The Bloodied Ivy (The Nero Wolfe Mysteries Book 3)

by Robert Goldsborough

  But the president’s histrionics fell on deaf ears. “Mr. Goodwin and I have made the same request of several others. All of them either have accounted for their time on that date or promised to consult their appointment books and report to us. Does this request cause you a particular problem?”

  “No—why should it?” Potter said, obviously struggling to stay unruffled. “I’ll check when I get back to the office, if you want to call me. But let me say this,” he puffed. “You’d better not do anything to damage this school in any way or, by God, I’ll take both of you to court, and I mean it.” With that, he rose, squared his shoulders pompously, walked out, and slammed the door behind him.

  “Not a half-bad exit,” I said. “Reminds me of the way Bogart blew his stack for effect and marched out of the D.A.’s office in The Maltese Falcon.”

  Wolfe glowered at me. He knew of course that I knew he’d never seen the movie, and it always peeves him when I make a reference to something he can’t respond to. Never mind that he does that kind of thing to me all the time.

  FOURTEEN

  NOW THAT POTTER HAD BEEN disposed of, we were down to our final session at Prescott—with Gretchen Frazier, who was due at eleven. Wolfe stayed glued to the chair that he had been parked in for the better part of the last twenty-four hours, with his book in front of his face. I contemplated asking if he wanted me to call downstairs and order beer, but thought better of it. After all, it was only ten-forty-four; if we had been at home, he’d still be up in the plant rooms, and with so many of his other routines already messed up, I didn’t want to throw off his drinking schedule, too. Some things deserve to remain sacred.

  It was almost quarter after eleven when the telephone squawked. “Nero Wolfe’s room,” I answered.

  “Sorry I’m late, Mr. Wolfe,” an out-of-breath Gretchen Frazier said between pants. “I’m calling from a house phone in the lobby. What room are you in?”

  I told her, and less than a minute later, I was holding the door open for her. She looked younger than she had before, maybe because she was wearing a white blouse, pleated skirt, and tennis shoes. “Oh, I’m sorry I couldn’t come last night,” she began without recognizing me. “On Thursday nights, I teach an aerobics class to a group of—wait a minute, you’re—Mr. Goodman, isn’t it? You…you’re the one I had coffee with. The one whose nephew is…what are you doing here? Professor Cortland asked me to see Nero Wolfe. And I—”

  “Miss Frazier, may I present Nero Wolfe,” I cut in, bending at the waist and making a sweeping gesture toward him with an outstretched arm. Wolfe set his book down, sent a glare my way, and turned toward our guest, dipping his head at least an eighth of an inch. That’s his all-purpose greeting, which he feels is a more-than-adequate substitute for a bow or a handshake, whether the person to whom it is directed is male or female.

  She looked at me, then at Wolfe and back to me. I’d almost forgotten how blue her eyes were.

  “Miss Frazier, please have a seat,” Wolfe said. “Before you go on, an explanation is in order. This gentleman, whom you know to be Arnold Goodman, is Mr. Archie Goodwin, and he is in my employ. On an earlier visit to Prescott, he chose to represent himself as a Mr. Goodman. I neither defend nor decry his action, but I appreciate your confusion. Do you have any questions relating to Mr. Goodwin’s masquerade?”

  She looked flustered for an instant and then shrugged. “Well…yes, I do have a question,” she said, nodding, “although not so much about the—what did you call it—masquerade? Professor Cortland said you wanted to see me because you think Hale—Professor Markham—was…killed?”

  “Not technically correct,” Wolfe said. “But first, can we get you anything to drink? Coffee, perhaps?”

  “No, nothing, thank you.” She balanced on the edge of the chair as if she were going to leap up and run out at any moment. “I’m in kind of a hurry and I’d like to be home in less than an hour. I’m behind schedule on two papers.”

  “We will respect the demands upon your time. As to your question, it is Mr. Cortland who thinks his colleague was murdered, and he has asked Mr. Goodwin and me to undertake an investigation.”

  “Murder?” she said, shaking her head and screwing up her face. “I don’t believe it. No way! It’s bad enough he’s dead. Why would anybody want to murder him?”

