Shadow Waltz

by Amy Patricia Meade

  “In this country or the world?”

  Marjorie narrowed her eyes.

  “Sorry,” Creighton excused. “That was a rhetorical question, wasn’t it?”

  “As I was saying,” Marjorie continued, “Elizabeth and little Michael have been through enough. I’d prefer to spare them any further upset until we have all the facts. In the meantime, we’ll call her and say that we have a few leads, but that we’d like to check his office since he spent so much time there.”

  “‘We’ll’ call Elizabeth Barnwell?”

  “What?” Marjorie answered blankly.

  “You said ‘we’ but I’m certain that you mean ‘me.’”

  Marjorie sipped her coffee innocently as Agnes placed a basket of warm cinnamon buns beside her. “I’m certain I did too.” Her green eyes sparkled.

  After a brief call to Elizabeth Barnwell, Marjorie and Creighton traveled to the New England Allied Insurance Company to speak with Michael’s employer, Benjamin Sachs. What Mr. Sachs might be able to tell them, they did not know, but if Elizabeth’s timeline was correct, he may have been the last person to see Michael before his disappearance.

  A tweed-clad secretary emerged from behind a frosted glass door. “Mr. Sachs will see you now.”

  Marjorie and Creighton shuffled into the tiny wood-paneled room. Benjamin Sachs was a small, balding man whose slender physique seemed to float in the bagginess of his poorly tailored suit. He rose to his feet, removed the cigar from his mouth with one hand, and reached across the shabby desk with the other. “Benjamin Sachs. And you are?”

  Creighton shook the man’s hand vigorously. “Creighton Ashcroft. And this is my fiancée, Miss Marjorie McClelland.”

  Sachs smiled at the young writer. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. Sit down.” He gestured to a small, upholstered seat. “I’ll have my secretary bring in an extra chair.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Creighton assured. “I’m fine.”

  “Suit yourself,” Sachs replied before sitting down again. “So, how can I help you?”

  “We need to speak to you about an employee of yours—Michael Barnwell,” Marjorie announced.

  “Barnwell?” Sachs placed the cigar between his lips and took a few nervous puffs. “What do you need to know about him?”

  “His wife reported him missing. We need to know the last time you saw him.” Marjorie conveniently omitted anything to do with Veronica Carter and the body they had found in the cellar.

  “Saw him? Saw him … saw him …” he repeated as if it were a magical incantation. He suddenly snapped his fingers. “Why, that would have been the day before yesterday. Came in here, jittery as can be. Mind you, Barnwell’s always wound pretty tight, but that day, he was a bundle of nerves. Didn’t even blink when I was talking to him.”

  “Did he say what was bothering him?” Creighton ventured.

  “Bothering him? Bothering him … bothering him … no. He asked for some time off, which I gave him, but he didn’t say anything else. Not that he would. He never talked much about his personal life. Policies, however,” he snapped his fingers again, “that was a different story altogether. He could talk for hours—and I do mean hours—about how adding certain clauses to our policies might benefit the company. Yes, sir, he was an Allied man all right.”

  “An allied man?” Marjorie said again.

  “Why, Allied Insurance Company, of course.” He smiled.

  She politely returned the smile. “Of course.”

  “So I suppose it’s safe to assume that Michael is a good employee?” Creighton ventured.

  “Good? He’s the best claims adjustor we have—saved us thousands of dollars in false claims since he started here three years ago.”

  “I’m sure that’s earned him a lot of friends,” Creighton commented facetiously.

  “It has here at Allied,” Sachs affirmed. “Not that it makes a cent of difference to Barnwell. He keeps to himself. A real loner.”

  “And you’re certain, Mr. Sachs, that you last saw Michael Barnwell two days ago?” Marjorie quizzed.

  Sachs eyed the calendar on the wall. “Let’s see, today’s Thursday … yes, it was Tuesday I saw him. I remember because my wife had just phoned to ask me to pick up a few things from the store on the way home from work—my mother-in-law was arriving that night for a week-long visit. I don’t get along well with my mother-in-law,” he added delicately, “so I was in a bit of a huff when I hung up and decided to go to lunch. That’s when I literally bumped into Barnwell. He was coming in as I was going out.”

