by Stuart Woods
—
Dr. Don made it to Teterboro the following morning on time for his flight—not that it mattered, because the flight would go when he said it should. One of the crew—a pilot whom he recognized from an earlier flight on his CJ4, examined his passport and gave him a curious look, but he asked no questions. Same with Cheree. They and their baggage were quickly settled in. Dr. Don had taken the precaution of filling out a customs form online, declaring the eight hundred thousand dollars he carried in cash, but under his employee’s name, which matched the passport. It was not illegal to carry large sums of cash abroad, as long as it was declared, and he figured that there was a large stack of those forms waiting to be scrutinized at some customs office. He would be in Rio by the time they got around to his.
They settled into the comfortable cabin of the new airplane, which offered the size and space of a larger aircraft, and waited for the pilots to work through their checklists and get a clearance for their flight. As they waited, Calhoun’s cell phone buzzed on his belt. He was mystified for a moment as to who might have that number, but then he remembered Al. Good news, no doubt.
“Hello?”
“It’s Al.”
“I’m delighted to hear from you, Al. I assume everything went well.”
There was a pause, then, “Not exactly.”
A trickle of disturbance ran down Calhoun’s innards and stopped somewhere in his bowels. “What do you mean, not exactly?”
“I mean that Mr. Barrington had better security than I had bargained for.”
“Explain that, please.”
“I mean that after assessing the situation and making a perfect plan, my plan turned out to be imperfect. I was confronted, disarmed, and dismissed from the country.”
“By whom?”
“He didn’t mention his name, but he was pointing a 30.06 deer rifle at my head. I was allowed to leave the country in one piece.”
“Al, I paid you fifty thousand dollars and expenses to take care of this.”
“And I will refund your money, every cent of it, immediately. Give me an address, and I will have it hand-delivered tomorrow.”
“I’m about to leave the country—I’m on an airplane that is taxiing as we speak.”
“No matter. I’ll get the cash to you wherever you land.”
“Can you get it to Rio, ah, undisturbed?”
“I can. Just give me an address.”
Calhoun gave him the address of his apartment. “Don’t leave it at the desk—come upstairs. I’ll tell them to expect you.”
“Fine.”
“What name will you use?”
“Mr. Jones.”
“Call me from the Rio airport.”
“Right.”
“When will you arrive?”
“In a day or two. I have arrangements to make.”
“I’ll expect you. Don’t disappoint me.”
“I try never to disappoint.”
“Except this time.”
“Except this time.” Al hung up, stinging with embarrassment. He had never had to apologize to a client.
—
Calhoun hung up.
“What was that about?” Cheree asked.
“Nothing much—just a delivery of more cash to the Rio apartment.”
The aircraft taxied onto the runway, and they were pressed into their seats by the acceleration on takeoff.
“There,” Calhoun said when the landing gear came up. “We’re off.” He raised his glass of champagne. “Better times,” he toasted.
“God, I’ll drink to that,” Cheree said.
—
Al began making phone calls: flight, transportation, tools.
57
At Windward Hall, a wrap party for the film was held, as other guests began arriving for a double wedding. Peter and Hattie would take their vows, standing next to Ben and Tessa, his English girlfriend.
The redecoration of Curtis House had been completed by Susan’s crews, working two shifts a day, and staff had been hired or imported from other Arrington hotels to man the place. It would be a good trial run for the new country house hotel.
Windward Hall rooms were occupied by members of the wedding party, and they filled out the cast and crew of the film for the wrap festivities.
—
Al got off an airplane in Rio after a night flight, and a car awaited him at the curb, driven by a man who handed him a briefcase. Al gave him the address of the apartment house, then opened the briefcase and examined its contents. The drive took a little less than an hour. On the way, Al phoned Calhoun.
“Yes?”
“It’s Al. I’ll be there shortly. Please let the reception people know.”
“I’ll look forward to seeing you. Did you bring me something?”
“Everything,” Al said. He hung up and took a plastic envelope from his bag, containing a thick mustache, a bottle of glue, and a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses with Al’s prescription. He applied the mustache, put on the glasses, and examined the result in the rear-seat vanity mirror. Better than good enough, he thought.
—
Peter stood on a chair and made a slightly tipsy speech to his people, and champagne glasses were raised by all.
—
The car pulled up half a block short of Calhoun’s building; Al got out and strode into the lobby carrying the briefcase. “Dr. Calhoun is expecting me,” he said to the man at the desk without slowing down. No one stopped him as he got onto the elevator and pressed the button for the penthouse.
Al got off the elevator to find Calhoun and his wife waiting for him in the foyer, next to a table holding a large flower arrangement. He hadn’t counted on the wife, but what the hell?
“Al,” Calhoun said, spreading his hands in welcome. “What have you brought me? And hey, I like the mustache.”
