“I wonder . . . Some kind of love triangle? Might be the real reason he lost his job.”
She nodded slowly as the idea began to take hold. “I suppose it’s possible.”
“Do you think Dolly knew?”
“Dolly? Oh my! I can’t imagine that she would sit still for that—especially putting Archie in such close proximity to Catherine—the two shops next door, and all.”
I felt my pulse quicken. “But let’s say she didn’t know until after she’d moved her shop there. Maybe she catches Archie tippy-toeing next door now and then at night . . .”
Her mouth pursed. “Well, Catherine doesn’t live above the dress shop like they did. She’s got a huge manor estate outside town, but still . . . there could have been clues that Dolly picked up on.”
“So how am I going to get either of them to admit to an affair?”
Much less acknowledge driving Dolly to kill herself so she would be out of their way. Or . . . worse yet . . . feed her the pills to get her out of the way so they could be together always.
“The coroner didn’t find any reason to believe that Dolly didn’t merely take the medication herself, did he?” I asked rhetorically. “So now all the sneaky lovers have to do is wait a decent amount of time before pretending to discover an interest in each other. Archie can grieve publicly for awhile, but no one’s going to raise an eyebrow when he marries again within a year or so. Most widowers do.”
“There’s no proof, you know.” Dear Louisa, injecting a cold dose of reality.
“But still, Archie allowed me to investigate this. Would he do that if he truly wanted out of the marriage?”
“But you see, that’s the beauty of it. It is just what a grieving man would do if he were innocent of any wrongdoing.”
“So you think he’s sharp enough to have figured out that he better play his role convincingly, knowing that I would find no proof and the official findings would stand. That leaves him clear to finish the little charade and move into Catherine’s big house after a bit.”
“I think Archie Jones is a lot sharper than we are giving him credit for. His career was in managing people, after all.” Louisa got up to bring out the last of the cake and heat the tea kettle.
I passed up the dessert but accepted the tea and when we carried our cups to the parlor I brought my notepad with me. Louisa’s point about finding proof of a crime was so valid. I could see Archie and Dolly home, just the two of them, like every other couple in the world. She already had prescription sleeping pills; all he had to do was grind up a sufficient number and slip them into her food or beverage to assure that she would go to sleep that night and never wake up.
He would merely wash the dishes, rinse the evidence down the drain . . . even if the pill bottle had been checked for his prints, there were a dozen perfectly reasonable explanations for that. He’d handed his wife that bottle on many occasions. And being cunning enough to set up the scenario to look like she was losing her sanity or becoming depressed was the perfect way to ensure that either an accidental-death or suicide ruling would be likely.
The only way I could see justice done would be to get either Archie or Catherine to confess. Just how I would do that before Saturday, I had no idea.
* * *
I woke from a dream in which I was standing in a courtroom, grilling Catherine Devon—Perry Mason style—until she cracked and told the whole story. But when I opened my eyes the room was dark and I was no closer to a way to prove my theory. I lay there staring toward the ceiling, debating about going to the police, putting the burden of getting the confession on them.
But I knew what would happen. First, they would remind me that there had been an inquest and an official finding. Second, they would point out that I—silly American who probably watches too much television—didn’t realize that I was accusing two of the town’s prominent citizens of multiple wrongdoing. Third, they would politely show me the door with a typical British thank-you.
No, without some firm piece of actual evidence this would go nowhere.
I looked at the luminous hands of my watch and calculated that it was only six o’clock last night in Alaska. It was worth a try. I dialed Drake’s cell phone.
“Hey, hon. What time is it there?” He sounded genuinely glad to hear from me.
“Way early morning,” I admitted. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“How’s everything going?”
I gave him the condensed version, admitting frustration at being unable to prove my theory. “If it weren’t for Louisa wanting me to stick with it, and the real sense that a murder has occurred, I’d be ready to hang it up and come home.”
“Well, I wish you luck,” he said.
