Rosemary’s green suit had three large buttons on the jacket and a pencil skirt, which complemented her shapely legs. Around her neck she wore a simple gold necklace and her earrings were rubies. Her blouse was pale pink and she had a white pocket silk stuffed in the jacket’s breast pocket. She was sitting in a purple velvet wingback chair, watching a crackling fire in an oversized fireplace.
She didn’t look up when Riggs entered the room.
“Miss Miller.” He took off his hat and set it on a small table beside a gold cherub. She looked at him but her expression didn’t change. “I’m Sergeant Inspector Riggs. I wonder if you could show me Mrs. Abbott’s office?”
He held up the key.
Rosemary stood up and tucked a wisp of red hair behind her ear. “Of course, Inspector.” She closed the fire grate and led Riggs along the hall toward the front door. Mrs. Abbott’s office was near the front door, and opposite the kitchen.
Riggs handed her the key. “I understand Doctor Bowman asked you to lock it when he arrived.”
“That’s right,” Rosemary confirmed in her deep voice. She unlocked the door and they stepped into the office. Two windows that overlooked the circular driveway and on the other wall and one more window that overlooked the front lawn and out toward the street.
Beige and brown tweed curtains hung to the floor. The lamps were large and brass. There were two paintings on the wall: one of an Indian totem pole near a stony beach and the other of a red fishing boat; both landscapes were under heavy gray skies. A potted fern occupied one corner of the room.
There were two mahogany desks; the smaller one had a typewriter and stood in the corner by the door. And the large desk stood in the middle of the room so that it commanded a view of all three windows. The wall behind the desk had built-in wooden filing cabinets and a bookshelf full of non-fiction books. There were a few bottles of expensive scotch and some glasses. Two black leather chairs faced the large desk, and between them stood a small table with a massive brass ashtray and a few recent business periodicals.
Riggs’ gaze rested on a cigar box behind the large desk. He remembered the petite elderly woman he’d seen upstairs working in this office; the hard shape of her feminine jaw and the flashy rings on her small fingers.
“Did Mrs. Abbott smoke cigars?” Riggs asked.
“No, but most of her visitors were men.” Rosemary must have read Riggs’ thoughts because she added, “This was Mr. Abbott’s office before he died. He never smoked that type of cigar, either. But it is a fashionable brand now. And in case you’re wondering, Mrs. Abbott had this office entirely redecorated when she took over the business.”
Rosemary Miller was good at guessing other people’s thoughts. Perhaps it had been a necessary part of her job.
“When was that?”
“Ten years ago, just after her husband died.”
“I’ll have my men do a thorough search in a few minutes,” Riggs explained. “But is this room the same as when you saw it this morning?”
There was a pause, then Rosemary asked, “Will your men need to search the whole house?”
Riggs shrugged. “Not necessarily. Hopefully, you and the family can tell us everything we need to know.”
Rosemary surveyed the room. “Yes, this room is just as I left it. In any event, it has to be since the door was locked.”
“Is that the only key?”
“As far as I know,” Rosemary Miller answered. She handed the key back to him.
“Miss Miller, could you please tell me exactly what happened this morning?”
Rosemary leaned back so she was resting her palms and sitting nearly at her desk. “I woke up this morning a little before six o’clock.”
“Is your room upstairs?”
Rosemary shook her head. “No, I live in one of the apartments over the garage. At six o’clock, I came over here, got a cup of coffee from the kitchen, and then I unlocked this room. It was then that I noticed these files were laying out,” she indicated the files on Mrs. Abbott’s desk. “You see, I tidied this room myself before I locked up last night. So, when I saw files out this morning, I naturally assumed that Mrs. Abbott had already come downstairs. I looked for her in the living room and in the second office, and the library, but she wasn’t there, so I went upstairs to ask her when she’d like to have her breakfast.”
Rosemary paused and her voice softened. “But she didn’t answer. And when I opened the door, the curtains were still drawn. The room was dark, but I saw Mrs. Abbott lying in her bed. At first, I thought she had gone back to sleep, but even in the dim lighting, her color didn’t look right and I knew something was wrong.”
“Is that when you telephoned the doctor?”
Rosemary shook her head and a lock of her red hair came loose from her bun and drifted down by her cheek. “First, I tried to wake her up. I checked her pulse, both at her wrist and her neck. But I didn’t feel anything, and she was cold. When I was sure that there wasn’t anything I could do, I telephoned the doctor.”
“Is that when you opened the curtains and the window?”
“Did I open them?” Rosemary furrowed her brow, but after a moment she added, “I suppose I did, but I hardly noticed it at the time.”
“And did you use this one?” Riggs asked, pointing to the large black telephone on Mrs. Abbott’s desk.
“I used the telephone in her bedroom. Afterwards, I went downstairs, but I wasn’t sure what to do. I think I just stood in the hall for a while thinking it over, and then I decided to telephone Walter. I mean, Mr. Abbott.”
Riggs adjusted the collar of his jacket. “Mrs. Abbott has four children. Why did you decide to telephone Walter Abbott, and not one of the others?”
“I don’t exactly know. Walter is the oldest, well, Walter and Julia. But I guess he just seemed like the logical one. He’s a very level-headed man.”
