by Ann Waldron
SHE WHIPPED BY the grocery store and, afraid that George’s kitchen would not have a tube pan, went to the hardware store to buy one. When she got home, of course, she found a perfectly good tube pan. That was all right, she thought. Better to be safe than sorry. She made the pound cake and, as soon as it was done, wrapped it in plastic and took it to the Keaton house. Amelia, in sweatpants and an old sweater, her face ravaged, answered the door and stared blankly at McLeod.
“I’m so sorry about Buster,” said McLeod. “You must be terribly upset.” She handed her the pound cake. “It’s a wonderful pound cake recipe,” she added.
Amelia took it and stood stock-still, staring at McLeod.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry, and if there’s anything I can do, please let me know,” said McLeod.
“Come in,” said Amelia. “I’d like to talk to you.” She led her into the living room and put the pound cake on the coffee table. McLeod noticed that the narcissus, which had looked so healthy yesterday, was drooping. Were plants affected by cataclysmic events in the household?
“Would you like a piece of cake?” Amelia said.
“No, thanks. It’s for you.”
“Maybe I’ll feel like eating someday. Not right now, though.” She sat down in a chair and faced McLeod. “It’s good of you to bring cake after Buster hit you, or so I hear. Your face looks awful.”
“It looks worse than it feels. Clearly, Buster was not himself last night,” said McLeod, feeling that she was turning the other cheek until her neck hurt.
“He let himself get really carried away about that copy of the Gospels,” said Amelia. “I’m sorry.”
“Have you seen him since—?” McLeod asked her.
“Yes, I went down this morning. I talked to him through a glass window. The judge will set bail this afternoon—Cowboy says it will probably be quite high, so I’ve set the wheels in motion to raise some money. I think it will be all right.”
“Is Cowboy his lawyer?”
“Buster called him last night,” said Amelia, “but I gather he’s going to have to have somebody else. Cowboy went down last night but he said he has conflicts and said anyway he doesn’t think he could defend somebody charged with murder. He said Buster would have to get a criminal lawyer. I was surprised—I thought he took on anything. But of course, Buster must have the best defense.”
McLeod had to admire Amelia: She had just learned her husband was accused of murder and she was entertaining a visitor in her living room and talking about getting him the best defense. If you could do that, you were pretty tough.
“Are you all right? Do you have any family nearby? What about Buster’s family?”
“I have cousins and lots of friends here in Princeton,” Amelia said. “Buster’s parents are very old and live in Michigan. To tell you the truth, I haven’t told them yet. But I will. I haven’t told anybody, as a matter of fact. I guess everyone will know soon enough.”
“Yes, I’m afraid everyone will know,” said McLeod. “It will be in the papers. I was surprised the Trenton Times didn’t have anything about it this morning—but they will.”
“I guess so.”
“Can somebody stay with you, Amelia? Or can you stay with a relative or a friend?”
“I’ll see,” said Amelia. “Buster will be home soon, I’m sure. You’re very kind to think about me. I appreciate it.” She paused. “You’re kind of a part of this, though, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the one who found those things from Germany, aren’t you? In the garage?”
“Well, yes, I am.”
“You see Dante told me about cleaning out Jill’s garage and said that you had taken a box of old dresses up to your room. I thought right away, that’s where Jill hid that stuff from Germany.” She stood up. “Would you like some coffee? I’ve had too much already today but I’m going to have another cup.”
McLeod stood up, too. “Let me help you,” she said. “I’d love a cup.” She would really rather have tea, but she was too interested in what Amelia might have to say to even bring it up. Coffee would be fine, she told herself.
“It’s all ready,” said Amelia, heading toward the kitchen. “I had just put on a fresh pot when you came. Sit back down.” She came back with a tray holding a pot of coffee and two cups and saucers. They sat down and Amelia poured the coffee.
“What made you think there was something hidden in that box of clothes?” asked McLeod. “I certainly had no idea when I had Dante bring the box upstairs.”
“You see, I knew about the things that Vincent got in Germany. Everybody in the family knew he’d found some valuable things. Me, Little Big, everybody. Buster, Mary Murray. Vincent said he’d found them in the gutter. I didn’t know he’d stolen them. I never dreamed of that. After Vincent died, my father talked about the stuff with me. He was, as you know, Jill’s brother, and since Vincent had no children, Jill and Arthur, my father, inherited everything. My father and Jill tried to sell the things, and they weren’t getting anywhere. The Germans were saying the things were stolen. So Jill said they should hold on to the things. But my father was desperate for money at one point and he tried to get Jill to divide up the stuff. But she wouldn’t do it. And she wouldn’t tell my father where it was. He told her it ought to be in the vault at the bank, but she just smiled and told him not to worry. It was all perfectly safe, she said.”
