The Silver Anniversary Murder

by Lee Harris

  “I’m Chris Bennett,” I said, thinking it was a good idea to give a name up front. “I’m looking for Mrs. Brinker. I’m a friend of the family.”

  “Let me see where she is now.” She smiled at me. “She’s having company this afternoon. I’m not sure she can handle two visits in one day.”

  “Let me just get a peek at her. I know her son is coming later. I can come back with him.”

  She checked a schedule and called a young woman in uniform over. “Would you show Ms. Bennett to the ceramics room, Jennifer? She’s looking for Mrs. Brinker.”

  Jennifer was a fast walker and we were at the door of the ceramics room in seconds. I could smell the wet clay as we stepped inside. The room was full of gray heads, most of them female, all of them facing the opposite end of the room where an instructor was moving from student to student, murmuring comments.

  “Which one is Mrs. Brinker?” I whispered. “I can’t tell from back here.”

  “Second row, second from left.”

  “I see.” The woman was working intently on something I could not see. She wore a smock and her gray hair was carefully coiffed, almost certainly by a professional.

  “Do you want me to get her?”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll just come back this afternoon with her son. She seems to be enjoying herself. I don’t want to disturb her.”

  I returned to the reception area, and Jennifer headed off in another direction. I left while the receptionist was on the phone and walked a block to a wide street where I was able to find a taxi.

  Since I had most of the morning left, I asked the driver to take me downtown. When I got there, I walked around and looked at the stores, finally entering one to buy another present for Eddie. It was a T-shirt with a big salmon flying across the front. At home, I would show him on the map where Portland was and explain about the fish.

  I returned to the hotel later that morning and sat in the lobby where Ariana would see me. It gave me a chance to read the paper. When she hadn’t returned by noon, I decided to call Jack. With the three-hour difference between the East and West Coasts, it was three in New York.

  “I checked with the Portland police this morning,” he said. “Ronald Brinker has no record. The guy I talked to dug pretty deep. He had to call me back, but he gives Brinker a clean bill of health. If anything turns up, he’ll get back to me.”

  “So maybe my fears about a robbery were misplaced. And according to what we learned from an apparent cousin of Ariana’s last night, a lot of money may have been passed down to Ronald Brinker’s generation, the proceeds of the sale of a big business.”

  “Glad to hear it. I’m sure Ariana feels better.”

  “She does.”

  “And you’ve found a blood relative.”

  I told him briefly about last night and then of our plans for the afternoon and what I had done this morning, which he liked.

  “And Ariana’s getting the marriage license?”

  “I hope so. She went off more than two hours ago and hasn’t—there she is.” I waved and she saw me. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Hi,” Ariana said. “Did you find her? Was she there?”

  “Yes to both questions, but I didn’t talk to her. I just wanted to make sure I’d recognize her, and I will. She has her hair done, and most of the other women there don’t. I didn’t really see her face, but she’s there. What about you?”

  “Well, my father was born here in Portland. While I was at it, I checked out my grandfather, but he must have been born somewhere else. There’s no record of his birth. And I don’t know Adelaide’s maiden name so I couldn’t look for her. Then I checked marriage licenses and there they were!” She showed me a copy of the license.

  “And there’s your mother’s maiden name,” I said. “Lysaught,” I read. “Elaine Lysaught. That can’t be a very common name.”

  “I’m going to check the phone book upstairs. Chris, this may be it. I can’t believe it. Let’s go up.”

  When we walked into the room, the phone’s message light was flashing. I followed the keying instructions to get into the voice mail and then heard Jack’s voice: “Chris, give me a call ASAP. I’ve got news.”

  “What could it be?” Ariana said.

  “I don’t know, but I just talked to him so he should still be there.” I dialed his number, wondering what could have happened in the last ten minutes.

  “Lieutenant Brooks.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Chris. I got a call just as we hung up. The Brinkers’ vehicle was found.”

  “I forgot about that. Where did they find it?”

  “Ready for a surprise? It was parked in a no-parking zone in Madison, Wisconsin.”

  “I— Where?” That I couldn’t believe what I had heard was an understatement.

  “You heard me. Madison, the town you just left yesterday. I’m not clear on whether they found it this morning or yesterday.”

  “What about the driver?”

  “I hate to tell you, but no one stuck around to see if he came back for the car.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, sensing they had missed the best chance we’d had to pick him up.

  “They towed the car when they found out it was in the alarms but no one expects it to be claimed.”

  “I wouldn’t think so. Jack, I’d better tell Ariana about this. I’m glad I got you before you went home.”

  I told Ariana what he had said, and I watched her face change as she listened.

  “We have to get back,” she said. “Right now. This is terrible. He’s after the money.”

  “Calm down. Let’s think about this. Whoever this person is, he or she must have known about the house in Madison, because that’s why your parents left it. Over the years he would have had ample time to look for the money if he thought it was buried there. I think the best thing is to call the lawyer and ask that he arrange for someone to watch the house, maybe a security guard from a local company. Although it’s probably too late, to tell you the truth. He could have been in and out of it before the car was found.”

