by John Chabot
Alex ambled into the kitchen, glanced at Harry and Mickie, and nodded. He was a big man, not more than six-three, but big boned and solid, with eyes that were direct without being aggressive about it. A quiet, watchful face. Diane was twenty, and he was only two years more, but somehow he appeared to be older, while she seemed younger than she was.
"Alex, this is . . . I'm sorry, what was it?"
"Harry Chervenic. This is Mickie Wilder."
"That's right." She seemed to make an effort. "I'll remember now."
Alex sat down, shaking his head. "She won't, you know."
Steam began whistling from the kettle. As Diane poured the bubbling water into the cups, she said, "He's probably right. I'm terrible with names. I think it's because I don't think they're very important."
Alex said, "You can't just go around calling everyone Hey, you."
"Why not? Oh, I know people always want you to remember their names, but really, can you think of anything about a person that's less important? If you change a person's name, does it make them any different?"
"You see what I mean? Twenty minutes after you leave here, she'll be able to sketch a likeness of you that anyone would recognize, but she won't know who you are."
"No, that's not right." Her look was shrewd. "I'll know who they are — I just won't know their names."
The mood was light, and Harry wanted to keep it that way as long as he could. Better to start with an easy one. "What did you think of your uncle?"
Her expression changed as she realized the questions were beginning. She thought seriously about it, finally saying, "I would like to have painted him. I was going to ask him if I could. I wanted to see if I could get behind that . . ."
"That what?"
"I'm not sure. I was going to say 'that mask', but that's not right. We all have our masks, haven't we? They're part of us. But with Matt — see there, I remembered his name — with him it was more. He had secrets."
"About what?"
She looked annoyed, as if he had asked something irrelevant. "Oh, I have no idea. But he had them. I felt it all the time I was listening to him. Maybe it was just habit, from the kind of work he was in. Daddy said something about him smuggling arms in Africa. I guess if you did that, you'd have to keep secrets. Anyway, he was very good at not answering questions about himself. If you asked him a direct question, he'd give you a direct answer that sounded good, without actually saying anything. Like it was none of your business, but he was too polite to say so."
"Did you like him?"
She shrugged. "I guess so."
"How many times did you see him?"
She thought. "Just once — at Anna's."
"You didn't visit him at the beach?"
"No." She put down her mug, her expression becoming a bit defensive. "I have classes, and then there was a lot to do getting ready for the exhibition." Her look dared him to contradict her. He smiled as he remembered getting the same look from her mother.
"Who of the family were at the exhibition?"
She seemed puzzled at the question, then remembered that her uncle had died the same night. Her expression changed from defensive to suspicious. "Mother was there. And Anna was with Wes. I guess he's almost family. And Alex. That's it."
"Not you're father?"
"No, he was at a convention. Didn't get back until after it was over. He came the next night, though. It can't really be much fun coming to these things. The poor dear has absolutely no feeling for art. But he's always there." Her expression softened as she spoke of him. "He always has been."
"And when was it over?"
"At eleven, officially, but nearly everyone was gone by then, anyway."
"Do you know when your mother or your aunt and Mr. Stoneman left?"
"No, I don't." Her voice hardened again. She had passed suspicious, and was well into hostile. "Listen, I'm not going to sit here and snitch on my family so you can pin this on one of them. If you want to know when they left, why don't you ask them? Just what the hell are you trying to do?"
Mickie glanced at Harry, then said, very softly, "We have asked them. They didn't at all mind answering. We're not trying to 'pin this' on anyone. It's very possible that your uncle took his own life. There's evidence to show he did."
Diane glowered toward Harry. "He doesn't think so. I talked to my mother. She said he talks about it being suicide, but he doesn't believe it."
"Whether he did or didn't," said Mickie, "we simply don't know. We're trying to find out." She took a deep breath, adding, "We thought you might be able to verify what your mother and aunt had already told us."
