by Jane Haddam
“That’s right,” I said.
“And you didn’t move the chair,” he said,
“I didn’t move the chair. I didn’t touch anything.” I lit a cigarette and watched him through the smoke. His face was tense and disturbed. His fingers were tapping arrhythmically against the desk.
“You know anything about this Alida Brookfield?” he asked me. “Anything about her habits?”
“I know she was crazy,” I said. “She screamed at people—mostly her nephews. She had tantrums.”
“You know anything about money?” Tony Marsh said. “You know anything like how much money she’d be carrying with her, you know, cash, on a normal day?”
“Cash?”
“Walking around money. Like in her wallet.”
I put my cigarette in the ashtray. “Officer Marsh,” I said. “What’s going on around here?”
Officer Marsh was very solemn. “There’s been a homicide committed,” he said. “We’re investigating the commission of a homicide.”
NINETEEN
IT WAS NICK WHO finally told me what was going on. He was in the reception area when I finished with Tony Marsh. He had one arm around Ivy Samuels Tree. He had a legal-sized manilla folder in his other hand. As soon as he saw me, he stood up, disengaged himself from Ivy, and hustled me into a far corner of the room.
“They’re going to arrest her,” he said. “They’re going to arrest her.” He made it sound as if the earth had just been declared flat by act of Congress.
“Is that what you’re doing here?” I asked him. “She called you?”
“She called me. I would have come if you called me.”
“I didn’t call you,” I said. “All the time I was coming down here this morning, I was thinking I wanted to stay home. I should have stayed home.”
“Ivy should have stayed home,” Nick said. “I told her I didn’t want her down here. Shit, I told her I didn’t want her within five miles of Park Avenue South. And here she is.”
“Why?”
“She says she wanted to straighten it out once and for all.”
“Good lord.”
“I know,” Nick said. “I know.”
I sat down on a bench with a cracked plastic cushion and lit another cigarette. My lungs were beginning to feel the way they do after a long night of drinking and poker. I was getting a nicotine headache. Nick hovered over me, distracted, bringing no comfort.
“Crazy stuff is going on around here,” he said.
“Do you know how they found the body?” I asked him. “And…” I thought hard. I was so tired things kept slipping in and out. “Something about money,” I said finally. “Cash. How much cash she had on her.”
Nick gave me a sideways look. “Cash,” he said. “There wasn’t any cash. That was the point.”
“There wasn’t any cash?”
“Weren’t any credit cards, either,” Nick said, “but that’s apparently all right. According to the English lady, Miss Brookfield didn’t have any credit cards.”
“No cash and no credit cards,” I repeated.
“Her pocketbook was open on the floor,” Nick said. “Her pockets had been turned out.”
I sat bolt upright. “Robbery?” I said. “Nick, that’s ludicrous. That’s ridiculous. Nobody tied a goddamned typewriter ribbon around her neck for the cash in her purse—”
“Nobody’s saying anybody did.”
“Somebody’s saying something,” I said. “Pocketbook open on the floor, pockets turned out, no cash. What about the position of the body? Back to the door?”
“Facing the door.” He saw the odd look I gave him and shrugged. “Conversation overheard in a hallway,” he said.
“When I went in there the back of the chair was facing the door.”
“What did you do after you went in there?”
I gave it a moment’s thought. “I backed out and shut the door. I made sure it caught. I went into Felicity Aldershot’s office and tried to call the police. I don’t know where Felicity was. I couldn’t figure out how to get an outside line. I came out here and used the one on that desk.” I pointed across the room.
“What did you do until the police arrived?” Nick said.
“Sat out here and waited.”
“Plenty of time.”
“Are you trying to tell me someone went into that office and robbed Alida Brookfield’s dead body?”
“I’m not trying to tell you anything,” Nick said. “Somebody could have robbed the body after they murdered her, or robbed her and then turned her into a dead body, or come in and moved the chair after you’d left, or maybe she didn’t have any cash on her at all, or—
“Mr. Carras?”
