Martinez, Mary - Classic Murder: Mr. Romance (BookStrand Publishing Romance)

by Mary Martinez

  Chapter Seventeen

  Adam noticed the light flashing on his phone, indicating he had a voicemail as soon as he walked in his door. He picked up the receiver and dialed in his code. He heard Nan Thomas’s voice, but then the doorbell rang. Pushing the key to save the message so he could listen later, he went to the door.

  “I wonder who that is,” he said aloud.

  When he saw the two detectives on his doorstep, hot pokers attacked his stomach. “Come in.”

  “Have you been home all evening?” Novak asked without preamble.

  “Hello, nice evening, come on in,” Adam said sarcastically, as the two pushed their way into his home. “No, I just got home. I’ve been at Katie’s watching videos.”

  “The trusty assistant and always your alibi,” Detective Jones said.

  “Alibi for what?” Adam had a sinking feeling he already knew. Only one thing could have happened. Something had happened to Nan Thomas.

  “When did you get home from your weekend rendezvous with Ms. Thomas?” Detective Novak asked.

  Adam really hated the way they fielded their questions back and forth, but they had done that from the moment he met them. The procedure must be something they’d honed to perfection. He was sure it was used to intimidate whoever had the misfortune to be on the receiving end of their questions. “Nan and I returned home late yesterday afternoon. I haven’t heard from her since. Before you ask, I went to Katie’s last night to take her some chicken soup.”

  The two detectives looked at him in question. Adam threw up his hands and indicated for them to sit down. Seemed this wasn’t going to be a short visit.

  “Katie had a cold and sounded awful when I called to let her know I was home and to ask if anything needed my attention at the office.” They needed to know Adam hadn’t had any intentions of talking shop with Katie.

  “And then this morning you were where?” It was Detective Jones’ turn with the question.

  “I was home. I worked in my office until I went to Katie’s this evening. What happened to Ms. Thomas?”

  “Who said anything had happened to her?” Detective Novak asked.

  “You wouldn’t be here asking questions about when we got home, talking about alibis, if something hadn’t happened. Just tell me, is she all right?”

  “No. We have our third murder and you are our only link,” Jones said.

  “I cannot think of a reason anyone would hurt any of the women I’ve been out with. What happened to Nan?” Adam asked again.

  “We aren’t at liberty to tell you,” Novak advised.

  The shrill ring of the phone interrupted. Adam stood and walked to the credenza where the phone sat.

  Clenching his jaw he ground out, “Hello?”

  “Adam, I just wanted to call to say thank you and tell you again what a good time I had.” Under other circumstances, Adam would have been delighted at Katie’s reply.

  “Katie, I’ve got some bad news. The two detectives are here. Seems there has been another murder.”

  “I’ll be right over.” Katie hung up and the connection ended before Adam could reply.

  “Why don’t I get us some coffee while we wait for Ms. Sinclair to get here?” Adam walked back to join the two detectives.

  “Why is she coming over?” Detective Jones asked.

  “I don’t know. She said she was coming and hung up. So we might as well wait before we discuss anything further.”

  “I could use some coffee. Thank you,” Novak said.

  While Adam made coffee, he turned the clues over in his mind. How could he be linked to these terrible murders? Why would someone do that?

  He hoped he could get some more information about how the women died from the two detectives. Maybe then he could come up with some answers. He loaded a tray of freshly brewed coffee and returned to the living room. While he’d been in the kitchen, Katie had arrived.

  “Katie, that was fast.” Adam laid the tray on top of the coffee table.

  “I was lucky. A cab had just dropped someone off in front of my building. That doesn’t happen very often.” Katie looked at the frowning detectives and continued. “I wanted to hear what was going on first hand, maybe I can help in some way.”

  “Do you have information of why Russo might be linked to all the murders?” Jones asked sarcastically.

  “No, but if you tell both of us what happened to the three women, maybe we can put our heads together and come up with something concrete.”

  “You know that we can’t tell you anything about our case,” Detective Novak said.

