But He Was Already Dead When I Got There

by Barbara Paul

  Lionel looked positively ill. “Where do you get this stuff?”

  “Ellandy’s is the first step,” Gretchen went on, unhearing. “I’m coming in, Lionel, whether you like it or not.”

  “Gretchen,” Dorrie said, her distaste showing on her face, “do you realize what’s happening? You’re acting just like Uncle Vincent! This is the sort of thing he used to do all the time—he loved forcing people to their knees! You don’t want to end up like Uncle Vincent, do you?”

  “She’s even starting to look like him,” Lionel muttered.

  “Lionel,” Dorrie reprimanded, although secretly she half agreed with him. “Gretchen, I want you to take some time and think about what you’re doing—”

  “No!” Gretchen covered both ears with her hands. “I don’t want to hear about it. I’m tired of being told what to do. I’ve made up my mind, and that’s all there is to it.” She took her hands down. “I suppose you’ll get Malcolm to handle it, but I’m going to want Mr. Dann to look over the papers before I sign anything. But take care of it soon. This week.”

  Dorrie and Lionel went on arguing with her a while longer, all three of them frequently losing their tempers, but Gretchen wouldn’t budge. When Dorrie said Gretchen was mule-headed, the latter retaliated by calling Dorrie “Little Miss Perfect”. Lionel told his wife she was unethical, immoral, and envious of other people’s ability to do something with their lives. His wife told him he was dishonest, sarcastic, and a leech on the talents of others. In his defense, Dorrie said Lionel was a conscientious, hard-working man while Gretchen had done nothing but sit on her backside all her life. Gretchen said that every time she’d tried to do something, she’d met the same sort of put-down she was getting from them now. Lionel pointed out that people didn’t like being coerced and maybe that had something to do with why she kept running into a wall of resistance. Dorrie suggested a cure for that might be locking Gretchen in the vault until a week from next Tuesday.

  Gretchen put an end to it by raising her voice and repeating that they had until the end of the week to get the process rolling for making her a partner. “Otherwise I go see Mr. Dann,” Gretchen said, “and I start legal proceedings against you.”

  The other two exchanged a disgusted look and, hating it, gave up; they knew they were licked. “I’ve lost half my income in two days,” Lionel mused in a strange voice.

  “Oh, not really,” Gretchen said lightly. “You can look at my fourth as still in the family, can’t you?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. Then he said, “I don’t think I’ll be making the move to Uncle Vincent’s house with you, Gretchen—not right away, at least. I need some time to think.”

  Gretchen smiled at him almost as if she felt sorry for him. “Punishing me?” she asked. “Somehow, dear husband, that fails to surprise me.” She walked out of the vault, leaving her new business partners smoldering with resentment and thinking thoughts they didn’t dare speak aloud.

  Sergeant Sal Rizzuto’s phone call had set off all sorts of alarms ringing in Malcolm Conner’s head. The police had Nicole—what had given them away? How much had Nicole told them? Malcolm cancelled an appointment and hurried to the police station.

  He was ushered into Lieutenant Toomey’s office. Before Toomey could say a word, Malcolm demanded, “Has she been charged? Where is she?”

  “Sit down, Mr. Conner,” Toomey said easily. “No, she hasn’t been charged, and she’s right down the corridor in an interrogation room with Sergeant Rizzuto. We just wanted to ask her some questions.”

  “What’s the room number? I want to see her.”

  “In a moment. There’s something I have to say to you first. Please sit down.” Malcolm sat, not bothering to hide his annoyance. Toomey made a temple of his fingers and said, “She told us what happened the night Uncle Vincent was murdered. She said she found his body around one-thirty, and then spent another half hour looking for the promissory note. Then she fired Uncle Vincent’s gun and wrapped up the two pieces of the broken statuette in her scarf, leaving the premises at exactly two o’clock—she remembers hearing the mantle clock strike. The medical evidence indicates the murderer did his dirty work between ten-thirty and eleven, roughly two and a half to three hours before Ms. Lattimer got there.” Toomey paused. “She also told us about the later visit, to return the murder weapon.”

