He Huffed and He Puffed

by Barbara Paul

  Jo was frowning. “But if the entire crew went down on the ship, who was left to sign something that could implicate you?”

  “The first mate’s wife,” Richard said. “The mate told her I had sanctioned the plan for scuttling the Burly Girl—to quiet her doubts, I suspect. If the boss himself was behind it … well, that takes the onus off the poor lowly seaman who was sucked into a whirlwind of events he couldn’t control, don’t you see. And now I can go to the gas chamber just because some thieving son of a bitch of a sailor didn’t have the nerve to tell his wife the truth.”

  “Your word against hers,” I suggested.

  “Not entirely. He put it all in a letter before he died.”

  “Ah. And Strode has the letter.”

  “You guessed it. Something went wrong on the Burly Girl—the captain was in on it too, but neither he nor the mate ever got off the ship. So the mate’s credibility increases a thousand-fold by virtue of his being dead.”

  I felt like applauding, he did that so nicely. Just the right touch of bitterness in the voice, the troubled look in the eye, the mouth drawn into a straight line—none of it overdone. I was fascinated. Why oh why do you suppose King Richard the Bruce would suddenly choose to reveal such damaging information about himself? I watched Jo watching Richard. Was it for her benefit? Was Richard hatching some little plot involving her that would leave yours truly out in the cold?

  “The first mate’s wife,” Jo said, “is she the one Strode has hidden away?”

  “She’s the one. She’s even changed her name, according to Castleberry.”

  “Then you’ll never find her,” I said. “Not if Strode doesn’t want you to. No more than I can find Billy—he’s the helicopter pilot Strode bribed. Those two are gone. Forget ’em.”

  “I already did. The answer isn’t in looking for a sailor’s widow and a helicopter pilot and …?”

  Ah, that was it. He wanted to know what Jo had done. She was aware of both of us watching her, waiting for her to complete the sentence. She didn’t. She didn’t squirm, she didn’t look away, she didn’t anything. Finally I said, “C’mon, Jo, we told you our secrets. Who’s Strode got locked up from your dark and undoubtedly disreputable past?” I grinned to show I was kidding.

  She slumped down farther in the booth. “In my case, it’s a mercenary.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “A mercenary … soldier?”

  She sighed. “Yes.”

  “You were, er, planning to take over a country? Start your own survivalist camp? What?”

  “It was a mistake. I never hired him.”

  “But you were thinking of hiring him. For what?”

  “It doesn’t matter for what. What matters is that Strode got him to sign a statement saying I offered to hire him—which I didn’t.”

  It was like pulling teeth. “Hire him to do what? Talk to us, Jo.”

  “All right, all right,” she said irritably. “Strode paid him to accuse me of trying to hire him … to kill my parents.”

  Pow! Talk about awesome. “You mean … mother-and-father-type parents? Jesus Christ.” In a way, that was even worse than Richard’s thirty-seven victims. Umm, on second thought, no it wasn’t. Richard was worse. “Strode must have gone off the deep end. Your parents! Why are you supposed to have wanted them dead?”

  “For their money. They both died recently—my mother two years ago and my father a year before that. They left me money—a lot of money. So Strode has decided I killed them for it.”

  “Yeah, everybody knows what a failure you are,” I said with disgust and gave her hand a squeeze. “I can’t imagine anyone believing that story.” Sympathetic Jack, crying shoulder available without prior notice, that’s me.

  Richard said, “Did you try to buy off the mercenary? Or is he in hiding too?”

  “He’s not in hiding—he’s at his home in Texas. But Strode’s got him in his pocket now … and I can’t get him out. I tried.”

  “You know,” I said, “of all the rotten stunts Strode has pulled, that one has got to be the worst. I’m sorry, Jo. I wish I could help.”

  She was in the process of mustering up a smile for me when Richard stacked up a few of the plates of half-eaten sandwiches and reached across the table to take her hand away from me and hold it in his own. “It won’t wash, Jo,” he said gently. “You did seek out the mercenary, remember. Whether you ultimately hired him or not doesn’t matter. You were trying to buy yourself some firepower.”

