New Year's Eve Murder (14 page)

“And when did you talk to this neighbor?” I was full of skepticism, which I hoped didn't show.

“A couple of months ago. I told Mrs. Halliday after that.”

“Would you excuse me for a minute?”

“Sure.”

I went to the kitchen, pulled out the Manhattan directory, and carried it to where I knew Susan couldn't see me. I looked up Butler. There were columns of them but there was no Delilah, no Donna, no D period, D period. If Susan had found D.D.'s address and phone number in the phone book, it wasn't in this one, and there was no other that I could think of. She was telling me lies, lots of them.

I returned to the family room with two glasses of Coke and handed one to Susan.

“Gee, thanks. I really need that.”

I waited till we had drunk some. I was getting hungry and I needed another glass of milk, but I was nervous enough about Susan's presence that I didn't want to drink milk and tip her off that I had a baby in the house. “Do you have D.D's letter with you?” I asked finally.

“No.”

“Where did she address it to?”

“At work. She knew where I worked. I'm not sure she knew where I was living.”

That, at least, made sense. If you steer someone to a job, you know her work address. “What did the letter say?”

“She said she wanted to meet me. That she knew about me and thought I'd be interested in meeting her.”

“Did she say when she wanted to see you?”

“New Year's Eve. Not at night. She said it was too dark at night. I didn't understand what she meant till I got there. She said to come during the day.”

“Did she say anyone else would be there?”

She gave me a quizzical look. “No, she didn't. Why do you ask?”

“Because if you didn't kill D.D., someone else did. I wondered if this was some kind of reunion.”

She looked troubled, or perhaps just thoughtful. “Someone else was obviously there before me, but I don't know if he was invited. For all I know it may have been a drifter who knocked on the door.”

“I don't believe that, Susan. I've been to that farmhouse. It's not near anything. You'd need a car to get there.”

“D.D. didn't have a car.”

“How do you know?”

“I didn't see one.”

“D.D. had a friend,” I said. “He picked her up and took her into town so she could shop.”

“Then maybe he's the one.”

“It's possible.”

“You aren't telling me much, Chris. I really need your help. I left my fingerprints all over that house, and nobody else did. I'm the only person they can link to the house, and I'm the only living person who knows I was there after the murder. Except for the murderer.”

“You're keeping so much from me,” I said. I looked down at my notes. “You've told me almost nothing I didn't know before. Except that D.D. may have gotten you your job interview and that she sent you a letter a couple of weeks ago. What was her interest in you? What was your interest in her? How did all this get started? If I'm going to help you, I have to know these things.”

“Other people's lives are involved. I want you to take what I tell you on faith. Arnold said you—”

“Arnold didn't tell you I take facts on faith. I need to know your connection to D.D. Butler. Am I to believe that she met you at a party and decided to run your life?”

“It wasn't exactly like that.”

“Maybe she knew before the party that you would be there.”

“It's possible,” she said hesitantly.

“And that's why she was there.”

She let her breath out. “It probably wasn't a coincidence that we were both there at the same time,” she admitted.

“I'm struggling to make sense of this. Tell me about your visit to the farmhouse.”

“I got there before eleven.”

“Where did you spend the night before?”

“At my parents' in Brooklyn.” She said it so casually, it was hard to believe it had been such a big issue.

“Did you see your parents before you left?”

She looked at me suspiciously. “I'm not sure.”

“Go on about the visit.”

“I got there. I left the car in the driveway and went to the front door. There was a doorbell but it didn't work. I realized afterward that there wasn't any electricity. So I called. There was no answer. I knocked and then I opened the door.”

“It wasn't locked?”

“It couldn't have been or I wouldn't have gotten in. I went inside and called her name. I called it a lot of times.”

“Was it warm inside, Susan?” I asked.

She thought about it. “Maybe not when I first went in, but it was warmer when I got near the kitchen.”

Then she must have been killed that morning, I thought, or late the night before. The fire in the kitchen stove couldn't have lasted many hours without additional fuel. “What rooms did you walk through?”

“The dining room, I think. There wasn't much furniture
so it was hard to tell, but I went through it and I got to the kitchen.”

“What did you see?”

