Murder on Marble Row (35 page)

“Don't worry about that. She isn't going to bring charges against him. Could I speak to your brother alone, Mr. Van Dyke?”

Creighton instinctively moved closer to Tad and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. “I think I should stay. Tad isn't himself, and he might say something—”

“Go away, Creighton,” Tad said wearily. “I need to talk to Mr. Malloy. I need to make this right before Reed and Bertie get hurt any more.”

“What do
they
have to do with this?” Creighton asked in alarm. “You see,” he said to Frank, “he isn't making any sense. He's had too much to drink.”

“Or not enough,” Tad said with a bitter smile. “Creighton, get out of here before I throw you out. I've got some business with Mr. Malloy, and I don't want you here.”

“You can wait out in the hall,” Frank offered. “I don't think this will take long.”

Torn between Tad's wishes and his own duty to protect his brother, Creighton hesitated for a long moment before making his decision. “I'll be right outside if you need me,” he told Tad. With one last warning glance at Frank, he started for the door.

Because he was looking at Frank, he didn't notice the empty bottle sitting on the floor beside Tad's chair, and he kicked it over. For a second he must have considered stopping to pick it up, but then he realized how silly it would be to right one bottle in the midst of all the chaos, and he let it lie.

The moment he was gone, however, Frank walked over and picked it up. It was a bottle of French brandy. A very fancy bottle. A bottle with real gold trim. Just the kind of brandy bottle everyone had said Gregory Van Dyke was giving Allen Snowberger as a gift on the day he died.

15

E
VERY NERVE IN FRANK'S BODY CRACKLED TO LIFE, BUT he knew better than to let Tad know he'd recognized the bottle. He set it down on the table beside Tad's chair. The boy didn't seem to notice.

“What did you want to talk to me about, Tad?” Frank asked, figuring he'd give the boy the opportunity to clear his conscience.

“Lewis didn't kill Snowberger,” he said, managing to sound more sober than he was. “You have to let him go.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Tad took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Because . . . I know. He couldn't kill anyone.”

Frank glanced around and saw a straight-backed chair nearby. He retrieved it, brought it over to face Tad, and straddled it. “When did you figure out that you could sneak out of the house by going over the roof?” he asked casually.

Tad's eyes widened in surprise. For a second, he looked as if he was going to deny it, but then his shoulders slumped in resignation. “I was about fourteen, I guess. How did you . . .? Oh, Sarah,” he remembered.

“Is that how you got out yesterday without anyone seeing you?”

Tad closed his eyes. He could deny it. He could deny everything. The temptation was almost irresistible, but he managed to overcome it. When he opened his eyes again, the fear and the wariness were gone. “Yes. I didn't leave right away. Too bad I didn't, because I would've run into Lewis at Snowberger's place. If he'd seen me there, I might not have gone through with it.”

“Lewis was gone by the time you arrived?”

“No. I'd waited until the doorman took someone up in the elevator, and then I went up the stairs. When I got to Snowberger's apartment, I heard him and Lewis inside arguing. He was saying terrible, insulting things about Bertie, and finally, Lewis couldn't stand it anymore and left. I hid until he'd gone, and then I went and knocked on the door.”

Automatically, he picked up the glass from the table beside him, but it was empty. Frank took it gently from his fingers. “Better wait until you're finished with your story,” he advised. “What happened when Snowberger let you in?”

Tad's hands curled into fists. “He opened the door right away. I think he expected that Lewis had come back for one more try. When he saw it was me, he laughed.”

“Why did he laugh?”

Tad's face darkened at the memory. “He knew about me and Lilly. She told him, I guess. And he knew she'd chosen him. Maybe he thought I'd come to beg him not to marry her or something. I don't know, but he just kept laughing.

Then he turned and walked away. He left me standing there, like I didn't matter. After what he'd done, I couldn't . . . Well, I couldn't let him get away with it.”

“Was that when you picked up the poker?”

