Murder in a Good Cause

by Medora Sale

  He reached over and flung open the door for her. “Shit! That’s all we need.” He nibbled at a fingernail for a second before starting the car. “How good is the accountant?”

  Theresa shrugged again. “I don’t know. I can’t remember who he is. But you won’t get much past Frank. He’s as suspicious as hell, and he’s even tighter than Mamma with her money.”

  “Screw Frank,” said Milan Milanovich. “He’s a half-assed, stupid bastard. It’s the accountant we have to worry about.”

  “Maybe. But Frank Whitelaw still figures that he’s going to marry Mamma, you know. Then all her money will be his one day, he thinks. So every minute that a penny of hers is invested in the company they’ll both be breathing down your neck to see what you’re doing with it. But I can’t help that. I’ve done all I can.”

  “Did you happen to point out to her,” he said in a low voice, slowly and emphatically, “that when the whole goddamned thing starts coming apart, I could end up in jail?” He eased the car into gear and started down the driveway.

  “Good God, no!” said Theresa. “If she heard that, we’d never get a cent out of her. Mamma may look all broad-minded and cosmopolitan to you, but she’s just a schoolteacher’s daughter who never did anything illegal in her life. That’s why Nikki’s always in so much trouble with her. But, you know,” she said, shifting to another train of thought, “today she was talking about being fair to Nikki . . . and to Klaus. Klaus! He’s just a lousy nephew. And to Aunt Friedl. I wonder what’s happened.” Her look of vague sulkiness disappeared in frowning worry. “Damn. I should have spent the summer at the cottage with her; we made a bad mistake there.” She ducked instinctively as the Porsche leaped out onto St. Clair Avenue in dangerous proximity to a moving van and a fast-traveling motorcycle and then went back to what was troubling her. “Six months ago she was talking about disinheriting Nikki, you know. And she had no use for Klaus at all. In fact, I was sure we could count on Nikki’s share. Dammit!”

  “Is Nikki still up at the cottage?”

  “She’s coming down tonight for the stupid reading.” She paused while Milan negotiated a turn that involved ducking around, then cutting off, a cab and a stretch limousine in order to get into the newer, quietly expensive area where their splashy house was located. “I’ll take the kids over tomorrow. She’ll have recovered by then, and she’ll be more in the mood. She’s in a foul temper today. It was stupid of me to try, I guess.”

  “Well, we can’t wait forever for her to be in a generous mood. I have to have something positive to say to Grandy and to the bank by Monday, and this is Thursday.”

  “Okay,” she said irritably. “Don’t push me. Look what happened today because you got impatient. I’ll get around her one way or another in time for that meeting.” She reached for the door before the car came to a halt. “And tonight, not a word about business or money. Just keep telling her how wonderful she was and keep your temper.”

  “Christ, how stupid do you think I am?” His wife raised one contemptuous eyebrow in his direction and strode briskly along the path that bisected the perfect lawn and led into the neat and perfect house.

  Clara von Hohenkammer set the phone down in its cradle and made a minute note in her desk diary. Then she pulled a flimsy airmail envelope from the narrow top drawer, took a sheet of paper from it, and read it slowly, smoothing the paper several times as she read. She folded it again and slipped it into the centre of a novel lying by her elbow. For a moment, she sat staring at the blank surface in front of her before passing her hand over her brow in a gesture of exhaustion or despair. A young man walked briskly into her line of sight, heading purposefully southwest, across the back lawn, in the direction of a large coach house in the back of the garden. Clara got up and walked over to an open window. “Paul,” she called peremptorily. “I would like to see you.”

  He looked up in surprise and changed his course for the main house. “Yes, ma’am?” There wasn’t much of the faithful servitor in his bored gaze. “You wanted to speak to me?”

  “Yes,” she said irritably. “I was kept awake for hours last night by some sort of party. The noise came from the coach house, and your lights were on. I will not tolerate rowdiness on the premises, whether you think I am going to be here or not.”

