The Childish Churl (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 15)

by Frank W. Butterfield

  Maria put her left arm around the girl's shoulder. She looked at me and said, "Maybe not. You never know what can happen."

  Carter said, "Yeah. You never know," and patted me on the thigh.

  . . .

  Once she had a drink of water, I asked Miss Grossman, "So, how long were you at Janice's?"

  "From about 6 on Wednesday night until this morning when Mrs. Vasco showed up." She grinned at me. "That was really brilliant. I was completely taken in. So was Janice."

  I smiled. "Mrs. Vasco is brilliant. That's a fact. Did Janice's parents know you were there?"

  She shook her head. "Janice has a bedroom in the garage. Her father fixed it up for her about three years ago. She even has her own bathroom."

  "Janice is pretty smart, herself."

  Miss Grossman thought about that for a moment. "With some things. I wanted her to come with me to Cal but her grades were abysmal. She's terrible at tests and writing papers. But she always remembers almost anything that anyone tells her. In my Psychology class last spring, the professor said that Janice was an idiot savant. That's someone who's really good at one thing, like playing the piano or multiplying large numbers. But Janice is good at everything." She paused for a moment. "Everything she wants to do, that is." She looked down at her skirt again and shifted uncomfortably. Finally, she looked up at me and said, "And she's in love with you. You and Mr. Jones. She doesn't understand what homosexuality is. You really shouldn't have kissed her yesterday. That was all she could talk about all night."

  "So she told you that I saw her and that we talked?"

  Miss Grossman nodded. "Yes. I know I should have called you but all I could think about was getting my pin money. I'm going to need it now." She put her left pinky finger to her mouth, started to chew on the nail, and then hastily put her left hand in her lap and held it down with her right.

  I asked, "Can you tell us again about what Mr. de Lima asked you about?"

  She thought for a moment. "First he asked me where my father was. I told him I didn't know. Then he said that I did know because he had talked to my father at the airport when he arrived on Monday morning. I told him that he must have been mistaken because my father wasn't in town. He would have called us. Then he laughed and said that he was in town and that I should be careful about telling lies. That's when he grabbed my arm. I pulled it away. Fortunately, a couple of kids I know from the wrestling team walked by right then. Mark, I know him from Mill Valley, stopped and asked me if anything was wrong. That's when Mr. de Lima left. I watched him as I talked to Mark and told him that he was a friend of my father's. When Mark and Al left, I followed where Mr. de Lima had turned. I could see him walking down to Oxford Street, so I followed him. It seemed important for some reason."

  . . .

  Mike was sitting in the chair where Miss Grossman had been sitting. She and Maria had gone back downstairs. Carter and I were on the sofa and had just told Mike what we knew up to that point.

  "What do you think?" I asked.

  He thought for a moment. "Do you have any suspicions that she might have killed her father?"

  I shook my head. "None. Why?"

  "While you were talking to her, I got a call from Sergeant Bullston. He wanted to let me know that they've determined the cause of death to be a single gunshot to the temple. The way it happened makes it look like Grossman knew who his murderer was and wasn't expecting to be shot. There were no signs that he put up a fight or struggled at all."

  "Was it a question?" asked Carter.

  Mike frowned. "Was what a question?"

  "Was the cause of death a question?"

  Mike shook his head. "Sorry, no. Bad word choice. What I meant to say is that the report is in. That's what Bullston was calling to tell me. And it's the first we've heard about what killed him."

  Carter nodded. "Where was he killed?"

  "Still don't know that. There's been nothing in the papers. I don't know how Lieutenant Thomas has been keeping the lid on this."

  "Maybe he's as much an ass to reporters as everyone else," said Carter.

  Mike snorted. "No doubt. Didn't I tell you about this guy? When your house burned down?"

  I nodded. "I vaguely remember that. Yeah."

  "You should never have talked to him."

  Carter sighed. "Then he would have hit Nick with obstruction."

  Mike looked at me. "He's getting good."

  I smiled as I grabbed Carter's knee. "I'm so proud of him."

  Carter huffed and, trying to mimic my voice, said, "Oh, brother."

