But He Was Already Dead When I Got There

by Barbara Paul

  “Pick an unimportant bridge, darling. One without many people.”

  “With the whole world on its way home from work? That may take some doing.” Simon started the engine. “However, let us see what we can find.” He pulled away from the curb to start their search for an unimportant bridge.

  Half a block away, Sergeant Rizzuto also pulled away from the curb, concentrating on keeping a discreet distance behind them.

  Malcolm Conner dipped his pita bread into the chick-pea sauce, took a bite, and chewed thoughtfully. “We ought to think about going to the police.”

  “No, that is the one thing we ought not to think about.” Nicole Lattimer ate a stuffed grape leaf and said, “We’re out of that free and clear, Malcolm—let’s leave well enough alone.”

  Malcolm shook his head. “I haven’t been able to think of anything else all day. If it were just the gun—you should never have fired that gun, Nicole, and you most certainly should not have removed the statuette from the scene of the crime.”

  “So you’ve told me. A hundred times you’ve told me.”

  “If it were just the matter of my returning the statuette, I could live with that. But the condition that room was in—papers all over the place, a real mess. Somebody was there after you left, Nicole. After you left and before I got there. We can help the police pinpoint the time. If we don’t tell them, we’re guilty of withholding information in a criminal investigation. That’s two to five years, and I could be disbarred. I would be disbarred.”

  Nicole signaled the waiter and asked for iced tea. When he inquired unbelievingly whether anything was wrong with the wine, she told him everything was wrong with the wine and to bring some tea, please. When he left muttering to himself, Nicole said to Malcolm, “So somebody else was in Uncle Vincent’s library between the times you and I were there. So what? It wasn’t the murderer—Uncle Vincent was already dead. It must have been Lionel or Dorrie, looking for the same thing I was looking for.”

  Malcolm was scandalized. “Dorrie wouldn’t do something like that!”

  That struck Nicole as so funny that she was laughing out loud when the waiter came back with her iced tea. She waited until he was gone and said, “Of course Dorrie would do something like that, and Lionel too. Dorrie isn’t the little girl you grew up with, Malcolm, not any more. Suppose we do go to the police and tell them Uncle Vincent’s library was searched by someone between the time I left and the time you got there—and that someone turns out to be your sister? Do you really want to take that chance, Malcolm?”

  He sat staring at her until his food grew cold. “It couldn’t have been Dorrie,” he said finally.

  “You know perfectly well it could,” Nicole answered in her most practical voice. “And what happens to you when the police find out you diddled with the evidence? Not as much as I did, but you didn’t call the police and you smuggled the statuette back in.”

  “I returned the murder weapon …,” he started, but then trailed off.

  “You know what I think, Malcolm? I think you have no intention of going to the police. But you feel you ought to make noises about going just to square things with your conscience. And I think my role is to talk you out of it. Well, consider it done. We are not going to the police. There, it’s settled.”

  Malcolm was hurt. “That was unkind, Nicole.”

  She sighed. “Yes, it was—and I’m sorry. But we’re both in the clear so long as we keep quiet. And I know you don’t want to run the risk of implicating Dorrie.”

  “Not Dorrie,” Malcolm frowned. “Lionel. You might have interrupted him, you know. Have you thought of that?”

  Now it was Nicole’s turn to stare. “Are you saying you think Lionel killed Uncle Vincent?”

  Malcolm leaned back in his chair and tried to consider the matter from the viewpoint of a prosecuting attorney. “Look at what we know. Uncle Vincent was murdered and the library was searched. I think we can assume that what the killer was looking for was the promissory note. Say he dispatched Uncle Vincent and was just starting his search when you showed up. He hid somewhere, in another part of the house. When you left, he went back into the library, and—not knowing that you had already looked for the note—proceeded to go through Uncle Vincent’s desk and file cabinet, tossing the papers away when he’d finished looking at them. Since you’d already looked in the same places, that would mean the killer didn’t find what he was looking for.”

  “I think that’s a safe conclusion,” Nicole murmured.