  Malcolm visibly shrank two sizes as Toomey watched. “So,” Malcolm muttered, “she told you about that, did she?”

  “She did. There are some details that aren’t quite clear yet, such as the matter of the papers on the floor—”

  “Oh, they were there, all right,” Malcolm said resignedly. “The Murdochs had already come in and turned the place upside down. As you well know. But that was after Nicole left—she never saw the mess Dorrie and Simon had made. It was a complete surprise to me, you can be sure. Lieutenant, I was merely restoring evidence to the scene of the crime, not destroying it. I know the penalties for removing evidence.”

  Lieutenant Toomey was afraid to breathe. “So what time did you get there?”

  “About four.”

  “How did you get inside?”

  “Through the dining room window, the same way Nicole got in. That’s illegal entry, if Gretchen wants to press charges. But it’s not breaking and entering—the window was open.”

  “And you did what?”

  “I replaced the two halves of the statuette where Nicole said they’d been. Then I left immediately. I was very careful not to disturb anything.”

  “Did you turn the lights off when you left?”

  Malcolm frowned. “I think so, I really don’t remember. But I probably did—I always turn out the lights when I leave a room.” A childhood lesson well learned. Dorrie had never turned out the lights when they were children and it had always fallen to him to do so. In spite of the danger of his present circumstances, Malcolm felt a sudden flash of an old resentment never completely outgrown.

  Toomey leaned back in his chair and let loose a long-suffering sigh. “Do I need to remind you of your responsibility to notify the police when you come upon evidence of violent death?”

  “No, you don’t,” Malcolm replied grimly. “I made a bad judgment. I’ve been in crisis situations before, when the ability to make sensible decisions quickly often meant the difference between success and failure. So I have no excuse. I allowed my desire to protect Nicole to override my obligations as an officer of the court. I am guilty of the very thing I’m always warning my clients against—making emotional judgments instead of arriving at coolly reasoned conclusions. I should have notified the police immediately upon learning of Uncle Vincent’s murder, and I should have insisted that Nicole tell you everything she knew. I can’t tell you how many times since I have fervently wished that I had done just that. But instead I—”

  “Yes, yes,” Toomey impatiently interrupted Malcolm’s mea culpa lament, regretting he’d brought the subject up. “I’m going to want signed statements from both of you.”

  “Of course. I’ll need to consult with Nicole—the attorney-client relationship still holds in her case.”

  “Certainly.” Toomey couldn’t resist. “I might as well tell you—Ms. Lattimer said she was the one who returned the broken statuette to the library. She didn’t even mention your name, not while she was recounting her illicit activity in the murder room. She sent for you because she suddenly felt the need of legal counsel.”

  Malcolm’s mouth was hanging open. He recovered quickly, his face turning angry. “You lied to me! That’s entrapment! You deliberately misled me—”

  “No, sir, I did not,” Toomey said emphatically. “I didn’t know you’d gone back to the library too until you just now told me you did. I merely mentioned the second visit, to return the murder weapon, and you assumed I was talking about you.”

  Malcolm groaned. “Another mistake.”

  And a big one, Toomey thought. He took Malcolm down the corridor to the interrogation room where Nicol
e was waiting and motioned Sergeant Rizzuto outside. Nicole greeted her lawyer/lover by opening both arms wide in an operatic gesture. Outside in the corridor, Toomey filled Rizzuto in on Malcolm’s four o’clock visit to Uncle Vincent’s library.

  Rizzuto was stunned. “Malcolm was there too?”

  “And Nicole and the Murdochs, before the Knoxes.”

  Rizzuto leaned against the door of the interrogation room, shocked into good grammar. “All of them were there. I find this incredible, frankly. Do you mean to tell me that six different people coincidentally discovered the same dead body—not one of whom notified the police? Six people?”

  “Only five,” Toomey corrected. “One of them had been there before.”

