Nero Wolfe 16 - Even in the Best Families (23 page)

He had ended his calisthenics with the fists closed tight, the knobs of the knuckles the color of boils. “I made a mistake with Zeck,” he said fretfully. “When I broke it off he sent for me and as good as told me that the only thing between me and the electric chair was his influence. I lost my temper. When I do that I
can never remember what I said, but I don’t think I actually told him that I had evidence of blackmailing against him personally. Anyhow, I said too much.” He opened his fists and spread his fingers wide, his palms flat on his thighs. “Then this started, stretching into months. Did you say you have a suggestion?”

“Yeah. And brother, you need one.”

“What is it?”

“On my own,” I said.

“What is it?”

“For you and Zeck to have a talk.”

“What for? No matter what he said I couldn’t trust him.”

“Then you’d be meeting on even terms. Look straight at it. Could your wife trust you? Could your friends trust you—the ones you helped Zeck get at? Could I trust you? I warned you not to trust me, didn’t I? There are only two ways for people to work together: when everybody trusts everyone or nobody trusts no one. When you mix them up it’s a mess. You and Zeck ought to get along fine.”

“Get along with Zeck?”

“Certainly.” I turned a palm up. “Listen, you’re in a hole. I never saw a man in a deeper one. You’re even willing and eager to shell out to me, a double-crosser you can’t trust, to give you a lift. You can’t possibly expect to get out in the clear with no ropes tied to you—what the hell, who is? Your main worry is getting framed for murder, so your main object is to see that you don’t. That ought to be a cinch. Zeck has a new man, a guy named Roeder, came here recently from the coast, who has started to line up an operation that’s a beaut. I’ve been assigned to help on it, and I think I’m going to. It’s as tight as a drum and as slick as a Doberman pinscher’s coat. With the
help of a man placed as you are, there would be absolutely nothing to it, without the slightest risk of any noise or a comeback.”

“No. That’s what got—”

“Wait a minute. As I said, this is on my own. I’m not going to tell you what Zeck said to me yesterday, but I advise you to take my suggestion. Let me arrange for you to see him. You don’t have to take up where you left off, a lot of dirty little errands; you’re a man of wealth now and can act accordingly. But also you’re a man who is suspected by thirty million people of killing his wife, and that calls for concessions. Come with me to see Zeck, let him know you’re willing to discuss things, and if he mentions Roeder’s operation let him describe it and then decide what you want to do. I told you why I don’t want to see you or anyone else framed for that murder, and I don’t think Zeck will either if it looks as though you might be useful.”

“I hate him,” Rackham said hoarsely. “I’m afraid of him and I hate him!”

“I don’t like him myself. I told him so. What about tomorrow? Say four o’clock tomorrow, call for you here at a quarter to three?”

“I don’t—not tomorrow—”

“Get it over with! Would you rather keep on listening for the phone and the doorbell? Get it over with!”

He reached for his straight drink, which he hadn’t touched, swallowed it at a gulp, shuddered all over, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I’ll ring you around noon to confirm it,” I said, and stood up to go. He didn’t come with me to the door, but under the circumstances I didn’t hold it against him.

So that evening when Wolfe came to 1019 it appeared to be high time for getting the false bottom in the brief case ready, and we went on until midnight, discussing the program from every angle and trying to cover every contingency. It’s always worth trying, though it can never be done, especially not with a layout as tricky as that one.

Then the next morning, Tuesday, a monkey wrench, thrown all the way from White Plains, flew into the machinery and stopped it. I had just finished breakfast, with Fritz, when the phone rang and I went to the office to get it. It was the Westchester DA’s office.

The talk was brief. When I had hung up I sat a while, glaring at the phone, then with an exasperated finger dialed the Churchill’s number. That talk was brief too. Finished with it, I held the button down for a moment and dialed another number.

There had been only two buzzes when a voice came through a nose to me. “Yes?”

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Roeder.”

“Talking.”

“This is Goodwin. I’ve just had a call from White Plains to come to the DA’s office at once. I asked if I could count on keeping a two o’clock appointment and was told no. I phoned the Churchill and left a message that I had been called out of town for the day. I hope it can be tomorrow. I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

Silence.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes. Good luck, Goodwin.”

The connection went.

