The Happy Birthday Murder

by Lee Harris

  “He said the woman in the other car was at fault,” she said plaintively.

  “She may have been.”

  “I hope so. He’s got enough on his plate as it is.”

  22

  “Well, you’ve tied him to the right place in Connecticut at the right time,” Jack said after I got back and told him about my conversation with Frannie Gallagher, including the fact that Paul Norman claimed to have evidence in the accident.

  “What about you? Make any progress?”

  “I got a callback from Paul Norman’s lawyer. He doesn’t know anything about an accident or evidence, but he’ll talk to Norman as soon as he can and get back to me.”

  “You probably won’t hear till Monday. I’m surprised you even got him on a weekend.”

  “He sounds like a go-getter, young, activist. He may try to talk to Norman today.”

  “How did you put it to the lawyer?”

  “I said we were looking for the driver of the second vehicle in an accident that happened twelve or more years ago that Norman was involved in. I didn’t say a word about Darby Maxwell or Larry Filmore or blackmail or suicide. I gave him a bunch of bullshit, if you want to know the truth, about looking over cold cases and wanting to tie this one up. I had to be careful because I don’t know the year or what happened to the passenger who was hurt. I just suggested there could be a recommendation for leniency if we could find the driver of the other car.”

  “Let’s hope we hear.”

  We didn’t hear that day. On Sunday, we picked up Gene and took him to mass and then we all went out for dinner. When we brought Gene back to Greenwillow, Virginia McAlpine was there and she asked me what had happened to my inquiry about Darby Maxwell.

  “It was quite some time ago that we spoke,” she said. “Has anything happened?”

  “A lot has happened,” I told her. I said I had visited Betty Linton and was still looking into Darby’s death.

  “I’ll be interested to hear what you find. I remember how well you did back when the Talley twins were here.”

  I was struck by how much had happened in the years since that first investigation of mine into a murder that had happened on Good Friday in 1950. I had met Jack and married him; we had had a child who was now almost four. And I had worked on a number of homicides that the professionals had either given up on or failed at. My life was very different from that of the young woman who had been released from her vows only a couple of weeks before learning of the Talley murder.

  Shortly after we got home, I got a call from Frannie Gallagher.

  “Chris,” she said, “my cousin Paul called a little while ago. His lawyer came to see him about that accident we talked about.”

  “Has your cousin decided to cooperate?”

  “Yes. But he wants me to fly down and be with him when he talks to the authorities.”

  “That’s probably a good idea. You’re very close to him and you really care about him.”

  “And I want him to get everything off his chest and see if he can make a clean start.”

  I wasn’t sure there would be a clean start for Paul Norman now or ever, but I didn’t say that. “When are you going?”

  “I want to go tomorrow. Will you come with me?”

  “Oh, my. I don’t know.” All I could think of was that it would be a burden on Jack and I would have to get Elsie to take care of Eddie while I was away.

  “Please,” Frannie said. “I don’t like the idea of going to a prison. I’m really very nervous about the whole thing.”

  “I’ll call you back,” I said.

  “What’s up?” Jack asked.

  I told him. He took out his little book and checked the week ahead. I had done this once before when Eddie was younger and I had to go to Ohio to clear Sister Joseph of a ridiculous charge that could have ruined her life.

  “Give it a try,” Jack said. “I’m clear this week.”

  So that’s how I happened to go to Florida for the first time in my life. Frannie thanked me profusely and Elsie said it was no trouble at all, just be home in time for the birthday party, which I fully intended.

  The next morning, I met Frannie at LaGuardia Airport and we boarded a plane for West Palm Beach.

  —

  Frannie and I shared a room in a Holiday Inn, eating a good dinner when we got there. Jack had heard back from Paul’s lawyer, Jim Peabody, that his client was ready to talk about the automobile accident. When we got to the hotel, I called the lawyer and arranged for a meeting at nine the next morning.

  The lawyer picked us up after breakfast and drove us to Pompano Beach, where the prison was. Frannie was a nervous wreck, clutching my hand as we went inside past security. Jim Peabody was a skinny young man who said he had recently begun to represent Paul Norman, the last of a long line of attorneys who had apparently failed to get his sentence reduced. I hoped young Mr. Peabody had some better-paying clients than this one, or at least clients with better cases.

  He seemed familiar with the prison, which indicated to me that he may not have had the kind of clients I thought he needed. He led us to the room where Paul Norman was waiting.

  “May I see him first?” Frannie said. “Alone? Just to tell him I’m with him all the way?”

  “Go on,” I said. “I’ll wait out here.”

  She was inside about five minutes when I was summoned. Frannie’s eyes were red and teary. Across from her at the table was a man of forty or so, dark hair thinning, clean-shaven, dark eyes looking at me intensely as I came in and took a seat beside his cousin.

  “I’m Chris Bennett,” I said. I didn’t offer my hand.

  There were two other people in the room besides the four of us. I assumed at least one of them represented the Florida judicial system. Frannie introduced me to Paul Norman. He said, “Hi,” and I nodded, trying to smile.

  “Frannie told you about the accident,” he said.

  “Yes, she did.”

