sip of
Death
?”

“You choose.”

“I'll let you know.”

Tarot had been ignored for too long. He'd had a brief moment of satisfaction when he rang like the telephone and Herculeah answered it, but that didn't last long.

“
Ring!
”

“Did you hear that, Meat? That was Tarot doing his telephone imitation.”

“I heard it.”

“Hel-lo!”

“Did you hear that? Now he's answering himself.”

Tarot gave up on the telephone and called, “Beware! Beware!”

“You know what worries me about that parrot and all his bewares?” Meat said.

“What?”

“Sometimes Tarot knows what he's talking about.”

Herculeah stood in front of Death's Door. She hesitated, because going through her mind was that awful night when she had almost been the Bull's victim there.

She remembered the Bull had leaned down and peered through the books at her. His terrible hooded eyes had looked directly at her. His eyes were red and seemed to be lit from within like something at Halloween.

“You,” he had said.

He had exhaled, and Herculeah had smelled the fetid breath of death.

Well, the Bull was long gone. She shook herself, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

“Back here,” Uncle Neiman called.

She moved to the back of the store where Uncle Neiman waited behind his desk. He looked up at her through his thick glasses.

“It's me, Herculeah Jones,” she said.

“Oh, Herculeah, Herculeah. You saved my life that terrible night. You can have anything in the store—take as many books as you like.”

“Actually, I do want some books—but just two of them. I hope you have them.”

“If it's about murder or suspense or mayhem or mystery, I've got them.”

“It is. I met a man named Mathias King—”

“Ah, the King of Murder,” Uncle Neiman said. “You want A
Slash of Life
and
A Sip of Death.”

“You know Mathias King?”

“Everybody knows Mathias King. He's had signings in this very shop.”

“People came and bought his books and he autographed them?”

“Oh, yes, he has a good local following. At the last signing there must have been fifty people in here. They brought in a busload of folks from Magnolia Downs.”

“Magnolia Downs?”

“The retirement center out on Peachford Road. He gave a brief talk and did tricks while he was talking—he's very amusing. I couldn't catch all the tricks because of my eyesight, but the audience did. There were a lot of ohs and ahs.”

“He was a magician before he became a writer, right?”

“Among other things.”

Uncle Neiman got up from his desk and began to move through the stacks. He moved with such precision that Herculeah realized bad eyesight didn't matter here. He knew his books.

“Ah,” he said as he ran his fingers over the spines of the books and pulled out a title. “I only have one,” he said in a disappointed way. “These books are very popular.”

He looked at the cover for a moment and then presented the book to her. “With my compliments,” he said.

“But let me pay for it. For once, I've got money.”

“The book is a gift.”

“Thank you.”

She glanced at the cover. There was a picture of a woman with a knife protruding from her back and a lot of blood on what appeared to be a nightgown. Her red lips, parted in a grimace, and the blood on her nightgown dominated the picture.

On the back cover was a picture of Mathias King in his black cape and hat. The blurb about the book began, “Her lips tried to form the name of her killer but...”

Uncle Neiman interrupted her reading. “Come, Herculeah, sit with me for a moment. I just remembered something that might interest you about Mathias King.”

“Everything about Mathias King interests me.”

They moved back to his desk. Uncle Neiman took his usual place in the swivel chair, and Herculeah perched on the edge of the desk. She leaned toward him. She didn't want to miss a word.

“There was a woman here that day—she was from Magnolia Downs. Mathias took questions after his speech and they were very ordinary questions—‘Where do you get your ideas?' ‘What's your next book going to be about?' And then this woman stood up, and even with my poor eyesight I sensed that her question was going to be different.”

“And was it?”

“Oh, yes. She said she had a friend who died the same way that the woman in
A Slash of Life
did, and she wondered if he had known the woman.”

“Did she give the friend's name?”

“I don't believe she did, but I got the feeling that Mathias King didn't need the name.”

“Did Mathias King seem upset about the question?”

“I don't think he was happy about it. But he shrugged it off and said he might have read something about it in the paper. Sometimes he did get ideas from real murders.”

“Or,” Herculeah said, “from murders he committed.”

Uncle Neiman looked at her. His pale eyes, large behind the thick glasses, seemed to sharpen.