  She jerked her hand away. “That’s no concern of yours.”

  “Yes, it is—unfortunately. The same way that what happened to my ship and to Jack’s helicopter is your concern. We’ve each got to know what the others are up against if we’re going to come up with a workable plan. You can’t hold back now. There’s more to the story than you’re telling us.”

  I’d never before seen a woman age ten years right before my eyes, but I swear to god that’s what happened then. Everything that made Joanna Gillespie vital and special drained right out of her as I watched. It scared the shit out of me. Richard saw it too, and for once I was glad to let him take the lead. He waited a moment or two and then simply said her name.

  She roused herself with an effort. “God, I just can’t take this anymore. You might as well know—what difference does it make now? It’s all coming out anyway. Yes, I killed them. I killed my mother and my father. You two may be pure as the driven snow, but Strode was right about me. I’m a murderer.”

  Alarums and excursions! I know the world didn’t actually stop rotating at that moment, but that’s sure as hell what it felt like. It’s not every day of your life that you hear someone say, I’m a murderer. She’d really done it, she had actually done it—and here she was admitting it! I found I was holding my breath and let it out. “Jesus, Jo, that’s a hell of a thing. Why? Do you need money that badly?”

  “I don’t need money at all!” she snapped with a flash of her old fire. She took a deep breath and said in a low voice, “I killed them because they asked me to.”

  It belatedly occurred to me that we were in a public place and here was this world-famous violinist admitting she’d killed her parents and who knew who might be listening? I did a quick look around, but all the other customers in that place were so wrapped up in their own confessions that they weren’t paying any attention to us. “They asked you to,” I prompted.

  “They were ill,” Richard guessed.

  “Terminally,” she said. “It was only a matter of time before they both died without any help from me. But they were in pain—such incredible pain. My father was suffering from emphysema, and he’d already had two coronaries. Just the simple act of breathing was torture for him. He wasn’t allowed much in the way of painkillers because of other drugs he was taking—he got at most a couple of hours’ relief a day.” Her eyes turned inward, remembering. “Every day I’d go into his room, and he’d beg me to put an end to it. That big, strong man reduced to a lump in a bed—begging.” Her eyes focused again, and she looked first at Richard and then at me. “Finally I did what he wanted,” she finished simply.

  Hmm, yes. Ah-ha. It was a touching story, all right, all about a loving daughter risking her own freedom to bring her dying father relief from pain. Real touching. I might even believe it if she hadn’t inherited a fortune. I don’t need money at all, she’d said. What bullshit. Everybody always needs money.

  “The mercenary?” Richard asked.

  “Oh yes—Ozzie. Ozzie Rogers is his name. I contacted him when I’d decided to go ahead with it, but that was a mistake. I couldn’t hire someone to kill my father for me. I had to do it myself.”

  Sensitive, too, with a nice sense of propriety. Or maybe she just got cold feet dealing with a hired killer? Naw, it couldn’t be something as unwonderful as that; perish the thought. I put an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t dwell on it,” I said. “It’s over now.”

  “Not completely,” Richard said. “Your mother—it was the same with
her?”

  “Oh … Mother.” That inward gaze again. “It was nephritis in her case. Do you know what she said to me? She said, ‘You did it for your father—why won’t you do it for me?’” Jo looked at us both with pleading eyes. “How did she know I’d killed him? How did she know?”

  That How did she know? got me. I know something about acting, and I was willing to bet every one of my shares of House of Glass that Joanna Gillespie wasn’t acting then. She really didn’t know how her mother had found out. Dear me, could she be telling the truth about her two-time excursion into homicide and it really was euthanasia after all? More likely she’d just bumped off the old lady because she’d found out. How did she know.

  “Your father must have told her what you were going to do,” Richard suggested.

  “I’m pretty sure he didn’t,” Jo said. “I don’t think they were ever alone together toward the end. They were both bedridden and in separate rooms … but aside from that, I don’t think he would have told her. Not him. Well, it’s not important now.” She lapsed into silence.

