A Midsummer Night's Scream jj-15

by Jill Churchill

  She realized to her surprise that she'd spent several hours on it so far today. She also knew she had nothing to feed the kids or herself that evening. Even if she and Mel ended up going out for the good dinner they'd planned, she'd still have to leave something for the kids to eat. Or hand out a wad of money for Mike or Katie to get take-out. She hated going to the closest grocery store over the noon hour. There was a breakfast and lunch place next to it and parking places were at a premium.

  Parking turned out not to be quite as horrible as she'd expected, and she came home loaded down with bread, sliced ham, premade tuna

  salad, several boxes of frozen mac and cheese, salad, and a really good, gummy iced chocolate fudge cake. That would last them for at least a couple of days.

  She was on a countdown to school's starting. Katie would be in her first year of college, albeit close to home at the junior college for the first year. She had chosen it because it had several culinary classes. She'd still be living at home, but she could practice making dinners. Mike would go back for his third year of college, out of town, and Todd would become a sophomore in high school.

  She loved her kids. She'd done a good job of raising them herself after her husband was killed on an icy overpass while leaving her to marry someone else. She seldom even thought about him anymore. After the first horrible months of grief and fury, she realized he'd freed her to live her own life, however inadvertently.

  His life insurance included a rider that had paid off the mortgage on the house she loved. And due to her having given his family's pharmacy her small inheritance from a spinster great-aunt early in their marriage, he'd written in his will that she would forever earn his one-third share of the pharmacy profits. His widowed mother and his younger brother Ted received the other shares.

  She realized much later that he'd been smartand canny about financial matters. It was morals that took him away.

  The pharmacy had thrived and now had branches all over Chicago and far into the suburbs. Her share had allowed her to be a stay-at-home mom. This could have changed if he'd lived to marry the other woman. With years of parsimony and good investment advice, she'd put away enough to be able to get all three kids through college and finally, a year or two ago, had become financially secure enough to pamper herself a bit.

  She was, she had to admit, proud of herself. And now that she believed that she'd eventually be published, she was prouder still.

  Struggling inside with the groceries, then disposing of a few things that were past their prime in order to make room in the freezer, fridge, and pantry, she managed to clear the decks and go back to her needlepoint as a nice break. She realized, as she was getting out her threads to do the next section of her sampler, that she hadn't really thought about her deceased husband for years, and wondered why he'd come to mind today. She probably wouldn't think of him again for a good long time.

  With luck, perhaps never.

  Fourteen

  As Mel was looking around Sven's room, which he wasn't surprised to find extremely clean, Officer Jones was conversing with Sven's sister. Mel couldn't hear what they were saying, except that Hilda was doing most of the talking.

  The bedroom, besides being tidy, was revealing in other ways, too. It must have been his room when he was a boy. The wallpaper still had faded cowboys and horses. Even the single bed looked vaguely bunkhouse. It was probably the house both Sven and Hilda grew up in. Long ago paid off.

  Sven was a serious jigsaw puzzle fan. There was a card table set up near the window with a half-done thousand-piece picture of a cathedral. The entire bottom of his closet was triple stacked with puzzle boxes, leaving only enough room for his shirts and trousers to hang above. His shoes were on a rack on the back of the closet door. They all looked as clean as if they were brand new.

  So much for Jane's theory of blackmail, which he had briefly considered himself. This was a shy, retiring, compulsively neat man with a shoe and jigsaw puzzle obsession. And he didn't like working with people watching him. Mel simply couldn't imagine such a timid man repeatedly approaching strangers and firmly demanding that they pay him for what he knew they'd done that was worth keeping secret. From what little Mel knew of him, Sven would be hard-pressed to work out the details of how to repeatedly receive the cash from someone.

  Out of idle curiosity, Mel pulled out a loafer, its sole facing out. The shoe didn't look as if it had ever been worn. Something fell out of it that astonished him. He put the shoe and the object back. Next, he went to the upright chest that presumably held sweaters, socks, and underwear. He found more of what he'd seen in the loafers.

  He was aware that although he'd been given permission to look at the room by the janitor's next of kin, he'd need a warrant to do more searching. He closed the dresser drawers and the closet door and went back to the living room. "I see that your brother really likes hard jigsaw puzzles, Miss Turner."

  "He always has. He's always trying to get me interested in them, but they're all too hard for me to enjoy."

  Mel said, "You gave me permission to look in

  your brother's room. Would you jot down a note saying so and sign it? Just as a formality?" He went on chummily, "So much paperwork is required these days, even by the police department."

  He handed her his notebook, opened to the back page, and gave her his pen. He dictated, "To whom it may concern, I, Hilda Turner, gave Detective Mel VanDyne permission to search my brother's room."

  The doorbell rang and Officer Jones went to open it. It was a neighbor woman with a brisket that smelled fabulous.

  "Hilda, I heard about Sven. You poor dear. Nice to see you, Officer Jones. Hilda, I'll slice this up for you and bring back a salad and bread. Do you need anything from the grocery store?"

