The Rotary Club Murder Mystery

by Graham Landrum

  HARRIET’S REPORT

  >> Henry Delaporte <<

  It was about 2:30. The afternoon was hot. Cindi informed me that a Mrs. Bushrow was on the line.

  “Mr. Delaporte,” her commanding voice announced, “I need to see you at your earliest convenience.”

  “Why? Has something happened?” I asked.

  “Indeed something has. But I didn’t realize how complicated it was going to be. So I need your help.”

  “Certainly,” I said. “I can see you now if you please.”

  When she arrived, I observed immediately that she had not dressed with her usual care. She had business to attend to and was in no mood to engage in unnecessary pleasantries.

  Once she was seated in my office, she gave a voluble account of her experiences of the two preceding days. Very clearly, she pointed out the problem. A Mr. Brazille was being held in Stedbury for offenses committed in North Carolina. In order to bring the murderer of Charles Hollonbrook to justice for the crime committed in Virginia, it would be necessary to get certain information from Brazille. From the North Carolina point of view, they had nothing tangible to link Brazille to a murder that Virginia was perfectly willing to call a suicide. Could she convince the Commonwealth Attorney to reopen the case and reverse the Virginia finding of suicide? She thought she could, and she felt that the murderer and her accomplice would escape if action were not taken quickly.

  I asked her how she expected to convince the Commonwealth Attorney. She told me how. I agreed to call Ron Jefferson and did so.

  “I have Mrs. Bushrow in my office,” I said. “She has information that indicates that Charles Hollonbrook was murdered. You remember—Hollonbrook, the one who turned up dead at the Borderville Inn a month ago.” There was a pause.

  The reader may remember that in the Famous DAR Murder Mystery, Mrs. Bushrow and the other ladies of the DAR made the Commonwealth Attorney out to be such a fool that no one connected with law enforcement on either side of the state line would dare refuse Harriet Bushrow a hearing.

  “Oh yes, Mrs. Bushrow!”

  “She would like to have a conference with you at the Inn as soon as possible.” I looked over at Mrs. B. as if to ask, Is that right?

  “Can’t she come to my office?”

  I covered the mouthpiece of the phone and repeated the CA’s question. Mrs. B. was negative.

  “Ron, I think Mrs. Bushrow wants to demonstrate something and can only do so at the Inn.”

  By this time, Ron had decided it would be to his advantage to acceed to Mrs. Bushrow’s demands sooner rather than later, and at 4:15 the three of us were seated around one of the poolside tables at the Borderville Inn, with glasses of iced tea before us.

  Mrs. Bushrow began to explain.

  “Mr. Jefferson, I appreciate your finding time to listen to my story so promptly, as I am sure you will find that unless something is done immediately the murderer, who has already fled, will be very difficult to find. I believe you people in the law say that ‘the trail grows cold’ in cases like this, don’t you?

  “Well, I’ll just begin at the beginning, because that’s the only way you can get the whole picture.

  “Charles Hollonbrook was a boy from a small town in southside Virginia. He was smart but unsophisticated. At Granville State College, he was taken into a fraternity on account of his grades. I have no doubt that he felt socially inferior to the other boys. And as so often happens, he began to pick up on their ways without being able to see those things in perspective.

  “Of course, that was at the time of the Vietnam War. So Charles went into the service, was commissioned, and received several medals for bravery before he was injured and given an honorable discharge.

  “He got over his injury, married, and took up the real estate business in Stedbury, North Carolina.

  “The same drive that had brought him success in the army pushed him right along in the real estate business. He made a small killing when he brought Featherstone Plastics to Stedbury and received a good deal of recognition in the community, too.

  “He liked this, and he began to travel with a little better class of society. Unfortunately, his wife did not climb the ladder as easily as he did.

  “I have no doubt that Charles had had experience with women at college and in the army; and now, since he was dissatisfied with his wife and happened to have a very attractive and intelligent secretary, he began an affair with her.