  So there we sat, three little killers out on a limb. I was as sure as I was that God made little green apples that Richard Bruce had sent thirty-seven people to their deaths a hell of a lot more easily than I had sent four to theirs. Whether Jo Gillespie’s murder of her folks was a family-sized mercy killing or not didn’t make a hell of a lot of difference; Strode had her and she knew it. I took my arm from around Jo and used it to lift a near-empty glass. “A toast,” I said. “To Ozzie, Jo’s mercenary, and to Billy, my pilot, and to … what’s your finger-pointing widow’s first name, Richard?”

  He had to think. “Estelle.”

  “To Ozzie and Billy and Estelle—may they all meet in hell.” It rhymed. Only Richard joined me in my toast; Jo sat staring at nothing, a million miles away. She’d given up; she’d told us about killing Mommie and Daddy because she was convinced she was going to be one of the weekend’s two losers. Well, I was real sorry about that, but somebody had to lose. The waitress came up and asked if we were happy or did we want to do it again; it was time to leave.

  Lo and behold it was starting to turn dark. We’d wasted the entire afternoon eating and drinking and telling lies. Then out of the blue something uncomfortably akin to panic hit me bam, like that. The sidewalks were crowded with people hurrying in a vain attempt to beat the rush-hour traffic and I suddenly felt disoriented. Like I didn’t know where I was—Christ, that’s scary. What if the other two hadn’t been lying after all? What if Jo truly had killed her parents out of pain for their pain? And what if Richard honestly had been caught in the backwash of other men’s cupidity? What if I was trying to convince myself of their guilt so I wouldn’t feel so alone?

  “Jack?” Jo’s voice said from what seemed a great distance away. “What’s the matter?”

  I bumped into a bag lady who for some reason was holding a big pretzel against her ear. But my mini-anxiety attack passed; I muttered nothing’s the matter, I’m all right, it’s okay. Richard stepped into the street and flagged down a taxi. All of New York was trying to grab a cab at that hour and Richard got one, wouldn’t you know. We piled in and Jo said, “I don’t want to go back to that house.”

  “I do,” I said, and gave the driver the address. “I want to go back and burn it down.”

  “Or at least break a few things,” Jo agreed with a forced smile. She was looking for things to joke about, coming out of her funk.

  “Where would you like to go, Joanna?” That was Richard the Protector, noble solicitousness personified. And dig that Joanna.

  “Where? Boston. Berlin. Timbuktu, I don’t know.” She sighed. “There’s no place to run to. We might as well go back to Strode’s.”

  Sensible of her. But when the cab pulled up to Strode’s place, I felt a stab of that same reluctance to go back inside there; I wanted to split in the worst way. But I fought down the urge and said in my best ringmaster manner, “Well, well, here we are again, lady and gentleman! Step right this way and behold the eighth wonder of the modern world—the house that greed built. Which is not all that wondrous, come to think of it, greed being as it is a class-A requirement for social acceptability nowadays. And what have we here? A guardian at the gate? Abandon hope … good evening to you, sir. Don’t tell me—we have to sign in.”

  The security guard was one of those people who’ve never smiled in their lives; a real Spanish sense of humor. “No sir, Mr. McKinstry, just go on in.”

  Inside, we separated immediately; we all wanted a little time away from one another. I checked to make sure the cardboard was still covering the camera in my room and then lay on my bed for a while, seriously considering cutting out. But that wouldn’t solve my problem, and it would just make things easier for Jo and Richard. I didn’t want to make things easier for Jo and Richard.

  After about half an hour I crossed the hall and knocked on Jo’s door. When she let me in, I said, “Were you and Richard serious last night? When you were talking about killing Strode?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know whether we were or not. It doesn’t matter, since we don’t know where Strode is. We’ve been through all this.”

  “And he doesn’t have any children we could kidnap or whatever. What if we should start wrecking this expensive home of his?”

  “Why do you suppose he hires security guards?”

  “But my god, Jo, we’re right here where he lives! We ought to be able to do something to him! Something to make him back down.”

  “I’m open to suggestion,” she said dryly.

  “Are you? I thought you’d given up.”

