The Manx Murders

by William L. DeAndrea

  A pained look crossed Chip’s face. Sandy was instantly sorry. “Oh, I didn’t mean that. You’re right, you’re right, horrible things can happen to anybody.”

  “It’s okay, honey.”

  Sandy felt a little thrill. He had called her “honey.” God must have been listening, there at the cemetery.

  “It’s true, about terrible things happening to anyone, but it wasn’t what I meant. I meant that the same things that made my Uncle Clyde a target can also make me a target.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I can’t run from the truth, Sandy. The trouble is, I’m just not ready to go. I’ve got so much to do. My dad’s not a young man anymore, and Harry Swantek won’t be able to do it alone, even with the block of stock my uncle left him.”

  “I heard about that.”

  “Well, Harry deserves it. But Pembroke Industries needs a Pembroke involved. It took me a long time to prove I’m a good businessman, but I am.

  “And there’s so much to do. The smoke scrubber is just the beginning. Environmental technology is a field without limits. Clean luxury! It’s what America wants. We’ve got a jump on the rest of the country—the rest of the world—and I want to keep running with it, and stay ahead. I’m sure Harry will agree with me.”

  “He’s got to!” Sandy was excited. “This is the only planet we’ve got!”

  Chip smiled at her. “Hold that thought. It can be a beautiful place, too. A little lonely, maybe, but beautiful.”

  At the same time Sandy’s brain was whirling, it was also clicking like a taxi meter. He had called her “honey.” He confessed to being lonely. And, part three, the Continental Restaurant was attached to a Holiday Inn. One of the nicer ones around.

  The Continental was busy, but not crowded. They got a quiet table, looked at the menu, and ordered. Or, rather, Sandy told Chip to order for her. He said a bunch of French stuff to the waiter. When it came, it turned out to be fish with some kind of sauce, but it wasn’t icky the way fish usually was, and there was white wine and little tiny potatoes and some asparagus. She ate it up, and they talked.

  Chip started by telling her he appreciated what a good job she’d done for the company, and how staunch she had been during the kidnapping crisis, staying out of touch with people and putting up with all the tension.

  She took a sip of wine. “It was nothing compared to your tension.” She made a face. “Nobody’s ever called me ‘staunch’ before.”

  “Pretty romantic, huh?” He seemed angry with himself.

  Romantic.

  “Actually, I kind of like it,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  Then he asked her about herself, and she told him, and then she asked him to tell her about himself.

  “Oh, it’s old stuff,” he said.

  “No, that’s what this is all about, right? I mean, I know you as a boss, as a ‘Pembroke.’ I want to get to know you as a person.”

  “I think that’s a pretty good idea. Okay. My real name is Humbert. After my great-grandfather, who founded the family fortune. Right there, I entered life with a strike against me.”

  Chip went on to tell her how he’d been a shy kid with no choice but to have the whole town notice everything he did. And then with his mother going wild—she was a woman who had a Reputation and really lived up to it, Sandy reflected—the giggling and finger-pointing were occasions of agony for him. He couldn’t do anything, not even run away, because Pembrokes didn’t do that.

  “And I spent most of my life running away. Boarding school, college, New York. My father wanted me to come into the business, but I didn’t. I had to prove myself to myself with the ice-cream business, first.”

  “You didn’t run away the other night.” Sandy reached across the table and took his hand. “It didn’t work out, but it wasn’t your fault. You did all you could. You didn’t run away.”

  He put his other hand on top of hers. “No, I didn’t. And I’m never going to run away from anything else, either.”

  “Like what?”

  His voice was very soft. “Like you.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “I wish I’d had the guts to tell you sooner how I feel about you.”

  “How do you feel about me?”

  “Oh, God, I wish I had the words. I wish you could read my mind. I wish we could ... right now ...”

  Sandy said, “Let’s.”

  It was wonderful. The whole thing was wonderful. He’d checked into the hotel using his platinum American Express card. With his own name on it. So this wasn’t going to be a sneaking-around kind of thing. This was going to be for real. And if it didn’t end up at the altar (or a courthouse, or a justice of the peace), Sandy knew it wasn’t going to be her fault.

