Well, I thought, that was probably as close as I could get to establishing the time when the body was deposited in the cemetery.
As soon as I got home, I called Margeret Chalmers. She is the only person I know who keeps a diary.
Yes, indeed, Margaret had it written down. “Saturday Feb. 19: Began snowing lightly at 8:15 A.M.” That was the entry. “I remember that it snowed off and on all day,” she said. Margaret added that though she had not written it down, she had noticed that the sky was clear by the time her favorite program came on. “That’s at six o’clock,” she explained.
I thought I was coming along pretty well as a detective. I surmised that the body had been deposited in the Brown Spring Cemetery sometime after the Pennybackers left home at 3:30 on Friday afternoon and before the snow was deep enough that car tracks could be seen when the Pennybackers returned on Sunday, because of course they would have noticed. Considering the nature of the business, I thought it safe to say that the body was moved at any time from sundown Friday the eighteenth to sunup Saturday the nineteenth.
When Henry came home from the vestry meeting, I didn’t tell him what I had been up to. I was going to wait until I had everything worked out. Then I would spring it on him all at once.
So he had no chance then to tell me to mind my own business. Henry is a dear! He worries about me. But when he finally got home, it was too late to stop me. I had made up my mind. I had already drawn up the following chart:
Feb. 18, Friday: Pennybackers absent from home.
19, Saturday: Snow beginning in the morning—the body deposited early enough so that no tracks appeared when Pennybackers returned.
20, Sunday: Sunshine, snow melting.
21, Monday: All snow melted. (No footprints around the body.)
22, Tuesday: P.M. Body discovered—clothing damp—map found at that time was damp.
And that was my proof that the body was placed in the cemetery on Friday night. And allowing a reasonable time for the perpetrators to figure out their plans and put them into action, I concluded that the murder could have taken place as early as Thursday but was unlikely to have taken place earlier. That was as far as I could go in fixing the time of the murder.
I went on to the next and biggest problem—namely, who was the corpse? What was there about the body that could lead to identification?
I could start with the deep suntan.
Borderville is in the South, all right, but it could hardly be proved by our winter weather. November is a beautiful month. The hills and mountains are still ablaze with color and the sun is bright as a new penny. We have a real nip in our air like the fresh apple cider that is for sale at every roadside stand. We have our first snow about Thanksgiving, and from then on the weather saddens increasingly. Those of us who can’t go to Florida grit our teeth and make up our minds to live through until the sun returns—really returns—and our Appalachian spring steals upon us. Then our Florida visitors return home brown and healthy and look down on us who turned white—etiolated, if you please—while the sun hid behind the leaden clouds of January and February.
Since my corpse had a glorious tan, my first reaction was to say Florida, but Arizona, California, or any part of the Gulf coast would have answered just as well. And of course there were the West Indies and a hundred other places.
If Florida or the Gulf coast was the right place, then my man probably drove up in his car. And if so, I supposed that his car would be found eventually and the ownership traced. I could perhaps check that out with the police.
If Arizona or the West Coast were involved, my man would have flown in, and his car would not be a means of tracing him.
Nearly everything that comes into our airport goes through Charlotte, North Carolina; and before that, anything from the west comes through Atlanta, and I would think our man would have arrived here on USAir. So that was something that I could try.
As soon as Henry went off to work the next morning, I called the courthouse and asked for the office that would know about abandoned vehicles. After three tries, I got the officer in charge of such matters.
“Was an abandoned vehicle found in this county at any time between February seventeenth and February twenty-first?” I asked.
“Please describe the vehicle,” the voice replied.
“Just any vehicle,” I said.
“Don’t you even know what your own vehicle was like?”
“It is not my vehicle.”
“Then why in hell are you wasting my time?”
I have always been able to grasp at some obscure bit of information when it was really necessary. It doesn’t mean that I am intelligent or knowledgeable, but it is a knack that has enabled me to appear much smarter than I really am.
“I am making this request under the Freedom of Information Act,” I announced with great firmness. Of course I have no notion that the act requires an officer in East Tennessee to give out information about his office routine; but then the man on the other end of the line did not know anything about it either.
In fact he said, “I beg your pardon.”
“Indeed you should,” I shot back. “Now just give me a list of all abandoned vehicles found in this county between February seventeenth and February twenty-first.”
“Well,” came a subdued answer, “the fact is they ain’t been none. Say, lady, what is your name anyhow?”
At that I softly replaced the phone in its cradle.
Having learned so much from my brush with the Virginia sheriff’s department, I made a call to the Tennessee sheriffs department, where I handled the matter with much more aplomb. There had been no abandoned cars in Tennessee either.
As for inquiries at the airport, it struck me that I might be more successful if I made them in person.
