Phantoms Can Be Murder: Charlie Parker Mystery #13 (17 page)

Chapter
21

My head was beginning to hurt and
I was out of ideas to write down so I doodled randomly on the notepad.

“Louisa? Something else came to
my attention today,” I said. “The woman who owns the clothing shop next to The
Knit and Purl, her sister is Catherine Devon. I learned that Catherine’s late
husband was an owner of the sugar factory. That made him Archie’s boss. And now
Catherine is buzzing in and out of the knit shop a lot, making solicitous
little gestures toward Archie. I only met her today, but she doesn’t exactly
seem the type to be interested in his sort, does she?”

Her brow wrinkled. “I wouldn’t
think so. But, you know, the Archie we see today isn’t the way he used to be.
He was quite tall and handsome in his business suit every day. And something of
a charmer.”

“I wonder . . . Some kind of love
triangle? Might be the real reason he lost his job.”

She nodded slowly as the idea
began to take hold. “I suppose it’s possible.”

“Do you think Dolly knew?”

“Dolly? Oh my! I can’t imagine
that she would sit still for that—especially putting Archie in such close
proximity to Catherine—the two shops next door, and all.”

I felt my pulse quicken. “But
let’s say she didn’t know until
after
she’d moved her shop there. Maybe
she catches Archie tippy-toeing next door now and then at night . . .”

Her mouth pursed. “Well,
Catherine doesn’t live above the dress shop like they did. She’s got a huge
manor estate outside town, but still . . . there could have been clues that
Dolly picked up on.”

“So how am I going to get either
of them to admit to an affair?”

Much less acknowledge driving
Dolly to kill herself so she would be out of their way. Or . . . worse yet . .
. feed her the pills to get her out of the way so they could be together
always.

“The coroner didn’t find any
reason to believe that Dolly didn’t merely take the medication herself, did
he?” I asked rhetorically. “So now all the sneaky lovers have to do is wait a
decent amount of time before pretending to discover an interest in each other.
Archie can grieve publicly for awhile, but no one’s going to raise an eyebrow
when he marries again within a year or so. Most widowers do.”

“There’s no proof, you know.”
Dear Louisa, injecting a cold dose of reality.

“But still, Archie allowed me to
investigate this. Would he do that if he truly wanted out of the marriage?”

“But you see, that’s the beauty
of it. It is just what a grieving man
would
do if he were innocent of
any wrongdoing.”

“So you think he’s sharp enough
to have figured out that he better play his role convincingly, knowing that I
would find no proof and the official findings would stand. That leaves him
clear to finish the little charade and move into Catherine’s big house after a
bit.”

“I think Archie Jones is a lot
sharper than we are giving him credit for. His career was in managing people,
after all.” Louisa got up to bring out the last of the cake and heat the tea
kettle.

I passed up the dessert but
accepted the tea and when we carried our cups to the parlor I brought my
notepad with me. Louisa’s point about finding proof of a crime was so valid. I
could see Archie and Dolly home, just the two of them, like every other couple
in the world. She already had prescription sleeping pills; all he had to do was
grind up a sufficient number and slip them into her food or beverage to assure
that she would go to sleep that night and never wake up.

He would merely wash the dishes,
rinse the evidence down the drain . . . even if the pill bottle had been
checked for his prints, there were a dozen perfectly reasonable explanations
for that. He’d handed his wife that bottle on many occasions. And being cunning
enough to set up the scenario to look like she was losing her sanity or
becoming depressed was the perfect way to ensure that either an
accidental-death or suicide ruling would be likely.

The only way I could see justice
done would be to get either Archie or Catherine to confess. Just how I would do
that before Saturday, I had no idea.

*
* *

I woke from a dream in which I
was standing in a courtroom, grilling Catherine Devon—Perry Mason style—until
she cracked and told the whole story. But when I opened my eyes the room was
dark and I was no closer to a way to prove my theory. I lay there staring
toward the ceiling, debating about going to the police, putting the burden of
getting the confession on them.