  “In the coach house?” he said, opening his dark blue eyes wide with surprise. “Oh, no, Doña Clara. Certainly not.” His soft voice throbbed with sincerity. “There was noise last night, yes. Around midnight.” He nodded emphatically. “I went out to look, and I left my lights on while I did my round. But it was a party in the ravine. Kids, probably,” he added, pointing to the fence perched just above the ravine that formed the southern border to her property. “They go there with cases of beer, and sometimes they are very loud, especially on warm nights. It is very noisy in Toronto on warm nights.” He said this almost reproachfully.

  “This was not in the ravine,” said Clara firmly. “I heard car engines and doors slamming. It was up here.”

  “That could have been the people next door. Was your air conditioner on?” he asked casually.

  “No. I had my windows open, and you would think that they were in the room with me. It was not next door. Where were the dogs?”

  “They were locked up, ma’am,” he said.

  “What’s the point of that if there are people prowling around outside? And why weren’t the police called to get rid of whoever it was? Do you realize how many houses have been broken into this summer? And how many valuable paintings stolen? You have little enough to do around here for the enormous salary you get paid. I should at least be able to sleep peacefully at night.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a nod of his head. “But if you kept your air conditioner on, you wouldn’t notice these little noises.”

  “Little noises!” she snorted. “I have no intention of using an air conditioner in weather like this. From now on do what you are paid for.” With that she turned from the window and pressed the bell on the underside of her pretty, white-painted desk. The gardener, uncowed, stared at her erect back with expressionless eyes before resuming his interrupted walk.

  After a long pause, during which Clara von Hohenkammer stood impatiently staring at the plants and hanging pots that filled the room, a short, very blond woman waddled into the room. Her face was round and pale and choked with pinkish powder; floating in the centre of it were a pair of round pale blue eyes. Her hair lay in neat waves grimly secured in place by a hair net. Her round and powerful arms were bursting out of a white uniform. She stared in the direction of her employer, her lips quivering with annoyance at being dragged from her kitchen.

  Frau von Hohenkammer scarcely glanced in her direction. “Bettl, there will probably be five for an early dinner tonight. Mr. Whitelaw, my daughter and her husband, Fraulein Nikki and my nephew, if he drives her down from Muskoka. I will take some soup in my room at five-thirty. That is all.” She waved a hand dismissively.

  The formidable Bettl did not dismiss that easily. “I am,” she said, “to prepare dinner for five extra people and get ready for a party tonight? I cannot do it.” She turned to go. “They can eat in a restaurant.”

  Her employer whipped around and looked at her steadily. “Bettl,” she said in a poisonously calm voice, “I would ask you to remember that I pay you very well and that you have little to do, looking after me and the occasional guest. You can be replaced very easily, and I shall not hesitate to do so, I assure you. You know perfectly well that most of the food for the party is being done by the caterers. I shall expect soup in my room at five-thirty and dinner—a decent dinner, not some warmed-over goulash—for my guests at six-thirty. Fruit will suffice for dessert, since there will be cakes and pastries later at the party. Do you understand that? Because if you do not understand, then my guests can indeed go to a restaurant, and you can pack your bags and go back to Pfaffenhofen on the next plane.”

>   Bettl’s wide expanse of throat and neck turned scarlet as she backed wordlessly out of the room.

  Clara lowered herself slowly into her chair behind the pretty desk; the muscles in her cheeks sagged minutely, and a twitching flutter started in her lower right eyelid. In spite of her careful makeup, her face looked slack and gray with fatigue. Once again she rubbed her hand absentmindedly over her forehead, then picked up a folder sitting in the corner and flipped it open. Never taking her eyes off the page, she slowly rose again, moved over to a small couch by the glassed-in south wall, and arranged herself comfortably, with her feet propped up on cushions. Her lips moved soundlessly as she studied the pages in front of her, oblivious to the sound of a car tearing up the gravel drive. She started slightly when the door to the conservatory was flung open by an out-of-breath, smaller and younger version of herself.

  “That’s where you’re hiding yourself, Mamma. Well, we’re here, both of us, starving and dying of thirst, but we never stopped a second on the way down. How are you bearing up?” She leaned over, gave her mother a kiss, and stepped back to observe her critically. “You look very white. Are you ill?”

