Murder Takes a Partner

by Haughton Murphy

  At the airport he rented a Ford from Hertz. He felt something of an invader when he had to ask where Syracuse was in relation to the airport. The young woman behind the counter pulled out a map and directed him to his destination on South State Street.

  Bautista decided not to stop for lunch and went straight to police headquarters. Lawrence McNeilly, chief of detectives, was in when he got there, and came out of his modest office to meet Bautista when his arrival was announced. McNeilly was a tall, erect Irishman with steely gray hair. He was polite, in a reserved way, and seemed businesslike; there was no trace of the loutish hick sheriff Bautista had half-expected. McNeilly and his guest settled down behind the closed door of the former’s office.

  “What can I do for you, Officer?” Bautista’s host asked.

  “I’m in charge of the investigation of the murder of Clifton Holt. Maybe you read about it. Holt was a choreographer at the National Ballet in New York. A pretty famous guy,” Bautista explained.

  “Yes, I think I saw something on the TV about it,” McNeilly replied.

  “He was stabbed in the street by a young kid who was caught on the spot. Seemed open-and-shut, and then it came wide open. The kid himself was killed in prison, but not before telling his buddies that he had been hired to do the murder.”

  “How can I help?”

  “We’re kind of going around in circles right now, Chief McNeilly. The kid’s story checks out—or at least, we found the money. Nothing much else to go on—the kid didn’t give away anything about who hired him—except that Holt seemed to have a lot of enemies. We’ve worked up a list of likely suspects and are just digging as best we can to uncover something—anything—that would point to one of them. It hasn’t come out in the papers yet that Holt’s killer was hired, and we’re trying to do as much as we can before it does.”

  “You mentioned Andrea Turnbull when you called me. Is she on your list?”

  “Maybe. She was a big contributor to National Ballet and didn’t get along with Holt at all, as near as I can figure out. Do you know of her?”

  “Yes, I do,” McNeilly answered. “It’s pretty hard to have lived here over the years and not have heard of her. Her husband, Emery, was a pretty wealthy fellow. Made a lot of money in the farm-equipment business and, so they say, by playing the stock market. His wife didn’t come from Syracuse originally, but boy, she sure made a splash once she arrived. She tried for years to start a dance company up here, but it was a disaster. She didn’t have a good word to say about anybody, and she took off within weeks after her husband died.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Car accident. Car went off the road and plunged down a hill. He was killed instantly.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Let me see. Two or three years, I’d guess.”

  “You seem very informed about all this. Were the police involved with Mrs. Turnbull in any way?”

  “Not really. We investigated the accident, as a matter of routine. The rest I just got from reading the papers. Mrs. Turnbull always managed to conduct her fights in the papers. And she was kind of a joke around here with her attempts to civilize us. This is a small town, officer, and people know a lot of things.”

  “About the accident Mr. Turnbull had. Was there anything suspicious about it?”

  “The coroner said it was accidental death,” McNeilly said.

  “Any doubt about that?”

  McNeilly hesitated, then responded carefully. “Until you told me what you did just now, I never had any doubt that Emery Turnbull was killed accidentally. I was involved with the investigation myself, and I was satisfied.”

  “What do you mean about what I told you?”

  “I think you should talk to Robert Lucas. He was Emery Turnbull’s partner, and now runs the business. He bought out the estate. He disagreed with the coroner’s findings at the time. I thought he was crazy as a bedbug. But now I think you should talk to him.”

  “Where do I find him?”

  “Lucas Motors, out on the far end of Erie Boulevard. I’ll call him.”

  McNeilly got the number from the directory resting on the table behind his desk and placed the call. Lucas was in his office, and would be happy to talk to Officer Bautista.

  “When you going back?” McNeilly asked.

  “I’m booked on a flight at seven-thirty.”

  “Well, Lucas will talk your ear off, but you should be able to make it.”

  “Is he the only one I should be speaking to?”

  “I think so. There’re plenty of people around that Mrs. Turnbull beat up on, but it sounds as if you already know what she was like.”

  “Yes, I believe I do.”

  “Okay, let me show you out and I can tell you how to get to the Lucas place.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You from New York originally?” McNeilly asked, as they went down the stairs toward the front door.

  “Not quite. I was born in Puerto Rico. But I went to school in New York and have been there ever since.”

  “It’s too big a place for me,” McNeilly said. “I get lost every time I go there.”

  “Next time you come, give me a call. We’ll show you around,” Bautista said.

  “Thanks, but I’m happy right here.”

  The two detectives parted in front of police headquarters, with McNeilly directing his visitor to his next destination.

  Pleasant enough, Bautista thought, as he drove down Erie Boulevard. But what was he getting into now? What was this man Lucas going to tell him?

  Bautista was soon driving in a grim, gray part of the city. Down-at-the-heels garages and supply houses lined the road. After going about two miles, he came to Lucas Motors, which, while larger than most of its neighbors, was in need of sprucing up. He parked his car and went into the showroom. A salesman descended on him, only to be disappointed when Bautista said he wasn’t buying but wanted to see the owner. The salesman pointed at a glass-enclosed office in the back.

