Hangman's root : a China Bayles mystery

by ALBERT, SUSAN WITTIG

  Long himself was neat and plain, with the exception of the tie. Burnt orange is a color that only Texas Exes wear without embarrassment. Given the rest of him, I guessed that Long wore it because it was good for business. His brown hair, clipped short above the ears and combed back with precision, matched his mustache, and his brown eyes were wary behind gold-framed glasses. His brown jacket concealed his slightness, but even so his shoulders were sloping and his chest concave. It was the shape of a man who hunched over numbers all day long and whose idea of exercise was a Saturday at the Schlitterbahn with the wife and kids. His pained expression—tight mouth, knotted jaw, furrowed forehead—suggested a chronic distress somewhere in his innards. I knew I was right when he opened a drawer, took out a role of antacid tablets, and put one in his mouth. He leaned back carefully and put his hands flat on the desk. He didn't relax.

  "Ms. Wilcox and I are conducting an investigation," I said, "on behalf of the woman who has been charged with the death of Miles Harwick. Are you familiar with the circumstances.^"

  "I read about it in the Herald-Zeitung, " he said. "But I don't understand the connection between Harwick and the Riddle woman. What did she have to do with it?"

  Ruby looked at him from under the brim of her black hat. "We don't believe she had anything to do with it," she said firmly. "You have been mentioned, however, as having certain information about Dr. Harwick. If that is the case, you might be able to help us clear Dr. Riddle." She glanced pointedly at the Lion's Club award for honesty and integrity. "I'm sure a man of your standing wouldn't allow an innocent woman to be convicted for a murder she didn't commit." Zing.

  I gave Ruby an approving glance. I couldn't have put it better myself.

  Long shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I don't know about information, exactly," he said, speaking in the wary tone he might have used if we were discussing an IRS audit. "There's a slight problem. You see, I'm worried about. . . That is, we ... " His tongue darted out and licked the lower edge of his mustache. "Excuse me," he muttered, and got up and opened the window behind him. Then he must have remembered that he wanted privacy. He closed it again.

  When he sat down again, I felt I needed to help things along. "If there is a problem with your speaking out," I said delicately, "we might be able to intercede on your behalf with the district attorney." I couldn't imagine what he was concealing, but I was betting that it wasn't as immoral or as illegal as he imagined.

  "Well, I don't know if that's what I . . . " His forehead furrowed and he reached for another antacid. "But maybe I do," he said. "I've been thinking a lot, ever since I read in the paper about. ..." His voice trailed off.

  I waited. After a minute I said, reassuringly, "I can't anticipate the prosecution's decision in this matter, of course, but I can tell you that crimes of lesser significance are often overlooked in or-

  der to resolve more heinous crimes." Lawyer's gobbledygook. I hate to talk that way, but some people feel a certain reassurance when they hear polysyllabic words and long sentences. It sounds as if there may indeed be order and justice in the land, and the speaker knows where to locate it.

  "I think she's saying," Ruby translated helpfully, "that we might be able to help you cut a deal."

  Long winced. "Well, I suppose I really ought to ... " His glance went to the photograph on his desk and clung to it, as if it were a lifeline and he were a drowning man. "But I can't do that until I know that..."

  T)dvitanybody in this case finish their sentences? "Mr. Long," I said crisply, "I am afraid that it is not possible to assess the value of your information before we know what it is."

  "She means," Ruby interpreted, "that nobody's going to make a deal until they hear what you have to offer."

  It was the old one-two punch. But it was apparently what Long needed. He straightened his shoulders and firmed his jaw, as if he were preparing to finish almost all his sentences. "I guess I'd better explain the situation to you," he said. "But I will need your guarantee of confidentiality."

  I shook my head. "I'm sorry," I said. "We are not in a position to give that guarantee. However, we will attempt to ensure that your interests are protected, insofar as we are able." Whatever he was hiding, it couldn't be that bad. He was an accountant—had he cheated Harwick out of some money? Had he and Harwick been involved in a scheme to cheat somebody else out of some money? Had there been some sort of tax fraud?

