Great Day for the Deadly

by Jane Haddam

  “Miss Daniels is out. I don’t know where she is. I don’t know how to get in touch with her.”

  “This is Maryville,” the red-haired woman screeched, “not New York. There aren’t all that many places she could be.”

  “Maybe she isn’t even in Maryville.”

  “Maybe’s she’s gone off to have hormone injections,” the red-haired woman said. “That’s the only thing I can think of that would turn that desiccated old bitch into a woman.”

  “No she’s not,” the girl behind the counter said in a kind of hysterical triumphancy. “No, she’s not, she’s—”

  There was an office behind the check-out desk with a window wall in it. Gregor had noticed it when he first walked in. Now he saw a door at the back of it open and a woman come through. She was only five feet four and solidly built, but there was a magnificence about her that caught at Gregor immediately. It caught at the red-haired woman, too. Finally, even the girl at the checkout desk felt it. She turned her back to the red-haired woman and stared.

  “Well,” the red-haired woman said finally. “There she is. Maryville’s answer to Liz Smith.”

  “Oh, Miss Daniels,” the girl at the check-out desk said. “I didn’t mean you to overhear. I was just going to send her right out of here.”

  Glinda Daniels passed through the office door into the library proper, walked up to the check-out desk, patted the girl there on the shoulder (“That’s all right, Shelley, I’ll take it from here”) and surveyed the room over the red-haired woman’s head. She paused when she came to Gregor and when she came to the older woman standing a few feet from him. She didn’t pause long enough in either case to make Gregor feel he should speak. Then she turned her attention to her assailant and sighed.

  “For God’s sake, Ann-Harriet,” she said, “what do you think you’re doing? You know it’s just Miriam getting you all worked up again.”

  [2]

  “Her name is Ann-Harriet Severan,” Glinda Daniels told Gregor twenty minutes later, when she had the library calmed down, Ann-Harriet off the premises and the patrons back to looking through the books. She’d even managed to get Shelley at the desk to calm down and go back to work. That was a good thing, because there was no place in the library for a private talk but that office with the window wall in it and they needed Shelley to run interference. Otherwise, half the people in town were going to want to have their own personal private conversation with Glinda Daniels, just as they had all week. Along with Gregor, Glinda had brought in the old woman Gregor had noticed outside, introducing her as “Mrs. Barbara Keel.” Mrs. Barbara Keel had told Gregor to call her “The Library Lady.”

  “Mrs. Keel was with me when I found Brigit’s body,” Glinda explained. “She was supposed to be in the rest home getting over it for at least another week, but here she is.”

  “I get bored,” Mrs. Keel said.

  “I would too,” Gregor told her.

  Glinda had been making coffee in one of those Dripmaster automatic coffee makers. Now she picked up the glass pitcher, poured coffee into a plastic foam cup and two stout mugs, and handed them out. Gregor got the plastic foam cup. Mrs. Keel got the mug with the teddy bear on it. Glinda got the red mug with a picture of a lizard etched in gold on one side and “The Fearless Gourmet” etched in gold on the other. When she put it down on her desk she said, “Sam brought it in for me when I broke my old one last week,” and shook her head in wonder. Mrs. Keel ignored her and put a quarter cup of milk and ten packets of sugar in her coffee.

  “Anyway,” Glinda said finally, “as I was saying. Her name is Ann-Harriet Severan and she’s one side of our local triangle. I don’t know if you’ve heard anything about this—-”

  “I think I have,” Gregor told her. “A woman named Miriam Bailey, who owns the local bank and is in her sixties, married a much younger man named—I can’t remember what he’s named—”

  “Joshua Malley,” Mrs. Keel said brightly.

  “Thank you. Miss Bailey married Mr. Malley and Mr. Malley proceeded to behave like a normal young man and took up with a young lady. That, I take it, was the young lady.”

  “Ann-Harriet Severan,” Glinda repeated. “Right. When the police let it out that Brigit had probably been murdered, a lot of people in town said it was the wrong murder. None of us would have been surprised to wake up one morning and find Miriam dead and Ann-Harriet standing over the body with a knife in her hand. Maybe it will happen yet.”

