“I agree,” I said. “Unless you’re hoping I’ll confess, so we can end the exercise.”
Next Margo ran through the people in the office, one by one.
“Harry Bunter,” she said. “Motive: his wife was having an affair with Parker.”
“He also disliked Parker on general principles.” My contribution. “As did many another.”
“Opportunity?” said Margo. “I assume he had a key to the office.” I nodded. “But,” I pointed out, “the office was unlocked, at least when I got there.”
“We don’t know who unlocked it,” said Tim. “Could have been Foxcroft, could have been the murderer.”
“As for alibi…” Margo was determined to keep us on track.
It was Joe Scanlon’s move. “I have gotten enough information from my friend Falco to fill in those blanks,” he said. “Bunter’s alibi was that he was in a gin mill on the Lower East Side, drowning his sorrows. He had never been in this particular joint before, no one there knew him, and nobody, not even the bartender, remembered seeing him.”
Under Margo’s expert direction, we rapidly ran through the other members of the staff. Lester Crispin was a prime suspect; he had the opportunity—a key to the office. A motive of sorts: an intense dislike of Parker, who threatened his career. As for alibi?
“None,” said Scanlon. “Said he was at home. No one to back up his alibi—or to deny it.”
Having exhausted the insiders, myself and the two other likely Barlow & Company staff, we turned to the outsiders. Claire Bunter was first.
I reported what I knew about her motives. We had no specific facts about her opportunity to kill Parker, and Scanlon again came up empty. “She claims she was home alone, writing,” he said.
“And her husband at the time was in a gin mill somewhere on the Lower East Side, drowning his sorrows, you said.”
“Right.”
“Too bad they can’t even alibi each other,” said Poole.
Next came Frederick Drew. We spent some time on his motive and opportunity, which were strong, or the police would not have hauled him in.
“But he’s out on bail now,” I said, “and I suspect that when he gets to the A.P., he’ll be turned loose.”
“The A.P.,” said Margo. “And what is that? Not the Associated Press, certainly.”
“It’s called ‘the All-Purpose part,’ “ I said. “From what Drew’s attorney told my attorney, I gather it’s where Drew appears with his lawyer before a judge, to determine if there’s enough evidence against him to bring up before the grand jury for indictment. At that time, his bail could be renewed or revoked. Or he could be freed.”
“Mighty complicated, the judicial system,” Margo remarked in passing.
Finally we took up the case against Judith Michaelson. Her motive was perhaps the strongest of all: she had nursed a hatred of Parker for more than a year, a hatred that might well have driven her beyond the edge of sanity. As for her alibi—we knew nothing. Zip.
Mother, who had been uncharacteristically silent through the proceedings, spoke up at last.
“I think the Michaelson woman is our best prospect,” she announced. “And the Bunter woman is second best.”
Tim chimed in. “Oh? Do you mind telling us why you think so, Mother?”
“I don’t see any of the other motives as being at all strong enough,” she said. “Hatred and revenge—what motives could be stronger? And a woman scorned—”
“I can’t speak about Mrs. Bunter,” said Poole, “but I’ll repeat what I said to Nick about Mrs. Michaelson. I don’t think she’d have showed up at Foxcroft’s funeral if she’d murdered him. I doubt that any woman would have the stomach for that.”
“But she spat in his face,” Margo protested.
“Revenge taken too late,” was Poole’s answer to that. “Her last chance to make a gesture, to strike back at the man who had driven her husband to suicide.”
“But where are we now?” Margo spoke almost in a wail, as though ready to throw up her hands in despair. “Who do we accuse?”
“No one yet,” I said. “Somehow we still don’t know enough.”
It was Tim who brought us around again. “Nick, you and Poole researched Parker’s hard drive and went through his papers, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t find the solution there. So there must still be something else. Computer disks, probably. Disks on which he recorded even more private matters.”
“It’s possible,” I said. “Wait just a minute.”
“What?”
“I was thinking of something Susan told me. About Parker? How she surprised him working at his computer terminal one day and he snapped at her as though she’d caught him doing something shifty. So there must be other disks.”
“If you could find those—” said Tim.
“If we knew where to look,” I said.
At that point, the gathering broke up. Margo was still keenly disappointed, and I did my best to cheer her up.
“It was a good idea, darling. We did make some progress.”
“Not enough, Nick. Not as much as we did at Mohonk.”
“Mohonk was for laughs, Margo. And we lost the game there, too, if you’ll recall.”
Later that day, I took Scanlon and Poole aside.
“Joe,” I said, “did Sergeant Falco tell you if they found any records of any kind—computer disks, maybe—in Parker’s apartment when they searched it?”
“Nope. And I’m sure they searched down to the last dust bunny under the bed.”
“So why don’t we make the same kind of search of Parker’s office?”
“I’m sure the detective squad already did,” said Scanlon.
“But they wouldn’t have known what to look for.”
“Maybe,” Scanlon said. “Anyhow, what’s this ‘we’ business?”
“You primarily,” I said. “You’re the cop, you know how it’s done. Down to the last dust bunny, no?”
