The Second Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 More Classic Mystery Stories
- Автор: Пауэлл Тэлмидж
- Год: 2015
- Язык: английский
- Год: Wildside Press
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Second Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 More Classic Mystery Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
Isadora dashed into the pantry, knocking pots helter-skelter as she grabbed two of the larger ones. Mrs. Cappelli was more direct. She pulled the sink squirter hose out to its full extension, turned the cold water on hard, and fought the flames back until she had drenched out the last flicker.
With wisps of smoke still seeping from the cabinetwork, Mrs. Cappelli groped for a kitchen chair and sank into it weakly. She matched long breaths with the gulps Isadora was taking, and strength began to return.
“How horrible it might have been,” Isadora said through chattering teeth, “if you hadn’t awakened.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Cappelli said.
Isadora gripped the kitchen table to help herself out of her chair. “We must call the fire department to make sure everything is out.”
“Yes.”
“And the police.”
“No!”
Isadora looked at Mrs. Cappelli, wondering at the sharpness of her tone. “Maria... we know who did this. We know he has been planning, waiting, thinking and deciding what to do.”
“Yes, and tonight he made his move.” Mrs. Cappelli’s gaze examined the fire-blackened kitchen door and paused at its base. She got up, crossed to the door, and knelt down. She touched the ashes at the base of the door. “And so simply he did it,” she said. “Not all these ashes are from burned fabric. Some of them feel very much like brittle burned paper. So easily, without breaking in or leaving marks on the kitchen door, he simply slid strips of paper underneath the door until he had a sufficient pile inside. Then it remains for him but to light the tail end of the final strip and watch the tiny flame creep along the paper under the door and ignite the pile inside. Soon the hungry flames reach up to touch the curtains...”
The two women were an immobile tableau — Isadora standing beside the table, Mrs. Cappelli kneeling at the door, looking at each other.
“Yes, I see,” Isadora said. “It’s all very clear. It would be clear to the police. But they cannot make the youth confess. They are not permitted. And he will have an alibi, someone to swear that he was far away from this street tonight.”
A small sob caught in Mrs. Cappelli’s throat. “How much can we endure, Isadora? Call the firemen quickly. Then I want the phone. Late as it is, I want to hear the sound of John’s voice.”
At ten o’clock the following evening an airport taxicab deposited John in front of the Cappelli house.
“It’s he!” Isadora said, watching him pay off the taxi and get out his single piece of luggage.
Beside Isadora, the giddy center of a little vortex of excitement, Mrs. Cappelli nudged hard with her elbow. “Quickly, Isadora! The table... the dinner candles.” Isadora darted from the front door, leaving Mrs. Cappelli there alone to watch the approach of her son.
He wouldn’t have eaten on the plane, she knew. Mama always had one of his favorite meals waiting, whatever his hour of arrival. Tonight Mrs. Cappelli had centered the dinner around arosto di agnello, and already she could imagine him filling his mouth with the succulent lamb and blowing her a kiss of approval from his fingertips.
“Ah, John, John!” Her wide-flung arms enfolded his dark, towering, masculine strength and, as always, she wept joyously.
He picked her up, almost as if he would tuck her under his arm, and kissed her on both cheeks.
“What is that I smell? Not roast lamb as only mia madre can make?”
“But yes, John! How was the flight? Isadora, wherever are you? Quickly, Isadora! The most handsome boy on earth is famished!”
Arm linked with her son’s, Mrs. Cappelli strolled into the dining room, questions tumbling about her daughter-in-law, her precious grandchildren.
All was well up north, John assured her. All was going beautifully.
He sat down at the head of the old hand-carved walnut table, an inviting array before him, snowy linens, bone china, crystal and sterling, tall candles in beaten silver holders, fine food in covered dishes.
Isadora and Mrs. Cappelli were content to sit on either side, near the head of the table, watching him eat and anticipating his every wish from the serving dishes.
Then at last he could eat no more, and he rewarded his mother with a loving wink and appreciative little belch.
He laid his napkin on the table, pushed back his chair, and lifted one of the candles to light a thin black cigar.
Mrs. Cappelli was at his side as he walked to the windows in the side of the room and stood there looking at the lights of the Morrow house.
“Now, Mama,” he said quietly, “what’s this trouble?”
She told him every detail from the moment Greg Morrow had moved next door. She acquainted John with Greg’s every habit, the identity of Greg’s closest friends, the make, model and license number of the Morrow car. It took her several minutes; she had accumulated a great deal of information during the time Greg had been a neighbor.
When Mrs. Cappelli finished speaking, John slipped his arm about her shoulders. “Don’t worry, Mama,” he said quietly. “It will be taken care of. The young animal will stop killing his mother. He will kill and maim no more animals. He will hit-run no more children. He will light no more arsonist fires. It will all be taken care of very soon, when the first proper moment arrives.”
Looking up at him, Mrs. Cappelli knew it would be so. In her, regrettably, Greg Morrow had made the biggest mistake of his life.
She thought of John’s grandfather and his father and of Cappelli men from Sicily to San Francisco. In all the Mafia — and it had been so for generations — there were no better soldiers than Cappelli men. They enforced Mafioso law without fear or regard — and none was more stalwart than the loving fullness of her heart, her John.
Till Death Do Not Us Part
Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, August 1975.
As constable of Grande Isle Parish, Louisiana (Jerem Jenks is the name), I’ll naturally stick to bald facts when I write the official report. I’ve pieced together details of the killing out at the Deveau place without much trouble. It was a simple, direct act of violence. Once it was started, it had to end in blood. In physical terms, we’ve never had a messier killing in the parish; but it was tidy in one respect, leaving none of those wearisome questions about motive and identity that cause a lawman sleepless nights and a case of heartburn.
I’ll write up the details with impersonal attention, the same way I’d give directions to a motorist passing through our back-bayou country, but I’m not sure the bare facts will tell the full truth or its complete meaning. Ten dollars plus ten dollars equals twenty dollars — but that doesn’t explain the latent power in the printed paper, what the twenty dollars will buy. The significance depends on the druthers and desires of whoever owns the twenty. The visible fact of the money is only the beginning of the truth concerning it.
In my own mind, Robert Deveau’s love for his wife had a lot to do with what happened. Yes, I know that Robert died thirty years ago. I know that my notion is fanciful, but I believe it. I don’t think his love died with his flesh. It was a part of her, always. It was there when she needed it most. His devotion, through her undying memory of it, steadied her, directed her; and an earthly portion of him protected her and kept her safe...
The background of it all goes back quite a way, almost forty years. Robert Deveau was a strapping, black-haired, sun-darkened young man descended from those French Acadians who fled British rule in Nova Scotia almost two hundred years ago and trekked all the way into the Louisiana wilderness seeking freedom.
Robert’s was a working plantation, and he was rarely seen lolling on the veranda of his comfortable old colonial house sipping mint juleps. His muscles were hard and his hands were calloused. He was outgoing and generous, honest and compassionate. The way the parish felt about him, he could have had any local political office for the asking.