  Mike and I both laughed.

  Carter then asked, "So what do we do with Alicia? Let her go back to Janice's house?"

  "How old is she?" asked Mike.

  I said, "She's a sophomore at Cal. So she's 19 or 20, I think."

  He said, "Why can't she go back to the dorm?"

  "We don't know who killed her father."

  "Do you have that Lord whoozit's card with you?"

  I shook my head. "It should be on Marnie's desk somewhere."

  Mike stood and said, "Let's call that phone number."

  Carter and I stood. I looked at my watch. It was twenty past five. "Um, I think it's about 3 in the morning there."

  Mike grinned. "If that number is what I think it is, there should be an answer."

  . . .

  The phone rang at Marnie's desk. I picked it up. "Yeah?"

  An efficient female voice said, "We have your international call ready for you, sir."

  "Thanks."

  The voice then said, "San Francisco is ready."

  A slightly fainter voice said, "New York is ready."

  A fainter voice with a hiss said, "London ready."

  There was a click and a woman with a crisp British accent said, "This is Grosvenor 6772."

  Speaking as clearly as I could, I said, "My name is Nick Williams. I'm trying to reach Lord Gerald Whitcombe."

  "Yes, Mr. Williams. Are you at San Francisco, Prospect 7-7777?"

  "Yes."

  "Very good. Lord Gerald will ring you presently. Goodbye."

  With that, the line went dead.

  I put the receiver on the hook and looked at Mike. "You were right. She knew our phone number."

  Right then, the phone rang. I laughed. "That was fast." I picked up the receiver and said, "Consolidated Security."

  "Nick, it's Marnie. Are you two coming for dinner at Ernie's?"

  "Yeah, doll. We'll be late, though. We'll be there about seven."

  "OK. Mother was worried about you."

  "We're fine. But I gotta go. We're waiting for a call and none of us know how to work your phone."

  She giggled. "Bye, Nick."

  "Bye, doll."

  I put the receiver on the hook and looked at Carter. "Lettie was worried."

  He grinned and nodded. Lifting up his arm, he sniffed. "We have to take a shower. Or, I do, at least."

  I nodded and looked down at my casual trousers. "I know. That's why I said—"

  The phone rang again. I picked it up. "Consolidated Security."

  "Whitcombe speaking. I believe you were looking for me."

  "Yeah. Can you come by here?"

  "Certainly. I'm no more than five minutes away."

  "Thanks."

  "The pleasure is all mine."

  With that, the line went dead.

  . . .

  "Now, gentlemen, how may I help you?"

  Mr. Whitcombe had arrived just as fast as he'd said he would. In the intervening five minutes, we'd decided that I should do all the talking but that Carter and Mike would lean against my desk while I stood in front of them. I was pretty sure he would see right through us, but we had very little leverage, otherwise. None of us were sure what to make of the man.

  I said, "We're wondering about your role in the death of David Grossman."

  Mr. Whitcombe looked at me for a moment. "Ah, yes, the young lady is his daughter, is she not?"

  I kept my stone face and
waited.

  "Well, Mr. Williams, what I can tell you is if you knew to contact me about this matter it must mean you have spoken with his daughter and, if that is the case, may I suggest you keep her tucked away, nice and safe?"

  I didn't say anything or move.

  "Yes, well, you see there is a very nasty man who is trying to find her. I don't know whether he—"

  "Carlos de Lima?" I asked.

  "Precisely." He looked mildly impressed.

  "He left the country yesterday morning."

  Whitcombe nodded and relaxed a little. "I see. Well, she should be safe as houses, what?"

  I crossed my arms. "But what about you? How are you involved?"

  "There's not much I can tell you other than I can say Mr. Grossman was not the target of the bomb on flight 35."

  I tried not to register surprise at that. "Who was?" I asked.

  "Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but the target or, should I say, targets were Mrs. Dewey and myself."

  "How so?" asked Mike.

