Amy Patricia Meade - Marjorie McClelland 02 - Ghost of a Chance (6 page)

“I thought I asked you not to interfere,” he countered.

“I wouldn’t treat Miss McClelland too harshly, Detective,” Dr.
Heller interjected. “Her `interference, as you called it, has proven vital in unraveling Alfred Nussbaum’s true cause of death. In fact, her
discovery is the reason I sent for you.” The doctor waved his hand
toward a tray of white cotton gauze resting upon the stainless steel
counter.

Jameson leaned down and gazed at the object that lay on the
blanket of white cloth. “A dart?”

“Yes,” Heller affirmed. “Looks innocent enough from the size of
it. But it’s much more sinister than it appears. It’s been dipped in an
extract of Chondodendron tomentosum.”

“Could you repeat that in English, please?”

“Curare,” Marjorie spoke up. “A deadly neuromuscular poison
used by certain Amazonian tribes on their hunting arrows. Medically, it’s prescribed as a muscle relaxant, but just a few too many
grains in the bloodstream can cause paralysis of all the body’s muscles, including the heart and the lungs. The victim eventually dies
of asphyxiation.”

The three men stared at her in awe. “I used it in my second novel,
Peril in Patagonia,” she explained.

“So what you’re saying, Doctor,” Jameson picked up the conversation again, “is that Nussbaum was poisoned.”

“That’s precisely what I’m saying, Detective. In addition to the
curare, I found particles of dried blood on the tip, type 0 positive: same as the victim. Moreover, the shape of the tip matches the
shape of the wound found on the victim’s body.”

“Let me see if I understand this correctly: Alfred Nussbaum died
because he came in contact with a dart laced with a South American
poison?”

“More or less. Although to say that he `came in contact’ with the
dart would imply some sort of accident. The wound I found was
on the left side of the neck. One would be hard-pressed to call that
an accident.”

“Then he was shot?”

“Shot, pierced, struck, however you want to put it, the simple
fact is he didn’t do this to himself.”

“Mrs. Schutt said he was alone the entire time he was on the Ferris wheel.” Marjorie reasoned. “So he must have been shot by someone standing on the ground.”

“Which means it could have occurred before he boarded,” Creighton offered.

“Highly improbable,” Dr. Heller dismissed with a shake of the
head. “The effects of curare are instantaneous. Within seconds of
being wounded, the victim would have been completely paralyzed.
He was most definitely shot while on the Ferris wheel.”

Robert stared at the dart as if intimidation might force it to reveal its secret. “Marjorie, where’d you find this thing?”

“On the ground near the body.”

“Where near the body?”

She squinted her eyes and tried to remember. “Um, near his head.
On his left side, I think.”

“You think? You mean you’re not sure?”

She didn’t particularly care for the tone Robert’s voice was taking. “I’m nearly one hundred percent certain that’s where I found
it,” she said defensively.

“Nearly one hundred percent? Why’d you pick it up in the first
place? You know better than to tamper with evidence. There’s no
way this would be admissible in court.”

Marjorie felt her blood begin to boil. “What does it matter if it’s
admissible in court? There are no fingerprints on it. All it does is
establish wrongful death-which is already indicated by the wound
on Nussbaum’s neck.”

“You didn’t know that at the time.”

“No, but I didn’t know it was evidence either. I thought it might
be an earring or a cuff link.”

“Okay, so you thought it was an earring. But, when you looked
at it and realized it might be evidence, why didn’t you show it to
me? I was at the fair. Why did you wait until now to bring it to Dr.
Heller?”

“I tried to tell you about it, but you wouldn’t listen to me.”
“

“You should have tried harder to get my attention,” he replied
matter-of-factly.

Marjorie felt a throbbing at her temples so powerful she thought
her head might explode. “Tried harder to get your attention? I could
have done the dance of the seven veils and you wouldn’t have noticed”

I would have,” Creighton offered.

“Me too,” Dr. Heller rejoined.

“Oh, be quiet!” the young woman snapped.