Diane had dropped back to merely suspicious. "Yes, well, that's what you say. Anyway, I don't really know when they left."
Harry put in, "But they weren't there at eleven when it closed." He made it a statement, not a question.
She looked as if she wouldn't answer, but finally said, "No. It was earlier, but I don't know when."
"And when did you and Alex leave?"
Her eyes flared. She banged the mug down for emphasis. "What do you mean, when did we leave?"
Alex put his hand on hers and said, "Now knock it off, Diane." He didn't raise his voice, but he meant it. "They've asked the same question of everyone else. You're not special in this. They've asked a simple question." He kept his hand covering hers. "Now answer it, and let's get done with this."
She was obviously frightened of the questions, and didn't know whether to be angry or not. "All right," she said. "Alex left just before eleven. I hung around and helped clean up. I don't know when we finished."
"And you went straight home?"
"Yes. It was late. It had been a long day."
He glanced at Alex. "You didn't stay to take her home?"
"No sir, I didn't. Sunday was my mother's birthday. She lives in Cary and I wanted to get an early start. If I had come back here with Diane . . . Well, I thought I'd best be awake for the celebration."
"I was told you work for Stoneman and Briggs."
"Yes sir, that's right."
Harry noticed the 'sir' again. A well brought up southern boy showing respect for his elders. Harry still was not used to hearing it. It made him feel more elder than he wanted.
"What was your impression of Matt Carlsberg?"
"I never met him."
"Not even at the office? I believe he was there twice."
"No sir, never did. Most of my work is done out of the office."
"You knew he was a client, though."
"I heard someone in the office mention it. Something about Robert Carlsberg's brother being in. I didn't know he had a brother. They said he had come in to have a will drawn up."
"Do you know what's in the will? Perhaps from someone discussing it in the office."
He saw Diane stiffen at this, but Alex just squeezed her hand and she said nothing.
"No, sir. I wasn't there. Even the witnesses to a will—usually the legal secretary and the receptionist—they just watch the client sign, then put their own signatures at the bottom. They don't know the provisions of the will. Wills are very confidential. They're not tacked to the bulletin board for everyone to read."
"But if you wanted to see it without anyone knowing, could you?"
Diane was glaring now, and Alex was squeezing harder. He answered quickly. "I'm not sure. I might, if I wanted to get sacked and blow any chance of getting into law school. I'd have to be a complete idiot though, and I'm not quite certifiable yet."
"All right, one more question. I don't even know why I'm asking but, just for drill, did you ever go to Matt Carlsberg's house at the beach?"
Alex smiled. "No, and the reason you're asking is that if you find out I was there, you'll have a big, fat lie for me to talk myself out of."
CHAPTER 16
Ross, somewhere in his thirties, was young to be a Chief of Police. He was a small, compact man, with an angular face. Dark hair clung to his head in tight waves. He had a quick, busy way about him that
gave him the appearance of being nervous. If he was nervous now, he had good reason. It had been his decision to keep the investigation at home, to let Harry run it, rather than bringing in an SBI homicide team. If things went sour, he would take the heat. The local newspapers knew what he had done, and why he had done it, and would start making an issue of it if good things didn't happen soon. Nevertheless, he sat quietly for him. His fingers constructing a chain of paper clips was the only outward sign of unease as Mickie went over her interview with the bank manager.
She held a notebook, but didn't refer to it. She had been over this, in her own mind, so many times there was nothing there she wasn't completely familiar with. Harry sat beside her, his short legs stretched in front of him, listening as she talked, watching her like a teacher with a favorite pupil.
Ross interrupted her. "Wait a minute. Did you say three hundred thousand? Cash?"
"Yes, sir. Carlsberg had arranged it earlier. They had the money waiting for him."
"That's a lot of money. It would make quite a bundle."
"It was all big bills—nothing smaller than a thousand. He put it in a brown paper bag, and walked out with it."
