Ghost on the Case

by Carolyn Hart

  I stared at Sam. He meant every word. He’d taken the convoluted conjoining of a fake ransom call and a rich man’s murder and figured out a rationale that made sense to him. He agreed that the fake ransom call led Susan Gilbert to creep into her employer’s study. He knew—because I’d been there—that she took only the shoe box. But he understood greed. He believed Susan succumbed to temptation, returned to the study for the rare coins, and was surprised by Wilbur. I was certain that she tossed and turned in restless misery, but I couldn’t prove she hadn’t left the house again. I was in Sam’s office, checking out the guests at the luncheon where Wilbur called for the coins and, as far as I was concerned, signed his own death warrant.

  Sam looked more and more content. Half the fries were gone. He grabbed a handful, finished his cheeseburger.

  Unfortunately, his interpretation made lots of sense. But I tried. “The whole thing was set up to involve Susan in Wilbur’s murder. If Wilbur’s body had been found this morning and the ransom call never happened, the police would be checking out his family, friends, employees. Sure, you would check Susan, but without a fake kidnapping, Sylvie would have come home as usual. She would testify Susan never left the house. Instead, Sylvie was decoyed away. The killer removes her from the house and tricks Susan into opening the safe and getting the money. And this is critical, Sam, when Susan hurried to the Fitch house to get the shoe box, the study door was unlocked. She doesn’t have a key. The caller told her the door would be unlocked. That means the person who killed Wilbur was in the house at that moment, possibly a guest at the party. After the party is over”—I leaned forward, tried to sound authoritative, not pleading—“the killer entices Wilbur down to the study. Maybe someone who attended the party returns, knocks on Wilbur’s door, knowing Wilbur stays up late. Any excuse would do. Hey, forgot my cell phone, or I misplaced my car keys. Or I was walking on the terrace and I thought I saw a flashlight in your study. Maybe we should go down and check. Or if it’s someone in the house, claim to have heard a funny noise in the study. The result is the same, Wilbur and his killer walk down the stairs, go to the study. Maybe the killer has pulled the painting back. That would get Wilbur’s attention. He crosses to the safe, punches in the combination, the killer strikes.”

  Sam’s broad face creased in thought.

  I felt a spark of hope and speared another strip of chicken.

  Sam chewed on more fries, then shook his head. “Too complicated. Why not just kill him?”

  I pounced. “If you commit murder, wouldn’t you want a ready-made suspect?”

  Sam wiped his fingers with a paper napkin, put his trash in the paper sack. “If your take is right, this mythical killer had to know Susan could open the safe and that she had a free spirit sister who’d hide out for twenty-four hours for a couple of free Blake Shelton tickets. Plus”—he was emphatic—“that would mean the killer brought the coin collections to the Gilbert house and dallied around in the backyard for a place to hide the coins and found the tub by the back steps. You can’t do that in the dark. That means a flashlight was bobbing around sometime after one o’clock in the morning. What if Susan looked out the window? What if a next-door neighbor had a toothache? A flashlight in a backyard at that time of night would get a nine-one-one call pronto. Let’s keep it simple. A mean joke puts Susan Gilbert in her boss’s study, but once she opens the safe and takes out the shoe box, she knows how easy it would be to get the coins.”

  “Who opened the study door?”

  He wasn’t concerned. “That’s easy. The hoaxer was at the party. More than a hundred guests. I didn’t say the joke wasn’t well planned. Sure, it was. Susan’s caller was there, all right, but had nothing to do with Wilbur’s murder. That happened because she came back and Wilbur was unlucky enough to pick that moment to go into his study.”

  “Sam.” Now I was imploring. “Susan is innocent. Why, this morning she immediately told you about the box of cash.”

