Goodnight Irene

by James Scott Byrnside

Rowan eyed her sourly. That is an American play, you half-wit.

  She continued. “Of course, Charles came to see it.”

  Charles beamed at his wife. “I do so love the theater.”

  “He waited for me at the back door and asked me out. Nine times out of ten I would say no but something told me to say yes.”

  Ruth held her hands together under her chin. “So romantic.”

  Walter raised his cup. “Job well done, old chap.”

  Margaret pointed to Ruth. “Robert said you did some acting, too.”

  Ruth gave an exasperated look. “It was nothing to write home about. I was bored and I answered a local advertisement.”

  Willie raised his brows. “Miss Martice, what plays did you do?”

  “You wouldn’t know them. I was in lots of silly farces. I usually played the romantic interest who never said anything important. I did do one murder mystery though. Do you know The Bat?”

  Everyone shook their head except Rowan who had checked out of this communal affair. Pure poppycock. A drivel piece of writing. I solved it before the intermission.

  “It was diverting. I got to play Cornelia Van Gorder.”

  “Now that is quite the name,” said Walter.

  “She was a fun character. At one point in the play she fires a gun. That was neat. I also tricked the murderer and helped catch him.”

  Rowan stood and crossed to the open side of the cabinet and entered the passageway. He looked into the darkness and remembered the monkey from his dream.

  Of course. But…

  He scowled and walked through the dining room into the hall without excusing himself.

  “That’s a beaten man,” said Willie.

  Walter shrugged. “I don’t think this weekend turned out so well.”

  “Really?” Margaret laughed. “What went wrong? I hope it wasn’t something I said?”

  Ruth stood up. “Excuse me.” Her throbbing feet carried her down the hallway. A cloud of smoke came from the porch and passed through the door-less frame ahead. Rowan was enjoying one of Lasciva’s cigars.

  The detective sensed Ruth’s presence, but his back remained to the manor. “I am not really a fan of cigars, but I suppose they will do in a pinch.” He turned to regard her. “I forgot to thank you for saving my life.”

  “If you hadn’t jumped into the river to save me I wouldn’t have had the opportunity. So, it is I who must thank you.” She sat on the window ledge and watched the smoke stick to his head. “Do you think we’re going to make it?”

  “I do not know. It will be a long time, four or five days. Hopefully someone saw the fire.”

  The sleeves of Lasciva’s dress shirt almost doubled the lengths of Ruth’s arms and she played with the frills. “Are you sad, Rowan?”

  “I am not sad. I am disappointed.”

  “You wanted to catch Daniels?”

  He chomped the cigar with his teeth and then suckled it with his peeling lips. “I am afraid that this case will be my second consecutive failure. I had never failed before. Not only will I not solve the case, but the crime scene has been erased by God. Perhaps he does not want me to solve it.”

  “You didn’t solve your last case?”

  “Oh no, I did. I simply made a terrible error in judgment.”

  When he stopped speaking she extended her hands, palms up. “We have plenty of time. I’m willing to listen, unless it’s something you’d rather not share.”

  The drizzle grew into steady rain.

  “A man named Martin Brent was strangled in his office. The police had worked on the investigation for over a week and their progress was nonexistent. Martin’s wife, Agatha, hired me. Walter and I were in Agatha’s home, asking some questions. We were sitting in the living room. Martin’s brother, Tommy, was there. Agatha was holding her two-month-old baby.”

  “They had a child?”

  “Yes, it was the worst kind of tragedy. Neither children nor pets make decisions for themselves. They are helpless. At one point during our visit, Williams began discussing baseball with Tommy. It was so much like Williams to do that, to discuss something inappropriate, something that had nothing to do with the topic at hand. He happened to mention that his favorite player on the Cubs was Riggs Stephenson. Tommy Brent replied that Riggs was the tractor company his brother had bought out before he died. This was a horrendous error on Tommy Brent’s part. No one knew about this deal. The sale was proposed and made over the phone in Martin’s office just before his death.”

  “How random.”

