“Did they find anything?” I asked.
“If they have, they haven’t told me. Time to run, Jess.” She kissed me on the cheek. “Thanks for understanding about the divorce papers. It will stay between us. Right?”
“Yes.”
She used the phone on her desk to fetch Thomas to remove the remains of lunch, and disappeared out the door.
I looked at an ornate clock above her desk. It was almost two o’clock. I’d call Seth and tell him of the plans for dinner, and then head for Charlotte Amalie where I hoped the local newspaper’s morgue would shed some light on the three-year-old murder of Caleb Mesreau.
The divorce papers had stayed in the middle of the table throughout lunch, but Laurie had taken them with her. Just as well. Frankly, I wished I’d never seen them, had had the good sense to walk away from the process server.
But wishful thinking, as comforting as it can sometimes be, seldom accomplishes anything. I reached Seth at Diamond Reef and told him to meet me at my villa at six-thirty, had Maria at the front desk call me a cab, and prepared for yet another trip to the busy port city of Charlotte Amalie in search of answers to questions I hadn’t even formulated.
Chapter 16
The heavy rain of late morning had been replaced by brilliant sunshine—as well as oppressive heat and humidity. My taxi had air-conditioning, but my driver chose not to use it. I sat in the backseat wiping perspiration from my face and leaning in the direction of the open window to catch any hint of a breeze.
Shoulder-to-shoulder tourists had turned Charlotte Amalie into a sweaty human ant colony and it was slow-going through the clotted downtown area. The driver followed Veteran’s Drive, which ran along the waterfront and became Frenchman’s Bay Road until the name changed again to Bovoni Road. “What’s that body of water?” I asked.
“Bolongo Bay,” my driver said. “Caribbean Bay beyond. See over there? St. Croix.”
“Yes, I see it.”
“Here we are.”
He pulled up in front of St. Thomas’s local newspaper, which was housed in a one-story white building. As I stood on the sidewalk fishing for money in my purse, I felt as though I was about to melt into the cobblestone. I’d never been so hot in my life. “Don’t you ever use your air conditioner?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, ma’am. Whenever it gets hot.”
“Whenever it gets—hot. Thank you for a pleasant ride.”
“Have a nice day, ma’am.”
I pushed through swinging slatted doors and was immediately confronted by a young woman who came around the desk, grasped one of my hands in both of hers, and said, “Mrs. Fletcher. I can’t believe how quickly you got here.”
“Pardon?”
“You must have had one of our taxi drivers who aspire to drive race cars.”
“You know who I am?”
She laughed, as though I’d told a joke.
“Why were you expecting me?” I asked.
More laughter. “For the interview,” she said.
“What interview?”
Before I had a chance to say anything else she led me by the hand past the reception desk, through another door, and into a small newsroom in which three people sat in front of computers.
“There must be a mistake,” I said, continuing to be propelled to the rear of the newsroom and through an open door to an office where a bear of a man sat behind a desk. He was bald, and wore a white shirt and tie with the collar open and the tie pulled down. His features were heavy and coarse; his nose might have been rearranged from too many stiff left jabs in the ring.
“Adrian,” the young woman said, “meet Jessica Fletcher.”
He pulled himself to his feet and extended his hand across the desk.
“Mr. Woodhouse is the editor of the paper,” she said. “And he owns it.”
“Adrian Woodhouse here,” he said in a grumbly voice that matched his physique. “What did you do, fly here from Lover’s Lagoon?”
I let out a stream of air to lower my frustration level before saying, “Yes, I am Jessica Fletcher, but you shouldn’t know I’m here. I mean, shouldn’t know that I was coming here. You see, I only came to the newspaper because—”
“Doesn’t matter. Delighted to meet you. What say we get on with it?”
“On with what?”
“The interview.”
“What interview?”
He looked at me as though I were a dunce. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You got my message?”
“What message?”
“I called to arrange an interview with you for the paper. Famous mystery writer visits island and discovers the body of a real murder victim at Lover’s Lagoon. Frankly, I didn’t know whether you would want to talk about it, but I guess you do.”
Had I been a small child, I would have stomped my foot on the floor. “I did not come here to be interviewed about murders or anything else,” I said. “I would like to look up something in your morgue.”
Woodhouse and the young woman looked at each other with bemused, distinctly confused expressions. “Morgue?” they said in unison.
“Yes, your morgue. By the way, who took a message for me?”
“Your answering machine.”
“Oh. Well, I wasn’t there to get the message, but I am here to see what you have on a murder that occurred three years ago. A gentleman named Caleb Mesreau.”
Woodhouse frowned. “The Mesreau murder?”
“Yes.” It suddenly dawned on me that Adrian Woodhouse was the writer who’d done the recent article about the investigation into the Marschalks’ purchase of the Lover’s Lagoon property. “You wrote the article about Lover’s Lagoon Inn,” I said.
“That’s right. Why do you want to go back into the Mesreau murder?”
“Because your article seemed to hint that there might be a connection between his murder, and the purchase by my friends, the Marschalks, of the property on which they built their inn. Is there a connection?”
“Depends,” Woodhouse said.