Our airport serves Borderville, Parsons City, and Cooksport because there is only one tract in the area that is basically flat enough to accommodate a modern landing field. Even at that, in order to lay out our runways, several hills had to be removed. But it is a beautiful airport. From the observation deck on a clear day you can see range after range of mountains, shade after shade of blue, stretched out like the backs of dragons on a Ming vase. The terminal is big and full of natural light. Our airport represents our region at its best, and we are all proud of it.
I pulled up at the post that spits out a ticket admitting vehicles to the parking lot. The barricade rose, and I found a place near the steps leading down to the terminal building. The doors flew open before me, and I marched in, pretending far more assurance that I actually had.
I learned long ago not to apologize or hesitate when I am asking for a privilege or breaking a regulation. I simply demand—in a ladylike manner, of course—as though I am accustomed to deference, and smile benignly. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Nevertheless I still get butterflies in my stomach when I try such a thing.
Seeing no customers at the Delta desk, I breezed purposefully thither and said in a tone that could be heard throughout the foyer: “I should like to know who was at this desk on the afternoon of February eighteenth.”
The young woman behind the counter was unnaturally blond, very chic, and thickly painted. She looked the picture of self-possession. But so did I, and I took encouragement from the fact that her act was a sham just as mine was.
“I was,” she said.
“Then perhaps you can help me,” I said without lowering my voice. “I am asking about a passenger coming through Charlotte—male, about fifty-five or sixty, five foot ten, well dressed”—of course I was guessing—“brown eyes, though one of them looks a little strange. You may have noticed his hands—very artistic and manicured.”
The young woman blinked.
Fortunately there was hardly any traffic just then in that part of the terminal. The agents at the neighboring counters could hear me perfectly, which proved an unexpected boon.
“You are inquiring about the harp?” came a voice from the USAir counter.
“I have tried and tried to contact Mr. García,” she said. “You can tell him that the harp arrived safely and is being held for him in the Madrid airport.”
Yes, it would be a harp—those calluses on the fingertips—obviously my man!
I moved over to the USAir desk.
“Thank heavens! I said.”I am a Pink Lady at the hospital. Mr. García was admitted unconcious and without identification. Since he seemed to mumble something about flights and luggage, I was asked to come here on the chance that someone might remember him.” My story was very flimsy, and of course I would not have known about his eyes if he had been unconcious, but that’s neither here nor there.
Miss Rose looked as though she might be truly concerned.
I asked, “Can you give me any further information about Mr.—I believe you said García?”
“Just a minute,” she answered and walked over to a computer into which she began to type something. As she waited for the computer to reply, she said: “That certainly explains why I couldn’t get hold of him. I tried three times, at his motel—the Sunset. The last time I called, they told me he had checked out. He was to leave Sunday morning, the twentieth.”
I thought I had better talk fast before Miss Rose could gather her wits and begin to look at me curiously. I said, “He has not fully come to since he has been in the hospital, but there are times when he seems to be mumbling ‘Berlin.’ Do you have anything there that would indicate what his plans were?”
“Let me see.” Miss Rose returned to the computer and communed with it a short time. “Yes,” she said, “he had a reservation for Kennedy.”
“When was that?”
“February twenty-first at ten-thirty-five.”
At this point a phone rang. Miss Rose took it up and hooked it under her chin. It was one of those conversations in which the other party is off and on the line for some reason or other. In one of the lulls, Miss Rose pulled a sheaf of notes from under the counter and riffled through them. There was a flash of pink fingernails as she covered the transmitter. “Here’s a note about the harp. You can look at it if you like.”
There it was: Luis Garcia Valera—Santa Barbara to San Francisco to Dallas—Fort Worth to Charlotte to Three City Airport. And from Three City to Kennedy and from Kennedy to Spain.
“On what date to Spain?” I wondered aloud.
A young man entered the booth. Miss Rose, still holding the phone and waiting for the return of her party, said, “Bill, do you remember a no-show on Garcia one day last week?”
The young man turned the baggage ticket he was holding and made a notation on the back of it. “García? García?” he mumbled vaguely as he made a feeble effort to recall.
“You remember,” Miss Rose prompted, “The gentleman—you know—in the green suede jacket.” She rolled her eyes in exaggeration. “The one we had so much trouble tracing the harp for.”
“That one!” the young man answered. “There was a noshow—might have been him—on Tuesday.”
“It would have been a no-show on Sunday,” Miss Rose corrected. She completed the telephone conversation and returned to the computer. García’s flight to Madrid was supposed to have been on the twenty-first. “Uh, yes,” she said, “I remember that jacket. For an older gentleman, Mr. García was downright sexy looking. His clothes were tough, but on him they looked good—and I say if an old man can do it, why not?”
I was a bit taken aback. The man in question was very little if any older than I. But whether or not the man was valiantly fighting old age with a toupee and a green jacket, he was clearly the man whose body we had found at Brown Spring.
