Million Dollar Baby

by Amy Patricia Meade

  “Victor had promised her money for the children’s Christmas presents. When he didn’t deliver, Mrs. Bartorelli called the police. The missing person’s report was made, not out of concern for her husband’s well-being, but to send the police breathing down his neck. She knew her husband’s behavior well enough to realize that if he skipped town, it was because he was involved in some illegal activity—she so much as told the police that.”

  “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” commented Marjorie.

  “Did the police investigate Bartorelli’s disappearance, or did they take the wife’s word that he was up to no good?” asked Creighton.

  “They did as much as they could,” replied Jameson. “They checked out his cottage on the estate—not surprisingly, it was empty. After that, they tracked down the other servants and questioned them. They all concurred that Bartorelli was optimistic about his future. Said he actually bragged about ‘having something lined up’ after his gardening job was finished. Last time they saw him was December first. He had packed up his belongings in a neat and orderly fashion and joined the rest of the staff inside the house, where Mrs. Van Allen handed out the final paychecks and said her last farewells. After Mrs. Van Allen took her leave, Bartorelli and the staff proceeded down the driveway and exited through the front gate, never to return again.” He gazed up at Creighton. “Does the story meet your approval, Mr. Ashcroft?”

  Creighton apologized, “I’m sorry, Detective. I didn’t mean to come off as questioning police methods; I just wanted to get a feel for the case. After hearing the whole story, I must concede that I would have made the same assumption the detectives on the case made, had I been in their shoes.”

  Jameson sighed, “Unfortunately, we’re not in their shoes, are we? They had a nice, simple missing person’s case. We’re left with a homicide whose trail of clues is over five years old.”

  Creighton rose from his position on the edge of the desk, and stood with his arms folded next to Marjorie’s chair. “Well, there’s one thing we know for certain. If the body in the morgue is that of Victor Bartorelli—and we are fairly confident that it is—then he didn’t leave Kensington House with the other servants. At least, not for good.”

  Marjorie was still fixated on the image of the wife done wrong. “What about Mrs. Bartorelli? Isn’t it possible that she killed her husband? She had motive enough: he left her alone to raise two children. If I were in that situation, I might be tempted to murder my husband. And I’m mild-mannered, so just imagine what a person with a temper might do.”

  Creighton stared at her in disbelief. Mild-mannered?

  Jameson, meanwhile, appeared to be ruminating over her theory. “It’s possible, but not very likely. What would Mrs. Bartorelli gain from killing her husband? With him dead, she would have lost a second source of income, however sporadic that income might have been.”

  “What about a life insurance policy?” she thought aloud.

  “I can check it out, but I doubt it. He didn’t support his family when he was alive, what would make him want to do it after he was dead?”

  “Maybe she just snapped,” she shrugged as if this were the only explanation she had left.

  Jameson smiled at her tenacity. “‘Snapped’ would describe someone who shoots another person in the heat of an argument. Not a woman who travels three hours from Brooklyn to Connecticut to kill her husband and then bury him. Besides, if she did kill him, why would she call the police and send them out looking for him? It wouldn’t make sense.”

  “What about a gang?” she asked, hopefully. “You said he was an unsavory character; maybe some of his hoodlum friends killed him. Or possibly a loan shark?”

  “This wasn’t that type of crime,” answered Jameson. “Gangs don’t cover up their killings, they advertise them. Use them as a warning to others.” He looked up at Creighton, who had returned to his spot on the edge of the desk, and appeared to be lost in thought. “What are you thinking?”

  He was staring off at some unidentified spot in the distance. “I was just wondering why anyone would wish to kill a gardener.”

  Jameson’s face was a question, “Hmm?”

  Creighton turned his attention to the detective and the young woman. “What I mean is, if we look at Bartorelli’s death as an isolated incident, it doesn’t quite gel. Who are the main suspects? His wife? The two of you did a good job of exonerating her. The underworld?” He nodded toward the man at the desk. “That idea’s been scratched.” He clasped his hands together and brought his forefingers to his chin, meditatively. “Who else then?”