  “But we were there, Chris. We left yesterday. Do you think he was spying on us?”

  “Maybe,” I said, realizing we could have left a trail that led to this hotel room. “I would have noticed that car if it had been on the street where the house is. It would have had a New York State license plate.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “Maybe because I’m feeling scared myself.”

  We sat in silence for at least a minute, during which time I reflected on our short trip to Madison. Could someone have seen us pull up to the house and go inside? Could he have guessed what we were doing during the time we were there? If so, the money might be gone by now.

  “Let me call the lawyer,” Ariana said.

  I pushed the phone toward her bed, and she dialed Wally Keller. They talked for several minutes, and it was clear something was amiss. When she hung up, she said, “There’s a broken window on the side of the house. A neighbor told the police she thought she heard glass breaking Saturday night, and Sunday morning she walked over and saw the window. The police told Wally and he’s having it fixed right now. He said he could send his son over to stay in the house for a while, and I said he should.”

  “Where did we leave the shovel, Ariana?”

  She thought a moment. “In the garage. There were other tools there.”

  “So if someone broke in and went into the garage, the shovel wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb.”

  She shook her head. “And we put the mortar on a shelf next to a lot of other stuff, like paint and turpentine.”

  “OK. I think it’s a good idea to have someone in the house for a while. We can think about what to do over the next day or so.”

  “Right.” She took a deep breath, looked at me, and smiled. “Let’s have lunch before I drop.”

  We arrived at the nursing home on the stroke of two-thirty. Nick was waiting for us in the reception a
rea. He greeted us warmly, and we took an elevator up one floor and walked down a hall to a closed door.

  “She knows we’re coming,” he said as he knocked.

  I heard a voice inside call brightly for us to come in. What we entered was not a room but a suite consisting of a sunny sitting room and a pleasant bedroom. The sitting room had what appeared to be Mrs. Brinker’s own furniture; there was nothing institutional-looking about it. On the walls were original paintings and on a pedestal was a lovely sculpture, the head of a Greek or Roman god. A fine Oriental carpet covered the floor. This was nothing like the nursing homes I had visited or heard of; it was a private home.

  Mrs. Brinker sat in a big chair, a magazine on her lap. “Nicky,” she said with a smile. “Now I remember. You said you were coming.”

  “Hi, Mom.” He bent over and kissed her.

  She was no longer wearing the smock for her ceramics class. A fresh pink cotton blouse was tucked into a black skirt. There were rings on her fingers and earrings glittered in ears brushed by her shiny gray hair.

  Nick made the introductions and gave her time to piece together the relationship. She nodded and looked thoughtful. Then she smiled and offered Ariana her hand.

  “You’re Ronald’s little girl,” she said.

  “Yes, I am. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Brinker.”

  “You mustn’t call me that. I’m Aunt June. Everybody calls me Junie.”

  “Aunt Junie. That’s sweet. And you were married to my father’s brother.”

  It took a moment for the relationship to click into place. Then she smiled. “That’s right. I’m your aunt. Aunt Junie.”

  Ariana took the chair nearest her aunt, and Nick and I sat on the sofa. I took out my notebook in case something important came up, but the conversation was mostly about Ronald and his wife. Junie remembered them well, recollected the living room furniture and how nice the curtains were.

  “And you were such a darling,” she said. “You look just like your beautiful mother, you know.”

  Ariana smiled. “Did you see much of me after I was a baby?”

  Junie shook her head. “I don’t remember. And I don’t remember seeing your sister either.”

  “My sister? I have no sister.”

  “Oh yes, you do, or at least you did. You were a twin, you know.”

  There was a silence. I leaned forward. “You remember that Ariana was a twin?” I asked.

  “Oh yes. We talked about it.”

  “Did you see her twin sister?”

  “I don’t remember. Isn’t that funny? I’m so sure she was a twin and I don’t remember seeing two babies. Well, my mind isn’t what it used to be. Nicky, how is my darling granddaughter?”

  They talked about Nick’s daughter for a while, and then Ariana gently brought her back to the topic of the missing twin. “You remember her name, Aunt Junie?”

  “No. It’s all a blank. I didn’t remember your name either, dear. But there was a twin. I’m sure of that.”

  Nick said, “Maybe it’ll come back to you, Mom.”

  “Oh, things come back all the time. What did you say your name was, dear?” She looked at me.

  “Chris.”

  “Of course. Chris. And how do I know you?”

  “I’m Ariana’s friend.”

  She looked confused.

  Nick come to her rescue. “That’s Ariana, Mom. She’s Uncle Ron’s little girl.”

  “That’s right. Now I’ve got it. She’s one of the twins.”

  “I’m not a twin,” Ariana said when we were back at the hotel. “I would know.”

  “There are things your parents didn’t tell you. Maybe that’s one of them.”

  “But what’s the motivation?”

  “Maybe they just didn’t want you to know you’d had a sister who died. There was someone in my family that was kept a secret from me. My parents didn’t want me to know. Happily, I met her near the end of her life and was able to have a rewarding relationship with her.”

  Ariana looked sad. “I’m going to call the Lysaughts,” she said. “Maybe someone will remember my mother.”

