Capacity for Murder (Professor Bradshaw Mysteries) (23 page)

“You know my dislike of presumptions, Captain.”

“It serves you well, Professor, as my instinct for criminals serves me. We certainly have no shortage of motives. We’ve had our eye on the Seattle Assay Office for some time now, and your telegram was the final straw. We suspected somebody in the office was skimming from the deposits from one particular region, but we didn’t know who or how. Clever business with the sand. On the way down here I added up what appears to be missing. Seventy-five thousand dollars worth of dust at today’s prices. If honest men were as clever as thieves, there’d be a lot more millionaires in this world.”

Bell got to his feet, followed by the sheriff. After a slight hesitation, Bradshaw also stood, wondering why. He hadn’t been told anything yet; they hadn’t discussed theories about what might have happened, about what should be done next. Where were they going?

Bell further confused him by extending his hand and saying, “I appreciate all you’ve done here, Professor. If I have any questions, I’ll find you.”

Bradshaw accepted the Captain’s hand, hoping he had misread what was happening. He said, “I am here at Doctor Hornsby’s request, Captain. I will continue with my investigation.”

“Let me know if you come up with anything more on how your electro-outfit killed David Hollister. That tinfoil wrapper you found in Loomis’ room is circumstantial. We need something concrete that can be used in court, otherwise, we’ll be in touch when we need your expert testimony. It will take one of your best lectures to explain to a jury how a subtle change in sound means the difference between an accident and murder.”

He hadn’t misread anything. The Secret Service was now in charge, and Bradshaw’s had been demoted to expert witness.

Chapter Twenty-seven

“We’ve been summarily dismissed, Henry. Did you bring any information?”

“What, me? I had the good sheriff and a captain of the Secret Service with me. I was obligated to turn over any information about the case that came my way. I was told so in no uncertain terms.”

Bradshaw held out his hand, and Henry broke into a grin, producing a fat manila envelope.

They were in Camp Franklin, and it was feeling decidedly less spacious now that Henry had moved in his things, which thankfully included a fresh supply of contraband. The sheriff said they needed all the rooms in the house since more men were on their way. Digging had already begun above the berm, beyond the reach of the highest tides and storm waves.

“I got the feeling when Bell stepped off the train,” Henry said, “that we were about to lose our status at this fine institution. He has that federal air about him. Figured we’d be demoted to expert witnesses. It’s hell taking a case this far then being told to shove off.”

“I don’t like it any more than you do, but two murders and a federal crime are beyond the scope of private investigators.”

“But? I hear a
but
in your voice.”

“But I didn’t think we’d be dismissed so quickly.”

“Well, Bell can’t stop us from doing our jobs. Hornsby’s the one that hired us. Let’s open the envelope and see if Squirrel sent something to cheer us up.”

They sat at the small table and began to sort through the newspaper clippings and Squirrel’s meticulous notes. The man wrote in a small print so precise it looked typewritten, and it emerged from his hand at nearly the machine’s speed.

Henry read a few articles about Zeb Moss with grunts of disgust.

“Waste of good fortune. Now Arnold Loomis, he’s not the nicest feller in the world, but you’ve got to admit he makes good copy. Listen to this. ‘April, 1902. Spokane. Mr. Arnold Loomis of Seattle was acquitted today of charges of swindling. He told the judge, ‘Sir, it was merely an unfortunate misunderstanding.’ Captain Bell of the Secret Service in Seattle had no comment.”

“What was the swindle?”

“Doesn’t say. Just hints with ‘non-delivery of promised items.’” Henry picked through the clippings in search of details.

