“Okay, okay.” Rowan rubbed his face. “Can it be ingested?”
“That would make it awful for hunting. No, there ain’t no effect when you swallow it.”
“Absorbed by the skin?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“It must be injected?”
“Yup.”
“That does not help. I have a woman who…” He raised his head. “Does it matter where it is injected?”
“As long as it comes in contact with capillaries. Cases have been reported of blow darts landing on the meat-paw of a boar and still workin’ their effect. Depending on where it enters the body, it might take more time. If you inject it directly into the bloodstream, we’re talking five minutes. Once…What the hell’s wrong with you?”
Rowan was standing now. “How long would the effect take if the curare were introduced into capillaries rather than the bloodstream?”
“Thirty minutes. Maybe forty.”
“How is curare detected?”
“We ain’t found a way yet. It goes from the blood to the tissue and then vanishes, plum undetectable.”
Rowan’s heart raced in his chest. His limbs felt light and he thought he might faint. “How much is needed?”
“Less than a thimble. Now look here detective—”
“Is there a factory involved in the production of needles in Glenview?”
“Ya’ll mean a needle plant?”
“Is there?”
“Yes sir, John James. We bought it out last year.”
“Thank you, Doctor Brown.”
“Now looky here, my boy ain’t bad, just confused.”
“I am not interested in your boy.”
The puzzle pieces had been forced into the wrong places. Now the frayed, interlocking edges fit uneasily together in front of him. Perhaps they would—
“Hey.”
Rowan stopped at the front door and looked back to the desk.
The woman peeked out from the last few pages of her novel. “Are you a friend of Walter’s?”
“I am.”
“Tell him that if he ever finds himself back in Adair, he needs to make sure to stop in and say hi to Lucy.”
CHAPTER 15 and then there were two
12:02 p.m. Wednesday, April 18th
Rowan lurched into The Brown Bear and sidled to the bar. His reflection in the mirror was unrecognizable. The details were all there—mustache, fat gloomy cheeks, broad nose—but the gleam, that telltale gleam of life that flashes from the eyes, was absent.
Dave wiped the bar clean. “You know, Manory, it’s not my job to tell a paying customer that they have a problem. Hell, that would be awful for my business.”
“I need you to do something for me, Dave. Will you help me?”
“Sure. You name it.”
“Can you call down to the precinct and read this message to the desk man?”
Dave took the sheet of paper from his hands. He looked it over. “You want me to read this?”
“If you would be so kind.”
“Can I ask you one question?”
Rowan nodded.
“Why don’t you tell them yourself?”
“Because they might recognize the sound of my voice.”
“And why—”
“You’re about to ask a second question, Dave. I only agreed to answer one.”
“When you’re right, you’re right.” Dave dialed the station. He spoke in a falsetto. “Hello, this is…Tina. You need to go to 1422 Montrose. Timothy Brown is upstairs in the bed, dead of an apparent morphine overdose. Lying next to him, you will find the same razor used to kill Allison Miller. I shall call you soon with further instructions. Um…have a nice day.”
“Thank you, Dave.”
“Are you still working on the case of the lady that fell?”
“Yes. Only two suspects remain; the list has been narrowed down, Chicago style.”
“And both of them could have done it?”
“Yes. They both had the opportunity. All I need is one more clue. I’m sure of it.”
“You think you’ll find that clue here?”
“No. I think I will find a glass of scotch here, and I could use a drink. Also some cigarettes.”
“You don’t smoke pre-rolled.”
“I do now.” His fingers rattled softly on the bar.
“I got something for you to try. Glendronach. The Czechs and the Germans know beer, but the Scots know whiskey.”
“What are you, Dave?”
“I’m Irish.”
“And what do you know?”
“I know how to marry the wrong gal and ruin my life.”
For the first time in days, a smile appeared on Rowan’s face. He held up the glass and through the ruddy liquid, saw a familiar image on Dave’s wall. The creases of the smile ironed out.
Dave turned around to see what Manory was staring at. “The flyers?”
