The Second Mystery Megapack. Mack Reynolds

      “That was amazing, Pit!” Aunt Peck said, staring at me in awe. “You should go on TV. You’d win a fortune!”

      “I don’t think I can stand long enough to play. And besides, I don’t like to travel. It took a lot of arm-twisting to get me out here!”

      “I imagine Cal can be quite persuasive.” She smiled wistfully, eyes distant, remembering. “The Tortellis were always that way.”

      “Cal is…quite something.” How much did she know about him? Somehow, I suspected she had no idea he ran an illegal casino.

      “Oh, Cal’s a kitten. Best of the lot. Be glad you never met his father. There was a man who…well, I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.” She paused. “But when Bruno wanted something, he got it—no matter what.”

      “Was he in organized crime?”

      “What makes you ask that?” she said sharply.

      “Something Cal once said.”

      “I don’t know for sure—he kept his business to himself, at least around me—but Joshua always said he was some sort of gangster. When the police found him dead in the trunk of a car, that clinched it for us.”

      “How long ago did that happen?”

      “Well, let’s see…it must have been 1963—early August, I think. He had been shot with a single bullet to the head.”

      “It must have been hard on his family,” I said. To my surprise, I found I had a lump in my throat. I remembered my own father’s death from pancreatic cancer. It had been devastating to Mom and me; she had never recovered from it.

      “Yes. Yes, it was. But the Lord gives and the Lord takes—maybe it was for the best. At least Cal and the other boys didn’t follow their father into a life of crime, so something good came of it.”

      She yawned, covering her mouth with a plump-fingered hand. “Oh, excuse me!”

      “Quite all right. I’m tired, too.” Farm people went to bed early, I reminded myself. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll turn in.”

      “Me too.” She yawned again, then stood unsteadily. I reached up and steadied her arm. “I can barely keep my eyes open!”

      * * * *

      Once Aunt Peck disappeared up the stairs, I prowled through the house, doing a quick security check. She had left all three outside doors unlocked, so I locked them. None had deadbolts or chains, unfortunately; they all should have been replaced with steel-core security doors years ago. The basement door had a simple hook and eye; nothing I could do about it now, so I left it alone.

      Next, I examined all the windows. Not one single lock had been turned, so I did it myself. Perhaps they didn’t believe in burglars out here. Or perhaps they didn’t have much worth stealing.

      Returning to my bedroom, I opened my window about three inches. A cool wind began to billow the curtains. If angels or ghosts wanted in tonight, they would have to get past me.

      I did not undress. Instead, I lay on top of the quilt, listening to the unfamiliar noises around me. Houses have their own rhythms: the creaks, the squeaks, the little settling sounds. When the furnace suddenly kicked on with a whump, I jumped so much, I almost fell out of bed.

      A little later, raccoons or possums or some other beasts I had never heard before began to yowl and hiss in the yard. Mating? Fighting? Slaughtering the chickens? I had no way of knowing. Since Aunt Peck didn’t come running down from her bedroom in a panic, I assumed the racket fell into the “typical farm sound” category.

      Then I heard a low but steady crunch-crunch-crunch: tires on gravel. The vehicle was moving very, very slowly toward the house.

      Rising as fast as I could, I grabbed my phone and flashlight and went down the creaking hallway, through the family room, and into the parlor, just to the right of the front door. Peering around the drapes, I gazed into the front yard. A large, dark vehicle rolled up to the house and glided to a stop: no headlights showed, and when the driver opened the door, no cab light came on. Could this be Aunt Peck’s angel?

      The driver went around back and got something out of the bed of his truck, then carried it toward the house. The breath caught in my throat as heavy footsteps sounded on the steps, then the porch.

      I hobbled around to the front door and flipped all the switches on the wall. The porch and the hallway flooded with light. Through the little window set in the front door, I saw Joe Carver’s startled face, then heard a metallic crash as he dropped something heavy.

      “Bessie?” he called. He tried the door handle, but it was locked. He jiggled it.

      “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

      “Who are you?” he called. Rather than run away, as I’d half expected, he began to pound on the door. “Bessie? Are you okay in there? Open up!”

      “Stop that!” I said.

      “Open up!” he shouted. “Bessie? Bessie?”

      Those weren’t the actions of a prowler. I fumbled with the lock and opened the door.

      “Who the hell are you?” Joe demanded, staring at me. The loud crashing noise had been his toolkit—he had dropped it when I turned on the lights.

      “I’m Peter Geller,” I said, leaning heavily on my walking stick. “I’m visiting Aunt Peck for the week. Now who the hell are you?”

      Joe looked me up and down. I guess I didn’t strike him as dangerous or threatening—me, thin as a rail, eyes limned with dark circles, looking closer to sixty than my true age of thirty—because he didn’t try to tear me to pieces. Which he probably could have done with very little effort.

      “You one of her nephews?” he demanded. He took a step forward, face cycling through anger and puzzlement. “She didn’t say nothing about you comin’.”

      “It must have slipped her mind,” I said. “She didn’t say anything about expecting burglars, either!”

      “I’m not a burglar!”

      “You could have fooled me, sneaking around like that!”

      His fists balled up; he seemed about to take my head off. I shifted uneasily. Maybe I had chosen the wrong approach. He wasn’t responding well to confrontation.

      “Say,” I said, pretending to study his features. Time to change tactics—and fast. “Don’t I know you? You’re Joe Carver, right?”

      “Huh.” He squinted hard at my face, but seemed to draw a blank. “How do you know me?”

      “We met years ago,” I lied. “I was just a kid, and I didn’t have this.” I raised my walking stick.

      “Huh,” he said again.

      I peered around him at his truck. “I heard you come up the drive, but your headlights were off. That’s why I thought you were a burglar.”

      “I was trying not to wake Bessie,” he said. He frowned. “Termites been eatin’ into the dinin’ room floor. I need to replace it or she’s gonna fall through and break a leg. Maybe worse. She wouldn’t let me do it, so I thought I’d come by tonight and get started. Once the floor’s up, she’ll have to let me finish.”

      He had the lines down so well, he must have practiced them. Smiling, I swung the front door fully open.

      “Come in, Mr. Carver. I’m sorry if I was rude—but you scared the bejesus out of me. I wasn’t expecting anyone. And you have to admit a cripple like me can’t exactly defend the house. You understand.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      I glanced over my shoulder at the stairs, brow furrowing. “And I’m surprised Aunt Peck’s not up, considering all the racket we’ve made.”

      “Bessie