by Emma Lathen
“Honey, stop blaming yourself,” he crooned. “What good would it have done? You heard the doctor say she was already dead.”
But Mary, consumed with guilt at her paralysis, continued her self-flagellation.
“Then I should never have let her leave that way. I knew she was upset about something, she sounded so depressed.”
The police captain in charge had thus far been busy with routine, roping off the ladies’ room, organizing a roster of names and addresses, consulting with the specialists. But this sounded too promising to ignore.
“Do you think you feel well enough to talk with me, Mrs. Larrabee? It might be a help.”
Over Mary’s shoulder Pete Larrabee glared at him, but Mary herself began to straighten.
“I’d like to help,” she said. “But I don’t see how I can.”
“You said she was upset. Do you think she was suicidal?”
This was just the tonic that Mary needed. “She was not! She was talking about going to college next year and making arrangements about her child. Does that sound as if she expected to be dead?”
“You’re the one who said she was depressed, Mrs. Larrabee. That business about school and baby-sitting sounds pretty cheerful to me.”
“Oh, that was the good part. That was going to happen next fall. It was what was happening now that was bothering her.”
“And what was that?”
“I don’t know. I’d just met her. But why do you think she killed herself? Couldn’t it have been a natural death, or an accident?”
Captain McNabb was diplomatic. “We won’t know that for some time,” he said. Actually he was merely eliminating outside chances. The police doctor’s preliminary diagnosis had been emphatic. This was not a natural death, this was not a homemade abortion, this looked very much like a corrosive poison. Tormented young women take sleeping pills in their own beds after penning a self-justification. They do not swallow painful poisons at crowded business functions.
Coming to a decision, the captain advanced to the center of the room and raised his voice. “All right, you people,” he announced loudly enough to still the nervous desultory conversations. “I understand the victim worked for a seed company, and you’re all in that line of business. I’d like to get some background on her. Now who’s going to tell me about her?”
Ned Ackerman raised his hand, but it was Fran Pendleton who moved forward. “I think we probably knew her longer than anyone else, Captain,” she volunteered.
McNabb brightened as he examined his prospect. A middle-aged lady was far more likely to be a source of personal details than most of the men in the room.
“That’s fine,” he said cordially. “Why don’t you two come over into a corner and tell me how you came to know her.”
Fran seated herself with Howard standing protectively behind her. She began by explaining IPR and its Puerto Rican location. “It must have been about seven years ago when Barbara came down. She’d just gotten married and she was very young. Her husband was serving two years in the navy after graduation, and they’d been assigned to the island. We met them at a few parties and everything was new and wonderful to Barbara, the dances at the club, the climate, the beaches. Then the two years ran out. There was a new baby and the Gunns decided to stay in Puerto Rico. They moved off base and Tim began to look for a job. It was then that he was drowned. It’s a terrible thing to say, but the timing was all wrong for Barbara. Nobody was responsible for her, she was hard up for money, and she didn’t know how to take care of herself. We’d just lost a secretary, so we hired her. And as soon as she’d settled down, we had her over whenever we gave a party.” Fran suddenly lifted a handkerchief. “Oh, dear, it all seems so long ago.”
“I see,” said Captain McNabb. Even in death Barbara Gunn had not seemed old enough for the 27 years her driver’s license proclaimed. Five years ago, as a lost, helpless girl, she must have looked like a waif. No wonder she had appealed to Mrs. Pendleton’s maternal instincts. He could imagine the string of young men who had been produced at those dinner parties in the hope that Barbara’s problem would be solved in the simplest possible way.
“She didn’t remarry?” he asked.
“No,” said Fran sadly.
Her husband spoke for the first time. “I told you that sort of thing never works.”
“Why, Howard! Half the time you were the one who asked her.”
“It did her good to get out,” he said gruffly.
