Smart House (5 page)

“I motioned Laura and Rich to come out of the room where others were watching the movie. We stepped into the next room, the library, where I used the computer to register the kill. Rich witnessed, and Laura confirmed it. She and I both saw him leave alone. I suspected that he needed to report in to the computer in his room to get a new victim, or else go downstairs for a weapon. That’s how we were all thinking. I kept a close watch on him because for all I knew, he had my name. That was the last time anyone saw him alive.”

“No wonder you didn’t want to discuss this with the police, or reporters either,” Charlie muttered. “Of all the goddamn foolishness! What time was that?”

“Ten to eleven. He was found at eleven-forty, and they estimated that he had died between eleven and eleven-thirty.”

“The story I read mentioned a net bag over his head,” Charlie said. “Another deadly weapon?”

“Yes. I think he went down in the elevator to collect his next weapon and that was it.”

“A net bag?”

“It was supposed to be a plastic bag, like a laundry bag, I guess, the kind with the warnings not to place them over your head. Anyway, it was supposed to suffocate the victim. It was loosely woven, soft cotton netting.”

“That suffocated him,” Charlie said dryly. “Did the police even try to explain why it was on his head?”

Milton shrugged. “How could they? They think the automatic vacuum system came on while he was in the elevator, that it sucked out the air, and he collapsed before he realized what was happening. Maybe the elevator locked and wouldn’t open. Anyway, since he was alone, and he died of suffocation, that was all they could come up with. There weren’t any marks on his neck, no marks at all to indicate otherwise. None of us could come up with anything better,” he added.

“Okay. How about Gary Elringer? What’s the story on his death?”

“No one saw him after dinner. A couple of people watching the movie heard him laughing at one point, but no one even noticed what time it was then. The police say he walked through the Jacuzzi room for some reason and fell in, and the computer closed the cover on him. It had overheated the water drastically; why not also cover it by mistake?”

“Nothing was in the news story about overheating. How hot?”

“By the time anyone thought to check the thermometer, it was one thirty-five, but I think it had been quite a bit hotter. Clouds of steam rolled out when we opened it. The heat made it impossible to tell exactly when he died. Maybe even before Rich. His death was attributed to drowning.”

Constance shivered in the August heat.

“And you say the computer had tracked both of them all evening? It can do that?”

“I tell you it’s a true marvel. I’ve never seen anything like it. It kept track of everyone in the house, by name, from the time of arrival until Alexander stopped the program. According to the display, Gary went into the Jacuzzi room alone. No one else went in until the search party entered.”

Charlie regarded the lawyer morosely, then turned away to observe the third cat, the fluffy orange and white Candy, wend her way through the dying grass. She walked with her tail straight up, twitching at the end. Some hunter, signaling by semaphore to any prey within range,
Here I come
. Her eyes were the color of butterscotch. Ashcan gathered his legs under him in a spring-ready position; Candy ignored him, and he became interested in something moving in the grass, pounced at that. Candy continued toward the terrace until she spotted a stranger; she stopped, her fur rose along her spine, her ears flattened, and she yelled obscenities at Constance and Charlie in a hoarse, raucous voice. Ashcan fled in terror and Brutus heaved himself to his feet and stalked away in disgust. Finally Charlie brought his gaze back to Milton Sweetwater.

“What did the computer do to convince the police that it had really gone berserk?”

Milton drew in a long breath and nodded, as if to say,
good for you.
“Not a word of this was in those news articles, but you’re right, of course. They had been there an hour perhaps when lights here and there went off or came on. Doors that had opened at a touch were locked; other doors opened. Alexander Randall was beside himself. Then, the final touch: An insecticide was released in the greenhouse, enough to have killed anyone exposed to it, I gather. It set off an alarm. Fortunately no one was inside the building at the time. I think that was what convinced them that the house is a killer.” “Uh-huh. And you. What do you think?” “It can’t be,” Milton said without hesitation. “If it is, we’re ruined.”

Charlie raised an eyebrow at him and reached for the bottle of beer that had very little remaining in it. “What do you want? Why are you here?”

“Right. That’s the scenario we’re working with, pretty much as I’ve outlined it for you. After the funeral, after the formalities, things were supposed to get back to normal, as normal as possible, with reorganization and replanning for the future, and so on. Suddenly Beth Elringer, the widow, started to voice objections. And Bruce Elringer backed her. Well, by now there’s a schism as broad and deep as the one that parted the Red Sea. No one has enough votes to do anything at this point. The company will go under if it doesn’t move forward. That’s the way it is in the computer industry. No one can simply stand still. We had a shareholders’ meeting last Thursday and everyone screamed at everyone else for three hours, until finally I said we should bring in an independent investigator to clear the air. Bruce has another idea, and in the end, we decided to work with both.” “Bruce Elringer? What’s his scenario?” “He thinks Beth killed her husband.”