  He pushed his glasses up on his forehead, rubbed his eyes, and pulled his glasses down again. His lips were pressed tight together.

  "In other words," Ruby said gently, "you'll just have to trust us to do what we can for you." Her voice became softer, more

  persuasive. "You do need to get this matter resolved, Mr. Long. You said on the phone that youVe been expecting someone to call. Hasn't this difficult situation gone on quite long enough.^ It must be very painful for you." Her eyes lingered on the photograph. "And for those you love. We found you. Others will, too. They might not be quite as sympathetic."

  Long leaned on his elbows and lifted his clasped hands, making a prayerful tent of his fingers in front of his face and running his forefingers down his nose, his mouth, his chin, and back up again. After making that tour several times with his eyes shut, he opened them and said, "Okay. I'll come clean." He dropped his hands and sat back. "Harwick and I were involved in an embezzlement scheme."

  "When?" I asked.

  "Ten years ago," he said. "When I was at CTSU. I used my part of the money to set up this business."

  "If embezzlement is all there is to it," I said, "I think the D.A. will be interested in a deal."

  Ruby gave me an eyebrows-cocked look, and I gave it back. I'd tell her later that I could speak with such confidence because the statute of limitations had run out. The Code of Criminal Procedure lumps embezzlement with theft. If you are a public servant and you steal government property, they've got ten years to catch you. After that, according to Article 12.01, you're in the clear. Depending on the exact date of the crime. Long was probably already home free. But even if he could still be prosecuted, the D.A. was likely to make a deal.

  "That's all there is to it," Long said. "I had nothing to do with Harwick's death." His mouth quivered and his voice went up a notch. "You do believe me, don't you.^"

  "Yes," I said, and fielded another glance from Ruby. This time I didn't return it. I could believe Long because I knew who actually did kill Harwick.

  "That's good," he said, obviously reUeved. "I tell you, I'll be glad to get this off my chest. Ever since it happened, I've walked around knowing that there was a land mine out there and that someday it was going to blow up in my face. It would ruin my family." His glance went back to the photograph. "I wasn't even married at the time."

  "I understand," I said, wondering what the hell we were talking about. "Can you be specific about the embezzlement?"

  He picked up a pencil and began to tap it on the desk. "I was working in the accounting office. My job involved setting up grant accounts, establishing the appropriate procedures for monies to be moved in and out of the accounts, and monitoring the process until the monies were fully expended for the purpose for which they were granted."

  Talk about gobbledygook. I guess every profession has its own brand.

  Ruby looked confused. "This has something to do with Dr. Harwick?"

  "Yes," Long said. He sat back and used the pencil to tap his teeth. "Dr. Harwick was hired in September of that year. He brought a grant with him from a San Antonio company called Cosmetech, not a large grant, more on the order of start-up money. He was doing animal experiments to measure the toxicity of cosmetics, something like that."

  Once he got started on his story. Long kept at it in a well-organized fashion, explaining how the grant account was set up, how requests for expenditures—for equipment, supplies, and salaries—were made, and how the purchases were paid for. "It's all very orderly, you see," he said, still tapping. "A very good system."

  "But any system can be mani
pulated," I remarked, "by a person who knows how to use it."

  "Yeah." He tossed the pencil on the desk and sat up. "There

  I

  wasn't any monkey business with the original grant. That went by the book. It was a grant that came the next spring. A gift, actually."

  Something clicked. "For the lab?" I asked.

  He looked at me. "You know about that?"

  "I know that the company that sponsored Harwick's research promised to give the university a small amount to set up an animal research unit. But Revlon bought the company out, and Revlon had a research link with a different university. So the money went there instead."

  Long shook his head. "No, it didn t. That was the story we floated. The money came to CTSU just before the buyout. And it wasn't a small amount, either. It was a quarter of a million dollars."

