Marjorie put the dishes back on the table. “Come to think of it, I am a bit sleepy.”
“See there? Now go. You can help me some other time.”
“Okay. Thanks for breakfast, Mrs. Patterson,” she gave the woman a kiss on the forehead and then pulled her opera coat from the back of her chair.
Jameson got up from his seat and helped her with the garment. “I’d best be getting back to the station. I’ll walk you out.”
“Where’d you park?” Marjorie asked.
“Out front.”
“Then we’ll go out that way.” She preceded him out the swinging kitchen door.
Before leaving, the detective tipped his hat toward the elderly woman. “Good day, Mrs. Patterson.”
“Goodbye, Detective. Enjoy your dinner tonight,” she added with an ambiguous smile. “And always remember that things have a way of working out for the best.”
“Thanks, I will,” the young man replied, mystified, and shoved his way through the swinging door. He caught up with Marjorie in the front parlor, where Creighton had just hung up the phone.
“I got a reservation for seven thirty,” he announced. “The restaurant is only a half hour away, so we’ll meet here at seven. How’s that for everyone?”
Jameson and Marjorie nodded their approval. “Sounds fine,” the detective added.
“Good.” He noticed Marjorie was wearing her coat. “I hope you’re going home and taking a nap.”
“Yes, father,” she remarked facetiously. “I’m going now.”
“Good. I’ll walk you home.”
“No need, Creighton,” Jameson interrupted. “I’m heading back to the station; Marjorie’s house is on the way.”
“Actually, Robert,” Marjorie broke in, “it’d be a good idea if Creighton came along. He let me borrow this jewelry last night and I’d like to return it right away, rather than leaving it lying around. The case is back at my house so, once I take everything off, he can pack it up and take it back with him. If that’s okay with you, Creighton.”
Creighton tried not to seem too eager to intrude upon their solitude. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
“Good, let’s go,” she sped out the front door and down the walk.
Creighton and Jameson, eyeing each other suspiciously, trailed after her. Once outside, Jameson pulled his car keys from his coat pocket.
“Oh no,” Marjorie replied upon hearing them jangle, “it’s such a nice morning. Let’s walk.”
Jameson silently complied and they strolled to the corner and then across the green toward the McClelland home. As they approached, Marjorie spotted something amiss at the Stafford house, two doors down. “Look at that,” she pointed. “He’s gone and done it again. Every time John Stafford goes on a binge, he leaves his front door wide open. I’d better close it before he catches his death.” She headed toward the house, leaving her male companions to wait in front of the house next door.
“So, Creighton,” Jameson started once she had gone, “what’s all this about you giving Marjorie jewelry?”
“Jewelry?” he replied innocently, glad to have finally struck a nerve with his sanguine opponent.
“Yes, last night.”
“Oh, that jewelry. Yes, I let Marjorie borrow it for the party. I thought it would go well with her dress.”
“Borrow it? You mean you just happened to have it lying around?”
“Well, more or less. It was my mother’s.”
“You let her wear your mother’s jewelry? All right, Ashcroft. I’m going to ask you something and I expect an honest answer. What’s your interest in Marjorie?”
“Interest? Why, I’m her editor. You know that.”
“Professionally, yes. However, I’m talking personally. What’s your angle, Creighton? What do you want from her: friendship, or something more?”
Creighton turned the question over in his head. Was it wise to confess his feelings to Jameson? He was a decent fellow; would he do the noble thing and step aside? Or would he follow Creighton’s example, and hinder his nemesis’s advances?
The Englishman sighed; it was, indeed, a quandary. A quandary that he would have to ponder at another time, for his deliberations were interrupted by a prolonged, high-pitched sound. It was the sound of a blood-curdling scream.
TWENTY-THREE
The men rushed to the Stafford house. Jameson, his gun drawn, entered the residence first, crashing headlong into Marjorie, who was standing near the front door in tears. She threw her arms about the detective’s shoulders and buried her face in his chest.
“He’s dead!” she cried. “He’s dead!”
