He Huffed and He Puffed (22 page)

Millwalker shrugged. “I guess you could put it that way. From the way it sounded to me, Mr. Strode had tried something like that before but it hadn't worked—just from the things they were saying, I mean.”

“What had he tried before?” Marian asked.

“I couldn't tell exactly. But it was damned obvious he'd been puttin' the squeeze on them and they'd wriggled out. So the fingerprints on the knives—that was his new squeeze.”

“And this one worked,” Ivan said, shaking his head. “A real Mr. Nice Guy. So then what happened?”

Then they all dispersed, like billiard balls shooting off in all directions after a break. Millwalker and one of the other bodyguards accompanied Strode up to his suite. Strode unlocked his bedroom door and waited in the hall with the other guard while Millwalker checked things out.

“Did you look in the library?” Marian asked.

“I sure did. Nobody was in there then.”

“Which was when?”

“A little after eleven. I remember Mr. Strode saying something to Mr. Castleberry about them beating the deadline by an hour.”

“Did you check the door between the library and the hallway?”

Immediately Millwalker was back in his defensive posture. “There wasn't any reason to. When we went in by the library, we didn't check the bedroom door. So why would we bother to—”

“Okay, okay,” Marian interrupted. “So you didn't check the hall door to the library. Then what?”

Then Mr. Strode locked the bedroom door behind him and the two guards took up their positions, Millwalker at the head of the stairs and the other man in the wing where the guest bedrooms were located. The third bodyguard was to patrol the house, always on the move. No, Mr. Strode didn't always have such stringent security arrangements; they would be abandoned once these particular guests were out of the house. Mr. Strode didn't trust them.

“With reason,” Ivan remarked dryly. “Then the fire broke out?”

Then the fire broke out. At first Millwalker had stayed at the head of the stairs in Strode's wing of the house. But then he could smell smoke and could hear someone yelling for help—Castleberry, he thought. So Millwalker went and pounded on Strode's door and yelled for him to stay inside. Strode had yelled back that he would. Millwalker had gone to help put out the fire in the monitoring room near the front entrance. Who was there? Both security guards, the other two bodyguards, and Castleberry.

But the blaze was a stubborn one; not only was the electrical equipment hissing and sparking and burning but the carpeting and furniture of the room had caught fire as well. The security guard had emptied the fire extinguisher, stopping the worst of it; but electrical fires could be tricky. One of the other bodyguards brought in another extinguisher from the kitchen. They had to take turns using it; the smoke was so bad no one could stay in the burning room for more than a few seconds. But then the fire department arrived and quickly had matters under control. One of the men said the fire had been set deliberately and a fire marshal would be there to investigate in the morning.

Millwalker fell silent; he didn't want to talk about the next part of it. Eventually he said, “I went back up to tell Mr. Strode the fire was out. But when I got to the top of the stairs, I could see the library door was standing open. I thought he'd come out to see about the fire. So I called his name, several times, and then I looked in the library … and there he was. With those three knives in him.” He paused. “It was obscene.”

Marian asked, “Was Castleberry with you the whole time you were fighting the fire?”

“The whole time. He couldn't have done it—he was still talking to the firefighters when I went back to Mr. Strode's rooms. Why are you asking about Castleberry? You know who did it. Richard Bruce and the other two, McKinstry and the Gillespie woman. They got their knives back and set the fire as a distraction and then went up and killed Mr. Strode. Three against one,” he finished in disgust.

“We don't know that yet,” Marian said cautiously.

“Well, you'd damned well better know it,” Millwalker declared indignantly. “Why else
three
knives?”

“To make us think exactly what you're thinking—that they were all in it together. The use of three knives muddies the waters. The killer wouldn't be foolish enough to use
just
his or her own knife. And he—or she—wouldn't use
just
one of the other's knives to throw suspicion on that person. It's too obvious, for one thing, and for another maybe the murderer didn't know where everybody was at the time.”