Tad was staring past Frank now, remembering. “I wanted to hurt him. I didn't mean to kill him. I'd just gone there to confront him and tell him I knew what he'd done. I wanted to see him punished, but dying was too easy. So I looked around for something to hurt him with, and I saw the poker.” He shuddered slightly at the memory.

“After you hit him, why didn't you just leave him there?”

Tad ran a hand over his face. “I knew he was dead, and if the police knew he was murdered, you'd try to find out who did it. I didn't want to go to prison for killing him, and I didn't want someone else to, either. I tried to think of a way he could've died that wouldn't make you try to find a killer.”

Frank debated telling Tad that Snowberger hadn't been killed by the blow, but he decided not to. If the boy realized he'd hung a living man, he might not be able to bear it. Besides, who's to say Snowberger wouldn't have died as a result of the head wound anyway?

“You were very clever,” Frank said instead. “You almost fooled me.”

“But I didn't,” he pointed out sadly. “
You
almost scared me to death, though. I was tying the sheet to the chandelier when you started knocking on the door. My heart nearly stopped in my chest.”

Too bad Frank hadn't sent the doorman for the key then. He might've saved Snowberger's life and Tad's freedom.

“Now you know,” Tad was saying, “so you can let poor Lewis go and arrest me.”

“Are you going to confess to killing your father, too?” Frank asked mildly.

Tad's bloodshot eyes widened in surprise. “Of course not! I didn't have anything to do with that.”

“Then Lewis Reed is still in trouble, because he had the best reason of all to want your father dead.”

Tad shook his head. “He might have, but he didn't do it. Why do you think I went to confront Snowberger? As soon as I realized he and Lilly had been having an affair and were going to be married, I knew—Allen Snowberger killed my father!”

 
 
W
HEN MALLOY WENT UPSTAIRS, SARAH WENT TO FIND Alberta. She'd gone to the back parlor, where she sat alone, rereading Lewis's letter as tears ran down her cheeks. She looked up hopefully when Sarah came in, but the hope died when she saw who it was.

“He says he's sorry for all the hurt he's caused me,” she said in wonder. “As if his own suffering doesn't matter at all.”

“We often find it easier to bear tragedy ourselves than to see the ones we love bearing it,” Sarah said. If this was true for Lewis Reed, he must be in agony, knowing the woman he loved would have to choose between bearing an illegitimate child or marrying an accused murderer.

“He'll be cleared,” she said, as if trying to convince herself. “He must be! They can't execute an innocent man.”

Sarah was sure it had happened more times than she wished to know about, but that wouldn't comfort Alberta. Neither would the only alternative she had to offer.

“In order to clear Mr. Reed, Mr. Malloy will have to find the real killer,” she began, feeling her way cautiously.

“He should have done that in the first place,” Alberta replied angrily. “If he had, poor Lewis would be a free man.”

“The real killer must be someone who had a personal grudge against your father and Mr. Snowberger.”

Alberta frowned. “Of course, that goes without saying.”

“That's why Mr. Reed seems like a good suspect, even though we know he couldn't possibly have killed anyone,” Sarah added. “But who else would have had a grudge against them?”

“Many people, I'm sure,” Alberta said. “Men don't become rich without making some enemies. At least, that's what Father used to say.”

“But how many businessmen are blown up by their enemies?” Sarah asked, hoping to lead Alberta's thinking toward a more personal motive. “Murder is usually motivated by the kind of passion we only feel for the people close to us. Who might have felt that kind of emotion for both men?”

Alberta obviously hadn't considered this before. “You mean the passion of love?”

“Or hate. Jealousy and greed, too. The things that drive people to desperation and despair.”

Alberta nodded slowly. “I can see why Mr. Malloy would believe Lewis capable of murder,” she admitted grudgingly. “We were certainly desperate and despairing before Father died.”

“Family members are often cruel to each other. Creighton actually had to leave the house,” Sarah reminded her.

“He and Father were always at loggerheads,” Alberta remembered. “A father wants his son to grow up to be his own man, but when he challenges the father's authority . . .” She shook her head sadly at the memories.

