The Killing Edge (19 page)

“Fine, fine,” he replied and led her to a large wall map where colored pins protruded from the outlines of various units. “We do have one or two choice locations left.”

“Actually, I'm not retired yet, but …”

“Don't worry about it a minute. The by-laws say you're supposed to be over 50, but they'll never stand up in court.”

“And I'm interested in a unit held by an estate.”

His smile dropped away. “In that instance you'll have to negotiate with the executor. We only sell the units just completed.”

“Can you tell me where the Strickland unit is?”

“Strickland.” He examined the legend at the bottom of the map and located a pin at the end of a cul-de-sac. “Yeah, I remember that one. The old guy passed away a few weeks ago. Used to sing Irish patriotic songs in the middle of the night. We had lots of complaints over that.”

“Irish songs? Wadsworth Strickland was head of the S.A.R. back in Lantern City.”

“S.A.R., SOB, I don't know about that. All I know is that he'd get tanked out of his mind and start singing.”

She stood on the steps of the Strickland condominium and pressed her face against the window. Curtains had been removed from the windows, the furniture had been placed near the door, and large cartons were piled along one wall. Obviously Toby expected a moving company to ship the remaining items back to Connecticut. It was unlikely that anything incriminating would have been left behind.

She left the apartment and began to walk back to the entrance of the development. A large building at the head of the street had a small wooden sign planted in the grass near the door.

OLIVE BAY ACTIVITIES AND RECREATION BUILDING

The social director, a woman of indeterminate age with hips that were beginning to bulge her tight pants suit, was mumbling to herself in her small office when L.C. knocked on the open door.

She looked up and squinted toward the door. “They eat the Ping-Pong balls. That's the only answer. They eat them like hors d'oeuvres.”

“I'm L.C. Converse, and I wonder if I could talk to you about one of the residents who recently died?”

“Do you know how much Ping-Pong balls are a gross? Oh, never mind, come in. Do you have a cigarette?”

L.C. sat across from the cluttered desk. “I'm afraid not. Did you know Wadsworth Strickland?”

“The Mad Irishman. Not very well. He never came out of his unit. I looked in his garbage can once when I was searching for Ping Pong balls, and it was stuffed with empty liquor bottles. Never knew a man could drink that much.”

“Did you ever see him?”

“He only lived here a few weeks before he died. And his daughter-in-law kept him pretty well secluded.”

“Then you wouldn't know what he looked like?”

“He had me come in to play checkers with him once. Then his daughter-in-law came home from the store. She was mad as hell, said he was ill and shouldn't have visitors.”

“Describe him.”

The social director shrugged. “How could I? After a few years of this work all the old geezers look alike.”

Doctor Aldis Hoover sliced an iron shot into a bunker at the sixteenth green and began to swear. He climbed back in the golf cart next to L.C. and jammed his club back in the golf bag on the rear rack.

“Play here twice a week and that's the millionth time I've been in that bastard.”

“You say you saw Mr. Strickland several times before he died?”

“Saw him that day, not four hours before. Told the stubborn bastard that he'd die if he didn't lay off the sauce. There wasn't any liver left, and his daughter-in-law wouldn't let him go to the hospital. She said she'd take care of him. Happens that way sometimes.”

“What?”

The golf cart whirred noiselessly across the fairway. “Well, I shouldn't really say, but she killed him as sure as if she'd put a gun to his head.”

“How?”

“The booze. Gave him as much as he wanted. Hell, maybe she was in a hurry to get the estate settled.”

“Doctor, how do you know that the man you were treating was Wadsworth Strickland?”

“How? He told me so, his daughter-in-law told me. What do you want me to do? Take his fingerprints?”

“Can you describe him.”

“Sixty, maybe five-five. No liver, no liver at all.”

L.C. watched as the doctor climbed from the cart and glowered at the sand trap. Wadsworth Strickland was at least six feet tall and closer to seventy than sixty.