  Mr. Whitcombe smiled faintly. "I thought your job in this conversation, Mr. Robertson, was to say fee, fi, fo, et cetera. But, to answer your question, we believe the bomb was placed by a Soviet agent. You see, part of the reason I was in Manitoba was not only to ask Mrs. Dewey to join our little team but also to look into a small Soviet cell she had inadvertently stumbled across."

  "In the middle of Canada?" asked Mike, sounding very doubtful.

  "Yes, quite. You see, there's a strong socialist element in the prairie provinces. Dates back to the Depression, don't you know. Being a capitalist myself, although less now than before the war, I have no real affinity for the socialist mindset. But, had I been a farmer in those years, I would certainly have leaned in that direction." He grinned slightly. "In these years of plenty, there hasn't been much to foment the masses, so the Soviets decided to try their hand at reactivating some of their sleepers from the Comintern days."

  "Comintern?" asked Carter.

  Mike said, "Communist International."

  "Quite so," added Mr. Whitcombe. "The whole thing was rather heavy-handed. The K.G.B. is suffering under Khrushchev and they did rather bungle things in a couple of spots this summer, so they're giving things their best shot but, I'm afraid, not doing very well." He offered one gloved hand. "Witness a bomb which doesn't actually explode. Poor things, I understand their funding has been cut by the Politburo and, well, it's not 1937, now is it?"

  "The K.G.B.?" asked Carter.

  "That's the Russian spy agency, " said Mike.

  Mr. Whitcombe grinned at Mike. "For such a tall person, you are rather well-informed."

  Before Mike could reply to that, I said, "OK. So, you and Mrs. Dewey were on that same flight?"

  "Quite. We flew from Winnipeg on Trans Canada to Chicago, lodged there overnight, and picked up the T.W.A. non-stop to San Francisco from there. And it was quite interesting to see so many familiar faces on the airplane. There was Mr. Grossman, of course—"

  "Why did you know him?" I asked.

  "Because of his planned testimony before the parliamentary commission established to review the building of that dam in Southern Rhodesia. In my little group, we weren't tracking him, but I'd seen his photograph in a general sort of briefing about persons of interest who were floating in and out of the United Kingdom."

  "Why was he a person of interest?"

  "Now, I'm sure you know, Mr. Williams, there is only so much I can say."

  I nodded. "Who else did you see on the plane?"

  "Well, if you must ask, then I suppose you know already. That ass, Andrew Zinger, whose only job, it would appear, is to find some witless American state governor to agree to apartheid as a jolly good way to run their state. He was coming here to visit Sacramento. Somehow he was invited to meet with several members of the state legislature. Besides being shockingly immoral, if you don't mind my saying so, it was also a waste of their time. Even if he should find someone to propose a bill, I do believe your Supreme Court has already made it quite clear the whole scheme would be unconstitutional, what?"

  I nodded. "So, you still haven't told us if you were involved in Mr. Grossman's murder."

  "I can quite categorically say no. And, now you have told me of Mr. de Lima's unlamented departure from these shores, I haven't the foggiest who might have. Any possibility of the wife?"

  I shook my head. "Probably not."

  "Cui bono and all that, what?"

  I asked, "Who benefits?"

  Mr. Whitcombe nodded. "I seem to remember in the briefing, a reference was made to an inheritance somewhere. Seems as though it was recent. Perhaps in the last year."

  That clicked for some reason. I turned to Carter and asked, "What did I tell you that one stewardess said about what he told her about coming home?"

  "That he was looking forward to seeing his wife. That he was going to surprise her."

  I nodded. "I assumed he was happy to be coming home. Maybe what he was about to surprise her with was a divorce."

  . . .

  Once Mr. Whitcombe had left, Carter and I walked down to the eighteenth floor and knocked on the door to Maria and Walter's office.

  Walter opened the door and said, "Um, yes, Mr. Williams?"

  I smiled and said, "Is Miss Grossman in here?"

  "No, sir. They went down to the library on the eighth floor."

  "Thanks." I looked over his head to see if anyone else was in the room. It looked like he was alone. "How're things with Howie?"

