Death on Deadline (12 page)

“Would you have been willing to serve as Mr. MacLaren’s publisher?”

Bishop made a face. “Definitely not, although it’s moot, because he wouldn’t want me. He has a history of bringing in his own team at the top whenever he buys a newspaper.”

“Then what? Were you prepared to retire?”

“I’m sixty-three, and financially I’m well enough off. I still feel good and I love to work, but yeah, I would have said to hell with it. Our kids are grown and my wife and I bought a great place in the Bahamas where we’d like to spend more time.”

Wolfe poured the second bottle of beer into his glass. “You were at the
Gazette
when Mrs. Haverhill’s body was found?”

“Yes. I knew she’d been meeting with MacLaren, and I was mainly waiting around to see how it had gone—my office is just down the hall from hers on the twentieth floor. Earlier she said that she’d call me when they were done. The first I knew there was trouble was when Sal Milletti—he’s captain of our security force—barged in on me. One of his men, Eddie Reimer, had found her when he was checking the floor on his rounds and called Sal on the radio. They were the only ones who’d been in her suite before I got there.”

“Were the others still in the building—the stepchildren and the nephew?”

“Donna was in with David—and David’s wife, Carolyn. The three of them were talking in the conference room on the twelfth floor. Scott was alone in his office just a few doors away.”

“Why was Carolyn Haverhill there?”

“I guess I should have mentioned her before,” Bishop said. “She’s a powerhouse. I frankly don’t know what the hell she ever saw in David, other than his dough, of course. Although I think she comes from money herself. I could live with her running the
Gazette,
I think—she’s bright enough, and knows how to make decisions. The big negative about her is the joker she’s married to, though. Anyway, you asked why she was there: she usually is, when there are big corporate decisions to be made.”

“Did she come by invitation?”

Bishop nodded. “David likes to have her around when things get tense. He knows she’s a damn sight smarter than he is.”

“How do she and Donna get along?”

“All right, as far as I know. I think Donna’s happy to have her on the scene, too, as a steadying influence on the turkey.”

“What is the cousin’s attitude toward Carolyn?”

“Scott? Oh, I think he resents her. He detests anything to do with David—guilt by association.”

Wolfe pondered the desk blotter for several seconds, then leveled his gaze at Bishop. “I would like to have Carolyn Haverhill come here tomorrow with her husband and his sister. Is it too great an imposition to ask you to arrange that?”

“Not at all. I was going to suggest it myself when we talked on the phone. I’ll try to reach her tonight. Actually, David would probably welcome having her along.”

“Back to the
Gazette
Building,” Wolfe said. “Was Mr. MacLaren still there when the body was discovered?”

“I’m not sure—I think he’d gone. I do know that after he talked to Harriet, he went off looking for Elliot.”

“And found him?”

“Uh-huh. Dean has a private law practice, but as Harriet’s counsel, he also has an office in the building. MacLaren apparently met with him there after he left Harriet.”

“May I assume you are familiar with the terms of Mrs. Haverhill’s will?”

“Yes. At one time, she was going to divide her
Gazette
holdings among her stepchildren and Scott, with David and Donna each getting forty percent of her stock and the other twenty going to Scott. But in recent months, she decided to will her shares to a trust—are you aware of that?”

“She touched briefly on it when she was here.”

Bishop studied the ice in his glass. “The bottom line was that she felt none of the kids was up to running the operation. Rather than turn it over to them when she died, she would sink her holding into a trust, with the trustees being me, Elliot, and a banker.”

“Mr. Fitzpatrick,” Wolfe put in.

“Right. And all the papers—God, there were a lot of them—got drawn up a couple of months ago. What a lawyer’s dream.”

“And what were the reactions of the younger Haverhills?”

Bishop decided another Scotch would be okay after all, and I went to the table with his glass. “From what I heard, some of it from Harriet and some second-hand, they didn’t like it very damn much—especially David, who went on a two-day binge when he found out. Scott apparently did some whining too, but I’m not sure about Donna, who’s more removed from the scene.”