But I knew what would happen.
First, they would remind me that there had been an inquest and an official
finding. Second, they would point out that I—silly American who probably
watches too much television—didn’t realize that I was accusing two of the
town’s prominent citizens of multiple wrongdoing. Third, they would politely
show me the door with a typical British thank-you.

No, without some firm piece of
actual evidence this would go nowhere.

I looked at the luminous hands of
my watch and calculated that it was only six o’clock last night in Alaska. It
was worth a try. I dialed Drake’s cell phone.

“Hey, hon. What time is it
there?” He sounded genuinely glad to hear from me.

“Way early morning,” I admitted.
“I couldn’t sleep.”

“How’s everything going?”

I gave him the condensed version,
admitting frustration at being unable to prove my theory. “If it weren’t for
Louisa wanting me to stick with it, and the real sense that a murder has
occurred, I’d be ready to hang it up and come home.”

“Well, I wish you luck,” he said.

We chatted a few more minutes but
realized I was adding to my aunt’s phone bill. Reluctantly, I let him go. I’m
so used to running everything past him when I’m working a case that it was hard
to cope with being half a world away.

I hung up the phone, switched out
the light and drifted into darkness, only to oversleep in the morning and arise
after Louisa had left for the office. I poured a cup from the coffee carafe
she’d left half full and pondered what steps I might take.

I needed more information on
Catherine and it seemed only logical that such a luminary of local society
would have made the news a time or two. So it was back to the newspaper office
where I asked for my buddy Billy Williams.

“Oh, Mrs. Devon, sure. Charity
events, fundraisers, she helps them all. And of course when Mr. Devon was alive
. . . they made a handsome couple.”

“Are the society pages saved in a
separate archive,” I asked, “or do I need to page through every issue?”

“Ah. We’ve become quite modern
here,” he said. “There’s those microfilm things nowadays. I don’t work that
machine myself but you’re welcome to it.”

He called out to a girl who was
hurrying by with a stack of newspapers in her arms.

“Issues from these past three
years we’ve got digital on the website,” she said as she shifted the papers to
her left hip. Clicking a few keys one-handed, she brought up the site.
“Searchable. Just there.” The mouse pointer wiggled dizzyingly over a white
rectangular box.

“Anything older than this, back
to 1950, you can search the microfiche. Beyond that, it’s in those bound books
in the cellar storeroom.” She said this last bit to Billy, who looked as if he
didn’t relish the idea of digging them out for me.

“This would be post-1950,” I
said, thanking them both.

Williams stayed nearby. I felt
him staring over my shoulder a few times, obviously intrigued with the rapidity
of the computer search but not wanting to sit at the desk and do it himself.

I entered Catherine Devon’s name
and got about forty hits within the archive. Clicking the links one at a time
was a little time consuming but I had all morning. Had until my plane left, for
that matter.

I backtracked through the past
year, saw a short announcement about the opening of The Knit and Purl in the
Trahorn Building. A few months before that, there had been a big champagne gala
to celebrate the expansion of the sugar mill. A posed photo showed Charles
Devon and his management team. Archie in a tuxedo beamed at the camera. Louisa was
right—he did clean up well. The caption named him as head of the sales division
and the article said the expansion was thanks to the fact that the company had
landed a huge order. The two-page spread included a lot of photos. I began to
pick out Archie, Catherine, and Charles in several of them. Archie stood
speaking earnestly to another man, named Nigel Trahorn, in one candid shot.

Trahorn—as in the Trahorn
Building?

I asked, and Billy confirmed it.
“I believe it was this one’s great-great-grandfather who built it. Could be one
generation farther back, though.” He seemed to be embarrassed that he couldn’t
pinpoint it any closer than that.

“No problem,” I said. “Your
memory is amazing.”

My eyes went back to the article.

So the Devons had Archie and his
sales division to thank for a big financial coup. And yet Devon had fired
Archie only a few weeks later. It seemed to give more credence to my theory
that he’d found out about an affair. An obituary for Charles Devon informed me
that he’d died before the construction on the mill addition was completed.

