The Best of the Best American Mystery Stories Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Hot Springs

  The Weekender

  The Dark Snow

  Karen Makes Out

  Red Clay

  Faithless

  Poachers

  Running Out of Dog

  Lobster Night

  The Paperhanger

  It Is Raining in Bejucal

  Midnight Emissions

  Home Sweet Home

  All Through the House

  Disaster Stamps of Pluto

  When All This Was Bay Ridge

  Case Closed

  Loyalty

  Her Lord and Master

  Improvisation

  Contributors’ Notes

  About the Editor

  Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

  Introduction copyright © 2014 by Otto Penzler

  All rights reserved.

  The Best American Series® is a registered trademark of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. The Best American Mystery Stories™ is a trademark of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the proper written permission of the copyright owner unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law. With the exception of nonprofit transcription in Braille, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is not authorized to grant permission for further uses of copyrighted selections reprinted in this book without the permission of their owners. Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners as identified herein. Address requests for information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

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  eISBN 978-0-544-31343-9

  v1.0414

  “Lobster Night” by Russell Banks. First published in Esquire. Copyright © 2000 by Russell Banks. Reprinted from Angel on the Roof by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

  “It Is Raining in Bejucal” by John Biguenet. First published in Zoetrope. Copyright © 2001 by AZX Publications. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “All Through the House” by Christopher Coake. First published in The Gettysburg Review. Copyright © 2003 by Christopher Coake. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Hot Springs” by James Crumley. First published in Murder for Love. Copyright © 1996 by James Crumley. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Weekender” by Jeffery Deaver. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Copyright © 1996 by Jeffery Deaver. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Dark Snow” by Brendan DuBois. First published in Playboy. Copyright © 1996 by Brendan DuBois. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Disaster Stamps of Pluto” by Louise Erdrich. First Published in The New Yorker. Copyright © 2004 by Louise Erdrich. Reprinted by permission of the Wylie Agency, Inc.

  “Poachers” by Tom Franklin. First published in Texas Review. Copyright © 1998 by Tom Franklin. Reprinted by permission of Texas Review.

  “The Paperhanger” by William Gay. Copyright © 2000 by William Gay. First published in Harper’s Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Her Lord and Master” by Andrew Klavan. First published in Dangerous Women. Copyright © 2005 by Andrew Klavan. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Running Out of Dog” by Dennis Lehane. First published in Murder and Obsession.

  Copyright © 1999 by Dennis Lehane. Reprinted by permission of Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency, Inc.

  “Karen Makes Out” by Elmore Leonard. First published in Murder for Love. Copyright © 1996 by Elmore Leonard. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Improvisation” by Ed McBain. First published in Dangerous Women. Copyright © 2005 by Hui Corporation. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “When All This Was Bay Ridge” by Tim McLoughlin. First published in Brooklyn Noir. Copyright © 2004 by Tim McLoughlin. Reprinted by permission of Akashic Books.

  “Red Clay” by Michael Malone. First published in Murder for Love. Copyright © 1996 by Michael Malone. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Case Closed” by Lou Manfredo. First published in Brooklyn Noir. Copyright © 2004 by Lou Manfredo. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Faithless” by Joyce Carol Oates. First published in Kenyon Review. Copyright © 1997 by The Ontario Review, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Home Sweet Home” by Hannah Tinti. First published in Epoch. Copyright © 2002 by Hannah Tinti. Reprinted by permission of Aragi Inc. and Hannah Tinti. Reprinted in Animal Crackers by Hannah Tinti. Copyright © 2004 by Hannah Tinti. Reprinted by permission of The Dial Press, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

  “Midnight Emissions” by F.X. Toole. First published in Murder on the Ropes. Copyright © 2001 by F.X. Toole. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Loyalty” by Scott Turow. First published in Playboy. Copyright © 2004 by Scott Turow. Reprinted by permission of Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc.

  Introduction

  It is noteworthy to point out that 2014 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the publication of the first volume of The Best American Short Stories, the distinguished annual series that quite likely is the most important and influential publishing venture of its kind. The 1915 first edition was edited by Edward O’Brien, who continued in that role until 1941. In his twenty-seven years as the editor, in a time when countless thousands of short stories were being published in hundreds of magazines (he once claimed that he read eight thousand stories a year), he attempted to produce volumes that ignored merely popular writers while highlighting those whose works he believed would be the most enduring. An early admirer and champion of Ernest Hemingway, for instance, O’Brien selected his story “My Old Man” before it had been published and then helped Hemingway find a publisher for his first book.

  The Best American Mystery Stories cannot claim equal longevity, having its first edition published in 1997, nor can it claim to have discovered Hemingway’s successor to the title of the greatest American author of the century and a Nobel Prize winner, as Hemingway was back when the prize was based purely on literary merit not a political statement as it has been so often in recent years.

