Sleep of the Innocent

by Medora Sale

  Addie greeted them with muted warmth. “Morning, Inspector,” she said. “You here to eat or ask questions?”

  “Eat, mostly,” said Sanders. “We’re expecting my partner. If you happen to notice him, send him over.”

  “He’s hard to miss. By the way, what in hell did you say to Randy?” she asked, leading them to a quiet table in the corner. “Tips doubled over the weekend. You must’ve put the fear of God in him.”

  “I think he’s just considering the error of his ways,” said Sanders. “We’ll have an Amstel. Each, that is. And what’s worth eating today?”

  Harriet watched until Addie was out of earshot and turned to John. “What was the waitress talking about?”

  “Oh, that. Randy was skimming tips. We just sort of prodded him, that’s all. Nothing much. He seems to scare easy. It’s nice Addie’s getting her money.”

  “He’s the bookkeeper.”

  “Right. And if cash is being skimmed wholesale out of this operation, Randy has to know about it.”

  “Is cash being skimmed? And why does he have to know about it? Maybe he just keeps everything straight from this end—so much coming in every day, so much going out in food and heat and light and salaries and whatever. He hands the balance over. And then Neilson gets his hands on it and grabs a huge chunk instead of putting it in the bank. Easy. And so poor little Randy is innocent of any thing—except cheating Addie and the rest of them out of their tips, of course,” she added uneasily.

  “Right. Skim tips today, skim entire operations tomorrow. Anyway, he used to be a big-time embezzler. And I want to know why Neilson hired him. Would you hire an embezzler to do your books and handle all the cash from a profitable operation? No, you’d have to be crazy. But he wanted someone with experience. In fraud. One question is, did he want Randy because he could recognize fraud? Or perpetrate it? The other one is, when you hire a crocodile to protect you, how do you keep it from eating you first? Which leads me to wonder if Neilson had something very big on him, to keep him in line.” He waved in the direction of Ed Dubinsky, who was threading his way through the tables in their direction. “And that makes me wonder what Randy was doing on the afternoon that Neilson was killed.”

  “Was Neilson a blackmailer?” asked Harriet. “Along with everything else?”

  Sanders nodded.

  “Who was he blackmailing?” asked Harriet. “That you know of?”

  Sanders opened his mouth and suddenly thought of the pictures of Lydia—Harriet’s friend Lydia—in bed with two men and a boy. But Dubinsky and Addie arrived simultaneously, saving him from having to answer. Sanders turned to Addie as she handed his partner a menu. “Was Randy here the afternoon Mr. Neilson was murdered?”

  Addie paused for a moment. “Sure. Well, most of the time, as far as I know. He was here at lunchtime, and then he must have gone out for a while. Couldn’t tell you when. I only remember because Mr. Horvath was looking for him that afternoon. There was a major screw-up on the ordering, and we needed him. I called the office, and they didn’t know where he was—maybe doing something for Mr. Neilson. We even thought about closing. Not because of Mr. Neilson’s death or anything. No one gave a damn about Mr. Neilson,” she added, lowering her voice, “but because we’d run out of stuff, head office was going crazy, and we needed authorization to buy emergency supplies. The chef was ready to quit.”

  “But you opened.”

  “Yeah. The chef went into the till, took all the cash, and sent the busboy out to a supermarket. Problem solved. Horvath worries about doing everything according to procedure. You know. Randy got back in time to straighten things out anyway.” She paused. “I don’t know what was going on at head office earlier, but it can’t have been because of Mr. Neilson. They called Randy to let him know what happened just before we opened. Between five and five-thirty.”

  “So Randy was in and out. How about Mr. Horvath?”

  Addie looked shocked. “Mr. Horvath was here all day. He’s always here. Except when he was out shopping with the busboy, of course. But no—he was here.”

  Sanders looked over at the impeccable elegance of the manager and wondered. “Have the corned beef sandwich, Ed,” he said gloomily. “It’s Monday, the chef’s hung over, and the goulash didn’t turn out.”