With an easy overhand, Doctor Hoover picked up the golf ball and threw it toward the green. L.C. pretended not to notice.

Subdued organ music filled the mortuary from hidden speakers. A cadaverous man in dark suit and tie met her unctuously at the door. “May I help you?”

“Yes. I'm from the Strickland family and we need a receipted bill for the services you recently performed for the family.”

“Come this way, please.” He led her to a large comfortable office with a couch and easy chairs. Boxes of Kleenex were placed strategically throughout the room. He searched briefly through a cabinet and returned to the desk with a file folder. “Here it is. I can have a duplicate in a few minutes.”

“We're from Connecticut and weren't present for the services. I hope they were adequate.”

He looked at her with a worried frown. “But there weren't any services. Mrs. Strickland said that since the deceased had so recently retired from Connecticut that memorial services would be held in …” He looked at the file. “Lantern City.”

“They were, but I thought that some of his friends in Florida would have wanted …”

“To view?”

“Yes.”

“Mrs. Strickland said she wanted nothing of that nature, just final preparation and cremation. Florida law requires embalming, and we made the arrangements with the crematorium and took care of the disposal of the ashes at sea ourselves. You will notice those items on the bill.” He handed her the original of the invoice.

L.C. glanced at it a moment and then up at the man across the desk. “I see items here for casket and slumber room.”

“Well, yes. It's possible to have a cremation without a casket, but we felt that since Mr. Wadsworth Strickland was a man of dignity that the family would have wished that all preparations be of the first order. We included a casket and the use of a slumber room until cremation.”

“That was very thorough of you,” L.C. said and wondered how much additional money that cost the Strickland estate.

“We try to be thorough with taste.”

“Then no one came by?”

“Mrs. Strickland said she wanted the Lantern City Press notified, but that it wasn't necessary to have any publicity concerning the passing in Florida.”

“Then there wasn't any obituary in Florida?”

“The ordinary alphabetical listing in the local paper. You'll see on line fourteen a very reasonable charge for that service.”

“Thank you very much.”

“I'll have a copy of the bill for you in a moment,” the mortician said as they walked to the door. “You know, one friend of the family did come by. He became quite agitated and told me there had been an error.”

“What sort of error?”

“That sometimes happens when a friend or relative comes by the slumber room and hasn't seen the deceased in some time, particularly when there's been a long illness. They often don't recognize the loved one.”

“This man who didn't recognize Mr. Strickland, would you remember him if I show you a photograph of him?”

Will Barnes had his feet on the desk, his chair pushed back against the wall, and was staring at the ceiling. “You know, L.C., you sound almost hysterical.”

“I haven't slept. Now, let me finish. I took the photograph of Hal Warren from the bulletin board at the motel and showed it to the man at the funeral home.”

“And …?”

“He positively identifies Hal Warren as the man who came by to pay his respects to Wadsworth Strickland and became very upset and talked of the mistake they'd made.”

“What did Warren do about it?”

“Left the funeral home in a hurry.”

“And went back to the boat to be murdered by Bennie Filigree.”

“Poor Bennie. They're still holding him.”

“All right, now where is all this leading?”

“Someone else, someone not Wadsworth Strickland was cremated in Florida.”

“Then where's Wadsworth?”

“He was killed and tied under the pier. That was the body I saw that day.”

Will's feet banged to the floor as his chair creaked forward. “Far out, L.C. Far out.”

“You're not letting me put it all together.”

“I wish you would. Right now, all I hear is that some bodies disappear and some bodies that aren't who they're supposed to be, appear.”

“Let's start over again. Wadsworth Strickland was murdered and tied under the pier.”

“By his son.”

“Probably. Now, they just couldn't have Wadsworth disappear. There's a large estate involved, lawyers, insurance, they had to have documentation of his death. They got someone to impersonate Wadsworth, someone shorter and younger. When that person died, a proper death certificate was issued, the cremation was held and …”

“The memorial service was held 1,500 miles away by the friends and family.”