  But it can make some significant claims. Wait—not claims, but irrefutable facts, which is a different kettle of mackerel.

  This collection memorializes a small selection of these points of pride. The stories contained here are my personal selection (having been the series editor since its inception) of the best work that has appeared in the first decade of the distinguished life of The Best American Mystery Stories. There can be little doubt that the series takes it as a badge of honor that it has published a Nobel Laureate (Alice Munroe), Pulitzer Prize winners (John Updike, Elizabeth Strout), and National Book Award winners (Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Pete Dexter, Louise Erdrich).

  It is no less heartwarming to note that quite a few authors had never had a book published before their stories were selected for inclusion in one of the annual volumes. There are, in fact, too many to document, but among those who are included in this collection is Tom Franklin, whose memorable story “Poachers” won the Edgar Allan Poe Award, given by the Mystery Writers of America, and became the
title story of his first book, Poachers: Stories. He has gone on to write three novels on his own and one with his wife, Beth Ann Fennelly. His most recent solo effort, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, was nominated for an Edgar and won the British Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award.

  Christopher Coake’s shocking story “All Through the House” paved the way for his first book contract and served as the centerpiece of We’re in Trouble: Stories which he followed with the highly acclaimed novel You Came Back.

  Lou Manfredo introduced his New York cop Joe Rizzo in the short story “Case Closed.” He later decided to use it as the opening chapter of his first novel, Rizzo’s War, which has been followed by two others in a series that has been compared to the 87th Precinct novels of Ed McBain.

  The contributors to the books in The Best American Mystery Stories series, it is evident, run the gamut, from the most honored authors in America, the superstars, to beginners trying to establish themselves in a difficult profession, the rookies. Their stories were selected for only one reason: their excellence. No story was ever picked because it was by a “name” or because it was a bestseller or because it was written by a friend or because it appeared in an important publication. Neither were any selected because of someone’s idea of an appropriate demographic. Criticism has been leveled at the series because the books did not contain some arbitrarily cited notion of what should have been in them: more young authors, more women, more detective stories, more Southern writers, more stories from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, more cozy writers. Conversely, there have been cries about what should not have been in these books: too many noir writers, too many crime stories, too many “literary” stories, too many Southern writers, too many stories from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, too many stories with dirty words, blah, blah, blah. These comments have been offered by those who abuse the privilege of being stupid, but I thank them for their interest.

  It may be redundant for me to write this again, as regular readers of this series will attest (as they roll their eyes and find the repetition as annoying as gnats to a tightrope walker) that I have already explained it in each of the previous seventeen volumes, but it falls into the category of fair warning to state that many people regard a “mystery” as a detective story. I regard the detective story as one subgenre of a much bigger genre, which I define as any short work of fiction in which a crime, or the threat of a crime, is central to the theme or the plot. While I love good puzzles and tales of pure ratiocination, few of these are written today as the mystery genre has evolved (for better or worse, depending upon your point of view) into a more character-driven form of literature, with more emphasis on the why of a crime’s commission than an examination of “who done it” or how it was “perpetrated.” The line between mystery fiction and general fiction has become more and more blurred in recent years, producing fewer memorable detective stories but more significant literature.

  It is an honor and a pure joy, making me as happy as a teenager with car keys, to be asked to select my favorite stories from that glorious first decade of The Best American Mystery Stories. The pursuit of the best stories in this exciting genre of literature is an enormous undertaking, albeit not an unpleasant one. It is a year-long quest, largely enabled by my invaluable colleague, Michele Slung, who culls the mystery magazines, both print and electronic, for suitable stories, just as she does short story collections (works by a single author) and anthologies (works by a variety of authors), popular magazines, electronic magazines, and, perhaps the richest trove to be mined, literary journals. As the fastest and smartest reader I have ever known, she looks at about three thousand to five thousand stories a year, largely to determine which are mysteries (you can’t tell a story by its title), and then to determine which are worth serious consideration. I then read the harvested crop, passing along the best fifty (or at least those I liked best) to the guest editor, who selects twenty to be reprinted, with the other thirty being listed in an honor roll as “Other Distinguished Mystery Stories.”

  While I have largely agreed with my guest editors in their selections, it is comforting to know that my choices for the stories to be included in this collection won’t be overridden. It would be impossible to overpraise the efforts of the guest editors who have contributed so much time and effort to make the volumes in this series so outstanding. Because the guest editors are some of the most successful authors in America, the demands on their time cannot be calculated, keeping them busier than Lucille Ball in a candy factory.

