Death on Deadline

by Robert Goldsborough

  Wolfe nodded and Scott went on. “I think she was going to use this to blow MacLaren out of the water when he came to see her. I could tell she was really out for his blood.”

  “When do you plan to tell the other shareholders about Mrs. Haverhill’s proposal to you?”

  “I want to wait until the memorial services are over and all the confusion dies down. I assume we’ll have a stockholders’ meeting within a week, and that would include representatives of the Arlen and Demarest interests.” ,

  “What if the others don’t believe your story?”

  “That’s occurred to me,” Scott said, nodding. “But when we talked, Harriet made a lot of notes on a legal pad. She may have given them to her secretary to transcribe, or maybe they’re still in her desk. haven’t asked about that yet. I thought I’d wait a decent interval.”

  “Even if the notes are found, they may not be legally binding,” Wolfe pointed out. I wonder if he wanted to observe that such delicacy seemed out-of-character.

  “I’m not sure about legality,” Scott said, “but it seems to me her wishes would be morally binding.”

  “Mr. Haverhill”—Wolfe scowled—”with your agreement to stay in the fold, some fifty-two percent of the Gazette’s shares would now be out of MacLaren’s reach. That being the case, what would have driven your aunt to take her life?”

  “I’ve thought about that,” he said, frowning. “All I can figure is that even with a victory over MacLaren, she was so drained by all the maneuvering and infighting of the last week or two that she went off the rails.”

  “Twaddle,” Wolfe said. “Let me pose another possibility. If either Mr. Dean or Mr. Bishop chose to sell his holdings to MacLaren, the scale would tip back to him.”

  “Unthinkable!” Scott blurted. “That would never happen.”

  “And I contend it is equally unthinkable that Harriet Haverhill lifted a gun to her head and pulled the trigger,” Wolfe said. “It would appear that no justification exists for her suicide. Sir, where were you from six o’clock Friday evening until you learned of her death?”

  The question caught Scott off guard. “What difference does that make?” he rasped, slopping his Scotch when he jerked upright.

  “Probably none,” Wolfe conceded, “but since you’re convinced she wasn’t murdered, there’s no reason for you not to answer.”

  “I was at my desk all that time. I had a meeting with the head of our purchasing department at five-fifteen which lasted a little more than a half-hour, and I didn’t leave the office until David came in with the news about Harriet.”

  “When was that?”

  “About seven-forty-five, I think. A few minutes earlier, I remember being surprised that she was with MacLaren for so long, and I began thinking about calling her to find out what was going on and when she wanted us all in her office. I was starting to get hungry.”

  “Did anyone see you between the end of your meeting and David Haverhill’s arrival in your office?”

  “No.”

  “And is your office on the twelfth floor?”

  “Yes, just down the hall from David’s. I think he and Donna and Carolyn were in the conference room, though, when they learned about . . . it.”

  “Mr. Haverhill, did the police talk to you at any time after your aunt’s death?”

  “Briefly. I told them I was undecided on whether I would sell out or not. Why?”

  “I was just curious,” Wolfe said casually.

  “It seems to me that you’re awfully damn curious about a lot of things.” Scott was testy. “Well, whatever you say or think, I’m still sure it was suicide. And the police must be satisfied too, or they would’ve started asking questions before this. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll be going.”

  Wolfe watched Scott as he got up and tramped out, but said nothing. I followed him to the hall and held the front door open. “Oh, thanks for the drink,” he said vaguely, but didn’t offer a hand this time, and neither did I.

  “Maybe we should stop inviting people over,” I told

  Wolfe back in the office. “Every time somebody new comes, this mess gets more complicated.”

  “Stop prattling,” he grumbled.

  “All right, I’ll get serious. What did you think of that business about him being offered the publisher’s chair?”

  “The man’s an ass,” he said, ducking my question. “Maybe not as big a one as his cousin, but an ass nonetheless.”

  “Agreed. What’s next?”

  He looked at the clock, probably wondering whether he should go to the kitchen and begin assembling some sort of evening feast for himself. “Confound it, I suppose you’ll badger me until I do something. I assume they keep records on when people enter and leave the Gazette Building?”