“What's that got to do with anything?”

“Okay. The pink knife belonged to Jack McKinstry, right? Suppose one of the other two picked that knife to commit the murder with, only to find out later that McKinstry was with somebody else at the time of the killing and therefore had an alibi. By using all three knives, the murderer just increased the odds a little. You see?”

Millwalker shook his head. “They all three did it. Together.”

The two police detectives took the bodyguard back over his story and asked a few questions, but he'd told them all he knew. They said he could leave.

“Do you believe all that stuff you were saying?” Ivan asked when Millwalker was gone. “About there being only one killer?”

“Sure do,” Marian said. “What better way to confuse the issue than by using weapons everyone can identify as belonging to someone else? Besides, there's a kind of message in using three knives—
I want this man really dead
, something like that.”

“Yeah, well, if Millwalker got it straight, they all three had reason for wanting him dead. That Strode must have been a real sonuvabitch. Millwalker's not much of a bodyguard, is he? He doesn't check to see if the library door is locked and he lets himself be lured away from his post. Anyway, Castleberry's out of it, looks like.”

“Yes, it has to be one of the three guests.”

“One
of them, she says. God, I can't take this any longer—I've gotta have some coffee.”

Marian waited while Ivan went looking for someone to make coffee. Before long he came back grinning and carrying a tray with a coffeepot and cups on it.

“It seems I wasn't the only one dying of caffeine-deprivation,” he said. “Danielle was already in the kitchen, brewing the stuff as fast as she could.”

“Who's Danielle?”

“The cook. Sixty years old and two hundred pounds and I'm in love with her.”

The coffee hit the spot. “I think I'm in love with her too,” Marian murmured. “Richard Bruce was the one who let Strode have this stock he coveted so much. Does that make Bruce our number-one suspect or eliminate him?”

Ivan frowned. “Hard to say. If he's the vengeful type, he might go after Strode just to get even. That's stretching it, though. I'm thinking the business between those two was finished.”

Marian made a noncommittal noise. “How about the security guard next?”

The security guard came in looking like a skinny Atlas bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Nothing
has gone right this weekend,” he complained. “First Mr. Bruce makes me cover up the cameras and then he and Ms Gillespie come back in the house without me seeing them and the security system goes out and Mr. Strode tells me to take the bug out of the conference room and now
this
. I'm not even supposed to be on duty! One of the regular weekend guys is sick and I'm just filling in for him. I'm supposed to work weeknights.”

“Name, please,” Marian said.

“Frank O'Connell.”

“You say Richard Bruce forced you to cover up the cameras, Mr. O'Connell?”

“The ones in their bedrooms, yes ma'am.” O'Connell explained about that and the other things that had made his job less than unadulterated joy that weekend. He backed up Millwalker's statement that Castleberry had been in the monitoring room fighting the fire even before the bodyguard had arrived. The gateman had come in to help. O'Connell was definite that all three bodyguards had been there, making a total of six men trying to stop the fire—three bodyguards, two security guards, and Castleberry. None of the house staff had shown up with buckets of water or whatever; O'Connell said they'd probably all retired for the night and didn't even know there was a fire until it was all over.

“Let's back up a little,” Marian said. “The fire department is saying arson. How could anyone get into the monitoring room to start the fire? Had you left the room?”

“Yes'm, I'd gone to the bathroom. Sometimes I leave to go check on something—maybe a camera's not working right, or Mr. Strode would have a special job for me to do. I'm not in there
all
the time.”

“How long were you gone?”

“Not more'n a few minutes. Whoever set that fire had to move fast.”

Ivan asked, “What did you say earlier about removing a bug from this room? Strode found a bug planted in here?”

“No, sir, it was ours. This room was the only room in the house with a microphone in it. Mr. Strode sometimes wanted his business dealings on tape.”

“Why did he want it removed?”

