“Never?” he asked, frowning.
“Not since it was under construction. This was Darby’s private realm.”
The sheriff took my elbow, guiding me around a couple of small numbered easels on the floor. I spotted stains on the carpet. Blood?
“Well, maybe you can help me with this,” he said. “These records here,” he pointed to a stack on the countertop, “match up with the list you gave Deputy Fowler yesterday, so I take it these are the ones that caused the dispute?”
With gloved hands he started to hold the albums up to me, one by one. “Maybe the deal went sour again after you left. The records ended up back here in what you’re telling me is Brenner’s private room.”
“Those are probably not the actual same records,” I said.
The sheriff looked puzzled.
“Darby’s a hard-core collector,” I said. “He’d never have sold off an album if he didn’t own a duplicate in better condition. I imagine he pulled the records and sorted them before we got here yesterday. Those are likely duplicates. Didn’t you find the others out in the atrium?”
The sheriff didn’t answer. He started to examine random albums from the shelves. “He’s got six of these,” he mused, showing me a Jethro Tull Aqualung.
“Probably a quadraphonic and a stereo on the blue label and maybe a green label with the different studio address. Could be a Japanese or British release in there as well. Then, of course, he’d have his playing copy.”
“So you’re telling me there are fine points to this collecting thing,” he said. “These,” he swept his hand to take in the room, “are different from the crates of musty old albums I see people peddling at the flea market.”
I nodded. “Yeah, except sometimes you find a prize in those musty crates. But you have to know what to look for. Not every album is collectible.”
Back out in the atrium I looked around but didn’t spot the stack of albums that had set all this in motion. I thought about telling the sheriff how generous Darby had been in making amends for the broken deal, to show Darby was an honorable guy, but I thought it might sound desperate. The sheriff asked more questions and at some point I realized he was doing a solid reconstruction of events, retracing to fill in details. I was grudgingly impressed. Finally he asked me if I saw anything that seemed out of place or noteworthy.
“That,” I said, pointing to the turntable. “That’s odd. Darby would never have stacked records like that.”
Sheriff Pierce frowned. “Isn’t that the point of these things? You stack five or six records and it changes them automatically?”
“For casual listeners, yes, but when the top record drops onto the stack they scrub against one another. Darby’s fastidious about his records.”
“Would Nicholson have done it?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “I mean, I didn’t know Noland all that well, but he’s—he was—a pretty serious collector too. And anyway, like the record room, this turntable is strictly Darby’s domain.”
Beth insisted we stay at the house and directed Dave and me down a long hall to the guest wing where I’d stayed a couple of times in the past. I was struck again by how spread out the house was. Beth and Darby’s bedroom, as well as Nadine’s, was in a twin wing on the opposite side of the public rooms. Even if anyone had been home last night they wouldn’t have heard anything. We seemed miles from the atrium.
After Nadine brought us a stack of towels and started the trek back to her own room Dave came in and flopped on my bed, spilling what he’d garnered from his afternoon of nosing around.
“First off, the consensus on Noland is that he was basically a nice guy, but he had a flare for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and a habit of pushing people’s buttons. That little dust-up yesterday with Ted Mayhall, the inspector, wasn’t their first. And it was no secret he was hard on his foreman, John Daws.
“Well, there you go,” I said, “people with motive.”
“Yeah, but he and Darby have mixed it up a few times too. Publicly. I gotta tell you, Session, it looks bad for Darby.”
A shiver went up my spine. I told Dave what I’d found out from Nadine and Beth and about my walk-through with the sheriff.
Dave scratched at his two-day growth of beard and mulled this over. “Time of death was between nine and eleven last night.”
I looked him a question.
“Got a friend in the lab,” he drawled. “So maybe that puts Nadine elsewhere—and I say maybe. But does it clear Beth? She say what time she left here?”
“No!” I said. “Are you crazy? Why would either of them want to hurt Noland Nicholson? Beth’s all peace and love; she couldn’t hurt a fly. Nadine either.”