  I nodded. “Everybody, including employees, has to check in and out at the guard’s desk in the lobby. They keep a log, with times.”

  “Call Mr. Cohen and find out when all of them signed out Friday—Scott, David and Carolyn, Mrs. Palmer, and Messrs. Dean, Bishop, and MacLaren.”

  “Aren’t you afraid this will put us even deeper in debt to the Gazette?” I said, raising one eyebrow, which always irritates him because he can’t do it.

  “Shut up,” he huffed, pushing himself upright and walking out the door, then turning down the hall toward the kitchen. That gave him the last word, but it was a hollow victory for my money: whenever he has to resort to “shut up,” I know I’ve gotten the best of him.

  FIFTEEN

  The Monday Times and Daily News each had short pieces, well back in the paper, on Wolfe’s contention that Harriet Haverhill was murdered. The play they gave the story meant either (1) the editors felt the whole idea was preposterous, or (2) the Gazette had scooped them on Wolfe, and consequently they would all but ignore him. Or maybe it was some of both—take your pick.

  The MacLaren press was not so reticent. Fritz ran some food-related errands right after breakfast, and I asked him to swing by the out-of-town newspaper stand to pick up any MacLaren papers they had. He came back and skulked into the office grim-faced, with day-old editions of the Scotsman’s L.A. and Detroit rags, slapping them down on my desk with a sniff that clearly said he was dumping garbage. The L.A. paper, Sunday version, played Harriet right out on the front, with its banner screaming “N.Y. LADY PRESS BOSS FOUND DEAD.” The story, on page three, was only a few paragraphs, just the basic details, and no mention that MacLaren was angling to buy the Gazette. The Detroit coverage was about the same, except Harriet didn’t rate the page-one headline in the Motor City. That got reserved for a local police scandal: “CITY COPS CAUGHT REACHING INTO COOKIE JAR!”

  Getting back to New York, the Haverhill television reporting was hardly award-winning stuff, but for this, I have to jump back to Sunday night. Wolfe and I were in the office at eleven o’clock with the set tuned to the channel that had sent a crew to see us earlier. About halfway through the program, the anchorman, a wavy-haired specimen whose face was about two-thirds pearly whites, switched on his graveside expression and said that “in the wake of the apparent suicide of Harriet Haverhill, chairman of the board of the New York Gazette, a shocking charge has been made that she was murdered. For a report, here’s Maureen Mason.”

  The next image was that of a well-scrubbed, earnest-looking young woman waggling a microphone and perched on our stoop. “This is West Thirty-fifth Street,” she purred evenly. “It is an unpretentious section of Manhattan, but this particular block has the distinction as the home of Nero Wolfe, the world-famous and reclusive private investigator.” At this, a five-year-old head-and-shoulders photo of Wolfe flashed on the screen. “Here is his hideaway,” Maureen Mason said, gesturing with an outstretched arm. “He rarely ventures out, preferring to handle cases in his office like a highly specialized doctor. And much of his time is spent tending a legendary orchid collection, worth millions, that he keeps in a lavish greenhouse on the roof. Wolfe has made the disturbing charge that Harriet Haverhill’s
death on Friday in her penthouse office was not suicide, but premeditated murder, according to this morning’s edition of the Gazette. However, Wolfe declined to be interviewed by ActioNews, so we can only speculate on the reasons for his startling accusation. Thus far, both the police and the district attorneys office have refused to comment. From West Thirty-fifth Street, this is Maureen Mason for ActioNews.”

  “Vile,” Wolfe rumbled, irascibly gesturing to me to turn the set off.

  “You know, I like that word ‘lavish’ for the plant rooms,” I said. “I never thought of them as lavish, but now that I’ve heard it, I think it has a nice ring.”

  “Bah.”

  “It’s your own fault,” I said. “You would have gotten better coverage if only you’d agreed to see her. Think of it! They would have come in here with their lights and sound gear and all that other elaborate stuff—cables, the whole show. You’d be sitting at your desk, looking stunningly professorial, while the charming Ms. What’s-her-name skillfully posed questions that . .

