Amy Patricia Meade - Marjorie McClelland 02 - Ghost of a Chance (27 page)

“Aw, but Miss McClelland,” he whined, “I promised my mom I’d
go straight home from the drugstore. She’s gonna blow her top if
I’m not home soon.”

“I’ll have Detective Jameson write you a note.”

“Fat lot of good that’ll do. She’s still sore at me for sneaking outta
the house the other morning.”

“What if I make it worth your while?” Marjorie offered.

Freddie’s curiosity was piqued. “Yeah? How much?”

“Fifty cents” she proposed.

The boy shook his head. “Nope. Fifty cents ain’t worth getting
into trouble twice in one week. Not with my Mom’s temper.” He narrowed his eyes. “But four dollars…”

“Four dollars!” Marjorie shrieked. “I’m asking you to take me
to the police station, not Medicine Hat!”

“Three dollars,” Freddie suggested.

She pondered it for a moment. “Two,” she haggled.

“Okay, two. But in cash.”

“Yes, yes, in cash.”

“In advance,” he stipulated.

“In advance!”

The boy nodded, and she reluctantly pulled two dollars out of her
purse. “You know this is extortion, Freddie,” she said as she handed
him the money.

“Oh, yeah?” he grinned. “Call the cops.”

JAMESON AND NOONAN WERE exiting the police station as Marjorie
approached, riding on the handlebars of Freddie’s bicycle. “Looks
like your girlfriend’s paying a visit,” Noonan observed.

Freddie stopped the bike in front of them and Marjorie leapt
from her perch. “I’ve done it! I’ve cracked the code!”

“You did, huh?” Jameson was skeptical. “And, uh, just how did
you do that?”

“With this.” Marjorie held up the book.

“The Bible?” Noonan asked incredulously. “What’d you do? Pray
for the solution?”

“No, smarty pants. I was reading this Bible Reverend Price gave
me, when suddenly it occurred to me: Matt isn’t a person!” She
grabbed Jameson by the shoulders. “He’s an apostle!”

“An apostle?” Jameson asked.

“Look,” Freddie spoke up, “apostles or no apostles, all I know
about the Bible is that my mother uses it across my backside when
I’m late. Can I go home now?”

“Yes, yes,” Marjorie answered distractedly. “Go on home.”

“She’s all yours,” the boy gave a nod of the head to Jameson
before pedaling back up the road.

“Where was I?” Marjorie strived to regain her train of thought.
“Oh, yes. Matt! Reverend Price gave me this Bible to … er, well, to
look over … and it dawned on me that Matt-the Matt we were
looking for-wasn’t a person, but a book in the Bible, named after
the apostle, Matthew! I flipped through to the book of Matthewyou know the first Gospel in the New Testament-and there it was,
plain as the nose on your face-5:21! It’s not a date, but a chapter
and verse.” She opened to a marked page and began to read. “‘You
have heard it said to those of old, `You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.”’

Jameson took the book from her hands. “Let me see that.”

Marjorie leaned over his shoulder as he read. “What’s more, on
the way over here, I counted the number of letters in that verseat least the best I could count while riding on the handlebars of
Freddie’s bike.” She paused and said, aside, “By the way, I hope that
boy never gets his driver’s license. Do you know, I think he was
actually trying to hit the holes in the road?”

“Imagine that,” Noonan teased.

Marjorie stuck her tongue out at the officer.

Jameson intervened. “Yes, yes, as you were saying, you counted
the letters and … ?”

“Oh, yes, I counted the letters in that passage and there are exactly 99 of them, which would explain why none of the digits on the
coded note exceed that number.”

“Coincidence,” Noonan jeered.

“No, it isn’t” she countered. “Think about it. The person who
wrote that note would want it to be decoded easily by the recipient.”

“Obviously,” the officer replied impatiently.

“So,” she continued, “the key to cracking the code would have to
be something accessible to both the writer and the reader. Let’s assume that the reader in this case is Alfred Nussbaum-a man who
lives in a hotel. If you’re the writer of the note, what’s the one thing
you can be certain he’d have access to?”