Creighton moved further into the dusky foyer and peeked through the arched living-room doorway. There, sprawled upon the floor, lay the body of John Stafford. He was lying facedown by the fireplace, his head turned slightly to the right, his lifeless eyes staring vacantly at the trio standing in the doorway. From a deep wound near the back of his head streamed a now-congealed river of reddish-brown blood.
“Looks like he hit his head on the mantle,” Creighton remarked. “There’s blood on the corner of it.”
Jameson gave Marjorie an absentminded embrace, then moved into the living room to call headquarters.
The Englishman took the trembling young woman in his arms and tenderly smoothed her hair with his hand.
“When I came to shut the door,” she blubbered, her head against his shoulder, “I called out to Stafford, so that the noise wouldn’t alarm him. When he didn’t answer, I came in to see if he was all right. That’s when I found him lying there. Dead. Oh Creighton, I’m so scared,” she sobbed.
“There, there. Hush. I’m here now. I won’t let any harm come to you.”
She quieted down for a moment before jerking her head upright. “Oh my God!” she cried. “Mary!”
Creighton nodded. “I’ll take care of it.” He moved into the living room. and addressed Jameson, who was now examining the mantle. “All right if I use the phone?”
“Go ahead,” the detective answered as he leaned over Stafford’s body. “Just try not to move anything.”
With Marjorie clutching his arm, Creighton walked over to the coffee table and picked up the telephone receiver. His long, tapered fingers dialed quickly, then came to rest on Marjorie’s shoulder.
Mrs. Patterson answered on the second ring. “Mrs. Patterson,” he addressed, “it’s Creighton. Is Mary still there with you? . . . She is? Good. Keep her there. Under no circumstances should you let her go home . . . We’re at the Stafford place now . . . Something’s happened to Mary’s father . . . I’m afraid he’s dead . . . Must have tripped and hit his head on the fireplace mantle . . . Yes, it’s quite unfortunate . . . No, don’t tell her yet. It can wait until we get back . . . We’ll see you later. Thanks, Mrs. Patterson.”
He hung up the receiver. “She and Mary are baking cookies. That should keep her busy for a while.”
Marjorie sniffed and nodded. The color had drained from her face and black streams of mascara ran from her eyes.
“If it’s all right with you, Jameson, I’m getting Marjorie out of here,” Creighton announced.
“No, Creighton,” Marjorie protested. “I want to stay. I’m feeling better now.”
Jameson shook his head in skepticism. “I don’t know . . .”
“Please. If this is related to the Van Allen case, I want to stick around. I’ve followed the case from the beginning. I want to see it through to the end, no matter what.”
Creighton lowered his brow, deep in thought.
She continued. “If I get upset again, you have my permission to take me home immediately.”
“Okay,” Creighton agreed, “but when we’re through here, you’re going home and packing a bag.”
“A bag?”
“Yes, you and Mary are going to stay with Mrs. Patterson and me until we know for certain that this was an accident. I’ll rest a lot easier knowing we’re all under the same roof.”
Marjo
rie stomped her foot on the floor. “That’s nonsense! Robert, tell him I’m perfectly safe staying at my house.”
Jameson glanced at the Englishman irresolutely. “I’m with Creighton. I’d feel safer knowing you’re not alone tonight.”
“Fine,” she sighed. “I’ll stay at Mrs. Patterson’s. Though I still think I’d be perfectly safe at home.”
“You might be,” Jameson agreed, “but I don’t want to take any chances. I’m not completely convinced this was an accident. Look around the fireplace. There’s nothing Stafford could have tripped over. There’s no furniture nearby, and the carpet is taut, not wrinkled. Furthermore, if a person trips—even a drunk person—he generally falls forward, not backward.”
“But he did fall forward,” Marjorie argued. “He’s lying on his stomach.”
Jameson shook his head. “He fell forward after he hit his head on the mantle. In order to put a gash like that in the back of his head, he would have to have fallen like this.” He lifted his leg in the air and arched his back toward the mantle.
“The only way he could have done that is if he were walking backward in the first place, as if backing away from something,” Marjorie surmised.