We chatted a few more minutes but realized I was adding to my aunt’s phone bill. Reluctantly, I let him go. I’m so used to running everything past him when I’m working a case that it was hard to cope with being half a world away.
I hung up the phone, switched out the light and drifted into darkness, only to oversleep in the morning and arise after Louisa had left for the office. I poured a cup from the coffee carafe she’d left half full and pondered what steps I might take.
I needed more information on Catherine and it seemed only logical that such a luminary of local society would have made the news a time or two. So it was back to the newspaper office where I asked for my buddy Billy Williams.
“Oh, Mrs. Devon, sure. Charity events, fundraisers, she helps them all. And of course when Mr. Devon was alive . . . they made a handsome couple.”
“Are the society pages saved in a separate archive,” I asked, “or do I need to page through every issue?”
“Ah. We’ve become quite modern here,” he said. “There’s those microfilm things nowadays. I don’t work that machine myself but you’re welcome to it.”
He called out to a girl who was hurrying by with a stack of newspapers in her arms.
“Issues from these past three years we’ve got digital on the website,” she said as she shifted the papers to her left hip. Clicking a few keys one-handed, she brought up the site. “Searchable. Just there.” The mouse pointer wiggled dizzyingly over a white rectangular box.
“Anything older than this, back to 1950, you can search the microfiche. Beyond that, it’s in those bound books in the cellar storeroom.” She said this last bit to Billy, who looked as if he didn’t relish the idea of digging them out for me.
“This would be post-1950,” I said, thanking them both.
Williams stayed nearby. I felt him staring over my shoulder a few times, obviously intrigued with the rapidity of the computer search but not wanting to sit at the desk and do it himself.
I entered Catherine Devon’s name and got about forty hits within the archive. Clicking the links one at a time was a little time consuming but I had all morning. Had until my plane left, for that matter.
I backtracked through the past year, saw a short announcement about the opening of The Knit and Purl in the Trahorn Building. A few months before that, there had been a big champagne gala to celebrate the expansion of the sugar mill. A posed photo showed Charles Devon and his management team. Archie in a tuxedo beamed at the camera. Louisa was right—he did clean up well. The caption named him as head of the sales division and the article said the expansion was thanks to the fact that the company had landed a huge order. The two-page spread included a lot of photos. I began to pick out Archie, Catherine, and Charles in several of them. Archie stood speaking earnestly to another man, named Nigel Trahorn, in one candid shot.
Trahorn—as in the Trahorn Building?
I asked, and Billy confirmed it. “I believe it was this one’s great-great-grandfather who built it. Could be one generation farther back, though.” He seemed to be embarrassed that he couldn’t pinpoint it any closer than that.
“No problem,” I said. “Your memory is amazing.”
My eyes went back to the article.
So the Devons had Archie and his sales division to thank
for a big financial coup. And yet Devon had fired Archie only a few weeks later. It seemed to give more credence to my theory that he’d found out about an affair. An obituary for Charles Devon informed me that he’d died before the construction on the mill addition was completed.
“Mrs. Devon owns it now, you know,” Billy Williams said, setting some dusty old papers on the desk beside mine as an excuse to start up the conversation again.
My expression must have been a little blank.
“The Trahorn Building,” he said. “She has it now.”
I tried to process what this might mean, but he went on talking.
“Nigel,” he said with a gesture at the computer screen, “that one. Got himself into some kind of difficulties—some say gambling. Mr. Devon loaned him the money that kept him out of bankruptcy. Took the building in return. He died and she inherited.”
Why was I bothering with the newspaper? This guy knew the players, the official stories and the gossip.
I pointed to a photo that had both Archie and Catherine in it. “Was there ever anything between these two?”
He peered closely at the screen. “Some said so.”
“Could that have had anything to do with Archie Jones losing his job at the sugar mill?”
His head bobbed. “Some said.”
I wished I could schedule a meeting with some and get all the info in one place.