“Mrs. Devon owns it now, you
know,” Billy Williams said, setting some dusty old papers on the desk beside
mine as an excuse to start up the conversation again.

My expression must have been a
little blank.

“The Trahorn Building,” he said.
“She has it now.”

I tried to process what this
might mean, but he went on talking.

“Nigel,” he said with a gesture
at the computer screen, “that one. Got himself into some kind of
difficulties—some say gambling. Mr. Devon loaned him the money that kept him
out of bankruptcy. Took the building in return. He died and she inherited.”

Why was I bothering with the
newspaper? This guy knew the players, the official stories
and
the
gossip.

I pointed to a photo that had
both Archie and Catherine in it. “Was there ever anything between these two?”

He peered closely at the screen.
“Some said so.”

“Could that have had anything to
do with Archie Jones losing his job at the sugar mill?”

His head bobbed. “Some said.”

I wished I could schedule a
meeting with
some
and get all the info in one place.

“I wonder if Charles Devon knew
about it.” Although I’d merely been musing at that point, his head bobbed
again. Seemed I could just play twenty questions with him and puzzle out the
whole thing.

With no way to separate his nods
into fact or speculation I turned back to the news archive. But my mind
wouldn’t settle well enough for reading. What if Archie and Catherine had been
a long-term item and had cooked up a plan to get rid of both their spouses?

Chapter
22

Okay, this was getting weird. If
Archie Jones and Catherine Devon wanted to be together wouldn’t it have been
far simpler to just ask for divorces? Unless Catherine was not about to forfeit
her lifestyle, the estate, ownership in the sugar mill and more to settle down
with an unemployed man whose own wife would not go quietly into the shadows.

In a case like that it might have
made perfect sense to first get rid of Charles Devon, wait a discreet amount of
time, then get Dolly out of the picture too. I felt my eyes go wider at the
very idea.

“Mr. Williams? This obituary on
Charles Devon doesn’t really say how he died.”

“Oh, that bit about how donations
should be made to the cancer fund—that’s true. Lungs. Man smoked like a chimney
and it caught up with him. After the diagnosis, it went quickly.”

There went my theory. But it
didn’t mean that the newly single Mrs. Devon wouldn’t pressure Archie to free
up his own life. And if Archie didn’t have the balls to demand a divorce, maybe
Catherine had ramped up the pressure and either convinced him to do away with
Dolly or she might have administered the pills herself. I chewed at my lip.
This could add a whole new wrinkle.

The type of influence she might
exert over Archie puzzled me at first, but then it became crystal clear. If he
got rid of Dolly he could have a position at the sugar mill—something
prestigious without a lot of hours, like chairman of the board or something. If
he didn’t do something about his nagging wife, Catherine could see to it that
he remained unemployed and stuck with Dolly forever. Interesting concept.

It didn’t quite explain who had
actually orchestrated the pranks against Dolly—Archie’s presence precluded him
setting up some of them. But still. I had to give this a little more thought.

I thanked Billy Williams and left
the news office. I was running out of time. My flight was early Saturday
morning, so Louisa had offered to drive me back to London tomorrow afternoon
where we could have a nice dinner, see a show, stay in a hotel. It would give
us some quality time to end the visit and keep us from having to get up in the
middle of the night to make the two hour drive and catch the daybreak flight.

Now that I had some clear
suspects and motives I had very little time to act. And if I didn’t come up
with some hard proof I was still back at square one in trying to convince the
authorities that two leading citizens were murderers.

Proof, proof, proof—the word
thrummed in my head with every footstep.

The only possible place the proof
might exist would be in Dolly’s apartment or shop, so I needed to go back there
and see if I could find anything at all before Archie had completely cleared
everything out. Way deep in my brain I didn’t really believe I would find
anything. Surely Archie had dumped anything incriminating right away. But
perpetrators don’t always make the smartest moves in the heat of the moment.
It’s why all those dumb-criminal stories exist. It was worth a try.