She pressed her lips together. “I didn't see her at first. The light coming in was very bright and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. Then I saw the stove and the old cabinets with glass fronts and the dishes on the shelves. I saw all the windows at the back, looking out on the fields and a couple of trees. It was like a quick slide show, if you know what I mean, a glimpse of this and a glimpse of that. And then I saw her. She looked sort of—” She stopped, a look of pain on her face.

“Tell me exactly what you saw. Try to recall every detail, Susan. Each one might be part of the solution.”

“A person lying face-down. Blue jeans. Maybe a sweatshirt, I'm not sure. Hair, kind of messy.” She was looking away, seeing it as she spoke. “Blood. Blood on the hair, blood on the floor.”

“Did you touch her?”

“No.” It was the loudest syllable she had uttered since her arrival.

“Did you touch anything else? Did you look around?”

“I was frozen when I saw her. I said her name a couple of times but she didn't move. I kind of backed away. You know, I may have reached out and held onto something to steady myself, a cabinet or a counter or something. I felt a little dizzy or light-headed, and my stomach didn't feel too great. Then I just turned around and got out of there.”

“When you were coming in, did you notice whether there was a door between the dining room and the kitchen?”

“There could have been but I didn't notice.”

“Then you didn't open a door to get to the kitchen?”

“No. I'm sure of that. I just walked from one room into the other.”

“And the kitchen was warm.”

“Definitely. Not hot but I could feel the difference when I went in. You know what? I heard a sound—sounds—in the kitchen and I realized they were coming from the woodstove. Not loud, but a little crackling.”

“That's very interesting,” I said.

“I see what you're driving at,” she said with excitement. “D.D. couldn't have been dead very long, could she? She must have put wood on the fire if it was still warm and crackling.”

“And the door should have been closed. If you heat one room, you keep the door closed to keep the heat inside.”

“Was it closed when you got there?” she asked.

“It was open.”

“I didn't open it. The killer must have left it open when he walked out of the kitchen.”

Why not? I thought. He had no reason to care about the comfort of the person he left behind. If he gave the matter any thought at all, he would have known that he would be better off if the body froze quickly. There would be no smell to attract animal life.

“Did you look around the house, Susan? Before or after you found the body?”

“No. When I went in, I was looking for D.D. When I left, I really needed some fresh air. I was scared and sick to my stomach.”

“When you drove up on the property, did you see tire tracks?”

“I wasn't looking for tire tracks. I was looking for a place to drive up, a driveway or a road. There was a place
near the house where the snow was tamped down so I drove up on it.”

And we, of course, had driven over the accumulated tracks a couple of days later. “Did you see anyone around?”

“No one. I just ran like hell.”

“Why didn't you report finding the body?” I asked.

“I know, and why didn't I come home? I was scared. I had this crazy feeling that D.D. had arranged this.”

“Arranged her death?”

“In a way, yes. I was sure she'd been involved in getting me my job. I felt she was manipulating me, setting me up. What if that wasn't D.D. lying on the floor in the kitchen? Maybe it was someone else. What if D.D. had killed her and was long gone, leaving me to look like a killer?”

“But why would anyone think you killed some stranger in that farmhouse?”

“I couldn't explain why I was there. I couldn't explain why I had gone, who D.D. was, what was going on. I just had to get away and think.”

“Where did you go?”

“I drove around. I found a motel. I had some money with me because I'd cashed a check before the weekend, so I didn't have to use a credit card. I got food at a supermarket. I had promised Jill I'd have her car back by Monday so I drove to Brooklyn after a couple of nights and left the car.”

“Where did you stay after that?”

“I went to an old friend I could trust who I knew from college. She lives in New Jersey. I took a bus out there after I returned the car.”

“And what made you come back?”

“I was living in limbo. I have a life, a job, Kevin, my
parents. I knew they would be worried sick. And I didn't want to lose my job. I love it.”

The statement came across as honest and sincere, unlike some of the other things she had said. “Have you seen Kevin?” I asked.

“I talked to him. I haven't seen him yet. I went to my parents' and they called Arnold, and he said not to talk to anyone. I just told Kevin I was back and I would see him when I could.”

“Susan, did you take anything from that farmhouse?”

“Nothing, I swear it. I was so scared, so confused, I just turned and ran.”