  Sam’s look was pitying. “Maybe a driveway full of cop cars scared her. Maybe she thought she would divert attention from the missing coins. She didn’t say a word about the coin collections.” He pushed back his chair, rose. Our conference was over. “Crimes are pretty simple, Bailey Ruth. Sex or money. I’ve done some checking on Susan Gilbert. Smart girl. According to most people, a nice girl. Even nice people can be tempted by big bucks. She could open the safe. She did open the safe. She admits she was there, admits she took the box full of cash. You back her up there. But she came home. No ransom call. She goes to bed. You come here. Maybe she feels like a rat in a trap, and it’s always better to be a rich rat than a poor rat. She decides to go back to the Fitch house, get the coins. But her luck ran out. Or maybe I should say Wilbur Fitch’s luck ran out. She’s there. He finds her. She kills him.”

  Chapter 6

  I was out in the cold. Literally. In every way. I stood on the City Hall roof, shivering. The poncho was elegant but not meant for a windchill in the forties. I added a black cashmere scarf and an ankle-length black cashmere topcoat. I no longer shivered, but I felt as bleak as an iced-over farm pond pelted by sleet. Adelaide’s main street stretched below me. It was still early afternoon, but everything looked gray as thick clouds squeezed out the sun. The Christmas lights that garlanded the streetlamps did little to add cheer.

  I’d never felt so alone. Before I’d always been welcome in Sam’s long office with the battered desk and lumpy brown leather couch. I knew what was going on behind the scenes in an investigation. This time what I knew scared me. The investigation was over. Friday at noon Susan would be in jail, no longer a “person of interest” but held on suspicion of murder, facing an arraignment and enough evidence to convict her of first-degree murder.

  Sam was focused on building the case against Susan. She probably had only a few hundred dollars in her bank account. She lived in a modest house. Likely she was paying for Sylvie’s education. There could be debts, probably were debts. In his view, greed prompted her to hold on to the rare coins. Worst of all, a closed case meant Sam wasn’t looking for the person who landed Susan in a murderous mess. Sam was convinced she’d succumbed to temptation when a hoax led her to open Wilbur’s safe, that she decided she was already a thief so why not get something out of it for herself. Sam didn’t buy my contention that the hoax was a ruse to embroil her in a murder and the plan had succeeded handsomely because she was the chief suspect. Someone with a compelling reason to want Wilbur dead created a clever diversion. Sam thought Susan had an enemy, but the real effect of the hoax was to tempt Susan and lead her to murder. I had to prove him wrong. I had to push behind the false front, find the clever mind that wanted Wilbur dead and Susan accused.

  I stared down at the shadowy street, the gloom emphasized by the Christmas lights. The strands of tinsel strung across the street swayed in the sharp gusts, making an eerie rustling sound.

  Adelaide, my beautiful Adelaide, no longer welcomed me. I felt as alien as any private eye walking down a mean street. Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade made those walks. So would I.

  In less than forty-eight hours, I had to find Wilbur’s murderer.

  • • •

  The grandfather clock in the corner of the living room in the Gilbert house showed the time at a quarter after two, still plenty of afternoon left to seek out suspects.

  Sylvie paused to glance in the mirror above a side table. She fluffed her blonde curls. “Let’s go out to dinner tonight. We need to do something fun. There’s a new restaurant by the lake. Rummy’s Retreat. The steaks are supposed to be great.”

  A drained, depleted Susan looked small in the corner of the sofa. “A last meal for the condemned?”

  Sylvie whirled around, stalked across the room. “That’s not funny, Susan. I just meant you and I didn’t have anything to do with Mr. Fitch being killed and we need to act like everything’s all right.”

  Susan gazed at her sister, and a smile t
ugged at her lips. “You look like a kitten with frizzed-up fur facing down a Doberman.”

  “If that awful man—”

  She meant Sam.

  “—was here, I’d scratch his eyes out.”

  Susan patted the seat beside her. “Honey, I love you. What really matters is that you’re all right.”

