Familiar Friend

by Cristina Sumners

  They hadn’t seen Tom yet, because he was carefully hidden away in the kitchen. Kathryn had insisted that this thing needed to be stage-managed just right. She had told him to wear drastically casual clothes, preferably a sweatshirt and jeans; he had replied that he didn’t own any jeans. Did he have an old pair of pants that he wore to do yard work? Yes. Then those would do fine.

  In turn, Tom had done some insisting of his own. Patrick and Tracy were to be absolutely elsewhere, not even in the house. Tracy would be glad of a chance to get out anyway. The squad car could take her back to her apartment and she could fetch some more things for her prolonged stay at Kathryn’s, or maybe Rossi would just take Patrick and Tracy for a ride. But the important thing was to keep both of them away from the proceedings because, Tom said, “People will feel inhibited if they’re here.” Kathryn agreed he was probably right, so Patrick had been summoned for 10:00 to escort Tracy away, much to her delight, and they were given orders not to return before 5:00.

  When all of the people had arrived who were expected, Kathryn called them to order and thanked them on Tracy’s behalf for coming. “None of you had to be here, this is strictly voluntary. At this point I’d like to explain something. I’m not only a friend of Tracy Newman’s, I’m a personal friend of Tom Holder, the Chief of Police. In my opinion he is a card-carrying good guy. What is much more to the point, he is intelligent and competent, more than can be said for the District Attorney, who has serious ego problems.” Kathryn told them how Tom had developed his theory that Tracy was the killer’s primary target and explained it to the D.A., and then quoted to them Silverman’s response. As she expected, they responded with hoots of derision. “Tom stuck to his guns, however,” she continued, “and for his pains that consummate asshole of a D.A. has had him suspended from duty. He’s using as an excuse the fact that Tom’s wife has disappeared, but that’s neither here nor there.” She waved a placating hand at the shocked and concerned faces. “Tom’s wife has a long history of eccentricity and, shall we say, independence of spirit, and he thinks it’s quite possible she’s just gone off for a while without telling him. We think the real reason the D.A. has suspended Tom is so that he can take over the Mason Blaine homicide case and run it the way he wants to. And we don’t think he’s going to solve it in a million years because he’s got it completely backwards, which is why we’ve asked you to come here and help us. Tom?”

  She turned, as did they all, to see Tom entering from the dining room.

  “Hi,” he greeted them. “We’ve met before, but this is different. Last time you had to talk to me, and I was grilling you pretty badly under very unpleasant circumstances. You didn’t have any choice. Now you do. You heard what Kathryn said. I’ve been suspended. I have no authority at all. I’m an ordinary citizen, I’m no longer the Chief of Police, not officially anyway. You don’t have to answer any question I ask you. You can tell me to go to hell. But Kathryn asked you to come here to help us catch a killer. Somebody who has already killed two people, Mason Blaine and Jamie Newman, and, more importantly, seems to be trying to kill Tracy Newman, so maybe it would be a good idea if we could catch him before he succeeds. So will you help me?”

  There was a subdued chorus of agreement, nods and murmurs of “yes.”

  Tom thanked them heartily and then explained what he wanted them to do. “You may think this is crazy, but trust me, it will help.”

  Both Tom and Kathryn could tell from the various expressions on the faces of the eight students that some of them thought that this exercise was going to be a complete waste of time, while others appeared intrigued and willing to give it a try. But even the reluctant dragons had little choice but to go along since they had already committed themselves by showing up. So they all rose and trooped into the dining room.

  José, ever the gentleman, volunteered to go first. He wasn’t very good. The others offered the comments Tom had asked for, then Carlos, as if to demonstrate that the peasants could outperform the aristocracy, announced that he would go next. One after another the others followed. Kathryn studied all the performances carefully, looking every now and then at Tom to see if he was getting the enlightenment he sought. She couldn’t tell.

  Finally there was only one student left to go, and fate, or the girl herself, had saved the best for last. She was one Mary Ann Lieberman, and she had been a drama major as an undergraduate. She stepped up to the props Kathryn had set out, picked up the glass and vodka bottle, and magic occurred.

