by Parnell Hall
“She asked you about drugs, didn’t she? Specifically, she asked you about cocaine. That must have freaked you out, particularly if you’ve ever done any.”
Randy’s lip quivered. His eyes blinked rapidly. “Who are you?” he said.
“And there,” I said, “is another indication of your being poor at this. You know who I am. Asking that question is the same as saying, ‘How did you know that?’ Which confirms that it’s true. But, to answer your question—the one you didn’t ask—Mrs. Mclnnerny was a snoop. She found out cocaine was involved in the case. But she didn’t know whose cocaine. So she was asking around. That’s why she asked you. Not that she had anything to go on. But that’s why she asked about drugs. Maybe even asked about Delmar Hobart.”
He frowned. “Who?”
I raised my finger. “Now, there’s where it’s good to be bad. I can tell from your reaction you’ve never heard the name.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m trying to get your story. It would be easier if you just told it. You wanna fill me in?”
Randy looked away, set his jaw again. “I have nothing to say.”
Maybe not, but it didn’t matter. He’d already confirmed what I wanted to know. Mrs. Mclnnerny had asked him about drugs. Mrs. Mclnnerny had listened in on the phone line.
I walked Prince back to the inn. I didn’t run into anyone on the way. I took him upstairs, put him back in his room.
When I came out, I looked over at Lars’ door. Felicity Frog smiled back at me, she of the long eyelashes. She seemed to be batting them at me. Enticing me. Luring me in,
I resisted manfully. Which wasn’t easy. Had Mrs. Mclnnerny been up here last night? Somehow followed the trail to Lars? Or had she, as Pinehurst assumed, followed the trail to Florence?
I stood there, the passkey clutched in my hand.
Then, like a good boy, I walked down the stairs and returned the key to the front desk.
Louise wasn’t there, so I went behind the desk and hung the passkey on its hook.
I stood there a moment, looked around. There was the Xerox machine, where Lucy had presumably made the copies. And there was the register, where Jean or Joan had snuck a peek and found out Lars and Christine weren’t married, not that hard to do with the front desk so seldom manned.
I looked around some more. In the corner was a tall plastic wastebasket, from the top of which protruded the handles of several golf clubs. I walked over, looked in. Discovered it was putters and golf balls for the putting green.
Why not? That was just the sort of mindless activity I needed to clear my head. I took a putter and ball and went outside.
The putting green was next to the swimming pool. It wasn’t that big, but it was gently sloped, and featured nine numbered holes, the numbers on the nine metal flags sticking up from them. Which allowed me to play it as a nine-hole miniature golf course. I figured each hole was a par two. So par for nine holes was eighteen. That was the score I was trying to beat.
I am not a good golfer, but I had beginner’s luck. My first putt, a twenty footer, stopped inches from the hole. I tapped it in for a two.
The second hole, about as long with a sharp break to the left, I ran the ball three and a half feet by, and sank the return putt.
The third hole, maybe fifteen feet with a slight break to the right, I started the ball wide to the left and watched it curl neatly into the cup.
Unbelievable. I had done the first three holes in five strokes. One under par. With that kind of a start, I was on my way to a record round.
I fished the ball out of the hole, lined up my putt on four. Took back my putter.
A ball rolled across the hole. Just as I swung. Whether it was that or the high-pitched giggle that accompanied it, I couldn’t quite say, but for a moment I was completely unnerved. My hands tensed on the putter, my arms jerked forward, and I nearly lost my balance. The ball, struck with far more force than I’d intended, shot by the hole and rolled right off the green into a clump of tall grass.
So much for my record round.
I turned my gaze from the hopeless lie to the one who had caused it.
Smiling up at me was the six-year-old girl. That figured. First she rained on my Red Sox, then she ruined my golf.
Not only that, from the look on her face, she had finally concluded I wasn’t the enemy. I had become, instead, another grownup she felt free to annoy.
“Hi,” she said. She couldn’t have been more chipper if she’d been auditioning for Sesame Street.