  “Where had he gone?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. When a claims adjustor makes as much money for the company as Michael Barnwell does, you tend to turn a blind eye to the finer details.”

  Creighton nodded. “However, you did notice that he was extremely nervous. Didn’t that strike you as somewhat odd?”

  Sachs tossed his head back and forth in contemplation. “Yes and no. As I said earlier, Barnwell has always been on the edgy side. Was he edgier than usual? Sure, but he’d also been working on an important claim. Big money at stake—for both sides.”

  “Interesting. What type of claim was it?” Marjorie asked casually.

  “A life insurance claim. I’m not at liberty to say anything else, however.”

  “We understand,” Creighton acknowledged.

  “Oh, of course,” Marjorie interjected. “We would never dream of compromising your client’s privacy. We’re just doing everything we can to find Michael and bring him back to his wife and child. I don’t suppose … no, I shouldn’t even ask. You’ve done so much already.”

  Sachs learned forward and patted Marjorie’s hand, which rested upon the surface of the desk. “No, no, please. Anything I can do to help.”

  Creighton laughed inwardly at the ease with which his fiancée could ply her feminine wiles. Yet he couldn’t help but wish that she’d take more effort in displaying her engagement ring.

  “Well,” she started, “we’d like to take a look at his desk. Just to see if he left behind any clues that might indicate his whereabouts. But I don’t wish to impose …” Creighton could have sworn that she punctuated the sentence with a flutter of her eyelashes.

  Sachs rose from his chair and walked to the other side of the desk where he, again, took Marjorie’s hand in his. “Don’t be silly, dear. Of course you can see his desk. It’s not as if you’re asking to rummage through our file cabinets.”

  Marjorie flashed Creighton a triumphant grin as Sachs led them out of his office and into the turbulence of the New England Allied Insurance hurricane. The cacophony of ringing telephones, tapping typewriters, and monotonous secretaries’ voices filled the stale air of the vast, windowless room where neatly attired agents crunched numbers at row-upon-row of evenly spaced wooden desks.

  A tired-looking young man approached Sachs. “Sir! Sir? My cousin just graduated from college in May, and I was wondering if—?”

  “Tell him to come in and fill out an application,” the older man answered abruptly.

  “Oh thank you, sir. He’ll be very happy. He’s a great …” His voiced faded into the office din as Sachs walked away, leading Marjorie and Creighton farther into the sea of clerks, secretaries, and eager-to-please new agents.

  Marjorie frowned. She had never underestimated the effects of the economic depression; she knew she was quite fortunate to have what she did. But when America’s best and brightest were competing to work in a soulless environment such as this, hopes of recovery seemed to dissipate as quickly as the graduates’ youthful dreams.

  Sachs pointed to the far left corner of the room. “That’s Barnwell’s desk right there.”

  The desk surface was empty except for a telephone, the edges of which were aligned perfectly with the corner of the desk, and four pencils arranged, neatly, in a row.

  “As you can see,” Sachs continued, “there’s nothing to see.”

  Creighton walked behind the desk. “We
ll, I guess that’s it,” he declared as he flopped into the revolving wooden chair. He leaned back and crossed his legs. As he did so, the toe of his shoe struck something with a loud thud. “Hullo … ?”

  “What is it?” Marjorie asked.

  Creighton peered beneath the desk. “It’s a box of some kind.” He bent down and retrieved the item, which was marked with the familiar initials V.C.

  “The missing suitcase!” Marjorie gasped.

  Creighton placed it on the desk and, with a quick motion, sprung open the lid. The case was empty, but the lining was stained with a reddish-brown substance.

  “Good lord!” Sachs exclaimed. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Creighton slid an arm around Marjorie’s waist and tipped his hat upward. “It certainly isn’t Bosco.”

  Ten

  Creighton and Marjorie were sipping coffee from earthenware mugs when Detective Jameson strutted into Dr. Heller’s lab, followed closely by Officer Noonan.

  “I got your phone call,” Jameson cracked. “What’s the matter? Giving up on the case?”