  The rest of it was pretty wonderful, too. Chip had been nervous and shy, and Sandy had sort of had to jump-start him a little, but after that, he’d been fine. Both times. He needed her so much. Sandy would be good for him, she knew it. And he’d be good for her.

  A while later, lying together, Chip said, “Oh, goddammit.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Distribution contracts with FreezLines. I’ve got to sign them and get them in the mail this afternoon.”

  “Oh.” Sandy sighed. “Back to the office, huh? I’ll try not to glow or anything where anybody can see me, Chip.”

  “What the hell,” he told her. “Glow all you want. I want to tell the world about you. But we don’t have to go back to the office. I took them home last night to check them over, take my mind off things, you know. I stuck them under the driver’s seat in the car.”

  “Then we just have to get them.”

  Chip groaned. “But it’s so nice, just lying here.”

  “I’ll get them.”

  “I don’t want to put you through the trouble, either.”

  “No trouble. Just think of me, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “The combination is in my pants pocket.”

  “I’ve got it.” Sandy didn’t bother with underwear, just slipped her dress on over her head and stepped into her shoes. She bent over the bed and kissed Chip.

  “Have a nice trip,” he said, smiling up at her.

  She smiled back. “Give me a warm welcome when I come back.”

  The car was down at the bottom of the stairs. Sandy punched the numbers on the little slip of paper into the lock, then opened the door.

  There was a sheet of yellow flame. She never heard the noise.

  Nine

  “CHIEF,” RON GENTRY SAID, “I think you got it slightly wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  They had left the highway and followed the smoke and lines of police cars and fire trucks to the parking lot of a Holiday Inn. Viretsky had had to use his credentials at least fifteen times to get this close. Right now, they were outside a ring of fire trucks surrounding the remains of what sure as hell looked like one of the Pembrokes’ fleet of Lincolns.

  “Chip Pembroke is over there,” Gentry said. “In a Mylar blanket. Not dead.”

  Viretsky looked. It certainly was Chip Pembroke, sobbing and hysterical, but very much alive. It was time to find out what was going on around here.

  Viretsky gave up trying to find a decent place to park. He just stopped his car and said, “Okay, everybody out.”

  A fat, bald little guy who looked like Nikita Khrushchev quickly waddled over to him.

  The bald guy pulled his right hand out of the pocket of his fur-collared leather jacket, shook Viretsky’s hand, and said, “Hi, Chet, looks like your little problem is my little problem, too.” He jerked his chins at Benedetti and his assistants. “Ahh, who are these nice folks?”

  “Let me introduce you. Chief Roy Abruzzi of Precton, this is Professor Niccolo Benedetti, and his assistants, Ron Gentry and Janet Higgins.”

  Abruzzi pumped the Professor’s hand. “Benedetti, huh? Buon giorno, paesano.”

  “Buon giorno a lei stesso.”

&
nbsp; “Professor? What, from Penn State?”

  If Viretsky hadn’t known Abruzzi was a tough, skilled, New York City trained cop, he would have been convinced the man was an asshole. As it was, Viretsky found him extremely embarrassing.

  “Professor Benedetti,” Viretsky interjected, “is a world-famous philosopher and criminologist.” Viretsky darted a glance at Benedetti. Putting “philosopher” first seemed to have appeased the old man.

  “What’s going on, Roy? My dispatcher had it that Chip Pembroke was killed.”

  “Nah, it was a girl. His secretary.” Abruzzi looked at his notebook. “Alexandra June Jovanka, of Harville.”

  “I know her.”

  “You wouldn’t now,” Abruzzi said brightly. “We’re gonna have to make this official from baby footprints. We found a whole foot, so far.”

  Viretsky was studying the smoldering car. “What was it?”