“Well, it’s not in my line of duty just now,” said Scanlon, “but I’m willing to give it a whirl.”
“Herbert?”
“I’ll be glad to help,” said Poole.
“Good. So let’s the three of us tackle the job first thing Monday morning.”
“Not likely,” said Scanlon.
“And why not?”
“You’re forgetting something, Nick. Monday is the Fourth of July holiday. Everything’s shut down, and I for one didn’t come out to Connecticut just to schmooze. I want a swim, at least, before heading back to town.”
Chapter 29
Tuesday morning found the three of us, Poole, Scanlon, and myself, in Parker Foxcroft’s office. Scanlon set to work searching the room, with what I considered remarkable speed and efficiency. He removed every drawer from Parker’s desk, looked at their undersides and backs, and searched under and at the back of the desk itself. He did the same thing with each individual drawer in the file cabinets. Taking down all the paintings and photographs in the room, he turned them around as well, “for anything Foxcroft may have taped on the backs.” Where one corner of the wall-to-wall carpet had come suspiciously loose, he pulled it back and looked underneath it.
After giving the room a thorough going-over, he turned to the bookcase. With the help of Poole and me, he swung the bookcase around so that he could run his hand over the back of it; he applied the same procedure to the underside of the shelves.
“Now we have only the books to go through,” he said. “But it’s a hell of a job if we have to look at every one of them; there must be several hundred. It would save time if—” He paused to wipe off his hands, which were black with dust.
“If what, Joe?” 1 said.
“If we could read Parker’s mind—so to speak. He’d probably pick a book that neither he nor anyone else would be likely to read.”
“The Holy Bible.” suggested Poole. I couldn’t help smiling at that.
“My choice,” I said, “would be Fi
nnegans Wake. Joyce said, you may recall, that he expected anyone who wanted to understand the book to spend his entire life reading and rereading it.”
“Is there one here?” asked Scanlon. I pointed the book out; he removed it from the shelf and opened it.
“Eureka,” he said, and held it open for me and Poole to see. There, taped to the inside of the front cover, was a floppy disk. A second floppy was taped to the inside of the back cover.
“Now,” I said, “all we have to do is run these through a computer. But again, it’s a hell of a long job.”
“I’ll be glad to tackle it,” said Poole.
I was about to hand him the disks when it occurred to me that, after our abortive attempt in Connecticut to find the murderer, I had seen Tim’s spirits decline quite precipitously.
“Thank you, Herbert,” I said, “but my brother, Tim, has been looking a bit out of sorts lately, and working on these disks may cheer him up.”
“As you think best,” said Poole. “But if you change your mind, just let me know.”
“Congratulations, Joe,” I said to Scanlon. “You’ve both earned an expense-account lunch.”
And I took them to the Colombe d’Or, where the words “prix fixe” are not in the maître d’s vocabulary, not even in the deepest recession.
I was much too impatient to wait until the weekend to get Parker’s disks to Tim, so I had them sent to him by overnight mail, after first asking Hannah to copy them, just in case. When I called Tim to tell him to be on the lookout for them, I said: “If you find something, just give me a call, and I’ll drop everything and come right out to Weston.”
He called me the next day. All the energy and high spirits I found so inspiring in Tim were back in his voice again, stronger than ever.
“But you just got the bloody things,” I said. “You couldn’t possibly have had time to go through them.”
“Didn’t need to, buddy,” he fairly chirped.
“So what did you find?”
“I think in order to save time that you’d better come out here pronto, Nick.”
“If you say so.” I really didn’t need the invitation; I was already primed to bolt for Grand Central Station.
“I think you’ll be happy,” said Tim, as we were about to hang up, “with what I’ve found.”
Hallelujah. Could the game at last be afoot?
“What I did,” Tim told me when I got to Connecticut, “was print out the menus of the two disks you sent me.” He pulled out a single sheet from a sheaf of computer printouts.
“This is the one you’ll find interesting.”
I picked up the sheet and looked at it. This is what I saw:
“I’m not sure what I’m looking for, Tim,” I said, after quickly glancing at the printout.
“You must look more closely, Nick,” he said, and put his finger on the entry IRVING.
“Irving,” I said. “What d’you know? The mysterious Irving that Parker mentioned to Susan Markham.”
“Precisely,” said Tim. “And what this file contains is the rejection letter Parker wrote to Judith Michaelson’s husband, the letter she claims drove him to suicide.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “It did mean something after all—Irving.”
“Here you are.” Tim handed me several more sheets. “The letter itself, which I printed out. I suggest you read it.”
The letter opened with “Dear Mr. Michaelson” and then this opening paragraph:
You have apparently sent this manuscript to me to read because I have a reputation as a literary editor, as distinguished from one of the commercial hacks who ply our editorial waters. At least one of your assumptions is far off the mark. Literary I may well be; literary your book is most assuredly not; nor do I believe it ever can be, with the most assiduous rewriting. I strongly advise you to consign this abortive piece of rubbish to the flames, or the trash can, whichever may be most convenient.
