“Weren’t you being a little too trusting in giving him a key, Ms. Blake?” I wanted to know.
“It didn’t occur to me that he would rip me off. This is Erin, not Beverly Hills, for crap’s sake!”
Point taken. But have you noticed the homicide rate in this burg?
Mac had a different question. “Have you filed a police report?”
“Not yet,” Charlie said.
Meredith shot him daggers. Studs should speak only when spoken to. “We’re still toting up his take. Once we have a list of everything that’s missing, we’ll take it to the authorities and our insurance company.” Oh, Oscar will love it. Call him first so he can put on his uniform hat.
“As I explained on the telephone, we are looking into Tim Crutcher’s shooting,” Mac said.
Meredith shrugged. “What’s to look into? The man was a thief and his wife took him out. Good for her. I wish she’d done it a little earlier.”
“She didn’t do it at all,” I said.
“So she says. I saw that on the news.”
Couldn’t you go outside and smoke? Oh, wait. This is your house.
“We happen to believe Mrs. Crutcher,” Mac said.
“How can we - ” Charlie looked at the heiress. “How can Meredith help you, Mr. McCabe?”
“By your own account, Miss Blake, Tim Crutcher spent a lot of time here over the past few months. You may have seen him more than anyone in that period. Did you ever get the impression that he had a paramour?”
“You mean a girlfriend? How would I know?” Her voice was scornful. “We didn’t exactly see each other socially.” She studied her burning cigarette. Lynda used to do that sometimes when she smoked. I buried the thought. “The only women I ever heard him mention were his wife and his attorney, Erica Slade.”
“Erica!” I blurted out.
“She represented him?” Mac asked more calmly.
“Yeah, he got pulled over for drunk driving three or four months ago. His driver’s license was suspended for a few weeks and his wife had to drop him off here every day.”
VIII
“We knew he drank,” I reminded Mac on the way to our respective homes.
He grunted. “The significance, if any, of Crutcher’s entanglement with the law may not be immediately apparent, but it would have been nice to know. I wish Ashley had thought to mention it.”
“You don’t think he was carrying on with Erica, do you?” I said with a chuckle.
“No, I do not. Still, stranger things have happened, and in similar circumstances. File that in the back of your mind as ‘unlikely, though not impossible.’ Perhaps the mystery woman, if there is one, will show up at the funeral tomorrow.”
“Not if she’s the killer,” I said. “Then she’ll stay as far away as she can get so that nobody connects her with Crutcher.”
“Possibly.” I was glad he didn’t say what I thought he was thinking: That the theoretical killer-girlfriend might show up if she was somebody who was known to know him, because it might be suspicious if she didn’t. That kind of double-bluff brainwork always gives me a headache, and we don’t seem to be able to avoid it every time we get involved in these homicidal high jinks. But Mac went on:
“At any rate, the funeral might also afford us an opportunity to talk with Ashley without Erica in attendance. There are several questions that I would like to ask her.”
That evening, before fixing myself another lonely dinner, I texted Lynda.
JEFF: You’ll never guess who I met!
LYNDA: Some femme fatale, no doubt.
JEFF: Who, me?
And so forth. Meredith Blake intrigued Lynda. I could tell by the questions she texted.
The next day, Thursday, we caught up with Ashley at Holder & Hawes Funeral Home during the sparsely attended visitation before the funeral. It’s true what they say about black clothing - it has a slimming effect. At least it did on Ashley. By no means a merry widow, her mood seemed somber though she shed no crocodile tears.
“May we have a few minutes in private?” Mac asked.
She looked around at the thirty or so friends and relatives talking to each other in clumps, a few of them standing in front of the closed casket. The nature of Crutcher’s wound had made an open viewing inadvisable.
“Sure. Let’s go in here.”
We ducked into an empty side room dominated by an aquarium full of fish.
“So, did you find out anything?” Ashley asked before Mac could get started.
