Greenwich

by Howard Fast

  “I understand.”

  “Two people have been brutally killed by a criminal intruder. You have no leads, no fingerprints, no evidence whatsoever. Has anyone spoke to Mrs. Castle?”

  “Just myself and my assistant, Detective Seeber.”

  “Was he witness to your questioning of Mrs. Castle?”

  “No, sir. I was alone with her.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I’m calling from Castle’s study in his house. She is upstairs in her bedroom, in bed I presume. She was terribly shaken.”

  “Reporters? Television?”

  “There are two TV trucks outside the estate gate, Cable-vision and a CBS truck. Several reporters. I gave strict orders for the driveway to be blocked and neither Mrs. Castle nor the maid to speak to anyone.”

  “That was very intelligent of you, MacGregor. What were your reasons?”

  “The mention of a congressman. That’s why I called you.”

  “Thank God,” Gunhill said. “This is very explosive. In your discussion with Mrs. Castle, did she ever mention Latterbe as a first name, or Latterbe Johnson as a full name?”

  “No, sir. But I’ve read that name somewhere.”

  “I’m sure you have,” Gunhill said. “This is the most delicate matter I ever encountered in all my life as a federal agent. I’ve already been in touch with Washington. Now I must give you some facts, MacGregor, and from what you tell me, I think you’re a good enough American to sit on them—for the rest of your life, if need be. Larry once was Congressman Latterbe Johnson. We still have a good deal of investigating to do, but it’s pretty clear in my mind, from what you have told me, that he killed Castle and the housemaid. That doesn’t mean you drop the investigation. It must continue until it’s locked away as a dead file. Now how long will it take me to get to Greenwich?”

  “From downtown New York? Well, there shouldn’t be much traffic today. An hour, perhaps.”

  “I’ll be there—oh, say two hours. Nobody talks to Mrs. Castle.”

  “Well, sir,” MacGregor said uneasily, “she asked whether a local nun, Brody by name, could come to see her. I agreed. She desperately needs someone.”

  “Are the Castles Catholic?”

  “I don’t think so. No signs of it anywhere in the house. Except for the check to St. Matthew’s.”

  “All right. Let the nun in. You might mention to Mrs. Castle that Larry is an old friend of Castle’s who might be hurt if you mentioned his name as a suspect.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’ll see you later. I want you to remain there, at the house.”

  It was only after MacGregor hung up and saw the patrol car bringing Dickie home that he recalled with chagrin that he had not mentioned Castle’s son.

  He resisted the impulse to call Gunhill again. He’d have to handle Dickie very gingerly, and he intercepted him as Dickie entered the house with Seeber.

  “How’re you taking it, kid?” MacGregor asked him.

  “I got to take it. It’s a rotten break. I loved my father.” No tears, no breaking voice. “Do you know who killed him?”

  “Not yet, but we’re moving on it. I got the whole force moving on it.”

  Seeber raised a brow and then frowned. But he usually frowned. “Chief,” Seeber said, “you got to go out there and make a statement. We can’t keep putting them off.”

  “In a moment. I want a word with Dickie here first.” He drew Dickie off to one side, put a friendly hand on his shoulder and said, “You’re carrying a big load now, son, and I don’t think your mom is up to it.”

  “She’s not my mom,” Dickie said.

  This stupid little bastard, MacGregor said to himself, feeling that somehow he had to win the boy’s trust. “I understand. I can imagine how your real mom must feel. We’ll have to notify her. You must tell me where I can reach her.”

  “I don’t know where she is. Somewhere in California.”

  “Who would know?”

  “Jim Cartwright, Dad’s lawyer. He sends out her checks every month. Dad always squawks about it, but he sends them out, and Dad signs them.”

  Doesn’t this kid realize his father’s dead? MacGregor wondered. “You got things to do, son. You have to face up to it.”

  “Yeah. When will his will be read?”

  MacGregor sighed. “That’s up to Mr. Cartwright. Meanwhile, two people are dead. I’ll be talking to Josie’s parents, but you got to go to the hospital and get the death certificate and arrange for the funeral.”

