Make Out with Murder

by Lawrence Block

  “Wait a minute,” Gregorio cut in. “Where do you get off concealing evidence from the police?”

  “I concealed no evidence,” Haig said. “Nor did Mr. Harrison. Nothing was suppressed, nothing distorted. It is not incumbent upon a citizen to apprise the police of his suspicions. Indeed, it is often unwise.

  “To continue. When Mr. Harrison confided his observations to me, I concurred in his conclusion. Miss Trelawney’s fears were predicated, it appeared, upon the fact that two of her sisters had recently suffered violent deaths, one the apparent victim of suicide, the other the apparent victim of an automobile accident. I determined at once to ferret out the killer and prevent him from doing further damage. I have at least succeeded in the first attempt, if not in the second.”

  Gregorio broke in again. “I’d like to know what made you think that OD was murder,” he said. “If we missed something, I’d like to know what it was.”

  “In due time, sir. In due time. Permit me, if you will, to explore events chronologically. The day after Miss Trelawney’s death, Mr. Harrison and I began a series of inquiries. In the course of so doing, we were engaged by Mr. Addison Shivers to look after the best interests of Cyrus Trelawney, deceased. It is perhaps unusual for an attorney to engage detectives for the benefit of a client who is no longer living. In my eyes, Mr. Shivers’ act stands greatly to his credit.”

  The hand went to the beard again. I looked around the room and watched everybody watching Haig. Gordie McLeod looked as though he was trying to understand the big words. Juana looked as though she was trying to understand the English words. Kim looked as though she was trying to figure out how Haig could hold an audience in the palm of his hand, just by sitting there with his eyes closed while he played with his facial hair.

  “On the following day Mr. Harrison attended Miss Trelawney’s funeral, both to pay his respects to the deceased and to press our investigation. There he met Mrs. Gregory Vandiver, the former Caitlin Trelawney, who also engaged us to look into the matter of her sister’s death. I accepted a retainer from her, feeling no conflict of interest was likely to be involved.”

  He paused to glance directly at Addison Shivers, who gave a barely perceptible nod.

  “Mr. Harrison returned to this office. We were seated in this very room when a pipe bomb was thrown into the front room a floor below. Several of my aquaria suffered minor damage. This was galling, but of little actual importance. Of major importance was the fact that the bombing caused two deaths. Maria Tijerino, an associate of Miss Juana Dominguez, and Elmer J. Seaton, a seaman on shore leave, were in the room into which the bomb was hurled. Both were killed instantly.”

  A couple of heads turned to look at Madame Juana, who crossed herself several times.

  “Detectives Gregorio and Seidenwall, who investigated the bombing, assumed that the premises below were the bomber’s target. The nature of the business carried on downstairs would tend to further such a suspicion. The world overflows with maniacs who feel they are doing the Creator’s work by blowing brothels to smithereens. Mr. Harrison and I interpreted the bombing in a different fashion.”

  “I told you we oughta take him in,” Seidenwall said. “What did I tell you? I told you we oughta take him in.”

  Haig ignored this. “My immediate thought was that the bomber had chosen the wrong window. It did not take me long to realize that I was in error. A person anxious to kill me would do a better job of it, especially in view of his skill in arranging other murders. No, the bombing had been meant either to discourage me from further investigations, or to pique my interest in the case. I could not, at that stage, determine which.

  “But the bombing did tell me certain things about the killer. It told me, first of all, that he knew I was on his trail. This did little to narrow the field of suspects. It told me, too, that the man I was dealing with was quite ruthless, willing to liquidate innocent strangers in order to advance his machinations. I was on the trail of a dangerous, desperate and wholly immoral human being.”

  Haig picked up a pipe, took it deliberately apart, ran a pipe cleaner unnecessarily through it and put it back together again.