“That must have been maddening,” said McLeod.
“After Jill was killed, my father went through the house and couldn’t find a trace of the things from Germany. We all helped Little Big clean out the house when he finally sold it a few years ago. There was absolutely no trace of Vincent’s things. I can vouch for that. But we never thought about the garage. That seems like such a crazy place to hide anything. It wasn’t even locked.”
“I does seem crazy,” said McLeod. “But from all I’ve heard, Jill was not crazy.”
“No, she was smart,” said Amelia. “And blind selfish. Look, I feel better talking about this. I’m going to cut the pound cake. Would you like a piece?”
“Sure,” said McLeod, and waited while Amelia went to the kitchen and returned with a cake knife.
“This looks very good,” said Amelia. “It was so nice of you to make it and bring it over.” She put a slice of cake on McLeod’s saucer and one on her own.
They munched cake for a few seconds and McLeod felt extremely relieved that the cake had turned out so well.
Amelia finished her cake and licked her fingers. “As I was saying,” she said, “when Dante told me about those boxes out there on those rafters in the garage, I knew that was where Jill had hidden the things Vincent found. I’ll always wonder if some of it didn’t go to the dump in those other boxes.”
“Surely there wasn’t more stolen from Litzenburg,” said McLeod.
“I’m not sure how much Vincent brought home,” said Amelia. “But anyway—”
“Wait a minute,” said McLeod. “Who broke into our house looking for the treasure?”
“You don’t know?”
“No, I didn’t know. Until last night—that’s when I began to think it was Buster. Was it you?”
“No, it wasn’t I,” said Amelia. “And it wasn’t Buster. You see, I told Mary Murray what Dante had told me and she broke into the house.”
“Mary Murray! She told me she didn’t know about any treasure, as I called it,” said McLeod.
“Of course she’d say that,” said Amelia. “She’s known about it forever.”
“I’m always astonished when people lie to me,” said McLeod. “But Mary did, and Dante did. He told me he hadn’t told anybody about the box of dresses.”
“I’m sure Dante told everybody in town,” said Amelia. “But it was Mary who went in the house on Edgehill. She thought that she and Little Big were entitled to half of Vincent’s things. And then she went to your office when Dante told her you had taken the dresses to the university. A lot of pe
ople think Mary is mousy, but she’s not.”
“And I thought it was you or Buster—”
“Think about it,” said Amelia. “Buster had the stuff in his hands before your office was burgled. He knew where it was by that time. Mary didn’t.”
“But Mary seemed so ignorant all the time.”
“She can seem that way.”
“She certainly doesn’t seem like somebody who could break into Joseph Henry House and jimmy a file drawer lock.”
“Joseph Henry House was unlocked,” said Amelia.
“How did you know all this?”
“Mary told me what she did. We’re friends, as well as cousins-in-law.”
“Could you stay with them for a while?” McLeod was worried about this woman, who seemed so alone.
“Sure I could. But I’m all right, I really am.” She cut herself another small sliver of cake and ate it. “Buster told me about it as soon as you brought the Gospels to Rare Books. We knew immediately it must be one of the things Vincent had found in Germany. Buster was surprised, I must say, to find out they were stolen. As I said, Vincent always said he found them in the gutter.”
“Was Jill Murray killed because of the Gospels and the crucifix and the reliquary?”
“Of course she was.”
“Who did it? Was it Buster?”
“Heavens, no. I’m sure it was my father.”
McLeod looked at her, and pity surged. Here was a woman, an attractive woman, a woman who went to church—and her husband was accused of two murders and she calmly said her father had done another.
Amelia seemed to read her mind. “I’ve wondered today if it’s me, something about me, that makes men murder. Not that I’m a femme fatale, far from it, but am I a really bad influence?”
“Of course not,” said McLeod firmly. “Of course not. And are you sure it was your father?”
“He never said he did it,” said Amelia. “The police never suspected him. He had an alibi. But he had a terrible temper, and it got worse after Jill died.”
“Who was his alibi?” asked McLeod.
“I was,” said Amelia.
“You were?”
