by Barbara Paul
“Where you been? The guy from the medical examiner’s office wanted to take the body but I told him he had to wait for you.” The speaker was Ivan Malecki, Marian’s partner for the past two years and an impatient sort. “Will you look at this place? Talk about loaded.”
“I’d better look at the body. Where is it?”
“Upstairs, in a kind of study. Come on.” He led the way.
“What have you got so far?”
“Deceased is Andrew Jonathan Strode, wheeler and dealer in the grand old American tradition. Owned a buncha companies, or parts of them. Present at time of death were four servants, three bodyguards, two security guards, three guests, and Strode’s executive assistant. The three—”
“Wait a minute. You’re saying there were five guards in this house and somebody still got to him?”
“Well, one was outside, but there were five, yeah. It was one of the guards who found the body.” Ivan started up a wide staircase. “No sign of a break-in. A man’s on duty at the front gate, and the back gate is controlled electronically from inside the house. The servants and guards are pretty much out of it, looks like. The three guests all hated Strode, according to Castleberry—that’s the executive assistant, Myron Castleberry. Haven’t had time to talk to them yet. Castleberry’s the only one that’s upset by what’s happened—the guests were all smiling and having drinks when I looked in on them.”
“You think one of those three got past the guards and left a knife in Strode’s chest?”
He grinned sourly. “Better’n that. Would you believe three knives in his chest?”
Marian stopped short. “Three.”
Ivan said nothing more, but opened a door and motioned her inside. The room was a home office or library, and it was crowded with men from the crime lab. In the middle of the floor lay the body of a man of about sixty; and as Ivan had said, not one knife but three had been plunged into his chest.
What an incredible sight. It was as if someone were trying to pin him to the floor and wanted to make sure he never got up again. It was a lot harder to stab a man in the heart than people thought; the heart was surrounded by layers of tough protective muscle. But why keep shoving in different knives until one of them struck home? Why not just keep stabbing with the same knife? The bloodstain on the carpet was surprisingly small; Strode must have bled internally.
“Well, Sergeant, glad you decided to join us,” said an Oriental man squatting down by the body. “You want to take a quick gander here so I can get going?”
“Hello, Dr. Wu.” Marian hunkered down beside him. “Anything other than the obvious?”
“I can’t tell you which knife killed him, if that’s what you mean. Time of death, approximately one hour ago. Rigor started right after I got here.”
Marian examined the handles of the three knives. One was mother-of-pearl inlaid among edgings of some exotic stone Marian couldn’t identify; it was a beautiful piece of work. The second knife had a black leather handle, a no-nonsense kind of knife. The handle of the third, curiously, was made of cheap pink plastic. “Prints?”
Dr. Wu shook his head. “Wiped clean.”
Marian looked up at Ivan. “Whose knives?”
“The three guests’. One knife each.” He folded his arms. “Conspiracy. Gotta be.”
“Maybe.” She looked back at what remained of A. J. Strode. The body was dressed in peach silk pajamas; the feet were bare. She stood up and pointed to a door other than the one she’d come through. “Where does that lead?”
“To his dressing room,” Ivan said. “This is a whole suite of rooms. Evidently he was getting ready for bed when he came in here for something and the killers were waiting for him.”
Marian told Dr. Wu he could remove the body. She went into the dressing room and its connecting bath, and then into a bedroom that had more floor space than a lot of small apartments she’d been in. On the other side of the bedroom was another dressing room and connecting bath; they didn’t seem to be in use. “Isn’t there a Mrs. Strode?” she asked Ivan.
“Don’t know yet. Seen enough? Let’s go talk to these people. There’s a sort of conference room downstairs. If you close the door, you don’t smell the smoke.”
“What about the fire?” They left the bedroom suite and started back down the stairs.
“Coulda been a distraction. Or it coulda been done to turn off the cameras.” Ivan pointed to one mounted high on the wall at the bottom of the stairs. “We need more details.”