  Sylvie dropped onto the cushion. “Why doesn’t that police guy get it? Of course whoever called you has to be the one who killed Mr. Fitch. Why else was there a fake ransom call? It’s obvious. Any idiot can see it was a clever plan to get you to go to the house and take the money.”

  That was my cue.

  On Susan’s front porch, I paused to consider my wardrobe. What should a successful private investigator wear? I didn’t need a topcoat and scarf inside the house. I decided on a pale lavender merino wool basket weave cardigan over a darker purple top and matching lavender wool slacks and black leather heels. A necklace of intertwined silver links provided elegance.

  I knocked firmly.

  The peephole opened.

  I gave a reassuring smile. I hoped my red curls didn’t look too windblown.

  The door opened. Susan stared at me with a mixed look of recognition, disbelief, and uncertainty.

  I didn’t give her a chance to derail my participation. “I came as soon as I could. I’ll be glad to take on the investigation, find out the identity of Mr. Fitch’s murderer.” I pulled open the screen door. “If you didn’t get my name earlier, I’m Private Detective G. Latham with Crown Investigations, the Dallas office.” I rather liked the agency name. I thought it added a touch of class. My alias? Leslie Ford’s Washington DC socialite Grace Latham often assisted Colonel John Primrose in his difficult cases. Ford’s mysteries were not hard-boiled, but I enjoyed diversions into Southern mischief among the upper classes.

  Susan backed away, still staring, and trying, of course, to account for my reappearance. Last night she’d dismissed me as a creation of her own distress.

  Sylvie darted around her. “A private detective? That’s what we need. Somebody has to find out what happened.”

  Susan backed into the end of the sofa.

  I saw realization in her eyes. My appearance last night wasn’t a product of her imagination. I could come and go. I was what I’d claimed, an emissary from Heaven. “You’ll help me?” Her voice wavered.

  “I will.”

  Sylvie clapped her hands. “What do you want us to do?”

  “I’ll establish some particulars first. Please make yourselves comfortable.” I gestured toward the sofa. When Susan and Sylvie were side by side on the sofa, I drew a straight chair closer. I looked at Susan. “Who hates you?”

  Sylvie bristled. “No one hates Susan.”

  Susan looked somber. “The police asked me that, too. I told them the truth. I’m a very ordinary person. I grew up here. I’ve known people my whole life. Lou Ann Crawford never liked me. I think it’s because I was president of the student council and she wasn’t. Or maybe it’s because I dated her brother for a while. But Lou Ann lives in Chicago and she doesn’t hate me. Not the way you mean hate. She just doesn’t like me. Her brother Ted and I were engaged, but we both broke it off and he has a job in Norway. I never stole anything from anyone.” A pause. “Until last night.” She sounded forlorn. “Except for this week, I’m boring. I never hit anybody with a car. I’m not dating anyone right now. There are no deep, dark secrets in my life. I don’t have a hidden enemy who decoyed Sylvie away just to upset me.”

  “It’s ridiculous.” Sylvie’s cheeks flamed. “You can go around town and ask people. They know how good and honest and kind Susan is. And there was even a story in the Gazette a couple of years ago. This lady had put her purse on top of her trunk while she carried in some groceries. When she came back outside, she’d forgotten about her purse. She got in her car and drove off and the purse fell onto the street. Susan found it and took it to her house and handed it to her. Her wallet had three thousand dollars in it. To say Susan’s a thief and wants something that belongs to someone else is nuts. She was desperate and she wanted to keep me safe and she was going to tell Mr. Fitch about the money and she never took those stupid coins and she would have paid him back and I would have helped.”

  Now Sylvie didn’t look as much like a frizzed cat staring down a big dog as a Valkyrie bent on destruction.