Nick straightened up immediately. Martinez was standing directly behind him, waiting patiently. Martinez’s voice was ceremonially polite. He didn’t look at me.
“I believe we have some formalities to take care of,” Martinez said.
“Have you taken Miss McKenna’s statement?” Nick said. “Her statement may have some bearing—”
“We’ve taken Miss McKenna’s statement,” Martinez said.
Nick wasn’t going to fight any more than he had to, not at this stage. Martinez turned to cross the room and Nick turned with him. I could see Ivy on the other side of the reception area, huddled in a chair. What had she come for? And if she had to come, why hadn’t she waited until her afternoon appointment? Why show up at some ungodly hour of the morning when no one expected her?
I got off the bench and headed for Janet’s desk. I’d left my pea coat on the back of her chair. I wanted to get it and put it on. I wanted to catch a bus back to Central Park West. I’d made my statement. Martinez had made his decision. I knew he’d let me go.
On the far side of the room, Martinez was making the formal arrest. At the entrance to the corridor, Tony Marsh was escorting Mrs. Haskell out. Martinez had just come to the part about “arresting you for” when Mrs. Haskell planted herself in the center of the room, threw back her head, and started shouting.
“I don’t care what’s been going on around here,” she said. “I’m going to impound your records and I’m going to force an audit and I’m going to get what’s coming to me.”
TWENTY
IT WAS AN ODD moment. It was made odder still by the fact that we all witnessed it. The arrival of the police had set up a Gulf Stream effect. People drifted in and out of the reception area, in and out of halls, in and out of offices. In the back corridor, they were ostensibly trying to meet the printer’s deadline, though I doubt they were getting much work done. Periodically, one anonymous anorectic editorial assistant or another would erupt into the reception area, lay hands on one of the principals, and drag him or her away in the direction of the Art Department. For some reason, when Mrs. Haskell made her announcement, all the principals were in one place. They were huddled together under the huge poster of the cover of Writing’s fiftieth anniversary issue, the one with the inkwell and the quill pen and the headline that read 101 new WAYS TO BREAK INTO PRINT.
Mrs. Haskell stopped everything. Poor, fat Jack went bright red. Sweat poured down his double chin into his collar. Damp perspiration patches spread over his shirt. Felicity, halted mid-sentence in a lecture on Organization, blinked twice and started looking around the room, as if she wasn’t sure where the interruption had come from. Stephen Brookfield looked sick. Martin Lahler looked ready to cry. Even Martinez and Ivy and Nick, who should have had more important things on their minds, fixed their attention on Mrs. Haskell and showed no inclination to get back to business.
Mrs. Haskell, realizing she’d finally got someone’s attention, responded as expected. She drew herself erect, folded her arms across her chest, clasped her large shabby purse over her stomach, and said,
“Four hundred fifty dollars I put into this. Eighteen months I put into this. You’re not going to get away with it.”
Equal and opposite reaction: the second speech reversed the effect of the first.
Everyone but Marty Lahler started talking at once. Marty Lahler sat down on a bench under a sign that asked DO you HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A WRITER? and curled himself into a ball. The others ignored him.
“What’s she talking about?” Felicity Aldershot asked. “Who does she belong to?”
“All that work,” Stephen Brookfield giggled. “All that work.”
Poor, fat Jack went into his patented executive act. He rushed at Mrs. Haskell, patted her arm, and started murmuring double-speed inanities. Mrs. Haskell wanted no part of him. Neither did Felicity Aldershot.
“What’s she going to sue us for?” Felicity Aldershot said.
Mrs. Haskell turned on the venom. “Literary Services,” she said. “I know what you’re doing. I know how to prove it. I’m going to get your records and I’m going to get your accounts and I’m going to shut you down.”
Felicity reached into the pocket of her checked wool dress and came up with a pack of cigarettes. She took one out and lit it. She stared at Jack.
“Shut what down?” she demanded.
The back of Jack’s jacket was sodden. His face was oddly purple. He seemed incapable of looking at anything but the floor.