  When the Lieutenant had let them go with a totally unnecessary warning that they were not to leave town, Malcolm and Nicole went separate ways. Nicole said she just wanted to go home and soak in the tub for three hours; Malcolm said he had one more thing to do before he could call it a day. Both were thinking a brief cooling-off period would be helpful. Malcolm was more than a little resentful of the way Nicole had spilled the beans. Nicole could justify herself easily enough by explaining that Lieutenant Toomey had threatened to arrest him if she didn’t talk, but she didn’t like being put on the defensive. Better to wait, for both of them.

  So it was in an atmosphere of strained courtesy that Malcolm drove Nicole back to Ellandy Jewels to pick up her car. Then Malcolm drove to a public phone booth; he called Simon Murdoch and asked him to meet for a drink. They agreed on a tavern called Ollie’s.

  Malcolm got there first. He was just ahead of the after-work crowd; he picked out a booth and ordered a bourbon and water. He was halfway through his drink when Simon came in, paused at the bar to leave his order, and joined Malcolm in the booth.

  Neither man said much at first. Simon knew this wasn’t a social drink he’d been invited for, and Malcolm was having trouble getting started. Only after the waitress had brought Simon his martini did Malcolm plunge in.

  “I came within a gnat’s eyelash of being arrested this afternoon,” he started out. He told Simon about his and Nicole’s separate trips to the library the night Uncle Vincent was killed, and about their recent session with the police concerning those nocturnal visits. “So it seems Nicole was the first to discover Uncle Vincent’s body. She left the library shortly before you and Dorrie got there. I arrived sometime after you had gone—and was a bit overwhelmed by the extraordinary disarray you left behind you, incidentally. I thought …” He trailed off when he realized Simon was laughing silently. “What’s so funny?”

  Simon wiped a tear from one eye. “I was just delighted to hear that you and Nicole had joined the party. Did you know the Knoxes both went back to the library too?”

  “No! You mean after Uncle Vincent was killed?”

  “That’s what I mean. Gretchen told me about it at lunch yesterday. It seems Lionel got it into his head to look for the promissory note too. He ended up moving Uncle Vincent from the desk to the middle of the floor—Gretchen said he thought it would look more as if a struggle had taken place. Then a little later Gretchen went in and picked up all the papers Dorrie and I had so carefully strewn about. So it would not look as if a struggle had taken place. She was trying to make trouble for Lionel, I think.”

  Malcolm was puzzled. “I thought Uncle Vincent was found at his desk.”

  “Oh, yes—I forgot to mention that. Gretchen said the servants put him back. Mrs. Polk thought the old man looked undignified, sprawled out on the floor like that. I imagine Barney did the actual moving.”

  “The servants too,” Malcolm said in amazement.

  “It would have been so much neater if we’d all gotten together ahead of time and coordinated our movements,” Simon drawled. “Not that it would have mattered in the long run, since the note everyone was so assiduously searching for was safely locked away upstairs in Uncle Vincent’s bedroom all the time. I wonder who got it?”

  A sad smile played across Malcolm’s lips. “Do you want to hear something? I actually considered stealing the note myself. I can’t stand thieves—I mean, I can’t stand them. But I did give serious and extensive thought to the possibility of becoming one myself. When Nicole first suggested stealing the note—at the bar we went to, right after the meeting in the library ended, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “When she first suggested it, I was horrified. Then later I got to thinking about it, and it did begin to look like the only solution. But I came to my senses in time, feeling thoroughly ashamed of myself, you can be sure. Then Nicole came home with a little broken statuette which she calmly explained was a murder weapon. And I was horrified all over again—horrified at what had happened to Uncle Vincent, at what Nicole had done, at the decision I was going to have to make. I had a choice of either seeing Nicole accused of murder, it seemed at the time, or of breaking the law myself by returning the murder weapon and not reporting the crime.”

  “You didn’t have any real choice,” Simon said sympathetically. “You couldn’t let Nicole be accused.”

  “No, of course I couldn’t,” Malcolm worried.

  Simon examined his brother-in-law thoughtfully. “Malcolm. Why are you telling me all this?”

  Malcolm licked suddenly dry lips. “Because of something the Lieutenant mentioned. He said the murder took place between ten-thirty and eleven.”

  “Oh, they’ve got it pinned down now, have they? I suppose that’s important?”