"My God, that must have given the manager the shakes. Did he ask what it was for?"
"He did, but Carlsberg wouldn't say. What I can't see is, why cash? Why not a cashier's check?"
Ross looked at Harry. "You know, don't you?"
Harry shrugged. To Mickie he said, "The nice thing about paying by check is that the person who cashes it has to sign it, so you have a record of where the money went. But if you give someone a bunch of bills, and he gives you something in return, who's to know? There's no record."
"You mean drugs?"
"Not unless he was a whole lot dumber than he seems. Raising that much cash would involve too many people, and he didn't make any attempt to do it secretly. That's a dumb way to buy drugs. Besides, three hundred thousand dollars worth of any kind of drug is going to make a bigger bundle than the cash. So what did he do with it? Unless your cabby is giving us a story, he wasn't carrying anything when he left the bank."
Ross put down the paper clips. "I suppose that makes sense? You just said he left the bank with it, and now you say he didn't?"
Mickie said, "Yes, sir. The bank is in Harrison Plaza. Four fourteen-story buildings set in a square. The bank covers the ground floor of one of them. The manager said he didn't leave by the door to the parking lot, but went out into the plaza. Now, the cabby says he had thirty-two minutes on the meter. And the money was waiting for Carlsberg. All he had to do was sign for it, put it in the bag, and go. The manager says it was no more than five minutes, tops. So that leaves him twenty-five minutes to go anywhere in those buildings."
"Or anywhere near the plaza," put in Harry. "He could have crossed the street, gone into the Post Office and bought Postal Money Orders. Or bought some of those big envelopes and mailed the stuff somewhere, to himself maybe. There's also a bank over there. He could have opened another account—maybe under a different name. Or simpler still, someone could have been waiting for him. They talk awhile, he hands him the bag, and comes back through the bank and out to the cab."
"But why?"
"I wish I knew. It's nutty any way you look at it."
Ross picked up the silver chain of clips and added another link. "How many places are there within a few minutes walk where you can drop that much money?"
"You'd be surprised," said Mickie. "Besides the Post Office and two banks, there are two brokerage firms, a company that deals in wholesale gems, another that promises to deliver anything, anywhere. Those are the obvious ones. The trouble is getting information. You can't just call and ask if someone came in and spent that much. You get a secretary who doesn't know, and she refers you to someone else who doesn't know. So we're going around to these places, trying to make sure we don't miss the one person who can tell us something."
Ross grinned cynically. "Yeah, I'll bet they're falling all over themselves to help."
Harry said, "You can't blame them. When you're in a business where people give you very large amounts of money, you like to see a court order before you get chatty about them."
"I suppose so. Three hundred thousand qualifies as a large amount."
"Actually, four hundred thousand," said Mickie. "Three days later, last Friday, he did it again. Only this time, it was for only a hundred thousand."
"The same routine?"
"Exactly the same. The bank manager thinks it was even the same paper bag."
"Truly a big spender. The house at the beach—and this. Is anything left in his account?"
"There's still a couple hundred thousand."
"Well, we don't have to look far for a motive. So where are we, Harry? Anything from forensics, yet?"
"A preliminary report. They say the handwriting on the note is probably his, but they don't have much to compare it to. Fingerprints in his address book are all his. They lifted a few others from around the house. We're getting prints from everyone for comparison. As far as we know, Eason and his girlfriend were the only other people in the house. Or the only ones who admit it."
Mickie said, "There's also a cab driver. He carried some things in for him."
"But only into the kitchen. You're right, though—him too. The Raleigh police are taking statements from the people at the party and Eason's girlfriend. They'll send them down, but so far it just seems to confirm what we've been told."
Harry stretched out farther, folding his hands across his stomach. "Let's see now, what else? Oh yeah, the two bottles in the medicine cabinet, and the one in the desk. No mystery there. The labels were different, but they were essentially the same thing. Pain killers—very strong."
