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Nevermore

by David Bart

About the Author: David Bart’s short fiction has been published in the Mystery Writers of America anthologies Show Business is Murder and A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime, which has recently been republished. He also has a story in the MWA anthology Life is Short and Then You Die as well as the anthology Fedora III. His short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Mystery Weekly Magazine.

Excerpt

Lyle tensed at the sudden sound of rushing air—flinched at a sickening thud, followed by the wet noise of a heavy object skidding over sodden leaves.

He let out his breath, the odor of moist earth nearly overwhelming him as he got to his feet and followed the muddy swath to the body. The killer’s legs and arms were oddly askew, crooked at impossible angles like a broken statue.

I’ll be damned. It worked.

Lyle picked up the killer’s gun, which had been fitted with a sound suppressor, and stuck it in his belt under an untucked shirt.

The Google plan had outlined the construction of a deadfall. Plenty of rope, a thick, heavy log suspended so it’d swing down in a lethal arc to smash hell out of whatever was in its path. Also, a release mechanism attached high up on a nearby cottonwood trunk. The plans recommended steel wire but Lyle had some shiny duct tape and so he’d used that because it works for everything.

Ten days earlier …

They hit the credit union at noon—piece of cake except for the hysterical cashier waving her arms. She’d totally lost her shit after knocking off his hockey mask, exposing Lyle’s ruined features, the woman shrieking as she clawed at his badly scarred face.

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