  "Nothing yet, thanks, Susan. These nice men are going to see that I get Meals on Wheels. Oh, this is Detective VanDyne. He's going to keep me posted on Sven's condition." She handed the notebook back to Mel.

  Mel noticed that Officer Don Jones was easing his way toward the front door, waggling his eyebrows in a peculiar manner and nodding subtly toward the door.

  Mel knew what this meant. "Miss Turner, Officer Jones and I need to go start arranging help for you and checking again with the doctors. We'll both be back."

  As they left, Mel heard the neighbor Susan say, "That detective is a good-looking man and a snappy dresser. I could go for him."

  Once outside, Jones said, "Come sit in my car and we'll drive around the corner. I have things to tell you."

  "So do I," Mel said.

  "Miss Turner started telling me about their finances," Officer Jones said. "She had a good job for years, and when she became ill, she was given an excellent severance package. She's also getting money from her social security for disability. But get this — she says Sven is a professional gambler. Almost every weekend, he leaves her prepared meals and goes to Indian reservation casinos in Minnesota or the casino boats in Iowa or St. Louis."

  He went on, "She says he's good at blackjack and bingo. And he always stays under the limit of winnings that have to be reported to the IRS."

  Mel was nodding.

  "You're not surprised?" Officer Jones asked.

  "Let me tell you what I found in his room," Mel said. "He had a huge number of shoes in one of those hanging things on the back of his closet door. I picked out a loafer that looked as if it'd never been worn, and out fell a tidy roll of hundred-dollar bills. Same thing under his socks and T-shirts. That's why I had Miss Turner sign that statement that she'd given me permission to look over his bedroom."

  "You couldn't have surprised me more if you'd kicked me in the head," Jones exclaimed. "They seem to live so frugally and modestly in that old house. It's the original wallpaper and carpeting, it looks like to me. Do you think all the shoes were full of cash?"

  "I didn't think I should look further without a warrant. Miss Turner isn't going to like that."

  "I think Miss Turner is telling us what Sven tells her," Officer Jone
s said. "And it's not the truth."

  "I agree. If I hadn't heard from his boss and Miss Turner how shy and antisocial he is, I'd be thinking about blackmail."

  "That was my first thought, too, when you told me about the shoe."

  Jane had left a message on Mel's cell phone. "Give me a ring and tell me what you've learned about the janitor if you have a moment free."

  He called her back as soon as he'd applied for the warrant and asked for a police officer rotation to guard the hospital room Sven was in for twenty-four hours a day. If it was blackmail, one of his victims might drop in to make sure Sven didn't survive.

  "I know more about the janitor than I want to know or understand yet."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I'm not allowed to tell you. But his blood pressure is getting better, he's moving a bit and making sounds. He'll probably survive. Whether his thinking and memory are seriously impaired can't be known yet."

  "Not allowed to tell me?" Jane asked, a bit put out. He'd suddenly lost the urge to be forthcoming.

  "That's right. You might know eventually, but not yet. I have a lot on my plate today. I'll try to catch up with you later."

  There was well over a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars hidden in Sven's room. In every shoe there was cash. Rolled bills were hidden in sock balls and even stashed in puzzle boxes.

  Miss Turner was furious when Mel told her it would have to be at least temporarily confiscated for her own safety. "It was counted out by several law officers. Sometimes this large an amount of cash is tempting. Not that I believe any of the officers are crooks. But not all of them are close acquaintances of mine. You might find yourself being robbed."

  "But where's the money going?"

  "Into a safety-deposit box. I'll call for an armored car to take it. Now, you must count the bundles yourself to assure that it all comes back, if circumstances prove that it really belongs to you and your brother."

  "Of course it does. I'm just surprised at how it's added up."

  "I'll open each bundle and you flip through, counting the hundreds," Mel offered.

  "That would take me days. I'm going to have to trust your people to at least know how to count money."

  "I wish you wouldn't. But I can promise you this — I watched every single bill counted and bundled, and nobody took a single bill."

  "Then you can call your truck and give me a receipt."

  "Gladly," Mel said.

  Jane had called Shelley after her conversation with Mel. "Our source of information has dried up. Mel called and said some weird things about knowing about something he didn't quite understand yet and couldn't talk about."

  "That sounds fascinating," Shelley said. "Why do you suppose he said he didn't quite understand it yet?"

  Jane shrugged. "I have no idea. He did add that someday he might be able to tell us about it."

  "I hope so. I hate teasers that are never revealed."

  "So do I. I'm so glad this whole play thing will soon be out of our lives. Who are your caterers this time?"

  "The ones I had to cancel earlier. They agreed that with sufficient time to prepare, I wouldn't lose my deposit. Which is sensible. We only haveto go to the theater for four more days, including tonight. I was wrong about the opening night. The play doesn't start until seven on Friday, so the cast and crew have time to find their own dinners."

  Rehearsals resumed on Monday evening. Since the second crime had taken place outside the theater and involved someone none of them admitted they'd ever met, the practices didn't have to stop. Everyone had been questioned about whether they'd ever been in the building when the janitor was. Nobody, it appeared, was aware that there was a janitor.