  “Two, three sticks of dynamite is my guess. Simple goddamn bomb, a tenth grader could do it if he got the dynamite. Magnet stuck under the driver’s seat doorsill, little wire stuck to the door sets it off when the door is opened. Could be planted in fifteen seconds. Could have been planted days ago, and just armed in two seconds.”

  “What—” Janet Higgins’s voice was a little strained, but it was smooth again on the second try. “What were they doing here, Chief Abruzzi?”

  Abruzzi shrugged. “My guess is the usual. You know, when a boss and a secretary take a hotel room with no luggage in another town in the middle of the afternoon.”

  “A liaison,” Benedetti said.

  Abruzzi smiled Khrushchev’s avuncular smile. “Yeah. I like that. They’d been liaisoning up there for a couple of hours when Pembroke apparently thought of something he needed from the car, and the girl said she’d go get it. I think. He ain’t been too coherent, if you know what I mean.”

  Ron Gentry said, “He’s had a tough week.”

  Abruzzi put his hand over his mouth. “Don’t make me laugh, will ya? Get my picture in the paper laughing at a time like this, I get the city council on my ass again.”

  It occurred to Viretsky that if Abruzzi found this all so goddamn amusing, he could have the whole case.

  “Can we talk to him?”

  “Sure. Help yourself.”

  With the metallized Mylar held tight around him, Chip looked to Ron like a joint of meat ready for the oven. A couple of ambulance guys led Chip into the hotel manager’s office and let him sit. Abruzzi ran the manager off and went to attend to his men, but not before getting a promise to be brought up-to-date when the interview was over.

  “Chip?” Ron began.

  Chip was staring intently at something in a dimension only he had access to. His face was very pale.

  “Chip? Chip!”

  “Huh? Oh. Ron. How did you get here?”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’m here. So’re Janet and the Professor.”

  Chip looked blankly at them. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Chip, you’ve got to tell us what happened, okay?”

  “I killed her.”

  “You killed her? Why?”

  A little life came into Chip’s face. “What do you mean, why?”

  “You said you killed her. I want to know either why you did it, or if you didn’t do it, I want to know why you said it.”

  “Well, she died because of me, didn’t she? She died instead of me, didn’t she?” He was roaring now. “If she hadn’t come with me this afternoon, she’d be alive, wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t she?” His voice dropped to a mutter. “And I’d be dead. I’d be dead like Uncle Clyde. Somebody wants us dead, Ron. All the Pembrokes.”

  Chip jumped to his feet and grabbed Ron by the shoulders. “Dad! I’ve got to get to Dad!”

  “Sit down, Chip.”

  “Don’t you understand? They missed me, they’re going to go after my father next. Let me go, dammit!”

  He tried to push past Ron, knocking Ron’s glasses off in the process. This posed a triple problem for Ron. Wrapping up Chip, doing it without hurting him, and not letting anyone step on his glasses.

  The Professor solved it for him.

  “Mr. Pembroke.”

  Ron wished he knew how the Professor did that. It was forceful, but it wasn’t a shout. There was something in the tone that was impossible to ignore.

  “Mr. Pembroke, sit down. You have nothing to worry about.”

  “But my father—”

  “You have my word that your father is in no danger.”

  “But how can you know?”

  “I know. You must trust me now. You must not let your reaction to the explosion destroy you as the bomb itself could not. If we are to punish whoever did this, you must gather yourself. You must help us now.”

  Ron started to look for his glasses, but Janet had already picked them up. She handed them to him. He blew a piece of carpet fluff off the left lens, and put them on. Then, gently and slowly, he drew the story out. Chip sobbed softly, especially when he talked about Sandy.

  “She thought she was so hip, but she was really so innocent, you know?” he said, and “I told her I wasn’t going to waste my life anymore,” and “I think I might really have loved her; I just wanted to get close to somebody, and look at what happened. God, why didn’t I go get the papers? The curse is on me. I’m the one who’s supposed to be dead!”

  Ron knelt in front of him. The weeping man put his arms around him and held on.

  After a few seconds, Ron nodded to the ambulance guys. They replaced the Mylar on Chip’s shoulders and led him out to the ambulance.

