Wearing only a bra and panties she went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, rummaging in a cabinet for a bath towel. “Come on in, Susan. Talk to me while I shower.” She handed me the towel to hold.
I sat on the closed toilet seat, feeling uncomfortable as she shed her underwear and tossed it into a laundry hamper. Then she felt the spray of water with her hand and stepped into the shower, pulling the curtain closed behind her. “Tell me about the Manhattan store,” she called out over the rush of water. “Is it true a homeless man lived there for days before he was discovered?”
“I’ve heard stories like that, but I—”
Betty Quint screamed, just once, chilling my spine. Then there was a thump as her body went down in the tub. “Betty!” I yanked open the shower curtain and stared at her body, drenched in the pounding spray of hot water.
She’d been stabbed once in the back with a slender dagger that still protruded from the bloody wound. A second, identical dagger lay in the tub near her foot. Otherwise the tub was empty.
I was alone in the steamy bathroom with her body.
Irving Farber scratched his nose and stared at Susan. “That story is impossible, you know. It couldn’t have happened the way you told it.”
“But it did!” she insisted. “I called 911 and the police were there within minutes.”
“And they arrested you.”
“Not right away. They questioned me for hours, trying to make me change my story. They accused me of all sorts of wild things, especially after they found the pot. I told them neither of us had smoked it but they kept pounding at it. One of the detectives suggested we’d been high on pot and made love to each other, and then I killed her to hush it up. That’s when I demanded a lawyer.”
Farber’s face was grim. “What was the detective’s name?”
“Sergeant Razerwell.”
He made a note of it. “Tell me, Susan, what’s your explanation for Betty Quint’s death?’
“I have none. I agree it’s impossible.”
“Did you touch anything in the apartment after you phoned the police?”
“No. I didn’t even turn off the shower. I couldn’t go back in there and see her again. I just sat in the bedroom and shivered until I had to open the door
for the police.”
Farber glanced at Mike Brentnor. “Will the store go bail for her?”
The question startled him. “I—I don’t know. Depends on how much it is, I suppose.” He wasn’t about to admit he had no authority in the matter.
“Who’s your boss?’ “Saul Marx.”
Irving Farber glanced at his watch. “Is he in the office by now? It’s nearly ten.”
“He should be.”
“Get on the phone and ask him about bail. Meanwhile, I’ll talk to the assistant D.A. and find out how much they’ll be wanting.”
“Is there a chance I’ll get out of here?” Susan asked, her hopes soaring at the thought of it.
“Depends on the D.A.’s office. Don’t get your hopes up.” He put the yellow pad in his attaché case and snapped it shut.
Susan glanced at her watch. “I’m supposed to be in court in ten minutes.”
“They’ll come for you when they’re ready. Sometimes these things are a bit
loose. If they don’t get you there, it’s their fault, not yours.”
The attorney and Mike Brentnor departed, leaving Susan to wonder just where she stood. She’d investigated a few murders in the past, during her travels for Mayfield’s, but she’d never been accused of committing one herself. The killing of Betty Quint while she was alone in the shower seemed so impossible that, paradoxically, Susan felt the solution must be a simple thing she could easily discover once she was free.
Presently one of the guards came for her. “Am I going before the judge?” she asked.
“Not yet. They want to question you some more.” Susan was immediately on guard. “My attorney—”
“He’s been notified.”
She was ushered into one of the interrogation rooms, where she sat down at the bare table to wait. Presently the door opened and a stocky red-haired man she’d never seen before entered. He was carrying a briefcase and Irving Farber was right behind him. “Good morning, Miss Holt,” the redhead said, flashing a smile that was quickly gone. “I’m Adam Dullea, U.S. Secret Service.” He flashed an ID that looked like miniature currency with its finely engraved borders.
Susan panicked, imagining some labyrinthian plot against the president.
What had she gotten herself into? “What do you want?”
“I just have a few questions regarding your relationship with Betty Quint.” He opened his briefcase and took out a clear plastic envelope with a hundred-dollar bill inside. “Have you ever seen one of these?”
“A hundred dollars? I guess I’ve seen a few.”
“Did Betty Quint ever show you one?”
“No.” Then she remembered something. “She came to New York for a meeting about six months ago. We went out for dinner and drinks later and I remember she paid for the drinks with a hundred-dollar bill. I was a bit startled, but some people like to use big bills when they travel.”
“This one is counterfeit,” he said.
Susan peered at it more closely. It looked fine to her, “What’s its connection with Betty?”
“She passed it at a local restaurant. There’ve been a few other incidents too. We’ve had her under surveillance.”
“Is it true you can do these on a good color copier?” she asked. “Not of this quality. We think it was printed overseas.”
“How—”
“I’m asking the questions, Miss Holt. Did Betty Quint ever show you or give you a hundred-dollar bill?”
“Just that one time when she paid for the drinks. And she gave it to the waiter, not to me.”
“I understand from your statement to the police that she received a phone call from someone named Roger while driving you to your hotel.”
“That’s correct.”
“Did she identify him further?”
