Haunting Investigation

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “All right. I will.” He drifted toward the end of the room and the tall windows that overlooked the rear garden. “Someone in the dimension of ghosts should know where I can start looking, assuming that he or she is willing to tell me, or cares about Moncrief’s or Knott’s death.” He began to disappear, but halted when he was little more than a wavering place in the air. “Don’t get your hopes up, Poppy.”

  “You mean you intend to do this now?” asked Poppy, and not wanting to appear too eager to learn more, added, “Given your ghostly view of time, that is.”

  “As soon as you have your tête-a-tête with Loring. He may have something useful to say about what’s happened to Overstreet, or tell you if there is some kind of trail he can follow. If you can get it out of him, that is; I’ll listen in, and hope to discover something new from him.” He shimmered a little in the bars of light.

  “If it will help you get information, I’ll think of something to pry with; we need to have some solid answers,” Poppy said, making it a promise.

  “That sounds … like a good possibility.” Holte said, mildly distracted as he weighed various scenarios in his mind. “This whole investigation — if that’s an appropriate description — has been a tangle: every new discovery leads to many more questions. I wish I knew what kind of business dealings your cousin had with Knott. Has he ever talked about that?”

  Poppy shook her head. “Stacy doesn’t discuss business in general, and when he does, he avoids specifics and once in a while, he resorts to outright evasion. He says it’s professional confidentiality, but in the last year or two, I’ve had some doubts — he knows bootleggers, you see, even Aunt Jo admits it — and he’s not one to reject an opportunity. But I can’t see how any of this case ties into arranging for the covert importation of wines and spirits.” Saying this aloud bothered her, and she stared up at the ceiling as if to separate herself from her anxiety.

  “If it is about bootlegging. I’m not sure that it is.”

  Poppy spoke up at once. “Stacy might take pride in being able to work his way around a law he doesn’t approve of, but I can’t see him conspiring in anything so violent as murder, not even at a distance. That,” she added, “doesn’t mean that he is unaware of who might be. Involved. I think that he would keep compromising knowledge compromising for others to himself. That’s one of the things I almost admire about him.”

  “Almost?”

  Poppy considered her answer carefully. “I think he could withhold crucial information for the sheer mischief of it, if he thought it would be … amusing.”

  “Including information about murder,” Holte said, for clarification.

  “Yes, if it’s to his advantage, he could very well keep back what he knows about a murder, especially if it involves friends of his,” she admitted, and wished that she could fall through a sudden hole in the ground. “He’s as fastidious as a cat, and murder is — ”

  “Sodding ugly,” Holte finished for her, startling her with his blunt use of language.

  “Yes, and that’s not at all like Stacy,” she said a bit too quickly.

  “But where is the tipping point?” he mused. “How much would he conceal, and what would be enough for him to reveal what he knows?”

  Poppy took more time to answer. “It would depend upon what would happen to his business, that’s my guess.” She frowned. “And he’s a snob, and that could turn out to be a problem. He would do almost anything to avoid besmirching his reputation among his peers.”

  “In what way?” Holte inquired.

  “He might not want to speak against anyone who is part of his class, friends or not,” she said, worried that she was saying too much, admitting too many of her reservations about Stacy. “Still, I don’t think he’d withhold information on murder.” She felt a bit ashamed of herself for not being more stalwart in her cousin’s favor.

  Holte said nothing.

  “You don’t agree?” Poppy ventured.

  “Let’s say that you know him better than I do; you’re smart and observant, so I’ll accept your assessment even though he’s your cousin, and you’re biased in his favor.” He quivered in the sunlight and rose toward the ceiling. “It’s best if he believes you two are alone against the world — I don’t want interfere with that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it strikes me that your cousin Stacy is a much downier character than you give him credit for being, and that bothers me; I’m a bit bothered that his connections to shady groups hasn’t alarmed you, since you’re a reporter. I want to make sure that he suspects little about my inquiries, which I hope he wouldn’t believe if you informed him of them at breakfast.” With that, he whisked away to the far corner of the room and lay back against the ceiling.