  “My investigations continued. Yesterday my associate visited Mrs. Vandiver at her home on Long Island. While he was there, a bomb wired to the automobile of Mrs. Vandiver was detonated, killing her chauffeur, one Seamus Fogarty. The local police officers assumed Mr. Fogarty was the intended victim because of his political activities. I assumed otherwise. An attempt had been made on my client’s life.

  “Last night my associate, Mr. Harrison, left this house against my advice—” He had to rub it in, damn it. “—and returned to his own lodgings. He was set upon and badly beaten by three strangers, evidently professionals at that sort of thing.” Eyes swung around to look at me. There was concern in Kim’s, surprise in Ferdinand Bell’s, and what looked annoyingly like satisfaction in Seidenwall’s.

  “And later last night,” Haig went on, “or perhaps early this morning, the killer struck again. He murdered Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Vandiver and arranged things to suggest that Mrs. Vandiver shot her husband and then took her own life.”

  Kim let out a shriek, and the whole room began mumbling to itself. McLeod reached for her. She drew away. Haig tapped on the desk top with a pipe.

  “I learned of this last act just a few hours ago. My first reaction was to feel personally responsible for the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Vandiver. By the time I learned of their fate, I already knew the identity of their killer. I did not know, however, at the time they were killed. Perhaps I could still have done something, taken some action, to prevent what happened to them. I had held strong suspicions of the murderer’s identity for some time.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment. I took a good long look at the killer, and did not obtain the slightest idea of what was going through his mind.

  “Officer Polk brought me the news of what happened to my client and her husband. He also brought a typed and unsigned suicide note which the murderer had had the temerity to write. The note was designed to wrap up all of the crimes to date and pin them upon Gregory Vandiver, who was supposed to have attempted to kill his wife, was then killed by her, after which my client is supposed to have suffered an uncharacteristic fit of remorse at the conclusion of which she killed herself.

  “There was no reason for Officer Polk to doubt this charade. I suspect his department might have doubted it ultimately. But Mr. Harrison and myself immediately recognized it as illusion, and read in the purported suicide note additional confirmation of the identity of the actual killer.”

  Polk said, “How did you know so quickly the note was a fake?”

  I fielded that one. “I knew it on the first line,” I said. “The murderer spelled my first name right. C-h-i-p. Caitlin thought I spelled it with two p’s; she made out a check that way. I never corrected her.” I didn’t add that I had suspected Greg Vandiver all along and it just about took the note to change my mind. Let them think I was as brilliant as Leo Haig.

  “The concept of leaving a typewritten suicide note was a bad one,” Haig added. “But the murderer had developed an extraordinary degree of gall. Success engenders confidence. Mr. Harrison has described the killer as the nerviest bastard he ever heard of. I told him that was exceedingly well put, as you will come to realize.”

  I watched the killer’s face on that line. I think it got to him a little bit.

  “The killer wanted to round things off neatly,” Haig went on. “He knew better than to leave a note when he pushed Jessica Trelawney out of her window. Now, though, he wanted to establish Gregory Vandiver as the villain of the piece, and award him a posthumous citation for multiple homicide. At this very moment he may be cursing himself for his stupidity. He might better save himself the effort. I already knew him as the killer. This was by no means his first witless act. But it is to be his last.”

  Haig closed his eyes again. I can’t speak for the rest of the company, but for me the tension was getting u
nbearable. I knew something the rest of them didn’t know, and I wished he would hurry up and get to the end.

  “This morning I called Mr. Shivers. In addition to being my client, he was for a great many years both attorney and friend to the late Cyrus Trelawney. He was able to supply me with the last piece of my jigsaw puzzle, the question of motive.

  “I had realized almost from the beginning that motive was the key element of these murders. The most immediately obvious motive was money. The case is awash with money. Cyrus Trelawney left a fortune in excess of ten million dollars. But the more I examined the facts, the less likely it seemed that money could constitute a motive.