"Strong enough to OD on?"
"Several times over. Also, they say somebody walked in from the beach. The carpet has a very short nap. It had been recently vacuumed. But someone had tracked a lot of sand in, walked around the area of the crime, possibly into the bedroom."
"This is the beach, Harry. Sand is a fact of life."
"Not in that house. There was almost no sand in the rest of the carpet. He was compulsively neat. He would have vacuumed before he had dinner guests. And Eason claims he and his girlfriend took off their shoes before coming in. Besides, they didn't come in from the beach."
"Could they tell if the sand was brought in before or after?"
"Before. They found sand under some of the blood."
"Well, that's something. Anything else?"
"One thing. And this is my favorite. In the bathroom, a damp towel was wadded up by the tub. They found a pubic hair on it."
"So he showered before his guests arrived."
"And threw the towel down in a wet lump? Him? Not a chance. He'd have spread it somewhere, on the towel rack or over the shower curtain rod, to dry. Anyway, forensics says the hair was definitely not from the victim."
Ross thought that over, then shook his head. "So where does that get us?"
Harry frowned. "I'm not even sure I believe it, but it looks like this. Whoever it was, drove to the house, but saw the party going on across the street. So he drives by, parks down the street where the houses are dark. He gets out, goes to the beach, then walks back up and in through the double doors on the beach side."
"He?"
"Or she. Or they."
"Professional?"
"No chance. Whoever it was, was there long enough to walk around a lot, and didn't bring a weapon. Hardly sounds like a hit. More like someone he knew. Anyway, the interesting thing is that there was a lot of blood. If you stand behind someone who's sitting, and reach over to push a knife into him, twice, with a heart wound, you're going to get blood all over your arms. And if the victim falls backward, he's falling right into you. More blood, on slacks or skirt or whatever."
His eyes stared at the floor, unfocused. "So he, or she, walks through the bedroom into the bathroom. Probably careful not to step in any blood. No prints, anyway. Strips, leaving t
he clothes on a bath mat or a towel. It must have been messy, unbuttoning bloody clothes, trying not to touch the blood. Maybe blood on the shoelaces—they'd be slick and hard to untie. But he gets them off and showers, very thoroughly, and then dries off with the towel we found."
Mickie was watching him, fascinated with the picture. "That's damned cool!"
Still staring at his vision, he said, "Yes, isn't it? Then he, or she, goes into the bedroom, takes a pair of pants and a shirt from the closet, and gets dressed again."
"Whoa, Harry." Ross had forgotten his paper clips. "How do you know? He could have figured on that and brought a change of clothes with him."
"And not brought a weapon? No, he took the clothes. You'd know if you'd seen the closet. Everything was incredibly organized. All the shirts were facing the same direction, each one buttoned just like all the others. All the pants hung in one place, all the shirts in another. The extra hangers were by themselves over at the end. There were two empty hangers with the shirts and two more with the pants. Now, one empty would be for the clothes Carlsberg was wearing. So what about the others? With his mania for order, it could only mean that two sets of clothes were out of the closet. And they weren't in the hamper. I looked."
"What about shoes? If you're right, those would have been bloody, too."
"Maybe. Can't tell. Carlsberg didn't use shoetrees, so there weren't any empties to count. Besides, it's tough wearing someone else's shoes. Probably made do with his own. After that, he or she rolled the bloody stuff up in the bath mat, walked out to the beach, back to the car, and was gone."
Ross shook his head again, trying to see it. "Mickie's right. That's damned cool."
"It was necessary. He, or she, had to go home. Might be seen by someone, neighbors or family. You can't run around covered with blood and not draw some attention. Even on Saturday night."
"So who benefits?"
"According to the lawyer, just the brother and sister. And of course, Eason, but he only gets a desk and a couple bottles of booze. The thing is, it's not just what's in the will. We have two wild cards here."
"Like four hundred thousand dollars."
