by Emma Lathen
“Great! That’s all I need to add to the pot. At least the other two outfits, IPR and Wisconsin Seed, don’t seem to have these family quarrels.”
Thatcher and Charlie looked at each other before Thatcher spoke. “I don’t know about IPR, Captain, but after drinks yesterday Trinkam and I had the distinct impression that Wisconsin Seed is not quite as monochromatic as all that. It was really your idea, Charlie.”
Nothing loath, Trinkam recounted with gusto his view of the Hilary-Ackerman-Wenzel trio. “Of course it may simply be a case of the two partners keeping business details from the girl friend. But Hilary Davis knew enough to make sure that Wenzel didn’t speak too freely about plant genetics.”
In McNabb’s view any lawyer tended to suppress social chitchat about an impending lawsuit. He was more interested in the revelations about Ackerman.
“I didn’t realize he was so high-powered,” he admitted. “I was concentrating on Wenzel.”
“You may have picked up that bias from Vandam’s,” Thatcher suggested.
“And the Pendletons,” said McNabb, thinking back. “They didn’t even mention Ackerman as a factor.”
He repeated Fran’s account of Barbara Gunn in the Blackstone. “Mrs. Pendleton saw it as a war of loyalty between the claims of Wenzel and the claims of Pendleton. You would have thought Ackerman didn’t exist.”
Thatcher recalled all that he had heard about the origins of the biennial tomato, including early dreams in Puerto Rico.
“That may be a natural error on Mrs. Pendleton’s part,” he mused. “She and Wenzel and Barbara go back a long way. She may have simply overlooked the business manager up in Madison. But I don’t think you should make the same mistake, Captain.”
McNabb grinned wearily. “No fear. Businessmen are a lot easier for me to take than these crazy scientists.” He lifted his coffee cup in salute to his hosts. “Half the time I don’t understand what Wenzel is saying. He’s clear enough about Pendleton being a has-been but, when I asked him about the Gunn girl’s state of mind, he looked at me as if I was talking Chinese.”
“A very self-absorbed young man,” Thatcher agreed.
As the Captain levered himself to his feet, he carried this thought further than Thatcher had intended.
“That can take people different ways. Make it strong enough, and it can turn a man into a murderer.”
Chapter 17
Extra Long Ears
ERIC Most’s happy certainty that only sentimentality prevented the Pendletons from recognizing Barbara Gunn’s murder as the solution to all their problems received one blow after another. First there was the police.
“I’d almost forgotten about that,” he told Captain McNabb carelessly, after being reminded of his cafeteria encounter with Barbara.
McNabb, fresh from a night’s sleep, was at his smoothest. “Well, now that it’s been brought back to you, suppose you tell me about it.”
“There wasn’t much to it. Actually I was in two minds as to whether I should pay any attention to her at all.”
“They tell me you’re the one who started things.”
“That’s right. Seeing her standing there, cool as a cucumber, got my goat.”
McNabb invisibly straightened to attention. He had heard many assessments of Barbara Gunn during the last day of her life. Cool as a cucumber certainly did not represent consensus.
“So I let her have it,” Most continued, seeming to relish the memory. “I told her that she ought to be ashamed, lending herself to a barefaced theft, and did she realize she was stealing five years of my work.”
“What did she say to that?”
Most shrugged. “What could she say? But I gave her plenty to think about, I promise you that. And you can see for yourself what she did.”
“Now what would that be?”
“I rattled her. I told her she wasn’t going to get away with it. If she backed up Wenzel in his story, she’d go to jail. You can bet your bottom dollar he never told her that.” Most leaned forward persuasively. “So she decided to get out while she still could, and she was killed for her pains. It’ll all come out in the wash as soon as we get this thing to court.”
The police captain held up a restraining hand. “That may be a while yet.”
“I’m not talking about your court. I’m talking about ours. Wenzel doesn’t have anybody to corroborate him now. It’s just his word that he did all those experiments, and that’s nonsense on the face of it. He’s sunk and he knows it.”