“Or someone,” Creighton completed. “Someone anxious to help him along on his journey into the hereafter.”
“Precisely,” Jameson confirmed. “Now, until we find out exactly who that someone is and why they were here, I don’t think anyone is safe.”
“I can’t tell you who that someone was,” Creighton stated, “but I can tell you who it wasn’t: Gloria Van Allen and Roger Philips. They were in the city all last night. So there go your prime suspects.”
“And your neat little solution,” Marjorie added.
“I admit, it throws a monkey wrench into things,” Jameson conceded, “but I’m still willing to wager that Gloria’s our killer.”
“But how?” Marjorie asked. “To drive here from Manhattan, kill Stafford, and drive back would require at least five hours. Gloria and Philips were at the party the entire night, and then at police headquarters until their lawyers bailed them out at three this morning.”
“Three o’clock,” the detective mused. “It’s going on ten now, and Stafford’s only been dead a few hours. If Gloria or Philips drove here directly from the station, that would get them here at five thirty, six o’clock at the latest, and back home in time for breakfast. That’s still a window of opportunity.”
The writer sighed. “You call that a window of opportunity?”
“Watch your fingers, Jameson,” Creighton warned. “Looks like Marjorie’s about to lower the sash.”
“I think it’s a bit of stretch, that’s all,” she argued. “Someone might have noticed Gloria or Philips sneaking back home at nine in the morning. Besides, what possible reason could either of them have for killing John Stafford?”
He threw his hands up in the air. “What reason could anyone have? That’s what we’ll have to find out. In the meantime, however, I’m still considering Gloria the principal suspect. Need I remind you that she tried to do in her brother-in-law last night?”
“No, you needn’t remind me,” she plopped down onto the sofa. “But Gloria’s attempt to poison William doesn’t prove that she shot Bartorelli or murdered Stafford. Any judge will tell you that. The modus operandi doesn’t match Gloria’s profile. Poisoning is a woman’s crime; bloody crimes, such as shooting and smashing someone’s skull, aren’t.”
“Is that what your female intuition tells you?”
“No, that’s what my research as a mystery novelist tells me,” she replied smugly.
“Okay, then Philips did the dirty work.”
“It’s possible, but I doubt it. Gloria’s the brains in that outfit, and we saw how rashly she behaved under threat of exposure.”
“I tend to agree with Marjorie there,” Creighton chimed in. “Philips is the jittery sort. He nearly jumped out of his skin at my mere mention of embezzlement. If he had shot Bartorelli, he wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to bury his body and then hide the weapon.”
“Ah yes, the weapon,” the detective repeated deliberately. “I forgot to mention earlier that I called Wilcox and asked him to get a warrant to seize William’s old service revolver. If forensics matches it to the bullet that killed Bartorelli, then I’d say it’s curtains for Mrs. Van Allen.”
“Mrs. Van Allen?” Marjorie quizzed.
“You said yourself that Henry kept the gun at Kensington House. That means Gloria had access to it.”
“Yes, and so did anyone else who came in the front door,” said Marjorie. “The gun was displayed in a glass case in the main foyer, like a fire hose. Henry may as well have posted a sign on the case reading: In event of murderous intentions, break glass.”
“You’re forgetting that by the time Bartorelli was killed, Mrs. Van Allen was in the process of moving,” reminded Jameson.
“The perfect time for someone to take the gun. If anyone noticed it missing from the display case, it would be assumed that it had been packed away.”
Jameson rolled his eyes. “Talk about a bit of a stretch.”
“I’m trying to look at all the possibilities,” Marjorie reasoned.
“Fine, but you’re wrong. Gloria is our killer.”
“No, she isn’t.”
“Yes, she is.”
Creighton drew their bickering to a halt. “Regardless of who’s right or wrong, I would say that our plans for a celebratory dinner are premature.” He picked up the telephone receiver and dialed. “I’ll cancel our reservation, and when we finally do figure out who did it, we’ll reschedule.”
Marjorie nodded in agreement. “Even if we knew who did it, I wouldn’t feel much like celebrating now, anyway, what with Mary’s father dead.”
