Murder Makes the Wheels Go Round

by Emma Lathen

  Mrs. Burns cut him off, “What’s more considering she is raising 3 children, without help, taking care of a large Victorian house, and spending every free minute at St. Andrew’s, it doesn’t seem as if she’d have much material for you.”

  “There are sins of the mind,” Louise,” Burns said heavily.

  She continued, “If we could just settle the ones of the body first, I’d be happier.”

  Burns looked discouraged. It was perhaps just as well that Celia now made a well-timed entry. After greeting John she sank down on the sofa and pulled off her scarf as her sister examined her carefully before continuing, “All of this slinking around doesn’t do any good. You should have stayed for the Guild and seen some new faces.”

  Celia chuckled, “And deprive everyone of the chance to gossip?”

  “Nobody gossiped,” the rector said stoutly.

  The 2 sisters looked at him impatiently, “Oh, Larry, not in front of you.”

  “Did anyone talk about anything else?” Celia asked.

  “Yes,” John said fairmindedly. “Miss Tickbourne wanted to talk about someone named Father John.”

  Mrs. Burns’ tone was resigned, “Lavinia has been writing to the Crowley Fathers again.”

  “Is she going to publish,” asked Celia without much interest.

  “For heaven’s sake, Celia,” exploded her brother-in-law. “Why in the world would she do so?”

  “Well everyone seems to,” Celia said reasonably.

  Her much tried brother-in-law abandoned the field, as he said, “In any event, Mr. Thatcher has not been waiting to hear us discuss this.”

  For the first time Celia seemed to realize Thatcher’s presence must be on her account. She looked at him inquiringly as he explained Arnie’s concerns. Mention of Arnie evoked a wan smile. “Oh, that is thoughtful of him. And you too, of course. But what can anyone do to help?”

  The Burns hastily started to leave. She impatiently waved them back to their seats. “Do you think I’m going to reveal my secrets,” she said almost angrily. “There aren’t any. There isn’t even anything to talk about. All I can do is grin and bear it.”

  John tut-tutted sympathetically and the rector made an ill-advised remark about Madsen. Celia interjected, “It isn’t his fault. He’s suffering as much as I am.”

  “Nevertheless you would never be in this position if you hadn’t left your husband. Today everyone seems to think that marriage can be turned on and off like an electric light,” at which point Celia cut in adroitly John thought, saying, “We are talking about murder here, not divorce.”

  “Precisely,” John barked, quick to retrieve the conversation from the esoteric paths this conversation was threatening to go. “And, it must be talked about, putting it bluntly. You aren’t doing Madsen or yourself any good by lying to the police. After all, the presentation was 2 days after the murder. You’re not achieving anything other than creating an air of collusion,” as he paused for a moment as he looked closely at Celia for a response. It would be would be worse than useless, he felt, to suggest she disentangle herself from Madsen to take his own chances.

  Meanwhile she had a big surprise for him. “I’m not lying to the police anymore. I told the Captain that it was Glen I was talking to Friday at MM. I had to. Someone saw us. And I’ve explained to him we were quarreling. That’s why I was upset. It wasn’t about anything important.

  John shook his head. “You told Arnie and me he was out of control, that you were frightened about what he might do,” he insisted with guilty visions of himself as a relentless bullying cross-examiner. “There must have been a more significant reason.” Her stubborn silence was eloquent. Thatcher played a hunch, “Was it about the Ann Arbor quarrel?”

  Celia’s eyes widened in dismay. “You know about that?” she whispered.

  “It is common gossip. I heard it in this very room. If the police don’t know yet, they soon will.”

  “But you don’t understand. It was Ray who was furious not Glen. Glen just laughed it off when he started to threaten.”

  “Threaten?”

  “Yes. It all started when Ray came to see me here. I suppose the Altar Guild brought you up to date on that too,” she said defiantly.

  John contented himself with a nod.

  “Ray said he wasn’t going to sit still for a divorce. But I’d been to a divorce lawyer and said I would go to Nevada if need be. That frightened him. Because in spite of his toughness that was where he was most vulnerable. MM doesn’t approve of divorce. With his job in the air, this could have been the final factor. Ray was angry he had to deal with me when he needed to be full time at MM to reassert his position. And, of course, he ran the marriage up until this first time when he didn’t have his way. When he left here he must have decided to put pressure on Glen to stop the divorce.”

