The Happy Birthday Murder

by Lee Harris

  “Not out of the question,” I agreed. What things cost never fails to amaze me. “The observer decides he’d rather get Filmore to pay him to keep quiet than go to the police and report what he saw.”

  “So far, so good. And this observer, as you call him, may live in Connecticut. He may have been in the city for dinner and the theater as Filmore probably was. So he starts to hound Filmore for money.”

  “I’m not sure I agree with you,” Joseph said.

  Arnold bowed his head deferentially. “Please. I’d like to hear what you think.”

  “You and I seem to agree that Laura knew about the threats. But Chris is convinced, and I’m willing to go with her assessment, that Laura loved her husband.”

  “OK,” Arnold said. “Where does that lead us?”

  “To the question of why she didn’t tell the police her husband was in Connecticut. When he didn’t return on Sunday, she must have suspected that something terrible was happening. She called the police because she feared for his life. Why at that point would she refuse to tell the police where he’d gone?”

  “Because she didn’t know.”

  “That’s my point. The person who witnessed the incident we’ve dreamed up didn’t live in Connecticut.”

  “Then we’re in big trouble,” Arnold said. “If he didn’t live in Connecticut, he could be anywhere in the world. We have nothing to go on.”

  “But he was living there at the time of the birthday party,” Joseph said. “He wasn’t a Connecticut home owner; he was a visitor, a…” She tried to find the right word.

  “A caretaker,” I said. “Someone who lived in a cottage behind a house.”

  “Exactly. We don’t know when he started delivering threats to Larry Filmore. His wife probably does and she isn’t talking. But if the incident happened some time before Filmore’s birthday—months or even years before—the observer may have lived in New York or wherever the incident happened. Or he may have been a visitor. But at the time of the great birthday party, he was in Connecticut, a place he may never have been before when he contacted Filmore in the past.”

  “I see why you turn to Sister Joseph,” Arnold said. “What you’re telling us is that maybe twenty years ago Filmore had an incident. After he was contacted by the observer, he may have sent money to a box number somewhere.”

  “Yes, to a place that had nothing to do with where the Filmores live or where the incident happened.”

  “But the observer always knows where Filmore lives. And when Darby Maxwell gets lost in the Connecticut woods, the observer is living there. Maybe he’s somebody’s caretaker; maybe he’s renting a cottage for a while. Or maybe he’s a house sitter. They do that, you know. People want to make sure the heat goes on and the house looks lived in. They might not even be charging rent for the place.”

  “There is one family that was away when Darby was lost,” I said. “I remember them. Betty and I talked to them the first day.”

  “Then that’s a possibility,” Joseph said. “You should certainly go back and talk to them again.”

  “They didn’t mention a house sitter.” I wrote myself a reminder anyway. Somehow, I didn’t think of the Gallaghers as people who would get a house sitter, but I hardly knew them. It was worth a try. “But why didn’t Larry tell his wife where he was going?”

  “He didn’t want to upset her,” Arnold said. “It was the middle of the night. They’d had a big party. He thought he’d go up there, do his business, and get back in a few hours. He didn’t expect to be held hostage.”

  “There could be another reason,” Joseph said. We looked at her. “Maybe Mr. Filmore wasn’t the one who had the incident.”

  “What makes you say that?” I asked.

  “I’m thinking of the relationship between the husband and wife. If he had the incident, especially if she was present when it happened, he might just have brushed it off casually so that she wouldn’t worry. If the observer called with a demand, he might say, ‘I’ll take care of it; don’t give it a thought.’ But suppose one of their children was involved in an incident.”

  “They’re kind of young for that; at least, they were twelve years ago,” I said. “They were probably teenagers.”

  Arnold laughed. “You think teenagers don’t get in trouble?”

  “OK. I’ll follow up on it.”

  “Or,” Joseph went on, “Mrs. Filmore could have been involved in an incident herself.”

  “I suppose so.” I could hear the skepticism in my voice.

  “And in those cases, she might well want to know exactly what was going on and he might try his best to protect her from the truth.”

  I tried to think how Jack and I would handle such a thing, but there was no comparison. Jack would go to the police, no matter how difficult it was. And so would I, or so I wanted to believe. Eddie is much too young for the kind of mischief we were talking about. “So he told her it was trouble at the plant so she wouldn’t know the blackmailer of her child or herself was back.”

  “I think that’s reasonable.”

  “Have you both given up the idea that the husband is the one who had the incident?” Arnold asked.

  Joseph laughed. “I haven’t given up any ideas; I just think we have to consider all possible alternatives.”

  “Mrs. Filmore isn’t likely to have killed someone in the street after he attacked her.”

  “No, but there are other ways of killing someone.”

  “True.”

  “I don’t look forward to this conversation,” I said. “But I will do it. And I’ll check on the Gallaghers in Connecticut.”

  “I think we should all have dessert,” Arnold said. “We’ve used up a lot of energy in the last hour, and some sweets might replace some of that.”

  So we looked at the dessert menu and selected wonderful-sounding treats. I knew I wouldn’t eat anything else till tomorrow morning, so why not enjoy this meal even more?