“I don’t know why all men act as if matchmaking is a crime,” she retorted before turning to the captain. “But I don’t want you to think that Barbara was unhappy. She liked her job and she liked the people at the lab. Then, when one of our researchers went off to set up Wisconsin Seedsmen, she went with him. It was going to be a one- woman office with broader responsibilities and, of course, more pay.”
McNabb consulted his notes. “Was that Ackerman or Wenzel?”
“Scott Wenzel.”
“Anything between them?” the policeman pressed. “That’s a long way to follow a man.”
Fran was very confident. “Oh no, Scotty never thought of her that way. I even tried having them over together. It was just that they were used to working together. And the move back to the States made sense for Barbara. Better facilities for the child, closer to her family, that sort of thing.”
“Then, if she was so happy about the arrangement, why this business about going back to school? Was it a sudden decision?”
“Oh, no.” Fran frowned as she consulted her husband. “When did she first tell us, Howard? It must have been over two years ago.”
“Fully that,” he confirmed.
“All the young women want real careers nowadays, Captain. I was glad when she told us. I thought she was finding her own feet at last.”
Fran had been scrupulously honest. She was sure that Scotty had never thought of Barbara that way. As for Barbara’s hopes, let them die along with the poor child.
“But now,” she said, “it doesn’t make any difference.” McNabb was more interested in something else. “So you kept up with her?”
“Yes, she came to most of the meetings with Scott, and occasionally one of us would be in Madison at the university. We always had dinner with her.”
“See her here in Chicago?”
“Yes,” both Pendletons replied.
“Know why she was upset?”
“Not really,” said Howard promptly. “Wisconsin Seedsmen is expanding, and it’s involved in a court case. So there was a lot of pressure on her, particularly when she was trying to arrange things for next year.”
Conscious of her husband pressing her shoulder, Fran remained silent but there was a mulish cast to her jaw. She exploded the moment Captain McNabb abandoned the Pendletons to continue his inquiries with Wisconsin Seedsmen.
“Howard! Barbara was probably killed because of the lawsuit. Captain McNabb has to know how important it is.”
“Of course,” Pendleton agreed. “But let someone else break the news to him. I don’t want Vandam’s trying to blame this on us, too. I’m sick of their shoving their problems onto us.”
“I warn you,” Fran said obstinately. “I won’t leave this room without the police knowing all about it.”
“For God’s sake! I’ll tell them myself in that case. But you’ll see. It won’t take more than five minutes with Scott and Ackerman before McNabb is filled in.”
Actually things worked out even better from Dr. Howard Pendleton’s point of view. Within five minutes the Vandams themselves were letting the cat out of the bag.
When Captain McNabb confronted Wisconsin Seedsmen, he found two very different reactions to Barbara Gunn’s death. Ned Ackerman had shed his customary blandness. His lips were pinched and his nostrils outlined in white. He was in a cold fury. Scott Wenzel, on the other hand, was sitting slackly in his chair, staring at nothing, sunk in the lethargy that McNabb associated with shock. Neither of them seemed conscious of the Vandams, who had
been herded into the same corner.
It was Ned Ackerman who supplied the formal details of Barbara’s employment.
“You’ll have to excuse me if I’m not very coherent, Captain,” he apologized. “But we’re a small outfit, and we worked together closely. Barbara was a part of our lives and we’re going to miss her.”
His simple words sparked the proconsular instinct in old Hendrik Vandam. “A great tragedy,” he said gravely. “We ourselves did not know the young woman but we would like to extend our sympathy. It is a loss when any life is cut off so—”
Unlike his grandfather, Jason Ingersoll had been among those who had actually seen the body. He had still not recovered.
“Oh, come on!” he said with a snort of derision. “How hypocritical do we have to be? This isn’t a loss to those two. It’s damned convenient for them.”
“And just what the hell do you mean by that?” asked Ackerman with dangerous calm.
“She was giving her deposition next week. Now we’ll never know what she ...” Jason’s voice trailed off. Too late he realized that Captain McNabb was eying him appraisingly.
“And just what deposition was that?”