“Depends upon what?” I asked.
“Depends upon whether you’ll let us do an interview with you. You let me interview you, and I’ll let you interview me about the Mesreau murder.”
“That sounds fair,” I said.
“Good.” He fell heavily back into his chair. “Me first,” he said, dismissing the young woman with a wave of his hand. I took a chair across the desk from him.
He started by asking me questions about my work habits, my approach to plotting murder mysteries—whether I started at the end and worked backward—and whether I considered my novels to be plot or character driven. I’m used to answering these kinds of questions. Lord knows I’ve been asked them enough times over the course of my writing career. Standard fare for interviewers.
But then he asked about my having discovered Walter Marschalk’s body at the beach at Lover’s Lagoon. My discomfort level rose with each question asked.
“What did he look like?” this big, gruff island journalist asked.
“Walter? The deceased? Grotesque. Horrible.”
“What was your reaction?”
Why do journalists always ask for your reaction to a tragedy? What was I supposed to say, that I broke out a picnic basket and celebrated having found a dear, old friend with his throat slashed?
Woodhouse sensed my annoyance and shifted gears. “I understand you had a conversation with our former senator, Bobby Jensen, and that you visited the accused, Jacob Austin, in jail.”
“Yes, I did visit Jacob. A conversation with Senator Jensen? I don’t think so.”
“From what I hear, you stopped him in the government building and had a long chat with him.”
I laughed. “Oh, that. Hardly much of a conversation. He was running to catch a plane, and his staff was anxious that he get moving. I simply introduced myself as a friend of the Marschalks, talked about a few things we had in common, and said good-bye.”
The scowl on Woodhouse’s face said he
didn’t believe me, but he didn’t press. Instead, he asked, “You’re known as a woman who’s managed to unravel murders not only in your books, but in real life. What’s your read on this one?”
I shrugged. “I don’t have a ‘read’ on this. I wish I did. I know one thing. I don’t believe Jacob Austin murdered Walter Marschalk.”
“That so? Based upon what?”
“Based upon—my intuition. I understand I’m entitled to intuition by virtue of my sex.”
It was his first laugh of the day, a low rumble that sounded like approaching thunder. He paused as he searched for the next question to ask, which gave me a chance to say, “My turn now?”
“Almost. How were things going between Mr. and Mrs. Marschalk?”
“You mean their relationship?” He nodded. “I’d say it was—fine. Normal.”
“What was their ‘normal’ relationship? Loving? Caring?”
“Yes.” Should I mention that Laurie had filed for divorce from Walter, and that I now knew he’d been cheating on her on a regular basis? No, was my answer. To the police perhaps if questioned about it. But not to a journalist. For some reason, journalists believe that, by virtue of their profession, everyone has a duty to be honest with them. I don’t share that view. Certainly not where personal lives are involved.
“I hear they were having trouble in their marriage,” Woodhouse said.
I shrugged.
“I hear Mrs. Marschalk has been having a fling with someone other than her husband.”
“That’s news to me,” I said. “Who is she rumored to have been seeing?”
He ignored my question and asked, “What do you know about their financial condition?”
“Absolutely nothing,” I said.
“My sources tell me they owe a lot of money to bad people.”
“Bad people?”
“Organized crime. The Mafia. Loan sharks in Miami.”
“Mr. Woodhouse, you seem to have a wealth of information about my friends that I don’t have. I really would prefer that you stick to questions about things I know. Like how to write a murder mystery.”
“Okay.” After a few more such questions concerning my writing career and habits, he took a break to fetch a long black cigar from a desk drawer. He held it up over the desk. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Not at all.”
“Most people do mind. At least women. Especially cigars.”
“It’s your office. I might feel different if we were in my living room.”
He lighted the cigar with care and precision, careful not to allow the flame from a gold lighter to actually touch the cigar’s tip. After a few enthusiastic and satisfying puffs, he plopped large, bulky shoes on the edge of the desk, pointed at me with the cigar, and said, “Go ahead, Mrs. Fletcher. Your turn. But I reserve the right to ask a few more questions.”
“All right,” I said, glad the odorous blue smoke was drifting in the direction of a window behind his head. “You wrote the article that appeared earlier this week about the scandal surrounding Lover’s Lagoon Inn.”
“That’s right.”
“I found some of your inferences to be without substantiation.”
“Such as?”
“For one, the murder three years ago of Caleb Mesreau. Reading the article would lead one to believe that you suspect Senator Jensen and Walter Marschalk of having had something to do with that murder.”
He said nothing, simply lowered his chin to his chest and looked at me through heavy, bushy eyebrows.
“I agree that the fact that Mesreau owned a tiny piece of land that was crucial to the Marschalks going through with their purchase of Lover’s Lagoon is gist for speculation. But only that. Speculation. Frankly, when I read the article, I attributed what I considered a lack of solid journalism to a young, inexperienced reporter trying to come up with a sensational story. But now that I’ve met you, I realize my supposition was incorrect.”
“Are you calling me old, Mrs. Fletcher?”
I chuckled. “You certainly aren’t a fledgling cub reporter. I assume that you have more in your files than you revealed in the article.”
