New Year's Eve Murder (13 page)

“The bottom line is they're not too interested.” Jack sat down next to me and picked up Eddie. “Their missing person is back and she's a suspect in a homicide upstate. That's what they care about. And the detective in charge of the case is off today. So I told the guy who answered what I knew, and maybe it'll get up to Bladesville and maybe it won't.”

“I hope it does. I want that poor woman put out of her misery.”

I also wanted a call from Heather Williams. With a last name like hers and no clue as to where she lived, I had no chance of finding her without her mother's help, and I was sure Mrs. Butler would not give it. I was convinced, as I had been several times before when looking into a murder, that something in the life of Delilah Donna Butler would give me the key to her death. There had to be a reason why a young woman who had worked for an established company for two years, and presumably enjoyed it if I could believe Harlow Sugar, would give up a reliable income, friends, and relatives, and move to a lonely house where the only transportation was provided by a friend who lived in another town; why she would lie about where she was; why she would dedicate herself to a project that might or might not pay her. She had taken
the house for six months. Was that because she thought she would be finished with her project, the play, in six months? Or was that when she thought her funds would run out?

The hoped-for call from Heather did not come on Saturday. Jack made a great fire Saturday night and turned on a movie on television. It held my interest for a while but about the time he fell asleep, I started to think about D.D. and what her mother had said. The play would be finished by New Year's Eve. The last scene would be written by New Year's Eve. Everything hinged on New Year's Eve.

The movie ended and I heard a cry from upstairs. I put my hand over Jack's and he woke up.

“Huh?”

“I'm going to nurse Eddie. He didn't get the girl.”

“Who? Eddie?”

“The guy in the movie.”

“I didn't think he would.” He rubbed his eyes.

“Jack, I have a feeling about the D.D. Butler case. I don't think she was writing a play at all. I think she was writing, or composing, a scenario for murder.”

“Whose?”

“I don't know. But I think her intended victim turned the tables on her.”

But I didn't have a clue as to who D.D.'s intended victim was. It couldn't have been Teddy Toledo if she told him not to drop by over New Year's Eve weekend. Unless he lied, which he would have if he wanted to protect himself. Susan was the only person who we knew for sure had visited the farmhouse before me, but that didn't make her a killer. And why would D.D. want to kill Susan, assuming my theory of the murder was correct?

I took my cousin Gene to mass on Sunday morning
and brought him back to the house so he could get to know his newest cousin.

“He's little,” Gene said, as we stood over the crib together.

“He's very little. But he grows bigger every day. He weighs about ten pounds now.”

“Wow!” Gene said. “Ten pounds.”

“But he's cute, isn't he?”

“Yeah. He's cute.”

“Do you want to touch him?”

“Uh-huh.” Gene stroked Eddie's little cheek with one finger. Then he turned and smiled at me. “That feels nice.”

“He has very smooth, soft skin, doesn't he?”

“Smooth,” Gene repeated. “Is he one year old?”

“No, he's just six weeks old. Almost seven weeks.”

“Wow,” Gene said. “Seven weeks old.”

“Sit on the chair, Gene. I'll put him in your lap. Be very careful, OK?”

“OK.”

I took Eddie out of the crib and laid him in Gene's big lap. They spent a minute looking at each other. Gene was smiling. “I think he likes me,” he said.

“I know he likes you. He knows you're his cousin and he knows you're a very good person.”

Suddenly Eddie began to cry.

“He's mad at me,” Gene said.

“No, he's not. He's just hungry. When babies don't know what else to do, they cry.”

“Take him away, Kix.”

“Here we go.” I lifted the baby off his lap. “Why don't you go downstairs and help Jack with dinner. I'll be down in a little while.”

He was glad to go.

The call from Heather Williams came late in the afternoon, after I had taken Gene back to Greenwillow.

“I'm glad you called,” I said, understating how I felt.