“Because whatever was used to kill D.D. isn't in the house. And there's no pocketbook, no wallet, no ID of any kind.”

“Then the killer took it. I didn't. I told you, I didn't even know if that was D.D. lying there.”

I looked at my watch. “I'm really out of time,” I said. “I'm willing to help you, but first you have to tell me what you're withholding. You know what it is. There's a huge gap in your story. Fill it in and I'll help you. And please call next time before you come.” I felt a little heartless saying it but if I were going to see Susan again in my home, maybe I would drop Eddie off first. I was inclined to believe that she was telling the truth as far as she went, that she hadn't killed D.D. Butler, but something about her made me nervous. Maybe it was her own nervousness, her lack of complete truthfulness.

She said, “OK,” her voice and her face subdued. “There is one other thing I haven't told you. It's about Kevin.” She looked very troubled.

“What is it?”

“I think D.D. arranged that, too. My meeting with Kevin. I think she had me all sized up. She put us
together because she knew it would work. And the crazy thing is she was right. I love him.”

I gave her her coat, and she left me to eat my lunch and ponder her last revelation.

By the time Jack came home that night, I had already called Joseph and arranged to drive up to St. Stephen's the following day. Except for Joseph, none of the nuns had seen Eddie, and I knew they wanted to. Jack and I had been married at St. Stephen's but when Eddie was born, my mother-in-law's choice for the location of the baptism prevailed. We had it at Jack's old church in Brooklyn, and only Joseph came down to join us. So this was a good opportunity to show off my beautiful son and get the benefit of Joseph's discerning point of view in a case where she had actually seen the crime scene.

“You think the nuns'll spoil Eddie rotten?” Jack asked as he ate his late dinner.

“Probably. He deserves that once in a while, don't you think? We're both such tough parents.”

“Tough, yeah. Gets me wondering about those abuse cases we keep hearing about, how the hell people do it.”

“I know.”

“OK, tell me about the case. Susan herself turned up on your doorstep. That must have been a shock.”

“It was. I wasn't sure whether to let her in or not, but I did.”

“And she didn't tell you enough to put your finger on a killer or you wouldn't be going up to St. Stephen's tomorrow.”

“That's about it,” I said. “She told me some interesting stuff but she left out a lot.” I filled him in on the pluses and minuses as he ate.

“She thinks this woman steered her into a job and a relationship? It's eerie and I can't see a reason for it. Both those things turned out well. Made Susan happy.”

“That's right.”

“So it doesn't look like there was any evil intent. But what's the purpose? What did D.D. Butler get out of it?”

“Maybe she was going to get something out of it on New Year's Eve.”

“And it backfired,” Jack said.

“But not with Susan,” I reminded him. “With someone else.”

“You think she was a one-woman do-good organization? And one of her missions went sour?”

“I don't know. I'm hoping Joseph comes up with something. Let me tell you who I'd like to talk to even though I know I won't be able to: I've never laid eyes on Susan's father. Remember New Year's Day when we were all going nuts trying to figure out where Susan was? Her father went to his office because, we were told, when he's worried, he likes to work. I wonder how he spent New Year's Eve.”

“Good point.”

“And when I asked Susan where she had spent the night before New Year's Eve—you remember the discussions about whether she was home and they just didn't see her or whether she disappeared from her doorstep when Kevin dropped her off—she said, as though it was the most unimportant question she'd ever been asked, that she'd spent the night at her parents'. That really bothers me. Even if her bedroom was around a corner—and it is; I saw it—don't you hear a toilet flushing or a shower running?”

“I think the Starks said, or at least her mother did since no one's talked to her father—that they were out that day, that Susan could have gotten up earlier or later and left without being seen. If it was later, they wouldn't have heard a shower running.”

“I don't like it,” I said. “Susan told me she got to the farmhouse before eleven. It was supposedly her first trip up there. It had to take an hour and a half from Brooklyn.”

“Easily.”

“Looking for roads, driving in unfamiliar territory. I'm uneasy about it,” I said. “I'm just wondering if Ada lied to protect Susan. Or to make it a more complicated case.”

“Anything's possible.”

I looked at my notebook with its underlined unanswered questions. Susan knew about D.D. long before the letter inviting her to Bladesville. How did she know? Why wouldn't she tell me?