“With this action, was Mrs. Haverhill not cutting herself off from possible rescue from a takeover? Either one of her stepchildren’s shares, coupled with her own, would ensure absolute control of the newspaper.”

“Of course I’ve thought about that myself—and I came close a couple of times to asking Harriet about it,” Bishop said. “For what it’s worth, I have two theories: One, at the time the trust instrument was being drawn, there was no hint whatever of a MacLaren takeover. He was rumored to be more interested in a Chicago paper and had pretty much publicly stated the New York newspaper market was too fragmented for him—despite all that publicity about his wanting a paper in the biggest city of every English-speaking country. Second, if the idea of a takeover
did
occur to Harriet, I suspect that she felt somehow she could play on the family angle to convince one of them—probably Donna—to sell to the trust.”

“What about the trio trying to take over?” Wolfe posed. “The two stepchildren’s shares together would effectively checkmate Mrs. Haverhill. Add the nephew, and you’re at forty-five percent.”

Bishop shook his head. “David and Scott didn’t get along very well—ever. It’s hard to visualize them in bed together.”

Wolfe winced at the figure of speech. “Are the Arlen Company and Mr. Demarest committed to Mr. MacLaren?”

“Oh, you know about them? As far as I know, they are. On several occasions through the years, Harriet tried to buy them both out, but no sale. They each said they liked the idea of owning part of a newspaper, which really means they were waiting for a big-bucks buyer to come along someday. They knew damn well that in a closely held setup like the
Gazette,
their relatively small holdings could turn out to be critical.”

“To your knowledge, had Mrs. Haverhill had recent conversations with either party?”

“Not that I was aware of,” Bishop said. “I think she’d pretty much given up on them.”

“How would you describe her frame of mind yesterday?”

“I didn’t really see much of her—just small snatches here and there. I was in her office for a few minutes in the early afternoon, around two-thirty, to talk about a problem we were having with one of our distributors over in Jersey. At the time, she seemed fairly cheerful, although maybe a little distracted.”

“Whom had she met with by then?”

Bishop took the unlit pipe out of his mouth and looked at the ceiling. “Let’s see … I know she and Donna had talked first thing in the morning, and then just before noon she had David up to her office for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. Then she had to be at the Waldorf for a big benefit luncheon—she was on the executive committee and sat on the dais. I was with her right after she got back, and Scott was due in to see her around three, I think.”

“During your visit, did you ask how her earlier meetings had gone?”

“No,” Bishop said, running his hand through his hair. “I figured I’d get the whole story from her after she met with MacLaren. I usually stay at the paper until at least seven, sometimes seven-thirty.”

“Was Mrs. Haverhill in the habit of confiding in you?”

“I guess you could say that. I wasn’t as close to her when it came to purely financial matters, say, as Elliot Dean was, but on almost anything to do with the running of the paper, she asked my advice. We worked very closely and very well together.”

“Do you know any of the particulars of her meetings with her family members and Mr. MacLaren?”

“I haven’t really had much time to talk to any of them, certainly not to MacLaren—I haven’t even seen him. But from what I gather, all three of those kids had pretty much made up their minds to dump the stock. David’s the only one I discussed it with, though. I caught him in a sober moment this morning, and he said he and his stepmother really got into it yesterday. Claimed she accused him of being a traitor to the family.”

“Does that sound like her?”

“Well … yes … actually I can picture her saying that,” Bishop replied in his gravelly tone. “I don’t know how much you saw of her when she came to see you, but Harriet can—could—be one tough cookie when the occasion warranted. She had a temper, an explosive one, although she knew how to use it effectively. I once half-jokingly accused her of turning it on and off like a faucet.”

“Have you spoken with Mr. Dean since the murder?”

Bishop gave Wolfe a thin-lipped smile. “You’re determined to call it that, aren’t you? Well, by God, if you’re right—and I don’t think you are—you’ll get my full cooperation in running her killer down. As to Elliot, yes, I’ve seen him once, also just for a couple of minutes. We really didn’t have much time to talk. As you can appreciate, the
Gazette
has been a madhouse all day.”

Wolfe nodded. “I was curious as to why Mr. MacLaren chose to visit him after his meeting with Mrs. Haverhill.”