  “Now you see here, boys and girls, this object here is a glass.” It was perfection. The tilt of the head. The inflection of the voice. Every little unnecessary phrase. At a strategic point halfway through the performance, she put down the glass and the bottle, thrust her hands into the pockets of her floppy denim jacket, rocked back and forth from the balls of her feet to her heels, and shook her head back and forth. She had chin-length curly hair and this produced an admirable effect. Her entire audience burst into spontaneous applause and cries of, “That’s it!” and “She’s got it!”

  Kathryn glanced at Tom. He was standing in the far corner of the room, focusing on Mary Ann with narrowed eyes and with one hand covering his mouth.

  Mary Ann pulled her hands out of her pockets and picked up the glass again. She reached into the ice bucket and said, “Now you see, boys and girls, the addition of some ice is necessary in order to chill the drink. You see that, don’t you? You see that? So we add the ice—”

  And suddenly Kathryn did see. She saw what Tom had been looking for. And she knew that Tom himself must have seen it by now, clearly and irrefutably. As Mary Ann rattled on about ice, Kathryn began to feel as though someone were putting ice cubes up her own spine, and she began to feel an acute need to sit down. The nearest chair was six feet away so she had to settle for leaning against the wall. The rest of Mary Ann’s routine lasted only a couple of minutes but to Kathryn it seemed interminable. Finally the conclusion arrived, heralded with another round of applause, both manual and verbal, and Tom stepped forward.

  “I take it that was accurate in every detail?”

  A chorus of agreement.

  “Thought so. Thanks, Mary Ann. Thank you all. I know you don’t understand what that was about, but trust me, I got what I needed. I hope that some time later when an arrest is made, it’ll be clear to you how you’ve helped. I’m sorry I can’t explain now, but I appreciate you coming.”

  Kathryn stepped in as hostess and also offered thanks, and people began to drift toward the hall. Kathryn wanted to shout at them to hurry up and leave; it was with Herculean effort that she refrained from showing her impatience as they trickled slowly out the front door, Carlos and José lingering as if they had been at a social occasion.

  At last they were gone; Kathryn closed the door behind them, stumbled to the sofa, collapsed upon it, and burst into tears.

  “Darling! What’s the matter?” Kit cried.

  “Patrick!” Kathryn wailed. “It was Patrick! Oh, dear God, deliver me, I can’t believe it!”

  “Your friend Patrick?” asked Kit incredulously. “But why would he want to kill Tracy?”

  “He didn’t,” Tom said. “He wanted to kill her husband. Her husband had a habit of picking on her and finishing her drinks at parties. So Patrick told Jamie that Tracy had been drinking too much, and presto, Jamie goes and takes the poisoned drink out of her hand and drinks it himself.”

  Kathryn looked at Tom. “I was slow. I didn’t catch it till Mary Ann did it.”

  “I saw it when Carlos did it. He was the first one who put his hands in his pockets when he did the routine. You see, when Patrick showed me, the night of the party, how he did it, he didn’t include putting ice in the drink. And later when I asked him about it, he said he’d forgotten, but he thought he hadn’t put any ice in. I just needed to find out about the ice. That’s why I did this thing. When Carlos included pockets in the routine I saw how Patrick could have put the ice cubes in the drink right in front of everybody. Bu
t Carlos picked up the vodka bottle afterwards, he got that bit wrong. Mary Ann was the only one who got it dead right.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” Kathryn moaned. “He had me completely fooled. Completely. He called her a poor little dab of a thing! Hell, no wonder he stopped dating once he was a graduate student. He’d met Tracy. And here I was thinking maybe he was gay. I’m an idiot. I’m going to turn in my collar.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Kat,” Tom said, unaware that he had used the nickname he had used only once before, the nickname Kathryn’s father had called her. It was just so hard for him to see her cry; it brought out tenderness in him he was incapable of reining in, even with Kit sitting right there. “Sometimes we get killers who are amazing actors. Better than Hollywood.”

  The doorbell rang. Kathryn wiped her eyes. “Oh, God.” She raised her voice. “Mrs. Warburton?”

