THE CAMBODIAN CURSE AND OTHER STORIES Page 6

  “Remember the 1925 French colonial law mentioned in the letters? If we find the bas-relief sculpture, what do you want to bet it’s hidden with information from her grandfather proving it didn’t leave Cambodia until 1925. Or at the very least her own research that calls into question the timing. William won’t get to keep the sculpture regardless.”

  “I’m sorry you won’t get your well-deserved finder’s fee, Jaya, since even though you solved the mystery, the sculpture is lost forever.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  North stared at me. “You know where it is?”

  “I think I do. It’s somewhere only Margery could have hidden it. It’s obvious, when you think about it. But nobody was looking there. It’s a spot that only the murder victim herself would think of.”

  I learned that William woke up the following day, with Emily at his side, cleared of all charges. The police found the contractor Margery had hired to “fix” the earthquake-damaged back porch. The man, speaking through a translator, confirmed he’d been asked to bury an old slab of sandstone for sentimental purposes, and had been given a hefty tip to post a letter for Margery on a specific date.

  The police unearthed The Churning Woman sculpture, hidden underneath the renovation of the cracked back porch, the renovation that William had thought Margery wanted because of their beloved hippopotamus bench. The bas-relief was wrapped in plastic along with documentation about its 1925 passage to America, and it hadn’t fared too badly underneath the back porch bench of William the Hippopotamus—directly under his rump.

  The Hindi Houdini

  This Sanjay Rai short story originally appeared in Fish Nets: The Second Guppy Anthology, edited by Ramona DeFelice Long and published by Wildside Press in 2013. The story marked Sanjay’s first appearance as a lead character, and was nominated for both Agatha and Macavity awards.

  The young man in a pristine bowler hat attempted the futile exercise of extricating himself from the twenty-foot fish net that had fallen onto the stage.

  The netting was heavier than he’d imagined, causing him to fall to his knees when it dropped. He lifted the knotted rope pressing against his shoulders, shifting his hat in the process. A rose petal emerged from beneath the rim and fluttered to the floor.

  “The net isn’t supposed to drop until I reach the trunk,” he said in a raised voice, ceasing his squirming and readjusting the bowler. “Markus, can you get this thing off of me?”

  Sanjay Rai, a.k.a The Hindi Houdini, was practicing for his magic show at the Cave Dweller Winery in California’s Napa Valley. It was his first day setting up for his series of shows that would run for the summer tourist season. In his late twenties, Sanjay had already developed quite a following. He liked to think of himself as a magician and escape artist for the twenty-first century with the sensibilities of previous ones. He performed in a tuxedo, alternating between a bowler hat and a turban. Either one could hold what he needed for his sleight-of-hand.

  “Sorry!” a voice called out from above the stage. After several seconds of shuffling, a wiry stagehand appeared. An oversized dress shirt and jeans hung loosely over his thin frame.

  “This net,” Sanjay said from beneath his confines, “is way too heavy.”

  “You’re the one who bought it,” Markus said.

  “And you’re the one who dropped it on my head instead of on the trunk.”

  “Let me get Wallace to help me get you out of there.”

  “I think Lizette is backstage,” Sanjay began, but Markus had already left the theater by a stage door.

  Sanjay shifted his bowler hat again, making sure it was firmly in place over his thick black hair. The netting bore into his neck and shoulders, but his hat was an important prop. If he removed it now, Markus, Lizette, or Wallace might learn his secrets. And that would never do.

  “Got him!” Markus called out from the back row of the theater. The theater’s manager, Wallace, looked worse than the last time Sanjay saw him. A glass of red wine swayed in his hand as he tottered down the aisle. It was only five o’clock, but it was obvious Wallace had already had a few. A theater on the grounds of a winery was probably not the best place for him to work. His handsome face would be permanently ruddy within a few years at this rate.

  “I’m sure Markus can handle this on his own,” Sanjay said, eyeing Wallace’s glazed eyes.

  “Ha!” Wallace barked. “Technical difficulties, eh, Houdini?”

