Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 49, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2004

“Right as rain, and then I just staked out a place to wait and I waited. Once you showed up, I knew my plan was cooking. I stayed on your trail and, well, here we are, sir, where I have wanted and prayed to be for years.” He swung his palms out and over like he was getting ready to catch rain. “In the presence of the fabulous, magnificent lady herself, Miss Diana Demarest. Are you ready to admit it to me yet, Miss Demarest? So I’ll be able to share the wonderful news with all your legions of fans throughout the world that you’re still alive?”

Alice looked at him with mounting distaste. “You nut case. You need to be put away for good, once and for all. Under lock and key and never let out. Leave now or I’m calling the police.”

“You would not do that. Not after I’ve waited, worshipped, and prayed for all these years.”

Alice stepped over to the phone.

His head rattling left and right, a guttural denial raging from his throat, his joy collapsing, McCracken circumvented the sofa and rushed toward her.

Mickey leaped up and blocked his way. McCracken tried to push him aside, but Mickey wrapped him in a lover’s tight embrace, strapping McCracken’s arms to his side. From somewhere, McCracken summoned an abnormal burst of power. He broke loose, pushed Mickey to the floor, and fell on top of him. He worked into a sitting position and began pummeling Mickey on his chest and about the face.

Mickey felt his left cheek snap under one blow, his nose on the next one. He felt the flow of warm blood from both nostrils racing down the side of his neck. He vaguely saw Alice reaching after something. A moment later, as darkness began to cloud his consciousness, he heard Alice bring the blue crystal vase down on Murphy McCracken’s head. As black ashes watered McCracken’s silver hair and flowed down his face, Mickey heard a whimper of despair, and then he heard nothing at all.

Thirty-six hours after his encounter with Murphy McCracken, Mickey roused from his drug-supported sleep in a private room at Cedars-Sinai, Pop at his bedside, assuring him, “The doctors told me you’ll live, but getting that busted-up puss of yours back to beautiful will take time. I told them, ‘Beautiful? I always knew this was a great hospital, but I didn’t know that you performed miracles.’ ”

Mickey tried laughing, but it hurt too much.

He wondered, “McCracken?” hardly able to pronounce the name past the bandages mummifying half his face.

“Unfortunately, Diana Demarest only hit him hard enough to bust his skull a little, so he’ll live, too. He’s being charged with aggravated assault. It could have been manslaughter in the first degree, except for Wonder Woman here.”

Mickey worked his chin up and saw her peering back at him from behind Pop’s chair, an air of relief playing on her face. He worked his jaw a little to loosen the bandages and make his voice more than a mumble.

“So, I was right. And so was McCracken. You are Diana.”

“No, sorry, Mickey, I’m not. When your father said Diana hit McCracken, he meant the vase containing my sister’s ashes. I’m still Alice, and this—” She held up an envelope for him to see and turned it over to Murray. “—this is your authorization to take whatever you want from my storage garage and from the house for our Absolutely Live

tribute to Sis.”

She noticed the question mark in eyes Mickey could barely keep open. Explained, “I’m heading for New York tonight on the red-eye to take care of estate business my lawyer called to say he urgently needs me for. It may take a while, Smitty said, but I’ll be in touch.”

“Be in the show?”

“Maybe. We’ll talk.” She moved around and leaned over him, kissed his forehead. Murray rose and held out his hand to her. Instead of taking it, she answered him with a hug, then hurried from the room, pausing for a backward glance and a goodbye wave before she disappeared.

Murray watched her leave, then he settled into the chair again and said, “So let’s double-check what we have ourselves here.”

He pulled a single sheet of elegant but inexpensive powder blue stationery from the envelope. The letter of authorization had been handwritten in black ballpoint, a flowing hand, every word letter-precise. Murray moved his lips while reciting the words under his breath. He got about halfway through before falling silent. He held out the sheet for Mickey to see and said, “Take a good look for yourself.”

Mickey struggled to fix focus, asking, “Is something wrong, Pop?”

“Authorization signed by Alice Buckingham, as clear as can be to let you go about our business, but the handwriting, that’s something else again. Her handwriting was always as distinctive as her signature, any time I saw it, so I’m ready to swear it on your dear mother’s gravestone that we just said goodbye to Diana Demarest.”

Mickey was discharged from Cedars-Sinai the next morning. Murray drove them to the house in Atwater.

There was a FOR LEASE sign posted on the parkway lawn. No evidence inside of its most recent occupant.