Charlie whistled softly.

“It’s ugly as hell,” Milton said with some bitterness. “Anyway, Bruce has invited everyone back to Smart House next weekend, to reenact the last day, to demonstrate that Beth had the opportunity to murder Rich and Gary. He’s talking about her motive, and circumstantial evidence, and so on. Enough of us protested that he had to allow for you, or someone like you, to be there also. And that’s why I’m here now.” He took a deep breath.

Silently Charlie left, returned with two more bottles of beer. Constance poured herself the rest of the tea, and for a long time no one spoke.

At last Charlie said thoughtfully, “If we go to Spirelli’s we won’t be able to talk because that damn accordion player starts at eight. I say it’s El Gordo’s and margaritas. How about you two?” He added, almost kindly, to Milton, “I have a hell of a lot of questions to ask, I’m afraid.”

Chapter 5

Late that night Charlie
and Constance talked in the cool bedroom, both of them propped up on pillows, the television on, the sound off. Outside the bedroom door, Brutus screamed for admittance. The cats hated it when they closed the door all the way, and with the air conditioner on, they kept it closed.

“If I let him in, he’ll prowl around five minutes and then yell to get outside again,” Charlie said. “Pretend you don’t hear him. What do you think of Sweetwater?”

“Awfully slick, and smart. Charming. He looks like Gregory Peck, and, unfortunately, he knows it. Your turn.”

“He’s a computer nut,” Charlie said as if that defined his entire impression.

“From what he said, they all are.”

“I know,” he grumbled. Brutus raised his voice, and Charlie cursed him. For a moment there was silence, then Ashcan screeched, and cats galloped through the hallway. With a sigh Charlie left the bed and went out into the hall. He could hear Constance’s soft chuckle behind him.

He led the three cats to the sliding glass door to the terrace and shooed them all out, then stood outside for a minute. Lightning played with clouds in the west, too distant for the thunder to reach this far. The air felt heavy, ominous, and too damn hot, he decided. Then thunder rumbled closer, the lightning flashed to the ground, and thunder boomed.

“All right!” he said, and went back inside to call Constance. Three times that summer they had had electrical storms that had taken out the lights. One of the neighbors, the Mitchum family, had had a television and an electric stove ruined by a power surge.

They went through the house together pulling plugs and then sat on the terrace waiting for the storm to drive them inside. A fitful wind was rising. The temperature seemed to go up, and the air smelled of ozone. Charlie hoped it would be a good storm, a freshening change of weather, an end to the heat wave that was turning him into jelly day after day.

“If the house, or the computer in the house, actually did kill two people, don’t you think it might be a dangerous place?” Constance asked between two rolls of thunder. Moving away, she thought with regret.

“We’ll stay out of elevators and away from the Jacuzzi. Nervous about it?”

“Not really. It just occurred to me. It also seems that if they were all that disturbed because of a game before, just imagine what they’ll be like this time when they get together. Now they know there’s a killer house, or else a human killer among them.”

“Damn storm’s going to stay south of us,” he said, disgruntled. “At least it’ll be cool on the Oregon coast.”

For a moment she had the distinct feeling that he had agreed to look into this insane affair simply to escape the heat wave. She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. If those people were as bothered as she would be in their situation, he might wish he were back here very quickly.

“Charlie, after talking to Milton, reading the material he gave us, do you think the computer is to blame?”

“You know, when a guy wants to kill someone, usually he reaches for a weapon he’s familiar with—a gun, a club, a brick, poison, whatever it might be. Or else he grabs what’s at hand, a skillet say, a dandy weapon. Good old black skillet meets head, head gives. But an open mesh bag? Drowning a guy in a whirlpool? Well, like I told Milton Sweetwater, we’ll have a looksee, keep an open mind as long as possible, and hang the computer in the end. Let’s go to bed. No storm here tonight. It’s hotter than it was an hour ago.”

People on the coast went inland to warm up in the summer, the gas station attendant had told Beth that morning, a few miles south of Bandon, Oregon. The day was misty, gray, and cool. Earlier, there had been dense fog, but it had lifted by the time she reached this area. From there to Smart House had been less than an hour.