  “Can’t someone else do that? I don’t know how to arrange a funeral. I never had anyone die on me before.”

  “Do you know where Cartwright’s office is?”

  “Yeah, on Mason Street.”

  “Well, why don’t you go into your father’s study and call Mr. Cartwright. I think he’ll take all these details off your hands.”

  Dickie stared at MacGregor for a moment or two, then he nodded and went into his father’s study. MacGregor turned to Seeber. “You been listening?”

  “I been listening. If that was my kid, I’d boot him from here to Alaska.”

  “He’s not your kid, Cal, so relax. We’re in the middle of a piece of bad monkey business. I know who killed Castle, and I can’t tell you or anybody else.”

  “For God’s sake, who?”

  “No way, and we’re not going to find the killer. But we have to put on a show and leave no stone unturned trying to find him. This afternoon, two federal agents are going to show up here.”

  “Chief, if you can’t trust me—”

  “I trust you, Cal. I’d trust you with my life. But that’s the way the feds want to play it, and if I’m guessing right, they’re going to wipe out any connection between the perp and Castle. That poor black woman was a mistake. She got in the way.”

  Dickie came out of his father’s study now. “Mr. Cartwright says to come right over. He didn’t even know about my dad being dead. It was a big shock to him. He says I should come right over and he’ll take care of everything. He’s got Dad’s will in his safe.” And without taking a breath, “Who do you think killed my dad?”

  “We’ll find him. I think it was someone intending to rob him, and when he saw your dad go into the office outside, he followed him. Then Josie walked in on them by mistake, and he started shooting.” Seeber nodded. It was as good an explanation as any.

  “Can I drive?” Dickie asked. “I mean my own car?”

  “Sure. I’ll ride up to the gate with you,” replied MacGregor, thinking, and deliver my line of bullshit to the eager audience.

  Thirty-nine

  Sister Brody was driving out to the Castle home, in response to Sally’s tearful, pleading telephone call. Sister Brody was also in the midst of a perplexing ethical battle with herself. This was not a frequent state of mind for Sister Brody. Usually, she knew what to do, and she did it. She had served in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras; and now the church was giving her a much-needed reprieve in Greenwich.

  She had accepted the post in Greenwich because she felt she had given in to a surfeit of anger. She had always fought with all her soul to resist anger. To her, controlling and understanding anger was a part of her work; uncontrolled anger was a sin, even when the anger was turned by herself against herself; and after all that she had seen and been a part of, Greenwich was an island of peace and quiet. Nevertheless, driving out to the Back Country, she faced what was perhaps the most vexing ethical problem she had encountered in years. It concerned Sally Castle.

  Sister Brody loved her church and believed wholly in its tenets. Death saddened her enormously, yet she believed fervently that it was simply a transition to another state. She had been a part of long discussions with people who believed otherwise, yet her belief had not been shaken.

  Her church was her mother and father and lover, yet she disagreed politically with major parts of the Catholic Church. In her political ideas she was totally a follower and supporter of the Berrigan broth
ers, and she had once argued with Monsignor Donovan that if a miracle occurred and Father Daniel Berrigan became the next pope, all the working billions of the world would join the church, to which the monsignor replied that miracles were infrequent and that time itself was a miracle more dependable than daydreams.

  Her response, not to the monsignor but to herself, was that the monsignor had spent so much time in meditation that he was beginning to think like a Zen roshi.

  Still and all, here was the problem she faced and was trying to solve during the forty minutes it took to drive from St. Matthew’s to the Castle home. She knew that the Catholic Church was both the wealthiest and the poorest in the world. The treasures in the Vatican were valued at untold billions, yet every active priest and nun was, in fact, a beggar. No matter how much money St. Matthew’s had, they were always in debt. When the thought entered her mind that neither the pope nor any cardinal had ever missed a meal, she prayed for forgiveness for even entertaining the idea. She had prayed for the souls of Josie Brown and Richard Castle and asked forgiveness for both of them.