  “I understand. But if you could just tell us how they were murdered, without any details, maybe there would be a clue only Adam would pick up,” Katie said.

  “Maybe we should talk about this down at the station. Then we can take both your statements about your activities during the last two or three days,” Jones said.

  “I have no problem going to the station. Since all of us are here, why don’t we see if we can brainstorm our way to some type of understanding of why these murders were committed? I’d like to find out why I’m the only link,” Adam said.

  “You know, maybe it is worth a try. It’s highly irregular for us to discuss this with a possible suspect. You have alibis, okay, let’s see where this takes us.” Adam figured since Detective Novak answered, and as senior detective, it was his responsibility to set some ground rules. “Ed and I cannot discuss anything about the case other than a general description of the way the women were murdered. We’ll leave out details you can’t know. There will be no discussion of witnesses or any leads we might have.”

  “Fair enough. I just hope we can figure something out. The sooner you catch this person the better. I don’t want to be responsible for any more deaths. I feel guilty enough as it is, although I didn’t do anything.” Adam reached over and poured himself some coffee. This discussion could make for a long night.

  “Okay, let’s start with Cynthia Westwood,” Jones said.

  Adam watched Katie. Too restless to sit, she paced as the detectives started telling about the murders. Watching her trim bottom in her tight jeans wreaked havoc with his concentration.

  “Ms. Westwood was found dead on the floor of her apartment. There were no signs of forced entry. The only thing we found was two wine glasses and a bottle of wine. We found the victim’s fingerprints on both glasses. No others were found. The perp must have been wearing gloves, if he or she had wiped them clean there would be no prints. Cause of death was poison in the wine,” Novak said.

  “Do you have any idea why she would be murdered this way?” Jones asked.

  “No. Katie, do you?” Adam said.

  “No, I don’t. What about the other two?” Katie continued to pace. Adam watched her as she went back and forth. Like watching a tennis match. He just hoped she was paying attention to where she was going. He had several things for her to trip over.

  “Ms. Beeman was struck by a hit-and-run driver. The license plates couldn’t be identified. The car windows were tinted in a non-descript black car. Millions meet that description,” Novak said.

  “Ms. Thomas, for whatever reason, flew back to South Dakota. She was pushed from the face of Washington on the Rushmore monument,” Jones said.

  “My God, how awful.” Katie stopped pacing for a moment, and then continued. “How odd, she just got back home, she would have had to turn around and race back to the airport. How do you know she was pushed?” Then she stopped pacing again and slightly turned to face the men. “I thought there were no trails leading to the faces or behind the monument.” Then she did an about face, took one step and ran into the ottoman.

  “Watch...” Adam started to call as he watched Katie start to fall forward.

  The three men were up and to Katie’s side in less time than it took her to struggle to get up from the undignified position. Head over the side, belly on the cushion, and feet stuck up in the air. Adam leaned down, grasped her elbow, and started to pull her up. W
hen she sat on the offending stool, she looked around red-faced at the three. Her hair hung over her eyes blocking her view of her audience. She brushed the wild strands out of her face and stood up, cleared her throat and turned her pace as if to say, I meant to do that.

  The men looked at each other and shrugged. They went back to their seats and Adam picked up his cup. The two detectives looked back at their notes, all of them trying not to chuckle.

  “You’re right. Tourists are supposed to stay on the path. Apparently, she was being chased and she climbed up the side to the back and ended up on top of the monument, where she was pushed. Anyway that’s what she told paramedics,” Detective Novak explained. “She was still alive, barely, when they found her. She said some strange things apparently. The local sheriff faxed me the report from the paramedics’ statement.”

  “What did she say or can you tell us?” Adam asked.

  “Not at this time, but now you know how they all were murdered. Can you make any connections?” Jones asked.

  “No, I’m sorry I can’t.” Adam shook his head in frustration.

  “None of them have the same O.M.” Katie stopped pacing for a moment, lost in thought, staring off at nothing.

