“I doubt it.”
He smiled. “I thought you might. How about suicide?”
“What do you mean?”
“He was stabbed only once, right?”
“As far as I know.”
He sighed. “Suicide happens. Often by unusual means. I had a patient who killed himself with an electric knife. Damn near cut off his own head. When people get angry and depressed you never know what they might do.”
“It’s worth exploring.”
“So, are you going to try it?” His tone implied an even more significant question than his words.
Part of the A. A. process is a critical self-examination. No bullshit, just truth. The truth, they say, will set you free. Occasionally, at the meetings, I had described my drinking patterns. If you hold something like that up and everyone takes a critical look, it makes it easier to spot the deadly habits and avoid them in the future.
I was a trial lawyer, and a drinker. In my case the two were intertwined like coiling snakes. Perhaps drinking was due to an underlying fear, but whatever it was, I soon found that liquor was an enormous help in trial preparation, right from the beginning of my career. As I got better in the courtroom, I drank more in the barroom.
Like most drunks, at first I could handle it. It was the pleasant fuel that sparked the intellect. But that didn’t last long. The courtroom was the only place where I hadn’t disgraced myself Of course, I would have, in time, but the other parts of my life and career had collapsed first.
I had never tried an important case entirely sober. I didn’t know if I could.
That was the real question his tone implied.
“I’ve recommended the family get another lawyer,” I said, “someone who does it regularly. I’m a little rusty.”
“Will they get someone else?”
I took a bite of the hamburger, chewed, swallowed, and answered. “At the moment, no, but that will probably change.”
“And if not?”
“Are you worried?” I asked.
One eyebrow went up slowly. “If you’re not, I’m not.”
I shrugged. “We’ll see what happens.”
He nodded. “Well, don’t lose sight of what’s important.”
“My sobriety.”
“Another word for survival.” He picked up his check and stood up. It was like watching a skyscraper rising before your eyes.
“Be careful, Charley,” he said.
“I might need your help.”
“We all help each other.”
I smiled. “I don’t mean that way, I mean professionally, as part of the case.”
“Oh, well, that will cost you.”
“Even for an occasional hypothetical question?”
A ghost of a smile drifted across his face. “Especially hypothetical questions. Freud said never do anything for free, especially for lawyers.”
“He played with himself too much.”
The doctor nodded. “Yes, but only in the interests of science.”
I watched him walk down the aisle.
He was worried about me.
So was I, just a little.
*
DENNIS Bernard’s face defied classification. It was the kind of face that blends into a crowd. His features were plain and without distinction. He was sixty but looked younger. His receding brown hair was fading into gray. He wore a dark blue blazer over a light blue shirt and tie. It wasn’t a uniform but on him it seemed like one. His expression was pleasant but bland.
Robin had set me up in a small room off the main entrance in her house so I could interview the household staff. It wasn’t an office — there was too much fancy furniture — but it served the purpose. Bernard sat across a coffee table from me, his wiry legs casually crossed.
“How long have you been in the Harwell’s employ?”
“We came to the Harwell’s just over five years ago,” he said, his voice smooth and unemotional. “My wife and I work as a team, so to speak. She cooks and I serve as a houseman.”
“Butler?”
He smiled, but just a bit. “Mostly, but when Mr. Harwell travels —” he paused and corrected the tense — “traveled, I serve more as a chauffeur. Of course, I do whatever the Harwells wish.”
“I talked to your wife. A nice lady.”
The faint smile remained fixed. “I like to think so. And, I might add, a very good cook.”
“You live here, I’m told.”
He nodded. “Yes. My wife and I have a room. The Harwells travel with a small staff. Besides us, there are three maids. There is a permanent houseman here year round, a kind of groundskeeper. Each of us is assigned a room. Of course, back in Florida, our home, there are additional serving staff.”
“You were here the night —”
“With my wife,” he said, too quickly. “We were in our room. I’m afraid we heard and saw nothing. Of course, we were called down when they discovered Mr. Harwell.”
“You heard no arguments that night?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Nothing happened out of the ordinary?”
“Nothing that I was aware of.”
“That’s what your wife says, too.”
He nodded.
“What did you think of Mr. Harwell?”
He answered immediately. “A fine man. A very good man to work for. I shall miss him.”
It was exactly what his wife had said, word for word.
His earnest pale gray eyes projected an almost palpable sincerity.
I had seen that kind of look before, many times. He was lying. “Did you tell the police anything other than what you’ve told me?”
Those alert eyes narrowed just slightly. “I can assure you I told them exactly the same thing.”
This time I did believe him. He was protecting his job. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil — every good personal servant knows those are the only rules that really count.
“Is there anything else you think I should know? Anything about that night, or about the family?”
“They are lovely people,” he said. “I can’t think of anything more, Mr. Sloan, than what I’ve told you.”
I waited, hoping the uncomfortable silence might prod him to go on, perhaps jog him into elaborating. It was a tactic that worked sometimes, but all I had managed to provoke was his faint little smile.
