I asked Effie what he was reading. It was a slow day at the office, but I still should have known better. “ A crime caper,” unfinished by the Brontës and completed by Mickey Spillane. he replied, adjusting his skirt over a nylon-clad knee, “left
Wuthering Heist.” Groping for a sensible reply, I was saved by a man bursting into the room, his shirt-front soaked in gore. No-one ever just walks in. Not in this business.
Already falling when he cleared the door, he only had time to gasp “Astarte Lumbago” before measuring his length on the floor. Effie checked it, just to be sure. “Five foot eleven,” she said, putting away the yardstick. “And I’m sure I’ve seen the guy before…” Slipping the man’s wallet from an inside pocket, he whistled. “Of course, he’s that celebrity clone – Sal Mimeo. And this red stuff isn’t blood – its tomato sauce. With far too much basil.”
The man’s eyes snapped open. He snarled, “Preposterous! It wasn’t even strong enough to hide the taste of poison. Fortunately, I sneezed just as I took the first mouthful. A morsel of the marinara finished a cockroach at ten paces.” Effie nodded in sympathy, “My Mom’s sauce Alfredo has the same effect. Pity about the shirt, though.” The man on the floor looked confused, which is Effie’s normal effect.
Sitting up, he asked, “Which one of you is Shamus Dikk?” I admitted it and asked him back, “What’s an Astarte Lumbago?” “She’s my grandmother,” he replied, “my very rich grandmother, who’ll soon be dead. And that’s why someone tried to poison me – someone in my family boosting their cut of the pie by eliminating the other heirs. The same reason my uncle, LeBreton Fats, was killed last week — whatever the police say. I want you to find that killer, Mr Dikk, before he gets me too.”
We stuck him in a chair and started the questions. We had trouble right away. He was a narcoleptic, and conked out every time he got stressed or bored. I sympathised. Opera has the same effect on me. But getting his story was as like prying new money from the Treasury Board. We finally heard enough to start, but then had to decide what to do with him, He was in no shape to leave. Effie didn’t trust him alone in the office and wanted to handcuff him to the credenza. In the end, we laid him out on the sofa, dead to the world with a copy of Tuesday’s Hansard propped up in front of his face.
Our first stop was the police. You don’t trespass on an open investigation. Sergeant Tennant wasn’t impressed. “It’s a closed case, Shamus. He was beaten to death with a frozen bok choy. The coroner said suicide.” I blinked. “Suicide? With bok choy? I can see zucchini but … hell, Louis.” He shrugged, “Maybe so, but the captain warned me not to push the case further — told me to stay away from Fats.” “My doctor says the same thing,” I replied. “But I guess you won’t mind me poking around.”
He grunted his agreement. “There’s not much to go on. The victim’s real name was Wilberforce Zabaglione. No wonder he called himself LeBreton Fats. No-one knows any reason to want him dead. He was a mousy little man with a nice line in Jackie Gleason imitations and not an enemy in the world. His wife had all the money in the family, but she was generous and he had no debts. No will himself and he wasn’t in Astarte’s will either, so there doesn’t seem to be much of a financial motive. I wish you luck.” As we left the station, I thought how much he deserved a promotion. But the force just wasn’t ready for Lieutenant Lou Tennant.
I planned to start with Astarte, or maybe the widow Zabaglione. Neither would give us the time of day, but palmed us off instead on the family lawyer. One D. Essex Mackinaw, a man so dry he could moonlight as talcum powder. Mackinaw told us almost nothing about the family but wouldn’t shut up about inheritance law. Two minutes in his office and narcolepsy was looking good.
“Astarte Lumbago’s testamentary provisions are public knowledge, “ he said. “ An even split among her three children. Should a child pre-decease her, then his or her share of the inheritance passes directly in equal amounts to his or her own children, Astarte’s grand-children.” I asked him whether it mattered that Sal was adopted. “The law governing a will depends on the province in which the testator legally resides at the time of his or her death. Astarte lives in Borealis, as does the family of her late elder son. In that province, ’child’ is defined sociologically — your children are those who are legally so acknowledged. So an adopted child, such as Mr Mimeo, has the same rights as any other in that family.”
“Interestingly,” he continued, “the case is somewhat different across the river in Pays d’Hiver, where ’child’ is defined genetically. If you legally reside in that province at the time of your death, your ’child’ is anyone to whom you have contributed genetic material, unless otherwise provided in your will. In both provinces, if there is no will at time of death, a current spouse gets 50 percent of the estate and the children split the rest of the estate (or all of it if there is no spouse) in equal amounts, with the grandchildren splitting their beneficiary parent’s share if he or she is already dead. This, by the in a will.” way, is called the standard approach when it is actually included
I pushed him on Astarte’s children’s wills. At first, he clammed. I threatened to tie him up in a room with Led Zeppelin posters on one wall and his toupee on the other. “You put me between rock and a hairpiece,” he replied bitterly, to Effie’s admiration. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell you. Of the two children still living, one has adopted the standard approach (with one recent special provision) and the other is intestate. Both extended families live in Pays d’Hiver. Now beat it. I have mortgages to foreclose, eco-systems to despoil, match-girls to harass.” We beat it.