  “How could he? Glen was the one urging divorce,” her sister cut in.

  “That’s because you never understood how Ray’s mind worked,” she said in a flat controlled voice. “He went straight for what he thought was Glen’s jugular. Ray said if I went to Nevada he would see to it Glen lost his job. Ray would let the front office know Glen seduced me and he’d get fired.”

  “And would they have?” John asked with genuine curiosity, trying and failing to see a similar situation at the Sloan.

  “But Glen didn’t seduce me,” she burst out.

  The rector cleared his throat. His wife said, “Larry, this is no time for a lot of talk about sins of the mind.”

  A curious couple John thought.

  “And anyway,” Celia continued more calmly, “Glen didn’t really care about his job. He told Ray to do his worst. We were going through with the divorce. That’s what infuriated Ray. He never contemplated such a reaction. As far as he was concerned everyone lived and died for MM.”

  Madsen’s reaction might well have puzzled Jensen, but John thought, it was even more ominous that a Detroit jury might feel the same way as Ray. And it left one glaring fact unexplained.

  “But if Madsen was so unmoved by the threat why was he in such a murderous rage just 2 days later?”

  “Ray’s gossip started to work. Some was getting back to Ray. Orin Dunn relayed to him some of the spicier parts. I think Orin wanted some kind of deal; he would help Glen if Glen helped him.”

  Just then the doorbell rang. John spoke pensively, “There’s one thing, if Ray started this gossip as a result of his rebuff, it may be possible to prove Dunn saw your husband alive after his return from Ann Arbor Tuesday evening.”

  The horror of that statement drained blood from her face. “You mean the police may think that Ray died that night?”

  “If the time is medically possible, yes,” John replied bluntly.

  “Oh, no. That couldn’t be possible--” began Celia hotly as her sister returned.

  “Mr. Riley is here from the DOJ. He wants to talk to you, Celia,” as she looked doubtfully at her sister. “It would be a good idea. Antagonizing him won’t help you.”

  “I won’t. He wants to ask me about Ray’s business dealings. Ray never told me anything about them and now I don’t care about that at all.” A few tears were running down each cheek, but the light of battle appeared in her eyes. I don’t care about anything but Glen. He didn’t kill Ray; even if he did, I would still love him.”

  John saw that all the cards, or at least most of them, seemed to be on the table. He sat back to let things further unfold.

  Mrs. Burns started to expostulate but Celia said, “Don’t start, Louise. Oh don’t you see? I wasted 10 years of my life with Ray. I can’t give up whatever happiness I have a chance for now. I won’t. I won’t.”

  Louise hurried over to comfort her as Celia started to pound the sofa arm. The rector, a man inured to feminine crises, moved agilely towards the door with the word, “tea,” and made his escape. John realized he had outstayed his welcome and stated briefly his intention to leave them to it and the hostess adroitly asked him to take Riley
with him.

  In the front hall Riley was resigned. Celia’s sobs were fully audible in the next room. He rose upon seeing Thatcher and said, “I suppose she isn’t going to see me.”

  “I’m afraid not,” said John. “She’s too focused on her husband’s death to have the energy for his business difficulties.”

  “She sounds upset. I’m sorry. But the 2 may be connected, you know.”

  “Yes.” For a moment the 2 men measured each other silently and recognized a basic similarity. Both were reapers of information, not sowers. John continued, “I’m interested in Jensen’s murder and MM. Sometime we might discuss the matter.”

  Riley paused, revolving his hat and stroking his chin, and then said, “Yes. I’d like to do that sometime. We might come up with something useful. I have to check some other things out first.”

  John nodded briskly and wished him good day. But on the sidewalk he stood watching Riley walk toward his small black Rambler. Celia said her husband thought everyone lived and died for MM. Possibly Raymond Jensen had done both.