“Maybe I do. Maybe I’m saving it for another day.”
“Which, of course, is your prerogative. I would like to see your file on the Mesreau murder. I imagine you covered it extensively, which means your morgue would have it pulled together, presumably under M.”
“M for murder?” he asked.
“M for Mesreau. Could I see that file?”
“I don’t see why not.”
I stood.
“Right now?” he said. “I have more questions for you. Remember our deal?”
“How could I forget it? Let me see the file, and then we’ll ask each other some more questions.”
He led me to a room in a corner of the building that was piled floor-to-ceiling with files. I’d made extensive use of newspaper morgues before, always with the help of a librarian in charge of the material. But this small newspaper obviously could not afford the luxury of such a person. Woodhouse, who wore many hats, also functioned as keeper of the morgue.
It took him a few minutes to find the file. When he had, he led me back to his office where we took our respective chairs again. I opened the file folder on my lap. After flipping through a few pages, I asked, “May I take this with me overnight?”
“No.”
“Then you won’t mind if I sit here and go through it? You don’t have to stay with me. I promise I won’t steal any of the papers.”
“If I thought you were capable of that, Mrs. Fletcher, you wouldn’t be sitting here in the first place. By the way, someone’s throat was slit in your last novel.”
I looked up at him. “You read it?”
“Yes. Damn good, up to your usual level of performance. What has Detective Calid told you about the Marschalk murder?”
“Very little, except that he is convinced Jacob Austin is the murderer, and that he expects a confession soon. I doubt if he’ll get it. Jacob has an alibi that—” I was instantly sorry I’d begun to mention it. Woodhouse immediately jumped on it.
“What’s his alibi?” he asked.
“I think I’ve spoken out of turn,” I said, making a show of going back to reading the papers on my lap.
“But you want me to speak out of turn, don’t you? What’s his alibi?”
“He was in touch with a doctor the night Walter was murdered. He had a sick child, and placed a call to the doctor from his home at approximately the time the murder took place.”
“Who’s the doctor?”
I couldn’t back out now, so I gave him the name of Dr. Silber, which Woodhouse dutifully noted on a yellow pad. “I know Doc Silber,” he said. “Has the alibi been checked out by Calid?”
“Probably not. But I think Jacob’s public defender, Luther Jackson, was going to follow it up. Do you know him?”
“Jackson? Sure I know him. Good attorney, too good for the public defender’s office.”
“You look somewhat alike,” I said.
“Jackson and me? Why, because we’re both too damn fat?”
“Because—oh, just because you do. Sure I can’t take this file with me? I promise to guard it with my life, and have it back to you first thing in the morning.”
“Sorry, Mrs. Fletcher. It doesn’t leave this office.”
I quietly resumed my reading. Woodhouse took a few phone calls as I did, and turned to a story he was writing on the computer next to his desk.
I found nothing as I went through the file that had significance regarding Walter’s murder.
Until I came across a copy of a letter that had been written to Caleb Mesreau from a law firm in Miami—the law firm of Karczmit and Bonner. The date on the letter was less than a week before Mesreau had been found floating in the bay, his throat slashed, his body tied to an empty oil drum.
In the letter, the attorneys suggested that a fair and equitable price could be arrived at for the purchase of Mesreau’s plot
of land. They went on to say that the client they represented, who wished to purchase the land, would remain nameless until a deal had been finalized.
Karczmit and Bonner. The law firm representing Laurie Marschalk in her divorce action against Walter.
Woodhouse must have sensed I’d come across something of interest because he asked.
I turned to the next page and shook my head. “No, nothing interesting.”
I stayed in Adrian Woodhouse’s office for almost another hour. I didn’t care whether he was annoyed at my presence or not, although he didn’t indicate that he was. He went about his work, leaving the office on occasion, which, I must admit, tempted me to stick in my purse the letter from the Miami law firm. But I didn’t succumb. Finally, when I’d gone through every page in the file and had made notes on a small pad, I handed the file back, thanked him, and said I had to be going.
“But I didn’t finish my interview with you, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“Another time? I’ll make myself available,” I said.
“How long will you be staying on St. Thomas?” he asked as he walked me to the front door.
“Another week.”
“By the way, I need a photo of you. For the story.”
“I don’t travel with photos of myself,” I said pleasantly. “After all, I came to St. Thomas strictly for a vacation.”
“And found yourself knee-deep in murder. I understand that isn’t unusual for you.”
“You’re absolutely right, Mr. Woodhouse. It happens with far too frequent regularity. I’ll look forward to reading what you write about me. Again, thank you for your courtesy.”
I felt him watching me as I went down the stairs and out to the street where I hailed a cab that had just dropped off another passenger. As we drove away, I looked back at the newspaper building and saw Woodhouse still standing in the doorway, filling the door frame actually, hands on hips, his face set in a bulldog expression that would have done J. Edgar Hoover proud.
Somehow, I knew I hadn’t seen the last of Mr. Adrian Woodhouse.
Chapter 17
By the time I arrived back at the inn, a powerful wave of fatigue had swept over me, and I planned a fast nap before Seth’s six-thirty arrival.
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