  “Out of left field, one could say.”

  “Why would one say that?”

  “As Williams later informed me, Stephenson is a left fielder.”

  “I don’t know anything about baseball.”

  “Neither do I. Regardless, the case was solved because of Williams’s inane discussion of baseball. It is his great talent. He has a sixth sense for using triviality to reveal hidden truths.”

  “So, what was the problem?”

  “The problem was I confronted Tommy Brent right then and there. He had a gun.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  Rowan’s expression turned cold. “I did not. However, that is entirely of no consequence. It was my fault. You show your cards when you are certain the hand is won.”

  “What happened?”

  “Brent pointed the gun at me. I was sure those were my last moments and I accepted it. I was wrong. He shot Agatha and the baby instead. Then he smiled at me, turned the gun on himself, and fired.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I think he knew it was worse than killing me. That is why he smiled. It was the most horrible smile I have ever seen.”

  “It must be a terrible strain to carry that weight on your shoulders.”

  “It is one of the reasons I came here. I needed to get away, and it is not as if I had clients beating down my door after such a fiasco.”

  “What are the other reasons you came here?”

  “My mother.”

  “Your mother? Did she order you to come here?”

  Rowan trembled. “She too had a great disappointment in her life. It was also a shortcoming in her profession. There was a young girl who was assaulted. My mother tried to help her, but she failed. The girl was murdered.”

  “Has she forgiven herself?”

  “She never did. They found her dead in a car. Her wrists were slit. No one knew why she had done it. I prayed it was not something I had done. It is because of this case that I now know. The girl’s death preyed on my mother’s conscience just as Agatha’s death preys on mine.”

  “You thought you could come here and fix it?”

  “It was foolish.”

  “It’s admirable.”

  He moved next to Ruth. “I know what happened.”

  “You do?”

  Lightning struck in the distance.

  “I do. Strike that. I…” He began to pace in short strides across the porch. “I am missing one piece of the puzzle. It is the first piece I considered. That is the frustrating part. Everything makes sense except for Robert Lasciva. If I knew what he was doing, then I would know everything. I could be sure. Is he laughing at me from beyond the grave? Why? Surely he knows what happened to him. Surely he knows he was killed. Nothing about him makes any sense!” Rowan stopped pacing and noticed Ruth’s worried look. “Did Robert ever tell you how he got the scar on his back?”

  She shook her head. “No. I assumed it was from some kind of accident.”

  The breathless exhaustion from the night before began to fester in Rowan’s chest. “Pardon me, Ruth.” Rowan walked back into the manor, down the hall, and entered the office. For a brief moment he stood still, frozen by the past.

  Without any evident build up, he slammed both fists on the desk and let loose with a scream that caused his lungs to ache. The cuckoo came out to mock him and he fell to his knees on the damp floor. Walter entered the room and leaned beside him.

  “Manory,
get a grip.”

  “No, Williams.”

  “I think at this point we should concentrate on survival. Pneumonia is going to rear its ugly head. Let’s focus on getting off this blasted ridge. We can worry about the case later.”

  “I will never move on until it is solved. It will haunt me forever. The past keeps getting bigger and bigger. Soon it will be all that is left of me.”

  The rain crashed through the ceiling and spattered against the floor.

  Willie entered the office looking concerned. “Is everything okay, Mr. Manory?”

  Rowan turned red. “Yes. I am sorry, Willie. This is unacceptable behavior.”

  “Trust me, I understand, sir. It’s perfectly reasonable,” said Willie.

  Walter put his hand on Rowan’s shoulder and grinned. “Willie’s right. I mean, is there etiquette for this kind of situation?”

  Rowan stared daggers. “Third fucking time!”

  Walter jerked his hand from Rowan’s shoulder. “Rowan, it was a joke.”

  Manory wept.

  Willie said, “I’ll check and see if we have any more of those cherries you both like. It’s too bad we aren’t at my brother’s. He gets ’em fresh off the tree. Jerry loves his cherries.”

  “What did you say?” asked Walter.