“He asked me to tell the police he was with me that afternoon. We were together for a little while that day, but not for as long as I told the police. What could I do? He was my father. It wouldn’t bring Jill back if he were convicted. And God forgives everything—why shouldn’t I?”
Thirty-seven
GEORGE WAS HOME early that evening.
“I’m sorry you’re going out,” he said when he found out she and Nick were going to dinner.
“I’ll be back,” McLeod said. “Don’t worry.”
George greeted Nick warmly when he arrived and suggested they all have a drink. They had martinis and talked about the murders—naturally.
“Okay, you had evidence that Buster killed Chester,” said McLeod. “What about Philip Sheridan? Were Buster’s fingerprints on the paper knife?”
“His and everybody else’s,” said Nick. “Everybody that came in that office must have picked up that knife and fiddled with it. But we suspected him and you gave us the motive. Thanks.”
“But what about Chester? Why did Buster kill him?”
“Chester knew everything. He knew about Sheridan wanting to change his will and after a while he figured out that Keaton had done the murder. He tried a little blackmail—or Keaton thought he was trying to blackmail him—and that was enough to set Keaton off again. He was half mad by that time.”
“But what about the treasure?” asked George. “Does it have any connection with the murders at the university?”
“Not as far as we know,” said Nick. “The murders of Sheridan and Holmes were all about the fact that the Bay Psalm Book might go to some place besides Princeton.”
“Did the old murder in this house have anything to do with the treasure?” asked George.
“It might have. We’ll reactivate the Jill Murray case,” said Nick. “There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”
“What if the murderer is dead?” asked McLeod.
“It would be good to know who the murderer was, alive or dead,” said Nick.
“This is just a theoretical question,” said McLeod. “What if somebody had given the murderer a false alibi and the murderer is dead, would that witness be prosecuted now?”
“I can’t say offhand,” said Nick. “It would be nice to know who that murderer was.”
Someday, I might tell him, thought McLeod.
When she and Nick left for dinner, George seemed rather forlorn. “I won’t be long,” she told him.
Recipes
Pork Chop, Apple, and Sweet Potato Casserole
6 loin pork chops
1/4 cup vegetable oil
4 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced
3 medium tart apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
1/2 cup apple juice.
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a large casserole and set aside.
Salt and pepper the pork chops. Heat the oil in a heavy skillet; brown the pork chops in the skillet and place in the casserole.
Layer half the sweet potatoes over the chops, then layer half the apples. Repeat, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper. Pour the apple juice over the top. Cover and bake until the chops are tender, about 1 1/4 hours. Uncover and bake, allowing the pork chops to brown for about 15 minutes.
Serves 6.
Chocolate Mousse
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate bits
4 organic or pasteurized eggs, separated
1 teaspoon sherry
Melt chocolate bits. Beat egg yolks until pale and lemon-colored. Slowly stir in the chocolate and blend well. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Add a third of the whites to the yolks and chocolate, add the sherry, mix well. Fold in the remaining whites. Spoon into a serving bowl. Cover and chill at least 8 hours before serving.
Serves 4.
Scallop Soup
4 tablespoons olive oil
6 shallots, chopped
1/2 fennel bulb, chopped
1/2 pound mushrooms, chopped
1 pound scallops
1/4 pound spinach
1 can boiled potatoes
1 cup clam juice
1 cup white wine
2 cups water
1/8 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
few threads saffron
Heat oil, add shallots, fennel, and mushrooms, and cook 7 minutes. Add other ingredients, bring to boil, reduce heat, and simmer 3 to 4 minutes.
Serves 3 or 4. Double for 6.
Berkley Prime Crime Titles by Ann Waldron
A RARE MURDER IN PRINCETON
UNHOLY DEATH IN PRINCETON
DEATH OF A PRINCETON PRESIDENT
THE PRINCETON MURDERS
THE PRINCETON IMPOSTOR
Biographies
EUDORA: A WRITER’SLIFE
CLOSE CONNECTIONS: CAROLINE
GORDON AND THE SOUTHERN RENAISSANCE
HODDING CARTER: THE RECONSTRUCTION OF A RACIST
Children’s Books
GOYA
MONET
TRUE OR FALSE? THE DETECTION OF ART FORGERIES
THE BLUEBERRY COLLECTION
THE FRENCH DETECTION
SCAREDY CAT
THE LUCKIE STAR
THE INTEGRATION OF MARY-LARKIN THORNHILL
THE HOUSE ON PENDLETON BLOCK