Crime Stories Read online

  Introduction

  The Big Guys

  Flash fiction, winner of the Derringer Award.

  A Fistful of Cozy

  A satire of the mystery cozy genre.

  Cleansing

  An ancient crime of biblical proportions

  Lying Eyes

  Solve it yourself, given the clues.

  Perfect Plan

  Another solve it yourself. Don’t you remember One Minute Mysteries and Encyclopedia Brown?

  Piece of Cake

  Another solve it yourself, originally featured in Woman’s World.

  Animal Attraction

  Solve it yourself.

  Urgent Reply Needed

  A cautionary tale about dealing with spammers.

  Blaine’s Deal

  A parody of hardboiled noir.

  Light Drizzle

  A light-hearted send-up of hitman stories.

  Don’t Press That Button!

  An essay about the gadgets in the James Bond universe, and which you need to buy.

  Piranha Pool

  A writer seeking criticism pays the ultimate price.

  A Newbie’s Guide to Thrillerfest

  Never been to a mystery conference? Here’s the in-depth dirt.

  Inspector Oxnard

  He’s either brilliant, or too stupid to breathe.

  One Night Only

  A sports fan ends up in jail, all for the love of the game.

  An Archaeologist’s Story

  How digging up old bones leads to fresh corpses.

  Could Stephanie Plum Car Really Get Car Insurance?

  An essay about Janet Evanovich’s famous character.

  Cozy or Hardboiled?

  Take the test to find out which type of book you’re reading.

  Addiction

  What’s the worst drug you can get hung up on?

  Weigh To Go

  A humor column about health clubs.

  Exclusive Ebooks by JA Konrath

  Excerpt from Disturb by J.A. Konrath

  Excerpt from Whiskey Sour by J.A. Konrath

  The first grown-up books I ever read, at the age of nine, were mysteries. This had more to do with them being on my mother’s bookshelf than any particular design on my part. But I fell in love with them. Spenser and Travis McGee were my first literary heroes. I really enjoyed Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct, and the Remo Williams Destroyer series by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy.

  Then I got into hardboiled and noir. Mickey Spillane. Max Allan Collins. Lawrence Block. Ross MacDonald. Donald Westlake and Richard Stark. Chandler and Hammet. Andrew Vachss. Reading about cops and PIs was cool, but reading about criminals was cool too.

  In my teen years, I was floored by Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, and that started me on a serial killer binge. I devoured John Sandford, James Patterson, Robert W. Walker, David Wiltse, and Ridley Pearson.

  Which is probably why my novels are such a mishmash of different genre styles.

  When I sit down to write a short story, it’s for one of two reasons. First, because someone asked me for one. Second, because I have an idea that begs to be written. If I’m writing to fill an anthology slot or crack a market, I usually start with a few lines, which leads me to a premise, which leads to conflict, which leads to action. But if I already have an idea, it usually springs full blown from my head and onto the page as fast as I can type.

  Often, I have story ideas that won’t fit into the Jack Daniels universe. Sometimes these are horror stories, or straight humor, or sci-fi, or a combination of different styles.

  Sometimes they’re crime stories, many of which are included in this collection. But crime doesn’t have to mean serious. If I could turn an unbiased critical eye toward my own work, I’d say the thing that makes it unique is the humor.

  My standard author bio says I used to do improv comedy. In college, I wrote and starred in a comedy play called The Caravan O’ Laughs, which was a collection of insane skits that had a few shows in Chicago and southern Illinois. I’m comfortable in front of an audience, and from early on I could always find the joke in any situation.

  Comedy has its roots in the same part of our brain that responds to fear. We laugh at things that scare us, confuse us, and surprise us. We’re wired to recognize and process millions of pieces of incoming information, and when something defies our expectations, laughter is the result. An evolutionary tension breaker to help us deal with being confused.

  Most of my writing contains varying degrees of humor. I can’t help it. When I’m editing, the thing I spend the most amount of time doing is cutting jokes for the sake of the story. I hate cutting jokes, and if I snip one I’ll usually use it later in another tale. My work desk is scattered with little pieces of paper, each containing a joke, many of them awful.

