“Actually, it was probably a bit after that. Closer to seven, I should think.”
In fact, he had gotten home at seven-fifteen. He remembered the time distinctly. Silently, Malcolm cursed himself. Janice had told him that his face could have been read like an open book when Irma Woods had delivered the news about Nuala’s will. “You looked as if you wanted to kill someone,” she had said, a smirk on her face. “You can’t even plan to cheat someone without something going wrong.”
So this morning he quickly had prepared answers to questions that he anticipated Brower would ask about his reaction to the canceled sale. He would not let his emotions show again. And he was glad he had thought the situation through thoroughly, because, in fact, the officer asked a number of questions, probing for details of the proposed sale.
“Must have been a bit of a letdown,” Brower mused, “but on the other hand, every realtor in town has a house like Nuala Moore’s, just begging to be bought.”
Meaning, why did I want this one? Norton thought.
“Sometimes people can really want a house just because it grabs them. It says ‘Buy me, I’m yours,’ ” the chief continued.
Norton waited.
“You and Mrs. Norton must have really fallen in love with it,” Brower conjectured. “Word is, you mortgaged your own house to pay for it.”
Now Brower was leaning back, his eyes half closed, his fingers locked together.
“Anybody who wants a house that badly would hate to know that a relative of sorts was about to arrive on the scene and maybe mess things up. Only one way to prevent that. Stop the relative, or at least find a way to keep the relative from influencing the owner of the house.”
Brower stood up. “It’s been a pleasure talking to you, Mr. Norton,” he said. “Now, before I go, do you mind if I have a word with your secretary, Mrs. Hoffman?”
* * *
Barbara Hoffman did not enjoy dissembling. She had stayed home last Friday, pleading a cold, but actually what she had wanted was a quiet day to think things through. To placate her conscience, she had brought home a stack of files from the office, which she intended to clean up; she wanted them to be in good order if she decided to tell Malcolm she was leaving.
Oddly enough, he had inadvertently helped her to make her decision. He almost never came to her house, but then unexpectedly he had dropped by on Friday evening to see how she was feeling. He, of course, did not realize that her neighbor Dora Holt had stopped in. When Barbara had opened the door, he had bent to kiss her, then at her negative look, had stepped back.
“Oh, Mr. Norton,” she had said quickly, “I have that file on the Moore closing that you wanted to pick up.”
She had introduced him to Dora Holt and then made a show of going through the files and picking out one to hand him. But she hadn’t missed the knowing smirk and the lively curiosity in the eyes of the other woman. And that was the moment when she knew the situation was intolerable.
Now, as she sat facing Chief Brower, Barbara Hoffman felt sneaky and very uncomfortable telling him the lame story about why her employer had come to her home.
“Then Mr. Norton only stayed a moment?”
She relaxed a bit; at least here she could be entirely truthful. “Yes, he took the file and left immediately.”
“What file was it, Mrs. Hoffman?”
Another lie she had to tell. “I . . . I’m . . . actually, it was the file on the Moore closing.” She cringed inwardly at the stammered apology in her voice.
“Just one more thing. What time did Mr. Norton get to your house?”
“A little after six, I believe,” she replied honestly.
Brower got up and nodded at the intercom on her desk. “Would you tell Mr. Norton that I’d like another moment with him, please.”
* * *
When Chief Brower returned to the lawyer’s office, he didn’t waste words. “Mr. Norton, I understand the file you picked up from Mrs. Hoffman last Friday evening was one concerning Mrs. Moore’s closing. When exactly was the closing scheduled?”
“On Monday morning, at eleven,” Norton told him. “I wanted to be sure everything was in order.”
“You were the purchaser, but Mrs. Moore didn’t have a separate lawyer representing her? Isn’t that rather unusual?”
“Not really. But actually it was her idea. Nuala felt it was absolutely unnecessary to involve another attorney. I was paying a fair price and was handing the money over to her in the form of a certified check. She also had the right to stay there until the first of the year if she desired.”