“Ordinarily,” Parker’s letter continued, “I would not waste my valuable time criticizing your work in any detail, but because you mentioned the name of a good friend of mine in your submission letter, I have decided to take a few pains at least and point out to you where your manuscript is lacking both coherence and literary merit.”
And there followed, as far as I could tell from a hasty reading, a page and a half of comments on the plot of Michaelson’s novel, and what Parker found to be “its manifest weaknesses of style and structure.”
Shaking my head, I handed the transcript of the letter back to Tim. “Leaving aside the brutality of Parker’s rejection,” I said, “and we already know what he is capable of in that department, what am I to make of this?”
“Patience, and all will become clear,” said Tim. “First, I want you to call Judith Michaelson and ask her one question.”
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
He told me the question I was to ask. I called Judith Michaelson and asked the question. She answered me without hesitation.
And shortly after that, Tim came through, as I had instinctively known he would.
All became brilliantly clear.
Chapter 30
When I told Joe Scanlon what I planned to do, he was convinced that the shock of Susan’s death and my close call had driven me right off the deep end.
“I believe it’s the only way, Joe,” I said.
“In my opinion, you’ve read at least one too many mysteries, and I’d be happy to tell you which one.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Go straight to Hatcher with what information you have, and let him handle it.”
“I’m not saying he’d bungle it—possibly not. But I think I have a proprietary interest in this case, and I want to see it through.”
I had asked Scanlon to come to my office as soon as I returned from Connecticut. Instead of sitting in his usual chair, he was pacing back and forth in a state of extreme agitation, such as I had never seen him in before—not even when I had broken one of his cherished police rules.
“Indulge me, Joe.”
“Okay, Nick, okay. It’s your funeral. I’ll do what I can.”
My plan was quite simple, as well as time-worn. I had decided to gather all the principals in the case together in the Barlow & Company conference room, and I needed Joe’s help to round up Hatcher and Falco (on the premise that I had “new information” on the murder to give them); nothing was to be said about the rest of the cast of characters. I would also need Joe to make sure that the two women, Claire Bunter and Judith Michaelson, would be there. This he could do by throwing his weight around. It would be an easy matter to flash his shield; they would hardly be aware that he was on leave and had no jurisdiction in the matter.
“The brass’ll have my head if they find out about this,” he grumbled.
“You’re not arresting anyone, Joe, which it would be quite within your duty to do if you saw a crime occurring, leave or no leave.”
“Yes, but—oh well, what the hell—in for a penny—”
And he left to carry out his assignment. I myself could account for Poole, Margo, and the two suspects in my office: Harry Bunter and Lester Crispin. We could do without Frederick Drew, I had decided; he was still somewhere in the judicial machinery of New York City, but I was confident he would be exonerated in short order. As early, perhaps, as this afternoon.
The meeting was scheduled for four o’clock, which I thought would allow plenty of time to round everybody up.
And promptly at four, there they all were, seated around the conference table, with the exception of Hatcher, Falco, and Joe Scanlon, who hovered in the background. Hatcher was beet-red and silent; Falco grim-faced and equally silent. I had the feeling that it would not take much for either or both of them to stop smoldering and erupt.
On one side of the long oak table, to the left of my chair, sat Herbert Poole, Margo, and Claire Bunter, who apparently chose that chair because she thought Margo might be sympathetic—and because it was as
far away as possible from her husband. Harry Bunter was in the seat next to mine on the right side of the table, and next to him were Lester Crispin and Judith Michaelson, across from Claire Bunter. Of all the people there, Judith Michaelson appeared the most ill at ease; she gazed around the room with a vague, distracted expression on her face.
Nobody said a word, either on entering the conference room or after sitting down. They all simply stared at me, as though, like Scanlon, they were convinced I had taken leave of my senses. I had the strange sensation that I was either going to enjoy the biggest triumph of my career or lay the biggest egg.
Well, here goes, Nick. I took a deep breath.
“The time-honored line in a situation like this,” I began, “is ‘I suppose you’re all wondering why I brought you here.’”
“Oh no,” said Harry Bunter sotto voce.
“I’m only sorry my brother, Tim, isn’t here,” I said, ignoring Harry, “or I’d let him run the meeting. But he doesn’t travel easily, and I do, so you’ll have to put up with me. I want it known, however, that Tim is responsible for unraveling this mess.
“A word or two of summary to set the scene,” I continued. “As you all know, Parker Foxcroft was killed in his office on this floor on the evening of June first. A number of us here were—make that are—suspects in that murder.”
“Speak for yourself, Nick.” It was Claire Bunter.
“I just did. And if you don’t think you’re still a suspect, Claire, ask Lieutenant Hatcher here.” She did not reply to this, and Hatcher only grunted something unintelligible.
“Nick, why don’t you just cut to the chase?” said Scanlon.
“Patience, and I will. Most of our efforts—and I presume most of the police’s efforts as well—have been directed toward looking for motives, checking alibis, and inquiring into Parker Foxcroft’s past. One of the suspects, Frederick Drew, was arrested and is, I believe, now out on bail—”
“That’s correct, Mr. Barlow.” It was Lieutenant Hatcher, finally heard from. “But—”
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