Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 150, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 914 & 915, November/December 2017
- Автор: Фузилли Джим, Харрис Шарлин
- Год: 2017
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 150, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 914 & 915, November/December 2017». Краткое содержание книги:
Panic and despair contorted Karen’s face.
“To be fair, it’s not uncommon, in women,” Bob said. “The patient becomes convinced there are insects crawling over their skin. The patient becomes obsessed with inspecting their home for evidence but there’s nothing there.”
He watched her grow pale and felt a rising sense of intense excitement at his newfound power.
“Occasionally the patient believes they can see insects that aren’t there.” He got into his stride. “They drive themselves insane, picking at their skin to try and fish out the creatures crawling beneath it.”
Over the next few days Bob enjoyed sitting in his van, parked discreetly just out of sight of Karen’s house in a side road, waiting for her to leave or return. She had grown even thinner, and haunted-looking. He felt triumphant when she stopped to scratch at her ankles, to pick at her skin. He could see how this syndrome he’d told her about was eating away at her mind, at her sense of sanity.
Bob went to bed that night full of a sense of triumph. He felt more elated than he would have done had he actually seduced Karen Mayhew! This was a more enduring sensation, of triumph, of achievement, of pride in his quick-wittedness and of proving his worth to the people who had belittled him in the past. It made him quite giddy with pleasure to think of Karen Mayhew’s contorted face. Her tortured mind.
He pulled the covers up over his naked body.
He began to fall into a shallow sleep and then he jerked awake.
His shins were itching.
No, not just his shins. His thighs, his buttocks. There were things crawling all over him, he could feel them.
It was impossible; he was a pest controller He would never allow fleas in his house, he would never, ever, have bedbugs. He was scrupulous.
Bob had never had pets, not since Karen Mayhew’s cat scratched him all those years ago — that had put him off for life. He was careful about cleaning, used every repellent he had ever advised his clients to invest in.
He got up, threw back the bedclothes, inspected the sheets for bugs. There was nothing. No sign of an infestation. No insects. No fleas. But something was biting him. And over the following days whatever it was continued to bite him. He itched like a crazy person. He inspected his sheets, he vacuumed, he boiled his bedclothes, he sprayed flea spray, he used bedbug powder.
Nothing worked.
He was in despair.
Bob Rapper, Pest Zapper began to miss work appointments in order to inspect his own floor with his magnifying glass for evidence of the fleas that were jumping all over him, biting him, making him itch frenetically. He dug at his skin with his fingernails, trying to unearth the parasites he knew were eating away at him. He grew pale and exhausted. His nights were disrupted by the itching. He made welts in his own skin, picking at it relentlessly.
A horrible realization dawned on him.
He had caught delusional parasitosis from Karen Mayhew. And it was as bad as really being bitten.
Worse!
It was impossible. You didn’t catch a psychosomatic illness. And anyway, she had never had it.
Her fleas had been real, visible, jumping. They were everywhere. And he had never treated them. When he had asked her to leave the house he had taken the opportunity to rummage through her drawers, watch the fleas jump all over the slick, expensive clothes. He had not, not once, used spray on them.
But in his house there really were no fleas, no bedbugs, no vermin; there was nothing.
Over on the other side of the neighbourhood Karen Mayhew put away the tin of flea spray she’d bought at the vet’s and used herself. The fleas had gone the minute she decided to take matters into her own hands. She’d recognized the scars on the pest controller’s arms the fourth time he’d come, when he’d rolled up his sleeves to “spray” her house. Thin raised lines her cat had made all those years ago. That was when she knew he was Robert Brown. The boy — now man — who had pestered her relentlessly, threatening her, frightening her for refusing to go out with him. Driving her into such a state of terror she almost stopped leaving her home.
It all fell into place.
She coolly got into her little shiny Fiat. Drove down to the “joke shop” she had gone to as a child with her friends, where they sold fake cigarets and whoopee cushions and ink sweets. She bought a tin of itching powder. She crept into Robert’s garden (she remembered where he lived) through a hole in his hedge, where his washing hung limply on his washing line. She sprinkled the powder liberally over his pajamas, his sheets, his saggy underpants, his graying white T-shirts.
And then she settled back in her flea-free home to observe how imaginary pests could drive a real pest out of his mind.
© 2017 by Penny Hancock
The Singapore Sling Affair
by Frankie Y. Bailey
Frankie Y. Bailey is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Albany. She is the author, coauthor, or coeditor of many nonfiction books, including a three-volume encyclopedia of notorious crimes, criminals, and trials. She is also the author of two series of novels, one starring crime historian Lizzie Stuart, the other a near-future police force.
Eudora, New York
August 1948
Jo Radcliffe set the platter of sandwiches on the table in the Grange Hall dining room and called to the cast to come and eat.
Mildred Bloom, prop lady, wardrobe mistress, and provider of nourishment, bustled in with a pitcher of iced tea. “By the way, dear, I solved that mystery I was telling you about.”
“Which one?” Jo said. “The latest Christie or something afoot in the village?”
“My neighbor. Remember I told you about how he’s been up to something in his backyard since his wife went out of town?” Mildred’s wrinkled face lit up with a sunny smile. “It turns out he’s building her a gazebo as a surprise for when she gets back from visiting their new grandbaby.”
Sarah Fisher slipped into the chair Will Lawson was holding for her. “How lovely. My mum always wanted one.”
“A grandbaby?” Charlotte Drake said, slanting a glance from Sarah to Will.
Sarah’s cheeks colored. “A gazebo. But we lived in London.”
“Well, dear,” Mildred said. “Now, you can ask your handsome husband to build you one in your own backyard. I’m sure your mum would be pleased.”
“Yes, dear,” Charlotte said. “Just flutter your lashes and ask sweetly.”
Will, the young pharmacist who was Sarah’s bridegroom in the play, scowled at Charlotte.
Vivian Oliver cut off what he was about to say with a light touch on his arm as she took the chair on his other side.
“I’m so hungry,” she said. “Thank you for making our supper, Mildred.”
“You’re very welcome, Vivian. Howard, would you like iced tea?”
Howard Cavanaugh held out his glass. “Please. On a hot, sticky evening, I am in need of your brew, Mildred.”
Later, Jo remembered that exchange as the actors came in, followed by Barton Stevens, the director. They had eaten Mildred’s ham-salad sandwiches, potato salad, and lemon bars. Then Mildred had called the actors into the parlor one at a time to check the fit of their 1920s costumes in “good light.” After that she had gone down to her workroom in the basement with Howard’s dinner jacket in her hand to tighten a button that was loose.
In the windowless auditorium, they couldn’t see the lightning, but the boom of thunder overhead shook the building. Sarah shrieked and dropped her cocktail glass. Water splashed onto the white tablecloth. The glass shattered on the hardwood floor.