  Susan tried to keep her voice steady, but her eyes held the knowledge that she was in a desperate situation. “The police believe the ransom call wasn’t meant to get money, just to upset me. The police think I went to Wilbur’s house and opened the safe and took the money and later came back and got the coins. I don’t know why they think I was there twice. But it doesn’t much matter. I’m afraid they aren’t looking at anyone but me.” She reached over, picked up the newspaper lying on the coffee table. “Did you see the story in the Gazette? I feel like I have an X on my back.”

  The Gazette is an afternoon newspaper. This would be a story about the mayor’s news conference. I held out my hand. “May I see?”

  Joan Crandall had written two stories, the first straight news about the butler’s discovery of the body, the ME preliminary report, death by blunt trauma by person or persons unknown, death estimated to have occurred sometime after midnight and before three a.m., a roundup of Wilbur Fitch’s life and accomplishments. The quote from Sam Cobb was unrevealing. “Inquiries are being made among Mr. Fitch’s acquaintances and business associates.” The second story covered Neva Lumpkin’s news conference. Crandall quoted the mayor’s naming of Susan as among those being questioned. I understood Susan’s grim expression. The story ended, “Mayor Lumpkin assured Adelaide residents there is no danger as the police are conducting around-the-clock surveillance.”

  “Anybody who reads about the news conference will think the police are ready to put me in jail. I guess maybe they are. And it won’t help”—her voice was glum—“when they find out Wilbur left me a hundred thousand dollars. Me and a lot of people. The police will just see the will and think I wanted the money out of the safe and a bequest, too.”

  “A hundred thousand dollars?” Sylvie’s eyes were huge.

  Susan blinked away sudden tears. “He was the most generous man I’ve ever known. I told him I hoped the money came in when I was an old lady and I could help out my grandchildren. He clapped me on the shoulder, said if I kept saying nice things like that, he’d have to up my share to two hundred thousand. And now he’s dead and he shouldn’t be, and if they put me in jail I’ll never fall in love and get married and maybe someday be a grandmother.”

  “You will,” I reassured her. “I’m here.”

  The sisters, so strikingly different in appearance, curly-haired, blonde, incandescent Sylvie and restrained, responsible, dark-haired Susan, looked at me with a tiny burgeoning of hope.

  I gave Susan a thumbs-up. “It’s helpful to us that the police are focused on you. The murderer is relaxed, thinks there is no danger.”

  “How nice,” Susan said shakily, “for the murderer.”

  “But I will burrow into the lives of the suspects—”

  Sylvie was puzzled. “What suspects?”

  “Seven people knew that Susan had the combination to Wilbur’s safe.”

  Susan sat up straighter. “Detective Latham is talking about the lunch last week when Wilbur asked me to open the safe and bring the Roman coins. Anyone at the luncheon knew I could open the safe—”

  Sylvie was excited. “So one of them made the fake ransom call knowing Susan could get pots of money.” She clutched Susan’s arm. “Who was there?”

  “George Kelly, Wilbur’s lawyer. Todd Garrett, chief operating officer of Fitch Enterprises.” Susan spoke each name thoughtfully. Was she picturing that person, trying to see him or her as a stealthy figure setting a trap for her? “Alan Douglas, vice president in charge of projects and design. Wilbur’
s son, Ben Fitch.” She stopped, shook her head. “He came out of the study last week and he was laughing. He saw me and gave me a kind of mock warning. Dad’s in the mood for a fight. Be sure and smile at him right. He’s in fine form. But he wasn’t mad or irritated. And I think Ben’s very nice.”

  “He will be a very wealthy man,” I observed quietly.

  She continued her defense, a spot of pink in each cheek. “Ben made a lot of money in Hawaii. Wilbur told me and he was very proud of him.”

  Sylvie asked quickly, “Who else was there?”

  Susan was glad to move on. “Harry Hubbard, Wilbur’s stepson. Minerva Lloyd—” She shot an uncomfortable look at her sister.

  Sylvie was nonchalant. “Wilbur’s mistress. Sis, I know about these things.”

  Susan managed a smile. “—his friend. And Juliet Rodriguez—”