“Not even to protect Darby?”
“Protect him from what?”
Dave shrugged. “Still some holes in the theory.”
“Still some holes in your head,” I snarked, but he’d planted a seed and despite myself I felt suspicion growing.
“I wonder what time Kyle went AWOL,” I mused aloud.
“Ten minutes till ten he was out at the main road waiting for a kid named Nate from the construction crew to pick him up.”
“Wow, you have been busy,”
“Young Nate’s got himself a little fencing enterprise going. Kyle told him he’d bring him some ‘good stuff,’ but he didn’t deliver. Said he couldn’t get to the goods and promised to have another go at it.”
“Why in the world would this kid Nate tell you all that?” I asked.
Dave flexed a neck muscle. “I can be very persuasive. And anyway, he might have gotten the impression I was with the SBI.”
Dave flashed a badge at me. From this distance it looked like a proper State Bureau of Investigation credential but if the kid had bothered to look closer he’d have seen it was bogus.
“You’re going to get in trouble with that one of these days,” I said.
“But not this day. Anyhow, the kid was probably lying about some of it.”
“Is he, like, bad news? Capable of violence?” I asked.
Dave sighed. “Nearly everybody is, given the right circumstances. Could be he’s in just deep enough to start thinking he’s a tough guy who can beat a rap. Or maybe he’s a scared punk who thought he was caught and started blubbering.”
“Any idea what Kyle was planning to bring to him to fence? Maybe it was the albums? Sheriff Pierce wouldn’t tell me, but I think they may have gone missing.”
“Naw, the kid swears he doesn’t know what Kyle was gonna filch.”
I paced. “So, there are other people who could have done this, and who might have had a reason. Do we know where any of them were when it happened?”
Dave ticked off the lineup. “Ted Mayhall claims he was home, watching TV, alone. John Daws flat-out refused to answer questions about his whereabouts. And according to Nate, he picked up Kyle before ten, but he was mad and ditched him once they got into town. You’ve got Nadine and Beth’s story. So no, we don’t really know where anyone was—except Darby.”
I felt my spirits sag. “Well, Sheriff Pierce needs to know all this about Kyle. For Beth’s sake I hope it turns out he didn’t get mixed up in something that caused Noland’s death, but like the sheriff says, we need all the facts.”
“Yep,” Dave said. “Word on the street is the sheriff’s hot to get this one in the bag before the real SBI comes in and big-foots the case. We don’t want any rush-to-judgment deal going down here.”
The next morning I walked out away from the house toward the tree line to make the call. I didn’t want to risk being overheard, and anyway, the view of the mist-shrouded blue-green mountains was spectacular and somehow gave me hope.
“Don’t suppose there’s any sense in asking how you’ve come to learn all this,” the sheriff said after I told him what we’d learned about Kyle and Nate.
“I’m just passing on information—the facts, like you said, Sheriff.”
“And I thank you. But I’d appreciate it if
you and your erstwhile SBI friend Dave would let me do the investigating from here on out,” he said, firmly but not unkindly. When I didn’t reply he added, “There’s not much that goes on in this county that I don’t hear about sooner or later.”
Wow, “erstwhile”? This was no yokel. I promised him earnestly that we’d stay completely out of it, hung up, and jogged back to the house. Dave and I had concocted the plan the night before. The minute Beth left to post Darby’s bail I’d find Kyle and question him—without Dave. Intimidation wouldn’t work with this kid and I can at least feign a caring touch. I was quite confident I could get the kid to talk.
I was quite wrong.
Kyle turned belligerent before I even got the first question out of my mouth. He ordered me out of his room and slammed the door right in my face.
I looked up and saw Jared at the end of the hall and was relieved it wasn’t the sheriff catching me interfering in the case. I met him halfway down the passage.
“I’m assuming the sheriff told you what we found out about Kyle?” I said, jerking my thumb toward the kid’s bedroom door.
“Yeah,” Jared said, “I’m here to question him. Did he tell you anything?”
