Murders & Acquisitions

by Haughton Murphy

  “That’s right,” Perkins answered, the cigarette in his hand shaking badly. “I had never heard the dogs barking so intensely.”

  “What were you doing when you heard them?”

  “I was just finishing up some writing in the attic. I’ve got a room tucked away up there where I write.”

  “When was the last time you saw the deceased?”

  “When we got back from New York. We’d been to her father’s funeral and then a luncheon at Mrs. Andersen’s.”

  “What time was that?”

  “About four-thirty. I left Sorella in our bedroom and told her I was heading upstairs to write. She said she was going to take a nap and then would go shopping for dinner.”

  “How did she seem to you?”

  “Perfectly normal. She was a bit upset about some business having to do with the family Foundation, but no, she was really normal.”

  “What did you do when you found her?”

  “I shouted at the dogs and somehow got them to calm down and go inside the kennel.”

  “Which is where they are now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to call a vet and have them locked up. Okay?”

  “Yes,” Perkins said. “I never want to see those dogs again.”

  “I can understand that,” the detective replied. “Mr. Frost? Would you come with me for a second? I’d like to talk to you after I phone the vet.”

  The two men went to the library, where Castagno made his call. When he had finished, he and Frost stood facing each other inches from the latest murder note.

  “Any bright ideas, Mr. Frost?” Castagno asked.

  “Afraid not.”

  “What was this Foundation business Perkins was talking about?”

  Frost explained in some detail the Gruen raid and the possible role the Foundation’s AFC shares might play in it.

  “What you’re telling me, Mr. Frost, is that there’s a pretty high-stakes poker game going on, is that right?”

  “Yes. The whole matter of the Andersens controlling AFC has been called into question.”

  The detective sighed. “I don’t understand any of that financial stuff. It’s all beyond me.”

  Frost took in the man’s despairing answer, wondering if other things—such as the two Andersen murders—might be beyond him as well. Thinking quickly, he ventured a suggestion.

  “You know, Officer Castagno, I was wondering whether it might not be a good idea for you and me and Detective Bautista from New York to sit down and go over what we know and what we don’t know.”

  “I’d go for that. Do you know where to reach him?” Castagno said.

  “I do during the day, but I might have some trouble finding him at this time of night. But I’ll try,” Frost said. “Shall we meet tomorrow morning, if that can be arranged?”

  “Sure.”

  “Here or in New York?”

  “Here would be better, don’t you think? All the physical evidence is here.”

  “Fine.”

  Frost made the first of what turned out to be a series of telephone calls. But he ultimately located Bautista, who consented—with some reluctance—to come to Greenwich the next morning. Frost told Castagno that he would expect Bautista about ten o’clock and would give him a call when he arrived.

  He then informed Sally Andersen of his plan, and asked if he could stay overnight.

  “Reuben, it would be both a relief and a pleasure,” she said. “We’ve got to track down this killer before he’s murdered the whole family.”

  Frost called Cynthia to tell her he would not be returning until the next day. He and Sally and Laurance had a quiet dinner, interrupted by the arrival of Diana—dry-eyed but demanding to know all the details of her sister’s death. Frost, feeling overpoweringly tired, excused himself before Sally began a new rendition of the afternoon’s bloody event.

  Ensconced in the Andersen guest room, Frost lay awake trying to put together the disparate pieces of the puzzle. But the pieces blurred unintelligibly, not fitting into a clear, logical pattern. Frustrated, he rolled onto his side and was asleep almost at once.

  THE POLICE

  14

  Frost woke early on Friday morning and watched the local news on the small television set in the guest room. Sorella’s murder was the lead story. He watched intently as a camera panned in on a Tudor brick house, then realized with a start that it was the very house he was in.

  The TV commentator reported that no member of the Andersen family would talk about the previous day’s events. Detective Castagno and the local chief of police appeared, but refused to confirm or deny whether they thought a psychopathic killer was loose in Fairfield County. The commentator fed this speculation, however, and several bystanders in the streets of Greenwich expressed suitable degrees of apprehension and fright for the cameras.

