Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 52, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2007
Editor’s Notes: Details, details
by Linda Landrigan
The devil, as they say, is in the details.
Short stories depend on the effective employment of well-chosen details, the details that reveal a place, a character, or an era.
For O’Neil De Noux, those details often concern the city of New Orleans, which he once again masterly evokes in his latest John Raven Beau story, “Down on the Pontchartrain.” His depiction of the city is all the more poignant in this story, which occurs B.K. — before Hurricane Katrina wreaked its destruction. In the subsequent Conversation, Mr. De Noux talks a bit about his own connection to the Crescent City and the effect Katrina has had on his life.
Not all series are rooted in the same locale. Gilbert M. Stack selects just the right details to establish a new setting for each tale of his peripatetic trio: bare-knuckle boxer Corey Callaghan, his trainer Patrick o’sullivan, and the lady gambler Pandora Parson. In “Pandora’s Journey,” the confines of a train make for a tight, tense crime drama.
Robert S. Levinson and Percy Spurlock Parker each place their characters in glamorous, deftly evoked locales, Hollywood and Vegas, respectively, and each shows us the more unsavory hazards of fame and fortune. In Mr. Levinson’s “A Prisoner of Memory,” an aging movie star is convinced she is being stalked. In Mr. Parker’s new Trevor Oaks story “Death at My Door,” the naïve granddaughter of a late mobster is blackmailed.
Jas. R. Petrin has established a thoroughly realized setting in his fictional End of Main stories, where the town’s retired police chief, Robideau, has now turned reluctant private eye. In “The Palace Roxy,” Robideau turns to the sundry and colorful characters of the Netley tavern to learn the secrets of a rundown movie theater.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch sets her latest tale on the beautiful Oregon coast, but what makes many of her stories distinctive is her attention to the details of her characters’ daily jobs. In “Incident at Lonely Rocks,” Oscar, in the course of doing his job, comes across a grisly crime scene.
L.A. Wilson, Jr., also expertly captures his characters in their daily lives, just at the moment when events conspire to upset the delicate harmony. “German Johnson and the Lost Horizon” takes place in post-World War II New York, where racism and evil have descended from the world stage to a small table in a restaurant in Harlem. The Post-War era may likewise be the setting for Barry Baldwin’s meditative tale, “Untying the Knot,” but it is very much a post-9/11 story as well.
Anyone who’s ever tried to decipher an instruction manual will appreciate the telling details of Neil Schofield’s cautionary tale “Murder: A User’s Guibe.” But if you’re inclined to be an overly empathetic reader, well, you’ve been warned.
We welcome two new authors this month, Tim Maleeny and Melodie Campbell. Mr. Maleeny (“The Weight”), an advertising executive in San Franscico, is the author of the recently published novel Stealing the Dragon, from Midnight Ink. His second novel in that series, “Beating the Babushka,” comes out later this year. The author of “School for Burglars,” Melodie Campbell, of Oakville, Ontario, is a “director of marketing by day, crime writer by night.” She’s published numerous short stories and humor articles in Canada and the U.S. and also teaches humor and fiction writing at Sheridan College.
Down on the Pontchartrain
by O’Neil De Noux
MONDAY, 22 AUGUST 2005
The call comes over my portable police radio just as I step aboard Sad Lisa — Headquarters calling for Homicide... a signal thirty... parking lot... West End Park. I can’t help thinking this is what I get for trying to knock off early on my squad’s last night before we switch from the midnight shift.
Moving to the side of my houseboat, I look across the 17th Street Canal at West End Park. Don’t see much beyond the low seawall except the rear of the elevated wooden restaurants and the tops of oak trees bathed in soft yellow streetlight. I glance at my watch on the way back to my unmarked Chevy parked on Orpheum Avenue alongside Sad Lisa. It’s five A.M. exactly. I lock my briefcase in the trunk but only after taking out my notepad and ballpoint pen, tucking them into the pocket of my navy blue suit coat. The night air is still clammy, still hot from the day’s heat.
My sergeant calls me on the radio as I start across the new pedestrian bridge connecting Bucktown, where Sad Lisa is permanently moored, to Orleans Parish. I tell him I’ll be at West End Park in two minutes. You see, it’s my turn. I’m up for the next murder.
The new bridge is red brick with an iron railing painted dark green, about fifteen feet wide and maybe forty yards long, rising in the center to allow small boats from Lake Pontchartrain. A brisk breeze blows from the lake, and I watch waves slap against the rocky shoreline. They’re not rocks, actually, but large concrete blocks lying at odd angles, keeping the lake from eating away the land. I lick the salty mist from my lips. A large orange cat perched on the bridge railing near the base of the bridge glares at me with yellow eyes as I pass.
Can’t miss the crime scene. Two New Orleans police cars, red and blue lights flashing, headlights illuminating figures standing next to a large live oak and a figure on the ground. Three other police cars are also there, Levee Board cops and a Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s unit, drawn to the crime scene like bugs to a lightbulb.
Stepping up, I recognize the big cop just as he turns his flashlight my way and announces, “Well, it’s Sioux time, ladies and gents!”
I shake my head as I move through the assembled officers.
Sidney Tilghman, a sergeant now, continues my introduction. “This here’s Homicide Detective John Raven Beau whose daddy hailed from the swamps of Vermilion Bay and his mama from the Dakotas. Don’t remember which one.” Tilghman sidles next to me as I ease to the right to let the dim streetlight illuminate the body. “How you been, old buddy?” he asks. “See you’re still skinny.” Tilghman has put on a few pounds, more than a few in a couple years. We’re both thirty, but he looks more than a couple years older, with a hint of gray in his curly hair.
We were on the same platoon back in the Second District, the uptown police, both patrolmen before he made sergeant and I moved to the land of murder, suicide, and other negligent homicides. I shrug and turn to the other officer, a tall, thin woman with coal black skin, large brown eyes, and hair parted in cornrows. Her nameplate reads S. PANOLA.
At six two, I’m a good four inches taller than Officer Panola. I nod toward the body and ask her, “Shine your light on it, okay?”
She nods and focuses her bright flashlight on the dead woman lying on her side beneath an oak at the edge of the parking lot. The victim’s skin glows pallid white. Over the radio, I hear a crime lab tech is en route, as well as another homicide detective.
I list the victim’s vital stats in my notes: white female, about thirty, tallish, maybe five ten, thin build, light brown hair styled short, brown eyes, tattoo of pearls around her neck, tattoo of a heart on left forearm. Body pierced with four earring holes in each ear. I describe the silver- and gold-colored earrings as well as the stainless steel rod piercing the right side of her nose. Clothing: green tie-dyed blouse ripped in front, long tan skirt, brown sandals.
“He looks even more Sioux from the side,” Tilghman tells the Levee Board cops. “You know. The profile.” He starts talking about my hawk nose and slightly protruding brow, next will be my straight brown Sioux hair and how a former girlfriend told the guys, outside the district station, of all places, how she liked to trace her fingernails along my square jawline.