In the conference room two men were waiting, watched over by a uniformed policeman. The two men were not talking. One sat at the conference table with his head propped up on both hands, looking as if he were trying not to break down. He was in his shirtsleeves, and both the shirt and his face were smudged with soot. The other man was standing by a window. Marian took quick note of his elegant clothes and distinguished bearing; the man fairly reeked importance. Marian liked his looks, even the three or four theatrical gray streaks running through his black hair. Whoever he was, he was examining the two entering detectives with equal interest.
Marian took the lead. “I’m Sergeant Larch, and this is my partner, Sergeant Malecki. You are …?”
“Richard Bruce,” the elegantly dressed one said. “Sergeant, do you have any idea how long you’ll be keeping us? I’m a guest here and was on the verge of leaving when everything started to happen—I’d still like to leave. Will it be long?”
“Yes,” Marian answered frankly. “This is a homicide investigation, Mr. Bruce.”
“This here’s Mr. Castleberry,” Ivan said, indicating the dejected-looking man at the conference table—who somehow managed to raise his head and nod.
“I understand you can’t rush, Sergeant,” Richard said with no trace of impatience, “but we were virtually on our way out when it happened and we won’t be able to tell you anything.”
“‘We’? All three of you?”
“I can’t speak for McKinstry, but Joanna and I were leaving.”
Marian pulled out a notebook and sat down at the table. “Full names, please.”
“Joanna Gillespie. Jack McKinstry.”
Marian’s head jerked up. “Joanna Gillespie? The violinist?”
Ivan looked blank, but Richard Bruce said yes. “If we’d been even five minutes faster, Joanna and I would have been gone by now,” Richard went on. “Neither one of us knows what happened. I’d appreciate it if you’d take our statements first so we could be on our way.”
Marian stared at him. “Mr. Bruce, surely you realize you’re not just a casual bystander. One of those knives buried in Strode’s chest belongs to you, doesn’t it?”
Castleberry made a strangled sound.
“Sergeant Larch,” Richard said, “all three of our knives were locked in that—ah, Officer, would you mind taking a step to your left, please?” The uniformed policeman moved aside to reveal a waist-high side table; the one drawer was open. “Our knives were locked in that side table earlier this evening. Strode had the key. Anyone could have broken it open.”
“Including you,” said Ivan, going over to take a look. “The wood’s splintered and the lock’s scratched and bent,” Ivan told his partner. “Screwdriver, probably. Marks are too small for a crowbar.”
“Do you always take a knife with you when you go visiting?” Marian asked Richard Bruce.
He shook his head. “All three of those knives were purchased just this morning. We had reason to believe we were in some danger here.”
“Oh? What reason was that?” Ivan asked.
“It’s difficult to explain. This weekend was the culmination of a long period of conflict between Strode on one side and Joanna Gillespie, Jack McKinstry, and me on the other. None of us loved him. Things had reached the point where we were uncomfortable being here, in his house. But we had to stay until some stock changed hands … that was the crux of the conflict. So this evening I sold him my stock and was preparing to leave when the fire broke out. And then the bodyg
uard found that Strode had been murdered.”
“During the fire.”
“Apparently.”
Marian looked at the other man. “Mr. Castleberry? Is that how you see it?”
Strode’s executive assistant didn’t look well; his face was gray and pinched and his entire body sagged. “I think so. Once the fire broke out, everyone’s attention was on the monitoring room. Several of us were trying to put out the blaze before the fire department got here.”
“Who are ‘several of us’?”
“The inside security guard and I, and a couple of the bodyguards—maybe all three of them. No one was keeping track of anyone else.”
“Where were you when the fire broke out?”
“In here. I had to call Mr. Strode’s lawyer and tell him not to … not to do something. I was checking over the stock sale papers when the fire actually started.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“What about you, Mr. Bruce? Where were you when the fire started?”
“I was in the television room waiting for Joanna. She had to go back up to her room to attend to something before we left.”
“Were you alone?”