Creighton gave her a commiserating nod of the head, and then proceeded to cancel the dinner reservation. “Hello, Andre? Creighton Ashcroft here. Put a stop on those chocolate soufflés. I’m afraid I have to cancel my reservation for this evening . . . Why? Well, let’s just say an unexpected guest just dropped in . . . Uh-huh . . . Yes, very sudden . . . Bring him with us? Oh no, we couldn’t possibly do that . . . Why not?” He looked down at the body sprawled across the carpet. “He’s not at all well . . . No, I’m afraid it’s quite serious . . . Yes, I think it’s safe to say he’s at death’s door . . . Put him in a wheelchair? No, I think that would create too much of a scene. Might just put your other patrons off their food. We’ll just have to make it some other time . . . Yes, thank you . . . You, too. Bye.”
He hung up the phone just as Noonan and Palutsky walked through the living room door. Marjorie surrendered her seat on the sofa. “I know you’ll be wanting to turn this place inside out, so I’ll get out of your way.” She left the living room and continued past the front door and down the hall.
Creighton decided to join her, but not before taking an opportunity to jibe Officer Noonan. “Palutsky,” he greeted as he brushed past the two officers and through the living room archway. “Noonan. Any leads on that Homer fellow?”
Noonan screwed up his face in answer.
“No? Well, don’t give up, old boy. If anyone can track him down, you can.” He gave the burly man a pat on the back and, humming to himself, took off after Marjorie.
He found her in a tiny closet of a bedroom at the end of the hall, taking clothes from a scratched-up dresser and piling them onto an unmade twin bed. “I might as well pack up some of Mary’s things while I’m here. She’ll be needing clean clothes for tomorrow, and there’s some toys she likes to play with.”
Creighton glanced around the room dejectedly. It was not at all the way he thought a child’s bedroom should look. The walls were covered with yellowed wallpaper scattered with faded pink rosebuds, the hardwood floor was strewn with a discordant mix of multicolored throw rugs, and the only window to be found was positioned beneath a large evergreen whose extensive boughs blocked the sun. Even the few dolls in the room, seated in a chi
ld-sized chair, seemed to frown. Nevertheless, even in this world of gloom, Creighton noticed that someone was smiling. In the open nightstand drawer lay a photograph, the corners worn from handling, of an attractive dark-haired woman with wide eyes. She was at the beach, standing near the shore in a white bathing suit; one hand held her bathing cap, the other was waving at the camera. He turned the picture over and read the inscription on the back: Claire. Asbury Park, New Jersey. July, 1930.”
“Mary has her mother’s eyes,” Creighton commented, replacing the photograph in the drawer.
“It’s a family trait,” she explained as she folded a white cotton petticoat. “Both the Munson girls had very dark eyes—almost black—just like their mother’s.” She added the petticoat to the pile. “There, that should do it for now.”
“Well, if she needs anything else, I can always come back and get it,” he offered.
Marjorie set her jaw defiantly. “No, I can do it. I know where everything is.”
“Suit yourself,” he shrugged. “Shall we go back in the living room and see what Jameson’s up to?”
To his surprise, she declined. “No, I think I might heed your advice and get out of here. I’ll stop at home, pack up some things and then go over to Mrs. Patterson’s. Not that I’m tired,” she added quickly, “but Mary might need me.”
“You’re right, she may,” he played along. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll join you. This tuxedo is starting to smell worse than Mrs. Schutt’s rhubarb pie.”
Marjorie smiled her consent and left, taking the pile of clothes with her. Creighton lingered a moment in the cheerless bedroom, then made his way down the hallway, the image of a blithe, carefree Claire Stafford fixed indelibly in his memory.
TWENTY-FOUR
It was late afternoon by the time Marjorie finally worked up enough courage to tell Mary that her father was gone and never coming back. But if the writer had readied herself for a deluge of tears, she needn’t have bothered. The little girl listened with dry eyes and then skipped happily into the kitchen to help Mrs. Patterson with dinner preparations.
Million Dollar Baby Page 25