“Nada,” I said.
“Maybe I’ll have better luck,” he said. “I’m pretty good with young punks. Maybe because I used to be a young punk myself,” he said, and there was that nice smile again.
I was momentarily distracted by the way his tanned skin crinkled around his blue eyes. Geez, what would Dave say about that! I shook my head to clear it.
“Kyle was planning to steal something, I know that much,” I said. “Maybe he took those albums Darby was selling to Noland. He knew they were valuable.”
“And untraceable, no way to prove those particular records were Darby’s even if we caught the kid red-handed with them. Everybody around knows Darby’s records are valuable,” he said. “He was always going on about his latest find. Kid probably thought that gold one alone was worth a wad of cash.”
“Yeah, people tend to get all excited about records stamped on colored vinyl. They’re not all that rare, but a neophyte like Kyle wouldn’t know that.”
“Exactly.” He clasped my shoulder lightly. “Let’s hope this leads somewhere—for Darby’s sake.”
Later that afternoon I wandered into the kitchen and saw through the window that Dave was talking with John Daws, who had a two-man crew out securing the construction site. I wondered what would become of Noland’s company.
Beth was at the table and I cringed when I saw she was on another crying jag. But she’d already seen me and it was too late to escape, so I sat beside her and tried to comfort her as best I could.
“I’m sorry,” she said, between sniffles. “I feel like my whole world’s falling apart. First Darby, now Kyle. That deputy questioned him; did you know that? Kyle won’t talk to me. He says he’s done something awful, but he won’t tell me what. He’s clammed up and locked himself in his room.”
I felt my stomach lurch. Bad as I’d wanted to find something to free Darby, I hadn’t wanted to sacrifice the kid. If he’d gotten mixed up in something that led to a man’s death it would destroy his family.
“Beth—” I began in a whisper. But I didn’t have a clue where to go from there. “Just stay strong, try not to worry,” I said, finally, hearing how lame it sounded.
Beth slammed both palms down on the table and practically spat, “I’m sick of everybody telling me that. How can I not worry? I can’t be Little Miss Sunshine right now, I am down, Session. Down in a deep, dark funk, and I’ve got a right to cry my eyes out if that’s what I need to do.”
I recoiled and stared at her a long time. I was surprised by the outburst, but it had started something percolating in my brain. “You’re right,” I said, finally. “You’ve got every right to be in a funk—a grand funk.” I ran over everything in my mind, double-checking myself. “Un-be-lievable,” I whispered.
I went outside to call Sheriff Pierce, wondering if he’d dismiss me as a conspiracy nut.
It was near nightfall when Dave found me and handed me his cell. “Your Uncle Sheriff wants to talk to you.”
“Since you’ve been so helpful in this case, I thought you and Dave might like to be here when we bring the suspect in,” Sheriff Pierce said. “Your call.”
Part of me definitely did not want to be there, but I felt I had to.
When we got to the station I was thrilled to learn that all the charges against Darby had been dismissed and he was being processed out, but I felt ill about what I knew was about to happen.
The door opened and Jared—Deputy Fowler—came into the room with two more officers close behind him. He nodded to me as he came closer, but the smile was long gone. He lifted his cuffed hands as if rebuking me. “So this is your doing? You’re nuts, you know that? Why are you accusing me?”
“The gold record,” I said. “The Grand Funk Railroad. It wasn’t on the original list of albums I gave you. Only the three of us were there when Darby gave it to Noland. Noland’s gone and Darby has no memory of that day. I’d forgotten about it myself, actually. I never mentioned it to you, the sheriff, or anyone else.”
He laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “This is never gonna stick, you know. Albums are untraceable, remember? And I am not a neophyte. Darby and I listened to each other’s albums all the time so fingerprints aren’t going to tell you anything. I haven’t done anything wrong.” He curled his lip in an Elvis-worthy smirk. “Hey, listen, could I call you once I get kicked free? Maybe we could get some dinner or something—listen to some tunes,” he said, drawing out the last word.