“All right. All right,” Jameson relented. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen
to you. As much as I would like to discuss this further, right now
I have more pressing matters to think about, such as how a man
could have ended up with a dart in his neck.”

“You heard the good doctor. Someone shot him.”

“Naturally, someone shot him,” Jameson started, “but how did
they do it? And how did they do it without being seen?”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Probably the same way
most darts are fired.”

“Swell,” Jameson replied facetiously. “I’ll have Noonan put out
an APB for a man carrying a blow gun. That ought to be a cinch.”

“Why must you interpret everything so literally?” Marjorie
chided. “Just because the killer fired the dart doesn’t mean he used a
blow gun. I’m sure there are dozens of ordinary objects which could
do the job just as well.”

“Such as?” he challenged.

“Umm … “

Creighton came to her aid. “Isn’t it enough that we’ve furnished
you with the weapon and the possible means? Must we provide
you with every detail? Next thing we know, you’ll be asking us to
find the murderer for you.”

“No, Creighton,” Jameson enunciated, “all I ask is that you leave
and take Marjorie with you. Thank you for your help, but I can manage from here.”

“But, Robert,” Marjorie began to protest.

“No arguments. Noonan found Mrs. Nussbaum at that hotel in
Hartford; he’s bringing her around to ID the body. They should be
here any minute. In the meantime, I’m going into the other room
to look at that wound on Nussbaum’s neck. When I get back, I don’t
want to see you here.”

He motioned for Dr. Heller, who swiftly unlocked the door to
the autopsy room and ushered the detective inside.

Marjorie waited until the door closed behind them to speak. “`I
don’t want to see you here,”’ she mimicked. “`Take Marjorie home,
Creighton.”’

“You heard the man,” Creighton warned as he gestured toward
the exit. “Shall we?”

“What, and miss out on meeting Mrs. Nussbaum? Not on your
life”

“Rather poor choice of words considering the circumstances.”

“Sorry,” she apologized, “but I’m not leaving. This is just starting to get good”

“Good? If a man being murdered is good, I’d hate to find out
what you consider bad.”

“Bad is leaving here without getting the whole story.”

Creighton was cautious. “Jameson is pretty cheesed off at both
of us already. Perhaps you should leave well enough alone.”

Marjorie remained defiant. “Why? What is he going to do? Throw
us in jail?”

The Englishman leaned against the counter and ran a hand
through his chestnut hair. “He could if he wanted to.”

“What are you worried about? You have enough money to post
bail for both of us. Besides,” she added, “Robert isn’t going to arrest his fiancee. He’d be the laughingstock of the whole station.”

He flashed a cunning smile. “What if you were no longer his
fiancee?”

“You mean what if Robert calls off the wedding? You and Mrs.
Patterson would like that, wouldn’t you? Although, for the life of
me, I don’t understand why. He’s treated both of you with nothing
but-” Her words fell off as she suddenly remembered something. “Wait one minute. We were discussing this at the fair when Mrs.
Schutt’s scream interrupted us. You were trying to tell me something. What was it?”

Creighton glanced at his surroundings and shook his head. “This
isn’t the place. But I could take you somewhere more … er … appropriate.”

“No dice,” she refused. “You’re not luring me away from here
that easily. Not so you can tell me I shouldn’t marry Robert because
I don’t know his shoe size.”

“So you’re determined to stay here and incur your beloved’s
wrath.”

“That’s right,” she folded her arms across her chest. “Like you
said earlier, I have to set the ground rules sometime.”

“Well, you’d better break out your lesson book,” he replied, nodding toward the door. “Dreamboat will be back any second.”

Marjorie glanced at the door, her heart full of dread. “Yes, I
know.”

Creighton’s face broke into a grin. “What’s wrong? Scared of what
Jameson’s going to do when he finds us still here?”