  She thought about it. “I guess I haven’t—not completely, anyway.” She shot me a look I didn’t understand. “Of course, if we all do get out of this … I’ll still have you two to worry about, won’t I?”

  “What do you mean?” I stalled.

  “You know what I mean. You and Richard. You’ll both be in a position to blackmail me.”

  I was saved from having to answer by a knock on the door; it was Richard, wanting to know if we’d thought of something. “Jo has,” I said in a hurt tone of voice. “She thinks you and I are going to blackmail her.”

  They exchanged a long look. Richard said in that soft voice of his, “How can we, Joanna? We have no more on you than you have on us.”

  “You have my true confession,” she said poker-faced.

  “Worth about as much as all the rest of the creative bullshit that’s been flying around here lately,” he said.

  “But my confession was uttered in a dark moment of self-flagellation and soul-wringing despair. I should think that would be worth something.”

  “I’ll give you a dollar for it.”

  “I’ll take it. But I did admit to murder. To two murders. I placed myself at your mercy.”

  I didn’t get it; Richard was laughing. “Thus convincing us that you are the weak member of this trio? The one we don’t have to watch because she’s no threat? It didn’t work, Joanna. I’m more afraid of you now than I was before.”

  Afraid? Of Jo? Richard Bruce was afraid of Joanna Gillespie? And now she was laughing, too—quietly, as if sharing a joke. What the hell? “Hey, remember me?” I said. “How about letting me in on it? Jo, was any of that stuff you told us this afternoon true?”

  “Oh yes,” she smiled. “Almost all of it.”

  And it was up to me to guess which part wasn’t. I flopped down on Jo’s bed, trying (for Richard’s benefit) to look as if I’d been there before. “Isn’t this jolly?” I said with a big smile. “Here we’ve known one another for less than twenty-four hours and we’ve already got a dandy Three Stooges act going. Oh, I’m really enjoying myself. Aren’t you enjoying yourselves?”

  Richard pulled a chair up to the side of the bed and sat, staring down at me. “Cards on the table, Jack. We’re all three killers, and A. J. Strode has found us out. All we’ve got is one another. We’ve spent too much time lying and not enough planning.”


  “I’m not a killer!” I sputtered, sitting up. “Speak for yourself! Those people who died in the helicopter were my friends!”

  “I’ll bet at least one of them wasn’t. You caused that crash, Jack, just as surely as I arranged for the Burly Girl to be scuttled. Just as surely as Joanna killed her parents.”

  Jo was slouched in the window seat, disassociating herself. I looked at Richard. “What are you up to? What do you want?”

  “I want to survive,” he said quietly.

  It was a trick; it had to be a trick. They both confess to crimes they didn’t commit so I’ll be a good old boy and confess too. Then once they’re sure I’m a real killer, they just forget about me and work out the Strode thing between them. Well, I didn’t care much for that script. “We all want to survive,” I said carefully. “But I’m not sure how much chance I’ve got up against two admitted killers.”

  “Make it three and join the club.”

  I glanced over at Jo, who was staring moodily out the window; no help there. “Why is it so important,” I asked Richard, “for me to say I’m a killer?”

  “Because,” he answered slowly, “I have to know how far you are willing to go.”

  That brought Jo back to life. “You have a plan,” she said.

  “Just the beginnings,” Richard told us. “But I know already it won’t work if there are any faint hearts among us. I’m sure of myself, and I’m almost as sure of you, Joanna.” He looked at me without saying anything.

  I swallowed. “I’ll do anything,” I assured them both. “Anything anyone can think of to get us out of this, I’ll do.”

  “Even kill?” Jo asked, damn her.

  “I’ve never killed anyone before,” I said in my sincerest voice, “but I think I could, if I had to.”

  Jo made that tsuh sound that means both amusement and contempt with the emphasis on the latter. Richard said, “I don’t think it’ll come to that, but we ought to be prepared to. Before I can figure out details, I’ll have to know more about the layout here. I need to know every door and window in this place that’s locked—look, you two have been in the private wing and I haven’t. Can you draw me a floor plan?”