  I long ago schooled myself not to be surprised by anything a client told me, but I'm out of practice, and anyway. Long wasn't a client. I whistled under my breath.

  The orange rose on Ruby's hat bobbed excitedly. "A quarter of a million!" she exclaimed. "That kind of money ought to build a pretty nice lab."

  "It didn't, though," I said, thoughtful. "It didn't build any lab at all. What happened?"

  Long looked even more uncomfortable. He cleared his throat. "What happened," he said, "is that I set up an account and arranged the payout procedure as I normally would. But the money didn't go for expenses in the normal way. Over a period of eleven months, it went into the computerized bank deposit system."

  "Which is?" I prompted.

  "Which is the direct-pay system normally used to deposit a paycheck into an employee's bank account. I'm sure they've changed the procedure by now because it was too easy to manipulate. But back then, once the thing was set up, it was practically invisible. The computer just kept on cutting checks until the money in the account was exhausted. And since I created the account after the fiscal year began and closed it out just before the

  fiscal year ended, it didn't show up in the normal end-of-year audit of deposit accounts."

  "Nobody in your office kept an eye on the system?"

  "There was nobody between me and the computer—during the fiscal year, anyway. End of year, that was a different story. If the state auditors had happened to drop in during this time, of course, they might have stumbled onto it. But that was a slim chance. I could have cut off the deposits when I learned they were coming."

  I'd heard of some computer scams in my time, but this one sounded more creative—and less risky—than most. "Not a bad setup," I said.

  He nodded. "The biggest problem was actually at the other end. Pecan Springs is a small town. If we used our bank accounts, somebody at the bank might question why the university was putting this money into our accounts, on top of our regular paychecks. So we set up a fictitious company—Blue Star Scientific Supply Company—with a EO. box address in Houston. Naturally, we used a Houston bank."

  I did a quick calculation. "So you were dumping nearly twenty-three thousand a month into the Blue Star account." I looked at him. "From there, I presume, it came back to you?"

  He colored swiftly and shook his head. "I didn't get the bulk of it. All I got was ten percent." The red spread along his jaw and his mouth took on a bitter twist. "Enough to incriminate me. Enough to buy my silence. Enough to allow me to start my own accounting office. But not enough to make it worth the risk." His eyes were pulled back to the photograph. "At least not now. I've got too much to lose. I'm afraid that if Claire found out, she'd leave me and take the kids."

  Ruby frowned. "If the lab never got built, why didn't the company that gave the money make a fuss about it? Why didn't they ask whatever happened to this great project they funded?"

  "That was the beauty of it," Long said. "Cosmetech's officers were sacked after the buyout, so the company lost its corporate memory. You know what happens to the internal accounting systems when a business changes hands—it's like Hurricane Andrew. Everything's wiped out. Nobody knows anything. Anyway, the grant to CTSU was small change, as far as Revlon was concerned. The officers who took over, if they ever heard about it, would naturally assume that the grant was an outright gift. No strings attached, no follow-up necessary."

  "So you took your twenty-five thousand," I said, summing up, "and Harwick pocketed the rest." Two hundred twenty-five thousand. Not a bad piece of small change.

  He shook his head. "No. The two-twenty-five got split fifty-fifty. Between the two of them."

  "The two of them?" Ruby asked, confused. "Harwick and— who?"

  He looked from one of us to the other. "Didn't I say? The third party to this transaction was the department chairman. Frank Castle."

  I stared at him, nonplussed. "But I thought Castle was really gung-ho on his animal research unit, even back then. Why would he steal the money that was supposed to build the lab? And for that matter, why would Harwick do it?"

  Long shook his head. "I can tell you why / did it and how it got done," he said. "But Castle will have to tell you the rest." He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief, folded it, and wiped his shiny forehead. "Harwick can't, of course."

  "You were seen at Harwick's house," I said. "What was your continuing connection with him?"