She tried hard not to frown as she weighed the situation. Creighton knew of her stubbornness and accepted it, perhaps even reveled
in it, but Robert was another matter entirely. She had never pushed
him this far before and was uncertain how he would react. In spite of
her fear, she affected an air of indifference. “I’m not scared. I’m just
afraid that Robert may not speak as freely if we’re here. Same goes
for Mrs. Nussbaum. There may be some facts about her late husband she wouldn’t want to discuss in front of complete strangers.”

He moved to make his exit. “Then it’s settled. We’ll go.”

She grabbed his arm. “No, I want to stay.”

The Englishman rolled his eyes. “Make up your mind. Either we
leave now, or we stay and make a poor widow feel uncomfortable.”

“We stay,” she stated firmly as a thought flashed into her brain.

“Then you’re willing to face Jameson.”

“We won’t have to,” she explained breathlessly. “I have an idea.”

Creighton drew his hand over his face. “Oh, no.”

“Stop being so wishy-washy and come on,” she ordered. Then
with a twinkle in her eye she asked, “Have I ever steered you wrong?”

CREIGHTON ESSAYED TO SQUEEZE his six-foot two-inch frame onto
the lower tier of the gurney. He would have preferred to have left
the laboratory-to escape to somewhere peaceful where he could
tell Marjorie what he had tried to tell her at the fair-but being
in such close quarters with the young woman was not without its
merits. Still, he felt obligated to complain, lest he be considered a
pushover.

“Why do I let you talk me into these things?” he grumbled. “I
feel like a passenger in a clown car.”

“Relax, it could be worse,” Marjorie assured him as she pulled
the sheet down to conceal their hiding place. “I could have picked
a table with a body on it.”

“Remind me to thank you when I get this crick out of my neck.”
He settled into the spot beside her, his legs bent at such an angle, he
could rest his head on them. “Now I know how the Dionne quintuplets felt inside their mother’s womb.”

“At least the Dionne girls didn’t have to worry about sitting on
each others’ dresses,” Marjorie grimaced as she tugged at her skirt.
“Lift up, will you.”

The Englishman obeyed and hoisted himself up on both arms,
taking care to bend at the neck so as not to hit his head on the tier
above him; in this position, their faces were only an inch apart. With
a flick of her lithe wrist, Marjorie swept the hem of her garment out
from harm’s way. “Thank you,” she croaked awkwardly.

“You’re welcome,” he whispered as his azure eyes locked onto
hers. It was intoxicating, being this close to her: the loveliness of her
face, the warmth of her body, and something else, something that
could only be described as an electrical spark. Was this spark the
byproduct of months of pining, a hobgoblin of his fertile imagination, or did she, too, sense it? There was only one way to find out.
He would kiss her and then …

The door of the examination room slammed shut and he heard
the clicking of men’s shoes against the terrazzo floor. Marjorie turned
away quickly, leaving her companion with a mouth of blonde, marcelled hair.

Creighton cursed his fate as yet another opportunity slipped
through his fingers.

“It appears your friends took your advice and left,” the coroner
noted.

“Yeah,” Jameson replied, “I’m surprised they gave in that easily.”

“They realized you meant business,” Dr. Heller explained.

“Humph,” Robert snorted. “You don’t know Marjorie.”

“Tenacious, is she?”

“Let’s just say that only passing acquaintances address her as
Miss McClelland. In more intimate circles, she’s better known as
Miss Never-Say-Die”

Marjorie, satisfied with her new sobriquet, smiled beatifically.

“Soon to be `Mrs’ Never-Say-Die,” Heller prompted.

“Don’t remind me,” Jameson quipped.

Marjorie’s smile dissipated, replaced by a visage of utter indignation. Like a jungle cat preparing to pounce, she raised a hand to
claw the sheet in front of her and opened her jaw wide as though
to emit a mighty roar. Creighton grabbed the young woman by the
waist and clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Second thoughts?” the doctor asked.

“No,” he answered decisively. “No second thoughts. Marjorie’s
absolutely wonderful. The most beautiful woman in the world.”

Marjorie’s body relaxed, and Creighton loosened his grip on her.