Al shook the man’s hand, then set the briefcase on the table and opened it. He took out the silenced pistol and, in one motion, pointed it at Calhoun’s forehead and squeezed off a round. The wife was too shocked to move, and before she could speak, Al shot her in the same manner. He put the pistol back into the briefcase and turned to walk out. On second thought, he set the case back on the table and removed the pistol. Calhoun had not come here empty-handed, he figured. He walked quickly from room to room. No servants, that was good. And then, in the master bedroom, he found the rolling suitcase. He set it on the bed and unzipped it, then fell back as if struck. He had never seen so much cash in one place.
Al didn’t bother to count it. He zipped it shut, then returned to the foyer, put the gun back into the case, and pressed the button for the elevator. It had not moved, so he stepped aboard and pressed the button for the lobby. The elevator fell as if the cable had broken, then, seconds later, opened into the lobby. Al strode across the space, looking neither to his left nor to his right, and left the building, carrying the briefcase and towing the suitcase. The car was still where he had left it no more than ten minutes before, and he got into the rear seat and set his luggage beside him. “Back to the airport. Departure terminal,” he said to the driver while checking his watch. Two hours before his return flight.
Al opened the briefcase and wiped down every part of the pistol and the case, then he partly unzipped the suitcase and removed two small stacks of the hundred-dollar bills inside. As they rolled to a stop at the airport Al handed the driver a stack of bills. “For your trouble,” he said, then he got out, leaving the briefcase on the backseat, and, declining a porter’s help, he strode into the airport. As he waited in line at security he checked out the help there and picked his man. Late fifties, portly, tired-looking.
When his turn came he approached the man and showed him the stack of bills in his palm. “No X-ray, okay?” He slipped the stack into the man’s hands.
“Arms out,” the man
said. He thumbed off the switch on the wand he held and made a show of moving around Al’s body with the disabled wand. “Go ahead,” the man said, winking.
Al didn’t think the money would violate any laws, but he was glad he hadn’t taken the chance. He pocketed the mustache, cleared immigration, walked to the first-class lounge, took a seat, and ordered a big breakfast. When his flight was called he was among the first aboard and quickly stowed his carry-on in the compartment across the aisle, where he could see it. He accepted a mimosa and settled in for the flight.
—
As Al’s airplane took off a maid entered the Calhoun penthouse with her passkey, saw the two corpses on the floor in a large pool of mingled blood, and fainted. Her colleague found her a moment later and called the front desk, her hand trembling as she dialed the number.
—
Stone got to bed late, a little drunk, and felt the spot next to him for Susan. She wasn’t there.
58
Stone was awakened by the telephone at midmorning. He fumbled for it. “Yes?”
“Stone, it’s Lady Bourne. I thought you should know that Sir Charles appears to be slipping away. His doctor doesn’t believe he’ll last out the day.”
“Thank you for telling me,” Stone said. “I know this has been a difficult period for you, and I hope the future will be better. Would it be all right if I visited him?”
“I’m afraid he is unconscious—has been since the day before yesterday, so it wouldn’t do either of you any good.”
“I wish there were something I could do. Will you let me know if you think of anything?”
“I will, thank you.” She hung up.
Stone went into his bathroom, shaved, showered, and began to dress. He took a shirt from the cabinet where they were stacked, shook it out, and got into it. Something was wrong. It was a familiar shirt; he had had several of the same pattern made at Turnbull & Asser over the years, but this one didn’t fit. The sleeves were too long, and it was tight around the middle. He took it off and inspected it. At the bottom of the shirt he found a label with a name on it, but it wasn’t his. Sir Charles Bourne. The laundress must have mixed it in with his shirts, which wasn’t surprising, since they both had the same maker’s label.
He was about to refold it and return it to the laundress when he saw something that stopped him. The three buttonholes on the cuff were encrusted with what appeared to be dried blood, and there was a noticeable stain on the cuff itself. It was the sort of thing that would have stopped him in his tracks when he had been a homicide detective. He immediately began to imagine how the stain had got there.
Putting a bloody shirt into a washing machine with hot water would set, not remove, the stain. Blood had to be rinsed away with cold water before washing it in hot. If a man, say a former Royal Marine commando, wanted to kill a man with a knife, he would do it the way he had been trained. Approaching from behind, a right-handed man would clap his left hand over the victim’s mouth, then, with his right hand, reach around and bring the knife blade across the throat, releasing a spurt of arterial blood that might well stain his left cuff. Stone was looking at the left cuff.
He went and sat on the bed and thought about this. What he had imagined was how the brigadier, a former Royal Marine commando, would have killed Sir Richard Curtis. But this shirt had not belonged to the brigadier, who was a smallish man; it had belonged to Charles Bourne, who was tall, and he had no doubt that DNA analysis would reveal the blood to be Sir Richard’s. He believed he had just solved a murder.
He found another shirt and got dressed, then he telephoned Deputy Chief Inspector Holmes and invited him to the house for morning coffee. “I have something to show you,” he said. Holmes accepted his invitation.
—
Stone had finished breakfast when Holmes arrived. The two men greeted each other cordially and sat down while coffee was brought.