When I turned onto Lilac Lane I
spotted a large truck outside the knit shop. Archie stood on the sidewalk
talking to two men, one of whom was making notes on pages attached to a
clipboard. Uh-oh. Moving day.

I edged past them and went
inside. The shop’s inventory was gone. Gabrielle was in the process of tying up
a plastic garbage bag. The display bins and shelving had been pushed to one
side of the room, a yellow rope around the whole lot with a sheet of paper
stapled to it. “Not To Be Moved” was written on the page in bold black marker.
The sales room had a hollow feeling.

On the way over, I’d cooked up my
story and I tested it now on Gabrielle. “The last time I was in the apartment
with Dolly, I left something behind. Would it be all right if I—”

She waved me toward the stockroom
and the stairs.

Now if I could just do a quick
recon before Archie went up there. Even if he appeared, I would use the same
story, although it might be a little harder to bluff my way along with him. For
the moment, I knew I didn’t have much time so I dashed up the stairs and into
the unlocked apartment.

What, specifically, would help
make my case? I slipped into the bedroom. Dolly’s pill bottles might have
helped, but there was no sign of them. It was likely the coroner had taken
them. I pulled open the nightstand drawers, in case. No bottles. The drawer on
the right side of the bed contained a pair of masculine styled reading glasses,
a tube of athlete’s foot cream, a cell phone charging cord and an issue of a
business magazine.

I hurried to the other side of
the bed. Dolly’s nightstand seemed no more helpful—hand lotion, a black sleep
mask, a tube of lip balm, two hair pins and one of those clip-on reading lights
for a book. I tugged the drawer a little farther open. A spiral bound book with
a cloth cover rested behind the other items. A journal? I grabbed it up and
stuffed it inside my jacket.

The floor of the closet contained
ranks of shoes, neatly lined up, his and hers. I scanned through his but there
was not one pair with treads like the ones that had made the muddy footprints
in the shop. I gave the rest of the closet a quick glance then hurried to the
kitchen.

A tiny closet held cleaning
supplies and brooms. It might be the logical spot for dirty boots to be tossed,
but none were visible. I closed the door softly and glanced around the kitchen.
Dolly’s rose patterned cups and saucers were stacked in cupboards with glass
doors. I counted six saucers and five cups, explained by the fact that she’d
broken the one when she burned her hand. As I looked around, I spotted the
pieces lying in a tidy pile at one side of the worktop. It must have been too
hard for Dolly to simply throw them in the trash and maybe she hoped to have it
repaired. Still, nothing unexplainable, nothing I didn’t already know.

On the far wall hung a telephone
and wired to it, an answering machine. Without a thought, I pressed a button
which opened the compartment where a miniature cassette tape kept the messages.
I plucked out the tape, dropped it into my pocket and closed the little door on
the machine before I could talk myself out of it. Bad girl, Charlie.

Male voices grew louder
downstairs, probably Archie and the moving men—they could come up here at any
moment.

Back in the living room I scanned
the visible surfaces, wishing like hell that I’d thought of doing this search
earlier in the week when I might have had more time. A magazine rack beside the
sofa held a variety of discards and I picked through them and chose a
black-covered calendar book, the kind insurance companies send out. Flipping
through, I saw that no one had ever used it—this would be the item I’d left
behind, if Archie came walking through the door and caught me here.

Think, Charlie! I stared around
the room, heart beating too fast, thoughts not clicking effectively. On the
same wall where the door opened to the stairs into the shop, I spotted another
door, one with heavy panels and two locks. I twisted the deadbolt knob. As I’d
guessed, it opened onto a tiny landing and stairs went straight down to the
street. At the bottom there were three small transom windows above the outer
door, which had a mail slot in it. This was the door that Dolly said they never
used.

But someone
had
used it.
At the base of the stairs I spotted a dark clump. I closed the living room door
behind me and took the dimly lighted stairs slowly, hoping like crazy that
nothing would squeak. The object took shape as I approached. A pair of man’s
boots. With mud on the soles. I may have just found the ghost’s footwear.

