The Best American Noir of the Century

much better: he was himself again. Frosby must be punished! He began to make a plan.

That evening, Skip suggested to Andy that he should go away for the weekend and enjoy himself. “You’ve earned a holiday!” he said, and gave him three hundred dollars.

Andy left on Saturday evening, in the car. Skip then telephoned old Frosby, and said it was time they became friends. Frosby was surprised, but he agreed to come on Sunday morning at about eleven for a talk. He arrived in the Cadillac, alone.

Skip acted quickly. He had his heavy gun ready, and as soon as Frosby was inside the door he hit him on the head several times with the end of the gun until Frosby was dead. He then took off his clothes and tied an old cloth around the body. He burned Frosby’s clothes in the fireplace, and hid his watch and rings in a drawer.

Then Skip put one arm around Frosby’s body, and pulled him out of the house and up the field to the scarecrow. The corn had already been cut. He pulled down the old scarecrow and took the clothes off the sticks. He dressed Frosby in the old coat and trousers, tied a small cloth round his face, and pushed the hat onto his head.

When he stood the scarecrow up again it looked almost the same as before. As Skip went back to the house, he turned around many times to admire his work.

He had solved the problem of what to do with the body.

Next he buried Frosby’s watch and rings under a big plant in the garden. It was now half past twelve, and he had to do something with the Cadillac. He drove it to some woods a few kilometers away and left it there, after cleaning off all his fingerprints. He hadn’t seen anybody.

Soon after he got home a woman telephoned from Frosby’s house (his housekeeper, Skip guessed) to ask if Frosby was with him. He told her that Frosby had left his house at about twelve, and he hadn’t said where he was going. He said the same thing to the policeman who came to see him in the evening, and to Maggie when she telephoned from Boston. He found it easy to lie about Frosby.

Andy arrived back the next morning, Monday. He had already heard the story in the village, and also knew that the police had found Frosby’s car not far away in the woods. He didn’t ask any questions.

In the next week Skip spent a lot of time watching the scarecrow from his upstairs bedroom window. He thought with pleasure of old Frosby’s body there, drying —slowly, slowly in the wind.

After ten days the policeman came back, with a detective. They looked over Skip’s house and land, and they looked at his two guns. They didn’t find anything.

That evening, Maggie came to see him; she and Pete were at the Frosby house. It was hard for Skip to believe she was married.

“Pete’s very worried and upset,” she said. “Was Mr. Frosby unhappy when he visited you?”

Skip laughed. “No, very cheerful! And pleased with the marriage. Are you going to live at the Frosby house?”

“Yes. I’ll take some things back with me.”

She seemed cold and sad, which made Skip unhappy.

* * *

“I know what’s in that scarecrow,” said Andy one day.

“Do you? What are you going to do about it?” Skip asked.

“Nothing. Nothing,” Andy answered with a smile.

“Perhaps you would like some money, Andy? A little present — for keeping quiet?”

“No sir,” Andy said quietly. “I’m not that kind of man.”

Skip didn’t understand. He was used to men who liked money, more and more of it. Andy was different. He was a good man.

The leaves were falling from the trees and winter was coming. The children in the area were getting ready to celebrate the evening of October 31, when people wore special clothes and had special things to eat, and lit great fires outside and danced around them singing songs. No one came to Skip’s house that evening. There was a party at the Frosbys’ house — he could hear the music in the distance. He thought of his daughter dancing, having a good time. Skip was lonely, for the first time in his life. Lonely. He very much wanted a drink, but he decided to keep his promise to himself.

At that moment he saw a spot of light moving outside the window. He looked out. There was a line of figures crossing his field, carrying lights. Anger and fear rushed through him. They were on his land! They had no right! And they were children, he realized. The figures were small.

He ran downstairs and out into the field. “What do you think you’re doing?” he shouted. “Get off my property!”

The children didn’t hear him. They were singing a song. “We’re going to burn the scarecrow…”

“Get off my land!” Skip fell and hurt his knee. Now the children had heard him, he was sure, but they weren’t stopping. They were going to reach the scarecrow before him. He heard a cry. They had got there.

There were more cries, of terror mixed with pleasure.

Perhaps their hands had touched the body.

Skip made his way back to his house. It was worse than the police. Every child was going to tell his parents what he had found. Skip knew he had reached the end. He had seen a lot of men in business reach the end. He had known men who had jumped out of windows.

Skip went straight to his gun. He put the end in his mouth and fired. When the children came running back across the field to the road, Skip was dead.

Andy heard the shot from his room over the garage. He had also seen the children crossing the field, and heard Skip shouting. He understood what had happened.

He began walking toward the house. He would have to call the police. Andy decided to say that he didn’t know anything about the body in the scarecrow’s clothes. He had been away that weekend, after all.

1984 STEPHEN GREENLEAF IRIS

Stephen Greenleaf (1942-) was born in Washington, D.C. He received a BA from Carleton College in 1964, and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, three years later. While serving in the Army (1967-1969), he was admitted to the California bar. He practiced and taught law, but didn’t like the profession very much, and studied creative writing at the University of Iowa (where he also taught, from 1995 to 2000).

His first novel — sold “over the transom,” without his having publishing experience, connections, or an agent — was Grave Error (1979), which introduced his series hero, the lawyer turned private detective John Marshall Tanner. “Marsh” is an exceptionally moral figure, a middle-aged loner who is drawn into cases because he discerns an injustice being done and wants to correct it. The series, set in San Francisco, is noted for Greenleaf’s reasonable, understated way of tackling complex social issues through his protagonist. Among the controversial subjects with which Tanner becomes involved are radical politics, the misuse of technology, legal insanity, and surrogate motherhood. Greenleaf’s nonseries books, written with the same literary grace as the Tanner series, are The Ditto List (1985) and Impact (1989). Greenleaf was nominated for the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association’s Dilys Award, for Book Case (1991); for two Shamus Awards by the Private Eye Writers of America, for Flesh Wounds (1996) and Ellipsis (2000); and for an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America, for Strawberry Sundae (1999). He won the Falcon Award for the best private eye novel published in Japan, for Book Case.

Although private eye stories seldom fall into the noir category, the following John Marshall Tanner tale is a rare and stunning exception. “Iris,” the author’s only short mystery story, was first published in the anthology The Eyes Have It (New York: Mysterious Press, 1984).