  Marjorie and Jameson were silent.

  “No one,” Creighton announced as he held his hands outward, like a magician demonstrating that he had no cards up his sleeve. “You’re left with nothing.” He raised his left index finger. “Nothing, except one nagging question: why would anyone wish to kill a gardener?”

  “Maybe he was in the habit of trimming things too short,” Marjorie deadpanned.

  Jameson laughed, but Creighton seemed to be giving credence to the idea. “That’s a clever theory. I’ll keep it in mind in case we find a dead barber.” He continued his previous train of thought. “No, the only way Bartorelli’s death makes sense is if it’s connected to something else.”

  “You mean the Van Allen case?” offered Jameson, wearily.

  “Yes, the Van Allen case. What else? Two men who live on the same property both meet violent deaths within weeks of each other. I think that’s a bit too much to dismiss as mere coincidence.”

  Marjorie was skeptical, “I agree that the timing is extremely odd, but how could a murder be linked to a suicide?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Creighton. “It could be anything. Maybe Van Allen killed himself because Bartorelli dug up his prized roses. Maybe Bartorelli squirted a garden hose at Van Allen’s mourners. Or maybe someone was just irked at Bartorelli for having drained the pool. I can’t tell you how the two are related. But I can tell you that it’s something worth investigating.” Creighton turned to the detective, “What do you think?”

  Jameson walked across the room and pulled a folder out of the drawer of a tall, metal cabinet. He walked back to his chair and plopped the file on top of his desk; it was nearly an inch thick. “I think we have some reading to do.”

  Creighton looked at the folder, “The Van Allen file?”

  Jameson, settling back into his chair, nodded.

  The Englishman smiled. “I knew you’d come around to my way of thinking.”

  The detective had divided the file into three sections; he handed a stack to Creighton. “Did I have a choice?”

  _____

  They had been reading for nearly half an hour, and Creighton found that his job was growing more tedious by the second. Each page he read might as well have been a carbon copy of the page before it, for they all bore the same information. There were several reports describing Henry Van Allen’s last hours, his frame of mind before his death, and the grisly scene at the swimming pool. Though a different person might have completed each form on a different day, using a different turn of phrase, the stories they told were identical.

  He was suddenly distracted by the sound of Marjorie rifling through the pages she had placed, face down, on the desk after reading them. She plucked one page from the stack and then settled back in her chair. After a few minutes, she spoke up. “Creighton.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Creighton, you’re familiar with New York City.”

  “I should hope so.”

  “Do you know where Liberty Street is?”

  “Liberty Street in Manhattan? Yes, it’s in the middle of the financial district. Downtown, near Wall Street. My broker had an office on Liberty Street, before the crash.”

  “How tall are the buildings there?”

  “How tall?” He stretched his right arm as high above his head at it would reach. “Oh, about this tall, give or take several hundred feet.”

  Marjorie was in
no mood for joking. “Please. Just answer the question.”

  Creighton lowered his arm. “It depends on the building.”

  “On average.”

  “On average probably about ten stories. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing. At least, nothing concerning Bartorelli. Just a bit of a riddle regarding our friend, Henry Van Allen. Maybe you boys can help me solve it.” The men looked at her, their curiosity piqued. “Why does a man who owns a ten-story office building commit suicide by jumping off a second-floor balcony?”

  SEVEN

  Marjorie folded her arms across her chest and glanced from one man to the other. She was satisfied with the effect her question had on her two companions, but she was even more pleased with her powers of deduction. She had uncovered an anomaly in the case that, despite the efforts of the Hartford County Police, had theretofore gone unnoticed. She discovered it, not them. The thought of it made her smile.

  Creighton, naturally, was the first to answer her query. “It was there.”

  Marjorie’s face was a question. “What was there?”