Chief Brower stared silently at Malcolm Norton for a few moments. Finally he stood to leave. “Just one more thing, Mr. Norton,” he said. “The drive from Mrs. Hoffman’s house to your home shouldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes. That would have gotten you home by a few minutes past six-thirty. Yet you say it was nearly seven. Did you go anywhere else?”
“No. Perhaps I was mistaken about the time I arrived home.”
Why is he asking all these questions? Norton wondered. What does he suspect?
43
WHEN NEIL STEPHENS GOT BACK TO PORTSMOUTH, HIS mother knew immediately from the look on his face that he had not been successful in locating the young woman from New York.
“You only had a piece of toast earlier,” she reminded him. “Let me fix you breakfast. After all,” she added, “I don’t get much chance to fuss over you anymore.”
Neil sank into a chair at the kitchen table. “I should think fussing over Dad is a full-time job.”
“It is. But I like it.”
“Where is Dad?”
“In his office. Cora Gebhart, the lady whose table we stopped at last night, called and asked if she could come over and talk to him.”
“I see,” Neil said distractedly, jiggling the cutlery his mother had set in front of him.
Dolores stopped her preparations and turned and looked at him. “When you start fiddling like that, it means you’re worried,” she said.
“I am. If I had called Maggie as I intended last Friday, I would have had her phone number, I would have called, and I would have found out what happened. And I would have been here to help her.” He paused. “Mom, you just don’t know how hungry she was to spend this time with her stepmother. You’d never guess if you met her, but Maggie’s had a pretty bad time of it.”
Over waffles and bacon, he told her all he knew about Maggie. What he didn’t tell her was how angry he was at himself for not knowing more.
“She really does sound lovely,” Dolores Stephens said. “I’m anxious to meet her. But listen, you’ve got to stop driving yourself crazy. She is staying in Newport, and you’ve left her a note, and you have the phone number. You’ll surely reach her or hear from her today. So just relax.”
“I know. It’s just that I have this rotten feeling that there have been times when she needed me and I wasn’t there for her.”
“Afraid of getting involved, right?”
Neil put his fork down. “That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it? You know, Neil, a lot of the smart, successful young men of your generation who didn’t marry in their twenties decided they could play the field indefinitely. And some of them will—they really don’t want to get involved. But some of them also never seem to know when to grow up. I just wonder if this concern on your part doesn’t reflect a sudden realization that you care a lot about Maggie Holloway, something you wouldn’t admit to yourself earlier because you didn’t want to get involved.”
Neil stared at his mother for a long moment. “And I thought Dad was tough.”
Dolores Stephens folded her arms and smiled. “My grandmother had a saying: ‘The husband is the head of the family; the wife is the neck.’ ” She paused. “ ‘And the neck turns the head.’ ”
Seeing Neil’s startled expression, she laughed. “Trust me, I don’t agree with that particular piece of down-home wisdom. I think of a husband and wife as equals, not game players. But somet
imes, as in our case, what seems to be is not necessarily what is. Your father’s fussing and complaining is his way of showing concern. I’ve known that since our first date.”
“Speak of the devil,” Neil said, as, through the window, he spotted his father walking down the path from his office.
His mother glanced out. “Uh-oh, he’s bringing Cora in. She looks upset.”
In a very few minutes after his father and Cora Gebhart joined them at the kitchen table, Neil understood why she was upset. On Wednesday she had sold her bonds through the broker who had been so persistent in trying to get her to invest in a venture stock he had recommended, and she had given the transaction a go-ahead.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” she said. “I mean, after what Robert said at the club about not wanting another one of his ladies to lose her shirt . . . I had the awful feeling he was talking about me, and I sensed suddenly that I’d made a terrible mistake.”
“Did you call this broker and cancel the buy?” Neil asked.
“Yes. That may be the one intelligent thing I did. Or tried to do—he said it was too late.” Her voice trailed off and her lip trembled. “And he hasn’t been in his office since then.”
