by Medora Sale
He glanced over at her uneasily. “No, she eats early. She had coffee while I ate my supper. Then I went out and did the rounds. I took the dogs for a run, because I was going to have to keep them locked up.”
“Why?”
“There were all those policemen out there.”
Sanders nodded.
“Then I chained them up and went over to the house to make sure the doors were locked and the burglar alarm set. It wasn’t, either. Bettl must have left some doors open.” At the sound of her name, that woman jerked her head upright again and gave him a fierce glare. “Anyway, I locked up.”
“What’s happened to the dogs?” asked Sanders suddenly.
“They’re asleep,” said one of the constables. “In a kennel behind the garage. Can’t budge ’em. But they’re breathing okay. I checked.”
“My God,” said Sanders. “It’s like one of those fairy tales. And then what, Esteban? After you locked up.”
“Oh, before I locked up, I took some coffee out to the policeman on duty. Bettl always leaves me a thermos full of coffee. Then I must have gone back to the apartment, I guess, because that’s where I was, but I don’t remember anything else.”
“Why this generosity toward the police, Esteban? Are you in the habit of playing host to police officers?”
The gardener flushed, looking at the moment like a tousled little boy caught doing something naughty. “Not really. But Dona Clara’s daughter—Miss Veronika—she told me to ask him in and give him coffee.”
“Is that true, Miss von Hohenkammer? Did you tell Esteban to ask Constable Franklin in?”
She nodded.
“Why did you do that?”
“Because that man was going to have to sit there all night,” she said with a flash of anger. “It seemed a gracious thing to do. It wasn’t his fault you were making him spy on us.”
Sanders looked steadily at her for a moment or two, as if considering challenging her statement, and then turned away. “Did you have coffee, Mr. Leitner?” he asked.
Klaus Leitner raised his head, a little more confidently this time. “Yes. I always have coffee after dinner. I must have. Yes, I did.”
“Did you have coffee, Miss von Hohenkammer?”
She shook her head. “No. I was too tired to want coffee.”
“How about Miss Jeffries?”
“Miss Jeffries?” Klaus looked baffled.
“The photographer,” said Sanders dryly.
“Oh, Harriet.” Sanders clenched his teeth.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Yes, she did,” said Veronika. “I’m sure she did. Because she was so sleepy when she left. . . .”
Sanders made an incoherent noise, jumped up, and turned to the constable. “Round up some more cars and get these people down to the General. And Whitelaw as well. I’ll take care of Miss Jeffries.”
“What for?” he asked.
“For chrissake, for blood tests. They’ve all been doped, you idiot. And stay with them until we’re sure they’re all right,” he added grudgingly. He bolted from the house and drove through the quiet streets like a man possessed.
Sanders pulled up to the curb with a squeal of brakes that sliced through the quiet of the night and startled a prowling cat in the bushes belonging to Harriet’s landlord. He ran up the walk, up her brief flight of steps, reached for the doorbell, and stopped. There were keys dangling from the lock. Door keys, car keys, the lot. When he grasped them to open up, the door swung in. He yanked out the keys, slammed the door shut behind him, and turned and ran to Harriet’s bedroom. She was sprawled on top of the covers, facedown, fully dressed, her feet dangling over the edge of the bed. His stomach contracted with a cold thud. “Harriet?” he said tentatively, reaching over to touch her neck. It was warm, with a lovely strong pulse beating in it. She didn’t move. “Harriet,” he said, louder this time, grabbing her by the shoulder and shaking her.
She mumbled vaguely and rolled over on her side.
“Harriet! For chrissake, wake up!” He shook her harder.
She flopped over on her back.
He grabbed her by both shoulders and yanked her to a sitting position. Her head dropped down and straightened up. Her eyelids fluttered and then opened. She blinked twice and focused on his face. “What in hell are you doing, John?” she asked thickly. “What time is it?”
“Time to get up,” he said.
“Uh-uh,” she muttered. “Gotta sleep . . . just a minute.”
“No! We’re getting up!” He dragged her, mumbling protests, up the stairs and into the bathroom, filled up the basin with cold water, and pushed her face into it.
“Christ almighty,” she said with a certain clarity that had been lacking before. “Did you have to do that?”
“Yes,” he said. “How do you feel?”
“Like hell. My head aches and—”
“Did you drink the coffee tonight?”
“Did I what? John, are you crazy? You came over here to wake me up and ask me if I had coffee? What is this?”
“Did you?”
“I can’t remember,” she said. “God, but my head hurts. Where was I tonight? Was I with you?”
He shook his head.
“No, I was at Clara’s house, wasn’t I? Did I stay for dinner?”
He nodded.
“Then I probably had coffee, if there was any. I always do.” He took her by the arm and began pulling her toward the door. “Hey, where are you going with me?”
“Off to the hospital,” he said. “Your bloodstream is evidence.”
It was noon before Sanders dragged himself back to his desk. An interested little crew of medical personnel had checked Harriet over, taken blood samples, and pronounced her undoubtedly drugged. “Like most of the rest of them,” said the resident cheerfully. “But she’ll be all right.”