  Sitting at a desk behind the glass was a beak-nosed, bald-headed man wearing a plaid flannel shirt.

  “Mr. Lucas?”

  “Yep. You the police fella?”

  “Yes,” Bautista replied, showing the man his badge.

  “Long way from the Big Apple,” Lucas said.

  “Oh, not so far.”

  “Been up in these parts before?”

  “No, I never have, sir.”

  “Well, you picked a good time. Winter up here is awful.”

  “I’ve heard that.”

  “You had lunch?”

  “No, I haven’t, sir.”

  “Want some?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s go. There’s a place down the road a ways. Nothing fancy, but it fills you up.”

  “That’s fine with me. You sure they’ll be serving? It’s almost three-thirty.”

  “Never known ’em to turn away a customer yet.”

  The restaurant Lucas had selected had plastic pretensions to grandeur, pretensions more cruelly exposed in the bright daylight. It was empty, except for three men sitting at the long bar that occupied one of the building’s two main rooms.

  Lucas, after amiable greetings to the bar patrons and the bartender, went into the dining room and asked the hearty, middle-aged waitress if he and Bautista could get lunch.

  “Bobby, for you, anytime. Sit where you like,” the woman said.

  Without hesitation Lucas went to a table in the corner.

  “This okay?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Bautista said.

  “What about a drink?”

  “I’m afraid not, thanks.”

  “I don’t want one either. What would you like, a steak?” Lucas asked. “Here, Elsie, let’s see the menu.”

  “You recommend the steak?”

  “It’s good. Have it with some of their onion rings.”

  “Fine.”

  “Elsie, two steaks. Mine well done. How about you, young man?”

/>   “Rare for me.”

  “Now let’s go over and get some salad. They’ve got a good salad bar here.”

  Realizing that he had no choice, Bautista followed the man to a stainless steel counter in the other corner of the room. It was laden with all manner of greens, relishes, cottage cheese and vegetables, all looking slightly shopworn.

  “Help yourself, young fella, it goes with the lunch.”

  Bautista took a modest quantity from the selection. His host completely loaded up a plate, with no attempt to keep the various items separated.

  “That all you’re going to have?” he asked.

  “This is fine, thanks,” Bautista said.

  “You can always come back,” Lucas explained. “This place is famous all around the area for its salad bar. All you can eat.”

  They returned to their table, where Lucas began eating with enthusiasm.

  “How long you been a policeman?” he asked, between bites.

  “Eight years, sir.”

  “How’d you ever pick that?”

  “I don’t know. I had a couple of buddies who went to the Police Academy. It seemed like a good life, so I took the exam.”

  “Ever been sorry?”

  “No. It’s not as glamorous most of the time as the stuff on TV, but it’s okay.”

  “How about business—ever think of business?” Lucas asked.

  “No, not really.” Bautista replied with a laugh. “I never had the opportunity for that.”

  “Opportunity? You have to make your own opportunity, young man! Nobody gives away nothin’ as near as I can figure.”

  Bautista refrained from mentioning his night law course; he somehow sensed that his luncheon companion might not regard law as a suitable vocation.

  “That’s all right,” Lucas continued. “I know some damn fine policemen. That fellow McNeilly you were meeting with, he’s okay. Not too smart, but okay.”

  Elsie brought the two steaks, each surrounded by gigantic onion rings. Lucas promptly doused his plate with ketchup and began eating with renewed enthusiasm.

  “McNeilly said you wanted to talk to me about Andrea Turnbull,” Lucas said.

  “That’s right. We’re conducting an investigation of a crime that we think might involve her. I’d be grateful for anything you could tell me about her.”

  “What kind of investigation?”

  Bautista hesitated, but saw no other course than to tell the truth. “Murder,” he said.

  “Hmn. And you think Andrea did it?”

  “Well, not precisely—”

  “She’s too highfalutin ever to commit murder.”

  “We don’t suspect her directly. But we think she might have had something to do with it.”

  “You mean putting somebody else up to it?”

  “Yes, something like that.”

  “I’ll be damned. Andrea up to her old tricks!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me ask you something before I answer that. You’re a policeman; you showed me your badge. Does that mean I can talk to you in confidence?”

  “Yes, it does. Unless you say something that has to be used in a trial.”

  “Hmn. I hate legalities, hate lawyers, judges, the whole lot of ’em. Damn parasites on the society. But I doubt—though some damn lawyer probably might have another idea—that what I have to say could affect any trial. God knows it didn’t affect the coroner’s investigation of Emery’s death.”

  “You think Mrs. Turnbull had something to do with her husband’s death?”

  “I do, but nobody else does. Let me go back and tell you the whole story. Emery Turnbull and I went to high school together. He was rich, I was poor. He went to college, I didn’t. When he finished college, he came back here to Syracuse and his father set him up in the farm-machinery business. A couple of years later he got married, to this girl he’d met when he was in college. Andrea. They bought a big house down near the University, and pretty soon they had a kid.”

  “Would that be Mark?”