  “I’m fine, Nikki, dear. Just suffering from lack of sleep. There seemed to have been rowdy hoodlums partying in our garden last night, and I lay awake until the noise quieted down. I warn you that I am in something of a temper as a result. . . . I almost fired Paul, and then Bettl, one right after the other.” She laughed. “It will do them good.”

  Nikki dropped into a white wicker armchair. “Are you sure there isn’t something else wrong?” she asked, bending forward and looking more closely at her mother.

  “Certainly,” said Clara firmly. “I have things on my mind, but nothing is wrong. There are matters to be worked out, that is all. At times, life becomes rather, well, complicated and one needs a certain amount of strength and ingenuity to manage it.”

  “Whatever are you talking about, Mamma?” An expression of blended amusement and alarm spread over the girl’s face. “Strength and ingenuity? What has happened?”

  “Nothing.” Clara suddenly looked deathly tired. “It is always difficult to judge,” she said, allowing hesitation to creep into her voice, “how one should behave in a foreign country. One never knows exactly how seriously certain things are viewed by the authorities. It was foolish of me not to hire a local manager. One forgets that the British are foreigners here, too, even if they do speak the language. That’s what sentimentality gets you. And another lawyer. I need someone like Peter Lohr over here.”

  “Lawyer? Mamma, what’s going on?”

  Clara glanced at the puzzled, worried face of her younger daughter and shook her head cheerfully. “Nothing at all. I was considering purely theoretical problems. How was the drive? And did you say ‘we’? Klaus has come with you?”

  “I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” said the slightly rumpled young man who had just wandered into the room. “What is country scenery compared to civilization and culture? Besides, it is cold at night up there now, and too chilly to swim.” He embraced his aunt and then sat down. “And I have decided it is time to seize life by the horns.”

  “That sounds impressive,” said Clara. “But perhaps you should have some lunch first.”

  “Good idea. I’ll just duck into the kitchen and see if Bettl can throw together some sandwiches for us, right, Nikki? Do you want something to drink?”

  “Bring me a beer. I’m dying of heat and thirst.”

  “Your servant, gracious lady,” he said, withdrawing with an extravagant bow and click of the heels.

  “Klaus looks much happier these days, don’t you think, Nikki?” said her mother, firmly heading off a reversion to their earlier topic.

  “Definitely,” she said with a quick glance at the door. “He’s actually been talking about settling down. He asked me if I thought Toronto might be a good place to live in. I wonder if he met a girl while he was wandering around the city in July and August.” She yawned and stretched her legs out in front of her. “I think he wants to talk to you about it.” She was talking in a soft voice, and rapidly, with one eye on the door in case he returned.

  Klaus walked in carefully balancing two bottles of Kronenbourg and two tall glasses on a tray. Eventually he was followed by Bettl, who stalked in, slammed down a plate thinly covered with sandwiches, and wordlessly stalked out again. “This isn’t much,” said Nikki as she scooped what she considered to be her fair share from the plate. “Bettl must figure we’re all going to eat too much tonight.”

  “She didn’t look very happy when I asked for that,” said Klaus. “I guess we can’t complain about what we got.”

  “That’s because Mamma almost sacked her today,” said Nikki, and settled down to her modest lunch.

  Nikki finished the last drop of beer in her glass, put it down, and stretched extravagantly. “Now I am off to take a bath and generally get myself looking more civilized. Mamma, you should take a nap and stop even looking at that stuff. You could read it with both eyes shut if you had to, couldn’t you?”

  Her mother waved goodbye to her. “I’m going to do that in just a minute. As soon as Frank comes.” Clara watched her out of the room before turning to her nephew.

  “When is he coming?” asked Klaus, glancing at his watch.

  “Not for twenty minutes,” she replied. “Did you want to see me?”

  “You’re sure you’re not too tired? We could easily talk tomorrow, when you aren’t getting ready for a performance.” He fidgeted uneasily in his chair.

