The Charlatan Murders

by Jennifer Berg

  He had to do everything by the book.

  By the book. The words echoed in his head.

  Riggs walked back the way he had come, and as he passed the Continental, he noticed a paper bag sitting on the back seat. Riggs glanced around to make sure no one was watching him, then he opened the door and grabbed the bag. It contained three small medicine bottles. They were all empty, and the name of the medicine, as well as the patient and the pharmacy, had been completely scratched off. Riggs slipped one of the bottles into his pocket and returned the other two to the paper bag and the back seat.

  When he rang the bell at the front door, Rosemary answered it. She was wearing a red calot hat with a pink dress. Her matching handbag, gloves, and keys were sitting on the table by the front door.

  “Inspector Riggs,” she said, “thank goodness you’re here. Come in. There’s something I have to show you.”

  Riggs took off his hat and stepped into the house. “Are you about to go out?”

  “Yes, I have an appointment,” Rosemary said as she led him into Mrs. Abbott’s office. “But you wanted to know if anything was missing. Well, something is missing. And I’m afraid it’s been stolen.”

  Now they were getting somewhere.

  Miss Miller extracted the brass key from its hiding place behind the plant and unlocked the cabinet. “I told you Walter dropped by a file for his mother on Wednesday,” Rosemary reminded him. “He said they were urgent and confidential, so I locked them in here. Look. They should still be here, but they’re not.”

  She moved aside, and Riggs inspected the cabinet’s lock and the key itself; there was no sign of tampering. He glanced around the room, but of course, this time, all the windows really were fastened.

  “Do you know what was in the file?”

  Rosemary shook her head. “Mrs. Abbott hadn’t read it yet.”

  Riggs frowned. “But her son said it was important.”

  “She still hadn’t read it.” The secretary crossed her arms and lowered her voice. “Mrs. Abbott always believed that she had everything under control. Walter is very careful. Personally, I think it’s a virtue, but his mother thought he took things too seriously.”

  “Has anyone else been in this room besides my men and us?”

  Rosemary shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

  Riggs looked inside the cabinet. He noticed that one of the files appeared to have newspaper clippings inside and several files with some tax documents. “When was the last time you saw the file?”

  Rosemary considered for a moment. “I know it was here on Saturday because I noticed it and reminded Mrs. Abbott that she still hadn’t read it.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She laughed and said she’d get to Walter’s molehills in her own good time.”

  Riggs rubbed his mustache and looked around the room. “Okay, I need to know who all has a key to the house, Miss Miller.”

  She led the way back to the hallway and opened the same drawer where the office key was kept. Riggs had already inspected the drawer the day before, and he was relieved to see that nothing had changed.

  Rosemary pointed as she explained. “This was Mrs. Abbott’s key. This is an extra key for the cleaning lady, but since Mrs. Peabody lets her in each morning, she stopped carrying it about four years ago. Mrs. Peabody has one, too, but she keeps it on her person. And my key,” she said as she indicated the keys by her handbag, “is right there.”

  “And no one else has a key to this house?”

  Rosemary objected, “Each of the Abbott children has a key. When the lock was changed about five years ago, Mrs. Abbott instructed me to have exactly eight copies made; four for her children and four for the household.”

  So everyone had a key.

  Riggs looked around the room and rubbed his chin. Anyone could have taken the files, just like anyone could have murdered Mrs. Abbott. Riggs looked at the secretary. “Miss Miller, was Mrs. Abbott in the habit of taking sleeping pills?”

  Rosemary raised an eyebrow. “Yes. She didn’t take them every night, but certainly whenever she needed help falling asleep.”

  “Did she take any on Saturday night?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Rosemary said. “She kept the bottle in her bathroom. If she wanted one, I think she usually took it with her evening cup of tea.”

  “May I have the bottle?”

  Rosemary nodded and went upstairs. A minute later, she came back down with a medicine bottle and handed it to the inspector. It was full of small white pills. He turned it over. They seemed to be standard sleeping pills, and the bottle was nothing like the empty bottle in his pocket.

