The Stephen Wasylyk Mystery MEGAPACK® by Stephen Wasylyk

Author:Stephen Wasylyk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: crime, detective, collection, mystery, sleuth
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2017-12-16T16:00:00+00:00

MATERNAL INSTINCT

Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, April 1994.

Peering into shop windows as he ambled down the street, Mace Crandall turned into the thrift shop. Why, he had no idea. Certainly he was far above the socioeconomic market segment—words beloved by those engaged in the profession of separating people from their money—for which thrift shops were created. But then his father had often said through the years, loudly and well within his hearing, that Mace was an idiot who seldom had an idea of why he did many of the things he did.

A stroll through the aisles brought him face-to-face with a rack of umbrellas ranging from a dainty, lacy pink parasol resurrected from a genteel attic, to a huge, garish golf umbrella that was certain to attract any lightning bolt in the vicinity.

At the end of the rack were several canes and walking sticks. Atop one, a flattened wolf’s head bared fangs at him in a malevolent grin. He lifted it delicately between thumb and forefinger as though expecting to be bitten.

The silvery hardwood had grown in a convoluted, squashed sort of a question mark, transformed by a creative carver into the wolf’s head and fitted to a darker, almost purple ferrule.

Below the head one brass band concealed the seam; there was another about two inches below it.

Heavy. Hefting it, he considered that he had absolutely no use for a walking stick. Five minutes later he walked out with it under his arm.

His father would have predicted it. You have a talent for wasting money, he’d often said. It’s the only talent you have.

* * * *

Ada Rayburn turned from her cab at the apartment house entrance in time to see him walking up the street with the stick tucked under his arm. Looked a little like Fred Astaire strolling up the avenue. Give him a top hat, and he’d break into a tap dance. She’d always liked Fred Astaire. Not too fond of Ginger Rogers, though. Probably because Ginger was lithe and well shaped; while in her youth, Ada was tall, stout, and as light on her feet as a cement mixer. Still the same, but with gray hair added.

She had once met his mother. A colorless type with a perpetual vacant smile. And knew his father, which explained his mother. Living with the elder Crandall for thirty years was the equivalent of a self-inflicted lobotomy. Crandall’s expertise was not in handling people, but money. Not cash that could be counted, stacked, banded, or hidden under a mattress, but the kind generated by a mysterious computer somewhere which absorbed, digested, and spewed forth ever increasing numbers on reams of paper which gave people the illusion they were acquiring wealth.

Ada, however, knew wealth when she saw it. She’d been married to a man skilled at marketing and turning a profit, but at a loss when it came to investing the profits after he made them. To Ada, though, the mysteries and nuances of the financial markets were an open book.

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