The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 by Elizabeth George Read Free Book Online Page B

men?” Penny felt her spine tighten.
    â€œOne of our patrolmen had been out there the week before on a noise complaint. Your bookseller was screaming in the courtyard. Claimed there were little men coming out of the walls to kill him.”
    Penny didn’t say anything at all. Something deep inside herself seemed to be screaming and it took all her effort just to sit there and listen.
    â€œDTs. Said he’d been trying to kick the sauce,” he said, reading the report. “He was a drunk, miss. Sounds like it was a whole courtyard full of ’em.”
    â€œNo,” Penny said, head shaking back and forth. “That’s not it. Larry wasn’t like that.”
    â€œWell,” he said, “I’ll tell you what Larry was like. In his bedside table we found a half-dozen catcher’s mitts.” He stopped himself, looked at her. “Pardon. Female contraceptive devices. Each one with the name of a different woman. A few big stars. At least they were big then. I can’t remember now.”
    Penny was still thinking about the wall. The little men. And her mice on their hind feet. Pixies, dancing fairies.
    â€œThere you go,” the detective said, closing the folder. “Guy’s a dipso, one of his high-class affairs turned sour. Suicide. Pretty clear-cut.”
    â€œNo,” Penny said.
    â€œNo?” Eyebrows raised. “He was in that oven waist deep, miss. He even had a hunting knife in his hand for good measure.”
    â€œA knife?” Penny said, her fingers pressing her forehead. “Of course. Don’t you see? He was trying to protect himself. I told you on the phone, detective. It’s imperative that you look into Mrs. Stahl.”
    â€œThe landlady. Your landlady?”
    â€œShe was in love with him. And he rejected her, you see.”
    â€œA woman scorned, eh?” he said, leaning back. “Once saw a jilted lady over on Cheremoya take a clothes iron to her fellow’s face while he slept.”
    â€œLook at this,” Penny said, pulling Mrs. Stahl’s little red book from her purse.
    â€œ
Gaudy Night,
” he said, pronouncing the first word in a funny way.
    â€œI think it’s a dirty book.”
    He looked at her, squinting. “My wife owns this book.”
    Penny didn’t say anything.
    â€œHave you even read it?” he asked wearily.
    Opening the front to the inscription, she held it in front of him.
    â€œâ€Šâ€˜Dirty murderess.’ ” He shrugged. “So you’re saying this fella knew she was going to kill him, and instead of going to, say, the police, he writes this little inscription, then lets himself get killed?”
    Everything sounded so different when he said it aloud, different from the way everything joined in perfect and horrible symmetry in her head.
    â€œI don’t know how it happened. Maybe he was going to go to the police and she beat him to it. And I don’t know how she did it,” Penny said. “But she’s dangerous, don’t you get it?”
    It was clear he did not.
    â€œI’m telling you, I see her out there at night, doing things,” Penny said, her breath coming faster and faster. “She’s doing something with the natural gas. If you check the gas jets maybe you can figure it out.”
    She was aware that she was talking very loudly, and her chest felt damp. Lowering her voice, she leaned toward him.
    â€œI think there might be a clue in my oven,” she said.
    â€œDo you?” he said, rubbing his chin. “Any little men in there?”
    â€œIt’s not like that. It’s not. I see them, yes.” She couldn’t look him in the eye or she would lose her nerve. “But I know they’re not really little men. It’s something she’s doing. It always starts at two. Two a.m. She’s doing something. She did it to Larry and she’s doing it to me.”
    He was rubbing his face with his