  “No, we’re not giving up. And, ‘we’ didn’t call you,” Marjorie clarified. “The officer who took our call did.”

  “Your call? Don’t tell me you found another dead body.”

  “They’re corpses, Jameson,” Creighton countered, “not rabbits.”

  “Before you start mocking our efforts, what, precisely, were you doing all day?” Marjorie questioned.

  “Looking into Veronica Carter’s background,” Jameson rebutted. “One of the first rules of detective work is the better you get to know your victim, the better the chance you’ll find the motive. Once you find the motive, you find the murderer.”

  “School-Age Sleuth Magazine, May 9, 1932,” Creighton whispered in Marjorie’s ear.

  Marjorie suppressed a giggle as Jameson continued his lecture on modern detective work. “Veronica Carter was the classic victim of this sort of crime: young, female, lower class, promiscuous. Tell them what we found, Noonan.”

  “Pretty average stuff,” Noonan commented before reading from his pocket-sized notebook. “Ronnie Carter was twenty-two. Born and raised in Hartford. Dropped out of school at sixteen. Left home at seventeen. Worked as a waitress at seven different joints during the past five years. Latest job was at the Five O’Clock Diner in downtown Hartford. When Ronnie didn’t show up for work three days ago, another waitress there got worried. She called Ronnie’s friend and former roommate, Diana Hoffman. Hoffman had no idea where Ronnie was, but wasn’t worried. Said that it was a habit of Ronnie’s to pick up and leave without warning—especially when a guy was involved.”

  “Sounds like you know your victim,” Marjorie noted. “So, what was the killer’s motive?”

  Jameson cleared his throat. “We haven’t figured that out yet. But, mark my words, we will.”

  Dr. Heller breezed through the doors of the adjoining room. “Detective. Officer,” he addressed. “I’m glad you’re here. Miss McClelland and Mr. Ashcroft have uncovered a very valuable piece of evidence.”

  “What now?” Jameson grumbled.

  “Oh, you’ll like this one,” Creighton prodded. “It may be our best piece of evidence yet.”

  “Can we hurry this up?” Jameson snarled.

  “Of course,” Heller replied as he lifted the sheet that concealed the piece of evidence in question.

  “Veronica Carter’s suitcase,” Jameson stated in astonishment. “Where did you find this?”

  “At the New England Allied Insurance Company,” Marjorie answered. “Under Michael Barnwell’s desk.”

  “What’s more, the interior of the case is stained with blood,” Creighton added.

  “And I’ve found that the blood in the case is the same type as that of the victim,” Heller announced.

  “Looks like we may win that bet,” Creighton asserted cockily.

  “No one’s winning any bet,” Jameson corrected. “We may have evidence, but we still don’t have a motive. Not for killing Veronica Carter, or for cutting off her hands and feet like he did.”

  “I might be able to shed some light there,” Heller intervened. “The blood in the suitcase is consistent with the theory I had discussed with Detective Jameson and Officer Noonan. A theory my lab work has now substantiated.”

  “And that is?” Marjorie inquired.

  “The hands and feet of the victim were severed and removed at different times—markedly different times. As if the killer removed a hand one day, a foot the next, and so forth. Apart from mental insanity, the only reason I could conceive of for a murderer to do such a thing is as a means of disposing the body.”

  The color drained from Marjorie’s face. “Mrs. Sullivan said Veronica’s latest boyfriend was always carrying a case. She had no idea what was in it …”

  “Jeezus,” Noonan whispered as he mopped the perspiration from his green-tinged brow. “You mean he was carrying her out in pieces? In her own suitcase?”

  “I’m not a detective, but it does fit with the evidence,” Heller explained.

  Jameson removed his hat and ran a hand through his thick, dark brown hair. “We still don’t have a motive.”

  “I can probably help with that one too,” Heller offered. “During the autopsy, I made a startling discovery. Veronica Carter was two and a half months pregnant.”

  “That’s a motive all right,” Creighton commented. “Especially if Veronica threatened to tell Elizabeth.”

  “Or expected Michael to divorce Elizabeth and marry her,” Marjorie continued.