“Several interesting lines of inquiry have opened up,” Mac said, not exactly answering the question. “Your husband’s former employer, Meredith Blake, has accused him of stealing several valuable items of jewelry.”
Ashley stared. “You’ve got to be kidding. No, of course you’re not.”
“He didn’t give you something shiny as a peace offering or something?” I said.
And I thought she’d been staring before. “I had no idea that Tim had sticky fingers on top of all his other flaws. Not that I don’t believe it. At this point I’d believe anything you told me about that man - not to speak ill of the dead.”
“Well,” Mac said, “it may not be true, although Miss Blake seems convinced. Are you aware that the prosecutor finds the life insurance policy on your husband to be a credible motive for you to kill him, or at least a contributing factor?”
She shook her head impatiently. “I explained that. Tim insisted that we both insure each other.”
“Why? The purchase seems rather unusual, given that he was underemployed at the time.”
“Life with Tim was always unusual. He said it would help his brother, Tom. I don’t know Tom well - he’d already moved out of town when I first met Tim - but he seems to move from sales job to sales job with about as much ambition as Tim. Lately he’s been selling term life insurance. Tim said it was a good deal. We were both relatively young and healthy, so it didn’t cost very much. At least I’ll have enough to bury him.”
Bury him? Heck, you could build a mausoleum for him with that death benefit.
“Is it true that Erica defended your husband on an OVI charge?” Mac asked. That’s Section 4511.19 of the Ohio Revised Code, “Operating a Vehicle Under the Influence of Alcohol or Drugs.”
“Yeah. Losing his job didn’t do anything to sober him up. Ms. Slade doesn’t do a lot of OVI work, but she took the case pro bono as a favor to me. Why do you ask?”
“I was just verifying something we were told,” Mac said. “It is a habit of mine to check everything, even if it seems unimportant. One never knows what is unimportant, you see. Is your husband’s friend Joe Robards here? I was unable to reach him yesterday.”
Ashley pointed across the broad hallway into the bigger room where the casket lay. “That’s him over in the corner, talking to my brother-in-law.”
There was no mistaking who she meant by the reference to her brother-in-law. Tom Crutcher looked remarkably like the photos of his brother that appeared around the room, except that he had a thick mustache. They were both brawny men, almost my height, with low foreheads and full heads of dark hair. Crutcher was talking to a shaggy-haired little guy, maybe half a foot shorter, with a big nose and small chin.
“Tim was a twin?” I said.
“No, no, Tom is a couple of years older. They just looked a lot alike. Strong genes in that family. That should have told me something once I started hearing about Tom.”
“I would like to speak with both of those men,” Mac said. “Besides, I see Erica coming in and I am sure she would like to pay her respects to you. Thank you, Ashley. We progress, I think. I will keep you informed.”
We ducked quickly into the other room, hoping that Erica didn’t notice us talking to her client without legal counsel present.
Interruptin
g two people engaged in conversation is not something I’m comfortable with, but Sebastian McCabe is a past master at it. He walked up to Tom Crutcher and Joe Robards without hesitation.
“Mr. Crutcher? I am sorry for your loss.” He introduced himself and me. Crutcher mumbled his thanks. Robards stuck out his hand. “Joe Robards. I worked with Tim for years. You called me yesterday, right? Sorry I didn’t get back to you.”
Before Mac could respond, Tom Crutcher fired another question at him: “You were a friend of Tim?”
“No, actually, we never met. Jefferson and I know his wife.”
“Oh.” Crutcher stiffened. He looked around, apparently sighting Ashley talking to her attorney. “I’m surprised she’s here. Takes nerve.” Wow, is it cold in here or is it just you?
“It is certainly a difficult situation,” Mac said. “I am sure you realize that what happened is still in dispute.”
“Your friend, my dear sister-in-law, gets a quarter of a million dollar life insurance payout because my little brother is dead. I know that much. Unless, of course, a jury decides that she murdered him. Fortunately, a killer can’t profit by her crime. Excuse me.”