“I guess that’s one you’ll have to ask Elliot yourself; it didn’t occur to me to bring it up,” Bishop said, glancing at his Rolex. “I really have to be going. As it is, I’m already late for a dinner party, although it’s the last thing I feel like doing right now. I know everybody there’s going to want to talk about Harriet.” He took a deep breath and got to his feet, slipping his pipe back into its pouch.

“Mr. Bishop, you spoke of cooperation a moment ago, and you’ve already indulged me liberally by persuading the Haverhill family members to see me. Now, if I may prevail further on your good nature, I also would like to meet with Mr. Dean once more. As you may know, he was here with Mrs. Haverhill, and was not the least bit happy about it. I would appreciate your asking him to see me again, preferably Monday, or Tuesday at the latest.”

“No problem,” the publisher said. “Elliot will grumble, but that’s his nature. In the long run, all he cares about is protecting Harriet. I’ll call him tomorrow and do a little arm-twisting.”

Wolfe thanked Bishop and I escorted him to the hall, helping him on with his raincoat and holding the front door. I went back to the office and found Wolfe’s chair empty, which was fine with me. That meant he had gone to the dining room, and I headed in the same direction. For more than an hour, my stomach had been primed for Fritz’s pork tenderloin, and I wanted to keep it happy.

W
ITH THE EXCEPTION OF MY
out-of-town sojourns with Lily Rowan, I religiously read two newspapers, the
Times
and the
Gazette,
all the way through every day, and I also usually skim the
Daily News
and the
Post.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been around Wolfe for so long, but I’ve always preferred getting my news from papers rather than television. It’s a little like favoring meat and potatoes over crepes.

If anything, my newspaper reading increases when we’re on a case, and I guess Harriet Haverhill’s death qualified, despite the lack of a fee or a client. That’s why I was up earlier than usual Sunday, and that’s also why I grabbed the
Gazette
first instead of the
Times,
my usual starter.

The story was on page three, along with the up-to-date photo of Wolfe that I’d given Lon a few months back. The headline read “
NERO WOLFE CALLS HAVERHILL DEATH MURDER
,” and it spread over four columns. I won’t bore you with the whole shebang, but in essence it said that “the famous private detective” was convinced that what the police termed a suicide was really homicide. Lon had neatly worked in most of Wolfe’s comments from their telephone conversation and also quoted Inspector Cramer, who insisted the police had no reason whatever to suspect foul play. He covered himself, though, by adding that “We, of course, will fully investigate any developments, however unlikely, that might arise.” Ungrammatical, but he made his point.

David Haverhill also was quoted, saying that the grieving family, while it appreciated Wolfe’s interest, felt that his stepmother’s death was indeed a suicide and hoped that the unhappy event wouldn’t be turned into a circus.

I read this while sitting at my usual spot in the kitchen with breakfast and coffee. Fritz, who’d been bustling around getting a tray ready to take up to Wolfe, waited until I finished and then cut in. “Archie, they’re calling again.” He was miserable. “Before you came down, there were three—the
Times,
the
News,
one from television—all wanting to talk to him about that article in the
Gazette.
Also, a Mr. Bishop called to say that someone named Carolyn would be joining the others here this afternoon. The messages are on your desk.”

I thanked him and tried to take the worried look off his face by saying that all this publicity was good for business in the long run, but Fritz saw right through me. He knew damn well we didn’t have a client—it said so right there in the
Gazette
—and as long as that was the situation, he would go right on moping.

Moping or not, I let him keep fielding calls from the kitchen and said I’d return them later, then took both papers to the office, where I finished reading them at my desk. The piece about Wolfe was only one element in the extensive coverage the
Gazette
gave Harriet Haverhill. There was also an editorial praising her leadership, a long biographical article with a lot of pictures, and a piece describing the funeral service that would be held Tuesday at Riverside Church.

The
Times
ran a long article about her on their obituary page, plus an editorial, even more glowing than the
Gazette’s,
in which they called her a “worthy, honest, honorable competitor who did far more than her share to raise the standards of journalism, both in New York City and across the nation.”