Rowan pointed. “That one.”
Dave pulled it off the wall and placed it on the bar. “Maureen? Do you know her?”
“I do. Williams knew her too.”
“Oh yeah, did you talk with Walter?”
“About what?”
“He called here with a message for you. He said he solved the case.”
Rowan blinked. “Williams solved it?”
“Let me find that receipt.”
Rowan downed his whiskey. His fists scrunched the sides of the flyer.
Dave pulled it out from the register. “Here it is. ‘Walter solved it. You should have read the playbill. California here we come.’ That mean anything to you?”
Rowan fumbled through the pockets of his suit coat and pulled out the tobacco-crusted, folded playbill. He read it twice before the look of astonishment came to his face. He looked back at the flyer.
Dave polished a glass. “You’re not gonna like California. Everyone’s pretty over there. They ain’t ugly like you and me.”
“What have you got behind the bar, Dave?”
“My insulin and some Benzedrine. I don’t touch the hard stuff.”
“No, Dave. What have you got behind the bar?”
Dave paused. “A twenty-two. Why? I don’t like the way you look, Manory. You’re lookin’ feral.”
The alley behind Taylor fell under darkness. A mild rain drizzled through the gray, hazy sky. By the time Rowan reached the back gate of Edward Filius’s home it was pouring down harder and faster with swirling winds. The pavement under his feet turned black and slick. Water dripped off the sides of his face, blurring his vision. An earthy stench of Petrichor emanated from the wet neighborhood lawns. He poked his fingers through the chain link.
A walkway lay next to the house, extending from the gate to the front sidewalk. The bent, barren clothesline swayed over patches of muddy brown grass. All the curtains to the windows were drawn.
The metal made a tiny trill when Rowan flipped the latch, causing the hairs on the nape of his neck to rise with anticipation. The slow, steady croaking of the gate matched the tight rumbling in his gut. With one stolid step at a time, he marched toward the house.
He was nearly past the back yard when Maura Lewis came up the opposite side of the walkway. Her eyes were staring straight at the ground, looking out for the unlucky cracks and puddles. Rowan’s heart gave out an arrhythmic beat as he slid Dave Bowen’s twenty-two out of his suit pocket and waited.
Maura reached the house and, at the last possible moment, noticed Rowan at the fuzzy edges of her vision. The rain cascaded off the gutters and splashed on the pavement between them.
Rowan licked his lips and drew back the corners of his mouth. “Maureen Williams!”
CHAPTER 16 curtain
1:15 p.m. Tuesday, April 17th
She ran as fast as she could, cutting straight through the neighbor’s lawn out to the street. Rowan jogged a few meaningless steps but quickly lost his balance, flopping onto the concrete. The gun skidded along the walkway, splashing in the middle of a puddle. He rolled over in
to the mud, trying desperately to get his footing. Maura was gone. In those few seconds, the girl was gone.
The Chicago rain turned merciless, pelting him like a storm in a jungle. The flesh on his stomach and hands turned raw from scraping the concrete. Tiny cracks of blood seeped wet pink stains into his shirt. He thought he might sit there forever, wallowing in misery with his muscles easing into stillness and never moving again. But no…You have to catch her. Rowan pushed himself from the ground, pocketed the gun, and staggered around to the front porch.
The howling wind took hold of the door when Edward opened it. “Detective? What’s happened? You look awful.”
“I know. I am so sorry, Edward. I…May I use your phone one more time?”
“Do you need a doctor?”
“Only the telephone.” Rowan spread a filthy trail of mud across the wood floor while Edward struggled to pull the door shut. His hands shook as he dialed the station. “Grady.”
“Manory. Good God, where are you? You need to get down to 1422 Montrose.”
“Grady, Maura Lewis is running down Taylor toward Schiff. Send everyone you can after her.”
“Fine, but we found Tim Brown. He’s—”
“Maura’s your priority now. You cannot let her escape.” Rowan hung up the phone and leaned over the back of the chair until he heard something crack. “Oh God, I am tired, Edward.”
