Death by Surprise

by Carolyn Hart

Maybe the bell was broken.

  I knocked, hard. The door moved inward under the pressure of my knock. I gave the door a push, then jumped back, startled, as her cat flashed through the narrow opening and out into the night.

  Why was the door ajar? What had frightened the cat?

  I stepped into the foyer, still intent upon confronting Francine, trapping her. I looked into the living room where a lamp shone brightly.

  “Francine . . .” My voice died in my throat.

  The living room was a shambles, papers dumped out of the desk, books strewn on the floor. I looked past the disarray to a love-seat. A silly name for an odd-sized piece of furniture. Not comfortable for making love but called a love-seat. Meant for two people. Sitting upright. Francine was not sitting upright. She took up almost the whole seat, sprawled backward, her long sleek blond hair shining in the lamplight, her head tilted at an impossible angle, her arms flung backward, her legs spread gracelessly wide.

  She was very, very dead.

  My eyes jumped away from her face, mottled and bluish. Her tongue protruded dreadfully from her half-open mouth. Red and black bruises marked her throat.

  Nausea swept me. I stood dumbly in the living room doorway, appalled and sickened.

  How dreadful. How horrible.

  I wanted to turn and run.

  Instead, I stood rooted, unable to look away, the soft cerise of the expensive silk dress an awful contrast to her swollen and disfigured face.

  I must call the police.

  I moved, one leaden foot after another, toward the telephone which sat on the desk so terribly near that sprawled dead body.

  It was going to be awkward for me to explain why I was here. What was I going to tell the police? Not, of course, that I had come, hoping to trap Francine Boutelle in the act of blackmailing me on a tape . . .

  Oh my God. The tape recorder. I must get it. I couldn’t tell the police about the tape recorder.

  I swung around, hurried to the rubber tree plant. I was pulling the leaves apart, reaching for the recorder when the harsh command came.

  “Turn around.”

  It startled me so much that I stumbled into the stand holding the plant and bruised a knee. Frantically, I whirled around, at the same time trying to back away.

  My sense of fright lessened. He didn’t look dangerous.

  Frightfully sure of himself, perhaps. Accustomed to command. But not, surely, a murderer running rampant.

  “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

  I took a deep breath, my heartbeat began to slow.

  “I might ask the same of you,” I replied.

  He glared at me, his grey eyes icy beneath thick black brows. He was fortyish. A successful fortyish in a tan cashmere jacket, a yellow polo shirt, and dark brown slacks. His face could have been handsome except that he obviously didn’t spend his spare time practicing ingratiating smiles before the mirror. He had a tanned lean face with a strong nose and black hair flecked with silver.

  He wasn’t looking at me now. He was looking at Francine. He didn’t change expression. That made him all the more forbidding.

  His eyes swung back to me, looked me up and down but without the subtle reflection of admiration I could usually expect from a man. He looked over my shoulder at the rubber tree plant. Without a word, he strode across the room, moved past me and pulled down a thick green front. He studied for a long moment the shiny black plastic recorder taped to the rubber tree trunk.

  “How did you know it was there?” he demanded.

  So he went right to the point.

  I lifted my chin. “I heard a humming noise. I wanted to see what was causing it.”

  He bent his head a little, listened.

  There was no humming noise.

  Those icy grey eyes looked at me again.

  “Carlisle,” he said abruptly. “K.C. Carlisle.”

  It was my turn to look sharply at him.

  I didn’t know him. I was sure of it. He was not a forgettable man. I was quite sure I had never met him.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  I hesitated, then answered. “I had an appointment with Miss Boutelle. I came. The door was open. I found her.”

  “You walked right in?”

  “I knocked. The door came open. I expected her to be here so I stepped inside—and this is what I found.”

  We both looked again at the couch.

  “Have you called the police?”

  “No. I was going to . . . and I heard that humming noise.”

  I certainly hoped John Solomon and I had polished that recorder well enough because now I had a story and I was stuck with it. It could have been true.