“Thanks, Mr. Bernard. I’ll want to talk to you again. Now, would you please send in Miss Hernandez.”
He nodded and left.
Mr. and Mrs. Bernard obviously had spent some quality time together making sure their stories matched. They were a team, but a rather odd one. Bernard was thin and wiry; his wife, the cook, was so stout that her rear end looked like a trailer following a truck. The Bernards had been with the Harwell family five years, much longer than the other servants, so I was told, and they knew a great deal. Every family has secrets. I had the feeling that not even Mafia enforcers could get the Bernards to tell all, not now anyway. Perhaps later, when I knew more, I might just find the right tool to pry open the Bernards’ little horde of backstairs gossip.
Theresa Hernandez came in, looking even better than yesterday, and she had looked pretty good then.
This time I made a much more detailed appraisal. Theresa had a pretty figure, not long-legged, but nice, compact. And her legs were well shaped and sturdy, as was the rest of her, all exhibited demurely by the clinging nylon uniform she wore. Her hair, cut short, was jet black and carefully brushed. I had noticed her skin before, so smooth, like fine satin, and with the glow of pale teak.
I could see why Harrison Harwell might make nighttime excursions to see her.
But it was Theresa Hernandez’s eyes that really grabbed you. Dark, and olive-colored, they had that deep, haunted look, the kind artists for centuries have painted into the brooding faces of their Madonnas and saints.
“Sit down, Ms. Hernandez, please.”
She moved gracefully and sat as demurely as if she were a sc
hoolgirl, and she wasn’t much older than that.
“This is quite informal, Ms. Hernandez, so please feel at ease. What I wish to know is —”
“She did it.”
“Pardon me?”
“Angel. She killed her father.”
I stared at her. She had spoken the words, but they had come out with no visible change of expression.
“Did you see her do it?” I asked, using my most gentle manner.
She shook her head. “I didn’t have to see. I know. I heard her tell her father she was going to kill him. And she did.”
“Why would Angel want to kill her father?”
This time her pretty face revealed a kind of quiet satisfaction. “To keep him from marrying me. She was jealous.”
“Mr. Harwell is, was, married already.”
“He was going to get a divorce. He was going to marry me. His daughter couldn’t stand the thought of him marrying a maid, someone she considered less than acceptable. She was jealous that he loved me.”
“Did Harrison Harwell tell you all this? About getting a divorce and then marrying you?”
She nodded solemnly. “He did. Many times.”
“And what about his wife, Robin Harwell?”
This time I saw a flash of anger in those dark eyes. “She is strange. He told me she was evil and she is. She didn’t care about him. She only cared about his money.”
I let that pass for the moment.
“You say you heard Angel threaten her father. When did that happen?”
“Just before she killed him.”
“You heard this?”
“They were in his study.”
“And where were you? Is your room near there?”
She shook her head. “No. But I had just left the study.” She looked away shyly. “We had just, well, made love.” She paused, then added, “We were going to be married so it was no sin.”
“And Angel was there?”
Theresa frowned. “Of course not! She came in after I left. I saw her and I waited. I thought there might be trouble.”
“You were hiding?”
“No. She just didn’t see me.”
“What did you hear?”
“They were arguing,” she said. “They always argued. She’s a sick person, you know. Her father wanted her to get treatment, more treatment. She refused. He said he would have her put into a mental hospital whether she wanted to go or not.
“They were screaming.” Theresa sighed. “The other people in the house heard them. They say they didn’t, but they did. It was a very loud argument.”
“What happened?”
“She said she would kill him before she let him send her to a hospital again. Then she stormed out.”
“What did you do?”
“I went back and asked if he was all right.”
“What did he say?”
She sighed. “He didn’t talk much. He seemed very sad. He told me he was going to call the doctors and have her put back in the hospital.”
“What happened then?”
Theresa was getting a little teary. “We kissed good night and I went to my room. The next time I saw him, he was dead.”
I sat back. “Ms. Hernandez, is this what you told the police?”
She nodded. “It’s the truth.”
It was my turn to sigh. Dreams are wonderful things. This pretty little girl dreamed of being the lady of the manor. But that was all gone now. Theresa Hernandez soon would be on her way back to wherever she called home, but first she would get even with the woman she believed had killed her wonderful dream.
At least Mark Evola’s dream would come true.
I desperately needed a drink.
5
THIS TIME THE URGE TO DRINK WENT FAR BEYOND mere desire. This time I sensed I needed help.
Robin wanted to talk but I had to get out of there.
I gunned the old Ford and sped toward Mount Clemens, where I knew there was a late afternoon meeting. I had gone several times although I really hadn’t liked the people much. A. A. meetings have their own personality. People like me tend to shop around until they find a group where they feel comfortable, just like we shopped around in the old days for a compatible saloon.
Comfortable group or not, I needed the stability a meeting offered, much as a drifting boat needs the strong pull of a secure anchor.
