by Ron Goulart
“Where’d he get hold of that Napoleon brandy?” Jeff inquired.
The lawyer’s sharp eyes studied him. “Somebody sent it to him the day he died. I thought maybe you—”
“Me!” Jeff laughed. “Where would I get a bottle of that stuff?”
“You were in Europe over two years,” the lawyer said flatly. “In the army of occupation and before. You were wounded. Spent several months in an Amiens hospital. When you came home, you went back to college. Architectural engineering, I believe.”
Jeff grinned, “So Uncle Rocky has kept an eye on me!”
“On all three of you,” Fitch said. “You’d be surprised how much I could tell you about yourself.”
Jeff shrugged. “I already know about myself. Tell me about Lucy.”
“Lucy Dean?” Fitch consulted a folder in his brief case. “Lucy Dean. Age 22. Won a minor beauty contest in her home town, which entitled her to a screen test in Hollywood. Played extra parts, then left the studios and opened a small hat shop on Wilshire Boulevard. Unfortunately, she is on the verge of bankruptcy, due to inexperience and—”
“And bad breaks,” Jeff finished dryly. So that was Lucy! He grinned, remembering how the two of them used to tear around Uncle Rocky’s ranch, riding horses, swimming, scrapping. While Kent spent his time showing Uncle Rocky his stamp collection and impressing him with the weighty books he had read.
“How about Kent?”
“Kenton J, Forgey is in banking. For some time he did very well, but—”
The raucous ringing of the front doorbell sent him scuttling to answer it. Out in the hall Jeff heard the big Seth Thomas clock boom twelve times.
“Hi, Jeff! Want a fight?” Jeff stared at Lucy and couldn’t believe her. Those carroty pigtails were bronze ringlets now. Her jade-green eyes laughed at him impishly, but there was a hidden something in them that he failed to recognize. She had changed. She was beautiful. She wasn’t wearing a plaid shirt and boyish denims now. She wore a long, sequinned gown, and over it a mink wrap that looked like the real McCoy.
“How about that!” he grinned. “So you remember the last time we saw each other—the time you bounced a rock off my head.”
Lucy let him take her wrap, and he lit her a long cigarette. “Only after you pulled that cheap trick with my saddle and landed me in a cactus, Jeffie.”
Jeff glanced at Kent and decided that he hadn’t changed much. He still wore heavy glasses and walked with a stoop as if looking for dropped pennies. Kent darted a suspicious glance at Lucy and Jeff before he hurried into the library.
Lucy’s eyebrow tilted. Her eyes met Jeff’s, and she took his arm, “Shall we dance?” she quipped.
He escorted her in, and they took seats. Fitch fidgeted with a large sealed envelope which he took from his briefcase, cleared his throat, then said, “It’s past midnight. Guess we can safely begin the reading.”
“Let’s get it over,” Kent rasped, mopping his forehead.
Jeff thought there was fear in his eyes. He guessed why. Kent wouldn’t be able to take it if he wasn’t the one Rocky Dewer had chosen.
Fitch shot a glance at the coffin, then unsealed the envelope. “Just a word before I begin,” Fitch said. “As you know, Rocky Dewer had a will of his own.” He tittered at his unintentional pun. “He wanted things done a certain way. I hope that tonight you will all respect his last wishes.”
“The will,” Lucy hinted. Jeff noticed that the slim hand holding the cigarette trembled a little. Maybe she needed that money. Maybe she needed it—badly.
Fitch nodded. He began to read:
“Since I have never been formal in my whole life, now’s not the time to start. There are a few minor bequests which will be written up later. Meanwhile, I’ll get to the big news, which I know you’re all waiting to hear.
“There were three possible heirs to my little kingdom. These were Jeff Conn, Lucy Dean, and Kenton Forgey. Now, my property is so mixed up in itself that the only way it can be divided is to sell it. That I am not willing to let happen. I want my heir to take care of my lands and my workers just as I would do if I were alive. Somebody with brains, but also with guts. Which one should it be? That was my problem.
“I decided to study the three possible heirs, find out the stuff they were made of. So I had them come and spend two weeks at my ranch during their summer vacations, it being my belief that a man’s character is inherent and that he will behave at twelve the same as he will at thirty.