  I quit talking because I lost my audience. Wolfe got up from his desk in the middle of my monologue and stomped out of the room. I turned to say good night, but he already was beyond earshot; the elevator door had slammed shut and the groaning of the motor told me he was on his way up to his room.

  Back to Monday morning. I’d finished breakfast and the papers and was at my desk trying to balance the checkbook when the phone rang. It was Saul.

  “Archie, I’ve dug up a little bit here and there about Audrey MacLaren, but I won’t claim it’s a great haul. Do you want it now, or should I wait and come when he’s in the office?” When Saul says he’s “dug up a little bit,” it usually means he has a good start on a hardcover biography of the subject.

  Let’s try the latter,” I said. “He may just have another chore or two in mind for you. Can you make it at eleven?”

  He said he could, and I went back to the canceled checks and the pocket calculator until my watch read ten, which meant Carl Bishop should be in his office. I dialed, and a secretary promptly put me through when I gave my name.

  “I was calling about Elliot Dean,” I said when he came on the line.

  “Yes, I had planned to call you this morning,” he answered. “I finally got Elliot last night, and as I predicted when I was at your place, he groused for a while, but I finally wore him down. He says Tuesday would be best for him, in the afternoon.”

  I thanked Bishop for his trouble and kept wrestling with the bank statement and my own figures. They showed a discrepancy of $103.50, with my numbers adding up to the larger balance. Just before eleven, I finally found the error in addition I’d been making and was forced to concede that once again, the Metropolitan Trust Company computers had behaved themselves.

  I was putting the bank file away when Wolfe strode in, wished me the usual good morning, and got settled behind his desk. I made another pitch for a home computer, which he ignored, so I said, “Saul will be here any second with some information on the lady you’re seeing later today.” He compressed his lips, which was one way he showed dissatisfaction at having to begin work so early in the day—and the work involved a woman at that. The doorbell rang even before he could perfect his scowl. I let Saul in, and once in the office, he slid into one of the yellow chairs, declining an offer of coffee.

  “I’ve got some stuff on Audrey MacLaren,” he said to Wolfe, laying his flat cap on one knee, “but I’m afraid it’s not much.”

  “You weren’t given a lot of time, Saul. Go ahead.” As far as Wolfe is concerned, Saul Panzer can do no wrong.

  “As I said yesterday, she’s English. Age forty-one. And the daughter of an earl, but one who doesn’t have that much dough. She and MacLaren met seventeen years ago in England when he had just bought the London paper that he still owns. At that time, she was considered to be one of the most beautiful women in England. Royal parties, her picture in the papers and magazines a lot, that kind of thing. Gossip linked her name to a couple of foreign playboys. She and MacLaren were introduced by mutual friends at that fancy racetrack—Ascot—and the courtship was big society news at the time, so I’m told.”

  Saul turned to me and moved his hand toward his mouth, indicating he’d changed his mind and wanted a cup of coffee after all. When I came back with it from the kitchen, he was still reporting.

  “. . . and they had an apartment in London plus a castle-like place up in Scotland and another house in Jamaica. There were two children, both sons, who are now thirteen and ten. Apparently the marriage started to go off the track when MacLaren began spending more time in the States—that’s when he was beginning to scoop up papers here. Audrey came along on a few occasions, but he usually traveled alone.”

  Saul paused for coffee, then continued. “Anyway, when he took over that L.A. paper, he began to run with a show-business crowd, and used to go down to Palm Springs for the weekends. That was where he met the woman he’s now married to—a flashy so-so former actress named Penny Wells. The talk was that they spent a lot of time together in L.A. and Palm Springs, and she’d occasionally fly to Denver or Toronto with him in his private jet. Eventually, Audrey got wind of what was going on, of course. The story I get is that she put up with it for a couple of years or so, but finally popped her cork and demanded a divorce.