“If that’s the result,” McNabb suggested evenly, “then offhand it doesn’t seem like a good reason for murdering her. You’re the ones getting all the benefit.”
Most waved an impatient hand. “That’s irrelevant. Wenzel didn’t have any choice,” he insisted. “But I’m right, you’ll see.”
Policeman and witness stared at each other in mutual dissatisfaction. Captain McNabb, of course, had met this kind before. It was the worst sort of witness to evaluate. Eric Most was so busy convincing himself that it was impossible to tell whether he himself knew when he was lying. The confrontation with Barbara Gunn, for instance, could easily have been a simple case of a weak, vain man seizing the opportunity to bully an even weaker, already intimidated, young girl. Nobody would ever know because of Most’s compulsion to rewrite history.
As for Most, he was wondering, as he often did, why life compelled him to deal with people so stupid they could not see what was crystal clear.
But worse, far worse, from Eric’s point of view, was the official reaction of Vandam’s and Standard Foods. “An adjournment!” he cried blankly when Dick Vandam relayed the news. “But that’s crazy. We’ve got Wenzel on the run, and now’s the time to stick it to him.”
“I agree that this murder has put pressure on Wisconsin Seed, and that’s a good thing. They’re already operating on a shoestring and the last thing they can tolerate is the introduction of another delay. I’ve been over all this with Standard Foods and they’ve come around to my way of thinking. Wisconsin Seed will have to break down and come to the negotiating table.”
“Negotiating table!” Eric was speechless with indignation.
No more than most men did Dick Vandam like having every statement received with stark disbelief. “Well, that’s what we’ve decided,” he snapped. “That’s why I asked Pendleton to come over. But I see he couldn’t find the time.”
“He’s introducing the guest speaker at the Propagation Committee lunch,” Most said absently, his thoughts still dwelling on the enormity proposed to him. “Anyway, I’m just as involved as Howard is, and I can’t help thinking that you’re making a big mistake.”
“Nonsense. You don’t understand that this is a business decision. And we’re the ones who are being sued.”
“Everyone at the meetings is saying that it’s between Wenzel and me. My whole reputation is at stake.”
“Everyone’s reputation is at stake.”
The words were out before Vandam could stop them. Fortunately Eric did not see the implications, he only saw an opportunity.
“That’s why we should get it cleared up fast.”
“The decision has been made,” said Vandam, rising.
No one could accuse Ned Ackerman of rewriting history. In fact, he seemed barely able to summon any interest in it.
“I had a hard time getting hold of you,” McNabb remarked as he followed Ackerman down the corridor to his hotel room. “You didn’t seem to be anywhere at McCormick Place.”
The police captain had finally succeeded by simply waiting in the lobby of the Drake until his man appeared.
“I had some business downtown.”
As they entered, Captain McNabb’s vigilant eye noted that it was a pile of government publications Ackerman was depositing on a table.
“Government Printing Office?” he asked.
“Department of Agriculture,” Ackerman said briefly as he tossed his coat on a chair. “What can I do for you, Captain?”
“I guess you didn’t hear me say I wanted to have a session with everyone who was with Barbara Gunn the day she was murdered.”
“Sure, I heard you,” Ackerman said without heat. “Sorry I was out of touch for a couple of hours, but I figured Scotty could always fill you in.”
Although he gestured invitingly toward two chairs and waited for the police captain to be seated, Ackerman himself stayed on his feet and began prowling the length of the small room.
“You may not have noticed, Mr. Ackerman, but your partner isn’t awfully good at fleshing out the human details.”
McNabb had intended a small piece of sarcasm. He was surprised when Ackerman stopped dead, cocked his head, and seemed to be studying a dazzlingly new conception.
“You know, you’re right,” he said at length. “Half the time, Scott doesn’t know what people are feeling, and he couldn’t care less, which makes him a pretty rotten prophet. I may have been relying on his judgment too much in this business. That’s going to change.”