Crazy, she told herself, shivering when she drove up to the house, suffering from déjà vu, her stomach in a hard knot that she could not relax no matter how many deep breaths she sucked in. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

The front door opened before she had her suitcase out of the car. Jake strode out to meet her. He stopped short of actually touching her this time, but examined her face closely, then nodded. “Why didn’t you return any of my calls?”

“I don’t know. There didn’t seem much point, I guess.”

She turned from his searching gaze and opened the back door and now he moved past her and brought her suitcase out. Silently they entered Smart House. Neither suggested taking the elevator up. As they mounted the stairs from the foyer, the house seemed uncannily quiet. In the upper hallway she looked down into the atrium, as beautiful as before, with no one in it. The waterfall was working, the splash of water reflected one of the hanging lights, sparkled, and broke the sparkles in an endless kaleidoscope effect. Someone must have left open one of the doors, she thought distantly; the unpleasant odor of chlorine was everywhere. She had forgotten how it filled the house when the doors were left open.

She wished that someone other than Jake had met her, or no one at all. She could manage her one suitcase. It was true, he had called quite a few times, and she had listened to his voice on her machine, and turned it off each time. What was the point? she repeated to herself. They reached her door.

“Is… is the computer turned on?” she asked, hesitating now.

“No,” he said brusquely. “That damn thing’s off for good.” He reached past her and turned the doorknob. “There’s a lock inside, a plain, old-fashioned mechanical chain lock. I installed it a while ago.”

“I’ll have to open my own drapes and regulate my own bath—” Beth started. At the sound of laughter she became rigid and felt the world going out of focus—Gary’s laughter. She clutched the door frame.

“Take it easy,” Jake said; he held her arm in a firm grip. “He’s been practicing.”

Bruce yelled from the elevator at the end of the hall, “It’s about time you got here! We’re having a family meeting in the garden in five minutes.”

“Oh, my God!” Beth breathed, staring at Bruce. Always before he had stressed the small differences between himself and Gary: He had worn suits, Gary sweaters; he had worn polished shoes, Gary sneakers; his hair had been relatively neat, Gary’s unruly, a mop of curly hair that he had cut only when it got down to his eyes. Today, Bruce was in a sweater and slacks, untied sneakers, his hair wild and bushy.

Even the words, she thought, he even remembered what Gary had said the last time.

“As I said,” Jake muttered savagely, “he’s been practicing.” He carried her suitcase on into the room; she followed and stood by the door.

Now Jake looked awkward. She moved aside for him to pass, but he didn’t move yet. “Beth, don’t let him get to you. Okay? You’ve got friends in the company, you know. Milton, me. Bruce is being ugly, but he doesn’t have any power, and he knows it. He can’t actually do anything. So take it easy.”

She nodded. “Thanks, Jake. I appreciate that.”

“Yeah. I’ll see you later.” He left swiftly.

Beth closed the door, and after a moment she put the chain lock on, and only then advanced into the room, the same pink and yellow room she had had the last time. She opened the drapes and gazed at the sea. There was no horizon, just the gray sea and the gray sky that became one. No escape there, she thought. You could sail out that way only so far and then you would be sent back by way of the sky. She turned away from the ocean and found herself gazing at the computer, silent and blank. She was shivering. Walking quickly she went to the bathroom and got a towel, brought it out with her, and draped it over the monitor.
There
, she breathed at it. In no hurry, she unpacked, washed her face and hands, and pulled on a sweat shirt, not sure if her chill was due to cold or to an internal malfunction. It didn’t matter; she was freezing.

Maddie and Bruce were in the atrium garden at the lowest level near the bar when she arrived. It was hot and humid here. Something new must have come into bloom, she found herself thinking, something heavy and too sweet. Gardenias? She embraced Maddie, who looked glassy-eyed, tranquilized, and smelled of gin and tonic. A coffee pot and cups were on the bar counter. She nodded briefly at Bruce and poured herself coffee.

“All right,” Bruce said. “Here’s the program. The company’s in a hell of a spot. We’ve got to raise money enough to pay for forty-five shares of stock, and frankly, there’s no way on earth we can do it. The others are going to opt for a sellout, naturally, take ten cents on the dollar and be done with it.”

“Bruce, stop it!” Maddie cried. “We agreed not to have a business meeting unless everyone is present.”

