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Authors: Graham Landrum

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BOOK: The Famous Dar Murder Mystery
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There was silence on the other end of the line to the count of five.
“Is that so?” he said at last.
“Indeed it is,” I chirped. “His name is Luis Garcia Valera. He is Spanish and a most accomplished harpist.”
“A what?”
“Harpist—he plays the harp.”
“And how did he get himself killed by a wino in Brown Spring Cemetery?” The tone was resonant with sarcasm.
“It's your business to find that out.”
“Fine,” said our fearless law-enforcer, “I'll do that.”
I got the message immediately: I had just received the brush-off.
“You don't understand,” I said. I was going on the defensive now, which is the wrong thing to do. “His name is García,” I protested. “They told me so at the airport. There is no possible doubt about it.”
“Listen, Helen,” Gilroy broke in, “we're very busy here today. We'll take care of this just as soon as we get around to it. Okay?”
I was mad and chagrined. Because I was excited, I had acted like a child, and I had been treated like a child. But I did not lick my wounds. I immediately called the commonwealth attorney, Ronald Jefferson.
Ron is no special favorite of mine, but he belongs to the country club and has played golf with Henry once or twice. And his wife, of course, is in Lawyers' Wives, a funny little club that meets for cocktails once a year. Ron is not smart like Henry, and Henry says he is lazy but honest. He is pretty;
that's how he gets elected. He is also smooth. And that's all he is.
“Ron,” I said when the young woman put me through to him, “this is Helen Delaporte.”
“Ah, Helen! This makes my day.”
I could picture him in his big paneled office with a cigar in his left hand and that huge gold ring he wears—with a crest on it—totally fake, of course. That's one thing you learn quickly in the DAR.
“Good to hear from you, doll! Anything I can do, just ask.”
I began at the beginning. I told Ron the whole thing. He kept murmuring such things as “Now isn't that amazing!” and “Well, well!” After I had told my whole story and given him the names of Rose and Millmarsh, he said, “Well, dear, you've really given us something to think about. Yes, indeed! Something to think about.”
There was a pause. Then I heard his swivel chair squeak as he took his feet off the desk.
“Have you got those names?” I asked.
“Oh yes—er—Rose and Middlemarch.”
“The second name is Millmarsh.” And I spelled it for him.
“Ross and Millmarsh,” he repeated. “Well, I'll tell you what, dear; we'll check this out and get back to you, right?”
What can be said to something like that? What I said was, “I would certainly appreciate it if you would.” I knew what his words meant and I knew what
he
meant; and they weren't the same thing.
“Bye-bye, now,” he purred, and put the phone in its cradle. I sat there with a dead instrument in my hand. Ron Jefferson, unlike Gilroy, had given me the
velvet
brush-off. While I was still holding the phone in my hand, I heard a click. Ron had picked up his phone again. He was trying to call out. It didn't work. I sat holding my own instrument waiting to see what would happen. In less than a minute there was a click again, and I heard, “Oh, Goddamn it.” I hung up.
I just sat there in the breakfast room looking at the amaryllis that was trying to bloom. Ron Jefferson was no doubt talking to Butch Gilroy by this time. And no doubt they were talking about me. I could very easily imagine what they were saying. But it wouldn't be flattering—I was sure of that.
I made considerable progress with the music for Holy Week. Saint Luke's is not especially high; but though it is a small parish, quite a number of our people are knowledgeable and can tell good music from bad. Not that they know how much it takes to produce good music. Few of them have any idea what it's like to play for that long service on Palm Sunday, three hours on Good Friday, the Easter Vigil, and then Easter morning. When the vocal music is added, an organist-choir director has enough to occupy her in February and March without the DAR, and certainly without a murder.
Henry came in at 6:45. He had been in court all day and was tired. I got out two fillets and frozen peas and put some potatoes on and mashed them. It's his favorite meal! There were two slices of lemon pie left. That and two cups of coffee seemed to revive him.
Over the last cup I told him about my day. He did not seem surprised. He pulled his chin and looked out the window at the oldest Blankenbeckler boy across the street revving up his Honda under the streetlight.
“Well,” Henry said, “you definitely have important information there. You've got a name, and it's the name of a missing man, whether it turns out to be the murdered man or not. If Butch wants to trace this Garcia, he'll easily find out the truth of the matter. If Garcia was in town any length of time, his movements should not be hard to discover. He must have cashed travelers' checks and shown proof of identity more than once. Butch can do a lot with that if he wants to.
“But what you'll have to prove to Butch is that the man who flew in to Three City Airport is the same man who was
found at the Brown Spring Cemetery, and he'll resist the proof.
“It was a stroke of luck that what's-his-name made such a thing about his harp.”
“García Valera,” I interjected.
“García Valera,” Henry repeated. “Butch will check the motel and make further inquiries at the airport. Apparently you gave a pretty accurate description. All of that from looking at a battered corpse for a few minutes! I have a very intelligent wife. You would make a good witness. Perhaps I can use you sometime.”
Although Henry was teasing, I liked it.
“Of course,” Henry continued, “there will have to be a positive identification by someone who knew Garcia. Butch is going to resist your identification.”
“Why?”
“Natural inertia. A man comes here traveling under the name of Garcia. Well enough! But nobody has missed him. If this is Garcia, you would think someone would wonder why he hasn't showed up wherever he was expected to be. Consider the harp. People don't carry them around unless they are going to play them somewhere. So why hasn't Garcia been missed? And why hasn't there been an outcry? And where is his luggage other than the harp?