There was a gleam of satisfaction in Ackerman’s eye as he explained. By the time he finished, he sounded like his old self. “It’s true we won’t have Barbara’s deposition, but we’ve got enough documentation to stuff a horse. As for the Vandams not knowing our young woman, they’ve been pestering her ever since we got to Chicago!”
“All right!” Dick Vandam said, then turned to Captain McNabb. “My father spoke without realizing that we might have had occasion to encounter Mrs. Gunn. After all, we’ve been in and out of the same functions for over two days now. I myself spoke with her in the hotel corridor this afternoon. A secretary can be very vulnerable in this kind of lawsuit. I wanted to make sure that she was not being pressured by her employers.”
Scott Wenzel had listened to the previous exchange with bewildered apathy. But he had no trouble at all with Dick Vandam’s statement.
“My God!” he cried. “You were trying to bribe Barbara.”
Vandam’s tone became even loftier. “I was merely reassuring her that she had nothing to fear.”
“Because you’d take care of her,” Wenzel concluded for him.
“Only if she told the truth.”
“Sure,” said Ned Ackerman nastily.
Spots of color appeared on Vandam’s cheeks, but he was too wily to be drawn into self-justification. That was his story and he was sticking with it, regardless of the implications.
Captain McNabb, when he was convinced that no further spontaneous disclosures would be forthcoming, ceased being an onlooker, and became an interrogator. But it did him little good. Everybody had been in the vicinity of Barbara Gunn at some time during the hospitality session. Nobody admitted fetching her a drink. Nobody admitted noticing her glass, except the barman who had supplied her initially. It began to look as if Barbara Gunn had carried the same glass from start to finish.
John Putnam Thatcher was the last person that Captain McNabb came to.
“I don’t exactly understand your connection with all this,” he began, sketching a wave around the room.
Succinctly Thatcher explained.
“And this bank attachment? Does that make you a party to the suit?”
“By no means. Our only real connection is as bankers to Standard Foods, and that makes the Sloan’s interest very tangential.”
McNabb nodded in approval. “But you’ve been in on it from the start. Good. Because there’s something that’s got me going around in circles, and maybe you can explain it. This Barbara Gunn was just a simple secretary. She wasn’t a scientist or anything. And this tomato is worth millions, I guess.”
“Easily.”
“But from the amount of heat that’s being generated and from the way the Vandams were trying to sidle up to her, it looks as if her testimony was central to the whole thing.”
“And if she was murdered to prevent her deposition, that certainly reinforces your theory,” Thatcher said dryly.
McNabb was scratching his chin thoughtfully. “You’d think if it was that important I could get some handle on it. But I can’t. Everybody’s stopped making accusations and started being careful. Still, they gave me enough to go on with. As nearly as I can make out, Dick Vandam is claiming that Barbara Gunn could have proved Wenzel stole the tomato. Wenzel and Ackerman are claiming she could have proved it was stolen from them. And this guy, Earl Sanders, is keeping his distance from everyone.”
“You must realize, Captain,” Thatcher said, “that regardless of whether Vandam’s was the thief or the victim of theft, Standard Foods is going to want someone’s head for mismanagement.”
“Great. So, on the face of it, Barbara Gunn was a threat to everybody. Even Howard Pendleton’s neck is on the line, because he’s claiming he didn’t accept any research data from Vandam’s. The Wisconsin Seedsmen people think he’s lying”
“Somebody must be. But I agree it’s odd how Barbara Gunn’s deposition became so critical.”
McNabb looked at him hopefully. “That’s what I wanted help with.”
“You don’t want a banker, Captain. You want a geneticist.”
“Wonderful. The Chicago Police Department has got a lot of experts, but not in that line.”
Thatcher smiled. “Then I may be able to help you after all. At this very moment, Standard Foods has an appointment with one of the most eminent geneticists in the country. I’d talk to Earl Sanders if I were you.”
As a result of this information Captain McNabb wore the only pleased expression in the room as he announced that his witnesses could leave.
