Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (67 page)

“
He had
the heart condition for how long?”

“
About
four years that we knew about. He had a minor attack then. He knew
about it before, but kept it from us.

“
Listen,
Mr. Faraday. You’re asking me about his heart. We were told he was
murdered?”

“
He
apparently suffered a massive coronary while someone was trying to
kill him.”

Bobby shuddered. “I hope you catch whoever
did it.”

Clint went upstairs to ask Doc how he knew
someone tried to smother Wycoff.

“
Because
of the slight bruising and the fact there are fibers in his teeth
from the tear in the pillow when he bit it.

“
No, it
couldn’t be because he bit the pillow when he had the heart attack.
There would be no bruising on the cheekbones from that.”

Clint thanked him and went downstairs to
repeat the introduction to Lily Wycoff. She had much the same to
say about her father. She admitted she had a boyfriend and what
they did would have had her cut out of the will. He didn’t know –
or pretended that he didn’t. He wasn’t stupid by any criteria. She
was worried about a scandal from this.

John had much the same things to say about
him, though he seemed to resent what he called “The blind
condemnation of anyone who didn’t think like he did and the way he
held human nature against people.”

Wilma was a little confused by it all. She
didn’t have anything to add. Her father was a bit strict, but not
as much as people seemed to think. He just overstressed his ideas
at times. Not really very often.

Bill Handley hadn’t known him except in
passing when he was at the house. He seemed a very nice person and
had a good mind except for the religion bit. He could get tiresome
with his pious moral tirades if a public official got caught
philandering – which they tended to do far too often anymore. All
the outrage in the world wouldn’t change them one millimeter.

Gladys Anne had much the same story as Bill.
She didn’t know him well. He seemed mostly very nice, but she
wasn’t into the “Jesus” bit so more-or-less avoided him in any
situation where it might come up. Ellen Wycoff, same story.

Arthur Wycoff, resented his father for being
such a total prude, but appreciated what he’d done for him.

None of them had anything particularly
negative to say about any of the others. Lily was a little uppity
at times. John had a secret. Maybe he’d knocked a girl up or
something and didn’t want anyone to know. He spent a lot of money
they thought might be child support, but he made plenty so it
wasn’t a real problem. Ellen had the wrong kind of boyfriend. They
had to agree with Dad there. He was a motorcycle bum and up to no
good. Wilma had a slight memory problem. Arthur was a pain in the
ass with his morose outlook. It was all petty and typical of that
kind of family. Clint did have one place to look.

He made a few short notes on his pad, then
went back upstairs where the body had been removed and Sergio was
just finishing his CSI report.

“
Find
your motive?” Sergio asked.

“
I might
have. I have to check something out.”

“
What’s
it about?”

“
Religion, mostly. Seems he was a borderline fanatic in some
things. Somebody stepped over the line. They all said he would cut
the girls off, disinherit them, basically, if they had sex before
they were married.”

“
Oh? One
of them stepped over that line?”

“
All of
them did, probably. He would pretend he didn’t know it. That’s what
I meant about borderline fanatic. He was also fairly pragmatic. I
think what he wanted to prevent was pregnancy or something that
would cause a scandal.”

“
So you
have to find which of them is pregnant. I see.”

“
None of
them are pregnant.”

Sergio paused, then said, “That type would go
totally ape-shit if one of the girls had a lesbian affair? Totally
homophobic?”

“
Very
definitely.”

“
And Lily
even brought her girlfriend along on this vacation. I
see.”

“
Nope!
I’ll have to check on a couple of things, then we can finish this.
The weather won’t hold for long and I want to get in some fishing
and diving. See you in a few.”

Sergio gave him the finger and grinned.

Holycalm, Missouri. Not large, on the river,
place where everyone knew everyone. Small clinic in Perryville
where everyone went for any medical problems. Doctor knew everyone.
Clint spoke with him and he said he wasn’t about to give out any
information about his clients. Clint told him Walter had been
murdered and that the information might catch the killer. It wasn’t
anything anyone would care about being known, it was about if any
of them – he wouldn’t ask which – was on any special
medications.

No.

Were they all his patients?

Not at present. They all had been until the
past three or four years. John and Lily now lived in other places
so had moved their medical attention there.

Had any of them changed radically
recently?

A bit of a pause, then, “Not while under my
care.”

“
Lily has
changed?”

“
Mostly
in personality, not a medical condition unless there was some kind
of brain damage. I noted it. She was always rather like her
sisters, very sociable and friendly. Even Wilma and Ellen tend to
be gregarious when they know people, though they are shy around
strangers. She changed to a more ... formal kind of reaction to
people. I put it to being in a much bigger city and finding people
compete in ways that are foreign to her. She seemed to be more
interested in status, if you understand. She’s living and working
in Mobile, so there’s a lot of social station mentality
there.”

“
Yes, I
saw that in her. And John?”

“
He has
nervous problems. I can always tell. It has affected him physically
and mentally. He was never nearly so secretive before he moved to
Atlanta. Almost paranoid, though his sisters tell me he isn’t that
way at home or when they go places. His skin isn’t clear like the
others, his eyes aren’t so clear, he’s lost a lot of weight ... all
typical for extreme stress cases. It would also explain why he’s
not that way in non-stressful situations or among familiar
surroundings.

“
As this
is information outside of the doctor/ patient area, I feel I can
tell you. Anyone who has known the family for some years will tell
you much the same things – though I’m sure they wouldn’t give you a
semi-professional diagnosis of stress-related symptoms.”

“
Thanks,
doctor. This is very valuable to me. I spotted the symptoms in both
of them and wanted to, if possible, eliminate them as being behind
the death of their father.”