“You and I are pretty sure that Garcia, the man at the airport, was also the man you found at Brown Spring last Wednesday. But Butch will have to find someone who knew him and have the body identified.”
The following day I went on with the housecleaning. I got all the mildew off the shower curtains in the downstairs bathroom and reorganized the shelves in the pantry. I divided and repotted the shamrocks. In fact I kept so busy that I didn't even practice.
I cooked a nice pot roast and made a congealed salad. We
enjoyed both; and by the time I had the dinner dishes put away, I had no intention of doing one other thing or having a serious thought. I propped myself up with pillows and read a detective story until Henry came to bed.
In the morning, as usual, Henry took the first section of the
Banner-Democrat
while I read the grocery ads. My idea of sexual equality is to have two subscriptions to the
Banner-Democrat
so that I do not have to wait for the first section. But since Henry goes out and finds the paper where it is so often thrown—under the holly hedge—it is only right that he should get the first section if he wants it.
He reads absolutely every word on the editorial page, then swaps it for the financial page, and thus gets through his juice, cereal, toast, and eggs most days without a word.
On the other hand, it is very pleasant after he has left for the office. I pour a second cup of coffee and sit there in my robe leisurely scanning the front page, the obituaries, the features (I always read “Dear Abby,” although I can't stand the woman). Then there is the club calendar.
I had got that far when my eye lighted on the following story:
DAR CORPSE STILL NOT IDENTIFIED
No evidence has been found to identify the body of an apparent derelict discovered last week by a party of local DARs in a rural cemetery in Ambrose County. Sheriff Calvin (“Butch”) Gilroy observed that identity can be established only if the body can be identified by a relative or associate unless the deceased's fingerprints are on file.
“Those transients give us lots of trouble,” Gilroy said, “but we're working on it.”
The body was discovered last Tuesday by members of the Old Orchard Fort Chapter, NSDAR, in search of the grave of Adoniram Philipson, soldier of the American Revolution. Mrs. Henry Delaporte, Regent of the chapter, led a committee charged with the project of memorializing the long-dead hero.
The story went on from there—about five more inches.
My first reaction was surprise that the form was exactly right: “Old Orchard Fort Chapter, NSDAR. DAR is correct too, but
NSDAR
, which stands for National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, is better. That seems so simple, but it is surprising how often the papers get it wrong. I had not yet learned, you see, of Elizabeth's educational campaign.
Although glad to see the story because of course it would count as inches, written as it was, I hardly had time to be pleased before I realized that the news story proved that Butch Gilroy had absolutely ignored me—just as I had suspected.
I picked up the phone and called the
Banner-Democrat.
They put me through to Albert Manley, whom I did not at that point know, although I got to know him and like him very much later on. I told Al how I had identified the dead man and had notified both Gilroy and Jefferson.
Al perked up right away; and if I had only realized it, I had just ensured myself a degree of notoriety. But I was so provoked by that stupid sheriff that I didn't much care what I was doing.
After I finished my conversation with Al Manley, I rang the sheriffs office.
“Sheriff Gilroy?” I said when he came on the phone. He recognized my voice.
“Now, Helen, you had a nice little time being detective.
But you know we in the sheriffs department are professionals. We have experience in these things and procedures that we follow. Amateurs don't know anything about procedures, and so they make mistakes.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “I identified that corpse for you. You were hardly civil when I gave you the information. I also gave all the evidence to Ron Jefferson. There is no doubt that the man was Luis Garcia Valera. Now what do you mean by telling the
Banner-Democrat
that no identification has been made?”
“Now we investigated thoroughly at the Sunset Inn. Valera was there all right—but he checked out. And we made a special inquiry at the airport. And what do you know—Valera went out on USAir Flight four-oh-seven on Sunday morning to New York.”
“Did what?”
“Left town about eighteen hours after the coroner says that bum you stumbled onto out there at Brown Spring had already turned in his chips. Like I say, we use procedures. We check everything. We know what we are doing. We use standard procedures.”
“Too bad you don't use your brain.”
“Don't what?”
“Use your brain. I told you that girl at the ticket desk recognized Mr. García immediately from my description.”
“Well, of course!” Butch said. “It was this Valera guy; but like I told you, he got on a plane and went to New York.”
“How could he get on a plane and go to New York when he was lying dead in the Brown Spring Cemetery?” I demanded.
“But he wasn't lying dead in the Brown Spring Cemetery,” Butch insisted. “That was somebody else—like I say—a bum.”
“Look,” I said, “I saw the man's body. I described him
accurately, and that Miss Rose recognized the description immediately. You can't tell me that Luis Garcia Valera had a doppelgänger lying dead in the cemetery while the real Garcia flew off to New York.”
“Had a what?”
“Doppelgänger—an exact double.”
“Well, he must have had one of those things, because it's a cinch he flew to New York on USAir Flight four-oh-seven.
What do you say to a person like that? I just said, “I am going to say good-bye to you, Sheriff Gilroy. But I'm warning you that you are going to hear from me again.”
“Suit yourself.”
I felt that I absolutely had to do something about the situation immediately. And so I called Henry, but Henry was in court. So I tried to get Al Manley again. Al had also gone to the courthouse. (There was a big liability suit against the city that the whole town had been following, and it was about to come to a decision.)
BOOK: The Famous Dar Murder Mystery
12.36Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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