  “O.M.?” Adam asked.

  “I think she means M.O.,” Novak answered.

  “Whatever, I’m trying to think what the connection could be. Wait, I think I have an idea.” Katie whirled to face them. “Detective Novak, what kind of poison was in the wine that killed Ms. Westwood?”

  “Arsenic, and the strangest thing was it wasn’t regular wine. It was like homemade or something. The report said the wine was made of berries.” Jones looked at his partner contritely, having revealed more than he should have.

  “What kind of berry?” Adam thought he knew Katie’s idea.

  Detective Novak flipped through a few pages on his clipboard then read for a minute. “Let’s see, says here, elderberry wine. Why?” He asked looking from Katie to Adam.

  “I have a theory, but I want to ask one more question.” Katie walked over to Adam and sat on the sofa next to him.

  “What?” Detective Jones asked.

  “Where did the hit and run take place?” Katie asked.

  “Here in Manhattan,” Novak answered.

  “No, I figured that. I mean what street. In front of what building,” Katie said.

  “What has that got to do with anything?” Jones asked.

  “I see where she’s going with this. Just answer, then we’ll explain,” Adam said.

  “Ms. Beeman was struck crossing the road on the corner of Fifth Avenue atThirty-Fourth Street. In front of the Empire State Building,” Novak answered.

  “I knew it. Adam, are you think what I’m thinking?” Katie asked him excitedly.

  “Yes, I think I am. It makes sense. Although I still don’t understand why,” Adam said.

  “Will you two please enlighten us?” Jones said testily.

  “I took Ms. Westwood to Napa Valley, on a wine tour for our weekend,” Adam began, but Detective Novak interrupted him.

  “She was killed with wine, so they are connected by where you take them,” he said.

  “There’s more,” Katie said. When both detectives raised their eyebrows, she continued. “The murder was a copycat from a classic Cary Grant movie. Arsenic and Old Lace. With a couple of differences. The old aunts in the movie were poisoning lonely old men with elderberry wine.”

  “That’s one movie. What are the others?” Detective Jones wanted to know.

  “Adam took Ms. Beeman on a small cruise, and then she was struck down in front of the Empire State Building,” Katie said as if that explained everything.

  Detective Novak smiled and said, “An Affair to Remember?”

  Detective Jones looked at his partner. “You know what they are talking about?”

  “I think so. It’s another classic Cary Grant movie. He meets a woman on a cruise, played by Deborah Kerr.” Novak looked to Katie for confirmation.

  “That’s right. They are both in relationships so they agree to settle everything in their lives and if they still feel the same way at the end of six months, they are going to meet at the top of the Empire State Building. Except Deborah Kerr isn’t killed, just crippled.” Katie informed them.

  “And we didn’t just meet on an ocean cruise. The killer is using classic movies to plan his murders. He’s just twisting the plot to suit him.” A jolt of electricity hit Adam when he remembered the message on his machine. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe I forgot.”

  “What?” the others said in unison.

  “I had a message on my voicemail from Nan. I had just started to listen to the recording when you came. Then with the new murder, it slipped my mind.” Adam picked up the receiver on the living room extension, dialed in his code, and placed it on speaker so everyone could hear.

  Nan’s frantic voice floated out for all to hear. “Adam, I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve had the most bizarre experience.” There was a pause as if she were trying to calm herself down. “I had just walked into my apartment earlier when I got a call from a South Dakota state agency. The guy told me there had been a fire just outside of Keystone. They needed my help to find homes for the children. So I flew back here and arrived too late last evening to do anything. I called the place this morning and was told to go to this address out in the middle of nowhere.”

  There was another pause and the four listeners looked at each other anxiously. Maybe they were about to get a clue. Just when they thought she wasn’t going to continue, she did.

  “When I got there, there wasn’t a farmhouse in sight. Then the damnedest thing happened. An old biplane, you know, like an old crop duster, came swooping out of the sky and dropped this stinking stuff all over me. I dove back in my car and hightailed it out of there.”