  “After his divorce, he married his secretary, Alice, who was to serve as an ornament to his social progress. He joined the country club and the Episcopal church. Alice learned quickly and filled her role easily and well.

  “Charles had a fling with the wife of the golf pro at the club—apparently an attractive little piece of fluff. That was about 1981. The affair was not serious on Hollonbrook’s part, but his wife, Alice, was undoubtedly more upset by the affair than she admitted to me. However that may be, Charles took out a policy for half a million on his life, with Alice as beneficiary—undoubtedly in his mind some kind of reparation to Alice for his affair with Desiree Patterson, the golf pro’s wife. But at the same time, that life-insurance policy made it possible for him to have his flings from time to time with impunity, since Alice would lose the prospect of a half million dollars if she should divorce him.

  “Meanwhile, Charles had gotten himself another secretary. This one was a most unlikely person, a Miss Paula Stout.

  “Now she is not stout—in fact, she is pleasantly plump. Her problem is that she is not pretty.

  “That can be a great concern to a young girl—specially if she has a beautiful sister such as Paula had. People are always saying unkind things in a situation like that—commenting on the pretty child and saying nothing about the other. And, of course, the pretty sister has numbers of boyfriends, while the other has none.

  “Poor Paula took refuge in being ‘good’ if she could not be beautiful—not because she liked being good, understand, but because she thought she could be appreciated in that way. Unfortunately, people don’t often appreciate goodness as much as they do beauty.

  “However, Paula had other talents besides ‘goodness.’ She was dependable—necessary for the orderly function of the office—and ready to do anything for her employer—even feeding the dog when both Hollonbrooks were away from home.

  “She was something more than a doormat, but there was part of her personality that she kept wisely hidden.

  “It may seem strange that Charles Hollonbrook should become sexually attracted to Paula Stout. Beauty is clearly a strong attribute when sexual attraction is concerned. But there is other magnetism, and availability is a great part of it.

  “I don’t know just how it happened. Oh, maybe one day a certain paper couldn’t immediately be found. Perhaps he was looking over her shoulder as she was searching in the file case. Then as she turned around, she was in his arms. The girl who had never been kissed had thought about it a great deal. And in one unexpected embrace, Charles Hollonbrook may have learned that desire was burning in the breast of that little do-gooder, Paula Stout.

  “From an episode like that, given the proclivities of Charles Hollonbrook and the psychological needs of Paula Stout, it would be only a short time before Paula was her employer’s mistress.

  “I don’t suppose the girl felt any guilt about it at all. You see, she had been a hypocrite most of her life. It probably gave her pleasure secretly to be a scarlet woman while everyone thought she was a saint, to deceive the world that had been so cruel to her.

  “So Charles was having the best of it with the beautiful, socially accepted mistress of his household—and Paula, mistress of his office, feeding his ego and his sexual appetite with a passion he no longer received from his wife.

  “Now how long could that go on? Sooner or later, Paula was going to ask herself why she should not be acknowledged to the world. In short, the time must have come when Paula saw that her romance wasn’t getting her anywhere. I feel sure she demanded th
at Charles divorce Alice.

  Divorce Alice and marry Paula? Alice was beautiful. Divorce Alice and marry a woman who though not ugly was obviously plain? Not only that, she had a reputation for being plain. And besides, people who join the Episcopal church for social reasons don’t divorce an Episcopalian and marry a Baptist. People would talk about it, and Charles would look silly. I fancy marriage with Paula was not for Charles Hollonbrook.

  “He solved his problem in 1985 by taking out a policy on his life for half a million, payable to Paula Stout. The technique had worked very well in pacifying Alice Hollonbrook, and it operated on Paula Stout in the same way.

  “All went well until recently, when something good and something bad happened to Charles Hollonbrook. When the real estate market fell off, he realized he had overextended himself. That was the bad thing. The good thing was that he was president of the Stedbury Rotary Club and—marvel of marvels—district governor-elect for the following year. For Charles, as it would be for anyone, that was very good indeed.