  “I said my brother Jerry loves his cherries.”

  “Oh. I thought you said, ‘Cherry loves his cherries.’ It would be quite the coincidence if your brother was named Cherry.”

  “Yes sir, I guess it would be.”

  Willie left the room and Walter turned to find that Rowan had risen from the wet oak floor. His face had that look of astonishment.

  “What is it, old man?”

  Rowan walked forward and kissed Walter on the lips. He jumped into the air, nearly kicking Lasciva’s head. “How could I be so stupid? Oh my God!”

  “I… You…”

  “Williams, say ‘cherry.’”

  “Cherry.”

  “Now say ‘Jerry.’”

  “Jerry.”

  “Now say them together.”

  “Cherry Jerry.”

  “Now repeat them again and again.”

  “Cherry Jerry, Cherry Jerry, Cherry Jerry—”

  “Faster, Williams.”

  Walter did as he was instructed and began laughing. “Yes, the ‘j’ sound becomes the ‘ch’ sound. That was my initial confusion, the slight difference between the voiced and unvoiced consonants.”

  “Now say ‘choke,’” said Rowan with his smug smile.

  chapter 16

  revelation

  The vague hint of sun had given way to a dingy, cerulean light. Lightning flashed in the sky once again. Rain poured down from the exposed roof. Manory paced in the hall, his shoes squelching on the floor. He replayed the events one last time. The fog lifted from the puzzle. Every piece fit. Everything was crystal.

  He entered the library where everyone was gathered at his behest. Willie and Ruth sat on one sofa, Charles and Margaret on the second, and Walter took the third.

  Charles spoke. “What’s in the bag?”

  Manory dropped the burlap sack on the floor. It hit with the force of a wet sponge. He paced the room in silence, as if winding a stem.

  When he felt the tension in the room had peaked, he began. “Ladies and gentleman, three savage murders took place last night, the latter two seemingly inexplicable. Jack Tellum was poisoned. Robert Lasciva was decapitated, and a third man, a mystery man, was stabbed. To top it off, Bernice Lasciva performed a magic trick and disappeared from a locked room. I shall now reveal how and why it was done.”

  The detective bristled with alacrity and gesticulated with every word. The pent-up frustration had vanished and in its place grew a manic energy. He held the bridge of his nose between his fingers and cracked it back into place.

  “The crux of this case eluded me and yet, it was so simple. There were two cases to solve. I chose the wrong one.”

  Willie stood up. “Mr. Manory, we’re all tired. Can’t you just—”

  “William.”

  “It’s Willie, sir.”

  “Sit.”

  Willie sat back down.

  Manory audibly cleared his throat. “I was hired by Robert Lasciva because he had received a threat, a very strange threat. He would be killed during his party by one of his guests.” Manory curled his lips. “An old friend.”

  No one knew where he was heading. Ruth bit into bleeding fingers. Willie leaned his heavy frame on the arm of the sofa. Charles kept swallowing air. Margaret pressed her knees against her chest. Every nerve in the room was naked.

  “When I was first contacted by Lasciva, I was confused. Why me? Why would Robert Lasciva hire me? To answer this question, we must go back twenty years. During the Chicago winter of 1907, Robert Lasciva and his crony Jack Tellum raped and stabbed a seven-year old girl.”

  Manory met and briefly held each suspect’s gaze.

  The eyes reveal so much more than the mouth.

  “The girl’s name was Irene Roberts. Her mother Dorothy had begun a casual affair with Lasciva. When Dorothy came home and discovered the unspeakable things they had done… Well. The guilt she felt after leaving her only daughter alone and introducing these monsters into her life was too much for her to bear. She elected to take her own life and leapt out the window to her death.”

  Ruth’s mouth crumpled. “Did the police arrest them?”

  “No. They had plenty of evidence. Several people saw Lasciva and Tellum leaving the building, and Tellum had been wounded by the child. Irene had the nickname ‘mouse’ because of her buckteeth. They matched a mark on Tellum’s finger, presumably inflicted during his attack on her. Paul Daniels used his influence to deflect justice for his friends. The case was buried. No one cared. That is, almost no one.”