“I never thought of that before, but I suppose it's possible,” he said.

Meat stood at the front window of his house even though there was nothing to see. His shoulders were slumped. His hands were jammed into his pockets.

Herculeah had long ago departed for Death's Door. She had come out of her house in her usual rush. She had turned in the direction of town, a sweater tied around her waist, her hair flying out behind her like a cape. Superwoman.

He had hoped she might glance across the street, see him, and give him a wave of sympathy for his upcoming dental visit. But, no, as if she already knew he didn't deserve any sympathy, she hurried on down the sidewalk and turned the corner.

He knew his mother had come into the room from the kitchen, because he smelled mayonnaise. “You want a sandwich?”

Of course he wanted a sandwich, he had never not wanted a sandwich in his whole life, but he shook his head. “I'm not feeling well,” he said. “I may be coming down with something.”

“Don't bother trying that I'm-coming-down-with-something trick.” His mother's tone made it a warning. She crossed the room and put her hand on his forehead.

“I know I don't have any fever,” he snapped.

He wished, as he had many times, that there was some simple way to get a few degrees of fever when you were desperate to get out of something. He knew from past experience that there wasn't.

“Get your jacket.”

He went to the hall closet and came back dragging an athletic sweatshirt that had seen better days.

“I said a jacket, not a rag.” Another warning.

Meat went back to the closet. When he returned to the room, he said, “I still can't believe you're doing this terrible thing to me.”

“Terrible thing? What terrible thing? Taking a beautiful young girl for pizza and a movie is a terrible thing?”

“It's a terrible thing to make arrangements behind your children's back. It's like a return to the Dark Ages.”

“In some respects the Dark Ages weren't so bad.” She took a deep breath. “Anyway, I owe my friend Dottie big-time. When your father deserted us—and there's no other word to describe what he did—it was my friend Dottie who kept me from falling apart. You think it's easy to be deserted by a husband?”

“No, but—”

“Dottie listened to my fears—and I had plenty of those. She dried my tears—I had plenty of those, too. She cooked meals for us. She slept over when I needed her. She was better than a psychiatrist. When I see psychiatrists on TV, I think to myself, You're pretty good, but you're no Dottie.”

She paused to get her breath. She was getting kind of red in the face—a color that was not becoming on her—so Meat said, “All right, all right, I get the message.”

That didn't stop his mother. “And in all those years since your father deserted us, did she ever ask a favor of me?”

“I guess not.”

“Now, she asks one tiny favor. Her niece Steffie is visiting and she wants to arrange an outing. She thinks of you, Albert. You think I could say no?”

“Obviously not,” Meat said.

“Don't try to be smart.”

“I'm not trying to be smart, Mom. I'm just trying to stay alive in the Dark Ages.”

“You mark my words. When you get home this afternoon, you'll thank me for a wonderful afternoon.”

It seemed unlikely, but Meat said, “I hope so.”

Uncle Neiman and Herculeah were silent for a moment, thinking about what had just been said. Their comments lay heavily between them, yet neither one took back their statement.

“What else did the woman say?” Herculeah prompted.

“I'm trying to remember her exact words, but she was at the back of the room. I do remember that she said the police had ruled her friend's death a homicide, and that the murder weapon—a knife—was never found. Ever since she had read A
Slash of Life,
she had wondered if he knew anything about that. It was almost as if she was accusing him of having the knife.

“Mathias King said, ‘In my book, the knife was found in the victim's back, not her chest.'

“I don't believe I mentioned that my friend was stabbed in the chest. How did you know that? the woman said.

“ ‘Thank you for your interest and questions,' he said firmly. It was as if he'd closed the door on further questions, but she was determined to push it open.

“The woman went on to say that all the details of the house in the book were exactly the things in her friend's house—even a large jade Buddha in the front hallway. She said she didn't know how he could have gotten those exact details unless he had been there. ‘Were you ever in my friend's house?' She asked that point-blank. Then she added, ‘She lived on—' and gave the name of the street—it was Hawthorn or Oak or some tree.”

“Did he answer?”

“No, and after that he didn't take any more questions—just turned to me and said, ‘Isn't this supposed to be a signing?' And he leaned forward and pulled a fountain pen from behind a woman's ear.