  Mrs. Warburton appeared instantly and opened the front door. It was Patrick.

  “Hi, Mrs. Warburton, Kathryn! I know I’m early, but—what’s wrong?”

  Fortunately Kit had wheeled himself over to where Kathryn was sitting so she had a hand to hang on to as she lifted a ravaged face to Patrick and lied, “Migraine.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” And he did look sorry. But he also looked excited. He turned to Tom. “But I’m glad to find you here. I left Tracy over at her apartment with a friend—and her guard, of course—going through Jamie’s things.” He broke off and flashed a smile at Kit. “I’m sorry, my manners are all to hell and gone. I know who you are, of course; you’re Kit. I’m Patrick Cunningham.” He held out a hand.

  Kit hesitated. He was holding both Kathryn’s hands. “I do apologize,” he said, “but both my hands are occupied at present.”

  Patrick was momentarily taken back, but made a quick recovery. “Oh. Sure, take care of Kathryn. Anyway,” he said, turning back to Tom, and letting his excitement show again, Tracy asked me to go over to the library to clear out Jamie’s study carrel. I found this behind Jamie’s books.” He held up a small plastic bag containing about a tablespoon of clear crystals.

  Tom stared at him blankly. “You found this in Jamie’s study carrel?”

  “Yes, but the point is that all the study carrels are shared. Two students each. And Jamie shared a carrel with Valerie. Do you know what Jamie was poisoned with?”

  “Yes, I do, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you if this is it or not. Look, Patrick, I appreciate you bringing this to me, but aside from the information of where you found it, there’s nothing I can do with the thing itself. What you need to do is take it to the station right now and give it to them and make a statement. They can send it to the lab in Trenton and analyze it and if it’s the same as the poison that killed Jamie, I imagine Valerie will have some questions to answer. Now go fast, because they’re gonna want to know why you didn’t go straight to them, and you don’t want to get in trouble with the D.A.”

  Patrick went.

  Kit said, “Tom’s right. The man’s an amazing actor.”

  “I thought Tom did pretty well, too, with that straight-faced response, didn’t you?” asked Kathryn, attempting to pull herself out of the emotional pit she had fallen into.

  “Indeed I did.”

  They nodded looks of approval at him and he made them a mock bow.

  “The only one,” Kathryn said, “who nearly gave the game away, my sweet, was you.”

  “You didn’t really expect me to shake hands with him?” Kit inquired.

  “If you had I wouldn’t have touched you for a week,” replied Kathryn with a set look.

  The phone rang. It was Father Mark.

  “Kathryn? By any mad chance is Tom Holder with you?”

  “Yes, he’s here.”

  “Thank God. May I speak with him, please?”

  “Sure. Hang on.”

  “Tom? Mark Randall.”

  Tom took the telephone. “Father Mark?”

  “Tom, I know you’re unofficial right now, but Kathryn says you know more about what’s really happening in this investigation than anybody else does and I believe her. That’s why I’m asking you. I’ve just had Shirley Massey on the phone in hysterics. Apparently they’ve arrested Link for the murder of Mason Blaine. Before I go over there to try to comfort her, it would be really helpful if you would tell me whether he did it or not.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Tom took a deep breath. “Arrested. By the District Attorney?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  Tom thought a moment. “It had to be the D.A. He’s in charge of the case now. Give me a couple of minutes to try to get hold of him, see if I can find out what’s going on. Call you right back.” He hung up before the Rector could respond, pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, and punched one of the preprogrammed numbers as he told Kathryn what had happened.

  “Nick? Tom Holder. I hear you’ve arrested Lincoln Massey for the murder of Mason Blaine.”

  “Tom!” Silverman cried with immense affability. “We’re just doing the bookings now. I was going to call you after that, let you know about it before I hold the press conference since you helped me out a bit before you went off the deep end over your little secretary. The people in New York you had tailing Crystal Montoya sent some nice juicy pictures of her having lunch in the Plaza with Lincoln Massey and then getting in an elevator and not reappearing for three hours. We know she and Blaine used to be lovers. Now, get this. Massey lives three doors down from Mason Blaine, did you know that? I figure it this way: Blaine is walking home. Massey is also out for a walk, it’s a nice evening. They run into each other. The ex-lover and the current lover get into an argument. Massey kills Blaine. He doesn’t want to leave the body there because it’s too close to his own house, we’ll connect the murder with him. So he puts the body in his car and drives around trying to figure out where to safely dump a body where he won’t be seen. Answer, St. Margaret’s Church.”