  “The case received gallons of ink in the English press, not so much in the U.S. She ended up with a fat settlement, something over a half-million dollars a year. She’s very bitter about the whole business, though, and will tell anybody who’d listen what a bastard she thinks MacLaren is.

  “As much as she apparently hates the guy, though,” Saul added, “he got her to move over here by sweetening the pot for her by another hundred grand or so.”

  “So his sons would be nearer?”

  “Exactly. She lives in Greenwich, has for the last eighteen months. MacLaren even helped her find the place, or rather some of his people did. In return for giving Audrey the extra hundred big ones for incidental expenses or whatever, he stipulated that she and the boys had to live within fifty miles of Manhattan. The story is they haven’t spoken a word to each other since the divorce—she absolutely refuses to see him, although he does spend time regularly with the kids.

  “He and his new wife live here, in a glitzy triplex over on the East Side. And despite the fact that he doesn’t own a New York newspaper—at least not yet—this has been his U.S. headquarters for the last several years.

  “As far as what she does with her time,” Saul went on, “she’s been a regular bee with a slew of charities up in Connecticut. Built quite a name for herself as a fundraiser, which also has made her pretty popular with her neighbors. She patronizes the right dress designers and hairdressers. She doesn’t date all that much, but she always has an escort for social functions both up there and in the city. She comes in occasionally for the opera or a play. I’m sorry, but that’s about it,” he said, turning his palms up. “I know this isn’t much help, and I’m not proud of it. Consider this one on the house—no charge.”

  “Nonsense.” Wolfe waved Saul’s comment away. “I didn’t expect to learn this much about the woman. Satisfactory.”

  Wolfe’s not one to toss words around recklessly, and for him to use “satisfactory” is roughly the same as most people jumping in the air like the idiots on those television commercials for a certain brand of automobile. Saul, who’s known Wolfe almost as long as I have, is aware of this, but that didn’t improve his expression. He shook his head and got up to leave, thanking me for the coffee.

  “Why the long face?” I asked as I walked him to the front hall. “You got a hell of a lot of information in just twenty-four hours.”

  “Archie, I’ve done better, way better,” he said, flipping the gray cap onto his head in a smooth movement. “If he tries to pay me, stop him.”

  I smiled and said good-bye, closing the door, but made a mental note. Saul would get a check if I had to hide it in his apartment during a poker game. An
d if he refused to cash it, I’d tell him Wolfe would consider such an action a dishonor to him—Wolfe, that is. Saul Panzer is proud, cagey, smart, and tough, but so am I.

  “Well, what do you think about our prospective client?” I said to Wolfe when I got resettled at my desk.

  The answer I got was a glare. “I said I would see the woman, and I will. That does not, however, make her a prospective client, to use your term. My primary interest in Mrs. MacLaren is as a source of information about her former husband.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, smiling inside but putting on what I preferred to think of as a blank expression. Once again Wolfe was confronted with the prospect of a woman in the house, and what made it worse, she might be a source of income.

  This is a good spot to say something about Nero Wolfe and women. It’s not that he dislikes them—quite the opposite. I’ve watched on more occasions than I can count when attractive specimens were in the office, and around them, he’s different. More guarded, to be sure, but also more observant. For instance, unless I’ve totally lost what Wolfe once called my “intuitive powers of observation,” I’m convinced he pays particular attention to the legs of certain females who park themselves in the red leather chair. And the legs he spends the most time watching also happen to be the best-looking ones. Don’t tell me that’s a coincidence.

  Once, when he was grumbling about having to see a female as part of a burglary investigation, I got fed up and complained about his aversion to members of the fairer sex. I remembered his answer and wrote it down later: “The monumental misadventures of my life, and I’m chagrined to say there have been a number, all have centered on women. I’m reconciled to having them on the planet, and sometimes in this very room when necessity dictates. However, I remain intent in minimizing my contact with them. I confess my prejudice.”

  Okay, so it isn’t exactly the Gettysburg Address, but you get the idea loud and clear that Nero Wolfe is not about to convert the brownstone into a coed dormitory. I was thinking about his words on the subject that Monday afternoon at three sharp when the doorbell rang.