  Sanjay hated it when Wallace called him Houdini. Coming from most people, it was a sign of respect. Not with Wallace. There was a mocking lilt in his voice as he said it. Sanjay wished the pleasant Lizette had been helping instead.

  Wallace set his wine glass on the edge of the stage and heaved himself up to help Markus. He wasn’t a large man, but climbing onto the stage winded him. Sanjay held his hat firmly as the two men lifted the netting. A button on the cuff of Markus’s long sleeve caught on one of the knots and the net dropped back down. At least Sanjay wasn’t wearing one of his many tuxedos. He wasn’t used to working with this particular rope, so he didn’t know what its effect would be on fabric. He could have freed himself without dislodging his hat if he needed to—a Swiss Army knife was one of the items concealed on his body—but he hadn’t wanted to damage the important new prop.

  In spite of a tipsy theater manager and a stagehand in an ill-fitting dress shirt, Sanjay was freed less than a minute later.

  “I’ll get this back in place,” Markus said.

  Wallace scooped up his glass of wine and retreated, chuckling to himself. “I’ll be in my office for the next hour,” he called over his shoulder, “if there are any more magical mishaps.”

  “You should have asked Lizette to help,” Sanjay said, brushing off his knees.

  “Did I hear my name?” Lizette’s curly auburn hair shone in the stage lights as she stepped from backstage carrying a box of plastic musical instruments for the show.

  “Oh!” she cried out, spotting the net. “Isn’t that supposed to fall onto the trunk?”

  “I know!” Markus snapped. “I screwed up. I get it.”

  Sanjay had enjoyed working with the married couple much more the previous season—before Lizette had an affair with Wallace. As far as he knew, the affair had been short-lived, but it still made things awkward. The magician hoped they’d be able to focus enough to help him prepare for his show next week. The Saturday night opening performance was already sold out. Even more importantly, Jaya would be there. He’d only met her recently, but he could tell she was something special. Then again, Markus had probably thought the same of Lizette before he learned she was sneaking off to sleep with Wallace rather than scrapbooking with a girlfriend as she claimed.

  Markus struggled to get the net back in place above the stage. Sanjay’s on-stage magician’s assistant would arrive the next night for several days of proper dress rehearsals. Usually this first day of initial setup was a relaxing one. Usually.

  “Ready?” Sanjay asked.

  “I want to make sure I don’t drop the net early again,” Markus answered from the cat-walk above. “I’ve got a question for Wallace about the levers before we start.” He pulled out his cell phone.

  “He’s not answering,” Markus said after a few moments. “Never mind. I’m sure it’s fine. Um. Yeah. Pretty sure.”

  “You don’t sound too sure.”

  “It’s fine, Sanjay. Don’t worry. We got the net off you before, we can do it again.”

  Sanjay couldn’t imagine anything he’d like less. “Can you find Wallace?”

  “I don’t want to lose sight of this lever.”

  Sanjay sighed. “Let me see if I can find him.”

  As Sanjay walked around the side of the theater to the winery’s administrative offices, he attempted to push thoughts from his mind about what the rest of this season would be like. Markus hadn’t always been so a
bsent-minded, but clearly the affair had gotten to him.

  Sanjay’s knock on Wallace’s office door was met with silence. He glanced at his watch and knocked again. Less than thirty minutes had passed, and Wallace had said he’d be there for at least an hour. He was probably drunk enough to forget what he’d said. Sanjay tried the door to the office—locked—before heading back to the theater.

  “He’s already gone home,” Sanjay reported.

  “That’s odd.” Markus tied up a rope he’d been holding and climbed down. “Wallace never goes home this early.”

  “Well, he did tonight. Have you noticed how much he’s been drinking lately? He locked the door but forgot to turn off the light of his office, too.”

  “What?”

  “The light was on under the door,” Sanjay said.

  Markus’s face darkened. He cleared his throat. “He locks his door when he’s inside and doesn’t want to be disturbed.” He hurried outside to the winery complex adjoining the theater, Sanjay following on his heels.