I could hear Dave cracking his knuckles behind me.
As the deputies carted Fowler away to booking, the sheriff crossed his arms and glared after him. “Never was any kind of deputy,” he scoffed. “Politics I had to take him in the first place. We found the albums at his place. He’s so arrogant he didn’t even hide them. But he’s right about one thing; we’ve got no way to prove they were Darby’s. I suppose if he gets a good lawyer he could get away with it.”
I smiled. “I’m going to break a confidence, Sheriff Pierce. I don’t think Darby will mind. He puts a sticky note way back inside each record jacket documenting when and where he got the record. You wouldn’t know it was there unless you were looking for it. Normally, he takes them out when he sells the record, but he was planning to sell those to me and he knows I like to see where they came from. I’m betting they’re still in there.”
The sheriff smiled broadly. “Good to know,” he said.
“Can you tell us what happened now?” Dave asked.
He motioned us to sit. “Darby was acting strange when we picked him up and Beth swore there was no way he’d been drinking,” he said. “She set in on me that morning and hectored me into having him tested for GHB—the date-rape drug. She had a friend in college who got dosed at a party. Next morning the girl was talking gibberish and didn’t remember a thing, just like Darby. Beth wouldn’t let it alone until I had the doc run the test and sure enough—”
“I still don’t understand,” I said.
“Sorry, that didn’t segue, did it?” the sheriff said, running his hands through his close-cropped gray hair.
“Segue”? Who was this guy?
“Okay, from the beginning,” he said. “Fowler ran into someone in town that night, most likely Ted Mayhall, who told him about the row Darby and Noland had gotten into about those records. He decided to drive on out there and see what was what, maybe horn in on the deal himself. He always liked hanging out with rich guys but at the same time he resented them. Anyway, he’d just come from a sweep of one of the downtown trouble-spot bars, where he’d confiscated a vial of GHB. Phone records show Darby was on the phone with one of his business interests in China around that time, so he was likely in his office in the bedroom wing when Fowler arrived, leaving Fowler alone in the atrium with Noland. We don’t know what transpired between the two of them
, but some kind of argument blew up and Fowler ended up grabbing the first thing he could put his hands on and cracking Noland in the head with it. I’m sure he didn’t mean to kill him; Fowler’s not evil, he’s just—worthless. But whatever his intentions, Noland’s not any less dead.”
“And then he drugged Darby?” Dave asked. “How?”
“The theory is, Fowler heard Darby coming and dragged Noland’s body into the record room. Maybe Darby looks around for Noland and decides he’s in the bathroom, whatever. He sets down a glass of juice he’s brought in with him and goes off to find Noland and it’s then that Fowler remembers the GHB in his pocket and gets a bright idea. He spikes the drink and waits. Darby comes back, has a few sips, and is out cold. Fowler was smart enough to take the drinking glass with him, but not smart enough to get rid of it. We found it at his place too. We’re testing it now. We think he dragged the body back out, put a stack of records on the changer so it would sound to anyone wandering by like they were still listening to music, staged the scene by dousing them to make it look like they’d been drinking heavily—then on the way out decided to scoop up the stack of records for his trouble.”
“I’m Deputy Fowler,” Dave whispered into my ear, “but you can call me plain ol’ scumbag.”
Back at Darby’s the celebration was in full swing. The man of the hour was taking a shower, “washing the jail off himself,” as Nadine reported. Everyone else was gathered in the kitchen, where the table was fast filling with food as Nadine ferried things from the refrigerator. Beth tried to help, but Nadine shooed her away.
“Nadine!” Beth said, squeezing her hands into fists. “I want to help you. Look, Nadine, I don’t know how to be a rich man’s wife. I don’t know how I’m supposed to act or how to do things. I just want to be a regular person. I want us to be friends, family even, not—whatever we are now. Can’t we, please, work on that?”
Nadine stared at her for a long moment and I saw her face soften. “Yeah, we can,” she said finally. “’Course we can.”
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 09/01/12 Page 15