He had asked after Franklin, and the resident shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “He didn’t look too good when he came through here. They’ve taken him upstairs.”
With that, he had taken Harriet home again, tucked her into bed, and fallen asleep upstairs on her couch, reluctant to move too far away from her and unwilling to crawl into her bed when her brain was too fogged to know he was there. She had seemed unsurprised to find him in the morning and had quietly thrown together a sketchy breakfast for the two of them.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he finished his coffee.
“I think so,” she said doubtfully. “Except that my head aches and I haven’t the faintest idea how I got home last night.”
“You drove,” said Sanders grimly. “Doped to the eyeballs and you drove back here and put the car in the garage. I don’t know how you did it, but you did.”
“Automatic pilot,” she said. “Did I hit anything?” He shook his head. “And listen—I had one small glass of wine at dinner. I was so tired I didn’t even have a beer, in case it put me under. And I sure wasn’t popping any dope.”
“I never said you were. Somebody doped everyone in the house.”
“Why?” asked Harriet. “What was the point? Not to speak of how.”
“I don’t know,” said Sanders. “Although it will be interesting to explore that question. And how? Probably in the coffee. I don’t know any more about it because I brought you back here instead of sticking around to find out. You’re an evil influence on me, Harriet Jeffries.”
She looked gravely at him. “Perhaps I am,” she said. “You should consider that. Is everyone else all right?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s one of the other things I should be finding out. Which means I ought to be going.” He paused for a moment, searching for the best tone to strike, and then said lightly, “I could always come back tonight, though. If that doesn’t sound too grim.”
“What’s today?” s
he asked. “Saturday?”
He nodded.
“I have to be downtown at six tomorrow to do the north side of a building. If you’re here, you’ll have to come along to guard my stuff.”
“Six? In the morning?”
She grinned.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll call you.”
Dubinsky had been there for hours going through stacks of reports with his usual air of bored efficiency. “I hear there was some excitement last night,” he said, looking up.
“I hope Sally appreciated your presence,” Sanders remarked sourly. His partner grinned and didn’t answer. “Any reports in on it yet?”
“Yeah. Franklin’s in pretty bad shape. What in hell happened?”
“Someone doped them.”
“I know that,” he said, picking up another piece of paper and waving it at Sanders. “The report from the lab. All of them but little Miss Veronika. Nothing in her bloodstream but small amounts of alcohol. And only trace amounts in Whitelaw. How’d they do it?”
“It must have been the coffee. After dinner. It’s the only thing that figures. Whitelaw said he ate everything but only had a mouthful of coffee. He claims that after Thursday night he has trouble drinking coffee made by Bettl. Veronika didn’t drink any. Everyone else did. So that’s what it looks like. Do we have an analysis of the coffee?”
Dubinsky shook his head. “It’s still over at forensic.”
“I guess we’ll know soon enough,” said Sanders with a yawn, “once they get off their asses and start doing something.”
“How in hell did they get to Franklin? He didn’t go on duty until midnight. You’re not telling me they were having dinner at midnight and invited him in to join them.”
“Uh-uh.” Sanders shook his head. “As far as I could get out of them, the housekeeper made a huge pot of coffee and handed out some of it at dinner. And zap! They’re all out. She had some after she cleaned up the kitchen, and that was the end of her for the night. Before she passed out, she put the rest into a thermos for the gardener. And the gardener—under instructions from our Miss Nikki, by the way—drank one cup and gave the rest to Franklin. The thermos was in his car.”
“Who doped the coffee?” said Dubinsky innocently.
“Someone who didn’t drink it,” said Sanders. “Which leaves us—”
“Whitelaw or the girl. She didn’t touch the coffee; he had just enough not to look suspicious.”
“The question is, why was Franklin in the house? He must have been damned groggy if he drank from that thermos. And how in hell did he get in? When I got there, the house was locked, and the alarm was on. Someone in the house must have let him in and then smashed him on the head.”
“And that makes it Veronika. She was the only person in the house who was awake enough to do it.”
“Aggravated assault,” said Sanders. “Maybe attempted murder. To start with, anyway.”
The telephone rang, and Dubinsky picked it up. “How about murder?” he said grimly as he put it down again. “That was the hospital. Franklin died ten minutes ago.”
“Bring her in,” said Sanders.
“It’s ridiculous to think that someone Nikki’s size could smash a full-grown man on the head hard enough to kill him,” said Harriet.
“Not entirely,” said Sanders defensively. “He was too heavily doped to resist. If she grabbed something heavy enough and just dropped it in the right place, she might have—”
“If she could reach that high,” Harriet interrupted.
“Come on, Harriet. We don’t know what position he was in when he was hit. He’d have been damned near unconscious, anyway. He could have fallen to his knees.”
“If you’re so convinced, why did you let her go, then?”
“Not enough evidence,” he said curtly. “No matter what you may think, we don’t arrest people without evidence.”
“Sure,” she jeered. “I believe you. I’m used to believing impossible things. If there ever was anyone you thought was guilty, John Sanders, it’s that poor girl.” The night was growing cool, and Harriet slipped on her coat. “Where are we going?” They had been walking along King Street West, past the theater, toward a pastiche of restaurants, some good, some bad, but most of them expensive.