  “Do you imagine that Stacy suspects that I’m being haunted?” Poppy challenged, and was met with silence. Heaving a sigh of aggravation, she went back to the desk and sat down at the typewriter. In the space of ten minutes she managed to get no more than her heading on the page, and then sat staring at the swath of blank paper. She was about to get up and go downstairs to ask Missus Flowers for more coffee when there was a tap on the door. “Come in,” she responded automatically, and stood up as Inspector Loring entered the room. “Good afternoon, Inspector — I trust it is afternoon by now.”

  “Barely, and it’s going to be a long afternoon,” said Loring as he closed the door and looked around him; he was in dark-brown slacks, a dull-blue roll-neck pullover under a Scottish tweed jacket. “What a nice place this is,” he declared once he had taken the whole thing in. “No wonder you enjoy working in it.”

  “Thank you, Inspector,” she said, surprised by his interest. “I like it, too.” She gestured to the sofa and the two chairs that framed it. “If you’d sit down?”

  “Thanks.” He chose the chair on the far side of the sofa; Maestro opened one eye and glared at him before draping the end of his tail over his face as if to shut out his human interlopers. “That’s quite a cat you have there.”

  “He certainly thinks so,” said Poppy, coming to the other chair at the end of the sofa.

  “Is he yours or your aunt’s?” Loring inquired in a tone that assured her it had nothing to do with his investigation.

  “Aunt Jo’s, of course, like Duchess. They’re both royally spoiled in their own way.” Poppy sat down and faced Loring, meeting his eyes as forthrightly as she could. “If it isn’t impolite to ask, how did things go with Stacy?”

  “I’m trying to figure that out,” said Loring, giving a quick shake of his head. “He’s a conundrum, no two ways about it.”

  “Was he uncooperative?” Poppy asked, dreading the answer.

  “Not obviously so, but he didn’t actually tell me anything I hadn’t found out already, and he wouldn’t be lured into saying more than a few remarks that appeared casual but I doubt were. The one thing I truly couldn’t get out of him was what kind of business he was doing with Moncrief. He kept citing professional — ”

  “ — confidentiality,” she finished with him. “He often uses that to keep from revealing the things he wants to keep private, and there are many things he wants to keep private.”

  Loring nodded. “I told him that his deliberate obfuscation made him seem less than candid in his responses not concerned with his work, and he said that I could be suspicious of him if I liked, but there was no reason to be.”

  Poppy laughed, a bit nervously, and said, “How like him.”

  “He’s a slippery rascal, I’ll give him that, but he’s not doing himself any favors with such tactics. He’s raising more questions about what he’s doing than if he had been straightforward with me. Unless he’s breaking more laws than the Volstead Act imposes.” He tried to make this sound reassuring and succeeded in doing the opposite; he leaned forward, as if to touch her across the empty carpet. “I’m not calling him a suspect, Poppy. I haven’t sufficient information to do so, and certainly none from him. All I am certain of is that he’s withholdi
ng some things from me, and that they may or may not be connected with Moncrief’s murder; he might be doing it for pleasure.”

  Poppy rubbed her forehead. “As I’ve told you, he’s always liked having secrets.”

  “That much is obvious,” said Loring, sounding tired. “He was enjoying himself all through my questioning.”

  She regarded him in a way that she hoped was neutral enough to hide her anxiety. “Did he mention that he has been spending time with Louise? They were friends before she married Madison.”

  “He said he introduced them, that they were old friends.”

  “That they are. They met about fifteen years ago, and have been close ever since.” Saying this made her worry again, in an ill-defined way that made her fret.

  Loring went on, “He said she asked him to visit her often while he’s in town.” He coughed once. “I don’t know why he told me that, except that it was all of a piece with the rest of what he volunteered, like letting me know he and Moncrief were members of the same country club, where they sometimes golfed.”