“Everything was in order.”

“That accounts for the body under the pier, but still …”

“It all ties together, don't you see?”

“No.”

“Mauve fell through the ice the day of the murder, the same as I did later. She saw, or the killer thought she saw, the body under the pier. That's why she was killed.”

“And why was Hal Warren in Florida? Wait a minute, Hal saw the small obituary in the Florida paper, went to the funeral home and found out that the corpse was not Wadsworth. He'd be one of the few people down there that knew Strickland, except for …”

“Toby Strickland.”

“So, Hal accosts Toby, asks her what in hell is going on, and is killed.”

“Yes,” she said triumphantly.

“Except that there isn't any body under the pier. Where are the remains of Wadsworth Strickland?”

“I don't know, but all we have to do is find his body and you've got a case.”

“And who was cremated in Florida?”

Her voice dropped. “I don't know that either.”

“There's no case, L.C. We've got lots of nothing. In the first place, for all this to fit together, Herb and Toby had to find someone to impersonate Herb's father. Someone who is virtually on his last legs himself, and is fool enough or dumb enough to go through with the charade.”

“Or drunk enough.”

Will looked at her for a long moment, jack-knifed from the chair and left the office. He returned in a few moments carrying a bulky file folder which he began to search through.

“What's that?” she asked.

“The complete file on the Bridger murder: autopsy report, affidavits, investigation reports, the whole works. Here it is.” He held up a page. “Wally McNulty.”

“Huh?”

“It could be the missing link.”

“What in the world does Wally have to do with the death of Wadsworth Strickland?”

“Not Wally. His friend Louis.”

Wally McNulty spooned milk toast into a mouth that was missing a great many teeth. L.C. and Will sat across the bare table from the aging derelict in the Alcoholic Unit of the state hospital. Wally picked up the bowl, tilted it to his mouth, and finished the last dregs.

“Tell us about your friend, Louis,” Will asked.

The old man's eyes misted. “Louis's gone. Took off on me. We always come here when the weather get cold, and stay until the snow melts. It works out better that way, you know.”

“What happened this year?” Will asked gently.

“Few weeks ago, before the weather turned bad, we were sitting on the stoop behind the liquor store. Louis had a bottle of red, and we were splittin' it. Louis was good that way, anything he had I had, you know.”

“What happened then?” Will pressed.

“This big car drove down the alley, stopped, and this guy said for one of us to come over and talk. I was holding the bottle then, so Louis went. They talked for a minute and then Louis got in the car and they drove away. Funny.”

“What was so funny?”

“Him goin' off in the car when we had almost a full bottle of red.”

“Could you recognize the man in the car?”

“I don't think I could recognize my own mother more'n ten feet away.”

“And you never saw Louis again.”

“For a few minutes a couple hours later. He came back singing, like he was having a real good time and had drunk some good whisky. He gave me his overcoat and said he wouldn't be needing it.”

“He didn't say where he was going?”

“Nope. Hardly said anything, just that he was going South and he'd see me in the spring. Then he was gone in the big car again and that was the last I saw of him.”

“Did he ever sing ‘Kevin Barry'?” L.C. asked.

Will glared at her. “What does …”

Wally laughed. “Hell, yes. ‘Kevin Barry,' ‘Out with the Black and Tans', all them Irish songs. After a snootful, Louis loved to sing. Oh, how he loved to sing.”

They went by the medical records room and had the librarian pull last year's chart on Louis O'Shaugnasy. The file indicated that during last year's admission he had already been diagnosed as having acute cirrhosis of the liver.

Chapter Fourteen

They sat in Will's car in the Bridget driveway and watched the water. In the fading light, L.C. could still make out the dock with its mounted floodlight. A fog had begun to move in from the Sound and obscured the end of the pier, making it appear as if it continued onward indefinitely.

“Whoever moved the body from under the dock couldn't have taken it far.”