  “You still don’t think it was Lionel? We know it wasn’t you or Dorrie. Gretchen’s too ineffectual to pull off a murder, or even to think of pulling one off. Simon might have done it to protect Dorrie—but frankly I don’t believe my doting brother-in-law is all that doting. As far as that goes, I could have done it myself—to protect you and Dorrie. But I didn’t. So who’s left? Lionel Knox, I’m sorry to say. Process of elimination.”

  “Aren’t you eliminating a name or two rather easily? Malcolm—be honest. Who of the six of us gets mad the quickest? Who flares up without any warning and then cools off a minute later? Who scares everybody with the intensity of her anger—and might even strike in the heat of that anger?”

  Malcolm looked as if she’d just dropped a pair of dirty socks in his dinner plate. “You can’t be serious! You think Dorrie killed him?”

  “That little scenario you wrote starring Lionel as the killer—try it on Dorrie. It fits.”

  Malcolm stared at her open-mouthed for a while and then recollected himself. “This is far too public a place to be talking about this. Are you finished? Good.” He signaled the waiter for the bill.

  Outside the restaurant, Malcolm told the parking lot attendant, “Silver BMW.” As soon as the young man was out of hearing, he said, “You amaze me, Nicole, you really do. I cannot understand why you are so determined to blame Dorrie for Uncle Vincent’s death.”

  “I’m not trying to blame her, Malcolm, I’m trying to cover for her. Don’t you understand? That’s why I fired Uncle Vincent’s gun in the first place.”

  “That makes no sense whatsoever.”

  “Yes, it does,” she said impatiently. “When I found him dead like that, the only thing I could think of was that Dorrie had lost her temper and let him have it. So I fired the gun so it would look like more of a struggle—you know, so she could plead self-defense if she got caught?”

  “Then why remove the statuette? Why not leave it there?”

  “Because I was afraid I couldn’t wipe it clean enough! You saw the condition it was in—broken and covered with blood. All those little crevices. The police have all sorts of sophisticated detection instruments nowadays, and it just seemed better not to give them anything to work with. Dorrie or whoever should have taken the statuette.”

  The attendant was back with Malcolm’s car. Nicole walked around to the passenger side.

  “I think I see,” Malcolm mused. “Even if the murder was a spur-of-the-moment thing, the killer should know not to leave the murder weapon behind to aid the police in making a possible identification. The blood could be covering latent fingerprints—that sort of thing?”

  “That’s the idea,” Nicole said, getting into the car. “Unless the killer was wearing gloves, of course.”

  “Gloves—yes,” Malcolm said, sliding in under the wheel. “That would explain why the statuette was left lying out there in full view.”

  The parking lot attendant closed the door after Nicole and bent down until his face was level with hers. “You guys mystery writers?”

  “That’s right,” Nicole smiled tightly. “This one’s called Who Killed Uncle Vincent?”

  “Great, I love mysteries! I’ll watch for it.”

  “You do that,” Malcolm said, reaching across Nicole to hand the attendant his tip. He pressed down on the accelerator and drove away. “Why didn’t you tell me all this last night?”

  “Because nobody could tell you anything last night,” Nicole said in exasperation.
“When you found me trying to hide the statuette in the laundry, you came as close to blowing up as I’ve ever seen you! Such outrage, such indignation! You started lecturing me about responsibility and legal evidence and the penalties for interfering with the investigation of a crime—so I let you take the statuette back just to get you to stop talking at me!”

  “Well, you have to realize you gave me a considerable shock. First you tell me Uncle Vincent has been murdered, and then you calmly inform me the broken statuette you’re holding is the murder weapon. How did you expect me to react? Have you forgotten I’m an officer of the court? I don’t just casually step into a murder case and start rearranging evidence to suit myself—I don’t think you appreciate what it cost me to sneak into Uncle Vincent’s house and put the statuette back. By the way, did you know Barney got drunk last night and forgot to set the alarm system? That’s why the dining room window was left unlocked—he didn’t check any of the windows or doors.”

  “Did you remember to return the neighbor’s ladder?”

  “Of course I remembered,” Malcolm said testily. “I cannot believe that both of us borrowed a ladder without permission, climbed over Uncle Vincent’s wall—that’s trespass—and then crawled in through a ground-floor window. That’s illegal entry. We broke a lot of laws last night, Nicole.”