“So I did it, and this is what happened. Lucy and Jeff spent all their time gallivanting around the ranch, paying no more attention to me than they did to my Chinese cook—if as much!
“Kent was different. He spent his time with me, showing me his collections, bringing me my breakfast tray, going to the bank with me, and telling me how he thought money ought to be invested.”
Fitch paused to turn back a page and clear his throat. Jeff took note of the fatuous expression that moved across Kent’s face. He grinned wryly.
“Here’s what I decided,” the lawyer read on. “The two runners-up are to get fifty thousand dollars apiece, and the third one gets the bulk of all my properties, as specified below.”
Fitch stopped again and coughed nervously. Jeff stiffened in his chair, then lit a cigarette and grinned at Kent, whose eye bulged toward the will the lawyer was holding, his lips tight against his protruding teeth.
“All right,” Lucy broke the silence with a nervous laugh. “Go ahead. Tell Kent he gets it and put him out of his misery!”
Kent gave her a quick look of malice, then his eyes swiveled back to the lawyer. The lawyer bobbed his head solemnly.
“You’re right, Miss Dean. The will reads, ‘Aside from otherwise specified bequests, the total sum of all my lands and properties goes to Kenton J. Forgey!’”
The feeling of tautness left Jeff at the pronouncement of Kent’s name. After all, it was logical. While Lucy and he were having a good time those summers, Kent had spent his hours buttering up the old man, convincing him how smart he was, how proficient he would be at controlling the Dewer estates.
He glanced at Lucy. A smile tugged at her lips. It broke into a merry little laugh. But Kent’s face was pale and beaded with perspiration. He clung to his chair arms, tittering. So it meant that much to him. Everything.
Jeff grinned at Lucy, who bobbed out of her chair. “Well, that’s that. I’m glad I asked my cabby to wait. Can I give you a lift to town, Jeff?”
“Fine,” he grinned.
“No, no, no!” Lawyer Fitch became very excited when they started out. “We’re not through yet!”
Lucy slipped on her gloves. “Details? Write us a letter.”
“It won’t do,” Fitch said firmly. “Mr. Dewer wanted things done a certain way. He wanted you all to do him a favor. A small, but very special favor.”
Jeff met her eyes. “Might as well, eh?”
Lucy shrugged. They waited.
Fitch cleared his throat and read on. “I realize that my will is likely to cause hard feelings among my three heirs. I’m sorry. Just to assure myself that you are parting company in a spirit of friendship, I would like you all to drink a little toast. A toast to each other’s good health. I have provided a gift bottle of rare Napoleon brandy for the purpose.”
Fitch poured out three generous glasses of the old vintage, and handed one to each of them, Kent set his hastily down on his chair arm.
“Never drink,” he said primly.
“Aw come on!” Lucy said. “A wee drink won’t kill you!”
Jeff noticed the panic that leaped suddenly in Kent’s eyes. He frowned thoughtfully.
“No,” Kent said: “I refuse to drink it. I never drink.”
“You’d better drink this once,” Fitch said softly. “It’s written in the will. Unless all the conditions of the will are adhered to, the property goes to charity.”
Kent gave a long trembling sigh. He stared down at the drink, whimpering in his throat, then he picked
it up. When the others raised the glasses to their lips, he did, too. Then, with an abrupt gesture, he flung the glass on the floor.
“I—I can’t do it!”
“Why not?” Jeff asked.
“I detest brandy!”
“This is very exceptional brandy,” Fitch said, oddly. “Whoever sent it to Mr. Dewer must have gone to a lot of trouble.”
“Well then, bottoms up!”
Sudden fear shot through Jeff when he saw that Lucy had downed her brandy with a sudden movement. Something was nipping at Jeff’s mind, something that was a clue and a warning. Small things he’d noticed since his arrival began to have meaning.
“Lucy!” he cried.
Without a word, Fitch moved swiftly to the table and dug inside his briefcase, his eyes on Kent. Kent was staring in horror at the crumpled girl.