  “Being district governor is just like being on the vestry of the Episcopal church and belonging to the country club. If it is for the right reasons, it is very good. But if the reasons are wrong, you had better leave it alone.

  “Well, I won’t say that is beside the point, because it is very much to the point. All the same, it does lead away from the story. So, to get on the track again—

  “An attractive widow—grass widow, that is—came back to town. Kimberlin Mayburn—beautiful, rich, aristocratic, and charming. She had a past—married to a Frenchman—and what’s more, a dissolute Frenchman with a passion for boys.

  “Now, no matter how modern we may be about homosexuals, almost everybody condemns involving children in something like that. And to think of poor Kim married to a man—and a Frenchman at that—who runs off with boys! Well, you can see how Charles could glow with masculine tenderness at the thought of consoling the poor girl, who has position, sophistication—and money, which he is going to need pretty soon.

  “Well, last February Charles Hollonbrook took out a policy on his life for half a million, payable to Kimberlin Mayburn. Apparently, as a side effect, taking out sizable policies on his life gave a boost to his ego. But then, who can explain what goes on in some people’s minds?

  “The new policy in itself was not necessarily the death warrant for Charles Hollonbrook. The thing that did it was that he canceled the policy that would have been paid to Paula. He did not altogether burn his bridges behind him, you see, because he left Alice’s policy in effect. Perhaps he wasn’t sure of hooking Kim and wanted to keep Alice in his creel.

  “There was something about Paula that Charles either did not know or neglected to think about. Paula had a crony, a bosom friend, also one of life’s rejects, Nellie Penn, very much in the same mold as Paula, even less attractive, and also a Baptist.

  “Now I have a great advantage here in that my friend Maud Bradfield is an active member of the First Baptist Church of Stedbury, North Carolina. And in addition to that, her late husband had the Bradfield Agency—life insurance, you see. And Maud has her ways of finding out what she wants to know.

  “It doesn’t take much feminine intuition to conclude that Nellie told Paula that her policy had been canceled or that, in a way of speaking, it had been transferred to Kim.”

  At this point, Mrs. Bushrow paused. It was evident that our Commonwealth Attorney did not have feminine intuition and consequently did not make the desired conclusion, and Mrs. Bushrow saw it in his face.

  “Just wait,” she said. “When I get through with this, you’ll see that it just had to be.”

  Then she continued: “Paula was furious. Of course she did not let on to Charles. But from that moment, she began to plot revenge.

  “Meanwhile, what about Alice? Paula didn’t mind too much about Alice, but for Kim to receive half a million in life insurance that ought to go to Paula—well, that was entirely too much for Paula!

  “That’s where it became important that Charles was now district governor and would have to go around to visit all the clubs in his district.

  “Because, you see, Paula Stout made all the arrangements for his visits. She knew that he would be in Ambrose Courthouse for an evening club on the twenty-sixth of May and Borderville for a meeting here at a noon club on the twenty-seventh. And she had a secret weapon, which I’ll tell you about in a little while.

  “Now Mrs. Alice Hollonbrook, left to her own devices as you might say, and put out to grass with the prospect of a halfmillion-dollar life-insurance policy, had made her own arrangements. These had been going on for some time, and Paula Stout could count on them. When Charles went out of town for any reason, Alice also left town to be with a gentleman who seemed to appreciate her more than Charles did. It was just a regular thing that when both Charles and Alice Hollonbrook went out of town, Paula Stout had a key to the house so she could feed the dog.

  “So, when Alice took advantage of her husband’s absence to spend some time with her light of love on his yacht, Paula took advantage of Alice’s absence to gather the things she needed for her plan.

  “Paula was aware—the fact is, the whole town of Stedbury knew—that Charles Hollonbrook had a pistol range in the basement of his house, where he practiced. Paula also knew that Alice made him use a silencer.