  After the broadcast, Frost shaved with the razor he had borrowed the night before, got dressed and went downstairs. He found Sally Andersen eating breakfast alone in the dining room.

  “Good morning, Reuben. Did you see the TV?”

  “Yes. I watched it upstairs. I’m sorry, Sally, to see you subjected to this, on top of everything else.”

  “There was a camera crew calling here at six o’clock. Wouldn’t you think they’d have some sense of decency?”

  “I doubt that word’s in their vocabulary,” Reuben answered.

  “Well, as you saw, they didn’t get anything out of us. And they won’t either,” Sally said. “And do you believe the business that there’s a maniac behind the killings?”

  “I don’t know. Those notes aren’t exactly sane.”

  “Yes. But they could be a put-on.”

  “True enough,” Frost said. “Maybe my detective friends will have a nice, lucid theory.”

  “I hope so. What time are they coming?”

  “Around ten.”

  “You make yourself at home and order some breakfast. I’m going over to see Nate. He’s in an awful state, and we have to make the funeral arrangements.”

  “Where is Diana?”

  “She’s staying at Laurance’s. I haven’t seen her yet this morning.”

  “How did she take the news last night?”

  “Coolly,” Sally said. “But then, she’s cool about everything.”

  When Mrs. Andersen had left, Reuben picked up the morning Times and read its account of the murder. There were no new facts, but the focus was less on an anonymous crazed killer that the telecast’s had been.

  Bautista arrived almost precisely at ten.

  “It’s a good thing I’m a friend of yours,” he said to Frost, almost before saying good morning. “Do you know what I had to go through to get authorization to come up here?”

  “No, but I can imagine,” Frost said. “I’m thankful that you did, though. Unless I can get both you and Officer Castagno in the same room, and knock your heads together, I don’t think we’ll ever solve anything.”

  “Can you show me the scene of the crime?”

  “Certainly. Come with me.”

  Frost took the detective to the kennel, explaining the circumstances of Sorella’s death as best he could. They returned to the main house just as Castagno arrived.

  “Shall we talk here?” he asked.

  “Mmn,” Frost said. “Maybe not. There’re quite a few people around.”

  “You want to go to headquarters?” Castagno asked.

  “That might be better,” Frost said. He went off to tell one of the staff that he was leaving and would call Sally Andersen later. The three men then set out, Frost in Bautista’s car, Castagno driving alone, for the sand-colored granite fortress on Havemeyer Place that was police headquarters.

  Once there, Castagno found a vacant conference room where the three of them could sit comfortably, and managed also to produce coffee.

  “How shall we proceed?” Castagno asked.

  Frost subtly but firmly took charge.

  “Did either of you s
ee the TV news this morning?” he asked. Castagno said he had—his wife was most excited to see her husband on television—but Bautista had not.

  “They speculated, Luis, that there’s a maniac on the prowl up here who’s killed both Sorella and her father,” Frost said. “What do you think of that theory?”

  “I dunno,” Bautista replied. “I take it the note they found last night is in the same lettering as the one left when the father died?”

  “It appears to be the same, yes,” Castagno said.

  “Of course, that doesn’t help us with the second note left the last time,” Bautista said.

  “Oh my God,” Frost said. “Do you think we should alert them in New York to be on the lookout for a new note?”

  “Yes,” both of the police officers said, almost in unison.

  “Can I call from here?” Frost asked.

  “Sure,” Castagno said. “Dial nine.”

  The two watched as Frost called and reached Robbins, admonishing him to alert properly the people in the AFC mail room, where the first “follow-up” note had been delivered.

  “Luis, you feel the note AFC got in New York the last time was from somebody unrelated to the crime, is that right?” Frost asked, when he had finished his call to Robbins.