  “Why would Ann-Harriet be the one with the knife in her hand?” Gregor asked. “Wouldn’t it be more to the point if it was Mr. Malley?”

  Glinda waved this away. “Josh would never have the stomach for it. I don’t know if you’ve met him—”

  “I saw him when I was walking on Delaney Street earlier. He was with a woman I think was Miss Bailey. He was whining.”

  “You mean you haven’t met Miriam Bailey yet?” Glinda was surprised. “Maybe she’s more worried about her marriage than I thought. Usually when the Cardinal sends someone into town, she has them stay at her house and chauffeurs them all over town.”

  “Maybe I’m not famous.”

  “You’re famous enough. Good Lord. The woman must be off her feed.”

  “What did you mean when you said she must be more worried about her marriage than you thought?” Gregor asked. “I’d think that if her husband is having an affair with a younger woman, she was bound to be worried.”

  “Why?” Mrs. Keel demanded. “She’s the one with the money, you know. He doesn’t have any.”

  Glinda Daniels laughed. “Barbara’s right. Miriam found Josh in Greece somewhere, looking pretty and hanging around. She married him out there and brought him home from vacation, just like that. It was so unlike her, the whole town was in shock for a month. Then Josh took up with Ann-Harriet, and we all held our breaths, but Miriam just went right back to being Miriam. The only thing she does is goad Ann-Harriet the way she did today, put the pressure on. Did you know that Ann-Harriet works for Miriam’s bank?”

  “No.”

  “Well,” Glinda said, “it’s the only bank to work for around here, really, unless you want to go to a branch of Citibank or Chase. And Ann-Harriet can’t afford to quit because her credit cards are all charged into the stratosphere and if she went without a job for a week she’d be bankrupt and jobs aren’t that easy to come by around here. Anyway, Miriam drives Ann-Harriet nuts and Ann-Harriet runs around town driving everybody else nuts, and we’re all just waiting for it. Not that Ann-Harriet would be the least bit interested in Josh if he wasn’t due to come into Miriam’s money—”

  “Is he?”

  “Who knows?” Glinda shrugged. “Somebody has to, and Miriam doesn’t have any relations. She’ll probably give a lot of it to the Church. You still have to expect she’s left Josh some of it.”

  “They talk about it,” Mrs. Keel said confidently. “That Joshua Malley and Ann-Harriet Severan. They talk about all the wonderful things they could do if Miriam was dead.”

  “Barbara hears things,” Glinda said neutrally. Then she saw that her coffee cup was empty and got up to get herself some more. Gregor wondered what it was, that he always seemed to be attracted to people who drank too much coffee.

  Glinda took hers black. She poured out and leaned against the cabinet where the coffee maker was. “I don’t suppose all this is what you came here to talk to me about,” she said. “I know you’ve been asked to investigate Brigit’s death. I didn’t see the press conference, but Sam told me about it.”

  “It looks like I’m also going to be investigating the death of Don Bollander,” Gregor said. “Do you have any idea how those two deaths might link together?”

  “Not the slightest. I can think of a couple of people who might like to have killed Don, including Ann-Harriet, by the way. Don served as Miriam’s spy now and then. I can’t think of anyone who would want to kill Brigit.”

  “He wasn’t there the day of the flood,” Mrs. Keel butted in. “In the b
ack hall where I was, I mean. There was just Mr. Malley and Miss Severan and Miss Bailey. The other two didn’t know Miss Bailey was there.”

  “Barbara was at the bank before she came to the library on the day Brigit died,” Glinda said.

  “I went to the ladies’ room,” Mrs. Keel said. “It’s in a back hall there that goes behind the tellers. It was all a big mess because of the decorations for St. Patrick’s Day and moving the money. And there they were.”

  “Necking in a packing crate,” Glinda said.

  “And there she was,” Mrs. Keel said, “standing in the door that goes to the steps that go to the basement and the vault, looking at them going at it and laughing up her sleeve.”

  “She wasn’t laughing,” Glinda said. “She couldn’t have been.”

  “She wanted to be,” Mrs. Keel said. “Oh, you young people think you know everything. You think they’re giving her a pain. Well, they make her laugh and that’s the truth.”