  She waved a hand dismissively. “Piddling stuff. The real lawbreaker was the one who clobbered Uncle Vincent.”

  “And you think it was Dorrie. Nicole, you couldn’t be more wrong. Dorrie has had these little flare-ups all her life, but they’re never violent. They’re certainly not violent enough to let her kill a man. I know my sister, and she’d never run the risk of striking out at Uncle Vincent if he caught her going through his files. Her natural inclination would be to try to talk her way out of it.”

  “She’s not the same little girl you grew up with,” Nicole repeated darkly.

  Lieutenant Toomey sat at his desk at the police station and chewed away at a roast beef sandwich made exactly the way he liked it—mustard on one side, butter on the other, not too much lettuce. He’d called his wife and said not to wait dinner.

  Spread out on the desk were a series of photographs and the crime lab reports. The fingerprints found in the library had all been accounted for: Vincent Farwell’s, the two servants’, the six guests’. He read the medical examiner’s report. There’d been no powder residue on Vincent Farwell’s gun hand, but that was to be expected; too much time had elapsed between the firing of the gun and the application of the test.

  Dr. Oringer had at last narrowed down the time of death. Rigor mortis usually set in between three and five hours after death, and lasted anywhere from eight to ten hours. It started in the face and spread downward, the body cooling at a rate of one and a half degrees an hour for twelve hours. Dr. Oringer had tentatively set the time of death between ten-thirty and eleven, since Farwell’s rigor had stopped around noon. But he’d cautioned that the time of death could be an hour or two later, depending on when the fire went out in the library fireplace. Did the fire burn late and delay the onset of rigor? It was the variable they couldn’t pin down.

  Toomey wiped a glob of mustard off the medical examiner’s report. He’d sent a legman to talk to the nightwatchman at Ellandy Jewels; he’d come back with confirmation that Lionel Knox, Dorrie Murdoch, and Nicole Lattimer were indeed at Ellandy’s during the time they said they were. The same legman had also interviewed the waitress at Danny’s Tavern, since Toomey decided he wanted Sergeant Rizzuto tailing Dorrie Murdoch instead of asking questions. The waitress had also confirmed the time five of Toomey’s suspects had spent in the bar.

  So from eight to nine they were all in Uncle Vincent’s library. From a little after nine to around ten all but Gretchen Knox were in the bar. And from then until after midnight, Lionel, Dorrie, and Nicole were together at Ellandy’s—it did look as if those three were out of it. That meant the killer was either Simon Murdoch or Malcolm Conner. Or Gretchen Knox.

  Or that unknown visitor who—Barney Peterson miraculously happened to remember—had threatened Uncle Vincent only last Thursday. Just what the case had been needing—a Mysterious Stranger! Barney had claimed with a perfectly straight face that he’d heard this man (name unknown, detailed description willingly supplied) tell Mr. Vincent that he’d never let him get away with it, that he’d kill Mr. Vincent first. What the “it” was that Vincent Farwell was supposed to be trying to get away with, Barney didn’t know. But he’d heard the threat, oh yes sir, indeed he had, sir. Why didn’t you mention this before? Toomey had asked. I didn’t think of it, sir, Barney had replied.

  That part Toomey believed.

  Well, a Mysterious Stranger would certainly get everybody else off the hook—which was undoubtedly why Barney Peterson had come up with him in the first place. Had the manservant worked out some sort of deal with one of the others? Lionel Knox had been there talking to Barney that afternoon right before Toomey arrived. (And Dorrie Murdoch had been there hiding in a closet.) But on the slim chance that Barney might be telling the truth, Toomey had put out an APB on a silver-haired fat man with a deep voice. Rumpled white suit, expensive rings on both hands, imperious manner. Sydney Greenstreet?

  Toomey looked at the photographs of the murder scene. Vincent Farwell lay spread out on his desk, the gun just beyond his fingertips. The photos showed the drinking glasses from the night before, the fingerprints from each telling Toomey where everyone had been sitting. No fingerprints on the murder weapon, the broken alabaster Hermes. But the fingerprint report did have one interesting tidbit: Dorrie Murdoch’s prints had been found on the papers in Uncle Vincent’s safe—there, he was doing it too! Uncle Vincent. But Dorrie hadn’t taken the missing promissory note with her when she left, Toomey was sure of that. Was it still hidden in Uncle Vincent’s house, somewhere his men hadn’t been able to find it? The men had found the combination to the safe, taped under the narrow overhang of a window sill in the bedroom.