Crutcher didn’t wait to be excused, just turned his back on us and looked around, as if searching for a lifeline - maybe somebody he remembered from the old days in Erin.
“He seems upset,” I understated, trying to lighten the mood a little, when I gauged that he was out of earshot.
“Tom always was a little high strung,” Robards said. “He was in my year at Malcolm C. Cotton High. Haven’t seen him since he left Erin, though. I knew Tim real well, all those years of working together at the Rec Department. Shame he got canned, but he brought it on himself. Still, I felt sorry for him. That’s why I let him sleep in my basement when he broke up with his wife.”
Clearly, Robards liked to hear himself talk. That was a good thing, from our point of view.
Mac raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? I am surprised that he had to rely on your generosity. I rather had the impression that he was enamored of another.”
Robards scrunched up his face, as if thinking hard. “How’s that?”
“He had a lady friend, didn’t he?” I translated. “That’s what we heard.”
“He never told me nothing about a woman, but I wouldn’t expect him to. A gentleman never tells.” Robards chuckled. “He did have a little thing going with Lady Luck for a while, though. Last summer, August maybe, we were out having a few beers at Bobbie McGee’s. When Tim got two sheets to the wind and talking more than he should, he told me he’d finally hit the jackpot. He didn’t say any more than that, but it wasn’t hard to figure what he meant. That was right after the Forty Thieves Casino opened in Cincinnati. He must’ve gambled it all back, though, ’cause no more than six weeks later, damned if he wasn’t asking me for a place to stay.”
“I guess his luck ran out,” I said.
IX
After the funeral, a nondenominational service ably presided over by Jonathan Hawes with a minimum of sentiment and an appropriate amount of Scripture, Mac pointed his big red Chevy toward campus and our respective offices.
“Now we know where Tim did some of his gambling, if that’s any help,” I observed. “Maybe a big losing streak is the reason he helped himself to Meredith’s sparkles.”
“Conceivably,” Mac allowed. He didn’t say much more.
Casino gambling had long been available in nearby Indiana, originally restricted to boats. Ohio joined the party after voters approved four casinos in the state, including the new Arabian Nights-themed Forty Thieves in Cincinnati. I could imagine Crutcher walking out of there shell-shocked and penniless.
In late afternoon, Mac asked me to go with him to see Oscar. Since I was having a quiet day, without a single student arrested or coach fired, I put Popcorn in charge and told her to call me if she needed me. I left with “Okay, Boss” ringing in my ears.
We arrived outside Oscar’s office in the basement of City Hall just in time to see Meredith Blake leaving, with Charlie Hayworth in tow. I hoped she’d at least sent flowers to the funeral since she hadn’t sent herself, at least not while we were there.
“Reporting the stolen jewelry?” Mac said after we’d all gotten through the conventional acknowledgements of each other’s existence.
“No, we were identifying some of it.” Meredith began fumbling with her Coach purse, fingers screaming for nicotine.
“We filed the report this morning and Chief Hummel - ” her beau began.
“Let’s get a move-on, Charlie,” Meredith said, talking out of the side of her mouth that did not hold the cigarette she was lighting.
And they left.
“Charming couple,” I muttered to Mac. “You can sure tell who wears the jeans in that duo.”
“The one with the money, I suspect.”
Oscar beamed when we walked in, appearing inordinately glad to see us. “Well, look who the cat dragged in! What brings you geniuses into my humble quarters?”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned around and picked up the office coffee pot from the credenza behind him.
“Originally, we were going to ask if you had turned up any indication that Tim Crutcher was carrying on an affaire de coeur,” Mac said.
“I don’t even know what that means. Coffee?” He held up the pot.
Mac accepted a cup of the awful stuff and repeated his question in English.
“I’m investigating Crutcher’s murder, not his love life,” Oscar protested. “Of course, now that you mention it, a girlfriend would give his wife another reason to kill him.”