  “That’s true enough. At university, they were on the sculling team. They also belonged to the same shooting club for a while; Moncrief relied on Stacy to handle his foreign business dealings; Warren Derrington has done much the same thing, but I understand Stacy and Derrington have had a parting of the ways, which wasn’t the case with Moncrief. Stacy and Madison spent part of a summer sailing, before the country got into the Great War.” She wondered what she should say next to encourage him to provide more material she could use in her story for Lowenthal. “Would you tell me if you do come to suspect him?”

  “I’d have to; it would mean an end of conversations like this one,” he said. “Where did that come from — asking if I might suspect your cousin in some capacity?”

  “Protective curiosity. He’s my cousin. My aunt would be devastated if he became a suspect.”

  “Okay, I understand that.” Loring ran his hand through his hair. “It’d be dam … dratted awkward for you to cover the story if Stacy were seriously involved.”

  “You can say damned around me, I won’t mind; I hear worse at the paper. Just don’t use profanity or obscenities where my aunt can hear you.”

  “So you’ve said.” He sat back in his chair. “You’re in a difficult position, aren’t you? Your work can’t be reassuring to the people around you.”

  She was suddenly feeling that she had been dilatory in their discussion. “How do you mean that?”

  “Your friend is dead, your friends are being investigated, and your cousin is playing games with the police. You’re expected to cover the story for your paper and not to take sides. That’s got to be a difficult stance to maintain.”

  “Yes, yes, it is, but to be frank, it’s exactly the kind of opportunity I’ve been hoping for since I went to work at the Clarion.” It felt strange to admit this so baldly; she tried not to look too chagrined. “Not the murder, of course, but the chance to cover crime.”

  “I get that,” he said. “But it would probably be easier if your friends — and your family — were not directly part of the investigation.”

  “It is a balancing act. And you’re right —Stacy isn’t making it any easier.”

  As if it had just occurred to him, Loring asked, “Do you know what your cousin and Derrington argued about last night?”

  “I imagine you asked him that already,” she said.

  “And he danced around the answer like Nijinsky. I was hoping he was more forthcoming with you.”

  “Nothing particular, or nothing that he was willing to discuss. Keep in mind that what I’m telling you is second hand.”

  “What did he say? What did you observe?”

  Poppy shrugged. “He came in very late, and Aunt Jo was worried about him. And he was in a foul mood this morning.” She wished she had bitten her tongue rather than tell him so much; she added, “He was hung-over at breakfast, and brooding about a business deal he was working on, that much I know. He has been bothered about a problem with one of his ventures since he got here, but whether it was his deal with Derrington or someone else, I have no idea, and I didn’t bother to pursue it. He didn’t say anything important about this one way or the other.”

  “Has Derrington come to collect his things yet? I’d like to talk to him.”

  “Not that I know of.” She did not add that she was curious about his absence. “Maybe he’s reconsidering whatever he said last night.”

  “Your cousin gave me the impression that this has happened before; they have quarreled but it has never resulted in a lasting rift.” Loring was fishing, and Poppy knew it.

  “All I know is that he was disappointed in Derrington.”

  “I understand that,” said Loring. “Stacy’s habit of hints without anything substantial must drive you over the top, being a reporter.”

  “Oh, it drove me over the top long before that,” she said, wanting to lighten the mood so that she could pump him about the case. “He was much more annoying when he was ten.”

  “So I gather; he said you used to yell at him for being surreptitious,” he said, taking his cue from her. “Yet you guard him. Why do you do that? Is it family or something more?”

  “How do you mean, something more?”

  “Ambition, perhaps,” he said. “Or one of those complicated family situations that can’t be directly resolved. It would be surprising if you didn’t feel some conflicts between your family interests and the Clarion’s.”

  “It’ll depend on how things turn out,” she answered. “If there are any more murders among people I know, I’ll probably be taken off the story, so it won’t matter.”

  “Have you any reason to think you might be taken off the story as things stand now?” he said, pouncing on her remark.

  “Not really. I think the murder of Mister Knott spooked me.” She was pleased with her private joke.

  “Are you following that?” He seemed surprised.

  “Everyone in the city room is following that,” she answered.