  Chapter 8

  No Passing

  John, hurrying off on his MM imposed round of gaiety, could only spare a moment’s reflection for Riley. But by the nature of his role, the DOJ man was in a better position to think about their meeting and its possibilities. A life spent gathering data for the proper enforcement of antitrust laws has many hardships but being relentlessly wined and dined was not one of them. On the contrary, long hours of solitary reflection unimpaired by expense account distractions can be confidently anticipated and welcomed by John in his current mood.

  Riley was spending his evening in the laundromat. He listened to the bank of dryers with a clipboard on his knee. 2 things hampered his usual intensive concentration. The first was the subliminal working of an internal timing device which told him he had 17 minutes to go with his dryer. The other was a faint undercurrent of excitement; it had been with him since encountering Thatcher.

  Days spent trying to explain the intricacies of antitrust regulation to the Captain were convincing Riley that the world outside the DOJ and FTC, was devoid of people capable of understanding the implications of Jensen’s activities. When Riley described the desperation his return might have induced, the Captain shook his head knowingly and said he’d take passion every time. Not surprisingly the sight of a Wall Street banker had been a tonic. Here was a man who could not only understand Riley’s information but more importantly, add to it.

  No false modesty clouded the special agent’s evaluation. He knew his technical data and sources were second to none, but also knew that Thatcher must have insights into the personality stresses of MM’s front office that were being rigidly concealed from the DOJ. For instance, Riley knew that while he had been contenting himself with a solitary hamburger at a nearby McDonalds, the long black Plantagenet Sceptre, last parked near St. Andrews, was conveying Thatcher to a dinner party given in honor of Mrs. Holzinger. And it spoke volumes for the social disorganization at MM that the wife of a one time loser was acting as semiofficial hostess for MM. Riley could even make a good guess at Thatcher’s frame of mind on that journey. In fact John was trying to drum up some interest in the coming event by wondering how Di’s gentility would measure up to the challenge of Mrs. Wahl’s party behavior. But Riley would never know what went on at that party. Gaps in his exhaustively detailed knowledge of MM workings were bad enough; existence of a fund of information complementing his own was more than an irritant, it was a challenge.

  Riley knew the loyalties binding both men made a full interchange impossible. The Sloan representative was clearly not a man to condone criminal activity, whether directed against the Sherman Act or the 6th Commandment, but neither was he a man to disclose knowledge obtained in the course of duty. Nor could Riley make free with the information so laboriously garnered by the DOJ. A broad exchange was out.

  But what about a narrow one, he thought? Well if narrowing was required, Riley was the man for it. Abandoning the sheaf of statistics, he automatically noted that the dryer now had 15 minutes to run, rescued his hat from the marauding advances of a wandering toddler, checked a hasty remark to its mother, and drew forth a much folded diagram of the MM org chart.

  This chart had been issued by MM 15 months ago. No replacement had ever appeared, a token acknowledgment of the fluidity of the situation. On paper, Eberhart still reigned supreme at the top of the pyramid. On the staff level, only Krebbel survived the deluge. The heads of Law, PR, Government Relations, and Commercial Marketing had all been swept away in the aftermath of the indictment. On the operating level, things were more complex. Utility Vehicles had come through relatively unscathed. Passenger Vehicles was still dominated by Jensen at Plantagenet and Holzinger at Buccaneer. Riley battled with the reluctant folds of the diagram in his attempt to review the lineup of assistant division managers. Suddenly the chart disappeared under a falling drift of white material. Somebody was scattering laundry over him. He grabbed the cloth and prepared to deal more effectively with the toddler. But there was no child in sight, only the back of a woman emptying the nearby dryer. “Ahem,” he said.

  “What? Oh did I overshoot the basket. I’m so...why, Mr. Riley!”

  “Miss Price. At first I didn’t recognize you. Here I guess this is yours.”

  Susan Price blushed. Gravely Riley examined the object he was extending her which was as chaste a slip as one could imagine, except possibly for the embroidered forget-me-knots on the lacy hem, rather favorably comparing with most of the lingerie that had come his bachelor’s way.

  “Thank you,” she said with reserve.

  “It’s quite a respectable slip,” Riley said reassuringly.

  Susan grinned appreciatively. As she gathered her possessions she continued, “I know it seems silly. After all, every week I scatter my underwear around in front of strangers. But I don’t expect to meet people I know. What are you doing here?