  “I know who did it.”

  “Did you ever report it to the police?” I asked.

  “I had a friend in the car and he was in bad shape. I had to get him to a hospital. He died there a couple of hours later. A cop came by and I told him what I knew.”

  This was not a man who told the truth, I thought, unless it was in his best interests. “What can you tell us about the other person involved?”

  “She was a good-looking woman, blond, in her forties maybe, diamond ring on her left hand. She hit my car and she ran like hell.”

  “Did she get out of the car and talk to you?”

  “She got out, she saw Barney in the front seat, and she kinda froze. She went back to her car and drove away.”

  “Is that it?”

  “No, that’s not it,” he said irritably. “She threw something out of the car with her fingerprints all over it.”

  “What was it?”

  “I got it put away. My girlfriend’s coming over in a little while. She’s got it with her.”

  “We’ll have the prints read and classified,” Jim Peabody said. “We’ll see if we can put a name to them.”

  “How’re you gonna do that? If she’s a housewife somewhere, you won’t have her prints on record.”

  “We have an idea who she is,” I said, noting he had been careful not to give up the name himself, saving that piece of information in case we didn’t have it ourselves. I didn’t want to ask anything that would make Paul Norman admit to blackmailing the Filmores.

  “You know this woman?” Paul asked.

  “I’m not sure. But I’ll do whatever I can to identify her.”

  His eyes became slits as he looked across the table at me. I wouldn’t want to run into this man in the proverbial dark alley.

  “Who is she?” Frannie asked.

  “We’ll find out,” I said. “When is your friend coming with the evidence?”

  “She should be here now.”

  “I’ll go get her,” the lawyer said.

  I got up and went wi
th him, leaving Frannie to say a tearful good-bye to her cousin. We retraced our steps through a long hall to the place where we had passed security. A woman was waiting on the other side of the locked gate. She was blond and a little older than I, wearing a raincoat and carrying a large handbag.

  “Ms. Wilson?” Jim Peabody said.

  She looked at us. “Mr. Peabody?”

  “Glad to meet you, ma’am.” He offered his hand. “This is Ms. Bennett. She’s just been talking to Paul. You have something for us?”

  She opened the bag and took out a cigar box with a couple of rubber bands around it. “This is it.”

  Peabody took it and opened the box, putting the rubber bands around his thin wrist.

  “Be careful,” the Wilson woman said. “It’s old and fragile.”

  Inside on a nest of cotton was a small plastic bag with a half-smoked cigarette inside.

  “A cigarette?” I said in surprise. “What kind of evidence is that?”

  “It’s marijuana,” the woman said, looking at me as though I was completely out of it, which I was. “She was smoking grass while she was driving. She was high. Paul said she swerved into his lane and smacked his car. It was all he could do to keep from going into the other lane and hitting another car. That would’ve killed him, too.”

  So that was Laura’s secret. She had been smoking marijuana. No wonder she was afraid of being caught, especially if Paul Norman was sober. Jim Peabody closed the box carefully without disturbing its contents.

  “We’ll turn this over to the police and give you a receipt for it,” he said. “Thank you very much for giving it to us.”

  “Will it get Paul out of jail?”

  “I hope so. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll do my best.” He seemed pleased, as though he had finally achieved a long-sought goal.

  “Can I see Paul?” Miss Wilson asked.

  “I don’t think so. It’s not visiting hours. We had to set this meeting up special.”

  “I guess I’ll go then.” She buttoned her raincoat and hefted the black bag over her shoulder.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  She gave me a little smile and left us.

  “What happens now?” I asked.

  “I turn this over to the police. They’ll take it from there. You said inside you might be able to help identify this woman in the other car.”

  “I think I know her. I have something with her fingerprints on it. My husband is a detective sergeant in NYPD and—”

  “I talked to him. I know.”

  “I’ll give him what I have.”

  “Then we should be able to make a match pretty quick—if there’s a match to be made.”

  “Then Mrs. Gallagher and I can go home now?”

  “Sure thing. I’ll get you to the airport.”

  “That would be great.”

  Peabody gave the cigar box to one of the men who had sat in on my interview. Frannie came out a minute later, and the three of us went out to Peabody’s car. We had already put our luggage, such as it was, in his trunk so we wouldn’t have to go back to the hotel.

  After lunch, we flew home.

  —

  “It worked out fine,” I told Jack that evening. He had picked up Eddie at Elsie’s and we had gone out for dinner in the middle of the week, a rare occurrence. “I don’t think Paul Norman has any idea that I knew about the car accident before I met his cousin Frannie. It was very convenient that she told me about it. I never mentioned the Filmores and she’s probably forgotten their names; at least, she didn’t bring it up.”

  “Very good. I know it bothers you that he’s digging himself in deeper, but it doesn’t bother me. He’s a killer and this may help us get him.”

  I told him with some embarrassment about my reaction when I saw my first marijuana cigarette. He gave me a smile and a kiss.

  “Guess we won’t assign you to narcotics.”

  “That’s a relief. But this is a terrible thing that Laura was involved in, if it turns out her prints are on that cigarette.”