“I suppose Tad was beginning to do that as well,” Sarah tried.

But Alberta wouldn't concede that point. “Tad was spoiled,” she said decisively. “Father got impatient with him, but they never quarreled the way he and Creighton did.”

“Sometimes we don't know how deeply hurt someone is,” Sarah said. “Especially boys. We don't allow them to show their true feelings the way girls do. They just keep it inside until they can't bear it anymore.”

But Alberta couldn't believe it. “Family arguments can be painful, but to kill someone . . . that requires a kind of deep hatred I don't think either of us can understand, Sarah.”

Sarah sighed. How could she make Alberta see? How could she prepare her for the horrible news she would hear when Malloy was finished with Tad? She was still frantically trying to figure it out when Alberta spoke.

“It's odd, but the more I think about it, the more I'm sure that the only person who hated Allen Snowberger enough to kill him was Father—and the only person who hated Father enough to kill
him
was Allen Snowberger.”

 
 
^“
W
HAT MADE YOU SO SURE SNOWBERGER KILLED YOUR father?” Frank asked Tad.

“I told you, because of Lilly. They'd been having an affair, and he wanted her for himself.”

“Is that why you killed him? Because of Lilly?”

Tad looked away as the color crawled up his face. “I figured you'd think that, but I told you, I didn't intend to
kill
him. I wanted to confront him and tell him I knew he'd killed Father and tried to make it look like Creighton's anarchists did it. I wanted to see his face because I had to be certain, but then I was going to tell you. I wanted to see him arrested and charged with murder. I wanted him shamed so Lilly would never want to hear his name again.” He looked up at Frank, his eyes bright with certainty. “Then she'd come to
me
.”

His theory made a certain kind of sense, but Frank knew it didn't quite fit the facts. First of all and no matter what Tad might think, Frank was fairly certain Snowberger didn't really want Lilly, not before Van Dyke's death or after. He might've been willing to sample Lilly's favors again, but according to Sarah's description, when she'd informed him they were getting married yesterday, he'd literally fled the house. This was not the reaction of a man who had killed to possess her.

And then there was the brandy bottle.

“What's this, Tad?” Frank asked casually, picking up the elaborately decorated bottle from the table where he'd set it earlier.

Tad grinned blearily. “The best brandy in the world, I'd guess.”

“Where did it come from?”

“France, I think,” he replied. “Look at the label.”

Frank smiled. “No, I mean where did
you
get it?”

“From my father's room,” he said without hesitation. “He didn't like to drink that much himself, you know. He just begrudged anybody else the really good stuff. He'd buy cheap liquor for his guests and keep the best for himself.”

“Is this the kind of brandy your father bought to give Mr. Snowberger?”

Tad frowned. “Why would he give Snowberger a bottle of brandy? Especially one so expensive? He hated him.”

Frank looked at the bottle again.
Now
it all made sense.

 
 
S
ARAH HAD BEEN LISTENING FOR FOOTSTEPS ON THE stairs, and when she heard some, she slipped out of the back parlor, leaving Alberta rereading Reed's letter. Malloy was coming down, his expression grim, and for some reason he was carrying a very fancy liquor bottle. He hesitated a moment when he saw her, but only to make sure she was alone. When he saw she was, he came down the rest of the stairs. He looked very tired.

“Did he confess?” she asked him in a whisper when he was close enough.

He indicated they should go into the front parlor, and she led the way. He closed the door behind them.

Sarah waited, clutching her hands together tightly.

“He confessed to killing Snowberger,” he said.

Sarah flinched. Even though she'd already been certain, hearing the bald truth of it brought the pain of how this would affect the rest of his family. “Does Creighton know yet?”

“I sent him in to let Tad tell him,” he said.

Sarah couldn't blame him for that. She should probably send Alberta up as well so she wouldn't have to break the news. Then she realized what Malloy
hadn't
said. “Did he confess to killing his father as well?”