  Katie and Adam stared at each other. Adam knew that Katie was thinking of the same movie he was. Then Nan continued before he could comment on it.

  “After I cleaned up, I wished I had called the local police to test the substance. It’s too late for that now, but I wanted to let you know what was going on. Maybe you should call those two detectives you told me were working on the murders of those other women. Adam, I think the guy in the plane was trying to kill me.” Then the connection was broken, without a goodbye.

  “What do you think of that?” Jones asked.

  “North by Northwest,” Novak replied.

  “What?” Jones looked at the others in bewilderment.

  “Exactly what I was thinking—there’s no other explanation.” Adam smiled at Novak’s statement. He was glad the detective seemed to be on the same wavelength.

  “Hold on, guys, what is North by Northwest?” Jones wanted to know. Adam thought the young detective didn’t like to be left out.

  “It’s an old Hitchcock movie with Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint,” Adam said before Novak could reply.

  “Oh, I see. I’ve never heard of any of these movies,” Jones said.

  “You were born long after they were filmed,” Novak replied.

  Ed Jones looked at Adam and Katie and frowned. “I’m not that much younger than Mr. Russo or Ms. Sinclair. Oh, never mind, it doesn’t matter. So how do the message and the way she died have to do with the movie?”

  “Cary Grant is an advertising executive mistaken for a spy, pursued across the country. He rides in a train from Grand Central Station to Chicago. From there, the chase takes him to South Dakota, where he’s told he needs to meet someone in a rural farm area, a cornfield. A sharecropper swoops over him and pellets the ground with bullets, he narrowly escapes with his life. It ends at the Rushmore monument. However, no one dies from a fall. It’s close, but they survive. So again the murderer is changing the details to suit him,” Adam answered.

  “I have a question for you, Russo,” Brandon Novak said. “Do you plan your trips by these movies?”

  “Yeah, your whole office is decorated in retro movies,” Ed Jones added.
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  “No, I don’t. I really don’t have any pattern,” Adam said.

  Katie spoke up before the men continued. “Wait. You do, sort of.”

  “How?” Adam wanted to know.

  “I look up histories on the women. Sometimes there are interviews and the woman reveals she’d always secretly wanted to ride a train, as with Ms. Thomas,” Katie said.

  “That’s true. Ms. Beeman had always wanted to sail to the Bahamas. But Ms. Westwood hadn’t expressed any desire to go to Napa for a wine tour. That was something I had wanted to do.” Adam supplied the information.

  “So the murderer is finding classic movies that are set in the destinations you go to with your dates,” Ed said.

  “Not any classic movie. So far only those with Cary Grant,” Katie added.

  “True. But why?” Brandon asked.

  “It’s been in several newspaper and magazine articles what an avid classic movie buff I am. That is the second connection these murders have to me. The victims have all just returned from a date with me and the guy is using classic movies, which I love, for ideas to kill them,” Adam said.

  “Again, why?” Ed asked the question his partner had already asked.

  “Maybe when we figure that out, you’ll be able to catch the guy,” Katie said.

  “Why do you assume it’s a guy?” Novak wanted to know.

  Katie thought a moment, and then answered. “I don’t know. I guess I assumed it can only be a guy who commits murders.”

  “Do you have evidence the murderer could be a woman?” Adam asked.

  Detective Novak paused. Adam thought the man was considering what he could reveal. “Let me read what the paramedic told the Keystone detectives. ‘Ms. Thomas stated a hooded figure dressed in black pursued her. The voice was pitched to a falsetto and she could not tell the gender, but she thought it might have been a woman. Shortly after that, the patient lapsed into unconsciousness, never to regain it.’ I wouldn’t call that evidence, but it gives us another possibility to follow.”

  “How do you mean?” Adam asked.

  “Could you have taken an unbalanced woman out? Now she’s trying to get rid of the competition?” Jones wanted to know. “Whoever the perp is, he or she is most definitely unbalanced.”