How to Murder a Millionaire (11 page)

"I like trying," he replied, then burst out with a roaring laugh.

"Don't show Nora," Eloise warned just as Emma started to hand the drawing to me. "I'm sure she's too sensitive for that sort of thing."

"You're right," said Emma. "She's the dainty type."

"Harold," I said, trying hard to get back to my line of questioning, "did you discuss your collection with Rory?"

"Never. But I'd sure like a look at his stuff. Ellie, pick up that newspaper again. Who's the next of kin? Those sisters, I suppose. The old goat never married, although not from lack of ladies. Who do I have to see about getting his collection?"

Eloise rattled the newspaper as she read down through the front page obituary. "Roderick Buchanan Pendergast, publisher of the
Philadelphia Intelligencer,
let's see, la, la, la ... attended Yale, served in the Foreign Service—"

Harold gave a barking laugh. "Drinking gin with Churchill's pals, maybe."

"Formed the Freedom City Trust in 1956—let's see—no! Survived by his sisters Lilyanne and Opal Christine, of Philadelphia and Palm Beach."

"A Palm Beach nursing home," Harold guessed. "Those girls must be in their eighties by now."

"They won't be suspects in the murder," said Eloise.

"Oh, I don't know." Harold laughed again. "They still looked like a couple of mean old women last night. And Pendergast was so feeble, why, that cat of yours could have knocked him down."

I was startled. "You were there last night? At the party?"

"Hell, yes," said Harold. "Once upon a time I wrote a financial column for that newspaper. They invited all of us old fogies."

"I didn't see you there," I said.

"We didn't stay long," Eloise interjected. "We left before he was—well, before—"

Emma stopped admiring the drawing and said, "Nora found the body."

That information prompted an exclamation from Eloise and a request for further enlightenment from Harold. I kept it brief.

"You poor dear." Eloise's eyes filled with tears. "You must be so distressed."

"I was," I told her, feeling another wave of grief. "And I can't get it out of my head. I can't help being curious about who killed him."

"Do the police have suspects?"

"I think they're trying to narrow the field at this point."

Harold shook his head sagely. "I bet half the people at that shindig wanted to bash Pendergast's head at least once in his life."

Chapter 8

Later at the farm, Emma hoisted my bicycle out of the truck bed before she remembered why she'd come looking for me in the first place. Out of the heap of sweatshirts, she pulled a canvas bag from Libby.

"I'm supposed to give you this. Libby asked me to drop it off."

I accepted the flowered bag, one of the many we frequently exchanged as we shared books. Looking at it with mock trepidation, I asked, "Do you think it's a bomb?"

Emma shrugged. "It's not ticking. I figure it's a peace offering."

"Feels like a Sears catalog." I turned the bag over in my hands, but didn't open it. Libby and I exchanged books all the time, usually spending a few minutes to give each other a review of our latest reads. She liked weepy romances, but accepted my collection of expat American women who renovated houses in Provence or Tuscany.

"She could have brought it herself."

"I think she's snowed with last minute wedding junk."

Libby's husband Ralph was the father of the groom for the big Treese-Kintswell wedding, and although Libby wasn't a primary player in the festivities, she
had some responsibilities, I was sure. Entertaining the bride's prestigious family at the rehearsal dinner was a daunting proposition. The Treese family had expensive tastes and a strict sense of social protocol.

I knew it wasn't the wedding that kept Libby away, though. Still, Emma was kind to pretend our sisterly spat was nothing out of the ordinary. I asked, "Is the wedding going to come off without a hitch?"

Emma shrugged again and climbed back into the truck. "You couldn't pay me to get involved in that ordeal. It's like they're trying to outdo the Windsors."

"Does Libby have a dress yet?"

Emma slammed the truck door and leaned out the open window. "I don't think so. That's only one cause for meltdown. She's got several."

It was Emma's way of telling me to lay off Libby. Although I couldn't risk saying so to Emma, I'd have loved going dress shopping with Libby. If our relationship had been on firmer ground these days, I could have swept her off to New York for a spree at Barney's. Retail therapy.

Emma paused before starting the truck. "You going to Rory's funeral?"

"Yes."

"Need a lift?"

I smiled. "Thanks, Em. Maybe Libby wants to go with us, too."

"I'll take care of it." She started the truck and tore off in a spray of gravel.

I went into the house and found the light on my answering machine blinking like crazy.

"Nora, this is Stan Rosenstatz," came my editor's agitated voice. "Boy, I need you to call me back ASAP. Kitty says she's too upset to go to the Pendergast funeral, and we definitely need your kind of coverage. You know, who's there and what they're wearing. Call me, okay?"

I couldn't imagine what might keep Kitty from attending the funeral of the century as far as the
Intelligencer
was concerned. My radar switched on before I dialed Rosenstatz back. He was away from his desk, so I left a voice mail saying I intended to go to the funeral anyway.

Then the lightbulb went off in my head.

"And I wonder if you could do my a favor, Stan?" I asked. "Since last night's party was sponsored by the
Intelligencer,
somebody must have the guest list. Can you get me a copy? If you could e-mail it to me, I'd appreciate it."

The second message on my answering machine was from my friend Lexie Paine in her best belting-to-the-balcony voice. "Oh, Nora, call me, call me as soon as you can, darling. You must be a wreck—a wreck! Let's go to Peace for a full day—my treat. What you need is a lime pedicure and that Lakota herbal wrap."

A day at Lexie's favorite spa always sounded delicious.

A blur of voices came next. Mostly friends and former friends—Todd's crowd—who wanted to know everything I'd seen at Rory's house and what were the police saying and did I hear that Sam Mascione was a suspect and could I stop in for cocktails tonight before going out?

