The Body in the Bouillon (18 page)

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Authors: Katherine Hall Page

BOOK: The Body in the Bouillon
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“Yes,” said Faith. “It's hard to imagine how such a thing could have happened.”
Ellery shook his head. “Fortunately she has a very strong constitution. Never known her to be ill a day in her life, and we have to pray it will carry her through.”
“Darling,” Julia said, “would you mind going to get the mail? I'm expecting a rather important letter.”
There was no question. Julia wanted to get her husband out of the room. He looked at her curiously and went.
“Not too subtle, I'm afraid, but it upsets Ellery to hear about all this, and that is why you came to talk to me, isn't it?”
Julia was wearing a red cashmere sweater and well-cut charcoal-gray pants. She crossed one leg elegantly over the other and folded her hands loosely in her lap. She looked more likely to be about to discuss the latest play at the Loeb or Ozawa's last performance—or from the look of her trim figure, the best time to go to Canyon Ranch—than murder.
“Yes, it is. You said the other day that Eddie Russell's murder would be a complicated one to solve. I wondered if you were thinking of something specific.”
“You're working for the police, aren't you?” Julia said.
Faith's mother, Jane Sibley, was a lawyer too, yet Julia's manner, though equally direct, didn't have the same effect on Faith. Tete-a-tetes like this with Mom usually resembled the talking-tos of Faith's childhood. She had often wondered if it was why Jane was so successful in court. The old “Can you look me straight in the eye and say that” approach. Nevertheless, Faith felt compelled to answer Julia truthfully.
“I'm not really working for them, but I do know Detective
Lieutenant Dunne, who's in charge of the investigation, and I've told him some of my impressions of Hubbard House. That doesn't mean that I have to tell him everything you choose to tell me.” Faith spoke reassuringly.
“Unless I confess I did it.”
“You're one of the few people who have an unbreakable alibi. You and your husband. Both of you knew I was sleeping in the guest room.”
“That's true. But I did want to kill Eddie. Many times. Fortunately—or unfortunately—I also believe in a few higher things that prevented me from acting on my impulses.” Julia spoke very matter-of-factly. Faith didn't want to interrupt her train of thought and kept silent.
“Do you know that Eddie was a blackmailer?” Julia asked. Faith nodded.
Julia leaned back in her chair. “I don't know why it should seem so much worse to blackmail elderly people than another age group. It's the same crime. Yet somehow, preying on people who are at the ends of their lives does strike me as more reprehensible. They don't have time to recover. I know of three people Eddie was blackmailing here and I don't doubt there were others. You might be able to guess who one of them is—Merwin Rhodes. Eddie knew about Leandra's habit. When Eddie first approached him, Merwin confided in Ellery. Ellery has been his lawyer for years. Poor Merwin. He was afraid the knowledge would get beyond Hubbard House. People here have always been very understanding. Eddie was talking about telling the head of the Pink Ladies, Mrs. Brennan. Merwin feared she would insist that Leandra resign as head of the Residents' Council, and Leandra loves being in charge. He also thought the papers might pick it up and make sport with it—‘Brahmin Deb Turns to Pilfering in Old Age'—that sort of thing. Ellery advised him not to pay, but he did. He said it wasn't much money.”
“And the others?”
“One of the others got out of it by dying. It was a man
named Jim Keiller, a Scot, and very keen on golf. He and Eddie played together often and became friends. Eddie introduced him to a very nice, sympathetic young lady and then revealed she was a prostitute. Eddie had some naughty pictures and threatened to hang them on the bulletin board by the mailboxes downstairs.”
“How did you find out about it?”
“After Jim died, a man who was here for only a short period of time told me.”
“Not Howard Perkins!” Faith gasped.
“Why, yes, did you know him?” Julia was clearly puzzled.
“That's how all this started. He was a friend of my aunt's and wrote to her just before he died that he was uneasy about something that was going on here. She got in touch with me.”
“And you turned up in the kitchen.”
“Exactly.”