Then Kent acted. Before the lawyer’s hand came out of the briefcase, Kent had pulled a revolver out of his coat pocket. Savage panic blazed in his face as he sent a bullet spinning into Fitch’s shoulder. The lawyer fell across the table.
Jeff leaped. His fist knocked the gun up, and Kent’s second bullet crashed into the high oak ceiling. Then, snarling, Kent whirled to drive lead through Jeff.
But Jeff’s fists were active. The agonizing pain that had washed over him when he saw Lucy fall was a floodtide that carried reason with it in its passing. His fingers bit into Kent’s arm, bringing a sharp scream from his lips. The gun rattled to the floor, and Jeff’s fists went to work.
They avoided Kent’s face, first. Then he ripped off Kent’s glasses and smashed that weak, whimpering face until Kent toppled to the floor like a dropped puppet.
Sobbing in his throat, Jeff turned to the girl. He knelt by her. He kissed her and she opened her eyes.
“Wow!” she said weakly. “That brandy packs quite a wallop!”
* * * *
Later, when they had tied up Fitch’s wounded shoulder, the lawyer started to explain, “When that gift bottle came and Mr. Dewer saw it, he laughed for the first time since his illness. I couldn’t understand why. Both I and the doctor insisted he mustn’t drink any of the brandy, and he promised he wouldn’t. He made me write out a new will, a very odd one. Then he made me promise I’d make you all drink a last toast from that bottle.”
“But why? What’s this all about?” Lucy demanded.
“I think I know,” Jeff said. “Kent sent Uncle Rocky that brandy. It was poisoned. You see, Kent was pretty smug about the will, pretty certain of himself.”
“So certain that he borrowed bank funds some months ago when it was thought Mr. Dewer was dying,” Fitch interjected.
“He got tired of waiting,” Jeff went on. “In fact, he had to have that money. But Uncle Rocky was getting better! So he sent him that poisoned bottle of brandy, thinking Rocky’s doctor would call it a relapse or blame it on too much brandy. Kent was clever. He knew how much Rocky liked good brandy, and that he was likely to drink it all himself. Even if he didn’t, Kent planned to be here to dispose of the rest of it.
“But somehow Rocky found out. He planned this trick of having us drink a toast—knowing that the one who poisoned the brandy wouldn’t drink any!”
“But I did!” Lucy said wide-eyed. “What am I doing here?”
“How about that?” Jeff asked Fitch.
“I—I didn’t dare take any chances. I substituted the poisoned brandy for some cheap domestic liquor. I felt it would work equally well.”
“It did,” Jeff said grimly. “Now, about the will—the real one?”
Fitch smiled and pulled another envelope out of his brief case. “Here we are. It reads, ‘Like I said before, it’s my opinion that a man’s character stays pretty much the same throughout his life. Kent Forgey was too all-fired anxious to please me, too eager to assure me he was the one I should pick. He was clever, even as a boy. Clever and unscrupulous, and a tattle-tale as well. I knew then that if Kent Forgey had the means to do it, he would kill me for my money.
“‘I knew he sent me that bottle of brandy, and I suspected it was poisoned. It may sound loco to some people, but I was willing to gamble my life—rather my death—on it. Why should I take the chance? Why not! I haven’t more than a couple years left at the most, and I don’t cherish them much. I’m old and tired. What could be a sweeter way to die than to drink a couple glasses of Napoleon brandy, poisoned or not?
“‘As to my real heirs, Lucy and Jeff, I am confident they will find a way to manage my properties without splitting them up. At least, I hope they’ll give it a try. They always did get on good together—both good scrappers!’”
DYING FOR A CLUE, by C.A. Freeburn
Working Shadow seemed a fitting name for an agency run by a ghost. Boredom led me to open up shop when I arrived in Limbo two years ago, and boredom made me agree to take on the Tracey Rackham murder case.
I didn’t trust Tracey’s version of himself, but I found his scenario intriguing. Tracey entered the nether world by being drugged with sleeping pills, dumped into a dried-up well, and then pummeled with bricks. Regardless of his high opinion of himself, this was a man who was well hated…or who knew way too much about something. And after spending time listening to him, I leaned toward hated.