  “How was the tuna?” Arnold asked.

  “Much better than in a can.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “I’ll have to dash as soon as I’ve had dessert,” Joseph said. “I’m afraid I’ll be a little late as it is.”

  “I’ll get you there in a taxi,” Arnold said gallantly.

  “Oh, Arnold, that’s really unnecessary. And a walk will do me good.”

  Arnold waved away her offer. Then he said, “This is a very interesting case, especially considering it started with a mix-up of sneakers. You know, Chrissie, we may all be wrong about all of this.”

  “I know, but when explanations sound possible and reasonable I think they’re worth following up.”

  We dropped the case and talked about ourselves as we ate sweets and drank coffee. I noticed that Arnold was dressed much more elegantly than usual. When he’s not in court, he tends toward the open shirt, the knot of the tie pulled down, sleeves rolled if he’s sitting at his desk. Today he looked like a lawyer, his lanky frame in a dark suit, crisp white shirt, and dark tie with a subtle pattern. Even his hair looked tamed. Joseph, of course, wore the brown habit of Franciscan nuns, her skirt about midcalf, her shoes sensible, her bag black, large and old enough to show wear. As I looked at it, I knew what I would give her for Christmas, and I was happy to have thought of something she would use daily.

  As Joseph asked for the bill, the waiter told her “the gentleman” had taken care of it. That was why he was the first one there. We left in something of a hurry, Joseph concerned that she would be missed at the afternoon meeting. A taxi came by almost immediately, its light on, and Arnold flagged it down. I wished them both a quick good-bye and went to ransom my car.

  18

  As I walked to my garage, I looked at the street I was on, the doorways, the signs prohibiting parking till seven at night, the garbage bags in large bunches near the curb awaiting pickup. Arnold’s scenario of the Incident—I thought of it with a capital I—was very plausible. Once you got out of the theater district or stayed off th
e north–south avenues, the streets, which went east and west, might well be dark and empty, especially as you left the center of the city. I remembered a time when Jack and I had gone into New York and found a parking place on the street, thrilled that we would save a small fortune, and an unsavory-looking man had bothered us as we walked back to our car. If it had happened to us, it could have happened to anyone. Jack told him to get on his way and he did, but the memory, the chill of fear, had remained with me for a long time.

  I went down into my garage, feeling safe, paid for my car, and drove home.

  —

  “Laura, I think we have to talk.” I had picked up Eddie and gone home, and now I was talking to Laura Filmore on the phone.

  “Sure. Would you like to come over?”

  I looked at my watch. I had some leftovers I would reheat for Jack and Eddie, and that wouldn’t take long. “May I bring my son?”

  “Of course. I’m just reading the paper, so you won’t be interrupting.”

  I drove over, left my car in the driveway, and took Eddie to the front door. Laura answered my ring and welcomed Eddie.

  “We came to this house before,” he said, looking around.

  Laura laughed. “Yes, you did, Eddie. You can play in the playroom again. There are lots of toys there.”

  “Our house has lots of toys, too. But your house is bigger.”

  “Do you like big houses?”

  Eddie nodded several times. “I like this house.”

  Coffee was dripping in the kitchen, and Laura took a tray to the room we had sat in before. Eddie found things to play with in the adjoining room, and Laura and I sat and sipped. I turned down cake because I couldn’t even think about eating anything else, but my dependable son was happy to eat my share as well as his.

  “Laura, I’ve just spent an hour or so with two friends of mine and we talked about this case.”

  “Were they helpful?”

  “They dreamed up some possible explanations for why your husband took off that night. What’s interesting is that my friends felt sure you knew your husband was paying someone off and why he was doing that.”

  “Why would they think that?” she asked.

  “It seemed to fit the facts. Did you know where your husband went the night of the party?”

  “Chris, if I had known, I would have told the police. The last thing I wanted was for Larry to end up dead. He told me he was going to the plant. It wasn’t the first time he’d been woken up by a problem there.”

  “Did you and Larry drive into New York a lot?”

  “Fairly frequently. We went to the theater; we went to Lincoln Center. We had friends there who invited us for the evening.”

  “Did you drive in on those occasions?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where did you park?”

  “In whatever garage was nearby.”

  “Did you ever park on the street?”

  “Never. Larry drove an expensive car. He was afraid it would be damaged or stolen. New York streets aren’t that safe for big, expensive cars. We always went to a garage.”

  But even if you parked in a garage, I thought, you had to walk to it. Someone might have approached them as they neared their garage, and the observer could have waited till they drove out of the garage to see the license plate. But I didn’t want to ask her point-blank about the Incident.

  “Why are you asking these questions?” she asked when I didn’t say anything.

  “Just an idea I had. I believe you didn’t know where your husband went when he got up in the middle of the night. But I think you know what I’m trying to find out.”

  “I don’t. I don’t think anyone was blackmailing him. I don’t know any reason why anyone would. He lived a clean, pure life.”

  “Someone called him at the party. Someone called him in the middle of the night after his birthday.”

  “I don’t know who it was. I don’t know where the call came from.”

  “You know what it was about,” I said, looking her straight in the eye.

