The Fundamentals of Murder (Davey Goldman Series Book 2)

by Love, William F.

  “My mistake, Inspector. I asked her to demonstrate — on me — how she did those women. She got a little carried away with it, and I had to subdue her. That’s about it.” I gave him a big, false grin. Kessler scowled. “Well, I’ve got some people to see.” I turned and went.

  “You go straight to the hospital, Davey!” Kessler yelled after me. “And when you finish there, I want you down at Headquarters for a statement.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. I wasn’t heading for any hospital, but I also wasn’t going to argue about it. I just wanted out of that damn building. Forever.

  42

  I treated myself to a cab ride. Figured I’d earned it. The cabbie did a double-take at my appearance, both my face and my suit. (The more expensive of the two, I sadly realized, was going to have to be pitched.) He started a comment, took another look at my face and shut his mouth.

  I spent the ride mentally working up a report for Regan. Damn good one, if I say so myself. Insightful, modest. Listing all the clues that led me straight to Betty. How I deduced that she was Sarnoff. Good piece of fiction. Shame I never got to deliver it.

  I was barely in the mansion before they were all over me like fleas on a dog. At the sound of the door opening, Ernie came charging out of the kitchen, almost getting blindsided by Regan blasting out of his office, hands a blur on the wheels. Normally a near-miss like that would have got him a good chewing-out. Not this time. They ignored each other and headed straight for me. Both started talking at once.

  “Oooh, David! Your face! Shouldn’t you…?”

  “In Heaven’s name, why didn’t you call? I wanted to…”

  “…be in the hospital? Come into the kitchen and let me…”

  “…give you some advice. I’d finally deduced that the Donovan woman and Steven Sarnoff were one and the same. If you hadn’t…”

  “…put some ointment on your face — oooh! And your neck! David, you must have…!”

  “…acted so precipitately, I could have warned you about her.” Amidst the torrent of words, “the Donovan woman and Sarnoff were one and the same” hit me right between the eyes. When I can help it I avoid showing awe at Regan’s mental gymnastics. This time I couldn’t. I stared at him as Ernie fussed over the wounds on my neck.

  “What did you say?” I demanded, wincing as Ernie’s not-so-soft fingertips probed around my Adam’s apple.

  “I said you should have called! I had —”

  “Not that. About Sarnoff and Donovan. Being one and the same.”

  “Oh, that.” Regan waved it away. “After you left, I realized that Miss Donovan was Steven Sarnoff. And that she must therefore be the murderer. Had you only gone to the Pennistons’ hotel room before rushing off, you would have found my urgent phone message. I assume the damage to your face and neck were inflicted by her?”

  There was something wrong with his tone (it lacked the gloat it normally has when he’s pulled off a feat), but I didn’t stop to ponder that. I was too flabbergasted. How had he figured it out? I grabbed Ernie’s hand to stop her fussing. I got her eye. “Ernie. Did someone call within the last half hour? Or show up?”

  Normally that kind of suspicious question would have drawn a smirk from Regan. Instead, he turned away. What was going on?

  “No,” Sister Ernestine answered, with a quick glance at the boss. “Mr. Penniston called an hour ago. Right after that, Bishop Regan called me in, told me my prayers were needed right away. He said something about Mr. Penniston’s call told him you might be in grave danger. I went straight up to the chapel. I said five decades of the rosary for you, and some other prayers.” I was surprised — and touched — to see tears in her eyes. She gulped and continued.

  “I turned on the phone up there, so I’d have heard it if it had rung. I only came back down ten minutes ago. I asked the Bishop if anything had changed. He said nothing. Since then, I’ve been praying in the kitchen. David” — Ernie looked stricken —”I’m so relieved to see you here safe!”

  “My surmise,” Regan said gruffly, giving Ernie a chance to regain her composure, “was that Miss Donovan would go straight from the bank to that office to look for the earrings. And that when you walked in on her, you would think she was only an accomplice, rather than the murderer. And, from the looks of you, my surmise was accurate.”

  I looked at him. His voice sounded dejected. Was he sinking into one of his depressions? I hoped not. Life around the mansion is a bitch when he’s depressed. What was wrong? Hadn’t I shown enough enthusiasm over his accomplishment? Well, I could certainly remedy that.

