= Just The Fax
  by Nancy Sweetland

Marcy March sat at her computer, gazing dreamily out the window. She was thinking up the next steamy love scene for her friend Alfred Doolittle to weave into the sexy romance novels he wrote as Wendy Winsome. That is, the novels were sexy when Marcy got through beefing up his bland he-and-she-meet-and-fight-and-fall-in-love stories.

Marcy's fax machine toggled a sensuous 'brrrp' and spit out a paper. Good, she thought, Alfred must have finished his final chapter.

The small print at the top of the sheet listed the date, Alfred's name, and 1629, nautical time Marcy translated to four twenty-nine p.m. Alfred's usual cover sheet was missing. This transmission was mostly blank, spotted with smudges along the left side. It read "MARCY HELP! IT DOESN'T WORK FOR UNCLE FRED TO DIE OF A HEART ATTACK." Smaller print followed "You told me so, and now I believe it, but what can I do? Answer, please. NOW."

Marcy made a face. Uncle Fred was a character in "Love along the Nile", Alfred/Wendy's latest romance. Alfred always consulted Marcy to help develop his plots. In fact, the books were actually written more by Marcy than either of them admitted.

"I told Alfred not to murder anyone in that story," mumbled Marcy. "Now he's stuck with dead Fred and wants me to fix it."

Marcy frowned over the fax. Alfred was usually so neat -- the smudges weren't like him at all. He must have been messing with a stamp pad, or putting in a printer cartridge

"Fred's dead, and that's that," Marcy faxed back. "Bury him in style or get rid of him altogether. He didn't add to the story, anyway." Her machine hummed; magically her answer appeared on Alfred's fax a few seconds later.

But it wasn't Alfred who carefully pulled the paper from the machine. Alfred Doolittle/Wendy Winsome lay across his computer keyboard in a darkening pool of blood, and he wasn't going to write any more stories ever, sexy or not. The person who received Marcy's fax placed it carefully in Alfred's hand as though he had pulled it from the machine himself, stepped calmly around Alfred's already cooling body, and walked out.

* * *

"Miss March?" The man at her door flipped open his badge case. "Detective Pierce. I'd like to ask you a few questions."

Eyebrows raised, Marcy looked beyond him at the undistinguished car parked against the curb, glad her nosy neighbors wouldn't recognize it as police.

"Come in. What's this about?" Marcy led him into the living room. "Sit?"

"No, thanks. You're acquainted with Alfred Doolittle?"

Marcy's eyebrows went up again. "Sure. We work together. Not here, by fax and phone. Why?"

"When did you last see him?"

Marcy thought a minute. "Last Friday. We met for a fish fry."

"But you've communicated with him since then."

"Oh, sure." Marcy explained their working relationship. "In fact, my last fax from him was today. Four twenty-nine, to be exact."

Detective Pierce raised his eyebrows. "Four twenty-nine, exactly? Of course. The fax machine prints it on the paper. That's a help."

"For what? What's Alfred done?"

The detective hesitated for a moment. "It's not what he's done, Miss March. It's what's been done to him. He's dead. Murdered."

Marcy stepped back, her mouth agape. "You're joking. Alfred's like ... like a friendly puppy. That's why he couldn't write good love scenes, he's just a cuddler. Who'd kill him?"

"Somebody with an ax to grind. Actually, somebody with an ax. Or a sharp, heavy instrument like one. Not a pretty sight."

* * *

Across town, Bryce Colton held his celebratory glass of wine up to catch the light. Beautiful. Almost the color of blood. It had been too easy. What a stroke of luck that Alfred had been just ready to send the fax when Bryce bludgeoned him; something so simple as a printed time line would alibi his perfect crime.

Bryce had turned up the air conditioning in Alfred's tiny office to stall normal body deterioration in the late summer heat. He'd previously arranged to meet Candy King for a drink at Porter's Pub, and lagged there more than two hours. Then he told her he had to make a private call from his car phone, but he'd be right back to pick her up for dinner. Candy waited, as he knew she would.

It took only twenty minutes to speed back to Doolittle's, reset the air conditioner, send Alfred's fax and receive Marcy's in return, and get out.

With a rock-solid alibi from Candy and the bartender at Porter's from a few minutes after Bryce had actually clobbered Doolittle on through early evening, he was home free.