  “Why, then, would someone want to murder five women who had virtually nothing in common but their kinship? Several possibilities presented themselves. The first was that, having determined to murder one of them for a logical reason, he might have wished to disguise his act by making it one link in a chain of homicides. Gregory Vandiver, for example, could have had reason to do away with his wife. If he first killed some of her sisters, he would be a less obvious suspect for the single murder for which he had a visible motive.

  “The fault in this line of reasoning is not difficult to pinpoint. If a person wished to create the appearance of a chain of murders, he would make the facade an unmistakable one. He would not disguise his handiwork as accidental death or suicide. He would make each act an obvious murder, and would probably use the same murder method in each instance. So this was not a faked chain of murders, but a very real chain of murders.

  “And then I saw that the answer had to lie in the past. These girls were being killed because they were the daughters of Cyrus Trelawney. The man had died three years ago, and after his death his daughters began dying. First Robin, then Jessica, then Melanie. And now Caitlin.”

  He did start to put his feet up then, I’m positive of it, but he caught himself in time.

  “I’ve told Mr. Harrison that this case reminded me of the work of a certain author of detective stories. Our New York has little of the texture of Lew Archer’s California, but in much the same way the sins of the past work upon those of us trapped in the present. If I were to find the killer, I had to consider Cyrus Trelawney.

  “Cyrus Trelawney.” He folded his hands on the desk top. “An interesting man, I should say. Fathered his first child at the age of forty-eight, having beforehand amassed a fortune. Continued fathering them every three years, spawning as regularly as a guppy. Brought five girls into the world. And one son who died in his cradle. I began to wonder about Cyrus Trelawney’s life before he married. I speculated, and I constructed an hypothesis.”

  He paused and looked across his desk at Addison Shivers. “This morning I asked Mr. Shivers a question. Do you recall the question, sir?”

  “I do.”

  “Indeed. Would you repeat it?”

  “You asked if Cyrus Trelawney had been a man of celibate habits before his marriage.”

  “And your reply?”

  “That he had not.”

  (This was paraphrase. What Mr. Shivers had actually said, Haig told me later, was that Cyrus Trelawney would fuck a coral snake if somebody would hold its head.)

  “I then asked Mr. Shivers several other questions which elicited responses I had expected to elicit. I learned, in brief, that Mr. Trelawney’s business interests forty-five to fifty years ago included substantial holdings in timberlands and paper mills in upstate New York. That he spent considerable time in that area during those years. That one of those mills was located in the town of Lyons Falls, New York.”

  “That’s very interesting,” the killer said.

  “Indeed. But the others do not understand what makes it interesting, Mr. Bell. Would you care to tell them?”

  “I was born in Lyons Falls,” Bell said.

  “Indeed. You were born in Lyons Falls, New York, forty-seven years ago last April 18th. Your mother was a woman named Barbara Hohlbein who was the wife of a man named James Bell. James Bell was not your father. Cyrus Trelawney was your father. Cyrus Trelawney’s daughters were your half-sisters and you have killed four of the five, Mr. Bell, and you will not kill any more of them. You will not, Mr. Bell. No, sir. You will not.”

  Eighteen

  Of course everybody stared at the son of a bitch. He didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were on Leo Haig and he was as cool as a gherkin. His forehead looked a little pinker, but that may have been my imagination. I couldn’t really tell you.

  “This is quite fascinating,” Bell said. “I asked around when I heard you were investigating Melanie’s death. I was told that you were quite insane. I wondered what this elaborate charade would lead to.”

  “I would prefer that it lead to the gas chamber, sir. I fear it will lead only to permanent incarceration in a hospital for the criminally insane.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Indeed. I shouldn’t attempt to leave if I were you, Mr. Bell. There are police officers seated on either side of you. They would take umbrage.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Bell said. His cheeks puffed out as he grinned. “Why, if this were a movie I’d pay to see it. It’s far more thrilling in real life.”