“Susan and D.D. connected before the letter Susan admits receiving a few weeks ago inviting her up to Bladesville on New Year's Eve. She won't say what the connection was, whether it was letters or meetings or phone calls. I told her I wouldn't help her unless she gave me the missing information.”

“Getting tough, I see.”

“Well, I'm the mother of a son. You have to be tough with sons, don't you?”

“Ah,” my gun-toting, hard-boiled husband said, “not this year. Maybe when he's put in twelve months.”

I leaned over and kissed him, then left the table for a minute. When I came back I handed him the envelope with D.D.'s published short story. “I don't exactly recommend this for bedtime reading, but it may give you some insights into D.D. Butler's character.”

He took a quick look at it and put it back in the envelope. I didn't envy him the task of reading it.

“What a downer,” he said at breakfast the next morning. “That story. Woman with a dark soul. Can't say I'd visit her in a lonely farmhouse after reading that.”

“I doubt whether Susan read it.”

“You showing that to Sister Joseph?”

“I don't know.” It was something I had thought about. “I can show it to her and she can exercise her own judgment on whether she wants to read it or not.”

“Well, say hello to her for me.”

I promised I would. Later on in the morning, I packed Eddie into the car and drove to the convent.

Someone had put a pale blue ribbon tied in a huge bow on a stake in front of one of the parking spaces outside the Mother House, and I glided into it with a smile. “Looks like we have a welcoming committee, Eddie,” I said, but Eddie was fast asleep. I got him out of the car and slung my bag and his bag over my shoulder and managed to get a grip on the little seat. I didn't have to carry them more than a few steps, because the nuns were on the lookout and three came running to help me. I ended up with only my shoulder bag as everything else, including Eddie, was whisked into the Mother House.

“Chris, you look wonderful,” Angela said, as I took my coat off. She had a firm grasp on Eddie, who seemed happy to continue sleeping on her shoulder.

“Not as thin as before.”

“Oh, you'll get back. You were never one to sit idle. But what a beautiful baby he is. I hope he wakes up before you leave so I can see the color of his eyes.”

“I'm sure he will. Let me get his snowsuit off.”

“He's so wonderfully warm,” Angela said. “And he smells like an angel.”

“You can have him back,” I promised.

We carried him up to Joseph's office so she could have a look before we got down to work. I was interested that she seemed very pleased to see him and touch him, but was less enthusiastic about holding him. I had never had much interest in babies myself before I became pregnant. They had been cute and appealing from a distance, but nothing in me had craved the closeness of holding one in my arms.

When the introduction had been completed, Angela took Eddie away and Joseph and I sat at the end of her long table, opposite each other, to eat lunch off the trays that awaited us.

“I've really been on pins and needles waiting to hear from you,” she said. “I've seen that kitchen in Bladesville in my dreams.”

“So have I.”

“I gather from what you said on the phone yesterday that you've come a long way since discovering the body.”

“But not all the way. There are huge gaps in what I know and I'm not sure how to fill them in.”

“Then let's start at the beginning.”

I did in my usual way, referring to my notes, backtracking occasionally, answering a question here and there. I had D.D.'s short story with me, and I handed it across the table as I came near the end of my own story. Joseph slid it out of the envelope and began to read it, her face, which is as clear and smooth and benign as any I have ever seen, wrinkling with distaste.

“Not a very happy woman,” she said, setting the story aside.

“It doesn't appear that way, does it?” I finished up
with Susan's surprise appearance and what she had told me.

“Certainly the most interesting things that Susan said concern D.D.'s involvement in her life and the fact that she spent the night before New Year's Eve at her parents'.”

“Why is that last so interesting?” I asked, having thought so myself.

“The way you tell it, Susan had no compunctions about admitting she slept at the Starks'. If I interpreted your telling of it correctly, she might actually have said, ‘Good morning, Mom,' before she left the house.”

“That's just the way it came across to me.”

“It's possible that she didn't see them, of course. I wonder if she left a note. Kevin was supposed to pick her up there that afternoon, wasn't he?”

“That evening, I'd guess. He called in the afternoon and she wasn't there.”

“Can we account for Susan's father's whereabouts that day?”

