Murder in a Good Cause (11 page)

“Jesus, woman, watch what you're saying!” he gasped, looking at her in horror. “How can you even think that?”

“It's easy.” Her voice was calm. “You're in a hell of a hole. You hated my mother, and you knew perfectly well that the second anyone with any brains looked at your books, you hadn't a chance of getting a penny out of her. This way you don't have to. You figure you can always get it out of dumb little Theresa, don't you? The way you got all my father's money out of me. Well, don't count on it.”

“When did you come up with all this crap?” he asked heavily.

“Last night. I was thinking. I got up and had a drink and sat in the living room and thought. I had some interesting ideas.” She turned again to contemplate the squirrels. “But if you did poison Mamma, you'd better tell me about it and we'll figure out what to do. With your brains, they'll catch you in a minute.”

“Hold on there,” he said. “I didn't kill your mother. You're trying to push me into something, aren't you? I mean, maybe you could've killed her just as easy. You'd love to get your hands on all that money.” He resumed his walking up and down. “Anyway, I didn't have a thing to worry about today. You must really think I'm stupid if you think that accountant was going to get anything but a lovely, clean set of books. We were all set,” he said, and flashed a confident smile at his wife. “This is a real bind.” He stopped and placed himself directly in front of her. “I'd have been better off if she'd still been alive.”

She looked up wearily. “You always did underestimate all of us, didn't you? Must be because we're women and you can't believe that we could have any brains.” Suddenly she yawned, an enormous, exhausted yawn. “Well, if you didn't do it”—she sounded as though she had not quite accepted that proposition—“then it must have been Nikki. Nobody else had any reason to kill her.”

“You'd like that, wouldn't you?” said her husband in an oddly flat voice.

“Somebody had to do it,” she said, and picked up a magazine.

“No, you don't,” he said, yanking it out of her hands. “You don't turn off like that until you call that lawyer in Munich.” He looked at his watch. “Eleven—just in time for a nice late-afternoon chat. Come on, Theresa. I have to know what's in that will before I face the bankers on Monday morning. It's the only way.”

“No.” She picked up another magazine. “Can't you see how that would look? Murdered woman's grieving daughter phones lawyer in Munich to find out how much she's worth? We're supposed to be rich, Milan. Remember? We're not supposed to be worried about money. It has never occurred to us that the bank won't extend your loan on Monday. We don't need an extra penny!” She glared at him. “You have to remember that. We don't need an extra penny. Mother's money is of no interest to us at all.”

Her husband returned her glare for a moment and then sat down in a large chair and took up his wife's vigil over the squirrels.

Sanders looked around Clara's bright and cheerful sitting room for a good couple of minutes before he turned to Dubinsky, who was leaning in the doorway, watching him. “I think we'll get further talking to people, don't you?” he said, trying to sound as if he believed it. “Instead of ploughing through a lot of paper here.” His tired brain shied away from the enormous amount of work the four-drawer filing cabinet and the three-drawer desk seemed to represent. “What about the housekeeper? Did you manage to get anything from her last night?” He yawned, sat back in an overstuffed chair, closed his eyes, and appeared to go to sleep.

Dubinsky pulled out his notebook and read rapidly, in a flat, bored voice. “She said that at eleven the women from the catering service put the coffee urn, cups, and plates of cakes and cookies in the dining room. The bartender was supposed to be on duty until eleven-thirty, but at twenty after he put clean glasses, ice, and mix on the table, collected the dirty glasses, and left. She seemed to feel he was cheating on his time,” he said, looking up. “In fact, she seems to be convinced that everyone is cheating, including us. So after that, no one was noticing what was going on with food and drink. It was a help-yourself situation.”

Sanders spoke without opening his eyes. “Did she go around the living room and pick up dirty dishes and things like that? Or was she in the kitchen all the time?”

“I asked her if she stayed in the kitchen, and her answer was ‘Where else would I be?' Which doesn't really help, does it? Then Mrs. von Hohenkammer told her to have tea ready for her at midnight. She got it ready and took it out, and since Mrs. von Hohenkammer was talking to a lot of people and she didn't want to interrupt her, she put it down where her employer could see it and left. And that's all she knows. Except that no one was in the kitchen but the gardener. Who came in two or three times.”