  “Who are you?” I asked abruptly. I would prefer that this obviously intelligent man not think too long about that recorder.

  “Harry Nichols. I own The Beacon.”

  That laid it on the table all right.

  So this was Harry Nichols, who didn’t like the Carlisles. Of course, it was his father who had begun the vendetta. But he had continued it, witness the attacks on Kenneth during the campaign.

  We looked at each other warily.

  “How did you know me?” I asked.

  “You were elected president of the Young Lawyers last month. I remember your photograph.”

  “It’s nice to be memorable,” I said pleasantly.

  He didn’t smile. “I was thinking about the Carlisles as I drove over here tonight.”

  “Really?”

  He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a letter. “This came in the mail this morning.” He tossed it to me.

  I held it. “Do you want me to read it?”

  He nodded.

  It was concise, pointed, and, for Kenneth, unfortunate as hell.

  Dear Mr. Nichols,

  If The Beacon wants the real low-down on what kind of person Kenneth Carlisle is, so the voters can be protected, come to my apartment tonight at eight-fifteen.

  It was signed by Francine Boutelle in a flashily flowing script.

  I folded the letter, slipped it back into the envelope.

  “And, of course, with the Beacon’s known fondness for the Carlisles, you came hotfoot.”

  He didn’t rise to it. “I came. I didn’t know what to expect.” He looked again at Francine. “I didn’t expect this.”

  “Neither did I,” I said wearily.

  He called the police, carefully using a handkerchief to hold the receiver and a pen to move the dial. We waited five minutes for a patrol car and twenty minutes for the detectives.

  Arrivals and departures continued over the next hour, the medical examiner, several squad cars, the photographic unit, more detectives, and finally, an ambulance. I didn’t watch as the expressionless young men swiftly rolled Francine onto the cart, slipped over a canvas cover, and wheeled her out into the night.

  Harry Nichols and I waited in the foyer, in the way, but not, of course, free to go.

  “Did you know her well?” he asked me.

  I shook my head. “Not at all. I had met her once.”

  “Had you ever met her?” I asked a little later.

  “No.”

  “So you came because of the letter, hoping to scare up some scandal against Kenneth.”

  He wasn’t defensive. “Not precisely, Miss Carlisle.” He looked at me dispassionately. “I wouldn’t have minded learning something embarrassing to Carlisle.” For a moment, Nichols looked exasperated. “Going after your cousin isn’t especially easy, Miss Carlisle. He is too rich and successful to be involved in anything disreputable. The most you can say about Kenneth Carlisle is that he will bore you to death.”

  That stung me to a reply. “Then why do you attack him, day after day, Mr. Nichols?”

  “He is Robert Carlisle’s son. As far as I’m concerned, that will always be reason enough.”

  “Not a particularly defensible position, I would think.”

  “I don’t ever find it necessary, Miss Carlisle, to d
efend my positions.”

  He was so sure of himself. Answerable to no one. A bad enemy.

  Another siren cut through the night to die in the street outside. Through the propped-open door, I saw a man get out of the back of yet another police car and start up the walk.

  It was clear, the way other police scurried around him, that this man was in charge.

  “Who’s that?” I asked Harry Nichols.

  He looked past me and his eyes flickered with interest.

  “That’s Nelson Farris. Chief of detectives.”

  Farris was tall and bulkily built. He wore dark slacks and a navy pullover sweater. As he came nearer, I saw that his face was blunt and hard. He wore his hair in a fairly long crew cut. He looked tough and competent.

  Farris moved past us into the living room. The men there reported to him. Then a chubby-faced patrolman turned and pointed toward us.

  Farris’ dark, heavy-lidded eyes studied us for a moment. He began to walk toward us.

  I felt a rush of fear.

  “I want to talk to you.” Farris’s voice was hoarse and tired. Too many cigarettes and too much whisky for a lot of years. “Let’s go into the kitchen where it’s a little quieter.”