  “Okay—and a beer,” he said to Addie’s retreating back. “According to Miss Cavanaugh, no one called the chauffeur and told him not to pick up Mark Neilson. The only people who ever dealt with the chauffeur—who even knew the telephone number—were Cavanaugh, that bitchy receptionist, a person they called the office manager, and maybe Randy West. I got that same story from everyone, by the way. But remember, the chauffeur wasn’t sure, but he thought probably it was a woman who called. I asked all of them, including West, and they all said that it was the last thing on their minds when they found out about Neilson’s death. Which, by the way, wasn’t until just before five. And the chauffeur must’ve gotten that call before three-thirty, when school gets out, or he would have driven Mark Neilson to the airport when he picked him up. And before three-thirty, we didn’t even have the identification of the corpse. So that call—if it existed—came from whoever shot Carl Neilson.”

  “Where does that leave us?”

  “Okay. No one called the chauffeur, no one around this place was thinking of anything but food, and no one at the office knows anything about anything. That leaves us with Mr. Neilson, or Lucas’s girl in the apartment. She seems to me to be the likeliest candidate. She was there, her prints are all over the place, her prints are all over the other girl’s apartment, and she’s disappeared with one of the investigating officers.”

  “And where is he?”

  “Dead,” said Dubinsky flatly. “Probably didn’t expect any girl to be that dangerous. Nice guy, but he had his limitations, you know. No respect for the power of women.”

  “Then who called the chauffeur?”

  “No one. The chauffeur and the girl are in it together. He probably picked her up lots of times, got to know her. That’s where the weapon’s gone. He took it away, and as soon as he was safely gone, she called us.”

  “Motive?”

  Dubinsky shrugged his shoulders. “Money. Probably. How do we know there wasn’t another suitcase stuffed with it that he hung on to? They keep telling us Neilson’s cash is disappearing—well, that’s where it went.”

  Sanders pushed his sandwich away and picked up his beer glass. “Not very plausible.”

  “Why not?” asked Harriet.

  “Why in hell would anyone in her right mind help to commit a murder and then, before the corpse has stopped twitching, call in a report on it? And if the girl and the chauffeur had the money, they would have disappeared together. We would never have laid eyes on either one.”

  “Not if they wanted to go on living in the city,” objected Dubinsky stubbornly. “As soon as they took off, the whole world would be out looking for them.”

  “Anyway, I just can’t see Lucas dead somewhere in a snowbank. Or being part of it, either. And your crazy theory doesn’t take into account the report from the motel.”

  “If that was Lucas,” said Dubinsky. “And even if he was traveling around with her for a while, all she had to do was wait until he fell asleep. We haven’t had a whisper about him for a week or two. And they’re looking for him all over the place.”

  “Three coffees,” called Sanders in the direction of the tired-looking waitress. “You have a point. And we’d better start taking the chauffeur apart on that phone call.”

  Grainne woke up as the Jag pulled to a stop in front of a three-story warehouse on King Street West. “Where are we?” she asked, looking nervously around.

  “When did you two meet?” asked Tricia. “It’s home, sort of. Okay, Robin, love. We’re here. Any special instructions?”

  “Just don’t let anyone know who she is, don’t leave her a
lone, and don’t let anyone, especially the police, into the apartment.” He leaned forward and caught Grainne by the shoulder. “Take care of yourself. Don’t call me, just in case. I’ll be in touch. You’re much safer with Tricia than you are with me right now.”

  Tricia got out of the car and walked around to the trunk, opened it with elaborate care, and scuffled noisily about inside for Lucas’s suitcase.

  He pressed his cheek against Grainne’s. “Stay hidden,” he said hoarsely. “I’m not sure I’d survive if anything happened to you.” He let go abruptly and jumped out of the car. Grainne turned to watch him stride casually up an alley beside the warehouse.

  “What if they’re watching for him?” she asked in panicky voice as Tricia got back in the car.

  “He said it doesn’t matter. But he doesn’t live here. His apartment’s up on Adelaide Street. He just didn’t want them seeing this car with you in it.” Tricia gave her a comforting pat on the knee, put the car in gear and made a rapid and heart-stopping U-turn.

  Minutes later, Tricia pulled up in front of a soaring building down by the waterfront. She jumped out, tossing the keys to the doorman. “My cousin’s gear is in the trunk,” she said. “Could you have it brought up?”