  “Yes, I do,” Bautista said. “It was different paper, different ink, different handwriting and even a different tone. Some screwball probably wrote it, but I don’t think it’s the one we want.”

  “I agree with that,” Castagno said.

  “All right. What about the notes that were left here in Connecticut,” Frost asked. “Are they the work of a psychotic, or not?”

  “Who can say at this point in time?” Castagno replied. “Either we’ve got somebody with a grievance against the Andersens or it’s a blind to throw us off the track.”

  “If you ask me, I think it’s the latter,” Bautista said. “But we’ve got to comb everything to make sure it isn’t a nut.”

  “I plan to sit down with everyone in the family to see if they can remember anyone with a grievance,” Castagno said, as Bautista nodded approvingly.

  “And I think we’ve got to put people on AFC’s personnel records. See if that turns up anything,” Bautista said.

  “You have guys to do that?” Castagno asked.

  “It’ll be hard,” Bautista said. “But I think I can get a couple people to start on the records in New York.”

  “Luis, I think you and Art—may I call you that?—agree that the notes are probably a cover. Isn’t that correct?” Frost asked.

  The two police officers nodded.

  “So don’t you have to investigate on that theory as well?” Frost asked.

  His listeners agreed that such was the case and asked him if he had any theories, if he knew of anyone who had it in for Flemming Andersen and his daughter.

  “I can think of one or two people who may have had a quarrel with one or the other, but not both.”

  “Like who?” Bautista asked.

  “Randolph Hedley, the lawyer for the Andersen Foundation. Sorella hinted very strongly yesterday afternoon that she might fire him. I know the Foundation account is a big thing for his firm. But I can’t imagine him murdering anybody. And he certainly wouldn’t have had any motive to kill Flemming.”

  Bautista nonetheless wrote down the name in his notebook. “Who else?” he asked.

  “Well, Casper Robbins, the President of AFC, may have felt under Flemming’s thumb. Could he have killed Flemming to increase his own power? Pretty unlikely, but it’s at least theoretically possible. But even if you accepted this far-out theory, he had no reason to kill Sorella.

  “Then there’s Nate Perkins. I’m sure Sorella’s will left everything to him and their children. So he had a motive to kill Sorella—but not his father-in-law.

  “Or take Billy O’Neal, resenting for his whole life the position of Flemming and his family in the Company.”

  “What do you mean?” Castagno asked. Frost told them the story of the first Laurance Andersen’s will, and its sexist shortchanging of O’Neal’s branch of the family. Both policemen found the tale interesting and both were now writing in their notebooks.

  “But again,” Frost concluded, “even if O’Neal’s hatred got the better of him and he did in Flemming, he had no reason to follow that up with a second murder.”

  “Do you have any theory, Reuben?” Bautista asked, with some exasperation. “What about this fellow Gruen and his takeover? Could that have any bearing?”

  “Yes, it could. There’s one thing Flemming and his daughter had in common—they both refused to knuckle under to Jeffrey Gruen.”

  “So Gruen could be a suspect?” Castagno asked.

  “I suppose so,” Frost answered. “Though I don’t quite see how he’d know his way around well enough to push Flemming into the hot tub and to let Sorella’s dogs out of their kennels.”

  “Who else might have wanted Gruen’s offer to go through?” Bautista asked.

  “You mean, who might have wanted to end Flemming’s and Sorella’s opposition?” Frost asked. “Hard to say,” he said, after a pause. “Diana, the other daughter, is the obvious one. It’s been an open secret—she told me so herself yesterday—that she wants to sell the rest of her stock so she can support this organization she’s tied up with.”

  “What organization?” Castagno asked.

  “Something called Concerned Women. A very militant, very politicized female group.”

  “What about this O’Neal fellow? Couldn’t he and Gruen have teamed up to carry off the takeover?” Bautista asked.

  “Perhaps,” Frost said. “But I just don’t see it.”

  “But you don’t rule it out, either,” Bautista pressed.