“I've never spoken to him, Joseph. I've never laid eyes on him.”

“I think you should. He may not grant you an interview but I think you should try to get one. You've talked to everyone else we know about, certainly many more people than the police have, and that's a gaping hole. Perhaps he has nothing to add, but if there's something peculiar about Susan having slept at home that night, he might just drop it accidentally and you would have a juicy bit of information.”

“I'll give it a try.”

“You know, ideas are swirling around in my mind as we talk, some of them a bit far-fetched, some not quite so. Now that you've spoken to Susan, now that you've learned her admitted connections to D.D. Butler, I think you ought to explore each of them some more. Just ask a
simple question of each: Why that particular job? Why Kevin?”

“The job was advertised in the
Times
,” I said.

“And D.D. could have heard about it that way. I still think it's a good question to ask.”

I know better than to argue. If I could get Kevin to talk to me, to tell me where and how he met Susan, some link might turn up. “I'll give Kevin a call.”

“And in all these brain swirlings I keep coming back to the Donaldsons, Farmer Fred and his wife. A woman comes to the door, gives them an obviously false name, and they rent out their condemned farmhouse for six months' rent in cash. Go back over your notes, Chris. Review your recollections of your meeting with that couple. There's something there, I'm sure of it.”

“What about Teddy?” I asked.

“Yes, Teddy. Teddy the artist, who has a friend who's a real estate agent. Teddy, who drives D.D. to shop for groceries because she's stuck without a car. Teddy, who is allegedly told not to turn up on New Year's weekend. It could all be true. I think if Teddy killed D.D., we need a motive. To listen to his tale, he's a good friend, a very helpful person. If he got tired of being either, why not just tell her?”

It sounded perfectly reasonable. D.D. could have posed no threat to Teddy; she couldn't get to him without his help. She had obviously not asked the D'Agatis for assistance in getting around. “It's just that Teddy had opportunity, even if we can't think of a motive. He could have gone there at night, turned his car lights off, killed her, and driven away without anyone seeing him.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. He said D.D. was planning something. He didn't know what, just a feeling he had. And he said
she might have been writing something, as her mother claimed.”

“She must have been doing something all those months in that farmhouse.” Joseph is one of those people who think that time wasted is life wasted. “Did the police find anything she had written?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing, nothing, nothing. Chris, this young woman had a plan. A couple of people have told you that, and I think they're right. The plan involved having Susan visit on New Year's Eve, possibly having another person visit the same day, possibly not. Find out where Kevin was. Find out where Susan's father was. Think about the Donaldsons. And two other things. D.D. Butler seems to have been a disturbed young woman. Did this happen suddenly, or is there a history that her family is keeping secret? And the other thing is magazines. There seem to be several magazines in this case. You're close now. The more I think about it, the closer I believe you are.”

I didn't bother saying I had no idea what she was talking about. “Would you like to finish the story?” I asked.

“Leave it with me for a few minutes. I'll bring it down with me. You have plenty of visiting to do, I'm sure.”

I gathered up my notes. “Joseph, I have a question to ask you on a very different subject. If a woman nursed her baby in a car or in a sheltered place outside her home, how do you think the nuns would feel about it?”

The question was clearly a surprise and caught her imagination. She smiled. “I think their feelings would run from negative to, ‘Can't you think of something else to complain about?' Have you been trying to formulate a policy for yourself?”

“I nursed Eddie in my car and got hauled to a local police station.”

Joseph laughed. “Chris, what a story. I hope you asserted your maternal rights.”

“I did, but I didn't have to. New York State has a law protecting me, but the sheriffs deputy was unaware of it.”

“I'll bet your husband knew about it.”

“And Arnold Gold. They let me go with great embarrassment.” I took myself downstairs so she could look at D.D. Butler's story.

I wasn't sure who was entertaining whom. Everybody seemed to be giggling, including Eddie.

“You'd better bring him back when he's old enough to eat my cookies,” Sister Dolores, a resident of the Villa, the home for retired nuns, said. “I've got a bag of them for you, but this little one doesn't have the teeth for them yet.”

“Or the digestive system,” I said. “Thank you for baking.” I opened the bag and sniffed, the smell nearly driving me wild. “I'd better lock these in the trunk for the trip home.”