I took a breath, smiled, and said, “Hi.”
She giggled, pointed at my ball. “You missed.”
I smiled, ruefully. “Yes, I believe I did.”
I looked around for the girl’s parents, but didn’t see them. I couldn’t help wondering what they were thinking, letting her out alone like this. After all, there’d been two murders at the inn. For all they knew, I could be the killer.
The girl didn’t seem to think so. In her mind I had somehow made the transition from loathsome stranger to her best friend. “I bet I can get closer than you can,” she said.
I didn’t doubt it. Her ball had rolled a good twenty feet by the hole, but it was still on the green. If one were making odds, she would have been an overwhelming favorite.
Not that she really meant to play. With another giggle, she ran across the green to her ball, and then, wielding her putter like a hockey stick, dribbled it toward the hole with a series of short swings, pushes, and pokes. With a final squeal of delight, she stopped it next to the hole and tapped it in.
Had it been possible to count her strokes, they probably would have numbered around nine or ten.
Which was still likely to beat me.
With another squeal of delight, the girl grabbed the metal flag and pulled it up, flipping her ball out of the hole. She rammed the flag back in the hole, looked up, smiled, and declared, “My name’s Margie.”
“Margie?”
“Yes. What’s your name?”
“Stanley.”
She burst into hysterical laughter. Then waggled her finger at me. “No. What’s your real name?”
“Stanley.”
She burst into laughter again.
It was somewhat disconcerting. As a stand-up comedian, I had never played to a better audience. Still, I was not that happy with the punch line.
“What’s your name?” she demanded.
“George Washington,” I told her.
Her face twisted into a happy pout. “No, it’s not,” she said.
“It’s not?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“Stanley.”
I don’t know why it wasn’t funny when she said it.
“Stanley?” I said.
She laughed hysterically.
Maybe it was my delivery.
When she stopped laughing, I said, “Stanley,” again.
And she started again.
I don’t know how long we might have kept it up. I, for one, found it more promising than attempting to hit my golf ball. But after a while she looked at me and said, “I feel sorry for the man. Do you feel sorry for the man?”
If the little girl, who I had to remind myself was named Margie—I almost couldn’t remember, having repeated Stanley so many times—really felt sorry for the man, you would not have known it from her face. Still, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“Yes,” I said. “I feel sorry for the man.”
“Me too. It’s so sad. He lost his wife.”
I nodded. A forgivable euphemism, I suppose, for a six-year-old. Lost his wife, as if Mrs. Mclnnerny had somehow been mislaid, instead of been stabbed in the heart with a carving knife.
“Yes,” I said. “Poor Mr. Mclnnerny.”
She wrinkled up her nose. “Who?”
“Mr. Mclnnerny. You were saying it was sad about his wife.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
I almost said, “Yes,
you were.” I stopped myself. Just because you’re dealing with a child, doesn’t mean you have to get into a childish argument.
“You weren’t talking about Mr. Mclnnerny?” I said.
“No, not him,” she said. Then added, as if in complete explanation, “He’s old.”
If Mr. Mclnnerny was old, I wondered what that made me.
“Who were you talking about?” I said.
“The young man. I was talking about the young man.”
Oh. Lars Heinrick. I wondered if she just assumed he was married, or if her parents had told her that to account for Lars and Christine living together. In any event, if she was feeling bad about it, it seemed kinder to disillusion her.
“If you mean Lars Heinrick,” I said, “she wasn’t his wife. They weren’t married.”
“Yes, they were,” she said.
She seemed quite positive. So her parents must have told her. I can’t say I approved of the practice, lying to children in an effort to make things easier to comprehend. It occurred to me male-female relationships were hard enough for the young to understand without an underlying layer of deceit.
“Oh,” I said. “Is that what your parents told you?”
“No.”
“So how do you know they’re married?”
“I just know.”
So. The other possibility. The six-year-old mind simply decides something is true.