“I knew Howard years ago when I was first practicing law in New York. The ad agency he worked for was one of our clients. We were very surprised to find each other here. He was a dear man.”
“Yes,” agreed Faith, “and a smart one. After Jim Keiller told him what Eddie was doing to him, he may have found out about some others.”
“That's possible, yes.”
“And who's the third?” Faith had a feeling she knew.
“Me. Or I should say Ellery.”
Faith had been prepared for what Julia was going to say. The whole conversation had had confessional undertones. Now she waited to hear what Eddie could possibly have unearthed about this nice couple.
“Eddie had a kind of sixth sense for certain kinds of behavior. Perhaps because he was so weak himself, he knew how to ferret out others' weaknesses. It was as if he was tuned in to some sort of special world cable channel broadcasting signals that indicated who would want to
have an affair, who wanted to use a particular drug, or who wanted to look at smut. Because he was scum, he only saw the same.”
This was interesting and morally uplifting, Faith thought, but it wasn't telling.
“Ellery has always had a bad back. Disc trouble, and when the pain is too excruciating, he takes codeine. A year ago he developed a mild addiction to it, and I made the mistake of getting some from Eddie. I knew Dr. Hubbard was monitoring Ellery's drug intake carefully, and I couldn't get an increase from him. Ellery was begging me for more of the drug. It was incredibly stupid, but I was tired and strung out myself from taking care of Ellery. After it was all over, Eddie demanded payment. I had a choice.” Julia's lip curled. “I could pay in cash or in kind. I suppose at my age he meant me to be flattered.”
“What a creep!” The last vestiges of any sympathy she had entertained for Eddie slipped silently away.
“I didn't agree, though. Frankly, I told him to go fuck himself, because it was the only sex he was going to get—with me anyway. But I couldn't tell Roland without revealing Ellery's problem, and that was not my story to tell. He would not have been able to stay here if he'd thought Roland, who has been his close friend all these years, knew. He is very ashamed. Of course Eddie couldn't tell Roland either without revealing how he knew. If he told anyone else, I planned to deny the whole thing. I started watching him very carefully and told him if he didn't stop his activities, I'd go to Dr. Hubbard. This was last month.”
“I don't see why the police have to know about Ellery, since he couldn't have killed Eddie. I would like to tell them the rest, though.”
“Fine, if you think it will help. Anything to get this settled.”
“And what about Leandra? Do you think it was an accident?”
“No. I wish I could. But I also can't think of any reason
why someone would want to kill her or how it connects to Eddie's death.”
“And how about the attack on Charmaine?” Dunne had told Faith to go along with Charmaine's version of the event, despite his own skepticism. They might get more information that way.
“It's very puzzling. Possibly someone Eddie was blackmailing. Wanted to scare her, so she wouldn't keep the business going.”
Faith looked slightly confused, and Julia said, “Oh yes, I'm fairly certain that Charmaine and Eddie were partners in many ways. She's not as silly as she looks. But I don't think she'd commit murder. Too worried about her position, or hoped-for position, in society.”
Ellery walked into the room with a stack of letters.
“I hope what you're waiting for is here, my dear.”
“Thank you, I think I have already found part of what I've been waiting for.” She looked at Faith gratefully. “Do you know I'm suddenly very hungry. Are you sure you won't change your mind and join us for lunch, or haven't you developed a taste for New England boiled dinner yet?”
Faith did not know how to answer. What leaped to mind was scarcely polite—something like “only when old shoe leather and boiled dishcloths are not available.” She rose and thanked them instead, then quickly went down the hall around the rear to the elevator. There was no way she was taking the stairs.
 
She picked Ben up at school and settled him at the table with a dish of applesauce while she made sandwiches for their lunch. Ben liked food to appear immediately. He wasn't much for deferred gratification at this stage. She was having some trouble with it herself. She wanted to call James' number, but she'd have to wait. The demands of a two-and-a-half-year-old boy were too unpredictable, and the last thing she wanted was to be interrupted in the middle of the conversation by Ben's newest
activity—a manic imitation of a character he'd invented called “Super Dog.” Super Dog could fly, leap tall doghouses at a single bound, and crush any number of dog bones in one bare paw. The furniture was taking quite a beating, and Faith was trying to restrict Super Dog to the yard, but it didn't always work.