  “How is this connected to you, Mr. Manory?” asked Margaret.

  Manory nodded. “My mother was a member of the police. During the course of the investigation she developed a relationship with the young girl, an emotional attachment. When it became apparent that Lasciva would go free, she was understandably devastated.”

  Manory froze for a moment as flurries from the past came to the threshold. He pushed them away.

  “In any event, she felt it her duty to punish Robert Lasciva in some way and opted to reveal his perversion to people far more powerful than he. Lasciva knew this. He knew that Ellen Manory had ruined him. I am sure it will surprise no one to learn that Robert Lasciva could hold a grudge. Enter Rowan Manory. Lasciva read about my recent difficulties. His remaining connections in Chicago probably helped him with my exact whereabouts. And so, I was invited to his birthday party for the purpose of discovering his would-be-killer, a would-be-killer who did not exist. No one had threatened Robert Lasciva.”

  “What about the letter?” asked Charles.

  “During our investigation, Williams and I discovered that Jack Tellum had penned the threat.”

  Walter raised a finger. “Umm…”

  Manory sighed. “Williams discovered that Jack Tellum had penned the threat.”

  “Does that mean Mr. Tellum was involved in Robert’s murder?” asked Margaret.

  “No, it does not. Jack Tellum wrote the threat by direct order. Robert Lasciva told him to write it.”

  “Why?” asked Ruth. “What purpose would it serve?”

  Manory stopped pacing for a moment. “Revenge.” He began again. “Let us examine what was supposed to happen. Lasciva’s plan was to make himself and his aunt disappear, to vanish without a trace. Jack Tellum would then plant a note for me, the same note we retrieved from his pocket. It would specify that two people had been murdered: Lasciva and his aunt. Eventually Jack himself would disappear, followed by Paul Daniels, and in the morning, I would find the second note. In total, the notes to me specified four gone without a single body as proof: Robert, Bernice, Jack, and Paul. Using a secret passage as their conduit, they could have remained missing. It seems to have
been some kind of murder mystery theatre for Lasciva’s own twisted amusement. He even told me that he was a fan of such stories. He must have had a grand time plotting out the details.”

  “The cylinder with the ghost noises,” said Walter.

  “Yes. Imagine it, Williams: you and I searching the upstairs when suddenly the howling of ghosts would come from below. And do not forget the will. With so many in the manor in line for his fortune, there would be a bevy of suspects.”

  “How would Mr. Lasciva disappear?” asked Willie.

  “His plan was to hide inside the armor within the locked case. We would break down the door and find no one, nothing but an empty office. Bernice picked a fight with Ruth in order to highlight her seclusion with her nephew. It was important that I knew the two of them were alone in the room together. The movements must have been choreographed with Tellum and Daniels beforehand. The second note, which, like the first, we found before its scheduled appearance, would have eventually led me to the secret passageway and my demise. It was not enough to kill me. No, no, he had to fool me as well.” Manory motioned toward Charles and Margaret. “Perhaps he had a similar fate in store for the two of you.”

  Margaret grabbed Charles’s hand. “What would he have against us?”

  Charles turned to his wife. “He knows.”

  “I believe Robert Lasciva knew as well. Something tells me that he would not take kindly to scam artists trying to steal from him.”

  Manory stopped pacing in front of the window and spoke with his back to the room. “Because of my gargantuan ego, I like to think that I would have solved the case before my untimely death. However, we shall never know because of the wildest monkey wrench, the most poetic taste of one’s own medicine anyone could possibly imagine. I have seen the swallowing of jewels, a puffer fish poisoning, and a woman strangled with her own cat, but I have never seen anything like this.”

  The thunder boomed and echoed along the ridge.

  Manory turned round to see Walter with his hand raised.

  “Just ask, Williams.”

  “I don’t mean to rush you, boss, but what happened to Bernice Lasciva? I think that’s what everyone is really waiting for.”