  “How did you figure it out?” I asked admiringly. “I don’t see how —”

  Regan interrupted, even more dejected-sounding. “It’s not important. I was too late to be of any use, anyway. In the meantime, your injuries look serious. Shouldn’t you be in the hospital?”

  “Probably,” I muttered. “If you mean the psychiatric ward. I need treatment for stupidity, not for these scratches.” I wished people would start shutting up about hospitals.

  Ernie finally managed to get me into the kitchen for her nursely ministrations. Regan, though invited, declined to join the bandaging party and headed for his office. Ernie was anxious as she applied antibiotic ointment. And not about me.

  “Is he starting another one?” she asked fearfully. She didn’t have to explain. I knew all too well what she meant. These fits of his come along every few months, and neither of us has yet devised a way of getting through them without winding up depressed ourselves. I shrugged.

  “But you have to do something, David!”

  “Yeah, you always say that, Ernie. But you never tell me — do what?”

  She applied salve to my right eyebrow. “This should have stitches,” she fussed, saw my scowl and gave it up.

  “How do I know?” she asked, returning to the original subject. “Just do something!”

  Women.

  But I did try, at least. I badly needed to get out of my damp, filthy, ruined clothes and into something clean and comfortable. But the Bishop’s situation couldn’t wait. I headed straight for his office.

  He’d closed the door. I tapped once and entered. Regan was over by the window, reading. It was a depression all right. Reading during working hours is a dead giveaway.

  “Want to know what happened?” I asked brightly. He looked up from the book and nodded, not enthusiastically. He wheeled — slowly — in my direction. The book, I saw, was McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. A birthday gift from me. He’d read it through (along with dozens of other books, of course), each of his last two depressions. This was looking grim.

  “I take it that’s a yes,” I said. “Then may I suggest something? We owe Rozanski plenty, mainly for the help he gave us the other night. Let me call him and you listen in. When I’m done, you can tell me how you doped it all out.”

  He gave an almost imperceptible nod. I got Chet and reported. I did it the way Chet’s taught me: first the basics — who, what, when, how and where — and then the details.

  Regan watched as intently as Chet listened. He also asked fewer dumb questions. Though, to give Rozanski credit, he asked only one really dumb one — at the end: “How are you feeling, Davey?” I’d have made an appropriate comment, but I was getting hoarser and my throat was starting to burn. Just as well I didn’t, because Chet followed the dumb question with a surprisingly sincere thank-you.

  “Your timing on this is impeccable, Davey. Our guy at Headquarters picked up a rumor fifteen minutes ago that something big had gone down on the Strangler John thing, but he couldn’t find out what. We’ve both been trying to get hold of Kessler or Blake, but they’re incommunicado. I was just giving up on today’s edition right now, when you called. So I really appreciate this, buddy. Next time you call me for some info, maybe I won’t bitch and moan so much.”

  “Yeah, sure you won’t,” I croaked and hung up.

  “You should be in the hospital,” Regan growled, and headed for the window again. The s
park of interest that had been in his eye was gone.

  “Hey, weren’t you going to tell me how you figured it out?”

  He didn’t stop moving. I could barely make out his mumbled response. “At some later time, perhaps. You should see a doctor.” He reopened the book. I couldn’t think of a thing to say or do, so I left.

  Back in my office, I called Kelley to tell him the job was off, but my mind stayed on Regan. He’d never started one of these so soon after a case. I was especially worried about his unwillingness to crow. Crowing is the sugar and cream in his coffee.

  I was sitting there, feet on the desk, fruitlessly trying to dream up a plan to jolly Regan out of his funk, when the phone rang. Dave Baker. With the solution to my problem, though I didn’t know it at the time.

  “Hey, man, I hear you went three fast rounds with Strangler Joan, the Minutemaid! Tell me about it!”

  “What do you want, Dave,” I rasped. “I’m pretty busy right now.” I didn’t feel like talking, not even to a fellow Irregular.

  “Well! Are we a mite testy today? And what’s with the voice?” I was thinking of a suitable response when Dave got serious. “Pretty rough, huh? I just talked to Kessler. He says you looked like something the cat drug in.”