  He sighed. "Harwick and Castle controlled the Blue Star account. We agreed that we'd leave the money there and take it out a little at a time, rather than calling attention to ourselves with a sudden windfall. I had to push Harwick to get my share. I haven't

  seen Castle since we set up the original plan. But I heard from him just a few days ago. He phoned me."

  My antennae went up. "What did he say?"

  Long took off his glasses again and wearily rubbed his eyes. "He was terribly nervous. It had something to do with a letter, although he wasn't clear on the details." The corner of his eyelid twitched. "It was a . . . well, a blackmail letter. Harwick apparently received it, but not Castle. He wanted to know if I had gotten one. I told him no."

  I leaned forward. "What did the letter say?"

  "I didn't see it. But Castle said that somebody had found out about the embezzlement. He said the letter threatened to take the story to the newspaper if Harwick didn't lay off some experiment he was doing." He put his glasses back on and pushed them up on the bridge of his nose. His eyelid was still twitching.

  "I see," I said. When Harwick got the blackmail letter, he must have thought first of the embezzlement—not of Tad. He had gone running to Castle with the letter. At the time, neither Harwick or Castle apparently had any idea who wrote it. But Castle must know now that it had come from Kevin. Cynthia Leeds had told him yesterday, while he was still in Boston.

  "You must have been pretty shocked," Ruby said under-standingly. I glanced at her, remembering that I hadn't told her about the letter. And of course, she had no idea who had written it, or why.

  "Shocked is right," Long said. "I was totally freaked. I told Castle I hadn't received any threats. He said the blackmailer must think Harwick was the only one involved in the scheme, and I should forget he had called. That was the end of it. That is, until I read that Harwick was dead. Then all I could think of was the way Castle had sounded over the phone." His eyes went to the picture and the sweat stood out in beads on his forehead. "I don't want to end up dead, too," he said, in such a low voice I could hardly hear him.

  Suddenly I understood. Yes, Long was afraid of the law, afraid of being called to account for what he had done ten years ago, afraid of losing his wife and kids.

  But he was even more afraid of the man he thought had killed Harwick.

  He was afraid of Frank Castle.

  "Well!" Ruby said breathlessly. ''That puts a different face on things, doesn't it?"

  "It sure does," I said, getting into my car. I didn't want to tell her whose face the killer had worn just the hour before, or what color hair she had. Of course, it was still possible that Amy and Kevin had killed Harwick. But they were no longer the only suspects.
<
br />   "Shall we meet back at the shops?" Ruby asked.

  "Yeah." I closed the car door and rolled down my window. "Congratulations, Ruby," I said with total sincerity. "Your detective work has helped to clear an innocent woman." Possibly two innocent women. And one innocent young man. If Kevin and Amy were innocent. Were they?

  "Thanks," Ruby said, looking modest under the brim of her floppy black hat. "I didn't do anything Harriet Vane wouldn't have done."

  I had to smile. Suddenly her costume made sense. "I doubt that Harriet Vane ever thought of putting paprika in her henna." I started my car, wondering how Dorothy Sayers would resolve this. What would Lord Peter say if he sauntered onto the scene right now? Would he put his finger on Amy and Kevin, or on Frank Castle?

  Ruby got back to Pecan Springs quicker than I did, partly because she pushes her Honda to the Hmit while I baby my decrepit Datsun, and partly because I stopped at the Shamrock station on the way out of New Braunfels to call Beulah Bracewell. Her line was busy again, which wasn't surprising. There's a lot of phone traffic in Personnel. I also tried to reach The Whiz, but she was still out of the office. I was just as glad. The half hour it would take to get home would give me time to chew on the facts of the case before I reported to her.

  Chew on them I did, although by the time I pulled up in front of Thyme and Seasons I still wasn't clear about several important things. I was seeing the situation from Long's point of view, which gave it an entirely new slant. I could understand why Long was afraid of Frank Castle. But there was a problem in timing. The embezzlement had taken place so long ago that the statute of limitations had run out, for Castle and Harwick as well as Long. If Castle had wanted to get rid of Harwick, he could have done so at any time. Why now.^