  “My laundry. They said it would be 3 days at the hotel, and far more expensive, so I didn’t want to wait and it is cheaper.”

  “Yes.” She had noticed the chart and clipboard and went on, “And I see you are not wasting time. Doing your homework for tomorrow’s snooping?”

  Riley stiffened. A more experienced man would have remembered Henry Ford Junior’s advice, “Never complain, never explain.” Instead he chose to explain. “Well, you have to admit MM’s given the DOJ plenty of grounds for snooping.”

  “Everything was fine until you and the others came sneaking around, stirring things up. Now it just gets worse and worse. We have you, the police, and the Captain himself. Any everyone’s beginning to look hunted and suspicious. Why can’t you just leave us alone? Oh what’s the use? I don’t even understand what I’m talking about,” as she angrily turned and stalked back to her laundry, with the unhappy Riley trailing in her wake. He was stopped by a middle aged woman with her hair in curlers and a distracted expression on her face. She wanted to borrow his pencil to write a note about an imperfection in the dryer reserved for the treatment of blankets.

  “You wouldn’t believe it, but the binding just melted and glazed.”

  He muttered, “I’m sorry,” as he thrust his ballpoint pen into her hand and hurrying over to Susan Price, to add fuel to the fire.

  “Look here, you can’t pretend everyone at MM is a lily white innocent.”

  “Oh can’t I? What about the poor PR guy riding along in the Plantagenet? They’ve been grilling him for days. He’s only been here for 2 weeks. We never saw him in the front office; he was only following orders.” She punctuated her protest by viciously snapping a towel under his nose. He shied away, then recovered, saying, “And the gun. I suppose that was another coincidence. Being stolen in the company plant.”

  “Oh, the gun,” she said in a goaded voice, spanking the now folded towel. “You can’t imagine the trouble that’s causing us. Mr. Casmir is claiming that it’s all a management plot to implicate a union man--”

&
nbsp; “That’s right,” cut in the blanket dryer. “Those big shots will blame it all on the Working Man, you wait and see. Here’s your pen. Thank you very much. What I wrote will make them sit up and take notice,” she said formidably.

  The departure of this believer in class warfare left Susan to glare at Riley, “See,” she said hotly. “That’s the kind of feeling the Union will cash in on. And on top of everything else, he’s claiming the driver of the Planty wasn’t one of his people, when everyone knows we are a union shop.”

  Riley nodded. For a number of reasons he could readily understand, the driver was resisting police pleas to come forward and demonstrate how civic minded the average man is.

  “But what’s that got--” he began. Susan had just run her hand through her black bangs over her bright eyes. For the first time he noticed how tired she looked, despite the high color engendered by the dispute.

  He lowered his voice accordingly. “But, you know, you can’t pretend the trouble is that people are asking questions about the gun and the car. The trouble started because someone murdered Ray Jensen.”

  The change in his tone had its effect. “I suppose you are right,” she relented. “But you can’t imagine what things are like in the office. It is plain awful.” She stared somberly at the mass of yellow chenille remaining in her basket.

  “Captain Georgeson isn’t hounding you or anything?” he asked anxiously.

  A sudden quirk lifted the corner of her mouth. “Oh, no. It isn’t anything like that. In fact he’s more polite to me than you are.” She shook her shoulders as if to throw off a fit of dejection. “I suppose I’m looking back to the good old days when I worked for Mr. Jensen. At least you knew where you were.”

  He eyed her thoughtfully. “You know, you’ve always been loyal about his activities but I can’t help noticing that you don’t seem to be very much grieved by his death.”

  She was silent for a moment. “Yes, that’s true. But it was terribly hard to feel close to him, you know, even though I worked for him for almost 2 years. He was completely dehumanized. Everything was routine and procedure. Of course that did make working for him easy. And then there was never any doubt about his authority, so there weren’t any of those squabbles defending his interests. But I couldn’t mourn him like a friend.” Absently she picked up a corner of the yellow chenille and hoisted it skyward in an ineffective attempt to straighten it out. Then she added the final epitaph. “He had been gone 6 months; that’s a long time at Michigan Motors.”