“Not to me, no.”
“And she made a call from your hotel room?”
“Yes. I’m sure you could trace that. Most hotels keep a record of phone charges for billing purposes.”
Adam Dullea looked at her sadly. “The call was made to the local Mayfield’s store, Miss Holt.”
That surprised Susan and she must have shown it. “We’d just left there.
Why would she—?”
He took a deep breath. “Look, Miss Holt, we’re inclined to accept your story for the moment, and so are the local police. If you had killed her, you would certainly have come up with a better story than you did—a burglar on the fire escape or a prowler under the bed, for example. Also, your coworker Mike Brentnor has informed the police that you’ve been helpful with other murder cases in the past. You’ll be released on your own recognizance, but you’re to remain in the city for at least forty-eight hours pending another court appearance on Thursday, when charges may be dismissed. Is that agreeable?”
“I suppose it’ll have to be.” What were they doing, giving her two days to find the real killer?
The Secret Service agent departed and Farber smiled encouragement. “Come on, Susan. You’re on your way out of here.”
In the courtroom it went exactly as predicted. The preliminary hearing was adjourned until Thursday morning at ten and she was released on her own recognizance. Mike Brentnor was waiting in the back of the courtroom. “Let’s go celebrate!”
“I’ve nothing to celebrate, Mike. A woman’s been murdered and I’m the only one who could have killed her.”
That was when Adam Dullea reappeared, his smile a bit more sincere this time. “Now that you’re released from custody, I wonder if we could talk.”
“About the murder?”
He nodded. “If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Brentnor—”
Susan was happy to escape from Mike’s eager clutches. She all
owed herself to be guided out of the courthouse and into Dullea’s car. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“Back to the scene of the crime. Isn’t that how these things are done?”
She laughed. “I’m no psychic, you know. I don’t pick up the killer’s thoughts or visions. Sometimes I notice things that others have missed.”
‘That’s what I’m hoping for.”
This time as the car pulled up to the house a white-haired man came onto the front porch to greet them. He introduced himself as James Liction. “I own the place. You folks more police?”
Dullea showed his identification. “Secret Service. The victim was part of an ongoing investigation into counterfeit currency. Could I ask you if she paid her rent in cash?”
He shook his head. “Always a check, first of the month. My wife Mona was just saying what a nice tenant she was. Never any trouble. I can’t believe she was involved with counterfeiters.”
His wife, a stocky woman who moved slowly, came out to join them. “Tell ’em about that suspicious-looking guy across the street, James.”
“Well, I already told Sergeant Razerwell.”
“Tell me too,” Dullea requested.
Liction shifted his gaze to Susan. “I happened to see the two of you drive in. After that a fellow parked across the street. He just sat there in his car for a long time. It was too dark to get a good look at him. When he heard the sirens coming he left quick.”
Susan remembered that Betty Quint had glanced out the front window and become upset when she saw the car. “We’re going to take another look upstairs,” Dullea told him.
James Liction shrugged. “Go ahead.” He and his wife went back inside.
The apartment was much the same as the day before, except that the door was sealed by yellow police crime-scene tape. Dullea pulled it away and used a key to enter. Inside Susan noticed signs that the drawers and closets had
been searched by the police or Dullea’s people. “What are you looking for?” she asked. “More counterfeit money?”
He nodded. “A great deal of it. Before she went to work for your store, Quint was employed on the reservations desk of a major airline. Her boyfriend, a copilot on international flights, brought back several small packages of counterfeit money, all hundreds like this one. They’re often printed overseas and used as bulk payoffs for drugs.” He brought out the bill he’d shown her earlier, in its clear plastic envelope. He pointed to the lower right of the portrait where it read “Series 1996” in small print. “Notice anything wrong with it?”
She shook her head. “There’s Ben Franklin, looking the same as ever.”
“That’s what’s wrong. Beginning in 1996 the hundred-dollar bills changed
significantly. The portrait is larger and off-center. There’s a new watermark and other safety features. Skillful as this job is, the counterfeiters made a fatal mistake in using the old design and dating it 1996. These bills couldn’t be passed in bulk overseas, where a suitcase full of drug money would be carefully examined by the seller, so they were smuggled into this country to be passed individually.”
“You think Susan’s boyfriend hid them here?”
“Yes.”
“And then killed her?”
Dullea shook his head, “His name was Lloyd Baker. He was found shot to death last week in the parking lot at Kennedy Airport.”
Susan sat down on the couch. “You think the same person killed Betty?’ “No, as a matter of fact, Baker’s killer is in custody. We were moving in
on Betty Quint and obtaining a search warrant for this apartment. The easy answer is that she feared being caught with the counterfeit money and committed suicide.”
“She stabbed herself in the back? And where did she get the knife? She didn’t take it with her when she stepped into the shower. I was right there.”
“All right, then. If it wasn’t suicide, what happened?”
Susan recalled the scene vividly. “I don’t know. It was almost as if a shower of daggers hit her, instead of water.”
“Daggers? There was only one.”