  “Madam,” Wolfe said, still trying to find ways to get comfortable in his chair, “I’m not now prepared to state that Mr. Markham died at someone else’s hand, but I concede the possibility exists. You do not?”

  Gretchen shook her head again, her face showing more dismay than denial. “I…I don’t know.”

  “Very well. How do you think Mr. Markham met his death?” Wolfe asked.

  “An accidental fall, like the reports said.”

  “But was not Mr. Markham a mountain climber and hiker, very surefooted?”

  “Ye-e-e-s, but anybody can get careless and slip. There’s no other explanation.”

  “So it would seem,” Wolfe said. “Do you know how Mr. Markham felt about Elena Moreau?”

  “What?” The question surprised Gretchen, as Wolfe had intended, and she brushed her hair out of her face. “Oh, Dr. Moreau—I know they were good friends. I think they’d known each other for a long time.”

  “How would you describe their relationship?”

  “Good friends,” she repeated, with tension edging into her voice.

  “I see. How would you describe the relationship between you and Mr. Markham?”

  “In what way?” she asked, her cheeks reddening.

  “Just that,” Wolfe said, turning a palm over. “What was your relationship?”

  “Teacher to student,” she answered woodenly. “He was my adviser, and besides that, he was a wonderful professor. I admired him more than anybody else I’ve ever known. And I miss him terribly.”

  “That’s understandable. Miss Frazier, where were you on the night Mr. Markham died?”

  With that question, the pressure that had been building in Gretchen broke, and her tears came like one of those sudden July storms. Wolfe is uncomfortable enough around women when they’re calm, but waterworks invariably send him running for cover. He was out of his chair and into the bedroom faster than when he heads for the dinner table, leaving me to comfort Gretchen Frazier for the second time in three days. I did my best, sitting next to her and handing her one of the monogrammed handkerchiefs Lily had given me on my last birthday. Her sobs continued for at least a minute before she took a couple of deep breaths.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, sniffling. “That wasn’t very mature of me, was it? You always seem to see me crying. Please apologize to Mr. Wolfe.”

  “We all have to have some kind of release,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic. “And I also know that you’re anxious to get back to your work. But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t follow up on Mr. Wolfe’s last question.”

  She nodded, still fiddling with the handkerchief. “I’m pretty sure I was at home in my apartment studying; that’s where I am most evenings. Except Thursdays, you know, when I teach aerobics.”

  “Was anyone with you?”

  “No. I live alone.”

  Somehow, I had expected that answer. I thanked Gretchen for her time, putting my arm on her shoulder, and I escorted her to the door, slipping on the chain lock after she had left.

  “You can come out now,” I said loudly to the closed bedroom door. “All’s clear.”

  Wolfe emerged, looking grumpier than ever, and replanted himself in the chair that he had come to know and loathe.

  “She’s gone,” I said. “After you upset her with your hard-as-nails line of questioning, I had to soothe her before I sent her on her way.”

  “Did you get an answer as to where she was that night?” he snarled.

  “Of course. She was home and was deep into her studies—alone.”

  “Your opinion of her?” Wolfe was deferring to me, based on what he likes to think are my infallible instincts a
bout women, particularly those of the species under thirty.

  “Smarter than she acts—she’d have to be to make it to star-student status at the graduate level. She’s somewhat on the ingenuous side, though, and I never trust that type.”

  Wolfe absorbed that. “Assuming that Mr. Markham’s death was no accident, what odds would you place on her as the murderer?”

  “You really like to put my skill in reading females to the test, don’t you?” I said. “Okay, here it is: I could go six-to-five either way, but leaning slightly toward innocent. Don’t ask me why—like with Elena, it’s just a feeling I’ve got. However, I think young Gretchen knows more than she’s telling. I suppose now you’re going to order me to take her dancing so I can unleash my legendary charm and wrest her innermost secrets from her.”

  “The idea hadn’t occurred to me,” he said airily, raising both eyebrows.

  “You know, it’s quarter to twelve,” I said, changing the subject. “Shall we eat here before driving back?”

  Wolfe looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. “We will leave immediately. Call Fritz. Ask him what we will be having for lunch.”