Back at the office, we found Mimeo awake. We plied him with questions and shots of screech, but he still kept passing out. We wound up with a partial Lumbago family tree – boxes with letters and symbols but no names and no connecting lines. And we got the following bit and pieces:
(1) The four rows in the family tree represent four generations: Astarte herself; her three children and their three outside spouses (boxes A through F); her six grandchildren and one outside spouse (G through M); and her three great-grandchildren (N through P). This represents all of her direct descendants and their spouses; all are over 21.
Of the seventeen people listed, three are already dead: LeBreton Fats (recently) plus Zarathustra Zabaglione (box I) and Sal’s adoptive father (both some years ago). Wilbur Sassafras (box O) is one of twin boys.
LeBreton Fats (box D) was married to Astarte’s only daughter, Terpsichore; they had one son and one daughter.
Wilma Radicchio Sassafras was brought up as the daughter of Astarte’s younger son, but is actually the illegitimate child of his wife (since divorced) and LeBreton Fats.
Minerva Lumbago’s late husband was infertile; of their two children, one (Sal Mimeo Lumbago) is adopted and the other (named Calliope after Astarte’s mother) was conceived in vitro using sperm donated by Melchior Lumbago.
Courgette Zabaglione has been very solicitous of her Zabaglione grandmother, who is dying but now expected to outlive Astarte.
Orville Sassafras’ Uncle Suppiluliuma Lumbago has been missing for one day short of seven years and will be declared legally dead tomorrow on a court motion brought by the uncle’s sister. Since this woman had expressed no interest in the matter until recently, people are wondering who put her up to it, and why. Newton Figg Sassafras (box L) is the son-in-law of Myrtle Radicchio Lumbago.
(10) Arachne Zabaglione was recently disinherited by her mother (but not her father), based on an anonymous but accurate tip regarding her cocaine habit.
(11) Balthazar Lumbago’s daughter married one of his nephews. [Everyone mentioned in the list above is one of A through P, including the dead and divorced ones. Each married woman uses her husband’s surname and each child uses his or her father’s surname. In the family tree, spouses are found next to their spouses, siblings are found next to their siblings and lines of family descent do not cross.]
Finally, catching sight of The Wit and Wisdom of Dubya on Effie’s desk, Sal went down for the count. Effie went back to Wuthering Heist. I worked on the family tree and what it meant. Finally, I got the answer I needed. When Sal woke up again, we went to see Astarte. I made my pitch, and she agreed to a full family show-down in her parlour.
Facing them all that evening, I felt like a skinny Nero Wolfe. Comparing Effie and Archie Goodwin was tempting, but I decided not to go there. The atmosphere was as tense as a G-string at Carnegie Hall. I started in. First, I backed Sal’s guess that greed – greed for Astarte’s inheritance — was the cause of the family’s recent problems. Not just the death of LeBreton Fats and the poisoning try on Sal, but the sidelining of Arachne and Suppiluliuma. “There’s only one person who gains from all these happenings,” I said, “One person who gains in cold, hard shekels and the promise of more.” I was about to name that person, when the lights went out.
Chaos broke out, people cursing and screaming. A loud whir and a louder crash came from the place where Sal had been standing. The lights came back on and I saw Sal on the floor – but only from another faint. Behind him, a statue of Astarte’s late husband Ragnarok had a rope with three purple knobs wrapped tightly around its neck. I recognised the deadly aubergine bolas of the pampas. Across the room, Effie was standing over the murderer, calmly slipping a blackjack back into his purse. Sergeant Tennant read the unconscious figure its rights. I said to Effie, “Going in, there were still two possibilities, so I couldn’t tip you off. I was only sure at the last minute. How did you know it was the younger one?” “Simple,” he replied. “The killer was clutching Astarte’s legal papers. A will is a dead giveaway.”
Can you duplicate Shamus’ feat by giving the murderer’s name and the corresponding box-letter on the chart. Not necessary to enter the contest, but can you also assign names to the other 15 box-letters, indicate why LeBreton Fats and Sal Mimeo were targeted and suggest who might have been the next victims after Sal? bout de papier will decide the winner by drawing from a box containing all correct entries received by May 15, 2003. The winner will receive a book autographed by A Aalto.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 19, No. 3 (2002-2003) — Fall/Winter 2002/2003 // Automne/Hiver 2002/2003, pp. 41–44. Read the rest of this issue →