  “So all Paula had to do was take the key that had been given her, go into the house, enter the bedroom, where Charles had no doubt taken her a number of times before. The key to the drawer where Charles kept his pistols, silencer, and ammunition was right there in his dresser.

  “And as for the so-called suicide note, it may possibly have been written to Paula. We’ll never know the true situation involved, for you know the note said: ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t make it today.’ The note could have been meant for the gun-club members, but just suppose that it was calling off an assignation with Paula, and suppose the reason why he was calling it off was that he was having an assignation with his new ladylove, Kimberlin Mayburn. If Paula had had any suspicion of such a thing, it would have made her absolutely furious.

  “She would be determined on revenge and such a revenge as would rob Kim Mayburn of her half million. As far as Alice’s half million went, Paula didn’t care about that. Charles in effect had left Alice for Paula—and he had signed, sealed, and delivered his endorsement of Paula’s position with that life-insurance policy, which he had now canceled. To be sure, the premiums were expensive, and he had money problems. But all the same, it was a mistake to cancel Paula’s policy.

  “So Charles was to die by ‘suicide’ and Paula would be even with both Charles and Kim.”

  Ron Jefferson was looking at Mrs. B. with his mouth open. At that point, I didn’t think he was at all convinced, but he was certainly drawn into her account.

  “Don’t tell me women don’t react that way,” she said. “I am eighty-eight years old, and I’ve never been anything but a woman since I was a girl.”

  She bestowed a beaming smile on both of us.

  “Now,” she said as she picked up her purse and rose from the table, “let’s go to this room over here and I’ll show you how Paula Stout ‘committed suicide’ on Charles Hollonbrook in a locked room.”

  I had arranged that a room would be available for Mrs. Bushrow’s demonstration, and Nancy Attwood, the manager of the Inn, had been standing at the door of room 112 for some minutes, waiting for us.

  Mrs. Bushrow led us like a conquering general. She smiled sweetly and bowed slightly to Mrs. Attwood, who appeared as curious as I myself was to see how the trick was to be done.

  We all entered the room.

  Mrs. Bushrow said, “Now which of you gentlemen wishes to act the part of Charles Hollonbrook?”

  I volunteered.

  “Very well,” she continued, “you got here no later than nine-thirty on that Monday evening because the evening club in Ambrose Courthouse would be done by seven-thirty and then you would have be
en served a drink with the president of the Ambrose club and would have come down here.

  “You had a book with you—a good book by Mr. Dick Francis. So you got into bed and enjoyed your book until eleventhirty, which is the time you usually go to sleep unless you have other entertainment. You take a sleeping pill because, as your wife attests, you always take a sleeping pill when you stay at a motel. You say it helps you sleep through the noise of late arrivals and early departures.

  “So it is beddy-bye, and you sleep soundly—well, I guess you sleep soundly for the rest of your life, because around two o‘clock, when she knows from experience you will be snoring away, your ‘office’ mistress in gloves and running shoes, or whatever, comes silently, silently into the room with her flashlight and your pistol with your silencer on it. She has brought along the note, with which she perhaps thinks you rejected her for someone else; and she is about to make sure that the half million that you intended for her rival will never be paid.

  “She holds the gun in the position that you would have to hold it in to blow your own brains out. She pulls the trigger; the gun discharges. She places the gun in your right hand to add fresh fingerprints to the other prints that are already there—your prints, because she has worn gloves whenever she handled the gun, the silencer, and the ammunition.

  “Paula lays the ‘suicide’ note on the nightstand and silently leaves the room.”

  It is a pity Mrs. B. never tried for a career on the stage. We were entranced by her recreation of the murder. But Ron Jefferson broke the spell.

  “That’s very good except for four things that destroy your whole theory. First, the key to the room was inside the room when the body was found. Second, a silencer is not perfect. People in the adjoining rooms and the room above would have heard. Third, even if the ‘murderer’ had a key to the room, she could not know that the chain would not be on the door when she wished to enter. And fourth, you have not explained how the chain could be on the door when the body was found.”