Story Excerpts

Farewell to Baytown
by William Bankier and Josh Pachter

My name is Luke, and I hustle trays of beer in the men’s beverage room at Baytown’s Coronet Hotel. I want to tell you about something that happened during the summer when the man who wrote the stories about Baytown died. I never read them, so I can’t say if they were any good. But a famous magazine published them, so they must have had something going for them.

The Banner printed the author’s obit and used a picture that showed a geezer with glasses, not much hair, and a sheepish grin on his face, like he knew the joke was on him. He was living in West Hollywood, California, when he died, and had been married for a second time. Cause of death was listed as a heart attack due to a burst aorta. He died instantly, which meant he had a free pass to Endsville, unlike many geezers who have to ride the slow train to the end of the line. READ MORE

The Poisons Garden
by Janet Hutchings

A package out for delivery. That’s what she was. Deposited on the train by Aunt Lyla’s butler in Manhattan and collected by the Havimores’ man-of-all-work from the station at Rhinecliff. Anything to make sure she got out of New York, where she was spending too many hours, in her aunt’s opinion, in the company of Mr. Ellery Queen.

She consented largely due to Ellery’s absence, but that was beyond Lyla’s comprehension. Not that Ellery wasn’t around; he phoned regularly, pleading with her to come over and type some correspondence or other. But mentally he was orbiting in another galaxy, caught in the gravity of his last case. The whole matter would have had the aspect of a Gothic novel—complete with penniless heiress, sinister relations, a rumored hidden fortune, and (incredibly) a disappearing house—were it not for the very real evil that had lain in wait for Ellery. READ MORE