  We followed him, stepping carefully around the paraphernalia of the cameramen and fingerprint experts. One man, on his hands and knees, was slowly scooting a small vacuum cleaner around the base of the love seat.

  My mind was a frantic whirl of indecision. I could not, of course, lie to the police. But, on the other hand, I was under no compulsion to tell everything I knew. How to balance the fine line between deception and minimal cooperation was going to take a lot of judgment.

  Farris motioned us to sit in the booth opposite the kitchen range. Harry Nichols politely waited for me to slide in first, then he sat beside me. Farris took his place across from us. He pulled out a small notebook and a pen from his briefcase.

  For a long moment, it was absolutely quiet in the kitchen as Farris looked at us.

  “Anything you say may be used in evidence against you,” he said abruptly. His raspy voice reminded me of a cat clawing a screen. “You have the right to have a lawyer present.”

  The Miranda warning. I recognized it for what it was, a necessary protection to the investigation, a formality to keep evidence untainted. Still, it was a shock to hear it.

  Nichols was shaking his head impatiently.

  Farris looked at me. “Miss Carlisle?”

  “No.” My throat felt dry and parched. “No, I don’t need a lawyer.”

  “All right then. I understand, from Patrolman Fisher, that you found the body. How did it happen?”

  I knew that he assumed we had come together. I wanted to get my piece out first, before Nichols spoke.

  “I had an appointment with Miss Boutelle at eight o’clock. I rang the doorbell. She didn’t come so I knocked. That pushed the door open and her cat came running out. I thought that was odd. I called out and then I stepped into the foyer. I saw the mess in the living room so I walked in there—and found her.”

  Farris looked from me to Nichols and back again. “You weren’t together?”

  “No,” I said quickly, “but Mr. Nichols must have been right behind me.”

  Farris turned to Nichols. “Did you see Miss Carlisle enter the apartment?”

  “No.”

  “So she could have been inside for some time before you came?”

  “No,” I interrupted sharply. “I had just arrived. I only had time to find her and then I thought I heard a humming noise . . .”

  “Humming noise?” Farris asked.

  Nichols and I both told him and Farris was on his feet and out of the kitchen before we finished.

  We heard him explode. “How the hell could you miss it?” he demanded. “What the hell else have you missed? Fritz, get over here. Get some pictures, fingerprint it, then bring it to me.

  When he returned to the kitchen, he looked at me dourly. “You heard a humming sound?”

  “I thought I did,” I said doubtfully.

  “Funny. It was still running—and I couldn’t hear a thing.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Did you touch it?” he asked.

  “No.” Sweat beaded my mouth. Had I polished it well enough the afternoon that I brought it here? “You can ask Mr. Nichols. He came in just as I found it.”

  Nichols nodded agreement.

  Farris looked at both of us with impartial dislike. “Machines don’t hum for a while then stop humming. If you heard it humming, it should still be humming.”

  “Maybe I was mistaken.”

  “But you found it?”

  I nodded warily.

  His dark eyes stared hard at me. “What is it, Miss Carlisle?”

  I hesitated, but the answer seemed obvious. “I would guess that it is some kind of tape recorder.”

  “You would guess that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Miss Carlisle,” he rasped, “let me give you a little advice.”

  I ventured a small stiff smile. “Of course.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you were really doing here?”

  I simulated surprise. “Captain, I’ve told your men the truth and I’m sure it can be verified at Miss Boutelle’s office. She was working on an article about the Carlisle family and I had an appointment to discuss it with her.”

  “A friendly meeting?” he asked silkily.

  I knew then that despite his craggy face and tough demeanor, he had a feline streak—and that would make him doubly dangerous.

  “I never assume an interview will be either friendly or unfriendly until it occurs, Captain.”

  His mouth twisted in disgust. “They must teach it in law school.”

  “Pardon me.”