Too bad the shrimp's sister was Bryce Colton's wife, but that couldn't be helped. Colton toasted himself again. Ever since Doolittle's books had become best-sellers, Colton had hated him. Damn, the man couldn't even write them himself; had to call on Marcy March to provide the real emotion. Yet Doolittle's Winsome books fairly flew off the shelves, while Colton's erudite, involved fiction was repeatedly rejected. Now, maybe, with less of Doolittle's fluff to distract them, editors would look more favorably at Colton's serious work. "Dissecting the Future" would sell, he knew it.

Colton's old camping hatchet, which he'd wrapped with three layers of a heavy plastic garbage bag, had been scrubbed clean and deposited in a Goodwill box immediately after the murder. The bloody bag went into the swiftly flowing river as Colton drove over the bridge on the uninhabited back way to return to Porter's Pub. Garbage was thrown into the river all the time; if the bag was ever found, it would be washed clean, with no connection to anything.

Colton pulled a crumpled sheet of paper and a small computer disk out of his pocket. "'Love along the Nile,'" he read from the label. He laughed aloud. "Soon to become 'Love in the Landfill.' Goodbye forever, Wendy Winsome." He tossed the disk and the paper into the direct chute to his building's incinerator.

After Detective Pierce left, Marcy made a soothing cup of tea and stared out her kitchen window. Alfred was so quiet, so unassuming ... who hated Alfred that much? To bash his head in? Such a bloody way. "Love along the Nile" was all but finished. Actually, she could finish it herself; it wouldn't take much to delete dead Fred from her disk copy, add a little more steam, and let Wendy Winsome go out in a last hurrah.

"No, we haven't made any progress." Detective Pierce looked wearily across his desk at Marcy. "We know Doolittle was alive at the time he sent you the fax. His place is so isolated, no one saw anything that afternoon. If his sister hadn't dropped in when she got back to town, he'd be lying there yet. Have you thought of anyone who wanted him dead?"

Marcy shook her head. "There's a couple of people at the monthly writers' group who don't really care for Alfred, he is -- was -- such an odd little man. Since we work together, they wouldn't say anything against him to me, even if they hated his good fortune with the Wendy Winsome books."

"Wendy Winsome? Really?" Pierce's surprise was evident. "He was her? My wife dotes on those books."

"Many women do," said Marcy, wishing the royalties were hers instead of a one-time fee for writing the love scenes. She got up. "I'd like to help."

"Be my guest. We're stumped."

Marcy's passion was reading mystery novels. She usually spotted the perpetrator halfway through the book. If I can do that, she thought, I ought to be able to figure out who killed Alfred. But real life wasn't as easy as fiction. Maybe if she wrote it all down, it would come clear. She began typing

"He was a small man, who scuttled when he walked and peered through thick, smeary glasses. Alfred Doolittle was nobody's hero, in person. But on paper, he was every character: hero and heroine, villain, mother, father, child. His books are every author's dream repeat sellers.

"Alfred's old house sits in ten wooded acres. His office -- a small, made-over kitchen pantry -- holds state-of-the-art computer, printer and phone-fax machines. Super-controlled air conditioning keeps everything working properly.

"Alfred was devoted to his sister Ethel. She was married to Bryce Colton, a ladies' man so slick you could slide off him if you got too close, though I never heard Alfred say anything derogatory about him. Bryce also writes, far more scholarly tomes. Bryce can't stand Alfred."

Marcy stopped typing. Did Bryce actually hate Alfred? Enough to kill? Surely Detective Pierce had questioned him, but maybe Bryce would open up to Marcy, as one writer to another. She made a face at the prospect. Bryce, who considered himself above criticism, hadn't come to writers' meetings since Amelia Grant had highly praised Alfred/Wendy's last book. Marcy turned off her computer and drove downtown.

His office door proclaimed "Bryce Colton, Consultant". What kind of consultant, it didn't say. She knocked once and walked into a flurry of movement. Bryce's secretary turned her back and quickly fumbled with her blouse buttons as he pretended to search the bookcase behind her desk.

"Sorry to interrupt."

"Oh, no interruption, Marcy," Bryce said smoothly, pulling out a book. "I was just looking something up."

Something up his secretary's skirt. "Can we talk? Privately?"

Bryce checked his watch. "For a minute. I've got to go help Ethel with the arrangements."

"You're going to bury Alfred already?"

"Why not?" Bryce shrugged. "It's clear how he died. The police have all the information. Whoever did it is long gone." Bryce motioned Marcy into his office and settled her in a leather chair. "Now, what can I do for you?"

"First, tell me how Ethel is taking this. And then tell me where you were yesterday afternoon, for starters."