“I wonder if Charles Devon knew about it.” Although I’d merely been musing at that point, his head bobbed again. Seemed I could just play twenty questions with him and puzzle out the whole thing.
With no way to separate his nods into fact or speculation I turned back to the news archive. But my mind wouldn’t settle well enough for reading. What if Archie and Catherine had been a long-term item and had cooked up a plan to get rid of both their spouses?
Chapter 22
Okay, this was getting weird. If Archie Jones and Catherine Devon wanted to be together wouldn’t it have been far simpler to just ask for divorces? Unless Catherine was not about to forfeit her lifestyle, the estate, ownership in the sugar mill and more to settle down with an unemployed man whose own wife would not go quietly into the shadows.
In a case like that it might have made perfect sense to first get rid of Charles Devon, wait a discreet amount of time, then get Dolly out of the picture too. I felt my eyes go wider at the very idea.
“Mr. Williams? This obituary on Charles Devon doesn’t really say how he died.”
“Oh, that bit about how donations should be made to the cancer fund—that’s true. Lungs. Man smoked like a chimney and it caught up with him. After the diagnosis, it went quickly.”
There went my theory. But it didn’t mean that the newly single Mrs. Devon wouldn’t pressure Archie to free up his own life. And if Archie didn’t have the balls to demand a divorce, maybe Catherine had ramped up the pressure and either convinced him to do away with Dolly or she might have administered the pills herself. I chewed at my lip. This could add a whole new wrinkle.
The type of influence she might exert over Archie puzzled me at first, but then it became crystal clear. If he got rid of Dolly he could have a position at the sugar mill—something prestigious without a lot of hours, like chairman of the board or something. If he didn’t do something about his nagging wife, Catherine could see to it that he remained unemployed and stuck with Dolly forever. Interesting concept.
It didn’t quite explain who had actually orchestrated the pranks against Dolly—Archie’s presence precluded him setting up some of them. But still. I had to give this a little more thought.
I thanked Billy Williams and left the news office. I was running out of time. My flight was early Saturday morning, so Louisa had offered to drive me back to London tomorrow afternoon where we could have a nice dinner, see a show, stay in a hotel. It would give us some quality time to end the visit and keep us from having to get up in the middle of the night to make the two hour drive and catch the daybreak flight.
Now that I had some clear suspects and motives I had very little time to act. And if I didn’t come up with some hard proof I was still back at square one in trying to convince the authorities that two leading citizens were murderers.
Proof, proof, proof—the word thrummed in my head with every footstep.
The only possible place the proof might exist would be in Dolly’s apartment or shop, so I needed to go back there and see if I could find anything at all before Archie had completely cleared everything out. Way deep in my brain I didn’t really believe I would find anything. Surely Archie had dumped anything incriminating right away. But perpetrators don’t always make the smartest moves in the heat of the moment. It’s why all those dumb-criminal stories exist. It was worth a try.
When I turned onto Lilac Lane I spotted a large truck outside the knit shop. Archie stood on the sidewalk talking to two men, one of whom was making notes on pages attached to a clipboard. Uh-oh. Moving day.
I edged past them and went inside. The shop’s inventory was gone. Gabrielle was in the process of tying up a plastic garbage bag. The display bins and shelving had been pushed to one side of the room, a yellow rope around the whole lot with a sheet of paper stapled to it. “Not To Be Moved” was written on the page in bold black marker. The sales room had a hollow feeling.
On the way over, I’d cooked up my story and I tested it now on Gabrielle. “The last time I was in the apartment with Dolly, I left something behind. Would it be all right if I—”
She waved me toward the stockroom and the stairs.
Now if I could just do a quick recon before Archie went up there. Even if he appeared, I would use the same story, although it might be a little harder to bluff my way along with him. For the moment, I knew I didn’t have much time so I dashed up the stairs and into the unlocked apartment.