I lifted one and looked at the
tread pattern. As nearly as I could remember, it looked like a match for the
prints I’d seen that morning. The boot could very well be Archie’s size. It was
about the same as the shoes I’d seen upstairs in the closet. I set it carefully
back in place, debating.

Okay, so what did I really have
here? Nothing I could turn over to the police. Archie would have a ready
explanation. He came home, didn’t realize how dirty his boots were until he’d
walked partway across the shop. So he sat down and took them off, stashed them
here so the wife wouldn’t get mad, meant to come back and clean up the mess but
something interrupted . . . It was a reasonable scenario, one that would make
him look rational and me look like a nut case.

I sat down on the bottom step and
pulled out the little journal I’d taken from Dolly’s nightstand. The woman
appeared to be a very erratic journal keeper. At a glance I could tell that
two-thirds of the pages were pristine and new. Starting at the front, the first
entry was dated more than five years ago. There were two or three entries in
that time-frame—I didn’t bother to read them. A few pages on, the dates were
two years ago. Thumbing to the end I found ten pages written within the last
year, these beginning with Dolly’s decision to open the knit shop.

Although her handwriting wasn’t
easy to decipher I found myself reading passages here and there. At the time
she’d decided to open the shop, she’d met a lot of resistance from Archie. One
entry said, “I simply had to put my foot down. We are doing this, I told him.”
An entry dated a few months later said, “It’s started up again. I know it. I’ll
find out who she is this time, not let it pass like I did five years ago.”

I turned back to the beginning of
the diary. Sure enough, there were entries expressing Dolly’s concern that
Archie might be having an affair. He was out late, he traveled a lot, he was
always in “business meetings.” But she didn’t know who the woman might be. She
demanded that he stay home, she planned trips for the two of them, she tried to
orchestrate a social set for them outside of his coworkers. If only they’d had
children, she lamented, then Archie would be irrevocably bound to her. I
scanned the ten or more pages that went along in this vein, but the journal
didn’t yield much in the way of facts, just Dolly’s thoughts on how to keep a
rein on her husband.

A large gap in time between
entries—things must have gone smoothly for quite awhile. Maybe Archie had
stopped seeing Catherine—or whomever—for a stretch of time. Then, two years ago
Dolly began another crisis and starting writing again. When this set of entries
continued in the same vein as the previous, I began to scan. Would the woman
just not let it
go
? She didn’t offer up a shred of proof. Only her inner
demons seemed to fuel the thing.

Of course, Archie probably really
was having an affair. From Dolly’s notes on the things she said to him and the
way she treated him, who would blame him? I became impatient and turned to the
last entry in the book, dated within the last month, after the mysterious incidents
at the shop had begun happening. “Archie and his woman are at it again,” she
wrote. “This time they are trying to make me think I’m going crazy. Well, I’m
not and I’ll not have this. If I have to chain him to the store to make him
stay home, I’ll do it.”

What? I paused and re-read that
last part. Clearly, Dolly was not meekly accepting the idea that she was losing
her mind. And nothing about that entry made her sound suicidal. This was a
woman with a firm vision and a nutty plan for keeping her husband in line.

I closed the journal and turned
the book over in my hand. Did Archie know this existed? Surely not. I couldn’t
imagine him reading these entries and not confronting Dolly about it, or not
destroying the book after her death. She hadn’t gone to any extraordinary
lengths to hide it so my guess was that he simply never pried into her things.
She either felt confident that he wouldn’t find the journal, or she didn’t care
if he did.

That might be a whole new
wrinkle—maybe she halfway hoped he would read the entries and, learning how
much she wanted him to remain married to her, would simply give up any other
plans. This was one psychologically messed up couple.

Heavy footsteps sounded very
nearby and my heart-rate flipped into triple-time. The staircase from the shop
to the apartment must be fairly close to the one on which I was sitting at the
moment.

In a few seconds someone would be
in the apartment, probably the men wanting to pack everything in readiness for
the move. I gave a quick look upward at the door to the living room, decided
against going back in, opened the door to the street and ducked out.