  “This either-or crap.” Brusquely, he began to bounce questions at me.

  “What time did you leave your apartment tonight?”

  “Around twenty to eight.”

  “What time did you get here?”

  “A few minutes before eight.”

  “Tell me exactly what you did, from the time you left your car.”

  A stolid-faced young man with a stenographer’s notebook sat on a straight chair a few feet away. He was taking down everything that was said.

  I’d better, from now on, remember what I said here.

  I told it just the way I had to the patrolmen who arrived first.

  “What did you touch?” Farris asked.

  New ground here. Be careful, K.C.

  “The front door,” I said slowly. “The lower leaf of the rubber tree plant.”

  “Nothing else?”

  I felt a touch of panic. Had I touched anything else that afternoon that I left the recorder? Oh God, the back door. There was no way I could explain prints on the back door! Then, sweet relief that left me limp, yet trying hard not to reveal any of the emotions that had swept me. I didn’t need to worry. I had worn gloves on Tuesday.

  Had that instant of panic shown on my face?

  Farris was waiting for my answer.

  “I don’t believe,” I said slowly, cautiously, “that I touched anything else.”

  “You don’t believe so?” he mimicked.

  “No.”

  He asked abruptly. “Do you know of any reason why anyone would kill Miss Boutelle?”

  Reason? I knew several, but I looked at him blankly. “I’m sorry, Captain. I know nothing of Miss Boutelle’s private life.”

  It was an oblique answer but he didn’t notice.

  “Did you kill her?”

  “No.”

  He turned to Harry Nichols. I didn’t listen too closely. I knew what Nichols was going to say. I reviewed in my mind the answers I had made. I had better remember them, repeat them the next time the questions were asked.

  Then Farris turned on me again, his tone sharp. He held out the letter Nichols had received. “What do you know about this?”

  “Nothing.”

 
“What do you mean, nothing?”

  “Exactly that.”

  His face hardened. “You expect me to believe it’s some kind of coincidence that you find the body of a woman who has just written a threatening letter about your cousin?”

  “My visit here had nothing to do with that letter.”

  Farris glared at me, but I’ve been around too long to be quailed by a glance. He gave it up, finally, and turned back to Nichols.

  “Is this letter the only contact you’ve had with Miss Boutelle?”

  As Harry Nichols nodded, a plainclothesman brought the recorder in and handed it to Farris. “It was running. We stopped it.”

  Farris took it. He looked at me for a long moment with dark suspicious eyes. “Shall we play it back, Miss Carlisle?”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  His index finger flicked the tiny button and we all could hear the tape whirring. It ran and ran and a tiny flag of excitement waved in my mind. By God, the tape had worked or there wouldn’t have been any tape to reverse. But I wasn’t supposed to know anything about this recorder or when it had begun to record so I tried to look merely interested.

  Finally, the whir stopped. Farris pushed the play button.

  Listening to the tape was an eerie experience. It opened with a bell clock chiming seven o’clock. Behind the soft bell tones, there was a ragged whistling noise that none of us identified for a long moment. Then, sickeningly, I realized we were hearing the gasping breaths of someone under great emotional stress. There was a sound of movement, impossible to define, hurried footsteps, the slam of a door.

  The tape whirred on and on with no sound, only the faint hiss of its own movement.

  Farris speeded it up, dropped it to normal when the doorbell rang. A door opened, then there was a long silence. A dull sound of movement, then, finally, a door slammed.

  Again there was silence. Minute after minute of silence.

  No voices. Nothing. I pictured Francine on the love seat, eyes bulging, tongue protruding.

  The front door bell rang on the tape. It rang again, longer. Then a knock.

  “Francine . . .” It was my voice, dying in shock.

  Farris glanced at me.

  My footsteps, hesitant, reluctant, faintly sounded.

  “Turn around.” No mistaking that voice, that tone of command.

  Farris let the tape run on until it picked up the sounds of the arriving police. When he turned it off, I attacked.