“So,” I said, “no one told you that?”
“Yes, they did.”
“Oh, is that right? Someone told you Lars and Christine were married?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh?” I said. “And who told you that?”
“She did.”
33.
PINEHURST WASN’T CONVINCED. No surprise there. Chief Pinehurst was never convinced.
Which was totally frustrating. He had started off with a completely open mind. Then he’d arrested Florence. And his mind had closed. It would admit no information other than that relating to her guilt.
“You’re not listening,” I told him.
“I’m listening,” Pinehurst said. “I’m just not hearing anything.”
“Oh, no? Randy confirms Mrs. Mclnnerny was asking about drugs.”
“So you say.”
“Ask him yourself.”
“I most certainly will. Not that it will prove anything.”
“Oh, no? It proves she heard the phone call.”
“So what?”
“So what? How can you say so what? She overheard the phone call, found out about the drugs. She was asking Randy about the drugs. Trying to find out whose they were. And the next thing you know she gets killed. Wouldn’t that make the person who owned the drugs a likely suspect?”
“The case is not about drugs. That’s a tangent. It’s coincidental. The woman may have been asking about drugs, but you and I both know she was investigating a murder.”
I took a breath. “Yes, of course. She was investigating a murder. And when she started asking about drugs, it got her killed.”
“That has yet to be proved.”
I exhaled sharply. “Fine. Will you at least concede it can be shown by inference?”
Pinehurst pushed back his chair, got up from his desk. “I don’t know why we wind up arguing about these petty issues.”
“Going somewhere, Chief?”
“I need a cup of coffee. Couldn’t you use a cup of coffee?”
“I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”
I followed Pinehurst into the pantry. The coffeemaker was still on, heating the remnants in the pot. Pinehurst took two cups, divided the coffee. It poured like mud. I added milk and sugar. Pinehurst took his black.
“How is it?” he said.
“Dreadful.”
He took a sip, nodded. “Yeah. Pretty bad. But better than nothing.”
He switched off the coffeemaker, and we carried the coffee back to his desk.
“Now,” I said, “we’ve stalled and made coffee, had a chance to think it over. Would you care to consider the information I’ve brought you?”
Pinehurst took a sip and grimaced. I wasn’t sure if it was the coffee or what I said. “I’ve thought over what you’ve brought me. I continue to think over what you have brought me. I assure you I will not discard it. It just happens to be relatively minor in the general scheme of things.”
“Lars Heinrick and Christine Cobb were married.”
“According to a six-year-old girl.”
“Here again, Chief, this is something that could be checked.”
“And I assure you I will. It just doesn’t mean as much as you think it does.”
“Oh, no? You have a secret marriage. One they carefully refrained from telling anyone about. Even after her death. Does Lars Heinrick pine for his murdered wife? No. He keeps up the pretense of merely being the boyfriend.”
“Oh, but he doesn’t. If you’ll recall, he refused to answer questions. Withdrew his cooperation. He never denied they were married. The subject never came up.”
“He never brought it up, and never would. Not until someone else got hooked for the murder. Then he would quietly assert his rights.
“What rights?”
“To inherit her estate.”
“What estate?”
“Again, I have no idea. But you could find out.”
“Anything else you’d like me to find out?”
“Yes. How much money did the Mclnnernys have? Does Mr. Mclnnerny inherit under his wife’s will? And did he have an outside interest?”
“Are you serious?”
“Absolutely.” I held up my finger. “We have two separate but interrelated crimes. Your present theory is the same person committed both.”
“Isn’t yours?”
“I’m trying to keep an open mind. But, assuming that theory, that one person committed both, you have two suspects looming larger than the rest. Lars Heinrick and Johnny Mclnnerny.”
Pinehurst winced. “Oh, please.”
I put up my hands. “Yes, yes. I understand, Florence is your chief suspect. But, aside from that, you’ve got Johnny and Lars. In which case, possibility number one is Lars Heinrick kills Christine Cobb, and to cover it up, he has to silence a snooping Mrs. Mclnnerny.