“What is this stock?” Neil asked.
“I’ve got the information,” his father said.
Neil read the prospectus and the fact sheet. It was even worse than he expected. He phoned his office and directed Trish to put him through to one of the senior traders. “Yesterday you bought fifty thousand shares at nine,” he told Mrs. Gebhart. “We’ll find out what’s happening to it today.”
Tersely he appraised his trading associate of the situation. Then he turned again to Mrs. Gebhart. “It’s at seven now. I’m putting in a sell order.”
She nodded her assent.
Neil stayed on the line. “Keep me posted,” he ordered. When he hung up, he said, “There was a rumor a few days ago that the company whose stock you purchased was being bought by Johnson & Johnson. But unfortunately, I’m positive it’s just that—a rumor intended to inflate the value of the stock artificially. I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Gebhart; at least we should be able to save most of your capital. My associate will call us back as soon as he makes a trade.”
“What makes me furious,” Robert Stephens growled, “is that this is the same broker who got Laura Arlington to invest in a fly-by-night company and caused her to lose her savings.”
“He seemed so nice,” Cora Gebhart said. “And he was so knowledgeable about my bonds, explaining how even though they were tax-free, the return didn’t justify all that money being tied up in them. And some were even losing buying power because of inflation.”
The statement caught Neil’s attention. “You must have told him about your bonds, if he was so knowledgeable,” he said sharply.
“But I didn’t. When he phoned to ask me to lunch, I explained I had no interest in discussing investments, but then he talked about the kind of clients he had—like Mrs. Downing. He told me that she had had bonds similar to the ones many older people hold and that he made a fortune for her. Then he talked about exactly the bonds I hold.”
“Who is this Mrs. Downing?” Neil asked.
“Oh, everybody knows her. She’s a pillar of the Providence old guard. I did call her, and she simply raved about Douglas Hansen.”
“I see. Even so, I’d like to run a check on him,” Neil said. “He sounds to me like just the kind of guy our business doesn’t need.”
The phone rang.
Maggie, Neil thought. Let it be Maggie.
Instead, it was his associate at the investment house. Neil listened, then turned to Cora Gebhart. “He got you out at seven. Count yourself lucky. There’s a rumor just starting to circulate that Johnson & Johnson is going to issue a statement saying it has absolutely no interest in taking over that company. Whether the rumor is true or not, it’s enough to send the company’s stock into a tailspin.”
When Cora Gebhart left, Robert Stephens looked at his son affectionately. “Thank God you were here, Neil. Cora has a good head and a big heart, but she’s too trusting. It would have been a damn shame to have her wiped out by one mistake. As it is, this may mean that she’ll have to give up the idea of moving into Latham Manor. She had her eye on a particular apartment there, but maybe she’ll still be able to take a smaller one.”
“Latham Manor,” Neil said. “I’m glad you mentioned it. I need to ask you about that place.”
“What on earth do you want to know about Latham Manor?” his mother asked.
Neil told them about the Van Hillearys, his clients who were looking for a retirement base. “I told them I’d investigate that place for them. I’d almost forgotten. I should have made an appointment to see it.”
“We’re not teeing up until one,” Robert Stephens said, “and Latham isn’t that far from the club. Why don’t you call over and see if you can make an appointment now, or at least pick up some literature about it for your clients.”
“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today,” Neil said with a grin. “Unless, of course, I can get hold of Maggie first. She must be home by now.”
After six unanswered rings, he replaced the receiver. “She’s still out,” he said glumly. “Okay, where’s the phone book? I’ll call Latham Manor; let’s get it out of the way.”
Dr. William Lane could not have been more pleasant. “You’re calling at a very good time,” he said. “We have one of our best suites available—a two-bedroom unit with a terrace. It’s one of four such apartments, and the other three are occupied by charming couples. Come right over.”