Bryce raised his eyebrows. "Doing some sleuthing, are we, Miss March?" He leaned back complacently. "Ethel is devastated, of course. I'm sorry about Alfred, and it's no secret I detested the little shrimp, but the police know I was with Candy King at Porter's Pub from about two until early evening. I know you and Alfred are -- were -- friends, but I don't think my whereabouts is any of your concern."

Marcy rose. "Maybe not. But Alfred's death does concern me. There was no reason for it."

Bryce made a disparaging sound. "There's always a reason for everything. Now, I really must go. Ethel needs me."

Marcy walked out past the busily typing secretary, thinking, is it just that I don't like Bryce, or does he have something to hide?

"I'll have the shrimp salad," Marcy said to the heavily made up waitress at the Salad Kitchen. The lunch crowd was gone. "And I'd like to talk with you for a moment, if you have time. You're Candy King, aren't you?"

"Yeah. Whatsit to you? You a cop?"

"No way."

Candy pursed her too-red-lips. "Let me put your order in. Then I got only a minute." She hung the order ticket on a revolving wheel over the kitchen pass-through and plunked down across from Marcy. "What."

"Bryce Colton says you were with him yesterday afternoon."

"I already told the cops I was. At Porter's Pub."

"All afternoon?"

"Yeah...." she paused. "'Cept for a phone call he had to make from his car. We had dinner later."

"He didn't leave you alone, at all?"

"Just that little, for the call." Candy frowned. "Why?"

Marcy sighed. "Just wondered."

Candy got up. "That all? Your salad's ready."

The usually excellent salad tasted like disappointment.

* * *

Back at her computer, Marcy typed in her encounter with Candy and wondered whether she had really thought Candy was going to hang Bryce. Still, something about him didn't ring true; she wasn't sure just what it was. Maybe his insincere concern.

Marcy looked again at the last fax she had received.

Looked closer.

The smudges.

Two of them were just smudges. But the third ... it was a definite fingerprint. Not really clear, but....

Marcy picked up the phone. "Detective Pierce, did you find the original of Alfred Doolittle's fax to me in his office?"

"Just a minute." Marcy heard Pierce shuffle through papers. "Not listed here, why?"

"Because it should have been. He would have sent it just before he was killed. I sent my answer right back, within minutes."

A pause. "Right. Wasn't there, though. Not anywhere."

"What about a computer disk marked 'Love along the Nile'?"

More shuffling. "No. Lots of others, but not that one."

"I have something to show you. I'll be right down."

Pierce looked closely at the smudges. "Yes, they do look like prints, but only one might be clear enough to i.d."

"Want to know what I think?"

"Sure."

"I think they're blood, not ink. I think the killer sent the fax after Alfred was dead. Maybe for quite a while."

Pierce raised his brows. "But the time of death -- nineteen past four or thereabouts -- clicks with the body temp, give or take."

"I've thought about that. But Alfred's tiny office had a powerful air conditioner. What if the killer turned the temperature way down to make it seem he was killed later?"

Pierce rubbed his chin. "Possible."

"Could you check something for me?"

"If I can."

"See if any calls were made from Bryce Colton's car phone about the time Alfred's fax was sent?"

"You've got an idea about all this?"

"Just a hunch."

Minutes later, Pierce said, "No calls."

Marcy nodded. "Candy told me he was gone just long enough to make an 'important' call. I think he killed Alfred earlier; met her, then zipped back to Alfred's, sent me the fax that Alfred had ready but bloodied his fingers doing it. He couldn't take time to make another original. He waited for my answer and scooted back to Porter's to cover his tracks."

"What about the murder weapon? The computer disk? The messed-up original fax?"

"He's smart. He got rid of them all. But, if this print is clear enough to match with his, we might find something at his office building."

"What makes you so sure? Even without checking the print with Colton's?"

"Because," said Marcy, "look where the prints are on this fax I received. He put the fax into the machine with his left hand. Bryce Colton is a lefty. Alfred was right-handed."

The clear print matched Bryce Colton's left thumb. "Love along the Nile" was, like the other Wendy Winsome books, a best-seller. And Marcy March, through Alfred Doolittle's will, received the rights to continue to publish under the Winsome name.

She'd solved the mystery of Alfred's death ... by simply studying the fax.

NANCY SWEETLAND has been writing since 1962 when her first essay was published in Family Digest. Since then she's sold over 350 feature articles, 64 adult short stories; adult and juvenile poems, 40 children's magazine stories and six picture books. Regional and national awards include adult and juvenile fiction and poetry, essays, commercial copy writing and outdoor writing.

Copyrights (c) 2002 Nancy Sweetland

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