“Literary Services,” he mumbled. “Mrs. Haskell here is under the impression—”
“I’m not under any impression,” Mrs. Haskell said. “I know.”
“Tell me about it,” Felicity said. She was speaking to Jack. “Just what does Mrs. Haskell know?”
Jack took a deep breath. “Repeats,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ve been unable to convince her we do not—ah—do not deliberately give misleading advice to our clients. So their books don’t sell. So they have to come back to us.”
“A new fee every time,” Mrs. Haskell said. “A full fee every time.”
“A full fee every time,” Felicity repeated. “What does this have to do with anything?”
Felicity was still looking at Jack, but Mrs. Haskell had had enough of being the invisible woman. She marched across the room and planted herself in front of Felicity, leaving Jack stranded in the middle of the carpet like an expiring dolphin.
“Policy,” Mrs. Haskell said. “What we have to prove is policy. How many people repeat their submissions? How many people are published? How long’s it been going on?” Mrs. Haskell smiled. “Records,” she said. “And accounts.”
“Records,” Felicity Aldershot said. Her voice was faint. Her face was very white.
“Prove how much they paid you,” Mrs. Haskell said.
As far as Felicity was concerned, Mrs. Haskell had never stopped being the invisible woman. She walked around her the way she’d skirt a piece of furniture, strode up to Jack, and grabbed his lapels.
“Accounts,” Felicity said. “Accounts. Of all the times to land us in a goddamn lawsuit, in a goddamn attachment, you incompetent little idiot—”
Stephen Brookfield burst out laughing. He laughed until he vomited into the clay pot that nurtured a dying avocado tree.
TWENTY-ONE
THAT SHOULD HAVE been the end of it. Martinez had made his arrest. Writing Enterprises was in shambles. Nick was busy on the part of a murder case he understood: preparing for court. I went home that afternoon fully expecting to hear nothing more of that mess until I was called to testify for one side or the other. I did not think Ivy Samuels Tree had killed Michael and Alida Brookfield—the explanation was entirely too neat and the circumstances too fortuitous—but it was not my problem. My problem was convincing my editor at Doubleday that a book by me on the Brookfield murders would not be the greatest commercial offering since chunky peanut butter. In a sane world, Writing magazine would have suspended publication for a month for reorganization and the murderer would have left well enough alone. Writing Enterprises, however, had no known connection to a sane world.
I had a week of bliss. I marshaled my courage and told my doctor I weighed one hundred nine, hadn’t fasted for two months, and couldn’t stop the slide. My doctor marshaled his tact, didn’t lecture me, and started a series of tests to determine why I couldn’t fatten up. Coming back from his office, I stopped on Fifth Avenue and bought two pounds of Godiva chocolates (raspberry, strawberry, and lemon creams, plus soft butterscotch) and another pint of Devon cream for the cat. The cat was duly appreciative.
Phoebe made me dinner three times. I bought her lunch at Mamma Leone’s once. She confessed herself relieved to be rid of the Writing magazine special romance section. She hinted I’d given up too easily on the Brookfield murders. I ignored her.
My agent called to say I’d been offered a chance at a Screenplay (to my agent, all assignments with fees in five figures are Capitalized) and did I want to take it. I said a rude word in her ear.
Muffy Arnold Whitney, my old editor at Sophistication, called to ask if they could do an interview with me. I, after all, had a major book coming out. (How Sophistication decided the Agenworth book was going to be major, I don’t know.) Also, I was the first woman full-time true crime writer in history. I was a Role Model. Muffy Arnold Whitney had given me a lot of work over the years. I tried to be polite. It was difficult. I told her about Ann Rule and The Stranger Beside Me and hung up.
Nick called.
It was Nick’s call that started the avalanche sliding again. He phoned nine-thirty Saturday night to ask if he could camp out on my floor and have breakfast with me Sunday. I didn’t mind the timing—I do things like that to people and I am comfortable when they do them to me—but I didn’t like the tone of his voice. I should have realized that, as Ivy’s defense attorney, he would have Ivy’s defense on his mind. He would have it on his mind particularly because it was going to be his first murder defense.