  “I think maybe this has gone too far. You haven’t learned anything useful and you’re making things up. I think it’s gotten to you, Chris. You should forget it. I want so much to know why my husband died and whether someone was involved in his suicide, but I don’t want to make myself crazy.”

  “Laura, whatever it was, your husband is beyond being embarrassed by it.”

  “There was nothing to embarrass him, Chris, nothing. You’ve gotten a bug in your head; you’re telling people a fictional story that’s one-sided…. Larry didn’t do anything. I’m telling you the truth.” She was agitated now and looked distressed.

  I knew I had handled this badly, but I didn’t know how else to do it. Should I have tried to contact all the surviving people who had been at the birthday party and question them? What could I have done differently? If this woman was the only living person—besides the blackmailer or observer that we had hypothesized—all she had to do was keep quiet and no one would ever know the truth. There was certainly a great advantage in not confiding a secret to anyone.

  “Was it you then?” I asked.

  “Was what me?”

  “The person who was being blackmailed?”

  “No one in my family was being blackmailed.”

  “Then why did your husband get a call—two calls—the night of the party? And why did he drive to Connecticut?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” There was a sound of desperation in her voice. Then she said, “This has to end. Please, let this be. Whatever happened that night, whatever happened those days after the party, we’re never going to find out, and I don’t think I can take this anymore.”

  “I’m sorry, Laura. I didn’t know when I started that this would happen. I don’t want to cause you such anguish. I may be wrong about the blackmail, but you and I both know that something happened twelve years ago or more and your husband left the house to try to cope with it. Think about it, OK? Two lives were lost and I’m sure the same person is responsible, directly or indirectly, for what happened.”

  I got up and flipped my notebook closed. “Come on, Eddie. We have to get home.”

  “I don’t wanna go. I wanna stay here.”

  “We can’t stay here. Daddy’s coming home soon and I’ve got to get dinner ready.”

  “Please?”

  “You can come another time, Eddie,” Laura said with a smile, as though none of the words between us had been uttered.

  “OK. I’m coming tomorrow.”

  Laura picked up the tray and I took Eddie’s glass and we walked back to the kitchen. On the counter were several bright orange fruits that I had seen before but had never tasted. “What are those?” I asked.

  “Persimmons. Haven’t you ever eaten one?”

  “No. What are they like?”

  Laura laughed. “Like heaven on earth. Here, take one.” She gave me a large one, stem side down, pointed end up. “Put it on your counter for a another few days. It needs to be just a little riper. I look forward to fall because I love them so much. We used to pick them off the tree when I was a kid.”

  “Thank you very much. How do you eat them?”

  “I’m ashamed to say it, but I just pull a little skin off the pointed end here and go to it. It’s best if you’re leaning over the sink. If you’re too polite to do it that way, you can peel it back and use a small spoon. Here. Let me give you a plastic bag.”

  “This is fine. Thank you. I’ll let you know how I like it.”

  Eddie carried it like a prize as we drove home, and I put it on the counter as Laura had suggested. I looked forward to enjoying my treat at the end of the week.

  —

  I took myself back to Connecticut the next day. Jack and I had talked at length Monday night, about both of my conversations. I told him I had reached a dead end with Laura. Whoever she was protecting—her husband, herself, her children—unless I came up with something new and convincing, she was unlik
ely to give an inch. But what could I come up with?

  I pulled into the Gallaghers’ driveway and went up to the front door.

  Mrs. Gallagher answered the bell and invited me in. “Hi. I remember you. It’s about the boy who was lost in the woods.”

  “Right. And you were away when it happened.”

  “Definitely. Come into the kitchen. We can sit. My huband’s in his office, pretending to work.”

  I looked at her questioningly.

  “I’m just kidding. He’s at a hard place and he’s trying to get some results on that computer of his. I just tease him a little.”

  We sat down at her kitchen table. Outside the window I could see the backyard and the woods, the trees all bare. It was very pretty and I could imagine how much more beautiful it would be in the spring and summer.

  “Mrs. Gallagher, when you and your husband go away, do you ever get anyone to stay in your house?”

  “While we’re gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. We just lock up and go. We have lights on timers, but the truth is, I don’t think anyone drives down this road looking to break in. We’ve lived here a long time and it’s very safe.”

  “You’ve never had a house sitter?”

  “Uh-uh. Why do you ask?”

  “Somebody around here must have taken Darby Maxwell in. I thought if you had someone living here while you were gone—”

  “Oh, I see. No. Like I said, we lock up tight and we go. I don’t even keep plants in the house because we travel a few times a year and I don’t want to have to ask anyone to water them. My plants are all outside.” She waved toward the window. “Nature takes care of them for me.”

  Her husband walked into the kitchen just then. “Miss Bennett,” he said. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Gallagher. I was just asking your wife a couple of questions.”

  “Anything I can help with?”

  “She wanted to know if we left someone in the house when we went on vacation,” his wife said.

  “Nah,” he said. “We put the heat down to fifty-five so the pipes don’t freeze and we take off. We’ve never had any trouble. Michelle next-door keeps her eye open. If she sees any funny stuff, she calls the police.”