  “I know she’s a fine woman, Chris, and I’m willing to bet she never smoked and drove again, but a man died and she should have owned up to it.”

  “She’s paid such a heavy price,” I said.

  “We’ll have to get her prints. It may take a court order.”

  “I have something with her prints on it,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll need her later, but this will give you an idea if there’s a match.” I got up and went to the kitchen where I had left the envelope of snapshots from the birthday party. “She went through the whole pack,” I said, handing the envelope to Jack. “And she spent a lot of time looking at the picture of Larry being told he had a phone call. There should be thumbprints on the front and other prints on the back.”

  “That’s terrific,” he said. “I guess yours are on the pictures, too.”

  “Yes, but not on anything you smoke.”

  “Let’s keep it that way.” He put the pictures in his briefcase and we talked about other things.

  —

  When I got home from teaching the next day, Jack called to say they had lifted some beautiful prints off the snapshots. The best came from the picture I had mentioned. Laura had looked at that one long and hard, realizing so many years later that a problem had arisen during the party and her husband had kept quiet about it.

  I took Eddie shopping for some winter shirts in the afternoon. In the morning he had gone to nursery school and I had had my class and we hadn’t seen much of each other for the last two days, so we had a good time. Eddie got three shirts, each in a different color, and he carried the bag to the car. Tomorrow was his birthday, and he decided to wear the navy blue shirt for the party.

  When Jack came home, he said he had sent off the prints from the photographs and might have a match—or proof that there was no match—by tomorrow, if we were lucky. I wasn’t particularly anxious to find out the results. Laura wasn’t going anywhere and I had a birthday party to fill my day.

  23

  On Thursday morning Jack gave Eddie a “teaser” present, as he called it, a softball and a bat. The rest would come later, when Jack came home. Eddie was very excited and wanted to go right outside and start playing, but we explained that Daddy really had to go to work.

  “I hope you’ll save me a piece of birthday cake,” Jack said, putting his coat on.

  “A great big piece,” Eddie promised. “This big.” He held his hands about a foot and a half apart.

  “That should do it. See you later.” Jack kissed us both and dashed out the door. He was coming home for the party, taking a few hours of what the Department calls “lost time.”

  When everything was cleaned up, Eddie and I got the dining room table, which we rarely used, ready for the party. We spread out the festive paper tablecloth, put matching napkins and plastic forks and knives at each place, then found the cups and set them out, too.

  “I’m sitting here,” Eddie said, walking to the head of the table.

  “That’s the right place,” I agreed. “That’s called the head of the table, and that’s where the birthday boy sits.”

  “Are you sitting at the table, too?”

  “No, I think I’ll sit with the mothers, if any of them stay. I ordered enough pizza for lots of people.”

  “Don’t throw it away.”

  “I won’t. I’ll freeze it if it’s left over and we can have it again.”

  “When are they coming?”

  I laughed. “Not for a long time, honey. It’s still morning. They’re coming at four. We’ll go out around three and pick up the pizzas.”

  “What time is it now?”

  I checked my watch. “It’s ten o’clock. They won’t be here for six hours.”

  He seemed surprised that he had so long to wait, but there wasn’t much to be done about it. I blew up a bunch of balloons and then I called Elsie to check on the progress of the birthday cake.

  “It’s all baked,” she assured me
. “I’m going to assemble it soon and decorate it. Tell Eddie it tastes wonderful.”

  I did as I was told, assuring him that Elsie would bring it over at the right time. We went out and bought candles, which I had forgotten, and then it was time for lunch.

  In the afternoon we picked up the pizzas. I got strict instructions on how to reheat them, as it was still a while till the guests were expected.

  When we got home, Eddie said he would put on his new navy blue shirt. I asked if he could do it himself, and he said he could.

  While he was upstairs, I got out the paper plates and extra napkins. I had gallons of milk and soda in the refrigerator, although I was pretty sure it was the soda everyone would want. While I was getting things done, Elsie arrived with the most beautiful cake in the world.

  “Elsie, how did you do it?” I enthused. “The roses are so perfect. And there’s enough butter cream there even for Jack.”

  “It’s a pleasure, Kix,” she said, using my childhood nickname. “It makes me feel like an artist. Go upstairs and get the birthday boy ready. I’ll put the candles in.”

  It was a quarter to four and time for him to be downstairs. I went up to see what was keeping him.

  “Did you get your shirt on?” I asked as I came into his room.

  “Look.”

  “That looks pretty good.” It was a turtleneck and I smoothed the folded-over fabric at the neck, realizing as I did so that he had put it on backward. I decided it didn’t make any difference, and he had obviously worked hard to get it on.

  “I like this shirt.”

  “So do I.” I tucked in the back where it was sticking out. That’s when I noticed his right hand was tightened in a fist. “What do you have there?” I asked, tapping his fist.

  “It’s mine,” he said. “You can’t have it.”

  “I’m just asking what it is.”

  “It’s mine. I got it from Ryan’s brother.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Ryan’s brother said it’s a secret. And it’s magic.”

  I could feel my heart start to quicken. “Did you get it at Ryan’s birthday party?”

  “Uh-huh.”