  “She makes Ann-Harriet spit,” Glinda said. “Never mind. Mr. Demarkian wants to know about Brigit.”

  Actually, although Gregor had every intention of going through the motions of asking Glinda Daniels all the proper questions about how and when and in what condition she had found the body, he didn’t really need the answers she could give him. That was routine police work, and it was something Pete Donovan did well. He had fifteen solid pages of Glinda Daniels talking to Pete and other police officers about the snakes, the storeroom, and the body. There were other, more esoteric things he needed to know.

  “What I want you to tell me,” he said, “is how the storeroom works. How it’s situated. What it opens onto. From what I remember, in the report I got it said the storeroom opened both into the main room of the library and onto the outside.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where on the outside?”

  “To the back parking lot,” Glinda said. “Some of the other people on staff—Cory especially—used to go right through there to their cars. Just lock up behind themselves, if you see what I mean. I always went through the front, no matter what the weather was like. Going through the back never seemed right to me somehow.”

  “A parking lot,” Gregor said. “A parking lot is almost too convenient. It wouldn’t happen to be shaded by evergreen trees, by any chance?”

  “No. We have the lawn in the front and the hedge—a hemlock hedge, I’m told now—but in the back we have nothing. The parking lot takes up all the land the library has between the building and the street on that side, and on the other side the building comes right up to the sidewalk.”

  “What’s out there? Stores? Houses?”

  “There’s a triple-decker house split into three apartments and a line of single-family row houses right across from the parking lot.”

  “Were they inhabited on the day Brigit Ann Reilly died? Had they been evacuated?”

  “They were being evacuated just around the time Pete Donovan showed up to look at Brigit’s body,” Glinda told him. “I remember standing at the window in the ladies’ room off my office, trying to stop heaving and watching the cars come down. We’re in a deep hollow here, but we’re well inland. I don’t think anybody thought of the necessity of clearing us out until the last minute. Then the cars must have been freed up because everybody else was at Iggy Loy or the Motherhouse, and they came here.”

  “What cars?”

  “All sorts of cars,” Glinda said. “The Motherhouse sent vans. The bank sent half a dozen vehicles, including Miriam’s Mercedes. Josh and Ann-Harriet were nowhere to be seen, by the way. And Sam sent his four-wheel drive. There were cars all over the place that day.”

  Gregor considered it. It was impossible to tell if this made his problem easier or harder. If the area was being evacuated after Pete Donovan arrived at the scene, then it had probably been full of people before Glinda discovered Brigit’s body—and with the weather the way it was, those people had probably been spending a decent amount of time staring anxiously out their windows. It was almost like a dress rehearsal for the Bollander situation, full of the danger of sudden discovery, defined by heavy risks.

  Gregor finished the coffee Glinda had given him and put down his cup. “All right,” he said. “Let’s move on to what you were going to tell me. You said something a little while ago about Don Bollander claiming to have seen Brigit Ann Reilly on the day she died.”

  Glinda sat up a little straighten Gregor got the impression that this was the speech she had been steeling herself to give all day. “Half of everybody in town has been saying they saw Brigit on the day she died,” she said, “so I didn’t pay any attention to it at the time. Don was one of those people who love to think of themselves as insiders, but never quite are. But he came into the library a couple of days ago and said so. The problem was, it was the way I worked it out with Sam, he must have been making it up.”

  “Why?” Gregor asked her.

  “He made up a lot of things,” Barbara Keel said. She had been so quiet for so long, both Gregor and Glinda jumped. “He was a liar, that man was. A bad liar. He’d lie and then forget he’d lied.”

  “He did like stories,” Glinda said, sounding a little doubtful. “Anyway, he said he saw her at quarter of one, coming out of the ladies’ room in that hall at the bank where Barbara saw Josh and Ann-Harriet necking. But he couldn’t have, could he? It was one o’clock when I found her. She had to have been already in the storeroom by quarter to.”

  “Not necessarily already in the storeroom,” Gregor said slowly, “but already unconscious, I would think. She was dead when Pete Donovan got here. That was in the report.”

  “Oh, yes.” Glinda shuddered. “Of course, that was before we knew the snakes belonged to Sam and weren’t dangerous. It was terrible.”

  “I’m sure it was.”