The last thing Captain McNabb wanted was to spark an internal monologue in which he had no role. “Let’s get back to Barbara Gunn,” he directed. “What was she like at the end?”
“Jumpy as hell,” Ackerman said promptly.
“Why?”
“Partly that was my fault. When I was describing the deposition process to her, I told her there was nothing to it. She’d just have to tell a couple of lawyers the way things had happened.”
“Well, if she was going to tell the truth,” McNabb challenged, “that was all there was to it.”
Ackerman shook his head. “I forgot the circus atmosphere at these meetings and the way it would affect a timid kid like Barbara. She hated being in the limelight. And then some damn fool scared the bejesus out of her with the crazy idea that she was going to be a star witness at a big trial. That was enough to give her a heart attack on the spot.”
Unerringly McNabb pinpointed the one anomaly. “What was so crazy about the idea? It may have scared her, but it was the way things were going to be.”
“Hell no,” said Ackerman casually. “Barbara was never going to testify.”
The statement was so assured, yet so nonchalant, McNabb could scarcely believe his ears.
“Well, that’s certainly the way things turned out,” he agreed cautiously, “but how could you know in advance?”
The rat-a-tat tempo of their exchange, with Captain McNabb barking his questions at the perambulating figure and Ned Ackerman tossing the answers over his shoulder, had slowed considerably. Ackerman even paused long enough in his quartering of the room to face the policeman squarely.
“The geneticists were going to be the stars in this suit,” he explained. “Barbara didn’t know enough to be important.”
“Come off it, Ackerman. She knew plenty. She knew when and where things were done.”
Ackerman held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay. But come off it yourself, Captain. This was a complex commercial suit with millions at stake. You know damn well that 99e out of a 100 of these cases never see the inside of a courtroom. After everyone’s flexed his muscles, the cases get settled in offices by a swarm of high-priced legal talent. I was simply playing the odds.”
“But you and that partner of yours have been swearing you’d take this all the way to the Supreme Court.”
“People say that all the time,” Ackerman said wryly. “They don’t always mean it.”
And from this stand, he could not be budged. Captain McNabb did not object to pertinacious witnesses. He did, however, object to witnesses who were giving him only a fraction of their attention. Ackerman’s mind was nine parts elsewhere. Even his prowling, now resumed, did not suggest nervous tension so much as churning thoughts and schemes that could not be addressed until McNabb’s departure. Fortunately there was a sovereign remedy for this situation.
“Maybe it was a mistake for you to take off for the Federal Building today,” McNabb began. “If you’d hung around McCormick Place and you like to play the odds, you’d know what the money is saying. That Barbara Gunn decided to welsh on some deal with you, and you killed her before she could sink your lawsuit.”
Suspicion will almost always rivet a witness’s attention, but nothing works all the time.
“Oh, that. They’ve been saying it for 24 hours,” Ackerman said without much interest. “Silliest piece of nonsense I’ve ever heard.”
“If it’s that silly,” growled an exasperated policeman, “suppose you give me another motive for her murder.”
Ackerman brushed an arm across his forehead as if yet another gnat had been added to the cloud already circling him. “I’ll be damned if I can figure that one out.”
“In other words,” said McNabb harshly, “a woman who worked for you has been murdered, you don’t know why, and you don’t much care.”
Ackerman’s voice dropped a full octave. “I care all right,” he growled, “but that doesn’t help me make sense of it.”
“You’d better try harder than that. So long as you’ve got the only apparent motive for Barbara Gunn’s murder, you’re in this up to your neck.”
“I’m not worried about my so-called motive. I’m worried about not knowing somebody else’s. Like I told you, Barbara wasn’t that important.”
McNabb could think of only one explanation for Ackerman’s rock-hard confidence.
“You’re keeping something up your sleeve,” he accused.
The retort was immediate. “If I am, it’s none of your business.”