  Shelley was trying out yet another catering company, and was extremely unhappy with them. They were late to arrive. The food was bland and skimpy. They barely cleaned up after themselves. Jane suspected that the owner would receive a piece of Shelley's mind before the evening was over.

  The background scenery was finished and done well. It truly looked like an elegant room. It had a sense of depth. The man who supplied the props had been in earlier and set up chairs, a sofa, rugs, lamps, and tables with ornaments, books, and flowers. The fireplace, which had a narrow mantel, was strewn artfully with what looked like genuine old family pictures in black-and-white and even sepia.

  Seeing things coming together well had appar‑

  ently made Professor Imry slightly less offensive. His goal was in sight at last, Jane assumed. She settled in a chair in the front row of the theater to work on her needlepoint, but she soon realized there wasn't a good enough light to make color choices. So she put her supplies away and took her "emergency" paperback out of her purse.

  Jane didn't go anywhere without a book to read. Not even on short drives. She'd once been caught in a traffic snarl that clogged a whole lane because a truck was on its side. All she'd had to read in the car was a Horchow catalog, which she had practically memorized by the time she could creep far enough to take a side street.

  There was enough light to read an old Ngaio Marsh paperback while Shelley was probably on the pay phone in the lobby, tearing a strip off the owner of the catering company.

  She was also half watching the rehearsal. It was interesting to her that the book she was reading also took place in a theater. This rehearsal seemed to be going well. Everybody knew their lines. Nobody but the butler, who was still making side remarks, flubbed a single one. Ms. Bunting was wonderful. This pleasant woman in real life playing a nasty old woman was amazing to watch. Denny's replacement was barely okay. He, like Imry, didn't have an appealing personality.

  But nobody else really sparkled. How could they with such a dreary, stupid, humorless, point-lessly plotted script? For a moment, Jane felt a tiny bit sorry for the director/scriptwriter Imry. She wondered if there would even be a second performance.

  Mel was starting to have doubts. Both Sven' s boss and his sister, who knew him best, had claimed he was too shy to talk to strangers. There was no good reason to doubt either woman's judgment. Maybe the blackmail theory was, in fact, wrong. Could a timid person like Sven muster the courage to blackmail anyone? He didn't seem to have the nerve to even speak to strangers. He couldn't imagine Sven confronting anyone repeatedly for cash, much less arranging for where and when the cash would be exchanged.

  On the other hand, Mel knew he'd clearly done the right thing by seizing the money for the time being. He'd put an extra officer on duty watching the Turners' house, just in case word leaked out that it was full of cash. Everybody involved in counting the money knew that it had been removed. That might not discourage a neighbor or one of the people who did the counting from thinking they might have missed some of it.

  Could a man in his forties and his sister in her fifties have genuinely stashed away that much money? It was possible. Apparently Hilda had once had a well-paying job. She could have turned her earnings over to her brother. And the

  story of Sven's gambling could be accurate. Hilda had also told Officer Jones that neither she nor her brother had children or had ever married.

  The Turner siblings certainly hadn't spent much on themselves or the house. It seemed stuck in the late nineteen-fifties. Same wallpaper. Same paint. Same old-fashioned kitchen and bath, though the bath had handicapped equipment installed. That wasn't a frivolous expense, it was a necessary one. They could simply be the most frugal people in the world. Who or what were they saving the money for?

  Fifteen

  Having taken care of Sven and Hilda's situation for the time being, Mel turned his attention back to Dennis Roth's murder. He made his fifth try at the Roths' answering machine, which again didn't work. Two different cops in the suburb the Roths lived in had tried to find a neighbor who knew when they might be home. Apparently the Roths weren't sociable enough to have told them. As he cruised through the paperwork one last time, he found that one of his researchers had discovered that Denny was adopted. But the original birth certificate was
n't available.

  It wasn't much help. It might be possible to do a search of some sort for a baby named Dennis born on the same date, which might lead to a birth certificate. But what would that prove? Just that he was probably born illegitimate.

  The background check of Professor Imry was just as useless. Born three years earlier than Denny in a small town in western Oklahoma,

  he'd gone to grade and high school there, then went to Chicago to the university that now owned the theater. His grades all through his life had been high C's and low B's. Medical records showed nothing out of the ordinary except one episode of asthma. Census records in Oklahoma merely gave information that his father was a Nazarene minister and that his mother was a housewife a few years older than her husband. Both parents had been born in the same town as their only son. There had been a sister named Carol two years older than the boy.

  The Buntings were harder to trace. All that could be found was their theater and film credits. He wondered briefly if their name was really Bunting, or if they'd chosen it because it sounded and looked good on the credits. No arrests, no birth certificate in any state for John Bunting. And no record of his wife's maiden name. He debated over asking them outright what their real names and dates and places of birth were, but he decided it probably wasn't worth the trouble. Ms. Bunting obviously was too small and frail to have delivered the lethal blow. And John Bunting, who was usually drinking, wouldn't have had the coordination to do it accurately.

  Joani had one record for soliciting three years earlier. He wasn't surprised bui didn't think she had the strength or motive for killing anyone, letalone an actor she had probably never met until the first rehearsal.