  It’s a sickness, really.

  Some of the following shorts use various forms of humor to varying degrees of success. There’s satire, and parody, and black humor, and puns, and inappropriate humor, and one-liners, and slapstick, and a lot of irony. Out of everything I’ve written, the funny stories have the most of me in them. And while I’m aware that a few of these pieces can’t really be called crime fiction, I hope you enjoy them just the same.

  Joe Konrath, February 2010

  This was one of three stories written for Small Bites, an anthology of flash fiction to benefit horror author and editor Charles Grant, who needed assistance paying some hefty medical bills. Flash fiction is a story of 500 words or less. Strange as it sounds, writing shorter is sometimes harder than writing longer, because you have less words to fit all of the story elements in. Small Bites used three of my flash fiction shorts. This piece won a Derringer Award.

  “I’m surprised you asked me here, Ralph. I didn’t think you liked me.”

  Ralph grinned over the wheel. “Don’t be silly, Jim.” He cut the engines and glanced over the starboard bow. There was some chop to the sea, but the yacht had a deep keel and weathered it well.

  “Well, we’ve been neighbors for almost ten years, and we haven’t ever done anything together.”

  Ralph shrugged. “I work crazy hours. Not a lot of free time. But I’ve always considered you a good friend, Jim. Plus, our wives are close. I thought this would give us a chance to get to know each other. Belinda mentioned you like to fish.”

  Jim nodded. “Mostly freshwater. I haven’t done much deep sea fishing. What are we going for, anyway?”

  Ralph adjusted his captain’s cap.

  “I was originally thinking salmon or sailfish, but it’s been a while since I went for the big guys.”

  “Big guys?”

  “Sharks, Jim. You up for it?”

  “Sure. Just tell me what I need to do.”

  “First step is getting into the harness.” Ralph picked up a large life vest, crisscrossed with straps and latches. “This clips onto the rod, so you don’t lose it, and this end is attached to the boat, in case you get pulled overboard.”

  Jim raised an eyebrow. “Has that ever happened?”

  “Not yet, but it pays to be careful. These are Great White waters, and some of those bad boys go over two thousand pounds.”

  Ralph helped Jim into the vest, snugging it into place.

  “What next?”

  “We have to make a chum slick.”

  “I’ve heard of that. Fish blood and guts, right?”

  “Yep. It’s a shark magnet. You want to get started while I prepare the tackle?”

  “Sure.”

  Ralph went to the cooler and took out the plastic bucket of chum. Even refrigerated, it stank to high heaven. He handed it to Jim, with a ladle.

  “Toss that shit out there. Don’t be stingy with it.”

  Jim began to slop chum into the blue waters.

  Ralph swiveled his head around, scanning the horizon. No other boats.

  “So,” Jim asked, “what’s the bait?”

  Ralph gave Jim a deep poke in the shoulder with a fillet knife, then shoved his neighbor overboard.

  Jim surfaced, screaming. Ralph ladled on some guts.

  “Not very neighborly of you, Jim. Screwing my wife while I was at work.”

  “Ralph! Please!”

  Jim’s hands tried to find purchase on the sides of the yacht, but they were slippery with blood. Ralph dumped more onto his head, making Jim gag.

  “Keep struggling.” Ralph smiled. “The big guys love a moving target.”

  “Don’t do this, Ralph. Please. I’m begging you.”

  “You’d better beg fast. I see that we already have some company.”

  Jim stared across the open water. The dorsal fin approached at a brisk pace.

  “Please! Ralph! You said you considered me a good friend!”

  “Sorry…wrong choice of words. I actually meant to say I considered you a good chum.”

  It took a while for Ralph to stop laughing.

  Satire, written for the webzine ShotsMag.uk at their request. This pokes gentle fun at the sub-genre of zero-violence cozy mysteries, with their quirky but spunky amateur sleuths.

  “This is simply dreadful!”

  Mrs. Agnes Victoria Mugilicuddy blanched under a thick layer of rouge. Her oversized beach hat, adorned with plastic grapes and lemons, perched askew atop her pink-hued quaff.

