The Left-Handed Pistol

by Martin Hill Ortiz

About the Author: Martin Hill Ortiz, a native of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a professor of Pharmacology at the Ponce Health Sciences University in Puerto Rico where he lives with his wife and son. Over a score of his short stories have appeared in print, anthologies and online journals, including four in Mystery Weekly. This story is the third in the series of Philip Prince. He has authored four mystery thrillers, including A Predatory Mind and Never Kill A Friend.

Excerpt

Sheriff Wilton escorted me into his interview room, a cozy, toasty den with a pair of overstuffed chairs offset from each other at a ninety-degree angle. He offered me some Chivas on ice. Now this was the proper way to interrogate.

It was my third visit, my story becoming progressively more convoluted. Even though I was juggling fictions and half-truths, I thought my clarifications had made sense. I had shot an armed robber, making the mistake of being a hero: something I shouldn’t have done being on the run. The sheriff said that he believed my story of who I was and how I’d come to be at the bank. And I thought he did believe me. Or, so it seemed—except for the fact that he kept starting over, each time beginning by asking me my name.

This time I threw in a middle name. “Phillip Leroy Prince.”

“Leroy? You don’t look like a Leroy.” Which was his way of insinuating that I’d given him a phony name. Which I had.

“It’s French for ‘the king.’ “

“I’ve known a few Leroys, none of them were royal material.”

He snarled as he gave a canine scratch behind his ear. After this and a couple of bone-shuffling flops to his neck, he said, “You told the guard at the bank that you’re a paramedic. Trouble being, I can’t dig up the record of any paramedic named Phillip Prince.”

“I let my certification lapse.”

“Mm-hmm. Could be.” He leaned his head back. 

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