The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

“Lieutenant – that was just… amazing.”

“Simple detective work. You could have figured it out if you thought about it.”

“I never would have figured that out.” He glanced at his shoes, then back at me, and then he turned and left.

Herb pocketed his cell and offered me a sly grin.

“We can swing by the DA’s office, pick up the warrant in an hour. Tell me, Jack. How’d you put it all together?”

“Actually, you gave me the idea. You said the only way the killer could have gotten out of the room was by slipping under the door. In a way, that’s what he did.”

Herb clapped his hand on my shoulder.

“Nice job, Lieutenant. Don’t get a big head. You wanna come over for supper tonight? Bernice is making pot roast. I’ll let you invite Mr Patel.”

“He’d have to call his mother first. Speaking of mothers…”

I glanced at the body of Janet Hellerman, and again felt the emotional punch. The Caller ID in the kitchen gave me the number for Janet’s mom. It took some time to tell the whole story, and she cried through most of it. By the end, she was crying so much that she couldn’t talk anymore.

I gave her my home number so she could call me later.

The lab team finally arrived, headed by a Detective named Perkins. Soon both apartments were swarming with tech heads – vacuuming fibers, taking samples, spraying chemicals, shining ALS, snapping pictures and shooting video.

I filled in Detective Perkins on what went down, and left him in charge of the scene.

Then Herb and I went off to get the warrant.

Eternally Yours by H. Edward Hunsburger

Harry Edward Hunsburger (b. 1947) has written a variety of westerns and mystery novels, some under pen names, but he is probably best known for Death Signs (1987), about the murder of a deaf man who leaves a clue in sign language as he dies. It was adapted for the TV series Hunter in 1988. I only know of one short mystery story by Mr Hunsburger and fortunately for us it’s also a locked-room puzzle with an added impossibility.

***

My name is Jeff Winsor and I’d like to say straight off and for the record that I don’t believe in ghosts. I never have believed in them. I never will. And I can’t think of one good reason why I should.

The whole notion of restless, prowling spirits strikes me as a waste of time. Even in the afterlife there must be better things to do than wander around moaning and wailing, frightening poor mortals out of a good night’s sleep. Messages from the recently departed are an even sillier idea. Let’s face it, most people say far too much in one lifetime to have anything worthwhile left over for broadcasting from The Great Beyond. And as for things that go bump in the night, all I can say is that they never bump into me.

I figure it’s over when it’s over. You total up a life’s credits and debits, rise quietly from the table, and cash in your chips. Maybe there’s an after-life. Maybe there isn’t. But either way, there are no such things as ghosts.

Now what I do believe in is the scarcity of good apartments in New York City. The kind of elegant, spacious apartments you find in those old but beautifully maintained buildings surrounding Gramercy Park. The kind of apartment I finally got to move into when Admiral Miles Penny tripped on the carpet and fractured his skull.

I’d like to be more sympathetic, but I never met the man. From everything I’ve heard, he’d led a long, full, if somewhat tempestuous life. Not to mention all the trouble he caused me after he died. But up until I moved in, the only connection between us was that I got his apartment. I’m not even going to go into what I had to do to get it or how much the rent is. Let’s just say that wretched excess pretty well covers it all.

I moved into the place on October first, a week to the day after they moved Penny out to a less spacious but far more permanent address. I wanted to concentrate on unpacking, but I had an assignment due. I decided the cardboard carton obstacle course would have to wait for a while.

As it turned out, both projects got sidetracked. Because that was the day the first postcard arrived.

It was jammed in the apartment door mail slot along with some catalogues from a shoe company, a bookseller, and one of those Vermont cheese and smoked ham places. It was an old postcard, yellowed at the edges, with a view of a few ragged palms and a seedy looking pink stucco hotel. All that was on one side. The following brief message was on the other.

Miles,

You were right about that adaptation of the Krimsky book. It stank. I didn’t like the lizard scene either. Knight to C-3.

Fraternally yours,

Charles

Nothing unsettling there, nothing ghostly. Right? Just a chess-by-mail crony of Penny’s who hadn’t yet heard of his demise. That’s what I thought too. The incongruity of it didn’t hit me until later that afternoon when I was hard at work at my easel.

The adaptation that Charles had referred to was Cold Moon. It was a blockbuster novel that had recently been made into a TV movie. It was the recently part that bothered me. The film had had its world premiere just five days ago. So how in the world could Miles Penny have an opinion about a movie televised after his death? I felt something like a chill along my spine. Inside my head a tiny voice started humming the theme from The Twilight Zone. Was the late admiral carrying on a correspondence from beyond the grave? Was heaven a seedy resort hotel? And was I, Jeff Winsor, nonbeliever in ghosts, being haunted, indirectly, by means of the US mail?

A ringing phone cut short my crazed speculations. For a wild moment I thought it might be Admiral Penny trying to reach me direct. But as it turned out it was the earthy, and earthly, voice of Karen Hunter, the lady in my life.

“You sound a little flustered,” she said after the usual preliminaries. “Anything wrong?”

I told her about the postcard. I heard a suppressed giggle, but at least she didn’t laugh out loud.

“There has to be a rational explanation,” Karen insisted. “You should try to contact this Charles guy who sent the card. Is there a return address? What about the postmark?”

I looked at the card again. “There’s no return address and the postmark’s too blurred to be legible.”

“Well,” Karen sighed, “that’s all I can think of. You’ve roused my curiosity about Admiral Penny, though. I remember you told me he died of a fall. Is there any possibility of foul play?” Her rich, contralto voice gave the last two words a lot of dramatic emphasis.

“Give me a break,” I said. “The authorities pronounced it accidental death. He was going to get his mail when he tripped on the little rug in front of the door, fell, and fractured his skull. The realtor told me Penny was in his eighties. The bones get thin and brittle at that age. Any kind of bad fall can be fatal. There’s no way it could be murder. The door was locked and bolted from the inside. They had a locksmith take the whole door off just to get into the apartment.”

“He died on the way to get his mail,” Karen said thoughtfully. “Doesn’t that strike you as a strange coincidence? And now he’s sending you messages, messages that come to the exact spot where the crime occurred.”

“What crime?” I practically shouted. “Penny’s death was accidental. And he isn’t sending me any messages. He’s writing to some guy named Charlie who’s sending his replies here. What the hell am I talking about? Penny isn’t writing anyone. Penny is dead.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. “Forget about the locked door,” Karen said finally.