  “Bookings.”

  “Huh?”

  “You said bookings, plural.”

  “Oh, yeah. We also arrested Crystal Montoya for the murder of Jamie Newman. I saw in your notes that Massey bought her way into the MacDonalds’ party. Obviously they were afraid the girl spotted something in the church that night and Massey sent Montoya to the party with the cyanide all ready to dispose of her.”

  “Yeah, well I see you got it all worked out. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks, Tom. I gotta go, now. Bit of a madhouse, here. You understand.”

  “Oh sure. Bye, Nick.” He hung up.

  Kathryn instantly shrieked, “He hasn’t really got it all worked out, has he? What’s all this crap about Link Massey?”

  Tom smiled beatifically. “All this crap about Link Massey is that our dear District Attorney has just arrested one of the richest and most powerful men in this town on a charge of murder, when all he’s guilty of is adultery. He’s also arrested his mistress on another charge of murder, which means the rich man’s wife’s gonna find out all about what he’s been up to.”

  Kathryn smiled with unholy glee. “Which means the rich man is going to be very, very unhappy with the District Attorney, and the District Attorney is going to look like a fool. Which of course he is.” She got up and began to dance around the room singing the Halleluia Chorus from Handel’s Messiah.

  “Excuse me,” Kit interrupted politely. “Would somebody mind terribly telling me who all these people are?”

  “Just as soon as I make a phone call,” Tom replied. “Kathryn, can I do a call-back on your phone?”

  “Sure.”

  “Father Mark? Tom. Tell Shirley Link didn’t kill Mason Blaine. But listen. The reason he’s been arrested is, he’s having an affair with Crystal Montoya, and they’ve arrested Crystal for the murder of Jamie Newman, which is also wrong, she didn’t do it. But the business about the affair is probably going to come out because of the two arrests, so I thought I’d better tell you about it. Sure. You’re welcome. Bye.”

>   Then Tom explained to Kit who “all these people” were, also filling Kathryn in on Nick Silverman’s theory of the double homicide.

  When he finished Kathryn frowned. “It’s actually pretty good, isn’t it, Tom?”

  “Oh, yeah. It only leaves out four little details that I can think of, off the top of my head. One, how come Link was taking a walk with a blunt instrument in his hand ready to clobber Mason Blaine over the head if he happened to run into him? Two, when Link planted Blaine’s body in the St. Margaret’s driveway, why did he carefully put him in the middle of the driveway instead of just dumping him where he would have naturally come out of the car, on the side? Three, why did he stick a knife in Blaine’s back? Was he carrying that on his walk, too? Or did he go back into his house to get the knife after he clonked Blaine over the head with this blunt instrument he was already carrying? And four, assuming Crystal went to the party with cyanide to kill Tracy, why put it in ice cubes?”

  Kathryn sighed. “I don’t know whether I’m relieved or disappointed. Of course I want you to be right and the idiot asshole District Attorney wrong. But there are other issues here.”

  “I understand.”

  “Never mind. What do we do now?”

  “We look for the car. Does Patrick own one?”

  “No.”

  “He probably wouldn’t have used his own anyway. If you lived in this town and were planning a murder and needed to rent a car to move the body in, where would you go?”

  “To one of the car rental agencies at Newark Airport.”

  “Smart girl. Why?”

  “It’s out of town. They do a huge volume of business. It’s anonymous. Nobody would remember me.”

  “Right. So we are looking for a needle in a haystack. At least we have a name and a date and there are only so many agencies. The tricky bit is that we haven’t got any authority. If we did we could subpoena the records, no problem. But we can’t. Instead we’re going to somehow have to talk these people into letting us have information that normally they should be keeping private. How are we going to do that?”