By two o'clock, Ben was asleep surrounded by the several dozen stuffed animals he insisted on keeping in his bed. Faith hoped someone would simply give him some Gund stock for Christmas rather than another bear, irresistible as they might be.
She went downstairs and got the number from her purse. There wasn't any area code, which meant Muriel knew it or it was nearby. She dialed and it started ringing. Her lucky day.
A man answered. “Winthrop Chambers.”
“May I speak to James Hubbard, please?”
“Jimmy? He's not here right now.”
“Do you know when I might be able to reach him?”
“It's kind of hard to say. He's usually here in the morning. Who should I tell him called?”
“That's all right. I'll call him back. Thank you.”
Faith hung up quickly. She went to get the Boston phone book from the closet. The Winthrop Chambers was on Beacon Hill—the wrong side, away from the common. It was probably a rooming house or some sort of resident hotel. She'd find out in the morning when she went there. Now that she knew where he was, it would be better to go in person. A phone is too easy to hang up.
She hoped John Dunne would come before Ben woke up, but time passed and he still hadn't arrived. It was after three and a shrill cry, “Mommee! Mommee!” meant Ben was awake and ready for more action.
She had no sooner set Ben up with gold twine and the box of wooden spools he had painted to make necklaces for Christmas presents when the phone rang. It was Detective Dunne.
“I'm up to my ears here, Faith, and I won't be able to get over today. Maybe tomorrow. Find out anything?”
Faith gave him a quick report on her conversation with Julia.
“The guy was a real operator,” Dunne commented. “I'm not surprised he got iced. Now I've got to go. By the way, I don't think there's any point in your going back there.”
“I thought I'd go to the Christmas Party on Friday night. Maybe someone will drink too much eggnog, break down, and confess.”
“That would make life easier, but I doubt it. Still, going to the party is a good idea. Get your husband to go with you. No wandering around those halls in the dark.”
She remembered to tell him her theory about why Leandra might have been pushed, then they said good-bye and she hung up the phone with a slight feeling of annoyance. All these big—and in Dunne's six-foot-seven case very big—overprotective males. She knew their attitude was supposed to make her feel cared for and cherished, but they wouldn't talk to Murphy Brown that way.
Ben was singing the
Winnie-the-Pooh
theme song over and over to himself and threading the spools. The capacity for endless repetition that children this age had always amazed Faith. Ben only knew the words “Winnie-the-Pooh,” and it was beginning to sound like a mantra. She sat down next to him with her notebook. So far it didn't have anything written in it. She gave Ben a kiss on the top of his head, and he interrupted his tune to smile radiantly up at her. Maybe another child wasn't such a bad idea.
Time to play What Do We Know? she told herself—the “we” being Dunne and Fairchild, which sounded like something that ought to go public and make a bundle on the stock market.
She wrote “Edsel Russell” on the top of the first page and listed the following notes: “Thirty years old. Born in
Aleford, left as teenager. Good-looking. Liked women. Liked kinky sex. Dealt drugs. Not a user. Blackmailer.”
Then she wrote: “Motives, Means, and Opportunity.” It looked serious. She paused. She knew for certain that he was blackmailing Merwin Rhodes and Bootsie Brennan. He might have been planning to blackmail Denise, as well as sell her drugs. He'd tried to blackmail Julia. He'd blackmailed Jim Keiller, but Jim was dead and in no position to commit murder. Julia was out because she knew Faith was in the guest room. Merwin Rhodes was probably out for the same reason, but Leandra might not have told him. Bootsie was unlikely because of the weather. The same for Denise. Anyway, John Dunne said they hadn't turned up any tire tracks or footprints outside in the snow. She started to jot this all down. Somehow she couldn't envision any of these people tying Eddie up and then decorating his chest with knives. There was also the strong possibility that someone else at Hubbard House was being blackmailed.

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