“The Bible,” Jameson responded.

“Exactly. The Bible-a fixture in every American hotel room
from here to the Pacific Coast. Not that I’ve personally been in very
many of them,” she cleared her throat.

The detective handed the book to Noonan. “Give this to the
fellas working on the code and see what they can do with it.”

“It’s a crackpot idea,” Noonan argued.

“Yeah, but sometimes crackpot ideas work,” Jameson pointed
out. “It’s been four days since we found that note, and we still
haven’t been able to decipher it. At this point, I’m willing to try
anything. Besides that line about murder is a little creepy.”

“A little creepy?” Marjorie challenged.

“Okay, okay, just get her to stop,” Noonan crankily complied,
as he took the book into the station house, grumbling. “We’ll give
it a try, but I doubt it will work. Screwy dame-giving everyone a
bunch of harebrained ideas.”

Marjorie waited until the officer was gone before she spoke.
“Did you get any leads from Nussbaum’s financial records?”

Jameson leaned back against the hood of the squad car. “Leads?
No, but we did find some pretty strong motives for both Mrs.
Nussbaums. Josie took out a hefty life insurance policy on her hus band just a few days after their wedding. Get this-a policy with a
double indemnity clause.”

“But Josie wouldn’t have been able to collect on that clause,”
Marjorie stated. “She’s still married to Saporito and Alfred was still
married to Bernice.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Josie and Saporito had fake divorce
papers made up. As for Alfred’s bigamy-no one knew about that
at the time.”

“Mmm, but even if this hadn’t turned into a murder investigation, the cause of Alfred’s death would have been ruled a heart attack-nothing accidental about that.”

“True,” Jameson capitulated, “but it’s possible that Josie and
Saporito had intended for Nussbaum’s death to look like an accident and something went wrong with their plan. Or, maybe they
chickened out and decided not to be greedy and stick with the original settlement of $5,000, just to avoid an investigation that could
have revealed that the Nussbaum’s marriage was never legal in the
first place” He arched his eyebrows. “Either way, the insurance policy proves that Josie entered into her marriage with more than just
love in her heart.”

“So? She married a man she didn’t love-you certainly can’t arrest her for that. She’s not the first girl to do it, and she definitely
won’t be the last.” Marjorie paused to think of her present situation,
and then resumed. “What did you find out about Bernice? Did she
too, have a large insurance policy on Alfred?”

“No, but she shared a bank account with him-an account Alfred had been bleeding dry for several months. Whether he made
the withdrawals in order to pay gambling debts, or to keep Josie in lipstick, who knows. Either way, Bernice was left in pretty dire financial straits-something that didn’t sit well with her, I’m sure.”

Marjorie shook her head and leaned beside the detective. “Shame
on Alfred for doing that to the mother of his children, but shame
on her for not opening an account in her own name. One that he
couldn’t touch.”

“Not every woman has your presence of mind, honey,” Jameson
said admiringly.

She smiled sweetly, pleased that he should notice one of her finer
attributes. “What about the bus companies? Anything there?”

“Hmph. Turns out witnesses recognized both Bernice and Natalie.”

“Both of them? Together?”

Jameson shook his head. “No, they were traveling separately, on
different buses. Natalie left Boston Friday night and stayed in Hartford. Bernice left early the next morning. But they were both headed
to Ridgebury.”

“And Bernice and Natalie, as well as Herbert, had access to the
curare. It’s seems like too much of a coincidence that they were all
there at the same time. Do you think they all could have been in on
it together?”

“I don’t know anymore,” he threw his hands in the air. “That
family makes my head spin.”

“What about our other suspects? Does anyone remember seeing them?”

“Nope. But that doesn’t put any of them in the clear. Murphy
has loads of guys on his payroll-we could be looking for anyone.
Josie has costumes and wigs, so she could easily have altered her appearance. Ditto for Saporito-Josie slips a wig onto that fat head of his, sticks a different nose on his face, and voila! No one recognizes
Saporito’s photo and, therefore, no one can tell us if he was there at
eleven forty-five in the morning or at ten forty-five.”