While Henry studied Loomis, Bradshaw read through Squirrel’s notes on Ingrid Thompson, formerly Ingrid Colby. Unable to find any relatives, Squirrel had gone to her home, the Lincoln Hotel-Apartments, and hadn’t found a single person who admitted to being a close friend. Many said they knew her, but they knew nothing about her. Shop owners either detested her or were smitten with her. She’d lived briefly at a fancy boarding house in Seattle before marrying Freddie, and Squirrel had included the landlady’s remarks: “A bit of fancy work, that Ingrid was. I don’t trust women who can’t keep a clean room. Attracted mice, she did, and I’ve never had mice in my home before. She didn’t like women, but oh, did she have an eye for the men. To her credit, she didn’t try to bring none of them back here. Mind you, I don’t allow that sort of nonsense.”

Bradshaw got up from the table and stood at the window, staring toward the ocean, thinking of Ingrid Thompson’s messy habits and her resemblance to his late wife. He pulled the cheese wrapper from his pocket and held it up to the sunlight.

Henry said, “What you hoping to find?”

“Some indication the foil has been subjected to an electric current.”

“If you don’t find anything, does it mean it wasn’t?”

“No.”

“Maybe Loomis was just hungry.”

“The cheese wasn’t eaten. The wax wasn’t even cracked. What’s that smell like?” Bradshaw pressed the foil at Henry.

“Cheese? Roses?”

“Mrs. Thompson’s youth potion smells strongly of roses.”

“What are you thinking? You said the foil was under Loomis’ bed.”

“How did it get Mrs. Thompson’s lotion on it?”

Henry shook his head. “Maybe…maybe he held her hand helping her over a log on the beach? Maybe he got covered in it while making passionate love to her.”

“Or maybe she helped him prepare the foil for use in the machine. Or maybe she’s the one who stole the cheese, rigged the machine, then hid the foil in Loomis’ room to frame him. Loomis is left-handed, Henry, and the only prints on the doorknob of the electrotherapy room were right-handed.”

“Even left-handed people sometimes open doors with their right hands, Ben.”

“You see the finger marks here?” He tilted the foil so that the light reflected off the smudges. Not a single clear print. “Like she pressed the foil down on a hard surface, spreading it open, spreading it flat.”

“But how, Ben? Even I wouldn’t have known a cheese wrapper across the capacitor would make that machine deadly, and I’ve been watching you tinkering for years. I know you said Loomis did that parlor trick with it, and there’s that article in the library journal for all to see, but seriously? Could she have figured it out? Mrs. Thompson does not strike me as a particularly intelligent individual. And most of the women I know are jumpy about electricity, don’t even want to screw in a light bulb.”

“She’s not well-educated, but she’s clever and determined, and not the nervous type. I believe she could have put the information together and made a guess.”

“What about Moss? You say he’s in love with Mrs. Thompson. Maybe the two of them schemed to off Freddie, then hid the foil in Loomis’ room.”

“He hasn’t the cognitive skills, she does. He couldn’t have read the journals, and it’s highly doubtful he could intuit the mechanics of the circuit simply by observing Loomis’ parlor trick.”

“Loomis still seems more likely than Mrs. Thompson. Maybe the feds are right, maybe he agreed to do it, or he showed Mrs. Thompson how to do it for a share of Freddie’s stolen gold. Then poor David got the zap instead, Loomis panics, hides the evidence under his mattress. What’s that face for?”

“Nah.”

“Nah?”

“It’s too blatantly criminal. Loomis doesn’t work that way. He skirts the law; he works in the gray areas. Captain Bell implied as much. Why would he suddenly change his mode of operation? Part of the thrill for him is that he gets away with legal theft. He wants to flaunt and spend and be beyond reach. He’s too smart to get pulled into a murder scheme, and he’s too smart to dispose of evidence under his own mattress.”

“People are stupid when they panic. And he’s a con man, Ben. It’s all about the con. Maybe he got greedy.”

“He’s always been greedy. He wouldn’t have risked it.”

“I hate it when you get cocky, Ben. Makes me want to prove you wrong.”

“I’m not wrong.”

“So you think he
accidentally
told Ingrid Thompson how to kill her husband with cheese wrappers? And the handyman got it by mistake?”

“That’s my working theory, yes.”

“Huh. How can you be sure David Hollister wasn’t the real intended victim?”