Those sensitive hands—of course! They could only have belonged to a musician. And with the toupee and “tough” clothing, he might well have been sexy with that glorious glow of the sun on his skin. Perhaps I would have thought him so myself; and the girls in the chapter would have agreed, no doubt. I wanted to ask about his hair (that is, the toupee), but I didn’t dare.
“I can’t thank you enough,” I said—in as gracious a manner as I could muster, hoping to make up for my earlier behavior.
Luis Garcia Valera—a Spanish harpist—expected in Madrid, left from Santa Barbara.
Was he on a concert tour? Possibly the last concert of the tour was in Santa Barbara. Why had nobody in Madrid asked why he didn’t show up? And why had he come to Borderville?
As I was thinking of these things, my eye lighted on the Rentz Auto Rental sign: THE DEPENDABLE AUTOMOBILE RENTAL SERVICE—FOR LESS! as the television ads are always reminding us. Since I was at the airport anyhow, I might as well see if Garcia had rented a car. So I walked over to their office and asked.
He had. It had been driven back some time in the dark hours of Monday morning the twenty-first and left in front of the office. It had been driven fifty-seven miles. I told the young man in the office that Garcia had given me a check that had bounced. I asked for a description of Garcia. The young man’s description tallied with that of Miss Rose. I asked him especially about the jacket.
“It was strictly neat-o,” he replied, “very cool.” From the young man’s language I took it that my informant knew what he was talking about.
I asked for the young man’s name (he was Brent Millmarsh) and left.
Hubris? Sophocles never portrayed it any more effectively. I had a feeling that I had just pulled off a marvelously effective escapade and the whole world had better get out of my way before I knocked it over. I was like a cat that has eaten a mockingbird. There I was-fifty-seven years old with two grown children (and very attractive, straight young people even if I did rear them myself), married to a highly respected and occasionally stuffy attorney—and telling lies all over the Three City Airport!
Meddlesome! That’s what my grandmother would have called it. But I had been successful. And it felt grand. As soon as I got home, I went straight to the telephone and rang the sheriff’s office; and then when Butch Gilroy came on the line, I said, “Mr. Gilroy, this is Helen Delaporte.”
Perhaps I ought to explain that during the time Calvin Gilroy has been sheriff of Ambrose County, my Henry has made a fool of him on the witness stand more than once. Butch Gilroy has no reason to like either of us.
So there was a little pause while Butch sucked in his breath.
“All right, Helen, what have you got?”
He has no excuse for calling me Helen. All the world calls him Butch, but I have never called him anything but “Mr. Gilroy”—to his face, that is.
“I have the name of that so-called bum my ladies found at Brown Spring, and he’s no bum at all, but an internationally known musician.”
That is the sort of thing hubris will do to a girl. If I had begun that communication in the right way—meek tone, uncertain manner—if I had been the stupid female with no idea what to do with some little thing I had just happened to notice, he would have put it together, claimed it for himself, and been a self-made hero. But no. In one sentence I had signaled that I was a cantankerous female who can do his job better than he can.
There was silence on the other end of the line to the count of five.
“Is that so?” he said at last.
“Indeed it is,” I chirped. “His name is Luis Garcia Valera. He is Spanish and a most accomplished harpist.”
“A what?”
“Harpist—he plays the harp.”
“And how did he get himself killed by a wino in Brown Spring Cemetery?” The tone was resonant with sarcasm.
“It’s your business to find that out.”
“Fine,” said our fearless law-enforcer, “I’ll do that.”
I got the message immediately: I had just received the brush-off.
“You don’t understand,” I said. I was going on the defensive now,
which is the wrong thing to do. “His name is García,” I protested. “They told me so at the airport. There is no possible doubt about it.”
“Listen, Helen,” Gilroy broke in, “we’re very busy here today. We’ll take care of this just as soon as we get around to it. Okay?”
I was mad and chagrined. Because I was excited, I had acted like a child, and I had been treated like a child. But I did not lick my wounds. I immediately called the commonwealth attorney, Ronald Jefferson.
Ron is no special favorite of mine, but he belongs to the country club and has played golf with Henry once or twice. And his wife, of course, is in Lawyers’ Wives, a funny little club that meets for cocktails once a year. Ron is not smart like Henry, and Henry says he is lazy but honest. He is pretty; that’s how he gets elected. He is also smooth. And that’s all he is.
“Ron,” I said when the young woman put me through to him, “this is Helen Delaporte.”
“Ah, Helen! This makes my day.”
I could picture him in his big paneled office with a cigar in his left hand and that huge gold ring he wears—with a crest on it—totally fake, of course. That’s one thing you learn quickly in the DAR.
“Good to hear from you, doll! Anything I can do, just ask.”
I began at the beginning. I told Ron the whole thing. He kept murmuring such things as “Now isn’t that amazing!” and “Well, well!” After I had told my whole story and given him the names of Rose and Millmarsh, he said, “Well, dear, you’ve really given us something to think about. Yes, indeed! Something to think about.”
The Famous Dar Murder Mystery Page 4