“Everything in a murder investigation is my business.”
“Like hell it is. We’re settling this our own way.”
No phrase in the English language is more calculated to raise police hackles.
“Forget that kind of thinking, Ackerman,” Captain McNabb warned. “If you and that tin-pot partner of yours get any ideas about vigilante justice, I’ll have you inside a jail cell within ten minutes.”
This threat achieved what nothing else had. At last he had his witness’s undivided attention. Ackerman blinked, readjusted his thoughts, then gave a short bark of laughter.
“You’ve got to be kidding. You think I’m going to get a six-shooter and gun somebody down in revenge? I’m not an adolescent, Captain. What’s more, I’m not a man of violence.”
McNabb already knew he had made a mistake. Ackerman, for better or worse, was undeniably adult. His second claim, however, had backfired. It had reminded the homicide expert of that long list of murderers resorting to poison because they simply could not tolerate the sight of human blood.
“I don’t know why you say Ackerman is a dark horse,” Earl Sanders complained. “And even if he is, I still think Dick made the right call about an adjournment.”
“It makes financial sense,” Thatcher conceded.
“Of course that’s not the reason Dick’s doing it,” Sanders continued gloomily. “He’s covering something. A baby could tell that much.”
Thatcher and Charlie, fresh from the death throes of Wenonah Industries, were not encouraging someone else’s troubles.
“Time will tell,” Thatcher said, glancing ostentatiously at his watch. “Right now we’re due at Midwestern Trust.”
Sanders trailed after them to the door. “I’ll let you know if anything more develops,” he promised.
“You do that,” they chorused, escaping.
The latest development was taking place that very moment as Detective Ed Dombrow trudged up the steps of a brick bungalow on Armitage Avenue. The steps were bone dry, although an inch of snow had fallen overnight. Somebody had been out with a shovel, somebody who not only cleared the porch but straightlined the sidewalk.
Dombrow’s brick bungalow on Fullerton was yellow, not red. Otherwise it was a twin of the Norris home, down to the stained glass inserts at the top of the front door. And before he left that morning, Ed Dombrow had carefully shoveled his walk, too.
This in fact was why he was talking to Barbara Gunn
’s mother and father. The big shots were all downtown talking to other big shots. Phil and Elite Norris out in Bridgeport had nothing to do with high-powered businessmen, important court cases, or murder, except for the fact that Barbara Gunn was their only daughter.
But Captain McNabb never overlooked loose ends. So Ed Dombrow had been detailed to this chore.
“Sorry to bother you again,” he said when the door opened. “They’ve got a few other questions.”
“Come on in,” said Phil Norris. Like Dombrow, he was big and solid without any of the thickening that age would bring. “Things are a little better.”
“It always takes time,” Dombrow replied, following him into the living room.
This laconic exchange bridged the gap between then and now. Late the night Barbara Gunn died, Detective Dombrow had brought the news, the tears, the confusion. Hard-working people caught with their defenses down, newspapers on the floor, stockinged feet before the TV, a small granddaughter sleeping in the bedroom that had once been her mother’s.
There was no sign of those ravages, now. The house looked ready for a party. Ellie Norris, who emerged from the kitchen, had newly golden highlights in her hair, while her husband wore a spotless sport shirt and slacks.
Downtown, the body had already been released. Detective Dombrow knew, without asking, about the funeral, the friends, and neighbors who would be coming by, the wake, the church, the grave. The long sad pattern had begun and, by the time it was over, the edge of grief would have been dulled.
“We drove Tracy out to Aurora, to Phil’s niece,” said Mrs. Norris in response to Dombrow’s question. “She’s got kids the right age and—”
“You didn’t want to ask her questions, did you?” Phil Norris demanded truculently.
“God, no!” exclaimed Dombrow.
Ellie Norris looked nervous. “Phil’s worried about Tracy.”
“She’s just a baby,” her husband growled.
“Detective Dombrow knows that,” Ellie said placatingly.