  FIFTEEN

  THE DRIVE HOME, I’M PLEASED to report, was uneventful. Not surprisingly, Wolfe alternately sulked and grimaced from his roost in the back seat, despite my rigid adherence to the speed limit, my total avoidance of tailgating, and—if I may say so—an overall superb job of driving. As we headed south in the midday sun, I commented several times on the splendor of the autumnal colors, but all I got from the rear were grunts. “Some fun you are to ride with,” I snapped as we came within sight of the Manhattan skyline.

  Wolfe wasn’t happy until he was back inside the brownstone and at the dining room table attacking Fritz’s clam cakes. Then he got positively gregarious and began to expound on why North America was so conducive to exploration and, ultimately, to settlement and development.

  “Look, I don’t disagree,” I said between bites of a clam cake, “but I’d like to remind you that less than an hour ago, you were riding through some of the very North America you are extolling—and a most attractive part of it, I might add. I didn’t hear any rhapsodizing then.”

  Wolfe looked at me as if he hadn’t heard a word, and damned if he didn’t shift gears, smoothly at that, into a discussion of why the French had never been as effective in colonization as the English—nor as enthusiastic, not only in North America but around the world. I kept on chewing.

  After lunch, we had coffee in the office, where business is fair game. “Okay,” I said, spinning in my desk chair to face Wolfe. “Where do we stand on Markham’s death? Is it a case, or isn’t it?”

  “As usual you are chafing for activity, Archie, which is not in and of itself bad,” Wolfe said. “You are the quintessential man of action, and I applaud your enthusiasm and energy—after all, those are the qualities that render you invaluable to me. To denigrate those qualities would be fatuous, and I will not do so.”

  He paused to drink, and I recognized what he was up to. He was now ready to take the case, but he wanted me to be the one to push it, so he was getting cute and trying a little flattery. Part of me got stubborn, but I also knew that if I didn’t strike while he was still in a mellow mood because of his safe return home and a stomach filled with Fritz’s cooking, he might lapse into his usual state—terminal laziness.

  “The way I see it, Cortland is right; Markham had to have been pushed into that ravine,” I said conversationally. “Fact Number One: He was an experienced hiker and climber. Fact Number Two: He knew that terrain well—he walked it every day. Fact Number Three: The ground was dry and firm at the spot where he went over the edge.” I paused to look at Wolfe, whose eyes were closed. “Fact Number Four: We have heard from Elena Moreau that Markham had dizzy spells, which might explain the plunge except for one thing. The branches on the bushes at the spot where his fall began were broken so cleanly that he must have gone over the edge with some velocity—I was surprised at first that the local police hadn’t wondered about it, but once I’d made their acquaintance I could see where they could overlook evidence staring them in the face. Anyway, had Markham simply stumbled or passed out and fallen like a deadweight, those branches, at least the larger ones, would have been bent back maybe, but not snapped off like they were. There must have been a lot of momentum behind his body to cause that type of break—the kind that comes from a shove, not just a fall. And we know from Cortland that the body was carried out of the Gash by a different route, so those branches weren’t broken by anybody lugging the body back up.”

  He drew in more coffee, finishing the cup. “We haven’t heard from any of the gentlemen yet as to where they were on the night Mr. Markham died. I suggest you call them now and get their answers.”

  “Potter, Schmidt, and Greenbaum?”

  “And Mr. Cortland as well.”

  “You want me to ask our client where he was that night, too?”

  “I do,” Wolfe said, ringing for beer and starting in on his new book, Hold On, Mr. President, by Sam Donaldson.

  I shrugged and opened my notebook to look up Cortland’s numbers. I thought about trying his office, if only to hear the dulcet tones of Ms. Auburn-Hair, but then I remembered that somewhere along the way, the professor had mentioned he didn’t have either office hours or classes Friday afternoons. I dialed his home number and he answered after four rings. “It’s Archie Goodwin,” I said cheerfully, as Wolfe set down the book and picked up his instrument.

  “Mr. Goodwin, I’m glad you called!” He sounded as if he meant it. “I was just getting ready to call you. The police did phone me last night. They asked if I would come down to the station.”

  “Did you?”

  “Of course. They—actually it was the chief—Chief Hobson—wanted to know why I had hired you and Mr. Wolfe. I must say his manner wasn’t very gracious.”