“Possibility number two, Johnny Mclnnerny is the killer, the killing of Mrs. Mclnnerny is the main crime, and the killing of Christine Cobb is merely a ploy to divert suspicion from himself.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sakes.”
“You don’t like that?”
“Like it? Your theory is the man kills a woman he never met?”
“Exactly. In order to draw suspicion from himself. Suppose Christine Cobb hadn’t died. Then Mrs. Mclnnerny is killed. Who is the chief suspect? Johnny Mclnnerny, cut and dried. No doubt about it. On the other hand, if he kills Christine Cobb first, what a master stroke. Now he can kill his wife, and no one will suspect him at all. Which is exactly what’s happened. Not only do you not suspect him, you ridicule the suggestion.”
“And for good reason,” Pinehurst said. “Arsenic and Old Lace. Johnny Mclnnerny never left the movie. According to your wife. He returned with her and found the body. He has a perfect alibi for the crime.”
“Yes, and isn’t that suspicious?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“When a suspect has a perfect alibi, doesn’t that raise a red flag? Like maybe he meant to have a perfect alibi?”
“Whether he meant to or not, the fact is he does. You can’t get away from that.”
“Oh, no? I’m thinking of another movie. Strangers on a Train.”
Pinehurst’s eyes widened. “Are you saying ...?”
“Suppose Johnny Mclnnerny and Lars Heinrick have a pact. You do my murder, I’ll do yours. Johnny Mclnnerny poisons Christine Cobb. Lars Heinrick stabs Mrs. Mclnnerny.”
Pinehurst stared at me. Blinked twice. Then shook his head. “No, it doesn’t work.”
“Why not?”
“Johnny Mclnner
ny has an alibi for killing his wife. Lars Heinrick doesn’t. If your theory was right, he would. Christine Cobb would have been killed in a way he could not possibly have done it. Because otherwise there is no point.”
“So what if Johnny Mclnnerny was inept?”
Pinehurst rubbed his forehead, put up his hands. “Stop, stop, stop. Good lord. Do you have any idea how convoluted this is? How far you are stretching things, to try to make your theory hold water? The two men have a pact to kill each other’s wives, so as to give each other alibis. Johnny Mclnnerny kills Christine Cobb, but is so stupid he fails to give Lars Heinrick an alibi. Lars Heinrick, being a man of his word, feels morally obligated to kill Mrs. Mclnnerny, even though the murder of Christine Cobb has been bungled to such a degree he might as well have done it himself.”
“I admit it’s not the best theory in the world.”
“No kidding. Particularly since I have the killer dead to rights.” Pinehurst took a sip of coffee, grimaced. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but all of these theories are somewhat irrelevant, since they happen to ignore the person who actually committed the crime. Can you give me any theory, any theory at all, to account for the fact that Christine Cobb had an affair with Florence’s husband and broke up her marriage, after which Florence followed Christine Cobb to New Hampshire, registered at the same inn, and dogged her footsteps everywhere she went? You got any explanation for that?”
“Sure.”
34.
PINEHURST LOOKED AROUND the dining room. “Is that everybody?”
Sad Sack referred to a list, nodded yes.
“Good,” Pinehurst said. “Then let us begin.”
We were once again back in our original positions where we had been sitting on the night of the murder of Christine Cobb.
With a few exceptions.
Mrs. Mclnnerny, of course, was no longer with us. Johnny Mclnnerny sat alone.
And the dinner crowd was not included. That is, those who were not staying at the inn.
That left:
Lars Heinrick.
Jean and Joan.
The two businessmen who had turned out to be brothers.
The family with the little girl.
And Alice and me.
Florence was not at our table. She sat at another table with her attorney, a rather sour-looking man in a brown suit, who gave the impression he was not at all happy to be there. Indeed, I gathered he was a divorce lawyer, and found the criminal practice somewhat distasteful.