Susan had gotten up and gone into the bathroom. She opened the cabinet that held the towels, then turned her attention to the shower itself. It was made of molded plastic, recessed into the wall. The plastic was solid and there was no clear sight line to the room’s only window, which had been closed in any event. The ceiling was smooth and unmarked, with the room’s only lights arranged on the wall above the mirror. The showerhead was normal. It had not dispensed daggers. The shower curtain was ordinary white opaque vinyl. “There were two daggers,” she called out to Dullea. “One in her back and another in the bottom of the tub.”
Susan turned on the water and couldn’t hear Dullea’s reply. Something caught her eye. She reached down and peeled it away from the bottom of the tub. It was a piece of Scotch tape, several inches long. Stuck fast near the drain, it had been all but invisible, “Look at this,” she called to him.
He came into the bathroom. “Tape. Where was it?”
“Stuck to the bottom of the bathtub. They could have overlooked it in their crime scene search.”
“What does it tell us?”
“I don’t know.” She stared around the bathroom. “You mentioned a search warrant. When were you planning to use it?”
“Last evening.”
Susan thought about it. “Someone named Roger phoned her in the car, before we arrived at my hotel.”
“I read that in your statement.”
“Maybe he was going to take the counterfeit money off her hands. With her boyfriend dead she’d need to do something.”
“You don’t just get a friend to deal in counterfeit.”
“Maybe it’s the same friend who was selling her pot. He might have been interested.”
“Roger?”
“Roger,” Susan agreed. ‘When she made the call from my hotel room she sounded a bit frightened of him. And she’d had other messages from him earlier. Maybe she was afraid he’d kill her for those counterfeit hundreds. Maybe he did kill her, but I’m damned if I know how.”
Susan still didn’t have a car of her own, and after Dullea left her off at the hotel she asked the room clerk where she could rent one. He directed her to a place just a few blocks away. As she was turning from the desk another thought struck her. “Do you keep a record of guests’ outgoing phone calls, with the numbers called?”
“Yes, ma’am, we do.”
“Could I see mine, please? I’ve mislaid a local number that I need.”
He brought it up on the computer and jotted it down for her. “This is the only call from your room.”
Susan glanced at it, a bit puzzled. “Yes, that’s the one. Thank you.” Dullea had told her that Betty Quint phoned Mayfield’s from her room, but the number at Mayfield’s new store ended in 6700. This number ended in 6743. Susan went up to her room and dialed it.
A woman’s voice answered with, “Store promotions.”
“Whose office is this?” she asked.
“I—it was Betty Quint’s office.”
“Sadie? Is this Sadie Shepherd?”
“Yes. Betty is—”
“I know. This is Susan Holt.”
“Oh! Miss Holt!”
Susan made a snap decision. “I’d like to speak with you after work today.
Could we have a drink together?”
“I don’t know. I’m busy tonight.”
“I have to rent a car. What time do you finish up?”
“Usually five, but until the opening I can pretty much leave any time.
Since Miss Quint’s death—”
“I’ll pick you up at five, Sadie. If you don’t want to go anywhere we can talk in the car.”
She was outside the store in a new Chevy when the young woman emerged, exactly on the hour. Sadie heard her beep the horn and headed over to join her in the front seat. “It’s good to see you again, Miss Holt. That was terrible news about poor Betty.”
&nb
sp; “How do you think I felt, being right on the scene?’ Susan left the motor off since Sadie had indicated she had no time for a drink.
“How did it happen?” the young woman asked. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
Her face froze into a mask of ice. It could have been fright or defiance. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“How was Betty Quint killed in that shower, Sadie? You know, don’t you?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I think you were responsible for her death.”
Sadie Shepherd exploded into fury. “That’s a damned lie! I know nothing about it!”
“Calm down and listen. This is what I know so far. Betty’s boyfriend was killed after smuggling a large quantity of counterfeit hundred-dollar bills intothis country from overseas. They had a flaw in them that made it necessary to pass them individually rather than in bulk, where they’d be closely examined. After her boyfriend’s death, Betty tried to find a buyer for the money and she went to a man named Roger who was supplying her with pot and maybe other drugs. You two became friendly and she confided all of this to you. Somehow Roger frightened her, perhaps by demanding the counterfeit hundreds for less money than she wanted. He phoned her yesterday and made more threats. Back at my hotel, she phoned you at the store to tell you what was happening. She phoned her own direct number, but of course you answered. At the store yesterday you gave her some messages you’d taken in her absence, so I knew you answered her phone. Just as you did when I called that number earlier.”
“You think you know everything, don’t you? We didn’t become friendly only recently, as you say. We’ve been friends for two years, since we were in a local theater production together. She got me the job as her assistant at Mayfield’s. I liked her. She was lots of fun, always joking and doing crazy things.”
“What about her drug problem?”
“She smoked a little pot, sure, but nothing more than that.”
“Roger was her supplier?”
She nodded. “I told her not to go to him about the money, but she had all these hundreds and she was afraid to pass them herself. She’d tried a few here and in New York, but it made her too nervous.”
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