That’s not really what we were thinking.
Mac ignored that. “You are also investigating the theft of some jewelry from Meredith Blake, and apparently having some success.”
“How the hell did you know that?”
“He has his ways,” I said, before Mac could. Why ruin the illusion that he’d done something brilliant?
“I do not know all of it, Oscar. Please elaborate.”
Oscar was only too happy to relate his own triumph. “Ms. Blake and her, uh, friend came to me this morning to report the robbery. They gave me a list of the stolen jewelry, with photographs. One of the diamond rings, a round bezel design with a platinum band, reminded me of the one that had been on Crutcher’s body.”
“His body!” I repeated.
“Yeah. I didn’t notice it at the time, but the crime scene photos show that he was wearing it on his pinky finger. I remembered seeing it later, in the envelope that I gave his wife with his personal effects in it. So I called her. I don’t think she was especially happy to hear from me. But, sure enough, she said she’d never seen this ring before, figured it must have been something he bought or was given after they split. She drove it over here right away.”
“See, she’s an honest person,” I pointed out.
“And it’s the ring in the photos Ms. Blake gave me. She just confirmed that.”
“Congratulations, Oscar.” Mac sipped caffeine. “You really have done quite well.”
“I’m just beginning, Sherlock. I’ve asked for a warrant for both the house where Crutcher lived with his wife and the one where he’d been staying the past few weeks. I figure he must have socked the rest of the jewelry away somewhere. Maybe that’s why Ashley killed him.”
But I was thinking of Mac’s first off-the-cuff theory, the “Three Garridebs” ploy. Maybe Crutcher and his unknown accomplice, presumably the girlfriend, entered the house that night to recover Meredith’s stolen jewelry that he had hidden there and didn’t have a chance to recover the night he left his wife. That would answer the big question of what he was doing in the house.
“Really, Oscar,” Mac said. “That makes three theories you have offered as to why Ashley took her husband’s life with m
alice aforethought - life insurance money, romantic jealousy, and the stolen gems.”
Oscar grinned irritatingly. “Yeah, it’s an embarrassment of riches, ain’t it?”
“Oh, come on!” I admit to being a bit cross. “You can’t be all that confident. You haven’t filed charges.”
“Just a matter of time, Jeff. It’s the prosecutor’s call, and he’s a cautious dude.”
X
“Be of good cheer, Jefferson! All is clear now.”
Then you must be wearing night vision goggles. It wasn’t that there wasn’t anything to go on - there was too much. Ashley had more motives than I had rejection slips, but we didn’t believe any of them. Instead, we were looking at a hypothetical girlfriend, maybe somehow connected with a stash of jewelry looted from the infamous Meredith Blake - or not.
“Okay, genius,” I snapped, missing my wife to the point of irritation and worn down by all this brainwork. “Who do you figure for the killer?”
“It would be premature to share my thoughts at this point, old boy.” As usual, Mac was keeping me in the dark so that I could clap with everybody else when he finally pulled the rabbit out of his hat at the end. Until then, he wouldn’t even let me see the tip of the bunny’s ears. “Tomorrow, I must venture out for a bit of on-the-ground research.”
“Good luck. You’ll have to fly solo this time.”
He looked at me and raised an eyebrow - not a good move since he was driving us back to campus at the time. “I am lost without my - ”
“Can it! Maybe it slipped off your radar screen, but tomorrow night’s the St. Benignus Day concert. That might not be a big deal to you - you just have to play your bagpipes.” I prefer to think of them as gagpipes. “But I’ve got about a hundred details to take care of, and that’s just for tomorrow. Saturday will be even worse. I have to make sure everything goes smoothly with the Cardinal, from picking him up at the airport to making sure he gets the gluten-free dinner.”
“I completely understand. Far be it for me to take you away from the responsibilities of your day job.”
Rogues Gallery Page 20