“And what about Mrs. Abbott’s bedroom?” Riggs asked, “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary there?”
Rosemary closed her eyes briefly as she remembered the room. “Nothing stood out to me,” she said. “Mrs. Abbott had a cup of tea last night and the cup was still on her nightstand, but that’s not so unusual.”
“Did you bring it up to her?”
Rosemary shook her head. “The cook, Mrs. Peabody, usually did that. Mrs. Abbott liked to have a cup of herbal tea to help her sleep.”
“And everything else in the bedroom was normal?”
“Except that the thermostat was lower than its usual setting.”
“Lower? By how much?” Riggs asked.
“Only a couple of degrees––Mrs. Abbott had a modern heater installed a few years ago and she was very particular about having it set at sixty-seven degrees. As I left the room, I noticed that the dial was adjusted and I turned it back to sixty-seven without even thinking about it. I was half-way down the stairs when I realized that it wouldn’t matter in this warm weather and because Mrs. Abbott was…gone.”
“I see. Now about these papers,” Riggs indicated the files on the desk, “you say that you found these lying here this morning? Is there anything significant about them?”
Rosemary walked over to her employer’s desk and sat down. She lifted the files and flipped through them, shaking her head. “These are some of the organizations to which Mrs. Abbott donates money.” She set the file down and examined the next one. “This is an outdated version of her late husband’s will. It was rewritten before he passed away, so this copy is obsolete,” she added, laying it down. She looked at the next file and frowned. “But this one is an old tax file for the Abbott fishing company.”
“Is that significant?”
“No, but it doesn’t belong with these other files,” the secretary replied. “All of the Abbott companies’ tax records are kept in the locked cabinet.” Rosemary indicated the file cabinet on the wall with a brass keyhole.
“Did Mrs. Abbott have any issues with security?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” R
osemary admitted. “She kept the key to the cabinet right here under this plant,” she lifted a white porcelain pot and grabbed a key. “I never saw her grab this key in front of guests, but she did it routinely in front of her children.”
“And what about the office key, where was that kept?”
“There’s a maple bureau in the main hall, just outside this room, and the key is always kept in the left drawer. I unlock the office every morning, and I relock it at night, and I always return the key to that drawer.”
“And did you lock up last night?”
“Of course. Mrs. Abbott had her family over for dinner, and I locked up the office before they arrived so that I wouldn’t have to bother with it later on.”
“And did you also check to see that the windows were locked?”
As soon as Riggs asked the question, Rosemary’s gaze darted to the windows. Her mouth fell open as she suddenly noticed what the doctor and the policemen had noticed before they even entered the house.
“But that’s extraordinary!” Rosemary exclaimed.
The three windows appeared identical, except that the latch on the middle window was turned sideways. Miss Miller stood up and walked toward it, and at that moment a gentle breeze moved the drape and the window drifted open a couple inches. The window that had appeared closed wasn’t latched at all.
“Please don’t touch the window,” Riggs instructed.
A long blonde hair rested across the back of Mrs. Abbott’s chair. While the secretary examined the window, Inspector Riggs picked it up and slipped it into his pocket. “Now, Miss Miller,” Riggs continued, taking his hand out of his pocket again, “are you absolutely sure that all these windows were closed and latched last night?”
Her forehead furrowed for a moment. “I usually check them when I wrap things up at the end of the day. But we hardly ever open these windows and the weather was cool yesterday.” She was frowning. “And last night I was distracted.”
“Why?”
Rosemary looked at him and her expression relaxed. “No reason, Inspector, I was just focused on putting away all the day’s work. I thought I checked the windows, but now I’m not so sure.”
“And what about these files on the desk? Is it possible that they were lying out, and that you accidentally overlooked them?”
But on this point Rosemary was adamant. “No, I’m absolutely positive,” she insisted. “Mrs. Abbott hadn’t touched these files in days. There is no reason for them to be out.”
Riggs suggested, “But you were distracted, maybe you made a mistake.”
“I could have overlooked the window latch,” Rosemary admitted, “but not the paperwork. No, Inspector Riggs, everything was put away and the desks were clear.”
“Maybe your employer came back to look at something later that evening?”
“Mrs. Abbott never worked after dinner,” Rosemary objected. “Besides, she was the first one to retire.”
“What time was that?”
“It was just about ten o’clock,” Rosemary said. “Mrs. Abbott usually retired about that time, but last night she seemed to be particularly tired. Anyway, she said she was tired and she went to bed. That was the last time we saw her.”
Chapter Six: Mrs. Abbott’s Final Days
Rosemary sat back down on the black leather chair and waited while Riggs wrote something down. He put the notepad in his pocket.
“Now, Miss Miller, could you please tell me about your work here?”
“Mrs. Abbott hired me to help her after her husband died. Her two oldest sons, Paul and Walter, were already working for the company, but when their father died, they took on more responsibilities,” Rosemary explained. “Walter oversees the company finances and Paul is the acting president. Legally, Mrs. Abbott was the president, but she preferred to have her sons manage the daily operations. She only stepped in for the larger decisions.”