  Haig closed his eyes. Without opening them he said, “I have no way of knowing whether or not Cyrus Trelawney was your father. You do not resemble him, nor do I perceive any resemblance between yourself and his legitimate offspring. Very strong men tend to be proponent, which is to say that their genes are dominant. Much the same is true of fishes, you might be interested to know. I would guess that you resemble your mother. I suspect you inherited your madness from her.”

  A muscle worked in Bell’s temple. He didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t doubt that she told you Trelawney was your father. I don’t doubt that you believe it, that you grew up hearing little from her than that a rich man had fathered you. It certainly made an impression upon you. You grew up loving and hating this man you had never met. You were obsessed by the idea that he had sired you. Had he acknowledged you, you would have been rich. Money became an obsession.

  “One learns much about a man from his hobbies. You collect money, Mr. Bell. Not in an attempt to amass wealth, but as a way of playing with the symbols of wealth. Little pieces of stamped metal moving from hand to hand at exorbitant prices. Pfui!”

  “Numismatics is a science.”

  “Anything may be taken for a science when enough of its devotees attempt to codify their madness. There is a young man in this city, I understand, who spends his spare time, of which I trust he has an abundance, analyzing the garbage of persons understandably more prominent than himself. For the time being he is acknowledged to be a lunatic. If, heaven forefend, his pastime amasses a following, garbage analysis will be esteemed a science. Learned books will be published on the subject. Fools will write them. Greater fools will purchase and read them. Pfui!”

  “You know nothing about numismatics,” Bell said.

  Haig grunted. “I could dispute that. I shall not take the trouble. I am not concerned with numismatics, sir. I am concerned with murder.”

  “And you’re calling me a murderer.”

  “I have done so already.” He stroked his beard briefly.

  “I’ve no idea just when you planned to become a murderer. At your mother’s knee, I would suppose. You came to New York. You established yourself in your profession. You kept tabs on your father. And, because of your infirmity of purpose, you bided your time.

  “Because you could not kill this man, nor could you think of relinquishing the dream of killing him. You waited until time achieved what you could not: the death of Cyrus Trelawney.”

  “And then I married Robin.”

  “Then you married Robin Trelawney,” Haig agreed with him.

  “And then I crashed up the car and killed her, I suppose. The only person I ever loved and I crashed up my car on the chance that I would live through the wreck and she would not.”

  “No,
sir. No in every respect. But I’ll back up a bit. Before you married Robin, indeed before Cyrus Trelawney died, you had all of your plan worked out. The first step called for you to murder Philip Flanner.”

  “Now I know you’re insane,” Bell said.

  “You told Mr. Harrison that you were a friend of Flanner’s, that he was a fellow numismatist. He was not. You did become a friend of his, but not until after he and Robin were married. You ingratiated yourself with him because he had recently taken her as a wife.”

  “He fell in front of a subway car.”

  “You threw him in front of a subway car.”

  “You couldn’t prove that in a million years.”

  “I haven’t the slightest need to prove it. You are a very curious man, Mr. Bell. You took your time ingratiating yourself with Robin. You waited until her father was at last in his grave before you persuaded her to marry you. Then you waited a couple of years before you killed her. You must have thought about the murder method for all of that time and more.”

  “I loved Robin.”

  “No, sir. You have never loved anyone, except insofar as you loved Cyrus Trelawney. I leave that to the psychiatrists, who will have ample opportunity to inquire. You drove with Robin to a coin convention. At some time in the course of the ride back, you broke her neck. That would not have been terribly difficult to manage. Then you put her in the back of the car and found a place where an icy road surface could explain an accident. You then effected that accident, sir, which no doubt took a certain amount of insane courage on your part.”

  “No one will believe this.”

  “I suspect everyone in the room already believes it, sir. But they will not have to, nor will anyone else.” Haig turned around and looked at the rasboras. I was astonished, and I was used to him, so you can imagine what it did to everybody else. But I’ll be damned if anyone said a word. I was wondering how long he was going to milk it, when he turned around again and got to his feet.