  She was a keen judge of character, and from her own session with Sally Castle and from what she had observed at the dinner table and afterward, she believed that Richard Castle had loved his wife. Whether he loved her more or less than he loved money was not hers to decide, but she also knew that word around was that he gave little or nothing to charity. Word was also around that he was enormously wealthy and Sister Brody’s guess was that he would leave a substantial amount of it to his wife. There was also no doubt in her mind that if she, Sister Brody, used even modest persuasion, Sally would be baptized a Catholic. The question of Sally’s openness to acts of charity did not even enter Sister Brody’s mind. Sally was an innocent. Innocents formed a definite category of humanity in Sister Brody’s mind. She had met many of them in her time, in various countries, people of various races and varied degrees of education. She had seen innocence in physicians, in college professors, in thieves, and in whores. Innocents came in all colors and in all religions, and they were imbued with something beyond her understanding.

  Thus her ethical problem. She belonged to a missionary order of the church, and she had been prepared to bring Sally to the Catholic Church regardless of what her husband felt. Now her husband was dead, and Sally would likely become a very wealthy woman, possibly, in terms of St. Matthew’s, the wealthiest member of the congregation. How does this influence me, Sister Brody asked herself? Does this make Sally a prize instead of a soul in torment? Am I doing this to influence Sally’s newfound wealth, or am I a woman responding to another woman’s grief?

  She arrived at the Castle estate with the question unanswered. “Help me, please,” she whispered.

  Captain MacGregor was talking to the media when she arrived and parked in front of the gate.

  “As I told you, at this moment we have absolutely no leads, no suspects, but we expect results when the state forensic people arrive. Mrs. Castle is totally devastated by what has happened and will give no interviews. I am keeping the entire place off-limits because those are her instructions. The Greenwich police will not fail the people of Greenwich this time. We will find the perpetrators of this awful crime. This will not be another Moxley case.”

  A policeman approached Sister Brody’s car. “You can’t park here, ma’am.”

  “I’m Sister Brody,” she said. “Mrs. Castle is expecting me.

  Detective Seeber drove with Sister Brody up the driveway to the house. “You’re the only one she asked for, Sister, not even her lawyer. Captain MacGregor doesn’t like those scenes where the TV camera is poking into the faces of the bereaved. She says she doesn’t want to talk to anyone but you—that’s the way it is.”

  “That’s very thoughtful of Captain MacGregor. Please thank him for me,” Sister Brody said.

  Donna opened the door for Sister Brody, and Seeber went back to the gate. Donna was still very upset, telling the nun that she had been talking to Josie Brown’s mother.

  “It’s so hard to talk to someone with such a loss. How can you explain it? Josie never bothered anyone.”

  “You must pray for her.” What else can I say? Sister Brody wondered. She had faced this question of useless and meaningless murder many times before, and there was no answer to the question.

  “How is Mrs. Castle?”

  “She’s upstairs in her bedroom. I brought her a tray of sandwiches and milk, but she wouldn’t touch it.”

  “What do you do when the telephone rings?”

  It was ringing now. Donna shrugged. “Captain MacGregor was here until half an hour ago. He said he’d be back. I let it ring, and the machine answers.”

  “And where’s the boy, Dickie?”

  “He went to talk with Mr. Castle’s lawyer.” Then Donna told the nun about Dickie’s night in jail.

  “Doesn’t he want to be with Sally?”

  “They don’t get along too well. She tries. But he—”

  “I understand. I’ll go up to her now.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Donna said. “It’s spooky here with no one except the cops.”

  Sister Brody climbed the broad staircase to the upper floor.

  The door to the bedroom was open, and Sally was seated on a small Queen Anne chair, her hands clasped in her lap. She rose as Sister Brody entered and went to her and kissed her on the cheek. She was still wearing the blue jeans and the T-shirt she had put on this morning. Her hair was tied in a knot at the back of her head, and her eyes were bloodshot from weeping.

  “Thank you for coming, Sister Pat,” Sally said, almost formally, as if she were practicing to have each word correct. “It was very good of you. Please sit down,” indicating another chair. “You said yesterday that I could call you Sister Pat?” she said uncertainly.