  “Not at all,” she said. “I have nothing to do until seven but dress and get worried.” She shrugged her shoulders irritably. “I detest these small performances when you’re only a few feet from the audience. Now, Nikki tells me you have an idea, she thinks. What is it?”

  “It’s hard to know where to start, really,” he said, leaning forward, looking anxiously at his aunt. “But ever since I came here I’ve been thinking seriously about getting myself established.”

  “Doing what?” she asked in a carefully neutral voice.

  “Oh, photography, of course. I’ve had several pictures published here and there, and I’ve made some money doing portraits—little girls with their dogs and so on. I’m pretty good . . . they thought I was very good at the institute, even though I hated it by the end of the course. But I did finish. I am capable of finishing something that I start.” He gave her a self-conscious smile and sat back in his chair.

  “I thought you were considering something like this. And it would be expensive to set yourself up as a photographer, is that what you’re saying?” She laid the book in her hand down on the floor and looked steadily at him.

  “Well, not exactly. I’m not asking for money, Aunt Clara.”

  “That’s strange. Everyone else is,” she said with a touch of bitterness. “But what was it you wanted if not the other half of my fortune?”

  “Actually, there are two things. Remember I asked you if I could store things in a room in the basement?” She looked up sharply, studied his face for a moment, and then nodded. “Well, while I was here in the summer, I took one of the empty rooms and turned it into a darkroom, using the bathroom next to it for washing film and prints. It’s on the other side of the basement from your storage room. I wouldn’t get in your way. I put in some secondhand equipment and used one of the cupboards for chemicals and things like that. And there’s a whole lot of color film in the freezer, too, all packaged and labeled. If Bettl hasn’t tried to cook it, thinking it was lamp chops.” His aunt smiled. “I should have told you sooner, but I intended to clear it all out before you came down again.”

  “My dear, don’t look so worried. I don’t care how much film is in the freezer, and I don’t suppose I should ever need that room in the basement. I hate rooms in basements. It’s not one that Bettl uses to do the wash in, is it?”

  “No, Aun
t Clara, she does the wash upstairs, behind the kitchen.”

  “Then go ahead and use it,” said Clara impatiently. “But is that your great plan? Really, Klaus, it wasn’t worth all this buildup.”

  “No. I want Nikki, too. She could work as an assistant for me—or as an apprentice. She has a very good eye, you know, and she’s quick and clever. It would keep her out of trouble,” he added.

  “In what way?” At the mention of her daughter, her face and body stiffened, her voice deepened.

  “I don’t think she should go back to Munich,” he said cautiously, keeping a wary eye on his aunt’s responses. “I think she could get herself in real trouble this time if she does.”

  “What do you mean by real trouble?” Clara’s voice was glacial.

  “Look, I know these people she’s mixed up with. She’s half in love with Christian, and he’s crazy about your money and planning to blow up the world in the name of peace and justice when he can afford to buy enough explosives. I never said anything when she was just flirting with radical ideas and going off to meetings or rallies or whatever and feeling very righteous. I mean, she got a big charge out of it, and I think she was lonely and unhappy there for a while.” He looked nervously at his aunt, expecting a truly grand explosion, but she merely nodded.

  “She took her father’s death very hard. And she hasn’t quite forgiven me for being out of the city when it happened.” Her tone was still mild and reasonable.

  “Well, Christian’s after her to move in with him, more or less permanently, and to help finance the movement. I think that’s why she suddenly decided she wanted to spend all summer looking at rocks and pine trees. Well, I thought if I could talk her into staying here and helping me—not with money but really working at something, establishing a business—she might forget him. He could very well land her in jail.”

  “How much would all this cost?” she asked briskly.

  “Well, to buy first-class equipment and rent space enough to do commercial photography—large product and specialty work—would cost twenty to thirty thousand dollars, but I am planning on getting started with much less. Especially if I can use your space here as a darkroom and if Nikki would accept a share in profits instead of a salary. Which would mean that she’d need an allowance so she could eat. But I was thinking of getting a bank loan, if you would consider backing it for me.” He leaned forward in his eagerness, letting his light brown hair fall into his large brown eyes, so that he looked like an overanxious sheepdog.