“Thank you for coming, Inspector,” Stone said. “There’s something I have to show you.” He handed the inspector the shirt. “Please examine the left cuff and tell me what you see.”
Holmes looked at it. “I see a bloodstain that laundering did not wash away,” he said. “I suppose it was washed in hot water.”
“That is what I see, too, and I believe that analysis will prove it to be the blood of Sir Richard Curtis. Look at the small label at the bottom front of the shirt.”
Holmes did so. “You are telling me that Sir Richard Curtis was murdered by Sir Charles Bourne and not the brigadier?”
“That is correct.”
“The problem is, I have a written confession from the brigadier, expressing sorrow for what he had done.”
“I think his sorrow arose from guilt,” Stone said, “but not guilt over having murdered Sir Richard.”
“Then what?”
“I believed, and I think you did, too, that Sir Charles had thought for many years that Sir Richard had had a continuing affair with Lady Bourne, and had fathered both her children.”
“I think that is certainly a credible theory, based on the blood groups of the father and the two children.”
“But the brigadier also had the same blood type.”
“Yes, that is so. Are you saying that it was the brigadier who fathered the two children?”
“I believe that to be the case.”
“But Sir Charles believed Sir Richard to be the father.”
“Yes, and that belief finally got the better of Sir Charles, and after an argument of some sort, he killed Sir Richard.”
“And the brigadier’s confession?”
“He was expressing guilt over having been the cause of Sir Richard’s death. By not revealing to Sir Charles that he knew himself to be the father, he had allowed the killing to happen.” Stone was beginning to feel that he was living in an Agatha Christie novel.
Holmes thought about it. “I believe that is a perfect solution to what happened, and if it is, the blood on Sir Charles’s shirt should confirm it.”
“I believe it will.”
“And how did you come by the shirt?”
“Sir Charles and I have the same shirtmaker and the same laundress. I believe the laundress on the estate accidentally put his shirt in with mine and delivered them to me.”
“Well, then,” Holmes said, “I have a couple of jobs ahead of me: first, I must have the blood on the shirt analyzed, and if it proves your theory, I must then arrest Sir Charles on a charge of murder.”
“I’m afraid it’s a bit too late for that,” Stone said.
“How so?”
“Sir Charles lies, dying, a quarter of a mile from where we sit. His doctor believes he will not live out the day.”
Holmes allowed himself a chuckle. “Then what would be the point of charging him?”
“I can’t think of one. The brigadier is dead and has left no family, save his two natural children, who don’t know he is their biological father. And Sir Charles is departing this life as we speak.”
“Then you are suggesting that I—what’s the expression? Let sleeping dogs lie?”
“What would be the point of doing anything else?”
“Well,” Holmes said, rising, “I don’t believe that is properly my decision to make. I am bound to take this shirt and this theory to my chief inspector. We will see what he has to say.”
“Then do what you must,” Stone said. “However, I don’t think you are ethically bound to speak to him today. Perhaps tomorrow would do as well.”
“You have a point, Mr. Barrington,” Holmes said. “I’ll make an appointment to see him tomorrow. I’m sure he’s too busy to see me today.”
The two men shook hands, and the deputy chief inspector took his leave, the shirt tucked into his raincoat pocket.
59
Stone lingered over a second cup of coffee after the inspector’s departure, and he w
as shortly joined by Billy Barnett, who poured himself a cup and sat down.
“I have news,” Billy said, handing Stone a copy of the International New York Times, open to page seven.
Stone picked up the newspaper and read the headline:
TV EVANGELIST & WIFE DIE IN RIO SHOOTING
He read on:
Dr. Don Beverly Calhoun, a television evangelist, was found in his Rio de Janeiro penthouse apartment, along with his wife, Cheree, both shot to death. Police said he had been expecting a visitor, who went up to the apartment then left again minutes before a housemaid discovered the bodies. The man was described as heavyset, tall, and with a mustache and horn-rimmed glasses. He was not seen again after leaving the building, and a search is under way for him. The motive was thought to be robbery, but as yet nothing has been found missing from the apartment.
“Sounds like our visitor,” Stone said.
“Doesn’t it? Bar the mustache, of course.”
“Did you have any involvement in this, Billy?”
Billy did not answer the question directly. “My theory is that Dr. Don, on learning that Al Junior had failed in his mission, demanded his money back. Al probably believed that a better way to settle the debt was to eliminate the debt holder.”
Stone nodded. “Makes sense. I seem to remember that Dino told me that the police, when they searched Dr. Don’s New York apartment, found a large sum of cash in his safe.”
“I remember that, too—eight hundred thousand, wasn’t it?”
“I believe so.”
“The article mentions that nothing was found missing from the apartment, but it fails to mention anything being found, either.”
“Are the police looking for Al Junior?”
“I don’t see why they should. I haven’t heard anyone mention a connection between him and Dr. Don. Also, it’s well known that the United States and Brazil do not have an extradition treaty, and that works both ways.”
“Is Al Junior any kind of threat to us?”