  “Noonan,” Jameson shouted, even though the officer was standing nearby. “Put an APB out on Michael Barnwell. I’m going to talk to his wife.”

  “You’re not going to tell her about the body and the suitcase are you?” Marjorie asked.

  “Of course I am. I have to. Her husband is the prime suspect in a murder investigation. We need to find him and bring him in.”

  “But she doesn’t know where Michael is. That’s why she came to me.”

  “Then she has nothing to worry about, does she?”

  “Wait a minute,” she exclaimed as she grabbed her gloves, hat, and handbag. “Creighton and I are going with you. Elizabeth Barnwell is my client—”

  “Our client, darling,” Creighton reminded.

  “Our client,” Marjorie amended. “We should be the ones to break the news. Besides, you’re um … well, let’s just say it would go over better coming from someone with a gentle touch.”

  “That’s a heck of a thing coming from Miss Hit-and-Run! ‘Oh Robert, I don’t think we should get married,’” Jameson mimicked. “I’ll have you know I’m quite capable of breaking news gently. A lot better than someone else I know.”

  “Care to put your money where your mouth is?” Marjorie dared.

  “Do you?” Jameson matched.

  “Please! No more bets!” Creighton shouted in exasperation as he swung open the door to the lab. “Good Lord, what’s wrong with you two?”

  Eleven

  The Barnwell residence was a tidy brick home on the outskirts of Ridgebury. Neatly trimmed hedges surrounded the postage-stamp-sized property, and the lawn, although slightly brown from the drying effects of the summer sun, was manicured to a horticultural perfection.

  Marjorie stepped onto the brick front stoop and tapped lightly on the wood-framed storm door.

  Elizabeth appeared almost instantly. “Oh, Miss McClelland! I’m so glad it’s you. I was putting little Michael down for a nap when I saw the police car pull into the driveway. It’s not Michael is it? He’s not … dead … is he?”

  “No, Mrs. Barnwell, it’s nothing like that.” Jameson flashed his badge. “Hartford County Police. May we come inside?”

  Elizabeth glanced about nervously. “I-I-I guess so.” She nudged the door open tentatively, allowing the trio admittance.

  The dichotomy between the interior of the house and its exterior could not have been greater. Whereas outdoors neatness w
as the order of the day, indoors, madness reigned. Newspapers were strewn about the living room rug, dirty plates and glasses were scattered along the length of the coffee table, and a laundry basket, its contents neatly folded, yet so gray as to make one think that they were dirty, rather than freshly cleaned, occupied the overstuffed sofa.

  Elizabeth stood by the room’s only vacant chair and wrung her hands nervously. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to clean—it’s been hard with Michael gone. The baby misses him so much, he’s barely slept. I’ve been up with him most of the night.”

  “We understand,” Marjorie assured.

  “Have you found Michael?” Elizabeth asked hopefully.

  “No, I’m afraid we haven’t yet. But we’re still looking.”

  “You haven’t? But I need him! Little Michael needs him. You must find him. Soon!”

  Marjorie eased the other woman gently into the chair. “We will find him. We just need to ask you a few questions to help us in our search. But you need to relax first. How about a glass of water?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “Okay.”

  “I’ll get it,” Creighton offered and made his way into the adjacent kitchen. The area, like the living room, was in a state of disarray. The linoleum floor was littered with crumbs, and dirty dishes overflowed the kitchen sink.

  Fearful of contracting some rare disease, Creighton decided against reaching into the sink and cleaning a glass. “Elizabeth,” he called. “Where would I find the glasses?”

  “Oh, um, they’re in the cupboard above the sink.”

  Creighton opened the cupboard doors, but all that came into view was some flour, sugar, and some baking soda. “No, that’s not it. Anywhere else I might find them?”

  Elizabeth blushed. “Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry. I forgot I rearranged the kitchen shelves a few weeks ago.”

  “Don’t worry,” Marjorie smiled. “Creighton’s very resourceful.”

  Creighton lived up to Marjorie’s claims by returning with a teacup filled with cold water. He handed it to Elizabeth. “Here, drink this up.”