  Creighton rolled his eyes as if the answer were obvious. “The balcony. The balcony was there at Kensington House. The office building was in New York. Van Allen happened to be at Kensington House when he decided to end it all, so he jumped from the most convenient point of elevation: the balcony. It’s the same principle as a man who hangs himself with the bed linens rather than going to the hardware store to buy a rope. Though a rope is a more foolproof device than a knotted, wrinkled bed sheet, a soul who is intent on doing away with himself is not going to bother with such formalities. Likewise, if Van Allen was determined to kill himself on that particular night, he wouldn’t travel all the way to the city just so he could jump from a taller building.”

  Marjorie was excited. “That’s right!”

  Creighton’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Wait one minute. You’re agreeing with me?”

  “Absolutely. It doesn’t make sense for Van Allen to drive from Ridgebury to New York in order to jump from a taller building.” She smiled, “But it makes even less sense for him to drive from New York to Ridgebury in order to jump from a shorter one, which is exactly what he did!” She pulled a page from the file on her lap and began to read. “According to his secretary, Van Allen arrived at his Liberty Street office somewhere around ten minutes after nine that morning. He stayed there all day. Didn’t even go out for lunch. The night security guard reported that he left a few minutes before seven o’clock that evening. His body was found at Kensington House at approximately 10:17 that night.”

  Jameson chimed in, “Meaning that he must have driven to Kensington house directly from his office.”

  Marjorie completed the thought. “And killed himself soon after arriving. So soon after arriving, in fact, that it would seem that he drove there with that intention.”

  “But,” explained Jameson, “we’ve already ruled out that possibility.”

  Marjorie nodded. “So why did Van Allen go to Kensington House that night?”

  Creighton yawned. “I fail to see what’s so odd about his going there. It was his weekend home, wasn’t it? He obviously planned to take a few days off.”

  Marjorie shook her head. “That’s just it: he didn’t plan it. He drove there on the spur of the moment. He didn’t notify the Kensington House staff to prepare for his arrival. He didn’t inform his wife of his departure, and he didn’t instruct his secretary to cancel his appointments for the next day.” She stared at the stack of paper in Creighton’s hand. “Don’t you have any of this information in there?”

  “This?” Creighton lifted the pages and then cleared his throat. “I’m a slow reader.”

  Marjorie raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Well,” Creighton continued, “It would appear that our friend Henry was in dire need of rest and relaxation and didn’t wish to be disturbed.”

  “Yes,” Marjorie conceded, “I’ll admit that does have a ring of truth to it. But why did he leap off of his bedroom balcony immediately upon arriving?”

  Creighton shrugged. “He was already depressed. His condition probably worsened during the drive there. He had time to consider the gravity of his financial situation. It was dark. It was quiet. He was alone.” He paused a moment, stared off into the distance and then returned his attention to Marjorie. “Have you been on the Boston Post Road at night? Very sobering experience. A person can drive for miles without seeing another human being. And dark?” He whistled to emphasize the extent of this darkness. “Blackness all around you. Like someone has a velvet shroud over your car. Ghastly.”

  Jameson was trying, unsuccessfully, to hide his amusement. “Should I seek an arrest warrant for the Works Progress Administration?”

  Marjorie, meanwhile, was staring at Creighton incredulously. “So Van Allen was pushed to the edge of despair by the Boston Post Road. That’s your theory?”

  Creighton seemed to be contemplating his answer. “Umm . . . well . . . yes, it was.”

  Jameson looked at him. “You’re not sure?”

  “Well,” Creighton explained in a plaintive tone, “it just sounded more plausible when I said it.”

  “All right, Creighton, we’ll stop picking on you,” Marjorie said in a condescending fashion. “We’ll assume, for the moment, that your theory is correct. Van Allen arrives at Kensington House intent on committing suicide. He runs up the stairs and hurls himself off the balcony. Why?” She looked at Creighton. “As you said yesterday, he couldn’t have been certain that the fall would kill him. Why not use a knife, or poison? Surely, he could have found either one of them lying around the house.”

  Jameson breathed a heavy sigh. “What are you getting at, Miss McClelland?”