  I kept my voice somber. “What did you tell him?”

  “I reminded him what I had said at the commencement of their so-called investigation—that I was convinced Hale’s demise was not accidental, and that, in the face of their obstinate refusal to delve deeper into the matter, I had turned to Mr. Wolfe. That merely increased his ire, though, and he opined that it was unwise of me to go off and get some ‘high-rolling New York hotshot’—and that was the exact terminology he employed—who would come up to Prescott and start stirring things up just to get publicity for himself.”

  I looked to see Wolfe’s reaction, but his face remained impassive. “Did the chief say he’d look into Markham’s death?” I asked.

  “Oh, kind of.” Cortland sounded disgusted. “But it was patently obvious from his manner that he really wasn’t very interested and still didn’t believe Hale was murdered. He seemed more intent on inveigling me into dismissing Mr. Wolfe. When I refused, he informed me that you and Mr. Wolfe had better watch out, and that if you pulled any shenanigans in his jurisdiction, he’d see that your licenses got pulled.”

  “Forewarned is forearmed,” I said, winking at Wolfe, who scowled in return. “Have you heard from any of the people we talked to last night and this morning?” Cortland said he hadn’t, and then asked how the questioning had gone. I gave him a brief rundown—after all, he was our client—and then got around to a question a private detective doesn’t normally pose to a client: Where were you at the time the crime took place? Actually, my wording went like this: “Oh, by the way, Mr. Cortland—can you remember where you were on the night that Mr. Markham died?”

  There was a pause on his end, then he cleared his throat noisily. “Why on earth would you pose that, uh, question to me?” he asked sharply.

  “I’m merely trying to get everyone placed that night between ten and midnight,” I answered matter-of-factly. “It helps Mr. Wolfe organize his thinking.” I winked at Wolfe again.

  “I was at home, grading midterms,” Cortland sniffed.

  “Alone?”

  “Of course! As I’m sure I’ve told y
ou. I’m a bachelor. I live alone.” He sounded offended.

  “Right, you did tell me. Say, by any chance do you know where I can reach those Three Musketeers—Potter, Schmidt, and Greenbaum—right now?”

  Cortland still sounded put out, but after consulting his school directory, he gave me the office and home number of each. I thanked him and signed off, promising he’d be hearing from Wolfe or me again soon. He didn’t sound impressed.

  “I do believe we’ve gone and gotten our client miffed,” I told Wolfe. “That’s the chance he takes, though, when he hires a high-rolling New York hotshot like you.”

  “Archie, your humor wears thin. You have more calls to make.” With that bit of harrumphing out of the way, he rang for beer and picked up his book again. Some people simply can’t take a joke.

  For no particular reason, I called Schmidt first, trying his office number. A female with a voice not nearly as pleasant as Ms. Kearns’s informed me none too politely that Mr. Schmidt was never in his office on Friday afternoons. I thanked her anyway, figuring she’d had a rough week.

  I dialed Schmidt’s home number and scored. “Hi, this is Archie Goodwin,” I said, “calling to find out if you’d had a chance to check your calendar for September twenty-third.”

  “Oh, it’s Arnold-Archie, is it?” he said with a brittle chuckle. “Yes, I looked at it first thing when I got to the office this morning. I had no meetings or other activities that night, so I must have been at home.”

  “Was someone with you?”

  “Alas, no, I’m afraid I’m totally without alibi,” Schmidt answered in a tone of mock seriousness, followed by another chuckle. “My wife was in California the last two weeks of September visiting her mother, so I was all alone. Does that vault me straight to the top of your fabled list of suspects?” I ignored the remark and thanked Schmidt for his time. My mother taught me to always be polite to everyone, even jerks.

  Next I called Greenbaum at his office, and wouldn’t you know it, I got the same woman, who gave the same answer in the same tone that she had three minutes earlier; I would have thanked her again if she hadn’t hung up on me. I then tried Greenbaum at home; no answer. During my last few calls, Wolfe had remained hidden behind his book, but as I learned long ago, that didn’t mean he wasn’t paying attention. As I started to dial Keith Potter’s office number, he set the book down and leaned forward.