The drive to Mount Clemens took a half-hour, but for me it was a very long thirty minutes. Until I reached the interstate the roadside saloons seemed to call out to me like the sirens who sang to Ulysses, sweetly luring him to destruction, only I wasn’t strapped to a mast. I wished I were. It had been months since I’d been afflicted by such a demonic need to drink.
But I made it. I found a space on a Mount Clemens side street, parked, and put a coin in the meter.
The meeting was convened in a room above a downtown furniture store.
I was an alcoholic but I was no longer anonymous. Everyone had been following the Harwell case and I was treated as a kind of minor-league celebrity, which defeated the purpose of being there. They were discussing number eight and nine of the Twelve Steps, whereby amends, whenever possible, should be made to people we had harmed. I thought of my daughter, Lisa, and wondered how I could make amends to a girl I hadn’t seen in sixteen years, or if I should even try. I wondered if she ever thought about me or wondered what I was like. I stayed until the twelfth step but I didn’t feel like talking, so I ducked out during the break when everyone else was gathering around the coffeepot.
But just being at the meeting had helped and the desperate addictive need had taken a step back. I knew that need would never be more than one short step behind me for the rest of my life.
I took the long way back to Pickeral Point, using the road that ran along the river rather than the interstate. It gave me time to think and provided the serenity I needed to calmly analyze why I felt so miserable. It seemed simple enough. It was the Harwell case. It was a big case, a public case, but one that looked like a sure loser. I was afraid of losing, for Angel’s sake, but more for my own. I had always been afraid of losing. In other times liquor helped numb that fear. But I was in conflict. I really didn’t want to give the case to someone else. The old life lured me. I liked having money again, I liked being treated with respect, and I liked the attention that celebrity seemed to command.
I had missed all that, the money, the recognition, more than I had ever suspected. That life, for me, was like the whisper of beautiful music, hauntingly remembered.
But this was one whisper I would have to ignore.
I had never really hit bottom, but I had come close enough to seeing what bottom looked like. It’s true I had never had to sleep in a bus station or wash up in the men’s room. I hadn’t done that, but it had been only a rung or two below where I had stood on the ladder.
Nothing was worth taking that final step down, absolutely nothing.
Certainly not a murder case, or any case that raised such a risk. The price was too high to justify the wager.
I drove back to Robin Harwell’s place to tell her just that.
But she wasn’t there. The security men said she was at the local funeral home. I had almost forgotten that murdered men had funerals.
P. J. Anderson had a lock on all the funeral business in Pickeral Point. Anderson’s was the only funeral home in town and he was clever enough to keep prices sufficiently low to discourage anyone from opening a competing establishment.
The place originally had been a large farmhouse near the center of the city. After opening up as a funeral home, Anderson kept building on wings as business improved. The front was the original two-story white frame building, but it looked like a square locomotive pulling the additions behind like a string of boxcars. The driveway was white crushed stone and the parking lot was big enough to accommodate the crowd at a shopping mall.
Like almost everything else in life, Anderson’s maintained a pecking order. The famous or rich were b
uried from the front rooms in the old main building. Then, depending on the deceased’s position a sliding economic or social scale, rites were provided on down the length of the place. The poorest were shipped from the small rooms located in the back at the most distant addition.
Harrison Harwell was both famous and rich, so I knew he would get the best suite even if Anderson had to move another customer.
Some bored photographers were standing near the entrance and one took some unenthusiastic shots of me as I approached. I tried to look fittingly solemn.
Inside, it was standing room only. As I squeezed through the crowd everyone seemed to have that grim look of people who were merely performing a chore and were thinking of places they would rather be. I suspected Malcolm Dutton had turned out all the working folk from the Harwell boat factory. I saw no smiles, sad or otherwise, nor any tears. The muted conversations made a soft buzzing sound, not unlike a distant swarm of night insects.
I was looking for Robin as I worked my way toward the front of the viewing room. I couldn’t locate her but I did take a closer look at the guest of honor as he lay in Anderson’s best brass casket.
Harrison Harwell wasn’t much different from the photographs I had seen. A little older, a little waxy, thanks to Anderson, but otherwise he had the same angry, arrogant look I had seen in the photos — even with his eyes closed. The wide mouth was set in a permanent reprimand, the bushy black eyebrows in a permanent scowl. His wide nostrils were large, almost simian. Even in death, the collar of the new shift strained against a muscular neck. Large meaty hands were locked together over a thick, powerful chest.
I was the only person viewing the deceased. Everyone else seemed to avoid looking at Harwell as if they were afraid the eyes in that fearsome face just might open and look back.
“Charley.”
I turned and saw Robin heading toward me. She wore a simple black dress with black suede shoes and black stockings. Her hair was carefully brushed back, and she wore only a hint of makeup. It shouldn’t have been, but the total effect was erotic. The dress seemed to accentuate every movement. She was leading a tall, older woman, also dressed in black, by the hand.
Robin smiled, but it was a strained, nervous smile. “Charley, this is Mrs. Nancy Harwell Somerset, Harrison’s sister.”
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