  “Lieutenant!” A grinning Sal Rizzuto stood in the doorway of Toomey’s office. “Look what I’ve got!” He stepped aside to let Dorrie and Simon Murdoch in. “I caught ’em throwin’ somethin’ into the river. Evidence, maybe? Twenty-second Street Bridge, right in the middle of rush hour.”

  Both Murdochs looked more than a little put out. “If it is a crime, Lieutenant,” Simon drawled, “to dispose of old tax records by tossing them into a body of water, then we are indeed guilty and should be locked away where we will wreak no further havoc on the human race. But if it is not a crime, however, will you kindly instruct your minion here to let us go?”

  Toomey pointed to a couple of chairs. “Have a seat, folks. Now what’s this all about?”

  “Minion?” said Rizzuto.

  The Murdochs sat down. “As I said,” Simon went on, “we were merely disposing of some old tax records. Every year at about this time we get rid of those records that are seven years old.”

  “By puttin’ them in an airline bag?” Rizzuto snorted. “And throwin’ the bag into the river?”

  “We always make a little ceremony of it, you see,” Dorrie said helpfully. “We go out and have dinner at a nice restaurant afterward.” She laughed charmingly. “It’s just an excuse for celebrating, but it’s fun. Did we break a law, Lieutenant?”

  “A light bag containing nothing but paper,” Toomey mused. “It sank all right, did it?”

  “Like a stone,” Rizzuto said. “Whatever’s in that bag, it ain’t no buncha papers.”

  “Oh, come now, Sergeant.” Simon raised an eyebrow at the man who’d brought them in. “Surely you know how heavy paper can be. Besides, we weighted it down.”

  “With what?”

  “A rock,” the Murdochs said simultaneously, and then glanced at each other with what looked suspiciously like relief.

  Toomey got up and walked around his desk where he stood facing the Murdochs. “Vincent Farwell was murdered last night. A promissory note that most likely was the motiv
e for the murder has been stolen. Both Ellandy Jewels and Simon Murdoch are having financial troubles.” He paused. “And this is the time you pick to clean out old tax records?”

  Simon let loose a great sigh of exasperation. “The cleaning-out was already done, Lieutenant. We’d packed the bag several days ago—we just didn’t get around to throwing it away until now.”

  “Darling, are you having financial troubles?” Dorrie asked with concern.

  “No, I am not. Wherever did you get an idea like that, Lieutenant Toomey?”

  “From Paul Bernstein, as a matter of fact.”

  “Ah, the detective. Yes. Remind me never to hire Mr. Bernstein. The man’s obviously incompetent.”

  “No, he ain’t,” Rizzuto objected. “He usta be a cop.”

  “And all police, whether former or present,” Simon remarked with a half-smile, “are infallible, of course.”

  “Hey, don’t get smart,” Rizzuto bristled.

  “Take it easy, Rizzuto,” Toomey said. The Lieutenant started back to his chair but brushed against the side of the desk and was surprised to hear a metallic clunk sound. What the …? He put a hand into his jacket pocket—oh yes, it was that blasted can of Redi-Whip; he’d been carrying it around all day. Annoyed, he set the can down sharply on the desk top.

  And heard Dorrie Murdoch gasp.

  Quickly she rearranged her startled features into the nearest thing to a poker face she could manage. But it was too late; she’d given herself away.

  Toomey leaned across the desk toward her. “What’s the matter, Mrs. Murdoch? Frightened by Redi-Whip, are you? Whippingcreamphobia?”

  “Why, I, ah, I was just surprised, that’s all. I didn’t expect a police lieutenant to carry something like that in his coat pocket.”

  “That’s your can of Redi-Whip, isn’t it? You left it on the terrace outside the library, and you left it there last night.”

  “Don’t be absurd, Lieutenant,” Simon interrupted sharply. “Why would Dorrie take a can of Redi-Whip to a business meeting?”

  “Not to the meeting. Later. When she went back.”