"He Was Killed Because He Knew the Robber"

Here's one of Ed Hoch's relatively rare non-series mysteries, in which a non-professional "detective" must figure out why a friendly gathering terminates with a . . .

"Midsummer Night's Scream."

By Edward D. Hoch (1930-2008).

First appearance: Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, April 1980.

No known reprints.

Short short story (9 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text page 103).

   "The victim was shot once in the back of the head by someone he knew—someone at the party."

Don't you just love it when the killer, unrepentant, sums it all up? "I did it for you—don't you see that? Now we're both free and I've got his money. And the store!" But that's not the way it is, not at all . . .

Principal characters:

~ Mark (no last name narrator):

  "'I want to find out why you killed Andy,' I said quietly."

~ Helen Riggs:

  ". . . laid a hand on my tanned forearm. 'You're always so cool about everything, Mark. Maybe that was part of the trouble'."

~ Charles Riggs:

  "He avoided my eyes and said, 'Yeah. Sally Tern. Cute kid'."

~ Sally Tern:

  "She wasn't a bad girl, really, and in other days I might have found her a pleasant companion."

~ Nelse Walker:

  ". . . was in real estate, which was a profitable field in a fast-growing suburban community like Elmbrook."

~ Mrs. Walker:

  "People tended to talk around her, or through her, and to forget her first name."

~ Gert Obern:

  "She turned, startled, then smiled when she saw what I held. 'Didn't you see it? I brought it along to show you'."

~ Fritz Obern:

  "I should have seen the writing on the wall, but I didn't. So I'm forty years old and out of work."

~ Barbara Barron:

  "Barbara — tight-jeaned, smiling and sure of herself — shot me a special look reserved for divorced men."

~ Chief of Police Lambert:

  "Can you all account for your time during the last couple of hours?"

~ Andy Barron:

  "'He's dead, Mrs. Barron. Somebody shot him.' That was when she screamed."

References and resources:

- "July 31 is the eve of Lammas, one of the four witches' Sabbaths, like Halloween":

  "In the Inspector Morse episode 'Day of the Devil', Lammas Day is presented as a Satanic (un)holy day, 'the Devil's day'." (Wikipedia HERE and HERE.)

- Hoch apparently liked the title of today's story so much that he modified it to "Midsummer Night's Scheme" for one of his Walt Stanton/Juliet Ives stories in the May 2004 issue of EQMM.

- Our previous meeting with Ed Hoch, this one with a series 'tec, was (HERE).

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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