  “Piece of cake,” I croaked. “Put a woman in the ring with me and I’ll whip her butt damn near every time.”

  Silence for a few seconds. “Well,” Dave finally said, “I’m at the jail right now. They’re processing our boy out of here. Harrington’s dropped all charges. Jerry’s extremely grateful — to you and the Bish, not to me. Which is only fair. I didn’t really do anything.”

  I thought fast. An idea was building.

  “Is he grateful enough to call me, Dave?” I asked.

  “Fanning? Oh, I’m sure he would be. You want me to tell him? They’re almost done here.”

  We left it that Fanning would call within the hour. I sat back, feeling a lot better now that I had something to work on. I’d caught a murderer; now I could rescue a man from his sulks. Not a bad day’s work. Of course, I hadn’t pulled the second one off yet. And it was probably going to be a lot tougher than the first.

  The phone rang again in less than five minutes. Not Fanning as I expected, but Kessler. Discovering I hadn’t been to the hospital, he bawled me out — gently, for him — and then got down to business.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Penniston are with me, Davey, and I’ve been telling them of the…new development in the case. They would like to see you. You and the Bishop.”

  It took me less than a second to see that that might fit nicely into the plot I was devising.

  “Could they come over here?”

  A short jumble of voices on the other end. Then: “They’d be happy to, Davey. They’d planned to catch the late flight back to Wichita, but now they’re planning to stay over. In view of what’s happened. You don’t sound so good, though. Is today okay?”

  “Feeling better every minute, Inspector.” A light flashed under one of the buttons on the phone. “I’ve got another call coming in. Could you hang on?” I put him on hold and depressed the button. “Bishop’s office.”

  “Davey, it’s me.” Fanning’s jubilant voice. “I got to thank you for all you’ve done. You and that Bishop.”

  “Nice of you to call, Jerry. Uh, Jerry…?”

  “Yessir?”

  “Would you like to stop by with Ida Mae and Joe Bob?”

  “Shoot, yes!”

  “How about today?”

  “Why, heck yes.”

  “Then hang on.” Two more bounces from line to line, and I’d done it. Two Pennistons and three Fannings were stopping by at six to see the Bishop and me.

  Naturally, Kessler horned in. And, naturally, I let him. After all, he’d just been nice enough to give me till tomorrow to come in and give my statement. Besides, you never know when it’ll come in handy to have a friendly police inspector in your corner.

  Then came the hard part — getting Regan to see them. This was one meeting where getting the guests to come was going to be a whole lot easier than getting the host to play host.

  43

  “Absolutely not!”

  Exactly the response I’d expected. I’d have appreciated his looking up from the book to give me the turndown, but you can’t have everything: rudeness and eye contact too.

  “Hey,” I wheezed, “why beat around the bush? If you don’t want to see those people, just say so.” I plopped onto a chair and yawned. Audibly.

  Regan closed the book and hefted it, probably calculating Lonesome Dove’s throw weight, the optimum arc of trajectory and the probable damage to my head. He decided against it, dropped the book in his lap, and rolled my way.

  “David. You know I have nothing to say to those people. You apprehended the killer. You exhibited intrepidity, quickness and strength. Also percipience, in spite of my failure to warn you. I have nothing to offer.”

  So that was it. He was miffed that I’d solved the case without him. That I’d have never got to first base without him, much less second or third, didn’t count. He’d wanted to be at home plate for the finish, like in the McClain thing, and he’d missed out. He was pouting.

  We wrangled for fifteen minutes and I was getting nowhere, beyond making my throat worse. And perilously close to telling him exactly what was eating him. Which, of course, would have sunk the whole project.

  Ida Mae — or rather Joe Bob — saved the day. The boss and I were still haranguing when Ernie appeared in the doorway, looking very nervous. Regan didn’t see her till she found a gap in the uproar and interrupted us in a small voice. “Excuse me, Bishop, but —” His glare would have wilted a tougher maiden than Ernie. She was turning to flee when I stopped her.

  “Hold it, Ern.” I turned to Regan. “Look. She’s not involved. Don’t take it out on her.”