I
had once sat and cooled my heels for three hours on one of the wooden benches in the big anteroom of the DA’s office in the White Plains courthouse, but this time I didn’t sit at all. I didn’t even give my name. I entered and was crossing to the table in the fenced-off corner when a man with a limp intercepted me and said, “Come with me, Mr. Goodwin.”

He took me down a long corridor, past rows of doors on either side, and into a room that I was acquainted with. I had been entertained there for an hour or so the evening of Sunday, April ninth. No one was in it. It had two big windows for the morning sun, and I sat and watched the dust dance. I was blowing at it, seeing what patterns I could make, when the door opened and Cleveland Archer, the DA himself, appeared, followed by Ben Dykes. I have never glanced at faces with a deeper interest. If they had looked pleased and cocky it would probably have meant that they had cracked the case, and in that event all our nifty plans for taking care of Arnold Zeck were up the flue and God help us.

I was so glad to see that they were far from cocky
that I had to see to it that my face didn’t beam. I responded to their curt greeting in kind, and when they arranged the seating with me across a table from them I said grumpily as I sat, “I hope this is going to get somebody something. I had a full day ahead, and now look at it.”

Dykes grunted, not with sympathy and not with enmity, just a grunt. Archer opened a folder he had brought, selected from its contents some sheets of paper stapled in a corner, glanced at the top sheet, and gave me his eyes, which had swollen lids.

“This is that statement you made, Goodwin.”

“About what? Oh, the Rackham case?”

“For God’s sake,” Dykes said gloomily. “Forget to try to be cute just once. I’ve been up all night.”

“It was so long ago,” I said apologetically, “and I’ve been pretty busy.”

Archer slid the statement across the table to me. “I think you had better read it over. I want to ask some questions about it.”

I couldn’t have asked for a better chance to get my mind arranged, but I didn’t see that that would help matters any, since I hadn’t the vaguest notion from which direction the blow was coming.

“May I save it for later?” I inquired. “If you get me up a tree and I need time out for study, I can pretend I want to check with what I said here.” I tapped the statement with a forefinger.

“I would prefer that you read it.”

“I don’t need to, really. I know what I said and what I signed.” I slid it back to him. “Test me on any part of it.”

Archer closed the folder and rested his clasped hands on it. “I’m not as interested in what is in that statement as I am in what isn’t in it. I think you
ought to read it because I want to ask you what you left out—of the happenings of that day, Saturday, April eighth.”

“I can answer that without reading it. I left nothing out that was connected with Mrs. Rackham.”

“I want you to read what you said and signed and then repeat that statement.”

“I don’t need to read it. I left out nothing.”

Archer and Dykes exchanged looks, and then Dykes spoke. “Look, Goodwin, we’re not trying to sneak up on you. We’ve got something, that’s all. Someone has loosened up. It looks like this is the day for it.”

“Not for me.” I was firm. “I loosened up long ago.”

Archer told Dykes, “Bring her in.” Dykes arose and left the room. Archer took the statement and returned it to the folder and pushed the folder to one side, then pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. The door opened and Dykes escorted Lina Darrow in. He pulled a chair up to the end of the table for her, to my left and Archers right, so that the window was at her back. She looked as if she might have spent the night in jail, with red eyes and a general air of being pooped, but judging from the clamp she had on her jaw, she was darned determined about something. I got a glance from her but nothing more, not even a nod, as she took the chair Dykes pulled up.

“Miss Darrow,” Archer told her, gently but firmly, “you understand that there is probably no chance of getting your story corroborated except through Mr. Goodwin. You haven’t been brought in here to face him for the purpose of disconcerting or discrediting him, but merely so he can be informed
first-hand.” Archer turned to me. “Miss Darrow came to us last evening of her own accord. No pressure of any kind has been used with her. Is that correct, Miss Darrow? I wish you could confirm that to Mr. Goodwin.”

“Yes.” She lifted her eyes to me, and though they had obviously had a hard night, I still insist they were fine. She went on, “I came voluntarily. I came because—the way Barry Rackham treated me. He refused to marry me. He treated me very badly. Finally—yesterday it was too much.”

Archer and Dykes were both gazing at her fixedly. Archer prodded her. “Go on, please, Miss Darrow. Tell him the main facts.”