  “She did have to be already in the storeroom by quarter to one,” Glinda said. “She had to have time to get the snakes on her. Oh, I don’t know. It’s just the way I told you. Sam and I talked about it. The story is impossible. I can’t see how he could have been killed for telling a story that wasn’t true.”

  “Miss Daniels and Mr. Harrigan discuss a lot of things together,” Mrs. Keel said blandly. “In private.”

  Glinda Daniels shot her an outraged look, but Barbara Keel didn’t notice. She was busy searching through her handbag for nobody knew what.

  “I think it’s a very good idea, myself,” she said, “Miss Daniels and Mr. Harrigan. I think it’s about time Miss Daniels got out and saw a little bit more of what there is in the world to make a happy life. And Mr. Harrigan is such a good man for the job, too, you know, so rich and so nice and so single and so Catholic.”

  “Barbara,” Glinda Daniels said.

  “Well,” Barbara Keel said, “you were the one who was kissing him in full view of half the town not four hours ago. I can’t see why you’d mind us talking about it now.”

  “That’s Sam coming in right now.” Glinda Daniels sounded desperate. “And please, Barbara, try to remember that that scene you witnessed was his idea, not mine.”

  “It might have been his idea to start with,” Barbara said imperturbably, “but it was yours by the time it was finished. You better go out and rescue him. That’s Millie Verminck that’s got hold of him and you know what she’s like. By the time she’s done with him, he’ll be booked into giving speeches at women’s clubs for a month.”

  “Oh, dear,” Glinda Daniels said.

  Gregor watched with some amusement as Glinda shot out of the office and through the gate in the reception desk, heading for Sam Harrigan and the round vigorous woman who had attached herself to him like a barnacle. Sam Harrigan would have been easy to recognize as a personage, even if Gregor hadn’t found his face familiar from magazines and TV. He had that kind of presence. Gregor turned to Mrs. Keel and lifted his eyebrows.

  “Did you just do that for fun,” he asked her, “or did you have something you wanted to say to me in private?”
<
br />   Barbara Keel was still hunting through her handbag. “Mr. Harrigan’s going to come and tell you all about how Josh came to his house this morning. Joshua Malley, that is. I always call him Josh or Joshua Malley. I don’t call him mister the way I might with anybody else.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  “I don’t think Glinda is right,” Mrs. Keel said, “acting like Joshua isn’t important. I don’t think it’s true. I think he’s very important.”

  “To the women in his life.”

  “To one of the women in his life.” She lifted her head and gave Gregor a fishy stare. “Are you one of those people who believe that people will kill for love?”

  “What?”

  “Are you one of those people who believe that people will kill for love,” she repeated insistently. “I’m not. I believe people only kill for money. It really is true.”

  Glinda Daniels had managed to get Sam Harrigan separated from his tormentor. Now she brought him to the office door, shoved him inside, came in after him and closed the door behind her.

  “Thank Heavens,” she said. “That woman is some kind of vampire.”

  Sam Harrigan had his hand stuck out and a smile on his face. “Gregor Demarkian, I presume,” he said, in a thick Scots burr that seemed to be getting thicker with every word.

  Gregor decided the man was ill at ease and tried to change that. “I hear we have a mutual friend,” he said. “Bennis Day Hannaford.”

  It worked. The smile on Sam Harrigan’s face changed its character. His eyes lit up.

  “Oh, that’s wonderful,” he said. “You know Bennis the Menace!”

  Two

  [1]

  TO SAM HARRIGAN, ANYTHING that came between him and Glinda Daniels was a bad idea. Gregor Demarkian wasn’t exactly coming between them, but he was there, a big tall bulk of a man standing in the middle of Glinda’s office and reading the titles on the spines of the books she kept on the shelf behind her desk. When Sam had first walked into the library and seen him standing there, he had been a little alarmed. There was no way to determine anyone’s size on television, not really. Sam had met Mr. T once and been disappointed. In the case of Gregor Demarkian, he had merely expected to be. Next to him, Glinda looked so damned small. Caught out there by Millie Verminck’s chatter, Sam had been ready to rip up the carpet to protect her. Then she had come out of the office and rescued him. Now they were all back inside and Sam didn’t know what to think.