  Ron sighed. “Looks like another night under heavy sedation for that boy.”

  “At least,” the chief said. “He bounced back incredibly well, last time.”

  Janet nodded. “Surprisingly well. He seems emotionally frail, but there’s strong stuff in him.”

  “If he survives this,” Ron added, “running a major corporation will be a snap for him, as far as stress goes.”

  “Yes,” the Professor said. “Some things can stand it, some can’t. My theory of the case, for instance, cannot withstand the stress of these events.”

  “Theory?” Viretsky demanded.

  “Yes. I had a theory of which I was quite fond. But there was no room in it for the murder of either Chip Pembroke or his secretary. Therefore, I must start over. At the source. Chief, do you have copies of the tapes from the night of Clyde Pembroke’s murder?”

  “They’re easy enough to make.”

  “I should like a set. There is something I must check.” The old man sighed heavily. “Perhaps, I have outlived my usefulness. When Niccolo Benedetti cannot trust his own memory he is the next thing to dead.”

  Ten

  THE NEXT MORNING, AFTER a night spent in equal parts of listening to Chip’s voice as he drew ever closer to his uncle’s corpse, fending the press off the Professor, and having fitful dreams of blood and bombs and screaming birds, Ron found he couldn’t breathe. In his sleep, he fought for breath, but nothing came into his lungs. With a sudden effort, he sat up in bed.

  “RRRRRaaaaaarrmr!” Nimrod said as he sailed across the room. He ran around madly for a half-minute or so, while Ron filled his lungs. Then the kitten started to claw his way determinedly back to bed.

  Ron picked up Nimrod by the scruff of his neck, at which point, of course, following universal cat instinct, the kitten went limp, and looked like the cutest, most harmless, most innocent thing in the world.

  “You,” Ron said, “are a problem. Should I pet you or break your neck?”

  “Mrowr,” Nimrod said.

  Ron decided to pet him. “Been too much violence around here already,” he said.

  Janet woke up. She looked up with an expression that combined sleepiness and myopia. “What time is it?”

  “Seven-thirty.”

  “Oh. After last night, I didn’t think you’d get up so early.”

  “Wasn’t my idea. Nimrod decided to see how long I could g
o without oxygen.”

  “Huh?”

  “While I was sleeping, he lay down across my face.” Ron wiggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. “Which reminds me of a story so dirty, I’m ashamed to think of it myself.”

  “Tell me.”

  “No.”

  “Ro-on.”

  “Later. Are you up, or should I take the Red Menace out of here so you can get some more sleep? I don’t dare try. God knows what he’ll do to me next time.”

  “I’m up.”

  “Good. Let’s see if we can arrange for breakfast and the Yellow Pages. The Professor said he was going back to the beginning. I’m going back to before the beginning.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am finding out about grapes.”

  He began his research with breakfast. The housekeeper was more than glad to drown her concerns over poor Chip in work, and she whipped up a breakfast of monumental proportions. There was bacon and scrambled eggs and home fries and biscuits, orange juice and coffee. Ron put gobs of grape jam on the biscuits and on the eggs.

  “I’ll never get used to your doing that,” Janet said, as he brought a yellow-and-purple forkful to his mouth.

  “Oh, I never knew it bothered you.”

  “It doesn’t bother me in the sense that it grosses me out. It just seems so strange.”

  “It’s very simple, dear. I hate eggs, but I love jam. This way, I don’t have to answer why I didn’t eat the eggs when someone is nice enough to make them for me.”

  “I know, but still ...”

  “One of these days, I’ll make you a peanut-butter-and-tomato sandwich.”

  “That does gross me out.”

  “It did me, too, when I first heard about it. Tried it on a dare. It’s terrific.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. How’d it go in the Yellow Pages?”

  “Great. There’s a place just outside Scranton. Flavor Formulas. I think I’ll go in person.”

  “Won’t they tell you on the phone?”

  “I don’t know. They’re not open yet. They probably would. I just want to get the hell out of Harville for a little while, you know?”

  “Sure.”