  Sanjay wasn’t sure of the big deal. They all knew Wallace would lock his door since he dealt with the money from the theater.

  “Wallace!” Markus shouted, pounding on the door. “Is Lizette in there with you?”

  No answer. Markus shook the door handle. The door rattled but didn’t give.

  “You can open it,” Markus said, pointing his finger at Sanjay.

  “You mean break in?”

  “I know you can do it. I’ve seen your tricks.”

  “Illusions,” Sanjay corrected him.

  “Can you open it or not?”

  “I really don’t think I should—”

  “Oh.” Markus crossed his arms. “Your tricks are just tricks then. No skill involved. I get it. I always suspected as much.”

  “Of course I can do it,” Sanjay snapped. He ran his hand across his forehead. Or so it would appear to any observer. In reality, two fingertips brushed under the edge of his bowler hat and emerged with a thin lock pick. He knelt down and got to work.

  A bead of sweat covered Sanjay’s brow before the lock clicked open five minutes later. It was a challenging lock. A bolt. Markus’s heavy breathing and pacing behind him wasn’t helping. Neither was the fact that the indiscrete couple inside was sure to hear what was going on.

  Sanjay pushed open the door. He wasn’t looking forward to finding Lizette inside with Wallace. Sanjay straightened up and looked inside. His body relaxed. Lizette wasn’t in the office. Neither was Wallace. He must have left early after all and simply forgotten to turn off the light.

  “That’s where you two went,” a light voice said from behind. Lizette.

  “On a wild goose chase,” Sanjay said—right before Markus gasped. That’s when Sanjay spotted an outstretched arm on the floor behind the office desk.

  Markus rushed forward, Sanjay and Lizette close behind.

  “Oh, God,” Markus said, kneeling beside Wallace’s prostrate body. He leaned his head over Wallace’s chest.

  A broken wine glass lay on the carpet next to his body; the red wine forming what looked eerily like a pool of blood.

  “He’s not breathing.” Markus shook his head slowly as he raised himself up.

  Lizette’s scream pierced the air. She raised a shaking hand and pointed at the red liquid on Markus’s hands. It was too thick to be red wine.

  Sanjay moved closer to Wallace’s body. He saw why Wallace wasn’t breathing: a dark pool of blood was visible next to Wallace’s neck. A pair of sharp scissors with pink handles lay on the floor next to his body.

  Nobody moved. Time and motion took on a sticky quality. After what felt like hours to Sanjay but was probably no more than five or ten seconds, Lizette screamed again. The shrill sound made Sanjay’s body shake.

  “Don’t you see?” She cried out. “The scissors. How did they—?”

  “Shut up!” Markus yelled. The scream had broken the spell for all of them. His eyes darted around the room.

  “There’s no one here,” Sanjay said. His voice was steady in spite of his nerves shaking inside. As a stage performer, he was used to putting forth a confident voice no matter how he felt inside. “We’ve got to call the police.”

  Lizette nodded. She reached for the phone on the desk.

  Sanjay held out his arm to stop her. “Not from here,” he said. “Evidence.”

  Lizette shuddered. “My phone is in my purse. It’s backstage.” She left without looking back at the scene.

  Sanjay let out a long breath and walked to the doorway. He frowned as he looked at the lock he’d picked. He began pacing slowly in the small area at the front of the office, his eyes scanning the walls of the room. He knew there was nobody hiding in the room, but there was something wrong with the scene.

  “I can’t believe she killed him,” Markus said under his breath.

  “What?” Sanjay stopped pacing. “Lizette didn’t kill anyone.”

  “I don’t want to believe it, either. But those are her scissors she uses to make scrap books. And you and I were together all evening after we saw Wallace alive and well.”

  “She couldn’t have done it,” Sanjay insisted.