Bruce went on as if he had not heard. “Milton says we have to reorganize first, before any decisions can be made. You know who will take over if we go along with that! Jake. And then Milton will get in line and they’ll vote to sell out. So we have two choices. We can serve up the murderer, clear the computer of all charges, and then the shares go a different direction. Mom and I split them and we both waive payment for now. Or you can defer payment for an indefinite period,” he added, glaring at Beth. “Deferred payment is acceptable, Milton said.”

“What are you talking about?” Beth demanded.

“A murderer can’t benefit financially from her crime,” he said almost petulantly. “You know that. I checked it with Milton. That means that Mom and I will split Gary’s estate. The money stays in the company and we’ll start showing Smart House—”

Beth felt distant, an observer of a scenario she had no understanding of, with no means of arriving at an understanding. She stood up.

“Sit down!” Bruce yelled at her. “I’m giving you a choice, goddamn it! You sign a waiver about payment for now and we let it rest there. I don’t say a word about what I know.”

She felt herself moving before she realized she had willed motion. She walked blindly toward the sliding door to the hall, hearing the shouts and curses behind her as if Bruce were on a stage rehearsing for a production she had no interest in.

“You’ll do what I tell you! Or it’s your ass!” Bruce screamed.

Because she was walking in the direction of the foyer when she left the atrium, that was where she found herself a moment later, and she kept going to the front door, and on outside. She did not see the man and woman approaching until she nearly bumped into them.

“Hi,” Charlie said, “I’m Charles Meiklejohn, and this is my wife, Constance Leidl. Who are you?”

“You’re the detective?” she said, and blinked several times.

“He is,” Constance said briskly. “And from Milton Sweetwater’s description, I’d guess you’re Beth Elringer.” Beth nodded. “Look, we were just debating whether or not lunch would be possible inside. Arriving at this time of day is a little awkward, isn’t it? We said we’d arrive in the afternoon, and, of course, officially it is after noon. About one, isn’t it? But still, we did not say we would come for lunch. Will you have lunch with us somewhere? Maybe you could direct us.”

Charlie raised his eyebrows at her, but she was already taking the young woman’s arm, steering her toward the rental car they had just driven up in. Lying like a trooper, he thought happily about Constance, and took Beth’s other arm; the three of them went to the car and got in.

“I’d better go somewhere,” Beth said, between them on the front seat. “If I go back inside right now, I might kill Bruce, and that would really look bad for me, wouldn’t it?”

“That would look bad,” Constance agreed. “What on earth did Bruce do?”

“He accused me of killing Gary.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“I thought they all said the house killed both men,” Constance said.

“They said it, but I don’t believe it. I guess Bruce must have done it, after all.”

“You thought he did, and then you changed your mind, and now you think it again,” Constance said thoughtfully, as if they had discussed this before.

“Yes. I couldn’t think of a reason before, but he just gave a reason, only he didn’t seem to realize it. Actually I don’t know this area,” she said then, looking at Charlie. “I don’t know where there are restaurants or anything else.”

“That’s all right,” Constance said reassuringly. “We passed a lot of them on our way in. Charlie knows where to go. What was the reason Bruce just revealed?”

She would get away with it, Charlie knew. She had moved in when Beth was practically in a state of shock; she had said and done exactly the right things at the right time, and this poor kid had no more resistance to her than he himself did. No sound escaped, but he was humming under his breath, listening to every word, and searching for a restaurant.

“It’s pretty complicated,” Beth said after a brief hesitation. “I thought I understood it just a minute ago, and now it seems confused again. It has to do with the company and the way it’s set up.” She lapsed into a troubled silence.

“I never studied economics enough to get a decent grasp of business affairs,” Constance said. “That’s a closed corporation, isn’t it?”

“That’s it,” Beth said, and now her words came in a rush. “When they started it all, Bruce was still married to Binny. They got divorced a couple of years ago. Two kids, perfectly awful little monsters, all whining and smeary and clinging. It’s sad for Maddie, her only two grandchildren turning out to be monsters. Anyway, Gary couldn’t stand Binny, and no one else could either as far as I could tell, except Bruce, and that didn’t last. She isn’t very smart, doesn’t know anything about computers, or anything else, I guess. So when Gary was starting the company, he had Milton write up the articles of incorporation in such a way that no stock could be inherited in the case of death of the shareholder. He was terrified of letting someone like Binny get any shares, having any voice, input, he called it. You can’t just sell a share, either,” she added in an aggrieved voice.

“So the shares of the deceased revert back to the company, which has to pay the estate the market value of them and then divide them up using a formula based on the percentage of shares they already own. The company has to buy back Gary’s shares, and Rich’s, now and redistribute them.”