  Walter pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Good. He's flying up tonight on P.S.A. He'll be staying with me for the weekend. We'll be at the wedding tomorrow." Howie was another brainiac we'd met during the summer down in L.A. He was getting a Ph.D. at U.C.L.A. in Mathematics and could program a computer, one of the big brains they had on campus. We'd introduced Walter to Howie and, happily, it had been love at first sight.

  I could feel Carter hovering behind me. He asked, "Is he still planning on moving up here in December?"

  Walter nodded but didn't speak.

  I asked, "When will you two have a proposal for Robert and me for this new computer?"

  "Uh, next month, probably. We'll be, um, working on it, uh, while he's here."

  I smiled. "Good. We'll see you both tomorrow."

  "Sure, Mr. Williams. Thanks for the invitations. Uh, goodnight."

  Carter waved his hand over my shoulder and said, "Bye, Walter."

  "Uh," was all he could say before quickly closing the door.

  Carter whispered in my ear, "He's so cute."

  . . .

  Neither of us had been to the mysterious library on the eighth floor. I didn't know we'd taken space down there until one of our employees, Anita Wilson, had told me a few months earlier.

  We got off the elevator. There was a sign pointing to the left: "C.S.I. Library." I laughed. "Well, that's easy."

  Carter pointedly looked at his watch and said, "We need to move this show along, son."

  I nodded. "I know."

  The door to the library was at the end of the hall. There were a couple of other firms with offices on the floor whose doors we passed. One was a travel agency and the other was a secretarial service.

  When we got to the door, I tried to open it but it was locked. I looked for a buzzer, and seeing none, I knocked on the door as loudly as I could.

  After a moment, Maria opened the door with a smile. "Is this your first time down here?" she asked.

  We both nodded.

  "Your main key will unlock this door," she added.

  "Good to know," I said, as we followed her in. We were standing in an open space that looked like it took up one half of the square footage of the eighth floor. The view from the windows was over Market Street and around to Post. There were rows and rows of shelves. About a third of the shelves had books on them. Most of the books appeared to be city directories. There were stacks and stacks of magazines and newspapers, just like in Maria and
Walter's office. They didn't seem to be particularly organized.

  I asked Maria, "Is Miss Grossman with you?"

  She nodded and pointed towards the left. As she walked in that direction, Maria said, "She's back here with Anita. We've been talking about how to organize this room. I really think we need to hire a librarian. It's getting too large for Walter and me to manage. We can't keep track of everything."

  As we came around the corner, we found Anita and Miss Grossman on the carpeted floor, looking through a stack of technical magazines. Miss Grossman was saying, "Well, this has to do with mechanical engineering. It's not the same as electrical, which is what these are."

  Anita looked up at us and smiled. "Miss Grossman was just helping us sort out all these different engineering magazines. Maria and I were both lost."

  "Please call me Alicia."

  Anita nodded, "And I'm Anita."

  They exchanged smiles and a light bulb went off in my head.

  Miss Grossman looked up at me with a slight frown. "Is it time for me to go home?"

  I shook my head. "Well, not home. But maybe back to campus?"

  She sighed, stood, and smoothed out her skirt. "Mrs. Vasco told me that Mr. de Lima has left the country, so I suppose I'm safe."

  "Can I ask you a difficult question, Miss Grossman?"

  She smiled. "Please call me Alicia."

  "Alicia. And I'm Nick and this is Carter."

  She blushed. "I'll stick to Mr. Williams and Mr. Jones, if that's OK."

  "Sure. Can I ask you that question, Alicia?"

  She nodded. "Yes."

  "Do you know if your father recently came into an inheritance?"

  Putting her left hand over her mouth, Alicia nodded but didn't say anything.

  "Do you know anything about it?" I asked.

  "It was my great-aunt Jane Grossman. She was my grandfather's sister and she never married. My father found out about it a few weeks before he left on his last trip. Why do you ask?"

  "Do you have any idea how your mother felt about that?"

  A number of expressions passed over the girl's face. First, she looked shocked. Then, she looked angry. Finally, she began to cry.

  Maria put her arm around Alicia and said, "It's OK."

  Alicia nodded, pulled out her handkerchief, and wiped her eyes. "You think Mother killed Father, don't you?"