“All right, folks, I guess that’s all we can do tonight in a bunch, and most of you could use some sleep. But I’d be grateful if those of you who had anything to do with Barbara Gunn today would think back over your meeting and then get in touch with me to tell me about it.”
Most of the men getting stiffly to their feet looked grim, exhausted, or simply bored. But Fran Pendleton, whom Thatcher encountered in the foyer as he shrugged into his coat, had traces of tears on her cheeks. She was talking to Scott Wenzel.
“I’m sorry about this, Fran,” he was saying awkwardly. “I know you liked Barbara. And I did, too. I liked her a lot.”
Chapter 16
Effective Screens
IN spite of his fair words, Captain McNabb had no intention of relying on the voluntary recollection of his witnesses. Indeed, by the time he had finished consulting the expert suggested by John Thatcher, his witnesses had been upgraded to the status of suspects. McNabb had not profited greatly from the lecture on genetics, but this expert, like all the others, had been awed by the dollars-and-cents value of Numero Uno. For McNabb the long dreary night ended at three o’clock in the morning, when he found himself in a deserted lobby staring at a plant and muttering to himself: If it’s worth millions, that’s really all I have to know.
By nine o’clock an army of police had descended on McCormick Place with instructions to talk to everybody they could find, exhibitors, maintenance men, learned professors, hangers-on, the help in the cafeteria and dining room. Eight hours of perseverance produced plenty of ammunition for McNabb. On the principle of first tackling those who were willing to talk, he headed for the Blackstone and the Pendletons.
He entered a scene of chaos. The sitting room furniture had been shoved aside to clear the center of the floor, where two trestles now supported an oversized wooden crate from which husky spikes of greenery protruded. Fran Pendleton was pumping away at a long brass instrument to such effect that she, the crate, and most of the bystanders were enveloped in clouds of mist. McNabb had to wipe droplets of moisture from his glasses before he spied Eric Most on the floor, wrestling with a recalcitrant roll of black plastic. On the other side of the trestles two impatient men in overalls, one clutching the lid of the crate and the other brandishing a hammer, were being held
at bay by Dr. Pendleton.
In spite of her preoccupation, Fran welcomed the police captain with open arms. After explaining that the floribunda specimens had to leave for the air freight terminal, she handed her pump to Eric Most and swept McNabb and her husband into an adjoining bedroom.
“I’m glad you’ve come. I wasn’t thinking straight yesterday,” she apologized. “But I’ve got things in some sort of order now.”
“You sounded pretty clear to me,” McNabb remarked.
“I don’t mean when I was talking to you. I mean when I was with Barbara in the afternoon.”
“Ah ha! I didn’t realize you’d seen her before dinner.”
“Yes, but at the time I didn’t understand why she was so upset. Now I do.”
McNabb was practically purring. “Go on,” he invited.
“I was so stupid I could kick myself,” Fran said in a burst of self-accusation, before returning to business. “The first thing you have to understand is that we didn’t know anything about the lawsuit for months, in fact not until after the catalog injunction.”
“That’s right,” her husband corroborated. “Vandam’s didn’t see fit to tell us about it.”
McNabb was pleased to hear the bitterness in Pendleton’s voice. The less sweetness and light between his suspects, the less probability of collusion. Nevertheless, there was such a thing as common sense.
“I thought you were the developers of this wonder tomato,” he objected.
Howard Pendleton asked nothing better than the opportunity to continue his indictment. “That’s what makes their performance so imbecilic. Just because they’d never heard of Wisconsin Seed, Vandam’s decided on their own hook it was a nuisance claim. If their precious catalog hadn’t been disrupted, we probably still wouldn’t know.”
“Even when they told us, we had no idea how serious things were,” Fran chimed in. “Remember that day in Puerto Rico, Howard? They called up from Vandamia and told Howard that Wisconsin Seed was contesting the patent. Of course at first I thought that explained everything.”