  Ernie gave me a look that reminded me of a line of poetry way back in high school English, something about “wee poor timorous beastie, what a (something)’s in thy breastie.” Burns, right? And Regan says I have no soul.

  “What is it, Sister?” Regan said in a kindlier voice than I’d heard out of him in several minutes.

  “Excuse me, Bishop, I didn’t know if you were taking calls. It’s Mrs. Fanning. She says it’s important.”

  Regan’s lips tightened. Without glancing at me, he spun to his desk and picked up the phone. Ernie departed, giving me a grateful look. I winked at her with my good eye.

  “Yes, Mrs. Fanning.” Courteous, but barely. The Bishop listened for a few seconds. “But Mrs. Fanning, I’ll not be able to join you. A previous engagement makes it impossible. I trust you —” He listened some more and either I was imagining things or his face actually began to soften. “Well, I don’t know… Well certainly, Mrs. Fanning, if you feel Joseph would be helped by seeing me, I suppose I — all right. I’ll see you at six. And your husband. And, of course, Joseph.”

  Regan cradled the phone gently and wheeled away toward the windows without a glance at me. He did throw back over his shoulder the last word of what had been an argument.

  “Mrs. Fanning seems to think my presence would be therapeutic for Joseph. He’s not feeling well. Perhaps she’s right. So I’ll join your meeting. But I’ll stand mute. I was not involved.”

  He’d stand mute? That was a laugh. For openers, he can’t stand. And he’ll probably stand a long time before he’ll ever be mute. On any subject whatsoever. But I was in no mood to quibble. Ida Mae had done what I couldn’t — got the Bishop to join our party. As for his standing mute, well, we’d see.

  I barely had time to shower — very gingerly — and change into comfortable slacks, sweater and loafers before our guests arrived. I was actually feeling pretty chipper. Till I discovered Kessler had brought his mutt.

  I refer to Blake. The four of them — the Pennistons, Kessler and Blake — arrived at five to six, five minutes early. Fortunately, I saw Charlie through the glass before opening the door.

  I
made a quick decision. Checking to be sure I had my house key, I stepped outside, closing the door behind me. This made the stoop a bit crowded, what with five of us. Kessler was decent enough to back down onto the top step.

  “Roger! Maureen!” I croaked, shaking hands. “So nice of you to stop by.” Maureen took a look at my face and gasped; Roger mumbled something. I wasted no time getting to Kessler, grabbed his elbow and turned the two of us to face the street.

  “What’s the ape doing here?”

  “He insisted,” Kessler mumbled, unable to meet my eye. “As the officer in charge of the case, he wanted to be here. And I —”

  “And you caved in. Well, I’m not, brother. Caving in, that is. He’s not getting in. Bishop’s orders. You know better than this, Inspector. You’re going to have to get rid of him. When you do, you’ll get in. If not, you’re not.”

  Kessler’s face started to redden but I didn’t wait. Turning, I ignored Blake, gave Roger and Maureen a bright smile and croaked, “Come on in! Uh, Charlie, the inspector wants a word.”

  Blake glanced rapidly back and forth from me to Kessler. The look in his eye told me he was thinking of forcing his way in with Roger and Maureen. I sort of hoped he’d try. No way he could be as hard to handle as Betty.

  But something in the inspector’s face, possibly combined with consideration of the weak job market, persuaded Charlie to go slow. He glared daggers at me but stayed behind.

  I gave Kessler about four minutes to get rid of him. I was wrong. The doorbell didn’t chime again till ten after six and when I went, it was Baker and the three Fannings. Plus Kessler. As I held the door for them, Blake peeled away from the curb in his Chevy like some dope-crazed teenager. Pretty childish if you ask me.

  44

  So by 6:15 everyone was in place. Over at the south window, the Bishop had his buddy, Joe Bob, on his lap. Ida Mae kept glancing over, but the baby was giving less than two hoots to anything but Regan.

  Jerry, Roger and Maureen were pelting the guy in charge, namely me, with questions. Kessler, over in a corner, looked amused. I don’t know if it was at me, running things from behind Regan’s desk, or at Regan, playing baby sitter while I held court. And Baker, in the other corner, kept looking at his watch like he had to be somewhere else. Typical.