Mystery Midrash by Joel Siegel

Author:Joel Siegel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery; Jewish mystery fiction; Detective Fiction; Jewish identity; Lawrence W. Raphael; Joel Siegel; Toni Brill; Howard Engel; Richard Fliegel; Michael A. Kahn; Stuart M. Kaminsky; Faye Kellerman; Ronald Levitsky; Ellen Rawlings; Shelley Singer; Bob Sloan; Janice Steinberg; James Yaffe; Batya Swift Yasgur
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Published: 2011-12-29T00:00:00+00:00

ELLEN RAWLINGS is a former editor, management analyst, and college English teacher. She has published five Regency romances and two mysteries (both mysteries with the Jewish heroine Rachel Crowne). This is Rachel’s first appearance in a short story, which takes place near the author’s home in Columbia, Maryland.

Poison

. . . . . . .

ELLEN RAWLINGS

I GOT A PHONE CALL from a woman named Joanne Koppel. She said she was Meredith Whitney’s agent. “I mean ex-agent,” she said.

I already knew about that. “Yes?”

“Well, she’s been murdered, and I’m afraid people will believe I did it. I thought I might hire you to clear my name.”

I knew about the murder, too. “Did you kill her?” I asked. “Meredith thought you might.”

I heard her draw in a deep breath. “Maybe I don’t want to hire you after all.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ve already been hired—by the victim before she died.”

I first met Meredith Whitney—that was her pen name; her real name was Myrna Weinstein—at the annual Romance Writers of America convention. It was being held in Fairfield, Maryland, which is where I live. Meredith lived there, too.

I don’t write romances. I was there because I was doing an article on the convention and some of its stellar attendees. Meredith wasn’t just stellar; she was galactic.

I’m not. I’m a freelance writer of little fame. Sometimes, I’m an amateur detective. My name is Rachel Crowne, though Crowne should really be Cohen. When my great-grandfather came over from Russia, having drawn the number “one” in the Tsar’s army lottery, and thus free to emigrate, the official at Ellis Island changed the name to Crowne. And that’s what it’s been since.

“Has a man been in here asking for me?” Meredith said as she seated herself carefully on the barstool next to mine at the Lakeside Hotel. She hadn’t told me her name, assuming, I guess, that I’d know who she was. She was right.

She arranged her silk skirt so that its slit opened invitingly along the length of one black, lacy stocking. “He’s tall, dark, and handsome—naturally,” she added with a giggle.

I shook my head.

“He isn’t?” She looked upset.

I was fingering the small gold and blue-enameled mezzuzah I wear around my neck. She looked at it, then said, “Ah, a landsman. What’s your name?”

When I introduced myself, she looked baffled. “Are you anybody? I’ve never heard of you.”

“My family and friends think I am.”

Her laugh had an unpleasant edge to it. “Everybody’s family and friends think so. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. I mean, are you anybody to the public?”

It was evident from her peacocky air that she thought she was, and, as I’ve mentioned, she was right. Meredith was probably the most popular romance writer in the world. She’d even managed in the last few years to get herself onto the New York Times best-seller list, a place where romance writers don’t usually show up.

She looked successful, too: blonde power hairdo, a beautifully made dinner suit, and huge diamonds seeming to weigh down her skinny hands and wrists.

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