“Why?”

“Supposedly to check on the progress of the party, but probably to cadge food and drink. And that's all I got. I've met hit men who were more cooperative witnesses.”

“Okay,” said Sanders, pushing himself slowly to his feet. “We'd better talk to her again. But first, call the business manager and get him over here so we can start in on the filing cabinets.” Dubinsky shrugged and headed for the telephone.

“When do you want to see him?”

“When? Now, of course. Where does he live?”

Dubinsky dropped the receiver back down and shook his head. “On Woodlawn. In what he calls a small flat. And I'm not facing that little fart-face until I've had some lunch. Two o'clock,” he said mutinously.

“Big,” said Sanders. “He's really quite a big fart-face. Two o'clock it is.”

Bettl Kotzmeier was standing precariously on a kitchen stool in front of a row of cabinets. Her head was in the cabinet, and her strong arms were scrubbing the middle shelf as if she were trying to purify it. “Miss Kotzmeier,” said Sanders. There was no response. “Miss Kotzmeier!” This time his voice reverberated through the room. “Inspector Sanders, Homicide. I have some questions about your statement to Sergeant Dubinsky last night. I would appreciate it if you would come down here so we can talk.” The shoulders continued to rotate as her arms scrubbed in circular motion. “Or, if you prefer, we can conduct this interview downtown.” The movement slowed and stopped. Her head and shoulders emerged from the cupboard. She dropped her sponge into the brown plastic bucket beside her on the counter and climbed heavily down off the stool. She folded her arms in a gesture that he hadn't believed anyone used off the stage and said, “Yes?”

The interview inched its painful way through a recalcitrant hour. Sanders started with all the questions that Dubinsky had asked and got answers that were, if anything, briefer and less helpful this time. Yes, she had stayed all evening in the kitchen. That was where she was supposed to stay, wasn't it? “Except when you brought in the tea? You didn't stay in the kitchen then.”

“No.” Grudgingly. “I brought in the tea.”

“At twelve?”

She nodded.

“At exactly twelve?”

“That was when she wanted it.”

“It must have been pretty cold by the time she drank it. Did your employer like her tea cold?”

She glowered and then finally shook her head. “No. Frau von Hohenkammer was . . .” She waved her hand while searching for the word.

“Then it is very odd that she drank the tea without complaint.”

No response.

“I said it's odd that she drank the tea cold, Miss Kotzmeier, isn't it? Or don't you think so?”

“She didn't drink it cold.”

Sanders stared at her, irritation building up to higher and higher levels.

Her gaze dropped, and she muttered, “Somebody got her more from the pot. The pot was still hot. It was in the tea basket.”

“What?” Sanders stared at her. “You mean somebody came into the kitchen and refilled her cup from the teapot?”

She shrugged. “That's where the pot was.”

“Who?”

“I didn't see.”

“Then how do you know somebody got her a fresh cup?”

“Because when I made the tea, I poured a cup and put the pot in the tea basket. Frau von Hohenkammer often had more before she went to bed. When I looked over at the counter, the pot was out of the basket, and it was almost empty. I had to put on another kettle for when she would want more tea.” There was bitterness in her voice.

“What did you do with the teapot?”

“I washed it, of course, because when she would want fresh tea, I would need to use it again soon.”

“Where is this pot?” he asked.

“They took it away.” Her shoulders twitched with resentment.

“I don't understand,” he said softly, “how you failed to notice someone come in, look for the teapot—where was it, by the way?” She pointed wordlessly to the counter beside the stove. “Find it, dump out the cold tea in the sink, refill the cup, and walk out again. That just isn't very likely, is it? That says to me that either you replaced the tea yourself or you're trying to protect some member of the family. It won't work, you know. We'll find out, anyway.”