“We’re almost there,” said Sanders, looking up at the signs dangling over the sidewalk. He stopped. “Here it is. I know you wanted the corner pizzeria, but you’ll just have to lump it, sweetheart. I made reservations, and I have a reputation to keep up in the city.”
Harriet looked up at the name. “Are you sure you’re not on the take, John? Or are you just addicted to eating in places you can’t afford?”
“Actually,” he said as soon as they were seated and had ordered a bottle of wine, “I was planning on marrying this incredibly rich girl I met a few days ago and living off her immorally gotten gains. I released her this afternoon in return for an ironclad agreement to support me for the rest of my life. Wine, madam?”
“I still can’t see why you had enough evidence to arrest her at two and not enough to keep her past six.”
“A couple of things,” he said. “The pathologist thinks Franklin was killed by a blow administered with considerable force—her words, not mine. When I asked her if a woman could have done it, she muttered something nasty about a female shot-putter, maybe. In other words, no. And then someone found out there were several keys that disabled the alarm system,” he said simply. “We thought there were only two—the gardener’s and Nikki’s. Anyone with a key could have turned off the alarm, entered the house, and attacked Franklin. And besides, why dope the dogs if it was someone from inside? Although why anyone would want to put the entire house and the dogs to sleep,” he added bitterly, “just to kill Franklin, who was as harmless a guy as you’ll ever meet, I don’t know. And that’s another thing. Why? If it was Nikki, it would have been so she could run, wouldn’t it? And she didn’t. The mystery is why it happened at all. It’s absolutely insane.” The waiter intruded his inquiring face into Sanders’s speech. “The antipasto and grilled fish for both of us,” he said.
“But wouldn’t you like to choose your fish, sir?” asked the waiter, shocked. “If you’ll wait a moment—”
“No. I prefer not to meet my fish before I eat it. You choose.” And the waiter hastily backed away under the force of Sanders’s glare.
“Aren’t we getting a little masterful?” said Harriet. “What if I had wanted soup and spaghetti?”
“Then we’ll come back and eat soup and spaghetti and you can pay for your own meal. This time we’re eating antipasto and grilled fish.”
“You were right,” said Harriet as she pushed away her coffee cup. “Although it pains me to say it. It would have been a waste to have soup and spaghetti, wouldn’t it?” She looked at her watch. “I think you’ve forgotten that I have to be back on King Street at seven a.m. tomorrow.”
“It was six last time.” His tone was accusing.
“I couldn’t possibly have said six. The sun doesn’t rise until way after six these days.”
“You lie, Harriet. Repeatedly and with intent,” he said, standing up. “Let’s go,” he added, looking at his watch.
“I can get home on my own without any trouble,” she remarked as soon as they were outside. “The streetcar stops two blocks from my apartment.” She stepped up to the curb and began looking up the street.
He grabbed her by the arm. “Harriet, I’m taking you home. My car stops right outside your door.” He paused. “If you don’t want to invite me in, you don’t have to. But women have been attacked in your neighbourhood. I’d much prefer it didn’t happen to you.” He spoke in a loud enough voice to attract the attention of several passersby, who paused, interested, to see what would happen.
“For God’s sake, John, stop being so goddamn protective,” she whispered, suddenly embarrassed
. “How do you think I survive when you’re not around? And anyway, you live just over there, don’t you?” she asked.
“Would you rather come to my place?”
“Don’t be stupid. I have to get going at dawn. I’m only trying to save you from driving halfway across the city.” Her voice lost its edge, showing signs of capitulating. “I’m not trying to make a thing about it.”
He wound one arm around her waist to propel her across the street. Under the soft material of her coat and dress, he could feel the configuration of her spine and hips and found himself pulling her closer to him as he scanned the road for a break in the Saturday night traffic.
He almost wished that traffic had been heavier as he pulled up to Harriet’s front door; this seemed to him to be a moment charged with too much significance, one that he would gladly put off. He let the engine idle for a moment, then turned it off. “Harriet . . .” he began.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” she said. “I have an assignment that has to be done tomorrow morning. This weather could change any day. If we have a rainy spell, it could take three weeks before I get out there again, and by then the sun will be too far to the south to be any use.”
“Oh, I believe you,” said Sanders. “But you could wait—just once in a while, anyway—to hear what I had to say before biting my head off.”
“Sorry. I should stop assuming—” She stopped and shook her head, tired and confused. “It’s been a lousy couple of days. Actually, it’s been a lousy week. What were you going to say?”
He reached over and took the hand that wasn’t poised on top of the door handle. “Something else that’s going to make you bite my head off. I . . .” He was about to say he couldn’t bear the thought of going home alone tonight and clamped his mouth shut on the words. Harriet looked at him, waiting for him to finish. “I thought we might prolong the evening for five minutes or so,” he said casually.
“Five minutes, indeed,” she said. “All right. Only you’d better pull the car into the driveway. You’ll get a ticket there.”
He doubted that, but without a word he turned on the engine and pulled up in front of the garage.