“You found Maura?”
“She will be taken in soon enough. The girl cannot hide forever.”
Edward shook his head with disapproval. “It’s not Maura. Whatever you’re thinking, whatever scheme you’ve got in your head, it’s wrong. Timothy is—”
“Dead.”
His voice quieted. “Tim’s dead?” Edward fell onto the arm of the sofa. It was as if all the air had been released from his body. “Oh, no.”
“Overdose. Whether accidental or intentional, I do not know. I discovered his body this morning along with both of the murder weapons.”
“Both?”
Rowan dug into his pocket and tossed Edward one of Lisa’s earrings. “Give the post a twist,” he said, twiddling his fingers in the air.
Edward did as instructed. The post pulled free from the hollow, smoky glass ball.
“Do you know what curare is, Edward?”
“Not really. I know it’s a chemical. I delivered a shipment to the hospital.”
“That’s right, you did. It was on the day before opening night, I believe.” Rowan took a quick look out the window, checking if Maura was lurking outside. “Do you know what it does?”
As Rowan explained the effects of curare, Edward ran his nail down the post, finding the tiny groove of the hole. “Yeah, but how would this earring work?”
“It is quite simple. The post is much like the needle on a bicycle pump. Of course, the dimensions would be an issue. It had to match the gauge of Lisa’s earrings. To solve this dilemma, the post was made at the John James needle plant in Glenview. The end of one needle was pressed into the beginning of another and then filed down to the proper size. The glass pearl was made at Eisenberg’s Jewelry. I found their business card in Tim’s wallet. They make theatrical jewelry. In fact, they made Lisa’s real earrings for the play. It was quite the appropriate finale for an actress, don’t you think? Killed by artifice.”
Edward squeezed the earring in a fist before setting it on the coffee table. “Let me tell you about Maura Lewis, because you seem to have the wrong idea about her.”
“I’ve never met Maura Lewis.” He pulled out a Camel with his teeth.
“Maura is childlike. She keeps a diary. She makes silly jokes. We were at Danny’s Restaurant last week, and she…she…she played peek-a-boo with a baby at another table.” He pointed at the earring. “You’re telling me she’s an evil genius who could plot something like this. I can’t believe it.”
“Oh, Edward, I know a sap when I see one. Believe me, I do. There’s one staring back at me in the mirror every morning. Maura’s a very good actress, a pretty good storyteller too. Right about now, I am supposed to think that this case is wrapped up. That was her plan anyway. Now, I can finally see the whole puzzle. Maura will be captured soon and brought to justice. While we wait, I will explain it to you. Forgive me if I ramble a bit; it will be the first time I say all this out loud.”
Edward threw his arms in the air. “You can try.”
“Lisa Pluviam had a plan—a rather clever one—to kill her sister.” He took a drag. “God, they taste awful. Grizz agreed to kill Jenny Pluviam in exchange for two things: a portion of her inheritance and some pyrotol. Do you know what that is?”
Edward nodded. “I read about it in the newspaper. It was used in the bombing.”
Rowan’s eyes widened. “Yes, they waited to release that information in the newspapers. That detail plays a small role in the story. But I won’t get ahead of myself just yet. God knows it’s easy to lose yourself in the dizzying details. Grizz received the pyrotol from Lisa, but he was unable to collect the money for reasons that are now quite obvious. The wrong Pluviam died. More importantly, Grizz was identified as being near the location of the bombing. This unfortunate turn of events sent him into hiding. But this plot, which I wasted so much time on, is neither here nor there; it is essentially a red herring. Let us drop Grizz for the moment and focus our attention on Lisa.” He paced as he spoke, the pink stain spreading across the gut of his untucked shirt. “The weekend before the play, Lisa accompanied Timothy to Adair. That’s how she obtained the pyrotol. After that, she had no more use for him. With the incendiary material in a suitcase and the, shall we call it, carnal pleasures had, Lisa ended their tryst.”
“Did Timothy make the death threat?”