She was trying the clamp on her jaw to make sure it was working right. Satisfied, she released it. “Barry and I had been friendly, a little, before Mrs. Rackham’s death. Nothing but just a little friendly. That’s all it meant to me, or I thought it was, and I thought it was the same with him. That’s how it was when we went to the country for the Easter weekend. She had told me we wouldn’t do any work there, answer any mail or anything, but Saturday at noon she sent for me to come to her room. She was crying and was so distressed she could hardly talk.”

Lina paused. She was keeping her eyes straight at mine. “I can rattle this off now, Mr. Goodwin. I’ve already told it now.”

“That always makes it easier,” I agreed. “Go right ahead.”

She did. “Mrs. Rackham said she had to talk about it with someone, and she wanted to with her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Frey, but she just couldn’t, so there was only me. She said she had gone to see Nero Wolfe the day before, to ask him to find out
where her husband was getting money from, and he had agreed to do it. Mr. Wolfe had phoned her that evening, Friday evening, and told her that he had already partly succeeded. He had learned that her husband was connected with something that was criminal. He was helping somebody with things that were against the law, and he was getting well paid for it. Mr. Wolfe advised her to keep it to herself until he had more details. He said his assistant, Mr. Goodwin, would come up Saturday afternoon, and might have more to report then.”

“And that Goodwin knew all about it?” Archer asked.

“Well, naturally she took that for granted. She didn’t say that Mr. Wolfe told her in so many words that Mr. Goodwin knew all about it, but if he was his assistant and helping with it, naturally she would think so. Anyway that didn’t seem to be important then, because she had told it all to her husband. They used the same bedroom at Birchvale, and she said that after they had gone to bed she simply couldn’t help it. She didn’t tell me their conversation, what they said to each other, but they had had a violent quarrel. She had told him they would have to separate, she was through with him, and she would have Mr. Wolfe go on with his investigation and get proof of what he had done. Mrs. Rackham had a very strong character, and she hated to be deceived. But the next day she wasn’t sure she really meant it, that she really wanted to part from him. That was why she wanted to talk about it with someone. I think the reason she didn’t want to talk with Mrs. Frey—”

“If you don’t mind, Miss Darrow,” Archer suggested gently, “just the facts now.”

“Yes, of course.” She sent him a glance and returned
to me. “I told her I thought she was completely wrong. I said that if her husband had been untrue to her, or anything like that, that would be different, but after all he hadn’t done wrong to her, only to other people and himself, and that she should try to help him instead of destroying him. At the very least, I said, she should wait until she knew all the details of what he had done. I think that was what she wanted to hear, but she didn’t say so. She was very stubborn. Then, that afternoon, I did something that I will regret all my life. I went to Barry and told him she had told me about it, and said I was sure it would come out all right if he would meet her halfway—tell her the whole thing, tell her he was sorry, as he certainly should be—and no more foolishness in the future. And Barry said he loved me.”

She weakened a little there for the first time. She dropped her eyes. I had been boring at her with as steady and sharp a gaze as I had in me, but up to that point she had met it full and fair.

“So then?” I asked.

Her eyes lifted and she marched on. “He said he didn’t want it to come out all right because he loved me. Shall I try to tell you what I—how I felt?”

“Not now. Just what happened.”

“Nothing happened then. That was in the middle of the afternoon. I didn’t tell Barry I loved him—I didn’t even know I loved him then. I got away from him. Later we gathered in the living room for cocktails, and you and Mr. Leeds came, and we played that game—you remember.”

“Yep, I do.”

“And dinner, and television afterward, and—”

“Excuse me. That is common knowledge. Skip to
later, when the cops had come. Did you tell them all this?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t think it would be fair to Barry. I didn’t think he had killed her, and I didn’t know what criminal things he had helped with, and I thought it wouldn’t be fair to tell that about him when all I knew was what Mrs. Rackham had told me.” The fine eyes flashed for the first time. “Oh, I know the next part. Then why am I telling it now? Because I know more about him now—a great deal more! I don’t know that he killed Mrs. Rackham, but I know he could have; he is cruel and selfish and unscrupulous—there is nothing he wouldn’t do. I suppose you think I’m vindictive, and maybe I am, but it doesn’t matter what you think about me as long as I’m telling the truth. What the criminal things were that he did, and whether he killed his wife—I don’t know anything about it; that’s your part.”