  “Certainly, Mrs. Lucas.” He didn’t twitch a muscle as Tricia opened the door and assisted a woman with one boot on and the other in her hand up the stairs and into the building.

  The elevator took them directly to the top floor. Grainne limped into a huge apartment and sat gratefully down on an enormous chesterfield that gave her a view of the lake; Tricia tossed her coat onto a chair and sat down near her. “It’s getting late,” she said. “We’ll have some lunch, and then we’ll put you to bed for the time being. You look very tired.” She turned and called over her shoulder. “Mrs. Henderson.”

  An efficient-looking woman in a white uniform appeared in the doorway. “Yes, Mrs. Lucas?”

  “Something nice for lunch for my cousin as soon as you can manage it, please. And would you call Mrs. Kovacs and say that I am much too ill to attend the meeting this afternoon? I think we should put Miss Hunter in the small bedroom—it’s quiet and cheerful. She’ll be staying for a few days.” As soon as she left, Tricia turned back, kicked off her shoes, and curled herself up in the corner of the chesterfield. “I’m so glad Robin called me,” she said. “It’s not easy being a stepmother to someone who’s practically your own age, you know. This is the first time he’s ever let me do anything for him.”

  “Except knit him sweaters,” said Grainne. “It’s a beautiful sweater. He let me borrow it once when I was very cold.”

  Tricia laughed. “You can’t mother someone who’s twenty-eight, can you? I’ve tried treating him like any other male friend, but that doesn’t seem to work, either. So I knit.”

  Just as Grainne was opening her mouth to explain to Mrs. Lucas how her stepson viewed her offers of friendship, a heady smell of rich soup drifted in from the dining room and wisdom prevailed. “That smells wonderful,” she said. “I’m absolutely starved.”

  “No, he can’t call me back. I’ll call him later.” Rob Lucas slammed the telephone receiver down. He looked at his watch. One-thirty. The bored voice at the other end of the line had told him that Inspector Sanders had gone to Freyfields to interview Mrs. Neilson “a little while ago.” He tapped his thumb against his upper lip and considered his options. Was it worth driving out to Freyfields on the chance that Sanders would still be there, and could be reasoned with, before this whole thing got even more desperately out of control? It was risky. He had borrowed Kelleher’s name to make the call, but his voice on the telephone had probably been recognized. Someone in the department was probably figuring out right now what Lucas was likely to do, and would turn up at the estate to pick him up. But as long as Lucas had an opportunity to talk to the inspector first, it didn’t matter so much. He would chance it.

  But first, he needed a car. He looked uneasily at his telephone. If they were monitoring his calls . . . He slipped down the stairs, out the back entrance, and into the back door of the restaurant behind the building. “Hi, Lum,” he said with his usual casualness. “A sandwich to go—anything that’s fast—while I’m telephoning.” He walked out of the kitchen and around to the pay phone beside the washrooms.

  Tricia had no objections to lending him the Jag. “I’ve got Bertie’s car. I really don’t need two. Where shall I drop it off? And don’t worry, Mrs. Henderson’s here. She won’t let anyone near Grainne.”

  Eight minutes later the Jag screeched to a halt at the corner of King and Bathurst. Tricia leapt out, leaving it running, and before Rob had a chance to say anything, she had one elegant arm in the air, flagging down a cab. “’Bye, love,” she called, as she climbed into the taxi that had miraculously appeared, “see you later.”

  Lydia Neilson appeared behind him as he stood in front of her door, waiting. “I thought I heard someone,” she remarked. “Come on. I’m in the stable.” He followed her numbly around the house, convinced that coming here was a mistake; Sanders was nowhere in sight. “Now, what do you want?” she asked, as they walked slowly around the paddock. “I was under the impression that you had murdered Carl and were on the run. If you did, by the way, you have my profoundest gratitude—but I don’t suppose you’ve come to be thanked.”

  He stopped, leaning against the white fence. “Is that what they’re saying about me?” he asked, unsurprised.