“Beats me. It wasn't even working, because we'd had trouble with the security system earlier and not everything had been fixed yet. And even if it was working, I coulda turned it off from the monitoring center. But no, I had to get my toolbox and a stepladder and go in and take out the mike
and
the camera.”

“Toolbox,” Marian said.

“Right,” Ivan nodded. “Mr. O'Connell, would you go check your toolbox to see if anything's missing? Where is it?”

O'Connell groaned. “In the room where the fire was. I didn't even think about it! Damn.”

“Let's go look for it,” Ivan suggested.

They all went to the burned-out mess that once was the monitoring room. Marian's sinuses shrieked in protest. Ivan was having trouble with the smell, too, but O'Connell didn't seem to notice it. They poked around, mostly using their feet, until O'Connell found his toolbox. The metal was still warm, but not too hot to handle.

“A screwdriver's missing,” he said when he'd gotten the box open. “One of those with the reversible tip—regular on one end and Phillips on the other? Dammit, I just bought that screwdriver a month ago.”

“Whew, somebody sure thought ahead,” Ivan said, leading the way out of the monitoring room. “Let's get away from this smell.”

O'Connell looked at Marian. “What's he mean?”

“He means your missing screwdriver was probably what was used to pry open the drawer where the three knives were locked away. The killer waited until you left to go to the bathroom and then stole your screwdriver before setting the fire.”

He worked it out. “So it had to be somebody who saw me bring my toolbox into the conference room—when I removed the camera and the microphone?”

“Right. Unfortunately, that doesn't narrow it down much.”

O'Connell hesitated. “Look, this might not mean anything …”

“What? Tell us anyway.”

“Well, Mr. McKinstry sure was awful interested in what I was doing. He got up and came over and watched while I took the mike out of the light switch.” O'Connell thought about it a moment. “Naw, he was just being curious. I don't think it means anything.”

“You never know,” Ivan said ambiguously. “Your screwdriver will turn up, Mr. O'Connell. If you find it before we do, don't handle it, okay? Fingerprints.”

“Oh, yeah. Okay.”

Marian thanked the security guard for his help and told him he could go.

“Speaking of bathrooms,” Ivan said.

“Me too.”

They found one and took turns. One of the uniformed officers on duty saw Ivan coming out and told them there were four downstairs bathrooms, if they wanted to count the cook's. They thanked him for the information.

Back in the conference room Ivan moved the side table that had held the knives out from the wall, looking for the screwdriver. “I know, I know,” he said, although his partner hadn't uttered a word, “there won't be any prints. But we have to check.”

“Ivan, I'm usually the one who says that. Getting cautious in your old age?”

“I'm always cautious. And painstaking. And neat.”

Marian snorted. “That must be your twin brother.”

Ivan moved the side table back into place; no screwdriver. “Castleberry's definitely out. Think we ought to talk to him again before we tackle the three primes?”

“Let's get the rest of these people out of the way first. The gateman and the house staff. Besides, I want to see this woman you're in love with.”

“Danielle? She's a doll.”

Danielle the cook didn't have anything to tell them; she knew even less than the rest of the house staff, which was little enough. All they'd been told was there'd be three weekend guests during Mr. Strode's absence—

During his absence?
both police detectives had interrupted.

Yes, Mr. Strode had been away until this evening. It was clear that something was in the wind; but no one paid any particular attention to that because with Mr. Strode, something was always in the wind. What these three were up to was their own business … and Mr. Strode's, of course. Mr. McKinstry always left his bathroom in a mess, but other than that there wasn't anything they could tell them about the three guests.

With one exception. The maid that Richard Bruce had asked to fetch his and Joanna Gillespie's suitcases volunteered the opinion that where she had to go to get them was kind of strange. They were in the wine cellar.

What were their suitcases doing in the wine cellar?

She was sure she didn't know. She didn't ask questions. Mr. Strode didn't like it.

And when did Mr. Bruce send her for the bags?