No, I didn't want to stop in for cocktails. No doubt everyone thought I had an inside track for police gossip. Right now I was the ideal person to provide just enough floor show to make a party memorable.

Then Jill Mascione said, "Nora, the police were here at Main Events all day asking about every move
we all made. Dad is spitting nails because they thought Sam did it until Sam admitted he was necking with Julie somewhere. That girl is married and ought to know better. You must have just missed interrupting them, lucky you. Anyway, how are you? Did that baby detective call you yet? Call me about lunch."

The next voice was that of Michael Abruzzo. He didn't identify himself, but allowed a long silence of tape to run before he spoke. The sound of his growling baritone made my insides go squiggly. For a man who was supposed to be a menace to society, he sounded surprisingly . . . sexy.

He said only, "Just calling to make sure you're okay."

And he hung up.

I looked at the answering machine and said, "You're kidding."

I played the message again. No, he wasn't kidding. One sentence fragment.

I tapped my fingers on the kitchen counter.

At last I played the final message, and Detective Bloom's voice filled my kitchen, sounding friendly and even coaxing.

"Miss Blackbird, it's Detective Ben Bloom. I'm hoping you'll call when you get this message. I have a few ideas I'd like to run past you."

With care, he gave his office number, his home phone and his cell number. I wrote down all of them and decided to dial the cell phone first.

He picked up at once. "Bloom."

"Hi," I said. "It's Nora Blackbird."

"Oh, hi," he said and cleared his throat. "Yeah, hi, how are you?"

"Good. What about you?"

"Not bad. I'm glad you called."

Over the telephone line, I could hear phones ringing and people talking. He paused, and I wondered if he was working up the courage to invite me to the malt shop.

I asked, "How's your investigation going?"

"Slow, but sure. Going through a lot of information, setting up timetables. It's a high profile case, national attention. Everybody's being careful."

I had left the house that morning without turning on the news. "National attention?"

"CNN is set up in the parking lot."

"I'm sure Rory's death is a big story. He was a world-class philanthropist."

"Yeah, we've got guys going through his financial records. He was pretty generous from what I understand. Meantime," he went on, "I'm stuck with the timetable. We're trying to place everyone in the house at the time of the murder. Almost a hundred people. I was hoping to go over a couple of things with you."

"I'm happy to help. Rory must have been killed between the time Peach left him and when I went upstairs, right?" I tried to assume he had eliminated Peach as a suspect. "That was only a matter of ten minutes or so."

Bloom didn't agree. "Well, he was certainly killed sometime between seven-forty-seven, when two employees of the caterer spoke with him, and eight-thirty-five when you came downstairs and the paramedics were phoned. About fifty minutes."

"Can't someone pinpoint the time of death more accurately than that?" I said uneasily. "By his body temperature or something?"

"We can't be that precise."

"So you haven't ruled out Peach," I said.

"We haven't ruled out anybody. Not since we found out about the elevator. Did you see anyone use it?"

I'd completely forgotten about Rory's seldom-used elevator. It was located in another wing of the house near the billiards room, and would have allowed someone to go upstairs without being seen by party guests or catering staff.

"I hadn't remembered it. No, I wasn't near the elevator. Hardly anyone ever uses it, as far I as know." "The housekeeper says they use it to move furniture and cleaning equipment, so it's still functioning. Someone could have used it in the fifty-minute window."

"That someone would have to know about the elevator," I guessed. "It's located in an inconvenient place—almost hidden, actually. Rory liked the exercise of using the stairs. It had to have been a person who knew the house really well." "Yep. Mrs. Treese said so, too." "Are there any fingerprints in the elevator?" "Lots. We're looking for matches now." "And on the painting? The van Gogh?" "One of yours. Quite a few of Pendergast's. And," he said, "Mrs. Treese."

I remembered the police taking my fingerprints the night of the murder. Funny how details had slipped away while I was so upset. They were just now resurfacing. Why would Peach kill Rory for a painting when she had full access to his house? "I'm sure Peach was in that room a lot. I'm still certain she's not your murderer. Was anything missing elsewhere in the house?"

"Nothing that was hanging on walls. Pendergast's housekeeper checked and walked us through the displayed paintings. Of course, our art guy is working on that angle."

A brilliant idea occurred to me. "Maybe somebody substituted a forgery!"

"Well . . . that's doubtful," Bloom said, as if humoring an avid television fan. "Why bother going upstairs to kill Pendergast if it's easier to steal a painting downstairs and walk off with it?"

I decided to keep my imaginative speculations under wraps in the future. But I wanted to hear more. "How exactly did Rory die?" I asked, switching gears. "Was he suffocated?"

"Like we first thought, he was overpowered and smothered with the pillow."

"Is there any DNA evidence? Something left behind by the murderer?"

Bloom didn't answer for a moment, and I heard paper rustling. Finally, he said, "What the hell, I'm breaking all the rules, but what else is new? We're checking his clothing and the pillow."

"And the Viagra?" I asked. "Was it in his bloodstream?"

Bloom hesitated again. "The label was partially torn off the bottle, so we're checking with pharmacies. Let me ask the questions, okay? We're not going to solve this case unless somebody goes out on a limb, so screw the timetable for a minute. Maybe you know who Pendergast was intimate with. We hear he'd been seeing the Treese woman for years. Were they sleeping together?"

Automatically, I said, "I haven't the faintest idea."

"Anyone else in the picture? Another lover?"

"I can't imagine there was anyone, no."

"No younger women?"

"That seems very unlikely."

"Did Pendergast go looking for partners? Come on strong with you, maybe?"

"My God, no!"