  “Until a few months ago I would have believed you. But after she had an affair…I just don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  “No,” Sanjay said. “I mean I don’t see how she could actually have done it—how anyone could have done it. This type of lock doesn’t automatically lock from behind.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The lock on the office door—” Sanjay lowered his voice. “The one you had me pick. It was a bolt. That’s why it took me so long. It wouldn’t lock if someone killed him and slipped out of the room. And there isn’t a window in the office. I don’t see how anyone could have done it.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No,” Sanjay said. “It doesn’t.”

  A hush fell over the room for the second time that evening. Sanjay stood without touching anything, twirling his bowler hat in his hands as they waited for the police. He knew he should be thinking about the tragedy of the murder, but honestly, he’d never liked Wallace. Wallace was a crass womanizer who’d gotten the job as theater manager because of family connections in the community. Instead of murder, Sanjay’s mind drifted back to the illusion he was creating with the fish net.

  The fish net was a new addition to one of his mainstay illusions. He was to escape from a trunk that was secured by chains, which he’d done before, and he was adding a fish net covering the entire trunk to make the escape appear impossible.

  What had gone wrong earlier that day with the timing of the net drop? The theater was a relatively new building, and in spite of Wallace’s incompetence as a manager, it was well kept. There shouldn’t have been anything wrong with the equipment. There was only one possible conclusion: the timing problem had to have been simple human error.

  Sanjay mulled over the phrase in his mind: simple human error. He was no longer sure if he was thinking about the illusion or the murder. There was something off about both. As if they were both an illusion.

  “Markus,” Sanjay said. “What had you wanted to ask Wallace about the levers?”

  “What?”

  “You said you needed to ask him something. That’s why we went to look for him. What did you want to ask him?”

  “How can you think about your trick—”

  “Illusion,” Sanjay said automatically.

  “It was nothing. He mentioned a change I’d forgotten about.” Markus tugged at his sleeves, avoiding Sanjay’s gaze. He’d been able to wipe the blood off his hands with tissue, but bloody spots covered the edge of his right sleeve.

  Sanjay took a sharp intake of breath just as Lizette returned to the office. He watched her red-rimmed eyes as the pieces clicked into plac
e in his mind.

  “They’re on their way,” Lizette said weakly.

  “Lizette,” Sanjay said, his heart speeding up. “Did you see any blood on the carpet when we entered the room?”

  “I did,” she said, “but I thought it was wine.”

  “There was a pool of wine,” Sanjay said slowly. He placed his hat back on his head, thinking hard as he ran his fingers along its crisp rim. “But did you notice two pools of red when we walked in?”

  “No.” Lizette sniffled. “Just one.”

  “Me, too,” Sanjay said. “It was only the wine at first. Not blood. Because we had the timing wrong.”

  “The timing?”

  Sanjay’s heart was pounding in his chest now. He hoped his voice didn’t betray him. Unlike the stage, this was real life—and he was standing in a room with a murderer.

  “Wallace locked himself into his room,” Sanjay said, “as he usually did, and passed out from a drug that had been put into his wine. Markus was adamant I get him into this office—before Wallace woke up.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Markus said. “I was with you all evening.”

  “Except for when you went to get Wallace that first time, when he returned with a glass of wine and was already walking unsteadily. You needed me as your alibi. You knew he always locked his office door—and you knew I know how to pick a lock. You could be with me all evening setting up, and then have us discover the body together. You weren’t counting on the fact that the lock of the office was one that couldn’t be locked automatically when someone left the office. You wanted to implicate Lizette, using her scissors, and knowing you had a better alibi than her. You had to do it, because you were the one with the motive.”

  “My scissors,” Lizette said, her voice breaking. “You mean Markus—”

  “But you said it yourself, I was with you!” Markus said to Sanjay. “I do have an alibi.”

  “Except for the fact that Wallace wasn’t dead before we walked into that room,” Sanjay said. “Only drugged. That’s why he was acting so sluggish when he came into the theater. The drug was already in his wine. When you rushed over to him just now to supposedly check if he was breathing, that’s when you stuck the scissors in his neck. You could easily hide scissors in your hand under that ridiculously long-sleeved shirt—with your alibi standing right here next to you.”