“How frustrating,” Marjorie commented. “And what about the
`Lady in White’?”

“That was a wash too. It’s as if she materialized out of thin air and
then disappeared back into it. But,” he continued, “there again, Josie
dons a wig, white suit, gloves, and hat and brings along a change of
clothes. She kills `Alfie, sneaks into the rectory or some tent to change
clothes, and bang! So begins the legend of the `Lady in White”’

“Mmm,” she grunted in agreement. “Although that story could
apply equally to any of the women in this case. Josie, having easy
access to wigs and costumes, is naturally the first to fall under suspicion, but, in reality, both Bernice and Natalie could have had an
old wool suit and a matching hat hiding somewhere in their closets.
They’re both tall and thin and neither of them would have needed
a wig.”

“But this woman was described as being anywhere from her
late twenties to her early fifties. Natalie is only nineteen.”

Marjorie sighed noisily at man’s utter ignorance of anything female. “This woman was also wearing a heavy veil and, most likely
heavy makeup. It’s not very difficult to make nineteen look like
thirty.”

“No, I suppose not,” Jameson capitulated. “Though you know
more about these things than I do.”

Marjorie again grunted in agreement. “So, it sounds as though
your day was a washout.”

“Not exactly. I did happen to unearth some very interesting information regarding the Cullen brothers.”

“Oh? I thought you said you hadn’t gotten any leads.”

“Yeah,” he replied, “that wasn’t completely true. While reviewing
the bank statements, we found that four months ago, two checks had
been deposited to Alfred’s account within days of each other. One of
those checks is from Alchemy, the other is from Cullen Chemicals.”

“So, Alfred cashed a check from one company while he was working for the other. That doesn’t mean anything. His last paycheck from
Cullen Chemicals probably overlapped with his first paycheck from
Alchemy.”

Jameson shook his head. “The check from Cullen Chemicals was
too big to be a paycheck. Not unless he was earning the equivalent
of six salesmen’s salaries.”

“Maybe that check was to cover a few weeks’ pay. The Cullens
hadn’t been doing too well financially, it’s plausible that they might
have been arrears in paying their employees’ salaries.”

“The check was for $7,000,” Robert revealed. “If that was for
back pay, then Alfred hadn’t received a weekly wage in a number of
years.

“$7,000! Did you mention this to the Cullen brothers?”

“No, Noonan and I were headed there when you showed up.”

Marjorie stepped aside from the vehicle. “Oh. Well, if you want
to go see them, don’t let me stand in your way.”

“I’m not. I’m waiting see if your code idea works out. If that note
points to the Cullens as the murderers, then I’ll cut out the guessing
games and get a warrant for their arrest. If it fingers someone else,
then I’ll have saved myself a trip.”

She nodded and leaned back against the squad car again. “Did
you hear from Creighton?” she asked nonchalantly.

“Yeah, as a matter of fact I did. He called me right after the funeral.”

“What happened?”

“What didn’t happen?” Robert rejoined. “I’ll give you the abridged
version: Bernice and Josie got into a wrestling match, pinning Logan against the floor and upsetting the funeral director. Kenneth and
Charles Cullen interrogated Nussbaum’s widows. Murphy and his
gang did a test to make sure that the corpse was indeed a corpse. Natalie was feeling guilty about something terrible she had done. And
Herbert proved himself to be a crack shot with a peashooter.”

Marjorie stared at him wild-eyed. “What does it all mean?”

“The long and the short of it-everyone is still a suspect.”

She rolled her eyes. “Swell. Although if Herbert is, indeed, a crack
shot with a peashooter, that could be the murder weapon you’re
looking for. We already found him making darts. What else do you
need to put him away?”

Jameson shook his head slowly. “Trust me, the same thing popped
into my head. But then Creighton stopped me. He said he didn’t
believe it was the peashooter, but something else. Said that people
would remember a kid with a peashooter and that the real murder
weapon was more likely something less apt to stir suspicion.”