The Happy Birthday Murder
Page 22
One night there was this knock on the door. When I looked outside, a guy was standing there. I asked him what he wanted and he said he was lost. He came inside and I got the feeling he was a retard or something. He knew his mother’s phone number and asked if I’d call her and I probably would of, but there was no phone. I told him I’d have to go into town and find a phone, but it would have to wait till tomorrow.
I gave him one of those frozen dinners I’d picked up at the store and let him sleep in the little bedroom. His name was Darby, which I thought was a crazy name. I don’t remember if he gave me his last name.
Anyways, I was pretty short of cash around that time—I know you’ve heard that before, so don’t laugh—and I thought maybe I could get his mother to pay me a little something to give him back. So the next day I went into town and got a paper to see if there was a story about a missing person.
It was on the front page of the local newspaper, how he walked away from his mother and got lost in the woods. They even had a search party out looking for him. I decided to wait another day before I called. I didn’t want to sound anxious. I had locked the guy in the bedroom and told him not to make any noise.
So I went back to town the next day and sure enough, there were flyers on all the poles in town. So I called his mother and asked some questions and whether there was a reward. She kind of waffled, but the bottom line was no. I couldn’t believe it.
I was pissed, I can tell you. I had thought maybe ten thousand, but I would’ve taken a thou. I mean, this was her son, for God’s sake. So I called someone I knew who had some money.
You remember that car accident I was in when a friend of mine got hurt real bad? Well, the gal who hit my car was married to a guy with lots of money. You already know what she was smoking that night. So I called this guy and told him I needed to see him and I needed some money or someone would die. I also reminded him I had a little something on his wife that I could take to the police. He said he didn’t have time for me; I should call back the next day. I think he was at a party or something. He really ticked me off. And this Darby guy was a pain that night, crying and everything, and I called this woman’s husband again and put it to him that he better get his ass up here or the butt his wife was smoking the night of the accident would be in a police station and did he know what she would look like after a few years in Girls Town. And I said there would be a dead body in the morning besides. So he came.
The shit only had a couple hundred dollars on him and he didn’t want to deal unless I gave him the evidence and the retard was driving me crazy. Finally, the guy said he had money at home and we drove to this town in New York State. What a house. He must’ve been worth millions. He drove into his garage and gave me a song and dance about having a lot of money in some box in the garage. I knew he was lying. I knew the minute he got out of that car an alarm would go off and I’d be in jail. I was scared to death, Frannie. I didn’t know what to do and he was like trying to get my gun away from me. (I had this old gun.) So I had to, well, anyway, he got shot and I fixed it up to look like he shot himself. You know, like a suicide. Then I got the hell out of there.
I had a hell of a time getting back to Connecticut, I can tell you. I was lucky to catch a ride after I got off the train, but I had him drop me a mile from the house. I took Darby into the woods and pointed him in some direction and told him to keep walking and he’d find his mother. Then I went back and tried to clean up the guest house so you wouldn’t know I’d been there with two other people. The place was a mess and I had to get back to Florida and I took the easy way out. I took my stuff out and started a fire. When it was going good, I drove into town and called the fire number.
That’s the story, Frannie. I’m sorry about everything. I don’t know what happened to that Darby guy. Maybe he found another house; maybe he didn’t. I just knew I had to get out of there before he started talking to anyone.
Anyway, I owe you. I always have.
Paul
For my son, Josh, who loves the cake, if not the birthday.
The author thanks, as always,
Ana M. Soler
and James L. V. Wegman,
without whom there would be no series.