  “Did she drink tea every evening?”

  “As far as I know. But she didn’t always finish it.”

  Riggs read the label. “It says that a standard dosage is one pill. Do you know if she ever took more?”

  Rosemary paused slightly. “Well, she never mentioned it, one way or another.”

  “Even so, you’ve lived with her for ten years. I’d appreciate your opinion. Was she the sort of woman who might take extra pills?”

  Rosemary looked down for a moment and her brow furrowed. “She was careful with her health, but it’s the sort of mistake that anyone could make.”

  “A mistake?”

  “Older people do it all the time, I imagine. They forget that they’ve already taken a pill, and so they accidentally take another one.” Rosemary shrugged, but her eyes looked away quickly.

  “Did Mrs. Abbott take any other medicines?”

  Rosemary paused for a moment before answering. “No, nothing.”

  Chapter Fourteen: Mrs. Peabody, Cook

  The inspector crossed the main hall to the kitchen, and knocked on the door briefly before swinging it open. It was a large room, and like the other rooms, the ceiling was tall, and the windows gave a spectacular view of the lake. The floor and the counters were tiled in marble, the cupboards and appliances were white and shiny. It was, without a doubt, one of the cleanest rooms Riggs had ever seen, but he would be sure to omit that detail when he told Amy about it later.

  In addition to the large window overlooking the water, there was a French door leading onto the sundeck and, on the other wall, a Dutch door opened directly onto the dais. From the window above the sink, a person would have a view over the dais to the front porch and driveway circling the fountain. The kitchen was large enough for a table with four chairs and one high-backed upholstered chair in the corner by the French door. Sitting in this chair, with a cup of tea beside her, was a short woman in her mid-60s with gray hair and a neatly pressed floral dress. She was wearing small pearl earrings and a thin gold band on her ring finger. She set down her book when he entered.

  “Mrs. Peabody? I’m Inspector Riggs. May I have a word with you?”

  She shook her head sadly, “It’s about this terrible business, I suppose?” She sighed, but she didn’t wait for a reply. “Yes, yes, of course, come in and sit down. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  Riggs accepted, and Mrs. Peabody began scooping the coffee into an electric percolator. “I hardly slept last night,” she said. “I think this is about the hardest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  “I understand,” the inspector said.

  Mrs. Peabody went on, “And I’ve known hardship. I lost my husband in the First War. I was very young, you see, and it was terrible, but I wasn’t the only one. So many of us suffered in those years. Then the Second War, all over again, but I didn’t have any more family to lose. What’s happened to Mrs. Abbott is terrible. I don’t mean her dying, of course. That’s only natural. But I mean that it was done by somebody, intentionally. I just can’t understand it at all.”

  She prattled on while the coffee percolated. Riggs heard the front door open and close. From the window, he watched Rosemary Miller heading toward the garage. A minute later, she backed the Continental out of the garage, drove around the fountain, and headed down toward the gate. Riggs wonder
ed if she would realize one of the bottles was missing before she disposed of the paper bag. When the coffee was ready, Mrs. Peabody poured two cups and set one in front of the inspector.

  “So, I suppose you want to know if I know anything about it?” she said as she passed him the sugar bowl and the milk bottle. “I’ve been turning it over and over in my mind, and I can’t think of a single soul who would have done such a thing! She was a headstrong woman, of course, and I’m sure she rubbed folks the wrong way now and then, but she was a good woman and a hard worker, and I can’t imagine anyone who would have done…what’s been done to her.”

  Riggs poured a splash of milk into his coffee. “I understand there was a family party here on Saturday— ”

  Mrs. Peabody nodded. “That’s the only mercy I can find in this terrible thing, and I’ve thanked God for it, again and again!” She glanced upward gratefully. “At least her last night was a joyful one, spent with her children and her grandson. That’s how it should be.”