“What does the company do?”
Rosemary raised her eyebrows. “It’s really a group of companies that are all owned by the main company, Abbott Enterprises. There is a board, but the family has majority ownership. Besides the fishing and transportation operations, it also owns almost three dozen properties between Belltown and Pioneer Square, and Mrs. Abbott managed those herself. That kept her busy.”
“If Mrs. Abbott was a woman of means,” the inspector said, “why was she still working at her age?”
Rosemary smirked. “Inspector, have you ever known a man who enjoyed running his own company?”
Riggs tried not to flush. He quickly asked, “So she wasn’t just sentimental?”
“Oh, yes she was,” Miss Miller objected. “Francis Abbott was very sentimental about her business; it was a “family affair.” She helped her husband build the business from the ground up and it was her life’s work. But the work itself also gave her a sense of purpose. She had her flaws, but I doubt you could find anyone who would say she wasn’t committed to her company.”
“What was the typical daily routine?”
Rosemary tucked a lock of fallen hair behind her ear and crossed her legs. “Let me see, we generally worked between three to seven hours a day, including most Saturdays and Sundays. Mrs. Abbott set the agenda, and I did whatever needed doing.”
“What was her agenda last week?”
Rosemary got up and opened the drawer on the large mahogany desk. She extracted a calendar book, opened it to the proper page, and turned it toward him. Riggs looked at the addenda. There were two distinct handwritings. Mrs. Abbott’s was severely sloped and written with a heavy fountain pen while Rosemary’s handwriting was light, easy to read, and usually written in pencil. Whenever a trip was required, the car was specified.
Monday
10 o’clock lawyer
3-7 o’clock Rosemary hairdresser (written in pencil) — Clipper
Choose menu for Saturday
Rosemary: invite family to dinner on Saturday
Tuesday
9 – 10 o’clock Interview chauffeurs
5-10 o’clock Rosemary visiting aunt (written in pencil) — Continental
Julia bouquets for DAR meeting
Wednesday
10-3 DAR Luncheon and Monthly meeting — Continental
Review electricians’ estimates for Highland (written in pencil)
Thursday
2 o’clock Donna — renew lease
3 o’clock Freddy — renew lease?
Julia bouquets for Saturday
Friday
10 – 1 o’clock Mrs. Abbott Hairdressers — Continental
Bank
Fountain cleaning, afternoon
Saturday
6 o’clock Family Dinner
“Two of these appointments are crossed off,” Riggs said.
Rosemary looked. “After Mrs. Abbott met with her lawyer on Monday, she decided to have a family dinner on Saturday. She’s been wanting to hire a chauffeur, but had me postpone interviews and cancel Freddy’s appointment to free up her schedule for planning.”
“She cancelled a meeting with her son?”
“Freddy has a bookshop in one of the family properties on Highland. She meets with each of her tenants once a year to go over scheduled maintenance and renew the lease. I left the message with Freddy’s assistant that the meeting was cancelled, but she forgot to tell him so he came by on Thursday, anyway.”
Riggs nodded. “And it looks like Julia came by a couple times with flowers?”
“Julia is a devout gardener,” Rosemary explained. “She drops off bouquets for her mother to take to various functions.”
“Who else came by the house this week?”
The secretary took a deep breath. “No one in particular. The grocer delivers twice a week, and the milkman, but Mrs. Peabody takes care of that. The cleaning lady. Julia came by with the flowers, Donna Holt had an appointment on Thursday; she’s a tenant and a friend of the family. Oh, and Walter came by on…Wednesday to drop off a business file.”
“Walter i
sn’t in the schedule.”
“He didn’t have an appointment. He had wanted to see his mother, but she was at a DAR function so he left the files with me.”
“Do you know why Mrs. Abbott met with her lawyer?”
Rosemary paused before answering, “No.”
“This is a large house. Who was in charge of that?”
“Strictly speaking, Mrs. Abbott ran her own home, but since she didn’t find it particularly interesting, she usually deferred to me.”
“Could you please tell me who all is involved in the household?”
“It used to be larger, but when her husband died, Mrs. Abbott reduced the staff. The cook, Mrs. Peabody, and I both have separate apartments above the garage. We are the only ones who live here,” Rosemary explained. “A housekeeper usually comes by for a couple hours each morning, but she lives in town with her family. And a gardener takes care of this property and Julia’s house next door.”
Riggs raised his eyebrows. “Mrs. Abbott’s daughter lives next door?”
Rosemary nodded. “She and her husband, Marcus. You can’t see their house from here, but there’s a little path through the grove that connects the two properties. They share a gardener and he takes care of everything except for the flower beds. Mrs. Shrubb is partial to flowers and she does those herself.”
“Anyone else?”
“Only a man from the Lake Washington Marina. He comes by monthly to maintain the Criss Craft, and the boathouse. Whenever Mrs. Abbott hosted a party, I would telephone an agency to send over a girl to help Mrs. Peabody with the serving, but it was always someone different.”
“Thank you, Miss Miller.” Riggs tucked the notepad away and said, “One more thing, would you mind giving me your impression of the members of the Abbott family?”
The Charlatan Murders Page 3