“
Well,
Wilma told me that she thinks John has fathered a child and is
paying support. That would be a stressful situation, considering
the moral bent of Walter ... oh!”

“
The
murder was definitely not because of a child born out of wedlock.
Walter would have ranted and raved, threatened, then simply made
very damned certain the father would pay for the child he brought
into the world. What they’ve said tells me he was much more
flexible with the males.”

“
Yes.
That’s true. It also gives me a lot of personal relief. I really
shouldn’t speak about my patients or former patients as I have. I
simply can’t picture any of that family killing anyone, much less
their own father!”

“
It’s
most unfortunate there isn’t any other way to eliminate at least
one of them. There was no way it could have been anyone not in that
hotel last night and that’s the family and two friends.

“
Do you
know William Handley?”

“
Bill?
Yes, he’s a patient. I find him another who would have no
motive.”

“
Gladys
Anne Falsey?”

“
Name
doesn’t ring a bell.”

“
Thanks,
Doctor. You’ve helped tremendously with this.”

“
It has
to be this Gladys person?”

“
No.
There’s less than no motive there. She’s just a friend of Lily’s
who barely ever spoke to Walter.”

“
Well, I
hope you find that there was a way for someone to do it who wasn’t
still in that hotel this morning. That does remain a possibility,
you know.”

“
Yes. A
very small one, but that’s sometimes enough.” Clint agreed. They
spoke another minute, then Clint hung up.

So. Who were their doctors in Mobile and
Atlanta? It would be information on their tourist visa forms unless
they did like so many: wrote “none.”

Clint called Sergio and requested that he get
the contact information for Lily and John from the forms. He would
call back in ten minutes. He called back when he found that Lily
had a paid medical program where she worked now. John hadn’t listed
a doctor. That left John, the one who it had to be from the first.
Clint said to call them together for a little Nero Wolfe type of
session.

“
Okay,
this will be very brief, I hope,” Clint announced to the group
gathered in the room where Walter died. “You will see very quickly
why only one of you had the where-with-all and physical attributes
to have killed Walter Wycoff.

“
First,
this was a locked room mystery until I took one look at the room
and what was found.

“
Note
that the doors were deadbolted. There was no way anyone could have
closed those locks from outside. That means the entrance and exit
were not through those doors.

“
Well,
the exit.

“
Next,
the air conditioner wasn’t on. It was fairly cool last night, so
Walter was using the fan. That gives us the strong possibility that
the window was the point of exit if not entrance. It is, in fact,
the only possibility.”

“
The
windows were also locked,” John pointed out.

“
Yes, but
they’re self-locking. You close them and they lock. If he had that
window (pointing) open just a crack for fresh air with the fan the
killer could slip in and out with only a little difficulty. If he
closed the window when he exited it would automatically
lock.”

Sergio and Doc nodded. They’d noted that as
fast as Clint had.

“
So the
window was the point of access,” Clint continued. “You can now
consider that the only one who could enter and exit that window was
an Indio boy. A small person. No one in your family or among your
friends here is small. Only one person among you could possibly
have used that window. He’s tall, but it’s thin that gets you in
and out.”

Everyone stared at John. He was thinking as
hard as he could, but there wasn’t any refutation. He was the sole
person in that room who could have gone out through that window. It
would have been tight, but workable.

“
Do you
have AIDS, John?” Clint asked.

He put his face in his hands and nodded.

“
Your
father would have one explanation for that. You’re gay. He was
going to disinherit you.”

“
That
wouldn’t matter. I’ll die within two years. You won’t believe this,
but I killed him so he wouldn’t have to face what he would think of
as the ultimate disgrace.

“
I’m not
gay. I got it in a fight in a bar. I was cut and the person who cut
me had AIDS. He had his blood on the knife. He pulled it and tried
to cut me, I turned it and cut him, then he managed to cut me on
the arm. That was almost two years ago. I developed the symptoms
about six months later and was diagnosed. I’ve been taking the
medicines, but they’re failing because of the stress.

“
I didn’t
mean for him to ever know. I would suffocate him in his sleep – he
takes Lorazepam to sleep and wouldn’t wake up.

“
He
didn’t take it or something. He woke up and had a heart attack. I
don’t think he saw me.”

“
He
stopped taking it months ago because he was getting addicted,”
Wilma said. “Johnny, I took one look at the room and said just what
Mr. Faraday said. It could only have been you. I didn’t know
why.

“
You
should have told us, Johnny. We could have explained it to
Dad.”

“
No. You
know perfectly well that he wouldn’t listen to the truth. He’d
decide it was because I’m queer and nothing would change his mind.
You know that, Wil.”

“
I guess
I do.”

“
I have a
suggestion, Doc?” Clint asked.

“
Yes?”
Doc answered.

“
You have
on the death certificate that he died of a massive coronary under
suspicious circumstances. Let’s let it remain that, without final
resolution. John will be dead anyhow before the legal crap would be
finished. We don’t need the expense and aggravation here of a trial
and incarceration. He’s already under death sentence – which they
don’t have here in Panamá.”

Doc said he’d go along with it. Sergio
shrugged. “I wasn’t able to solve it. I won’t mention that you
did.”

“
Thank
you,” John said. “I don’t deserve it.”

“
Johnny,”
Lily said. “You did it to spare him the disgrace he’d feel. We all
know it would eat him alive and that he wouldn’t see more than one
reason you have AIDS. Right or wrong, he wouldn’t ever let go of
the idea that you’re gay. He’d think it was a curse sent by God on
HIM for something or other. You know how he felt about God’s
retribution. He’d kill himself slowly with worry that he had
offended God somehow.