  “No … no, I don’t, at least not entirely.”

  “How about Robbins? Could he have been Gruen’s teammate?”

  “Maybe. But he had a golden parachute, so he had no need to team up with Gruen.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Frost, but what’s a ‘golden parachute’?” Castagno asked.

  “It’s a sweetheart deal,” Frost replied, and then, thinking he might have to explain “sweetheart deal,” he went on. “It’s an extremely favorable set of arrangements for an executive that only comes into play if his corporation’s taken over and he’s fired by the new management.”

  “Sounds like a good idea to me,” Bautista said. “They got anything like that in the Greenwich police force, Art?”

  “Christ, the Silver Shield Association can’t even get them to pay overtime,” Castagno answered.

  “Sounds like the N.Y.P.D.”

  “Anyway,” Frost continued, “Robbins has always seemed loyal to me.”

  “Is anybody getting hungry?” Castagno interrupted. “There’s a diner down the street. Maybe we ought to continue this conversation there. Usually you can get a back booth where other people can’t hear you.”

  “Sounds good,” Bautista said.

  Once they were at the diner, the conversation turned quickly to small talk or, more precisely, shoptalk between Bautista and Castagno. Frost had very little to add, but was fascinated by the workaday grievances the two police officers had.

  As the three sat drinking their coffee after lunch, Frost spoke to his colleagues. “You know, I’ve been trying to think through the takeover angle. If Flemming and Sorella were killed because they would oppose Gruen’s offer—and assuming they were killed by the same person—that points to somebody who knew what Sorella’s position was. As far as I know, she didn’t tell anyone that position until yesterday afternoon, when she announced it at the informal meeting her mother had after the funeral.”

  “So what do you conclude?” Castagno asked.

  “I conclude that it must have been someone at that meeting, or someone close to a person at that meeting.”

  “What exactly was this meeting, and what happened there?” Castagno asked. Frost explained, and summarized what had been said.

  Bautis
ta looked through the pages he had written on in his notebook. “Reuben, it seems to me that everyone you mentioned was at Mrs. Andersen’s powwow except Jeffrey Gruen himself. But O’Neal, the lawyer Hedley, Diana Andersen and Robbins were all there. Now, Reuben, who else was present?” he asked.

  Frost paused to think. “Let’s see. Laurance, the son. Nate Perkins, Sorella’s husband. And of course Sally Andersen. That’s all, I’m pretty sure.”

  “Any reason to think that any of the people we’ve been talking about have been cozy with Jeffrey Gruen?” Bautista asked.

  “It seems utterly improbable to me,” Frost said.

  The waitress brought the check for lunch and the three men divided it equally. They did not show any signs of leaving, however, Castagno asking for more coffee for the group after the check was paid.

  The two detectives agreed that the people on the list they had developed should be questioned closely about their whereabouts on both Tuesday afternoon and Thursday afternoon, and their alibis carefully checked. Castagno and Bautista divided the names between them, and Bautista and Frost headed back to New York. Not having had a chance to talk in some time, they soon left the problems of the Andersens in favor of personal conversation.

  Bautista, who would soon finish his night law school course, was uncertain what to do—should he leave the Police Department or not? Frost wanted to be helpful, but his vantage point in the legal profession, from the summit occupied by his eminent Wall Street firm, was so different from Bautista’s, situated somewhere in the maze that was called the “criminal justice system,” that he simply could not make concrete suggestions. All he could do was talk his companion through his choices, probing for weaknesses and uncertainties in his reasoning and analysis.

  “What about the District Attorney’s office? Or the U.S. Attorney? He should be a good, lively fellow to work for,” Frost said.

  “Yeah. But I’m not sure they’d have me. They want real hotshots, you know.”

  “Surely your police experience ought to be worth a great deal to them.”

  “I guess.”

  “And let’s face it, your ethnic background should count for something, too.”

  “But Reuben, I don’t want to get a job just because I’m Puerto Rican.”