“I just got home. The police came today to talk to Mom and Dad. They want dental records and pictures and things. No one can understand why D.D. was in New York State when she told us she was in New Hampshire. Unless it isn't D.D.”

“They should be able to determine that pretty soon with the dental records,” I said. “Can you tell me how old D.D. was?”

“Thirty-one.”

“Were you close?”

“Well, we're close in age, so we grew up together and we were always best friends.”

“But you hadn't seen her recently, had you?”

“No. She went away last summer and I haven't seen her since. I guess maybe we stopped being best friends when I got married. She wasn't angry or anything; it's just that our lives went in different directions. D.D.'s work was very important to her and my husband was first in my life.”

“I understand. Did she tell you she was going away?”

“She called me one night in the summer. She said she had a little money saved and she had things she wanted to do, so she was going up to New England for a few months.”

“Did she tell you about this play she was writing?”

“No, she didn't. She told that to Mom. She told me she had things she had to work out, some problems she wanted to solve. She said she'd be back when it was all taken care of.”

“Did she ever call you?”

“She called Mom. Once I was in the house when she
called and we talked a little. I asked her for her number so we could call her back and save her some money, but she wouldn't give it.”

That was because D.D. wasn't in the area code she claimed to be in. “Do you know any of D.D.'s friends, Heather?”

“Not anymore. When we were going through school I did. When she went to New York to work, I kinda lost track of them.”

“Did she ever mention a Susan Stark?”

“It doesn't sound familiar.”

“Did she ever tell you about someone she disliked, maybe even hated?”

“Well—uh-oh, just a minute.” There were some sounds and then Heather came back. “I'm sorry, I've got to go. My mother's on the other line.”

“Heather, may I have your number?”

“Sure.” She said it quickly, then, “G'bye,” and hung up.

I wasn't sure whether staying on the phone longer would have yielded more. People don't often tell their friends and sisters who they're planning to do away with. At least Brooklyn had notified Bladesville, and Bladesville had gotten the Paramus police to notify the Butlers.

But I was stuck. I had learned a tremendous amount, had traced D.D. to the farmhouse and then worked backward to her family, more than the police had done. But I had failed to find a connection between her and Susan, and Susan was now off-limits. And without that connection, I had no idea which way to turn.

Monday morning I did something I had not done before. I drove over to the post office early in the morning and asked for my mail. It wasn't completely
sorted yet, but when I saw the large envelope from Harlow Sugar, I knew I had what I wanted.

At home I put Eddie where he could watch me and I opened the envelope and pulled out several badly copied sheets. Many lines were too black to be legible but it didn't matter; there was enough to make it worthwhile.

The story was titled “Lists” and it was unlike any story I had ever read before.

I am a writer of lists. My lists keep me going. Without them there is no plan to my day and no reason for my being. There is nothing ordinary about my lists. My list of the people I hate is not very long but it is sincere. The list of people I love is much longer but it is also less honest. At the top of the sincere list is my Big Boss. At the bottom of the insincere list is my boyfriend Todd. Between those names stretches my entire history.

It was a chilling story. In it the narrator, a woman bursting with hatred and resentment, plans to kill not someone on the list of people she hates, but someone on the other list, the people she loves. She picks the person almost at random, weighing the pros and cons of all the people on the list. In the end she kills a stranger, from her description a young man without a mean bone in his body.

It was a terribly depressing story. Since it was the only one Harlow Sugar had sent me, I couldn't tell what the contents of the rest of the magazine were like. Perhaps this was the kind of writing they liked, but it wasn't my style, and while I felt deeply sorry for the young man who eventually is marked for death, I had sad feelings, too, for the narrator. Although strongly motivated to do evil, she betrayed in herself a wisp of humanity here and
there, a hand extended in a void. She struck me as wounded and hurt.

I set the story aside, feeling troubled. “Almost time for breakfast, isn't it, Eddie?” I said to get myself back into a world of feeling and compassion.