44
DR. LARA HORGAN, THE NEW MEDICAL EXAMINER FOR THE state of Rhode Island, had not been able to figure out what was making her uneasy. But then, it had been a busy week for her department: extraordinary deaths had included two suicides, three drownings, and a felony murder.
The death of the woman at the Latham Manor residence, on the other hand, was to all appearances purely routine. Still, something about it was bothering her. The medical history of the deceased woman, Greta Shipley, had been perfectly straightforward. Her longtime doctor had retired, but his associate verified that Mrs. Shipley had a ten-year history of hypertension and had suffered at least one silent heart attack.
Dr. William Lane, the director and attending physician at Latham Manor, seemed competent. The staff had experience, and the facilities were first-rate.
The fact that Mrs. Shipley had had a weak spell at the funeral Mass of her friend, the murder victim, Nuala Moore, and a second spell only verified the tension she must have been under.
Dr. Horgan had seen a number of instances where an elderly spouse expired hours or even minutes after the death of the husband or wife. Someone horrified by the circumstances of a dear friend’s death might easily experience that same fatal stress.
As state medical examiner, Dr. Horgan was familiar as well with the circumstances surrounding the death of Nuala Moore, and she was aware how upsetting they might be to someone as close to the victim as Mrs. Shipley had been. Multiple vicious blows to the back of Mrs. Moore’s head had proven fatal. Grains of sand mixed in with blood and hair suggested that the perpetrator had found the weapon, probably a rock, somewhere on the beach and had entered the house carrying it. It also suggested that the perpetrator had known the resident of the house was small and frail, perhaps even actually knew Mrs. Moore. That’s what it is, she told herself. The niggling feeling that Nuala Moore’s death is somehow tied in with the one at Latham Manor is what’s sending alarm signals to me. She decided to call the Newport police and ask if they had turned up any leads as yet.
The newspapers from earlier in the week were stacked on her desk. She found a brief item on the obituary page detailing Mrs. Shipley’s background, her community activities, her membership in the DAR, her late husband’s position as board chairman of a successful company. It listed her survivors as three cousins, residing in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Denver.
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No one nearby watching out for her, Dr. Horgan thought, as she put the paper down and turned to the mountain of work on her desk.
Then a final thought teased her: Nurse Markey. She was the one who had found Mrs. Shipley’s body at Latham Manor. There was something about that woman she didn’t like, a kind of sly, know-it-all quality. Maybe Chief Brower should talk to her again.
45
AS PART OF HIS RESEARCH FOR HIS LECTURE SERIES, EARL Bateman had begun to take rubbings from old tombstones. He had made them the subject of one of his talks.
“Today, minimal information is recorded on gravestones,” he would explain, “only birth and death dates, really. But in other centuries, wonderful histories could be read from headstones. Some are poignant, while some are rather remarkable, as in the case of the sea captain buried with his five wives—none of whom, I might add, lived more than seven years once married.”
At that point, he was usually rewarded by a ripple of laughter.
“Other markers,” he would explain, “are awesome in the majesty and history they convey.”
He would then cite the chapel in Westminster Abbey, where Queen Elizabeth I was entombed only a few feet from the cousin she had ordered beheaded, Mary, Queen of Scots.
“One interesting note,” he would add, “in Ketchakan, Alaska, in the nineteenth century, Tombstone Cemetery, the burial ground there, reserved a special section for the ‘Soiled Doves,’ as they called the young women who resided in bordellos.”
On this Friday morning, Earl was preparing a synopsis of the lectures he proposed to deliver in the potential cable television series. When he came to the subject of tombstone rubbings, he was reminded that he had intended to look for other interesting ones; then, realizing it was a beautiful day, perfect for such an activity, he decided to visit the oldest sections of St. Mary’s and Trinity cemeteries.
He was driving down the road that led to the cemeteries when he saw a black Volvo station wagon come out through the open gates and turn the other way. Maggie Holloway had the same make and color car, he thought. Could she possibly have been here visiting Nuala’s grave?