"The Stone Stairs of Death"

This is my second appearance in Wildside Press's Black Cat Weekly. As I wrote when "Turkish Muscle" appeared there in March 2026, I generally don't like selling my fiction to online-only publications, and this story was originally submitted to the print Black Cat Mystery Magazine in February of 2023 and accepted by editor Michael Bracken. When publisher John Betancourt announced that he was closing BCMM, though, I gave Michael my permission to run it as his story of the week in BCW, and he scheduled it for issue #260, which came out on August 23, 2026. This will be my fourth online-only publication — story #139 overall — and my last in BCW, since John B is shutting it down, too, in October '26.

The story is set in Savannah, Georgia, and "The Stone Steps of Death" are a real flight of stairs located right where I describe them. I walked up and down them several times during visits to Savannah in 2021 (with Laurie) and '23 (with Becca). Nobody died, either time.

It was gratifying to see that John made me the issue's lead story, and I love the little illustration he ran on its title page.

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