  In addition to writing their books, they are asked to promote them, heading off on tours with late-night or early-morning flights (and we all know how much fun passing through security lines at the airport can be), giving interviews, writing blogs, making bookshop appearances to sign books, meeting sales people and executives at their publishing houses, and so on. Because they are successful not only in America, they are often asked to do the same things in various countries around the world. They are frequently asked to read other authors’ books and provide quotes for their dust jackets or in advertisements (and because they are exceptionally nice people, it is difficult for them to turn down a request from another author’s agent, editor, esteemed colleague, or friend). They are relentlessly asked to speak at charity events and colleges and other schools, to make appearances at mystery conventions and book trade shows, and to show up to receive an award or be a guest of honor at some event or other. These are all flattering and pleasant on an individual basis but cumulatively can wear down the strongest person. And I haven’t mentioned the notion that these guest editors might have personal lives replete with spouses, children, parents, and friends who also make demands on their time.

  It cannot be with glee, then, that any of them received my request to be a guest editor, which they undoubtedly found as welcome as getting gum in their hair. Mostly, they were too courteous and gracious to respond in the manner in which they undoubtedly would have preferred. Deep, genuine, heartfelt thanks then go out to the guest editors of the first ten volumes in the series: Robert B. Parker, Sue Grafton, Ed McBain, Donald E. Westlake, Lawrence Block, James Ellroy, Michael Connelly, Nelson DeMille, Joyce Carol Oates, and Scott Turow. (This takes nothing away from the guest editors of the subsequent volumes, and I hope there will be an opportunity to properly acknowledge them at another time.)

  So here you have it. This modest-sized collection, it is hoped, will appeal to the most discriminating and demanding taste. It is the culmination of ten years’ worth of reading, of literary treasure hunting that offers a trove that would satisfy Goldilocks. If you are encountering some of these stories for the first time, I envy you.

  O. P.

  JAMES CRUMLEY

  Hot Springs

  FROM Murder for Love

  AT NIGHT, EVEN in the chill mountain air, Mona Sue insisted on cranking the air conditioner all the way up. Her usual temperature always ran a couple of degrees higher than normal, and she claimed that the baby she carried made her constant fever even worse. She kept the cabin cold enough to hang meat. During the long, sleepless nights, Benbow spooned to her naked, burning skin, trying to stay warm.

  In the mornings, too, Mona Sue forced him into the cold. The modern cabin sat on a bench in the cool shadow of Mount Nihart, and they broke their fast with a room-service breakfast on the deck, a robe wrapped loosely about her naked body while Benbow bundled into both sweats and a robe. She ate furiously, stoking a furnace, and recounted her dreams as if they were gospel, effortlessly consuming most of the spread of exotic cheeses and expensively unseasonable fruits, a loaf of sourdough toast, and four kinds of meat, all the while aimlessly babbling through the events of her internal night, the dreams of a teenage girl, languidly symbolic and vaguely frightening. She dreamed of her mother, young and lovely, devouring her litter of barefoot boys in the dark Ozark hollows. And her father, home from a Tennessee prison, his crooked member dangling against her smooth cheek.

  Benbow suspected she left the b
est parts out and did his best to listen to the soft southern cadences without watching her face. He knew what happened when he watched her talk, watched the soft moving curve of her dark lips, the wise slant of her gray eyes. So he picked at his breakfast and tried to focus his stare downslope at the steam drifting off the large hot-water pool behind the old shagbark lodge.

  But then she switched to her daydreams about their dubious future, which were as deadly specific as a .45 slug in the brainpan: after the baby, they could flee to Canada; nobody would follow them up there. He listened and watched with the false patience of a teenage boy involved in his first confrontation with pure lust and hopeless desire.

  Mona Sue ate with the precise and delicate greed of a heart surgeon, the pad of her spatulate thumb white on the handle of her spoon as she carved a perfect curled ball from the soft orange meat of her melon. Each bite of meat had to be balanced with an equal weight of toast before being crushed between her tiny white teeth. Then she examined each strawberry poised before her darkly red lips as if it might be a jewel of great omen and she some ancient oracle, then sank her shining teeth into the fleshy fruit as if it were the mortal truth. Benbow’s heart rolled in his chest as he tried to fill his lungs with the cold air to fight off the heat of her body.

  Fall had come to the mountains, now. The cottonwoods and alders welcomed the change with garish mourning dress, and in the mornings a rime of ice covered the windshield of the gray Taurus he had stolen at the Denver airport. New snow fell each night, moving slowly down the ridges from the high distant peaks of the Hard Rock Range, and slipped closer each morning down the steep ridge behind them. Below the bench the old lodge seemed to settle more deeply into the narrow canyon, as if hunkering down for eons of snow, and the steam from the hot springs mixed with wood smoke and lay flat and sinuous among the yellow creek willows.