By Lee Harris
Published by Fawcett Books:
THE GOOD FRIDAY MURDER
THE YOM KIPPUR MURDER
THE CHRISTENING DAY MURDER
THE ST. PATRICK’S DAY MURDER
THE CHRISTMAS NIGHT MURDER
THE THANKSGIVING DAY MURDER
THE PASSOVER MURDER
THE VALENTINE’S DAY MURDER
THE NEW YEAR’S EVE MURDER
THE LABOR DAY MURDER
THE FATHER’S DAY MURDER
THE MOTHER’S DAY MURDER
THE APRIL FOOLS’ DAY MURDER
Even after leaving the cloistered world of St. Stephen’s Convent for suburban New York State, Christine Bennett still finds time to celebrate the holy days.
Unfortunately, in the secular world the holidays seem to end in murder—and it’s up to this ex-nun to discover who commits these unholy acts.
LEE HARRIS
The Christine Bennett Mysteries
THE GOOD FRIDAY MURDER
The First Christine Bennett Mystery
Ex-nun Christine Bennett has only just begun settling into her new life in suburban New York State when she finds herself volunteering to investigate a murder that happened on Good Friday—forty years ago.
THE YOM KIPPUR MURDER
When Christine Bennett discovers that her friend, a lonely widower living on Manhattan’s West Side, has been murdered, she is determined to solve the crime.
THE CHRISTENING DAY MURDER
Christine Bennett is looking forward to attending the christening of her friend’s baby—until the skeletal remains of the victim from a thirty-year-old murder are found in the church basement.
THE ST. PATRICK’S DAY MURDER
Police officer Scotty McVeigh is one of New York’s finest, until he is shot on St. Patrick’s Day. Speculating that his murder may be connected with the deaths of other off-duty cops, Christine Bennett begins to pursue a killer.
THE CHRISTMAS NIGHT MURDER
When a priest never arrives at his Christmas night party at St. Stephen’s Convent, the worried nuns invite Christine Bennett to investigate. But nothing turns up—until an old scandal involving the priest and a novice resurfaces.
THE THANKSGIVING DAY MURDER
Natalie Gordon vanished a year ago at the Thanksgiving Day Parade, and still the police have no leads. Christine Bennett feels compelled to investigate Natalie’s mysterious disappearance—and her equally mysterious past.
THE PASSOVER MURDER
For fifteen years, Iris Grodnick’s murder during Passover has remained a troubling mystery. Christine Bennett reluctantly consents to look into it for Iris’s family one last time—and soon suspects that some of the relatives are not telling her the whole truth.
THE VALENTINE’S DAY MURDER
Three friends disappear after a Valentine’s night walk across frozen Lake Erie—and later two are found dead, with the third suspected of the murders. Christine Bennett is offered the difficult task of finding the third friend and proving his innocence, but when she closes in on the truth, she finds herself skating on very thin ice.
THE NEW YEAR’S EVE MURDER
On December 30th, Susan Stark mysteriously disappears after being dropped off in front of her parents’ house. Christine Bennett, armed with only a few phone numbers and a photo, steps into the missing girl’s life—and meets a Susan with a secret life that may have lured her to a deadly end.
THE MOTHER’S DAY MURDER
When a young woman claims to be the natural daughter of Sister Joseph, beloved Superior at St. Stephen’s, Christine Bennett is appalled. But when the girl is murdered and Sister Joseph is the prime suspect, Chris frantically searches for evidence that can save Sister Joseph, her dearest friend, from a life behind bars.
THE FATHER’S DAY MURDER
At a Father’s Day reunion dinner of the Morris Avenue Boys, chums since childhood, one of the men stabs to death the group’s most celebrated member, novelist Arthur Wien. As Christine Bennett investigates, forty years’ worth of secrets emerge, revealing a web of lies, theft, adultery, and blackmail that rivals the darkest plot of the dead man’s novels.
THE PASSOVER MURDER
For his favorite charity, the high school drama club, Willard Platt fakes his own murder as an April fool stunt. But when the real thing happens later that same day, Christine Bennett investigates and finds that behind this suburban family’s respectable facade, violent passions are seething.
The Christine Bennett Mysteries
by Lee Harris
Published by Fawcett Books.
Available at bookstores everywhere.