“The only one who had the slightest motive to kill David Hollister was Loomis in order to secure the designs to David’s wash system. He wouldn’t have taken the chance.”

“So you say. But you didn’t trust him.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Well, I just can’t see Mrs. Thompson doing it all on her own. It’s so cold-blooded.”

“She’s cold-blooded.”

“Don’t mean she did it. And you don’t know for sure that wrapper’s what shorted the machine. There must be dozens of things here at Healing Sands that could have done the job. You do realize there’s more evidence against Loomis or even Freddie Thompson? In fact, the more I think on it, I believe Freddie’s got my vote. Between guilt over stealing and having Ingrid for a wife, he’s the most desperate to end it all.”

“She’s involved.”

“You sure that machine just didn’t have some sort of surge? Couldn’t it have had a momentary fit or something? Maybe the only criminal death here is Freddie’s poisoning, and maybe it was suicide.”

Bradshaw’s jaw tightened.

“I’m sorry, Ben. You know I think you’re a genius. You say that machine couldn’t have killed unless it was shorted, and I believe you have the expertise to make that call. I just want to be sure you’re being completely honest with yourself. You want Mrs. Thompson to be guilty. Admit it, you want to see her locked up. But her rigging that machine makes no sense. You said yourself Freddie took or was given poison the same night the machine was rigged. If it wasn’t suicide, if she gave him the poison and rigged the machine too, why? Why would she try to kill him twice?”

“I can ask you the exact same question, Henry. Why would Freddie both rig the machine and take poison? Why try to kill himself twice?”

“That’s a whole different situation. He was half-mad with guilt and desperation. He likely felt if one didn’t kill him, the other would. People aren’t always logical how they go about suicide. You know that better than most.”

“You can’t see her the way I do. She’s skilled at manipulation. She’s calculating, deceptive, greedy, insensitive, and selfish.”

Henry snorted. “You’ve had some experience with that sort of female. But that don’t mean she’s homicidal. Ben—your wife killed herself, she didn’t kill you.”

“Didn’t she?”

He didn’t need to say more. Henry knew what he meant. For eight years following his wife’s suicide, he’d lived a circumscribed existence, unable—unwilling—to participate in anything but the tasks he penciled neatly onto his desk calendar. He’d fallen into dour, plodding ways, even down to his mannerisms and gait, which had been, to his utter dismay, captured in flickering images by the engineering students on a Kinetoscope. It had only been in the past couple years, since he’d added electrical forensic investigator to his credentials, and since Missouri Fremont appeared on his doorstep, that he’d begun to feel human again. He would never be active in society, but he rarely plodded anymore.

Henry said, “Well, you’re alive now.”

“But David Hollister and Freddie Thompson are dead.”

“She just don’t seem smart enough to pull it off. It’s just too far-fetched, Ben.”

“When all other possibilities are eliminated, the far-fetched must be considered.”

“But the other possibilities aren’t eliminated. You’ve got no proof it wasn’t Loomis or Freddie or Moss, for that matter.”

Bradshaw carefully tucked the flattened foil between sheets of paper, setting it beside his suspect chart. He turned to Squirrel’s notes to reread the information on Mrs. Thompson.

Henry cleared his throat. “With them eyes, she does look like Rachel.”

“She’s nothing like Rachel. That’s what I failed to see before. She’s a different sort of evil altogether.”

“Ben, you know I trust you. But couldn’t it be you’re not seeing things clearly. The minute you laid eyes on Ingrid Thompson she reminded you of—”

“This isn’t about my past, Henry.”

“So you say. Hell, I’m game if you want to keep poking around. I just don’t want you chasing after something that ain’t there. You can’t strangle a dead ghost.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

After thoroughly examining Squirrel’s materials and taking notes, Bradshaw gathered all of his files to give to Captain Bell.

“We’ve been dismissed,” Henry complained as Bradshaw headed out the cabin door. “Why be so generous?”

“We’re on the same side, Henry.”

“You want me arrested for withholding evidence?”