“Keep up, Edward. The death threat is not important. It never was.” A lightning bolt flashed somewhere far off in the dark gray sky. Trees bent over backwards, the sound of their rustling branches filtered into the room softly, offering only hints of outdoor fury. “You are an actor. You concern yourself with plots. Let us examine the plot Maura so desperately wants me to believe. She would like me to think Timothy was so heartbroken, he decided to kill Lisa. I freely admit some of the Timothy theory fits. He had access to curare because his father is developing it for use in surgical procedures, and Timothy could have easily had the posts made in Glenview. The earrings are studs, which would allow for a natural, rather smooth flow through the post. Tim knew that Lisa bled whenever she wore earrings. It took longer than usual for the curare to take effect because of the placement, but the ear has capillaries. The liquid would be absorbed rather lazily by the infected, bleeding lobes. Less than a thimble of curare is necessary, say half a thimble in each ball. The glass is clouded which hides any of the contents therein. It was a wonderful plan, but it was not Timothy’s.”
Edward’s breath grew heavy. The rain formed cascading waterfalls over the windows. “Oh gosh, Maura’s out there all alone. Did you…did you at least go to Eisenberg’s and ask them who paid for the jewelry?”
“When I visited Eisenberg’s this morning, they told me that Timothy had asked them to make the earrings, yes.”
He slapped his knee then pointed at Rowan. “There you are. How is that not proof?”
“Just a few more minutes, and everything will be clear. So, let us say that Timothy had planned this perfect murder. What went wrong? There was the communist plot and the note which drew some unfortunate attention. And of course, me—I would be in attendance. If Lisa were to die, murder would have to be suspected. Timothy was scared. Remember what he said? Cancel the play. When I interviewed him afterward, he did not want me to know Lisa had rejected him because he would be a prime suspect. When women are left by men, they sometimes weep, but when they leave men, they are sometimes murdered. The mechanics of his plan worked. Lisa died, and I had no clue how it was done. Unfortunately for Timothy, Allison ruined everything. After he switched the curare-loaded earrings, Timothy had to get rid of the originals. If the police searched him and fo
und a pair of Lisa’s earrings, it would raise suspicion. So, he hid them in the chest of drawers. Not very bright, but it was done in the face of panic. Plus, there was lots of jewelry in the dresser to camouflage their presence. Somehow, Allison found them.”
Edward’s mouth gaped. “That’s why she came out to the crossover. She had them in her hand to give them to Lisa. And then—”
“And then she was gobsmacked.” A crack of thunder boomed so loud that it shook the foundation of the house. “Lisa was already wearing the earrings. Now, obviously Allison couldn’t have realized exactly what was happening, but after Lisa’s mysterious death, she knew something was afoot. Allison opted to keep quiet—told the police nothing. They had nothing on her besides the hastily made threat. Why would she talk? This brings us to the fascinating journey of the earrings themselves. You accidently stepped on one of them, but the other remained attached to the ear of the corpse.” He paused. All you need to be an actor is a set of ears.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Where was I…? Oh yes, the earring. It ended up in the morgue and was eventually delivered, along with Lisa’s clothing, to Jenny, who promptly threw it in the trash. Allison, intrigued by this mysterious extra jewelry, collected it. I noticed the garbage can was turned over when I visited Jenny, but I thought it was the work of the neighborhood raccoons. They frequent those wide-open fields next to her house.”
Edward nodded, following the detective’s story. “Then she saw how the earring worked. How did she know it was this…how do you call it?”
“Curare. She didn’t, but I imagine she knew it must have been some kind of poison. Then came the party. Allison foolishly revealed she was in possession of the evidence. Tim followed and killed her with his razor. He now had the proof, but committing murder is a lot like lying; one time rarely suffices. You must do it again and again, continuing to cover the various, newly formed tracks until the web you have weaved is so dense it catches your throat and strangles you. My friend…” Rowan choked on the words. “My friend Walter was found killed in Adair on Saturday. I am sure the razor that was used belonged to Timothy.”
The Opening Night Murders Page 17