  “That would be Mark. Anyhow, Emery worked real hard, but his new business didn’t go so good. Emery was no salesman. And he was in a business where you have to be a salesman—convincing a farmer he’s got to have a new tractor, or new baler or whatever you’ve got in stock. That’s where I came in. I’d started working after high school as a salesman for a milking-machine company. Six years out of high school, I knew every farmer in Onondaga County, whereas Emery only knew people if they happened to wander into the shop. But Emery was smart. He knew his shortcomings, knew that he was shy around people, especially when he had to sell them something. So he came to me and asked me to be his partner. I didn’t have any money, but Emery’s father came through again. Made me a nice, soft loan so that I could eventually buy half the business.

  “It all worked out just fine,” Lucas went on. “I was the chief salesman, and Emery took care of the financial end of things, kept the books, all that stuff. We added a Chevrolet franchise, and we both were making a lot of money—Emery more than me because he played the stock market. But by local standards up here, we were both doing real good. Everything would have been great, except for Andrea.”

  “How do you mean?” Bautista asked.

  “She had all these artsy-fartsy ideas. Wanted to start a ballet company. In Syracuse, for God’s sake. But there was no stopping her, and Emery indulged his wife and gave her the money to do what she wanted. She actually got a company started. But then she began picking fights with everybody—the college, the newspapers, the banks. You name it. And the fights were all over the papers—everybody knew about them. That meant she had to use more and more of Emery’s money to keep her damn ballet troupe going. And it also started hurting our business—she was stepping on too many toes.

  “Emery couldn’t control her at all and was getting pretty impatient. He didn’t want to leave her and the boy, but he didn’t want to read about his wife in the paper every night, either. Or keep putting his money down a rathole. He got physically sick, had an ulcer he got so worried. We were pretty close, but we never talked much about Andrea. But I had a pretty good idea he was about to give her an ultimatum—either give up the ballet bunch or he was going to leave. Then he had the accident.”

  “Go on,” Bautista said.

  “Everybody was shocked by Emery’s death. I was real depressed about it, and it began to prey on my mind. The accident made no sense. Happened in broad daylight on a nice clear day. And up on Onondaga Hill, a road Emery knew like the back of his hand. He was a good, careful driver, too. I never saw him reckless in his whole life. I decided somebody had done something to his car. Somebody had fixed it good.

  “Then I even decided who’d done it,” Lucas went on.

  “About six weeks before he died, Emery had fired a mechanic at the shop. Guy named Gaute, crazy French Canadian. He was a good mechanic, but he was bent. He was always pilfering from the shop. Finally, he started taking big stuff, so Emery and I set a trap for him, caught him red-handed, and fired him. Never turned him in or anything, just fired him. Gaute was about as angry a man as I’ve ever seen. He said he’d get even with Emery and get even with me. I figured he was just letting off steam—the worst thing you can do to a petty crook is find him out.

  “But after Emery’s death, I got to thinking. Gaute would never murder Emery on his own. He was a spineless little son-of-a-bitch. But if there was money involved, he just might. By the time I worked out my theory, Emery’s car had long since gone to the compacter at the junkyard. I went and talked with McNeilly anyway. He said there was nothing he could do without more proof. I became obsessed. I went to Andrea and told her what I thought. She told me never to enter her house again, but in about a week’s time she didn’t have a house; she had left for New York.”

  “What about Gaute?” Bautista asked.

  “I tracked him down too. He’d moved down near Utica—about thirty miles from here—about the time of Emery’s death. I didn’t know wha
t I was going to accomplish, but I had to see him. I found him at the garage where he was working, called him outside and told him what I believed he had done. He started acting like a crazy man, and if he’d had a tire iron or something like that in his hand, he probably would’ve killed me on the spot. But, oddly, he backed off. Just said nothing and told me to leave.”

  “And that was the end of it?”

  “Not quite. Two weeks later Gaute stuck a gun down his throat and killed himself.”

  “So you believe that Andrea Turnbull paid Gaute to doctor Emery Turnbull’s car?”

  “I do. But I have no proof. Except for the certainty that Emery did not die accidentally.”

  Both men were silent and drank from the coffee cups Elsie had refilled.

  “Mr. Lucas, I appreciate your help,” Bautista said. “As I told Chief McNeilly this morning, we’ve got precious few leads in the case I’m working on. Any strand of information is useful, and I think yours is.”

  “I’ve tried to forget the whole thing,” Lucas said. “It didn’t make my life any easier, since I had to buy out Emery’s share of the business from a widow who was out for blood. Fortunately, we had a mutual buy–sell agreement, so she had to sell to me at a fair price. But it took a couple of years, and a damn lot of legal fees.”

  “I appreciate it. Can we split the check?”

  “No, no. You’re the visitor, Officer. Upstate hospitality, you know.”

  “Well, thanks. I may want to ask you some more questions as our investigation progresses. Do you have a card?”

  “Sure.”

  Once the check was paid, Lucas went back through the barroom and again greeted each of the patrons. Outside the restaurant, he directed Bautista back to the airport, shook hands and headed for his car.

  Bautista was just too late to make the five-twenty plane, the last one before his scheduled departure at seven-thirty. He sighed. The prospect of two hours at the airport did not delight him. Although it had otherwise been a pretty good trip.