“I tell you, I didn't see who it was. I don't know. I just know that someone moved the teapot out of its basket.” Her mouth closed in a narrow line. “I wasn't in the kitchen then.”

“Where were you? I thought you said you had been in here all night.”

She glared. “People left glasses and dirty plates everywhere. Those maids were supposed to clean up, but there were glasses in the dining room and dirty plates in the study, and glasses. I couldn't leave them there. They would mark the furniture. I took them away and polished off the marks with a cloth.” Dubinsky grinned and shook his head in disbelief. Even Sally's
mother
didn't polish furniture during a party.

“So between twelve and twelve-thirty, you were polishing the furniture in the study and the dining room?”

She glowered. “Not twelve-thirty. Twelve twenty-five. I checked the time. I figured when she'd had her tea, they'd be going soon.”

“Especially with you polishing the furniture all around them. And so at twelve twenty-five you came into the kitchen, put on the kettle, and washed the teapot. What else did you do?”

“Nothing. There was nothing to do until people left.” She turned her back on them and reached into the bucket for her sponge once again.

Sanders turned on his heel. “We'll need to talk to you again, Miss Kotzmeier,” he threw back at her, with menace in his voice, as he walked rapidly toward the living room. He stopped in the doorway. “Let's see,” he said, “she's sitting there,” and he pointed to a couch and two chairs to his left. “She sees the tea.” He sat down on the small couch and looked at his watch. “Which is on the corner of that table. It's been there for a little while, because she doesn't see anyone bring it out—long enough for someone to empty the cyanide into the cup from the paper and throw it under the table.”

“Was there cyanide in that paper?”

“Don't know yet. There's some discussion about it, she says she'll get it—I suppose someone else offered to fetch it for her—and she gets up.” Here he got to his feet again. “She walks over there, tastes the tea, which is not too hot to drink, or too cold, since she's fussy,” and as he was saying this, he was walking over to the table and then miming the drinking of a cup of tea, “and then she has a fit of some sort, which takes a little time, the doctor has to notice it, and he runs over.” Sanders paused a second. “And then he glances at his watch and it is twelve twenty-nine.” Sanders looked at his watch again. “And that whole thing couldn't have taken more than two minutes unless there was a lot more conversation than people claimed. Which means that the poisoned tea was on the table by twelve twenty-seven. How long does it take a cup of tea to cool down?”

“Christ almighty,” muttered Dubinsky, “how in hell would I know? Depends on the kind of cup it's in, how hot it was, all that sort of crap. Are we sure the poison was in the tea?”

“Had to be,” said Sanders uneasily. “Where else could it be? But we'll know by this afternoon; the lab should be through by then. I wonder if they got anything from the pot. Anyway, if we know how long it took to cool down, we'd know roughly when it was poured. But it has to be before twelve twenty-five if she”—he pointed at the kitchen—“isn't lying.”

“And how do we know that when Big Bertha says twelve twenty-five she means just that? What clock was she going by? For all these calculations to mean anything, it had to be the same as the doctor's watch.”

“Shut up, Dubinsky. That doesn't help. Naw, you're right. Let's go get some lunch. This place is getting to me.”

As Sanders was trekking back and forth in the living room with his watch in his hand, Veronika von Hohenkammer, in jeans and a sweatshirt, was padding down the carpeted hallway between her room and her cousin's. She knocked, emphatically. “Klaus, you awake in there?” There was a muffled sound that she assumed to be an invitation to enter.

He was lying on his stomach in a tangle of bedclothes and opened the eye that was visible to her. “What time is it?”

“Almost noon,” she said. “I couldn't stand being in my room all alone or sitting in the kitchen with Bettl. The police are still poking around in Mamma's room and downstairs.”

Klaus rolled over and groaned. “That's all right,” he said, yawning. “Do you think you can get us some coffee? And do you mind if I take a shower before trying to talk?” She shook her head. “Then why don't you try to find us some coffee and rolls and we'll have them in the little back room. It seems sunny out. It'll be more cheerful than this.” His wave included the unmade bed, the clothes on the floor, and the general air of dissolution and decay in the room.