What, specifically, would help make my case? I slipped into the bedroom. Dolly’s pill bottles might have helped, but there was no sign of them. It was likely the coroner had taken them. I pulled open the nightstand drawers, in case. No bottles. The drawer on the right side of the bed contained a pair of masculine styled reading glasses, a tube of athlete’s foot cream, a cell phone charging cord and an issue of a business magazine.
I hurried to the other side of the bed. Dolly’s nightstand seemed no more helpful—hand lotion, a black sleep mask, a tube of lip balm, two hair pins and one of those clip-on reading lights for a book. I tugged the drawer a little farther open. A spiral bound book with a cloth cover rested behind the other items. A journal? I grabbed it up and stuffed it inside my jacket.
The floor of the closet contained ranks of shoes, neatly lined up, his and hers. I scanned through his but there was not one pair with treads like the ones that had made the muddy footprints in the shop. I gave the rest of the closet a quick glance then hurried to the kitchen.
A tiny closet held cleaning supplies and brooms. It might be the logical spot for dirty boots to be tossed, but none were visible. I closed the door softly and glanced around the kitchen. Dolly’s rose patterned cups and saucers were stacked in cupboards with glass doors. I counted six saucers and five cups, explained by the fact that she’d broken the one when she burned her hand. As I looked around, I spotted the pieces lying in a tidy pile at one side of the worktop. It must have been too hard for Dolly to simply throw them in the trash and maybe she hoped to have it repaired. Still, nothing unexplainable, nothing I didn’t already know.
On the far wall hung a telephone and wired to it, an answering machine. Without a thought, I pressed a button which opened the compartment where a miniature cassette tape kept the messages. I plucked out the tape, dropped it into my pocket and closed the little door on the machine before I could talk myself out of it. Bad girl, Charlie.
Male voices grew louder downstairs, probably Archie and the moving men—they could come up here at any moment.
Back in the living room I scanned the visible surfaces, wishing like hell that I’d thought of doing this search earl
ier in the week when I might have had more time. A magazine rack beside the sofa held a variety of discards and I picked through them and chose a black-covered calendar book, the kind insurance companies send out. Flipping through, I saw that no one had ever used it—this would be the item I’d left behind, if Archie came walking through the door and caught me here.
Think, Charlie! I stared around the room, heart beating too fast, thoughts not clicking effectively. On the same wall where the door opened to the stairs into the shop, I spotted another door, one with heavy panels and two locks. I twisted the deadbolt knob. As I’d guessed, it opened onto a tiny landing and stairs went straight down to the street. At the bottom there were three small transom windows above the outer door, which had a mail slot in it. This was the door that Dolly said they never used.
But someone had used it. At the base of the stairs I spotted a dark clump. I closed the living room door behind me and took the dimly lighted stairs slowly, hoping like crazy that nothing would squeak. The object took shape as I approached. A pair of man’s boots. With mud on the soles. I may have just found the ghost’s footwear.
I lifted one and looked at the tread pattern. As nearly as I could remember, it looked like a match for the prints I’d seen that morning. The boot could very well be Archie’s size. It was about the same as the shoes I’d seen upstairs in the closet. I set it carefully back in place, debating.
Okay, so what did I really have here? Nothing I could turn over to the police. Archie would have a ready explanation. He came home, didn’t realize how dirty his boots were until he’d walked partway across the shop. So he sat down and took them off, stashed them here so the wife wouldn’t get mad, meant to come back and clean up the mess but something interrupted . . . It was a reasonable scenario, one that would make him look rational and me look like a nut case.
I sat down on the bottom step and pulled out the little journal I’d taken from Dolly’s nightstand. The woman appeared to be a very erratic journal keeper. At a glance I could tell that two-thirds of the pages were pristine and new. Starting at the front, the first entry was dated more than five years ago. There were two or three entries in that time-frame—I didn’t bother to read them. A few pages on, the dates were two years ago. Thumbing to the end I found ten pages written within the last year, these beginning with Dolly’s decision to open the knit shop.
Phantoms Can Be Murder: Charlie Parker Mystery #13 Page 16