“Unfortunately. Ah … just a minute, I did ask one of the maids to fetch our suitcases. She might remember seeing me there.”
“Where was Mr. McKinstry?”
“God knows.”
“I think he was in his room,” Castleberry offered.
“So none of you four were together,” Ivan commented. “Any one of you could have started that fire and then slipped upstairs during the confusion and killed Strode.”
Castleberry was horrified. “You can’t suspect me of killing Mr. Strode! You can’t think that!”
“Take it easy,” Ivan said. “We’ve gotta suspect everybody until we find a reason not to.”
“But that’s absurd! I was not Mr. Strode’s enemy!”
“Well, I was, but I didn’t kill him,” Richard Bruce said. “Look, Sergeant, er …?”
“Malecki.”
“Sergeant Malecki, I’ll sign anything you want but I really must get Ms Gillespie out of this house.” He half grunted, half laughed. “I want to get myself out of this house. We’ve all been under a terrible strain for the last three days, and now this. You can’t hold us, you know.”
“Can’t we?” Ivan grinned. “Here and I thought we could.”
Marian said, “We can hold you for twenty-four hours without charging you—that’s the law. Now you can spend those twenty-four hours in an interrogation room, or you can spend them here. Here is nicer.”
Richard looked at her speculatively. “And when those twenty-four hours are up, you can still take us in and hold us another twenty-four, can’t you?” The two detectives looked at him blandly, saying nothing. “I see. Well, if that’s the way it is, that’s the way it is. I’m going upstairs. It’s been a long day.” He started out.
“Mr. Bruce,” Marian said.
He stopped.
“The pink knife,” she asked. “Which one does it belong to?”
His face broke into a sardonic smile. “McKinstry.” He went out and closed the door behind him.
Ivan nodded to the policeman in the room. “Make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.” The officer followed Richard Bruce out.
“They did it, you know,” Castleberry said unexpectedly. “One of them or two of them or all three together, but they did it.”
Ivan sighed. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything in the way of evidence, would you?”
“You’ll have to find evidence,” the other man said earnestly. “They were the only ones in this house who had reason to want Mr. Strode dead. The rest of us all worked for him, in one capacity or another. But Bruce and McKinstry and Gillespie—they hated him.”
“Why?”
Castleberry sat up a little straighter in his chair. “Because they couldn’t get the better of him! They tried—they tried a lot of things, but they still couldn’t get the upper hand. Mr. Strode was stronger than they are, smarter than they are—”
“Deader than they are,” Ivan finished impatiently. “Where are the other two—McKinstry and Gillespie?”
“Upstairs, in their rooms. One of the police officers asked them all to wait up there until you got here.”
“But Richard Bruce was in here.”
“Yes. Mr. Bruce generally does as he pleases.”
“Who called the police? And the fire department?”
“I did. One call took care of both.”
Marian had a question. “Mr. Castleberry, who inherits?”
“Why … Katie does. Mrs. Strode.” Castleberry looked surprised, as if he hadn’t gotten around to thinking of that yet. “Yes … Katie will get everything. The will hadn’t been changed yet.”
“Mr. Strode was thinking of changing his will?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Strode were separated, Sergeant. But it happened only recently. The divorce proceedings hadn’t even been started.”
“Where is she now?”
“Jamaica. Oh dear—she doesn’t know. I’ll have to call her.”
“Do you want one of us to do that?”
“No, no … I’d better tell her myself. But thank you. I’ll need to talk to her anyway. It’s time to start thinking about the funeral arrangements, for one thing.”
Ivan turned to his partner. “Want to get the necessaries out of the way first?”
“Might as well,” Marian said. “Mr. Castleberry, we’re going to want to talk to the guards and the servants first off. I think we’ll start with the guard who found the body. Do you suppose you could find him for us?”
“Yes, certainly. I’ll be, ah, let’s see—I’ll be in the dining room if you need me.” He left, relieved at having been given something to do.
“A bodyguard who discovers bodies instead of guarding them,” Ivan yawned. “Do you suppose we could get some coffee? We’re gonna be here all night.”