  Riggs agreed, sipping his coffee before adding, “But wasn’t there also a small quarrel that night?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” the cook informed him. “The dining room is between this room and the great room, so I can’t hear a thing that goes on over there. I was in here until nearly midnight. Then I went straight to my apartment. The Abbott family’s personal affairs are nothing to me, anyway. I have no interest in their lives, or their business, or their social comings and goings.”

  “But you know the family so well.”

  Mrs. Peabody considered this suggestion for a moment and then settled down into the chair to explain herself. “No, Inspector, I’ve known them for a very long time—since the children were little. But I don’t know any of them well. They always had a nanny, so I never looked after them or anything like that. Honestly, it was all I could do to keep them out of my kitchen so that I could get my work done. My work is here, and the family lives in the rest of the house. Why, even when they were growing up, I would usually only see the children for a few minutes as I brought a meal into the dining room and cleared it away again.”

  “I see,” Riggs said as he considered the formal arrangement. “Do you know what time the family left on Saturday night?”

  Her brow furrowed. “I couldn’t say. I think the family was still here when I went to my apartment. I brought Mrs. Abbott her cup of tea as soon as she went upstairs. That was just after ten o’clock.” She closed her eyes in an attempt to remember, but she ended up shaking her head. “Rosemary went to her apartment about the same time. When I finally locked up the kitchen, I think their cars were still in the driveway, but I really didn’t notice.”

  “What is your evening routine?”

  “When I’m done for the day, I leave through this door.” She indicated the Dutch door which led out onto the terrace. “My apartment is over the garage, same as Rosemary’s.”

  Riggs looked at the double glass-paned door with its sturdy brass handle. “Did you notice anything unusual last night?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  Riggs walked over to the door and examined the lock, it was solid, and there were no signs of tampering. “Do you lock this door at night?”

  “Always,” the cook assured him. “I have the only key, and everyone else uses the front door, which is always locked. I lock this door every time I leave the house. But I should tell you that I found the French door in the dining room unlocked yesterday morning.”

  “Did you lock it Saturday night?”

  “I usually do, but I was busy. One of the ladies did it for me.”

  “Which lady?”

  “Oh, what is her name?” the cook wondered aloud. “I think she is Freddy’s friend, although I’ve seen her visit Mrs. Abbott once or twice. She’s a nice girl. After dinner, she came right into the kitchen and offered to help me tidy up. Can you imagine? Of course, I didn’t need her help, and it was a strange thing for a guest to do, but she had an East Coast accent, so maybe that explains it.” Mrs. Peabody led Inspector Riggs into the dining room. “But she wanted to help, so I put her to work polishing silverware. When she was done with that, I asked her to check the dining-room door and make sure it was locked.”

  Was she the woman with the very blonde hair?” Riggs asked as he followed her into the dining room.

  “No. The blonde lady is Paul’s girlfriend, Miss…oh, I forget her name. No, this was the other lady, the nice one. She said her name was Halt, no Holt. That’s what she said, Miss Donna Holt. She said she sells pillows and things at a shop.”

  The cook pointed to the French door in question. Like the doors in the kitchen and the Great Room, this door led onto a sundeck that overlooked the lake.

  “The lock twists from the inside,” Mrs. Peabody explained. “There’s no place for a key.”

  The old-fashioned brass lock was thick and heavy. Riggs examined it closely. He turned it and checked the mechanism from both sides. Like the office window, there was no indication of tampering. A window and a door, both found unlocked on the same morning Mrs. Abbott was murdered. Riggs didn’t like it.

  “Besides Donna Holt, did you see any of the other guests on Saturday night?”

  Mrs. Peabody considered. “Marcus Shrubb came in before dinner. He wanted a bottle opener, but the man must be blind because there’s a bottle opener by the wet bar in the Great Room. And when I came back from the dining room, I found Paul’s girlfriend, the blonde, in here.”

  “What was she doing?”