  “According to Marty Fielding,” she said. “Of course, Marty is a mine of gossip and half-truths. It doesn’t do to take him seriously. But he does report what people are saying—he doesn’t give a damn if it’s true or not. You’ve replaced me as everyone’s favourite murderer.”

  Lucas shook his head. “I didn’t kill your husband, Mrs. Neilson, and I don’t suppose you did, either, but someone thinks that I—” He was interrupted by the sound of car engines.

  Lydia Neilson’s head swiveled in the direction of the driveway. “Just a minute,” she said, holding up a hand. She ran lightly over to the edge of the house. In a second or two she was back and reached out a hand to grab his. “Come on,” she said. “To the stable.”

  “What?” he asked, scrambling to follow her.

  “It’s your friends from the police department. Two carloads of them. Perhaps they heard you were here.”

  “Jesus,” he muttered breathlessly. “Where—”

  “Into the woods,” she said. “You can’t get a car onto the bridle paths.” She flung open the door, and the spring light flooded in on the restless figure of the enormous gray gelding. “He’s ready to go—you caught me just before I took him out. You’ll need boots,” she said, in horror, looking at his running shoes. As she spoke, she rummaged in the tack room, appearing seconds later carrying a pair of boots and a hat. “Here, quick. They’re Carl’s, but they should fit well enough. As soon as you get far enough away, just dismount, hitch up the reins and give him a slap. He’ll come home. He did it often enough when he threw Carl.”

  As her voice ran on in an urgent, breathy whisper, she was lengthening the stirrup leathers; he was pulling off his running shoes, stuffing them in his pockets, yanking on Carl Neilson’s boots—a little large—and cramming the hat—a little small—on his head. “Ready,” he said.

  Lydia ran to the door. As soon as she opened it, a voice called out across the paddock. “Anyone home? Mrs. Neilson?”

  “You’ll have to mount in here. Duck as you go out. Hurry up!”

  In an automatic movement he had almost forgotten, Rob grasped the saddle, settled his foot, and vaulted onto the gelding. It snorted with disapproval.

  “’Bye, Achilles,” Lydia said brightly. “Show us what you can do.” Her slap on the gelding’s rump sent him scrambling precipitously out of the stable.

  Rob’s leg muscles quivered as they adjusted themselves to his mount; it had been five or six years since he had ridden,
and for a few moments he felt disoriented and awkward. Then Achilles swerved and headed at a canter toward a grass-covered primitive road that ran between a meadow and woodland behind the stable. At that moment a roar of rage or excitement echoed from behind him, and even under Carl Neilson’s hat and above the steady beat of Achilles’ hooves, he recognized that voice. Baldwin.

  The grassy track ended at the back of the meadow, where it intersected with a narrow bridle path. He had a moment of panic; there were woods in every direction. Lydia had neglected to tell him which way to go. He tried to pull Achilles up a little to give himself time to think. Then engine noise and a quick glance behind him told him that Baldwin was coming as far as he could in a car. A loud blast of the car horn, and the issue was decided. Achilles started, half reared, and took the left fork.

  The path then veered sharply to the right; as Achilles rounded the bend at a canter, they were suddenly on top of a file of three novices, whose mounts were moving at a bone-crushing trot. Their riders bounced painfully with a precarious lack of connection to saddle or horse. The one in the rear had lost a stirrup; her back was already eloquent with panicked insecurity when Achilles snorted and barreled past them, crowding the three bored horses over to the verge. A howl of despair told Lucas what had happened; he reined in to make sure that he had not created a disaster and looked back in time to see Baldwin, red-faced and panting, snatch the bay mare with the awkward gait from its fallen rider and mount.

  “Lucas,” he yelled. “Get off that goddamn horse and come back here. You’re under arrest, you bastard.”

  Without thinking for a moment of the consequences of his actions, Lucas bent over Achilles’ arching neck and spoke into the ear that was cocked back to catch the excitement behind them. “Come on, Achilles,” he murmured. “Let’s move.” And he dug his heels with their nonexistent spurs in the gelding’s side for an instant. Achilles lowered his head, stretched out his body and broke into a fast, relaxed gallop. Lucas glanced back. The bay mare, resentful of her new and heavier burden, was resisting the invitation to race.