I put the story out of my head while Eddie nursed and didn't think about D.D. till he was sleeping happily in his crib. I had no way of knowing whether D.D. herself had a boyfriend—Heather hadn't mentioned one—or if the story was entirely fictional or partly true. Would a person planning a murder publish her intentions?

I was getting ready to put lunch together when the doorbell rang. When I opened the door, no one was there. Suddenly, from around the side of the house a young woman appeared.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hello.”

“You must be Chris. I'm Susan Stark.”

I said, “Susan,” and a chill went through me as I put the face together with the picture Ada had given me.

“Arnold doesn't know I'm here. He'd kill me if he knew I was talking to you. Can I come in?”

I was scared. It was the first confirmation I had that I believed she was guilty, or at least that Arnold believed it. My baby was upstairs in his crib. A lot of what-ifs ran through my mind, none of them very pleasant.

“Just for a few minutes,” Susan said, when I didn't respond. “I know I should have called first, but this seemed the best way.”

“Sure,” I said. I opened the door for her and took her coat when she was inside. “Let's go into the family room.”

She looked a little different from her picture, maybe a bit older and more tired. “This is a nice room.” She smiled at me disarmingly.

“We just built it a few months ago.”

“Chris, I heard about you from my mother and talked to Arnold about you. He doesn't want you digging into this case because he's afraid of what it'll turn up. Or that's what he says. But I'm completely innocent and nothing you find out can hurt me. I think it can only help.”

“Let's talk about it.” I was on my guard, but her manner was persuasive. Maybe she just wanted to find out what I knew and determine whether it could hurt her. One thing was sure. I wanted her out of here before Eddie awoke about two hours from now.

“I know that you found the farmhouse and D.D. Butler's body. I'm not sure how you managed it, but Arnold said you were good. I was in that house on New Year's Eve—Arnold said they found my prints there so I can't lie about it—but D.D. was dead when I got there.”

“Why were you visiting her?”

Susan smiled. “It wasn't exactly a social call. D.D.'s life was mixed up in mine and I wanted to talk to her. I think that her path and mine crossed somewhere. I think she knew who I was and she was—I don't know how to put this—she was infiltrating herself into my life.”

“Just a minute.” I got up and went to the kitchen to get my notebook and a pen. “Where do you think your paths crossed, Susan?” I asked, when I was sitting again.

“I'm not sure. I've tried very hard to think of a time and place. I may have met her at a party a couple of years ago. There were a lot of people there and there was a girl or woman who asked me a lot of questions. But I'm not sure.”

“And how was she infiltrating herself into your life?”

“I think she actually got me my job.”

She was perfectly serious. “How could she do that?” I asked.

“I never applied for that job. I got a phone call from someone who asked me to come in for an interview. It sounded great so I went. They got my name from someone but they never said who. I think it was D.D., although she may have covered up who she was.”

“How did the others get their jobs? How did Jill?”

“There was an ad in the
Times.
”

“But you never saw the ad.”

“Never.”

“Do you think she remained involved with your work?”

“No. I think she got me the job and then pulled back.”

“You know this sounds crazy.”

“I know. But it's true.”

“How did you find out her name, Susan?”

“It's a little hard to explain and I don't want to get anyone in trouble. Let's just say I had a source.”

“Teddy?” I asked.

She looked blank.

“Was he your source?”

“I don't know a Teddy.”

“How did you learn about the farmhouse then?” I asked.

“D.D. wrote to me with the address.”

“When was this?”

“About three weeks ago.”

I shook my head. “You told Mrs. Halliday about Bladesville more than three weeks ago.”

“Mrs. Halliday,” she said, as though she now understood the source of my information. “Yes, you're right. I did tell her before I got that letter. Actually, when I found out D.D.'s name, I looked her up in the phone book. She was listed but she wasn't living there anymore. I went down and talked to a neighbor of hers. She's the one who told me that D.D. had moved to Bladesville.”