  “I think you should reopen the case,” she responded matter-of-factly.

  “Reopen the case?” he repeated. “Why should I do that? Everything you’ve mentioned so far has been pure conjecture. The hardcore facts remain the same: Henry Van Allen was having financial trouble, he wrote a suicide note and he jumped from his bedroom balcony. End of story.”

  Marjorie looked to Creighton for support but found that he had resumed his reading efforts. Suddenly a thought occurred to her. “That’s strange . . .”

  Jameson did not reply, but leaned his elbows on his desk and buried his face in his hands. Marjorie recalled that Creighton had made a similar gesture the day before. Was it possible that the detective was also coming down with the stomach flu? Determined not to become distracted from her goal, she pushed the thought aside. “Van Allen supposedly killed himself over financial concerns. Yet, his secretary reported that he spent his last day working furiously, reviewing numbers, dictating letters, scheduling appointments, et cetera. He even skipped lunch. To me, that sounds like a man who is trying to keep his business afloat, not a man who is planning on cashing in his chips.”

  Creighton looked up briefly, “‘Cashing in his chips’? What sort of films have you been watching lately?”

  Jameson held his ground, “Miss McClelland, you don’t understand. I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m just looking at this from the point of view of my superiors; if I go to them and ask to reopen a five-year-old case, I need good reason. So far, everything that you’ve mentioned could easily be accredited to Van Allen’s irrational state of mind. Besides, I am supposed to be investigating the Bartorelli case, not the Van Allen case. Your questions, although very good, have not concerned Bartorelli in the slightest.”

  Creighton concurred. “He’s right, Marjorie. You haven’t found anything to link Bartorelli with Van Allen’s death.”

  Marjorie stared through him. Lousy traitor! You’re supposed to defend me, not the Hartford County Police!

  Creighton smiled, “I, however, have.”

  Marjorie lunged from her chair and joined Creighton on the edge of the desk. She struggled to read the report over his shoulder. “Where is it? What did you find?”

  “It’s a timeline of the events of Hen
ry Van Allen’s last day.” He pointed to the item of interest. “Look at that.”

  Marjorie read the line aloud. “Ten seventeen p.m.—body found at bottom of backyard swimming pool by Victor Bartorelli, gardener.” Upon realizing the importance of Creighton’s discovery, she kissed him firmly on one cheek and exclaimed, “Oh, Creighton, you’re wonderful! This is exactly what we’re looking for!”

  Creighton knitted his eyebrows together as if deep in thought. “Hmm . . . a kiss for a tidbit of information.” He shot Marjorie a sideways glance, “What do I get for solving the case?”

  Marjorie blushed as it occurred to her that she might have acted too hastily. “Nothing. You’ve already gotten more than you deserve.” She turned her attention to Detective Jameson, “There! What do you think of that?”

  “I think you did a great job of placing Bartorelli at the scene of Van Allen’s death. But it still doesn’t prove anything.”

  Creighton sprung from his spot on the desk, nearly upsetting the stack of papers he had placed beside him. “Oh, come on, Jameson! Bartorelli was the first on the scene of Van Allen’s suicide. Combine that with the fact that Bartorelli bragged about his future prospects, and I would say that Bartorelli knew something about Van Allen’s death that no one else knew. Something that got him killed.”

  Jameson’s head was tilted downward, as if it were suddenly too heavy for the rest of his body to support. “I get paid not to jump to conclusions.”

  “You also get paid to solve crimes, but I don’t see you moving on this case at all. To be honest, I’m really beginning to wonder about the efficacy of this police department. First, we nearly have to twist your arm to read the Van Allen file. Then, when we do, Marjorie notices a number of unusual circumstances surrounding the case that were never investigated. Finally, when we find a link between the two cases, you’re reluctant to pursue it. What’s going on here? Are you afraid the Van Allens won’t purchase tickets to the next Policemen’s Ball? Or do they have a courtesy card from the Hartford County Police?”