“At least,” Marian agreed glumly. “There won’t be anyone in the kitchen at this hour. Let’s wait until we get one of the servants in here and then we can ask.”
“Right after the body-discovering bodyguard,” Ivan agreed.
The bodyguard had the unusual name of Millwalker, and he was on the defensive. A big man who had hitherto done well in the profession of intimidation, he foresaw—probably correctly—that his livelihood would now be threatened by his spectacular failure to preserve the life of A. J. Strode. It took Marian Larch and Ivan Malecki ten minutes to get him to say anything more than some variation of It wasn’t my fault.
“I did my job,” Millwalker was insisting for the sixth or seventh time. “I was where I was supposed to be when I was supposed to be there. I was not negligent.”
“Nobody said you were,” Ivan answered for the sixth or seventh time, and decided to try a variation of his own. “We haven’t had any complaints. Nobody in this house seems to hold you responsible. Ease up, Mr. Millwalker. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Marian covered a smile with her hand.
It worked, to a degree. When Millwalker was convinced the police weren’t going to accuse him of anything, he paused in his wallow of self-justification long enough to give them the details they wanted. And in doing so, he provided them with their first indication of why someone might want A. J. Strode to make an early departure from the land of the living.
Millwalker said he personally had taken the three knives away from Richard Bruce, Jack McKinstry, and Joanna Gillespie. On Mr. Strode’s instructions, he had touched only the blades and locked the knives away in the side table. He gave the key to Mr. Strode. He stayed in the room with the other two bodyguards while Mr. Strode and his three guests haggled about business.
“Where was Castleberry?” Marian asked.
“He was here too,” Millwalker replied, “but he didn’t say much. It was Mr. Strode who did all the talking. He wanted some stock the others had, and he told them he’d accuse them of attem
pted murder if they didn’t let him have what he wanted.”
Marian and Ivan exchanged a look. “You’d better explain that,” the latter said.
Millwalker explained about Strode’s phone call to his lawyer and the fingerprints on the knife handles and the midnight deadline. “So they talked it over and decided there wasn’t any way out and Mr. Bruce sold his stock to Mr. Strode and that was the end of it.”
Marian Larch was getting a bad taste in her mouth. “You mean A. J. Strode blackmailed Richard Bruce into selling his stock?”
Millwalker shrugged. “I guess you could put it that way. From the way it sounded to me, Mr. Strode had tried something like that before but it hadn’t worked—just from the things they were saying, I mean.”
“What had he tried before?” Marian asked.
“I couldn’t tell exactly. But it was damned obvious he’d been puttin’ the squeeze on them and they’d wriggled out. So the fingerprints on the knives—that was his new squeeze.”
“And this one worked,” Ivan said, shaking his head. “A real Mr. Nice Guy. So then what happened?”
Then they all dispersed, like billiard balls shooting off in all directions after a break. Millwalker and one of the other bodyguards accompanied Strode up to his suite. Strode unlocked his bedroom door and waited in the hall with the other guard while Millwalker checked things out.
“Did you look in the library?” Marian asked.
“I sure did. Nobody was in there then.”
“Which was when?”
“A little after eleven. I remember Mr. Strode saying something to Mr. Castleberry about them beating the deadline by an hour.”
“Did you check the door between the library and the hallway?”
Immediately Millwalker was back in his defensive posture. “There wasn’t any reason to. When we went in by the library, we didn’t check the bedroom door. So why would we bother to—”
“Okay, okay,” Marian interrupted. “So you didn’t check the hall door to the library. Then what?”
Then Mr. Strode locked the bedroom door behind him and the two guards took up their positions, Millwalker at the head of the stairs and the other man in the wing where the guest bedrooms were located. The third bodyguard was to patrol the house, always on the move. No, Mr. Strode didn’t always have such stringent security arrangements; they would be abandoned once these particular guests were out of the house. Mr. Strode didn’t trust them.