  “I have no idea,” the cook said. “But she claimed she was looking for the powder room, and she wasn’t particularly apologetic about her mistake.”

  “One more question, Mrs. Peabody. When you brought Mrs. Abbott her tea Saturday night, was she in good spirits?”

  “She certainly was,” the cook said with a nod. “How funny you should ask that! She looked quite happy even though she said she was feeling tired. She’d been fussing about that dinner since last Monday.”

  “Was she tired because she’d taken a sleeping pill?”

  Mrs. Peabody shook her head. “No, she hadn’t taken that yet. But I put the bottle by her bed, just in case she wanted it.”

  “Did she ever take an extra tablet just to help her sleep?”

  “Not on your life!” the cook glared at him. “Mrs. Abbott was always very careful about her health. So if a bottle said ‘one pill,’ you can be sure she’d never take more than that.”

  Riggs nodded and tried to soften his tone. “Mrs. Peabody, do you happen to know if she left anything to either you or Miss Miller in her will?”

  “What a thing to ask!” she proclaimed rather accusingly. Her cheeks flushed, and she put her hands on her hips. “Mrs. Abbott’s business was her own. I’ve always set aside enough money to take care of myself in my old age.”

  “Of course,” Riggs said. “These are only routine questions. Do you know who might have benefited from her death?”

  The cook pursed her lips. “Now you expect me to gossip about her family. Honestly, Inspector! I don’t know anything that can help you, and I have a roast to prepare!” She turned and went back into the kitchen.

  Riggs considered his options for a moment and then went into the Great Room.

  There were two bottle openers at the wet bar.

  It was the same room as before with the same beautiful view over the lake, but something else about the room was different. It was later in the day, the sun way higher, but that wasn’t it. Riggs began looking around and started taking a mental inventory. It took him several minutes to realize that the white porcelain vase of flowers was gone. Yesterday morning, there had been a lavish bouquet of daisies and tulips on the grand piano. They had looked freshly cut.

  Why, Riggs wondered to himself, would someone remove tulips that were still fresh?

  Chapter Fifteen: Walter & His Missing Wife

  Michael Riggs was just stepping out of the house when a classic Studebaker pulled up the circular driveway. It wa
s a classic car from the 1920s, but it had been beautifully restored. Walter parked the Studebaker by the salmon fountain, put on his hat, and got out. He was wearing a black suit with a grey pocket silk, and his oxfords were polished to a shine. His tie was narrow and held down with a small gold clip that matched his cufflinks and watch.

  He started toward the house, but he stopped short when he saw Riggs. He squinted in the sunshine. “Hello, Inspector. You’re back here again already?”

  “I’m afraid so, Mr. Abbott. Until this matter is cleared up, I’m going to be around quite a lot. Actually, I was going to telephone you this morning. Do you have a minute now?”

  Walter paused, then he nodded and pointed at the terrace. Riggs followed him to a small white table, and they both sat down in the shade. From the corner of his eye, he could see Mrs. Peabody moving about in the kitchen.

  Riggs took off his hat. “I need to contact your mother’s lawyer,” he explained. “I assume you know who he is?”

  Walter left his hat on his head.

  “His name is Phillip Randolph, of Randolph and Randolph. Here, I think I have one of his cards.” Walter pulled out a thin case, and after flipping through a few cards, he extracted one and handed it to Riggs. “I telephoned his office yesterday, and he’s arranging a meeting to discuss the terms of my mother’s Will with the family.”

  “Thank you.” Riggs glanced at the card. It was gold embossed on heavy stock. “Mr. Abbott, are you already familiar with the terms of your mother’s will?”

  “I haven’t read it since my father died ten years ago. It wasn’t very complicated. As far as I remember, besides various gifts to charities, when my father died, everything went to my mother. Upon her death, everything was to be divided equally between their children.”

  “Four even shares?”

  Walter straightened his jacket collar and nodded.

  “And how much money are we talking about?” It was a direct question, but Riggs rightly guessed that a money man could handle the question better than most.