  With so few Lysaughts in the phone book, she figured out quickly that none of them was a relative.

  15

  During dinner, we worked out a plan. In the morning Ariana would check if there were any other children born to her parents. It was possible that the other birth had taken place a day sooner or later than Ariana’s. And if nothing turned up, she would see if the hospital had a record of another birth for her mother, perhaps a stillborn child. Neither of us knew where this might lead us but we needed to check it out.

  Ariana thought that we should return to Madison and dig up the money, assuming it was still there. Was it possible, she asked me, that a twin could have been given up for adoption and then, angry that her birth parents had abandoned her, eventually killed them?

  “It’s possible,” I said. “If that’s the case, you may recognize her as a sister or a mirror image when we find her.”

  “Maybe she was, you know, deformed or something. Maybe that’s why they gave her away.”

  I know Ariana slept poorly that night. I woke up myself a couple of times and once found her sitting at the curtained window. Another time, she was tossing and turning, small moans escaping her lips.

  I tried to think what we would do if the money was gone. There was no record of its existence, and if the killer of her parents had found it and hidden it elsewhere, there was no way she could legally claim it.

  In the morning Ariana was up when I opened my eyes. I could hear the hair dryer humming in the bathroom and when she came out, she looked remarkably fresh and well rested. We had an early breakfast, and then she left to look into the birth certificate of the possible twin sister while I stayed behind to call the hospital and see if I could get information over the phone.

  Hospitals are tough to deal with when you’re asking the kinds of questions I had. I can’t say I’m sorry about that; I don’t want strangers prying into my past. But it quickly became clear that I had no chance of learning anything on the phone.

  We had decided that I would await Ariana’s call and then make our plans, so I stayed in the room. Since there was plenty of time, I called Jack, who had no further information. He reminded me that there were laws against carrying a lot of cash, and as we would have it on our person or in our hand luggage, security people might find it when we checked in to fly out of Madison—assuming that the money was still there for us to retrieve. It was something I had thought about, too, but hadn’t mentioned to Ariana.

  The phone rang shortly after I had talked to Jack. It was Ariana.

  “There’s nothing,” she said. “If there was a twin, she had to be born at some other time. I’ve checked several days before and after my birthday. I think Aunt Junie got it wrong.”

  I told her about my call to the hospital. “But they might treat you differently if you’re there in person.”

  “Then let’s meet there, Chris. Can you leave now?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll see you inside the main door, wherever that is.”

  We found each other easily and went to the records department. I have done this sort of thing in New York, and it’s interesting and rewarding to observe the differences when you leave the hurried East Coast and venture west. People just seem so much nicer, much more willing to take a little time to help you. In this case, Ariana was almost a secret weapon. She had such a ready smile, such a kind disposition, that she elicited smiles and kindness from others. Erica, the second woman we spoke to, agreed to go down to the storage area and search manually for information.

  In this computer-enhanced age we sometimes forget that earlier in our lifetimes there were no means of computer storage, or, if there were, tapes still had to be located, put into monster machines, and printed out. That ubiquitous screen sitting atop the desk today was just coming into being and so expensive that budgets often could not extend to it.
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  Finally, about half an hour later, Erica returned from her good deed. “If you had a twin, she wasn’t born here,” she said, pulling a chair over to join us. “I have a copy of the papers your mother filled out to get a birth certificate for you. I’ve got your little footprints. There just wasn’t another baby born to your mother here ever as far as I can see.”

  “So that’s it,” Ariana said. “Any ideas?” She looked at me.

  “Not at this moment. I think we should go. We’ve got to check out of the hotel.”

  “Right.” She thanked Erica and took the copies Erica had made of the papers, and we left.

  We arrived in Madison after dark, having been standby on one of the planes. Ariana rented a car at the airport and we drove to the house even before we registered at the hotel.

  Lights were on in a couple of rooms, and Wally Keller’s son opened the door at the first ring. “Oh, hi,” he said. “You must be Ariana Brinker. I’m Wally Junior.” He told us nothing had happened, no one had rung the bell, he hadn’t seen anyone lurking in the area.

  “But what about the break-in?” I asked. “Was the house disturbed? Was anything obvious missing?”

  “There’s nothing here to take,” Wally said. “Look around. No one’s going to take an old TV or used living room furniture. I went through the house when I got here. Maybe some of the drawers upstairs were open slightly, but that’s it. In the linen closet, the sheets could have been moved. What were they looking for?”

  “I wish I knew,” Ariana said innocently.

  We all trooped upstairs and went through the bedrooms and bathroom, but they were just as Wally had said. When we got downstairs, Ariana said she would look out back and she could do it alone. I took that as my cue to distract Wally while she inspected the brick terrace.

  “Anything missing in the garage?” I asked him.

  “Gee, I didn’t think to look. I’ve got my car there. Wanna see?”

  I followed him to the small garage and saw the shovel just where we had left it. While I hadn’t committed the interior of the garage to memory when we were here, it looked the same. No tools were lying around; everything was neat. I even spied the mortar on the shelf with the paints.