  “Of course it’s important. It means Dorrie and Nicole and Lionel couldn’t have done it. They were all together at Ellandy’s until after midnight.” He paused. “That leaves you and me.”

  Simon didn’t like that. “And Gretchen,” he was quick to point out. “She had more opportunity than anyone.”

  “Opportunity, yes, but no real motive. Uncle Vincent hadn’t cut her out of his will or even threatened to. All she had to do was wait.”

  “Perhaps she got tired of waiting.”

  Malcolm shook his head. “Can you see Gretchen running that big a risk solely to acquire an assured inheritance a little sooner? It doesn’t make sense—she was in no desperate need of money. Gretchen isn’t the most sophisticated woman in the world, but even she would know better than that.”

  Simon did not look amused at all. “Then am I to infer that you’ve asked me here in order to accuse me of murder?”

  “No,” Malcolm said emphatically. “Personally, I am quite willing to go on believing it was a burglar after all. Look, Simon—Lieutenant Toomey is going to be concentrating on the two of us, there’s no question of it. But what happens to his case if, say, we alibi each other?”

  Both of Simon’s eyebrows shot straight up. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

  “I’m suggesting we lie.”

  This time Simon’s laughter wasn’t silent, and it went on far too long, to Malcolm’s way of thinking. At last Simon chortled, “Why, Malcolm Conner, you devious, rascally shyster, you! This is a whole new side of you I’ve never seen! You’re the last person in the world I would have expected to suggest, ah, perjury, for starters—”

  “All right, all right,” Malcolm cut him off, irritated. “We could say that after we all left the bar—around ten, I think it was—you and I decided to go off somewhere, and we remained in each other’s company for at least two hours. That would take us through the danger period, between ten-thirty and eleven.”

  “So where did we betake ourselves in such unseemly haste?”

  “I don’t know, anywhere that might reasonably be expected to keep us occupied for two hours. Another bar. A movie, perhaps.”

  “Or a house of ill repute.”

  Malcolm was shocked. “How could you think of humiliating Dorrie and Nicole by—oh, I see, it’s a joke. Simon, please don’t be facetious. This is far too serious.”

  “Sorry.” Simon avoided looking Malcolm in the eye. “Malcolm, surely you’ve thought how this m
ust appear—to me, I mean. If you and I are the only real suspects, and you come to me with a plan for a phony alibi … well.”

  “Of course I’ve thought about it,” Malcolm said with anguish. “I’m virtually volunteering myself as the prime suspect. But I can’t help that. Simon, the only way we’re going to get out of this is if each of us simply refuses to suspect the other. I’m counting on your instinct for self-preservation.”

  “Which is quite strong,” Simon drawled. “You got that part right.” He thought a moment. “Well, let’s see. A bar won’t do. You can’t spend two hours drinking steadily without some eagle-eyed bartender noticing you. As for a movie—we’d have to find one we’ve both seen. You know they’ll question us about it.”

  Malcolm scowled. “Damn, that’s right. And I haven’t been to a movie in months. Well, then, what about a ball game?”

  “Malcolm, ball games end at ten-thirty, they don’t start then.” The noise level in Ollie’s Tavern was beginning to rise, as more and more people stopped in on their way home from work. Simon leaned forward across the table so he wouldn’t have to shout. “What about one of those revival movie houses? There’s always some place that’s holding a Bogart festival or a John Huston retrospective or the like. We ought to be able to find something we’ve both seen.”

  “That’s an idea! What’s playing?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest,” Simon murmured. “We’ll have to check the paper.” They both looked around as if expecting a newspaper to materialize nearby, conveniently open to the entertainment section. “We’ll have to wait until we get home.”

  Malcolm’s eyes were glistening. “Then it’s agreed? We provide each other with alibis?”

  Simon hesitated. “I don’t know, Malcolm—we could just be buying trouble for ourselves.”

  “What do you think we’ve got now? I’m as certain as I am of my own name that the police are going to arrest one of us unless we do something to forestall them. Simon, it’s coming. If we’re going to take steps to protect ourselves, we have to do it now.”