  Barlow, her graying manservant, placed a hand on her pointy elbow to steady her.

  “Indeed, Madam. I’ll call the police.”

  “The police? Why, Barlow, think of the scandal! Imagine what Imogene Rumbottom, that busy-body
who writes the Society Column, will say in her muck-raking rag when she discovers the Viscount de Pouissant dead on my foyer floor.”

  “I understand, Madam. Will you be solving this murder yourself, then?”

  “I have no other choice, Barlow! Though I’m a simple dowager of advancing years and high social standing, my feisty determination and keen eye for detail will no doubt flush out this dastardly murderer. Where is Miss Foo-Foo, the Mystery Cat?”

  “She’s in her litter box, burying some evidence.”

  “Miss Foo-Foo!” Agnes’s voice had the pitch and timbre of an opera soprano. “Come immediately and help Mumsy solve this heinous crime!”

  Miss Foo-Foo trotted into the foyer, her pendulous belly dragging along the oriental rug. Bits of smoked salmon clung to her whiskers.

  “Barlow!” Agnes commanded, clapping her liver-spotted hands together.

  Barlow bent down and picked up the cat. He was five years Mrs. Agnes’s senior, and his back cracked liked kindling with the weight of Miss Foo-Foo.

  Agnes patted the cat on the head as Barlow held it. Miss Foo-Foo purred, a sound not unlike a belch.

  “We have a mystery to solve, my dearest puss-puss. If we’re to catch the scoundrel, we must be quick of mind and fleet of foot. Barlow!”

  “Yes, Madam?”

  “Fetch the Mystery Kit!”

  “Right away, Madam.”

  Barlow turned on his heels.

  “Barlow!”

  Barlow turned back.

  “Yes, Madam?”

  “First release Miss Foo-Foo.”

  “Of course, Madam.”

  Barlow bent at the waist, his spine making Rice Krispie sounds. Miss Foo-Foo padded over to Agnes and allowed herself to be patted on the head.

  Straightening up was a painful affair, but Barlow managed without a grunt. He nodded at Mrs. Agnes and left the room.

  “To think,” Agnes mused, “only ten minutes ago the Viscount was sipping tawny port and regaling us with ribald tales of the gooseberry industry. Just a waste, Miss Foo-Foo.”

  Agnes’s eyes remained dry, but she removed a handkerchief from the side pocket on her jacket and dabbed at them nonetheless.

  Barlow returned lugging a satchel, its black leather cracked with age. He undid the tarnished clasps and held it open for Mrs. Agnes. She removed a large, Sherlock Holmes-style magnifying glass.

  “The first order of business is to establish the cause of death.” Mrs. Agnes spoke to the cat, not to Barlow. “It’s merely a hunch, but I’m compelled to suggest that perhaps the lovely port the Viscount had been sipping may have been tampered with.”

  “An interesting hypothesis, Madam, but perhaps instead it has something to do with that letter opener?”

  “The letter opener, Barlow?”

  “The one sticking in the Viscount’s chest, Madam.”

  Agnes squinted one heavily mascaraed eye and peered through the glass with the other.

  “Miss Foo-Foo, your hunch proved incorrect. The poor, dear Viscount appears to be impaled through the heart with some kind of silver object. But what can it be, puss-puss?”

  “A letter opener, Madam?”

  “Could it be a knife, Miss Foo-Foo? Perchance some rapscallion gained entry to the den though the window, intent on robbing the rich Viscount? Perhaps a fight ensued, resulting in the bloodthirsty criminal tragically ending the Viscount’s life with this vaguely Freudian symbol of male power?”

  Barlow peered at the body.

  “It appears to be the letter opener you bought me for my anniversary, Madam. The gift you presented to me for fifty years of loyal service.”

  “Miss Foo-Foo!” Agnes bent over the fallen Viscount and lightly touched the handle of the protruding object. “Why, this is no knife! It’s Barlow’s letter opener! I can see the engraving.”

  “‘How lucky you must feel to have served me for so many years.’” Barlow intoned.