  “Or Pat, whichever you wish.”

  “I never had a sister—or a brother.”

  “That’s a shame, isn’t it? I’m sure you would have loved sisters and brothers. I have two brothers and a sister.”

  “Are they like you?” Sally asked.

  “They’re not as fat as I am,” the little nun said, laughing.

  “You’re not fat.”

  “Bless you.”

  “I meant, do they work for the church, like you do?”

  “No, Sally. My sister is married and has three children. One brother is a therapist and the other is still in college, still trying to get his Ph.D.”

  “A therapist?”

  “He works with people who are disturbed and need help.”

  “Oh, I get disturbed.”

  “We all do at times.”

  Sally nodded. “At times like today. It’s been a terrible day.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m better because I knew you’d come.”

  “I’m happy to be here with you,” Sister Brody said.

  “Thank you. The policeman, Mr. MacGregor, asked me did I want to call any friends or relatives, but I have no relatives and except for you and Ruth Sellig, I have no friends. Muffy, who was here last night, always pretends to be my friend. She wants to sleep with Richard, and she thinks I’m too stupid to see it. A lot of the women think I’m stupid because I don’t play cards or golf or tennis and, I guess, the way their husbands look at me. That’s why I don’t use makeup or paint my nails, because Richard once said women use them as come-ons. And I hardly ever talk. I read. I only got to seventh grade, but I read a lot. Richard preferred television—Oh, my goodness, I never talked so much before.”

  “I want you to talk,” Sister Brody told her. “And you’re not stupid.”

  “That’s what Ruth Sellig says. She’s a photographer, not with dirty pictures but faces for magazines and covers. She’s Harold Sellig’s wife. I invited both of them, but her father was having an operation, so she couldn’t come.”

  “Yes, I know. Her father passed away last night.”

  Sally’s face contracted with pain. “Dr. Ferguson. Oh, I’m so sorry! He w
as a dear man.” Tears came to her eyes. She reached for a tissue and wiped away the tears. “I’m frightened of death, and today has been full of death. Could I ask you a kind of personal question, Sister Pat?”

  “Of course.”

  “I had pneumonia last winter. That’s when I met Dr. Ferguson, at the hospital. I had a very high temperature and I thought I was going to die, and I asked him.”

  “But you didn’t die. You got better.”

  “Yes,” Sally said. “But I’m afraid, and that’s what I want to ask you. What happens to people who die?”

  “I don’t know, my dear.”

  “But you’re a nun. Aren’t you supposed to know?”

  “I have my faith, and my faith tells me that God loves people, that we are his children, and that if we live good lives, we exist in another form after death.”

  Sally shook her head. “I saw Richard this morning, lying there in his office in a pool of blood with his head smashed. It was the worst thing I had ever seen. How can I think he was alive or will be alive again? I want to, but I can’t.”

  “Did you love him, Sally?”

  “That’s the funny thing. I don’t know if I did or not. I was a little afraid of him. My first husband beat me up, and I had to go to the hospital. My second husband never spoke to me. He showed me off, and then in bed he’d go at me. Richard was the first man who ever treated me decently. He never hit me. He bought me all kinds of things that I didn’t even ask for, and he got into a real fight at the club with a man who called me a trophy wife. I wasn’t a trophy wife. Richard had left his first wife years before I met him in Los Angeles. But now he’s dead and gone forever.”

  “Can I tell you a little story?” Sister Brody asked.

  Sally nodded, and Sister Brody went on, “When I was a little girl, nine or ten years old, I asked my mother what would happen to me if I died. We weren’t a Catholic family. I joined the church years later, but that’s another story. This time, when I asked her that question, she took a glass of water and a box of salt. Then she put a spoonful of salt on a spoon. Do you see the salt and the water? she asked me. I said I did. Then she poured the salt from the spoon into the water and mixed it well. Where’s the salt, Pat? she asked me. You put it into the water, I said; and she said, Do you see it? No, I said. But you saw me put it in, so you know the salt is there. I had to agree to that.