“I’d feel a lot better about it,” he told me, “if it didn’t look impossible on the face of it.”
“You think it’s going to be impossible to get her off?”
“I think it would be impossible to convict her,” Nick said. “I guess they’re going to go for a blackmail motive, but there isn’t any blackmail motive. There isn’t even as much blackmail motive as there was the last time.”
He gave me a sour look. I had the good sense to blush into my glass of wine. I didn’t like to think about the blackmail business in the Agenworth case. It had claims on making the list for the top ten most embarrassing farces in history.
“The fact is,” Nick said, “there isn’t any blackmail evidence. Martinez admits there isn’t any blackmail evidence. What’s the DA going to bring into court?”
“Assumption?” I suggested. “There was no blackmail but Ivy thought there was blackmail?”
“Couldn’t prove it. Jury wouldn’t buy it. And here’s another thing. Ivy’s out on bail.”
“I thought you couldn’t get out on bail on a murder charge.”
“Nothing’s hard and fast,” Nick said. “Basically, though, on first and second they lock you up and keep you locked up. They didn’t charge her with second. They charged her with manslaughter.”
“Manslaughter? Right off the bat? Without plea bargaining?”
“Right off the bat,” Nick said. “I know it’s screwy, McKenna. I’ve been over it a dozen times. How’re they going to justify manslaughter? Those people were strangled with typewriter ribbons, for God’s sake. Somebody had to have done it deliberately. Somebody had to get hold of the typewriter ribbons. There were typewriter ribbons in Alida Brookfield’s office, but whoever killed Michael brought one with him. Typewriter ribbons are not the kind of thing Ivy carries around in her purse, so when she flies into a heat of passion—”
“Were they office typewriter ribbons?” I asked him. “The kind the staff always uses?”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “That’s all sealed up. You see what I mean?”
“I see Martinez must have had a tame ADA,” I said. “Who bought this mess, anyway? It’s Swiss cheese.”
“It’s worse than Swiss cheese. It’s a hot air balloon.” Nick turned over on his stomach. The cat climbed on his shirt and made
herself comfortable in the hollow made by the small of his back. Being used to the cat, Nick left her there. “I keep thinking there has to be a catch,” he said. “The whole thing’s so impossible, it can’t be true. They have to have something else. If they didn’t, they’d never have made an arrest.”
“What could they have?”
“How am I supposed to know? I’ve got a guy in the police department, but he hasn’t come up with anything. I’ve got someone in the Manhattan DA’s office, but all she’ll say is they’re proceeding with the blackmail motive. I don’t think she’s lying to me. I think, for public consumption, they are proceeding with the blackmail motive.”
“The New York Police Department is not the court of Constantine and Helen,” I said.
“Spanish,” Nick said. “Not Greek, Spanish. It’s that friend of yours. I’m sure of it.”
Martinez was no longer a friend of mine, but I didn’t want to mention it. I said the only sensible thing I could think of. “It’s the second visit. What was Ivy doing there? What was she doing there in the morning?”
“You want to know what she says?” Nick asked. “She says she got a call asking her to be there. She was staying at Phoebe’s. Phoebe says she got a call, too. According to Ivy, Alida Brookfield wanted an urgent meeting on the article Michael was writing before he died.”
“Alida called Ivy?” I said. “But Nick, Alida didn’t know who ran what in her own business. She couldn’t even keep her nephews apart. How would she know enough about some article Michael was writing for the romance newsletter to call up Ivy—”
“She didn’t call herself,” Nick said. “Some secretary called. Probably that receptionist.”
“But—” I said.
That was when the phone rang. I went into the kitchen to answer it.
Felicity Aldershot had no intention of suspending publication of Writing magazine for a month. Felicity Aldershot had no intention of postponing the special romance section.
Felicity Aldershot wanted to see me in her office first thing Monday morning.