“And why didn’t any of the ladies report me missing?” Tracy rattled on. “Why didn’t my brother, my sister, my maid, or my driver report me missing? Why didn’t anyone care?”
Tracey wasn’t stating his grievance with an air of dismay or a whine in his voice. His tone combined outrage, superiority, and disgust. Apparently, he thought himself a man who required and should be given great devotion.
His body had been found only because a neighbor noticed bricks missing from the stockpile. If the man hadn’t gone looking for them, Tracey would still be buried.
“Well, Tracey.” I placed my fedora on my head and tipped it back so I could catch his reactions. “The fact that those individuals didn’t find your disappearance disturbing gives me a list of suspects to start with.”
“My brother,” Tracey said. “I bet it was him. He couldn’t believe I planned to marry. I was interviewing potential wives the day it happened. Once I married, he wouldn’t be my heir.”
“You were interviewing potential wives?”
“Of course. How else does one find a suitable mate?” Tracey examined his fingernails then brushed dust from his tuxedo jacket. “That was what I was doing the night in question. I had made a list of all the eligible ladies I liked…the well-bred, attractive ones of child-bearing age…and I invited them over to determine which one would have the privilege of becoming my mate.”
The man might have had money and book intelligence, but he had as much common sense as a deer playing leapfrog with a semi truck. Even with my limited knowledge of dames’ minds, I knew Tracey Rackham had painted a bulls-eye across his forehead, then handed out guns.
“How many women did you invite?” I asked.
“Five,” he said. “I thought that would give me enough choices, but not overwhelm me.”
“Anyone else know about it?” I asked.
“My baby sister—but she never had an original thought in her life. My driver and maid knew, but they were paid very well. That came to an end with my death.”
“Right, so no motive for them. And your brother? Why would he do you in?”
“For him to succeed, I’d have to be dead. As the first-born son, I inherited everything when our parents died.”
“Are your brother and sister married?”
“My brother never had the looks, intelligence, or income.”
“And your sister?”
He shook his head. “Claudia’s boyfriends sniff around for money, but they move on when they discover there isn’t any. She lived in the family home until recently, and any job she held was financed by my father’s money rather than her employer’s. I put a stop to that.”
“How?”
“I cut off her allowance and gave her a month’s notice
to find a new place to live. At forty, she’s old enough to take care for herself.”
That sounded like a motive to me!
I asked, “What about your brother? Did he have an opportunity to kill you?”
“That is where I run into the same issue as the police, Callous. Everyone at the party knows only two people had access to the drinks: the bartenders.”
“You must have put your drink down or asked your brother to collect a cocktail for you. On his way to deliver it, he added an extra ingredient.”
“That would make perfect sense, except I only got my drinks from the bartenders. If anyone put a glass down and wandered off, the staff had instructions to dispose of it.”
“You thought someone was out to kill you?”
Tracey laughed. “Of course not. But I wanted to make sure none of my potential brides tried to harm each other.”
“And the only one with best motive to kill you before marriage was your brother. Only he had no real opportunity. Quite a dilemma.”
“And then there’s the whole issue with Madeline. But I don’t really believe she killed me.”
“What issue? Who’s Madeline?” In this business, you need all the information out in the open to come up with the true answers. Theories don’t help bring a murderer to justice. They just allow someone a chance to tamper with more drinks.
“The woman most likely to be my wife. I vaguely remember her leading me outside to the gardens, but I was under the influence at the time so I could be wrong.”
“Did anyone else report this?”
“Apparently my brother did. Though, if he is responsible for my death, of course he’d point the finger at her.”
“Good point. Madeline could have killed you to stop another woman from becoming your wife.”
“She knew I was close to choosing her. With me dead, she gained nothing.”
Take a note: Complications—every case had them. Tracey’s brother had motive, but no means of drugging his drink. Madeline led Tracey into the garden, but had no motive. Of course, the brother, watching Madeline and Tracey, had the perfect opportunity without looking as guilty.
I said, “I’ll visit Madeline and investigate whether she was thinking romantic or murderous thoughts when she led you into the garden,” I said. “I also need to discover if your brother could have doctored the liquor even though he didn’t bring or make your drink.”