  “This changes everything!” Mrs. Agnes placed the magnifying glass back into the satchel, her gnarled fingers latching onto a tin of fingerprint powder. “Some heathen must have stolen Barlow’s lovely gift—”

  “Sterling silver plated,” Barlow said.

  “—with the intent to frame our loyal manservant! Barlow!”

  “Yes, Madam?”

  “Open this tin so I may dust the offending weapon!”

  “Yes, Madam.”

  Mrs. Agnes used the tiny brush to liberally apply a basecoat of powder to the letter opener’s handle.

  “Why, look, puss-puss! There’s nary a print to be found! The handle has been wiped clean!”

  “Perhaps the murderer wore gloves, Madam?” Barlow reached for the powder tin with a gloved-hand.

  “Or perhaps, Miss Foo-Foo, the killer wore gloves! This fiend is no mere street malcontent. This seems premeditated, the result of a careful and calculating plot. But why the Viscount?”

  “Perhaps he was a witness, Madam? To another murder?”

  Mrs. Agnes squinted at her manservant.

  “That’s daft, Barlow. Even for a lowly servant such as yourself. Do you see another victim in this room?”

  “Indeed I do, Madam.”

  Barlow removed the cheese grater from his vest pocket, a gift from Mrs. Agnes for his forty year anniversary, and spent forty minutes grating off the old dowager’s face.

  The old bat still had some life left in her after that, so he worked on her a bit with his thirtieth-year-anniversary nutcracker, his twentieth-year-anniversary potato peeler, and finally the fireplace poker, which wasn’t a gift, but was handy.

  When she finally expired, he flipped the gory side face-down and spent a leisurely hour violating her corpse—something he couldn’t have managed if she were alive and yapping. Sated, Barlow stood on creaky knees and picked up the bored Miss Foo-Foo.

  “You have a date with the microwave, puss-puss. And then I’m the sole heir to Madam’s fortune.”

  Miss Foo-Foo purred, making a sound like a belch.

  Three minutes and thirteen seconds later, she made a different kind of sound. More like a pop.

  “There’s a line.”

  A long line, too. Thirty people, maybe more.

  Aaron cleared his throat and spat the result onto a rock. He could feel the desert heat rising up through the leather of his sandals. An unforgiving sun blew waves of heat into their faces.

  “It seems to be moving.”

  Aaron squinted at Rebekah, fat and grimy. The wrap around her head was soaked with sweat and clung to her scalp in dark patches. Her eyes were submissive, dim. A bruise yellowed on her left cheek.

  Looking at her, Aaron felt the urge to blacken it again.

  “I cannot believe I let you drag me here.”

  “You promised.”

  “A man should not have to keep the promises he makes to his wife. In another nation, you’d be property. Worth about three goats and a swine. Perhaps less, an ugly sow such as you.”

  Rebekah turned away.

  Aaron set his jaw. A proper wife did not turn her back on her husband. He clutched at Rebekah’s shoulder and spun her around.

  “I could have you stoned for insolence, you worthless bitch.”

  He raised his hand, saw the fear in her eyes.

  Liked it.

  But Rebekah did not finch this time, did not cower.

  “I will tell my father.”

  The words made Aaron’s ears redden. Her father was a land owner, known to the Roman court. A Citizen. On his passing, Aaron would inherit his holdings.

  Aaron lowered his fist. He tried to smile, but his face would not comply.

  “Tell your father—what? Any husband has the right to discipline his wife.”

  “Shall I open my robe to show him the marks from your discipline?”

  Aaron bit the inside of his cheek. This sow deserved all that and more.

  “Our marriage is our business, no one else need intrude.”

  “And that is why we are here, Husband. I will not tell Father because you consented to this. It is the only way.”

  Aaron spat again, but his dry mouth yielded little. The line moved slowly, the sun baking their shadows onto the ground behind them.

  As they approached the river, Aaron’s throat constricted from thirst.

  But this river was not fit to drink. Shallow and murky, the surface a skein of filth.

  “Perhaps I should tell your father that his daughter has been seduced by a cult.”

  “My father knows. He was cleansed a fortnight past.”