  “Are you sure about Derrington and your cousin?” Loring demanded, almost getting out of his chair. “That they were involved in business ventures together?”

  “I don’t have a confirmation, but my source is most reliable, so I’m proceeding on that assumption for now.” She glanced up at the far corner of the ceiling, wishing as she did that she knew what Holte was thinking. “Knott dealt with the people in the tri-city region who could afford what he supplied. He dealt only in top-quality antiques and antiquities, for top-quality prices. ”

  It was an effort of will for Loring to sit back down. “Antiques can be very expensive, as I remember. I’m not on that case, Inspector Tyler’s in charge.”

  “Perhaps you two should talk,” Poppy suggested.

  “Yeah,” he said, sinking into deep thought.

  They sat in uneasy silence for nearly two minutes, and finally Poppy said, “Is there anything else we should discuss.”

  Loring glanced up at her. “There probably is, but for the life of me, I can’t think of what it could be. I’ll have to ‘phone you when it occurs to me. I’ll let you get back to work.” Saying that, he launched himself out of his chair, strode to her side, took her hand, kissed it, and made for the door. “If you learn anything before I do, you ‘phone me. Hawkins will see me out. Get back to the typewriter.”

  Startled and unexpectedly gratified, Poppy got to her feet and followed him to the door. “Good luck, Inspector,” she said as he went toward the stairs.

  “Thanks,” he said, offering her a grim smile.

  She watched him while he descended the stairs; when she turned back into the room, Maestro was puffed out like a bottle-brush and Chesterton Holte was mostly visible and hovering near her desk.

  “Told you so,” he said with an expression that was dangerously near a smirk.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  THIS TIME, CORNELIUS LOWENTHAL CAME TO POPPY TO COLLECT HER STORY, his Dodge Brothers auto lo
oking a bit out-of-place among the other, more expensive autos on the street, and Lowenthal himself seemed a bit deflated as Hawkins let him into the entry hall, where the wall sconces glowed with light as golden as that of the fading day outside.

  “Do come in, Mister Lowenthal,” Hawkins said as Poppy came out of the sitting room, and shook her boss’ hand.

  “This is some place you’ve got here,” he muttered as he looked around.

  “Thank you — I’ll tell my aunt you said so,” Poppy remarked, hoping to put her boss at ease.

  “I didn’t realize you were so … grand.” He looked around again, his eyes widening.

  Poppy motioned him toward the sitting room. “It’s not mine, it’s my Aunt Jo’s.”

  “You live here — that’s what counts,” he grumbled, revealing his discomfort; Poppy realized that the house intimidated him.

  “Yes, I’m fortunate,” Poppy said, trying again to make him feel welcome.

  He cleared his throat. “How many servants?”

  “Realistically, six,” said Poppy, indicating the settee near the sideboard.

  “How many rooms, then?” Lowenthal pursued.

  “Seventeen, if you count the mud room; Aunt Jo doesn’t,” she replied, and changed the subject. “Would you like something to drink? I can offer you coffee and tea, of course, or something stronger, if you prefer. We have some very good whiskey, or English gin, or rum. Or cognac.” She lingered at the sideboard, standing so that Lowenthal could see the array of bottles and glasses set out on the dark-stained walnut sideboard.

  Lowenthal remained standing — a rare courtesy for him — and mulled over the possibilities. “If I might have a wee dram?”

  “You may,” she said, and reached for the whiskey glass, then the bottle, removing the stopper and pouring out a little more than an ounce of the potent liquid into the squat glass. She set the stopper in place again, and went to Lowenthal, handing him his drink before turning on the central light in the ceiling. “Missus Flowers will bring us some finger-food shortly. Do, please, sit down.” She took a manila file folder from the end of the sideboard and handed it to Lowenthal. “I’ve gone about as far as I can until I talk to Doctor Wyman tomorrow morning.” She had set up the appointment shortly after Loring had left, and now she felt that it had been a sensible precaution. “I’ll be able to get my story about that interview by press time tomorrow.”