The Marsh Madness (8 page)

“His skull was cracked?”

“That was enough to kill him.”

“Well, we didn’t do that.”

“I believe I will find out otherwise.”

“If there was no one at Summerlea—and Thomas and Lisa Troy were definitely there . . . Wait a minute, how did you even find out that we were at the house?” I said.

“The neighbors, a group of elderly women, were almost plowed down by your Mr. Kelly. They gave a description of your distinctive vehicle, although the plates weren’t readable, and they had the presence of mind to jot down the license plate of the Cadillac.”

Damn Uncle Kev and his love of
Grand Theft Auto
. Also, why wasn’t that license plate covered in dust like every other one that the Kellys drove? It was early spring in upstate New York. Plenty of mud everywhere. Even the Aston Martin and the Mercedes parked in front of Summerlea had muddy plates.

I sighed. “Kevin Kelly’s not much of a driver, but that doesn’t mean he’s a killer. He’s very gentle.”

“There’s more, of course.”

“More? Chadwick was murdered. You say that there is no Miss Lisa Troy in his life. You say he didn’t have a butler. What else? Is the earth suddenly flat?” My heart was racing. Everything was so hard to grasp. So inexplicable. And so likely to get us charged with murder.

She pounced verbally. “Fingerprints.”

Was that all?

I relaxed. “Oh well, we all have fingerprints and we were in the house. So that’s not surprising.” Nothing much to worry about there, as we hadn’t done anything. Fingers crossed for Kev, of course.

Her dark eyes glittered. “Unusual as it may seem for visitors to such a grand home, your prints, of course, were in the system as a result of earlier interactions with the police.”

“But not because I was accused of a crime! I’ve been a witness. My prints have been taken for purposes of elimination and, um, other reasons. I’ve never committed a crime. Never,” I squeaked. So much for cool and calm. Get it together, Jordan.

She didn’t even appear to notice. And my statement wasn’t entirely true, but any mild transgressions had always been in the interests of justice and keeping people alive. About that, the less said, the better.

“And Mr. Kelly’s too, of course.”

“Um, Kevin was with me all the time. He’d never hurt anyone. He’s gentle and . . .” Best not to mention unintentionally dangerous.

“Even Miss Van Alst’s were there.”

“Well, you can hardly believe that Vera would kill anyone. She’s only interested in her collections, and there was no threat to any of them.” I added hurriedly, “And if there had been, she would take action with a lawyer, not a weapon. A dead opponent would be no use to Vera.”

Again with the throaty chuckle. “She told me that about herself. She only cares about books.”

“I don’t understand how Chadwick’s death has anything to do with us or the books.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Vera’s the one with the passion for the books, and even if there had been some issue, which there wasn’t, she couldn’t
hit a man with a blunt object hard enough to kill him let alone haul him up the staircase afterward.”

“What about the elevator?”

“What elevator?”

“The one in Summerlea.”

I stared. Elevator? “So what if there was? Vera didn’t take the elevator. She was never out of my sight.”

She tilted her head to one side and met my eyes. “So you say. And yet you and Mr. Kelly both left to ‘freshen up,’ as you put it.”

I goggled. “Yes. We did. Before lunch. But Chadwick was alive and well. We were all there.”

“Did you go to the same powder room as Mr. Kelly?”

“Of course not.”

“Right.”

“And you were out of sight of Miss Van Alst and Chadwick.”

“The other two as well. Lisa and Thomas.”

“I guess you’re sticking to that story. It makes me wonder if you’re all in it together.”

All in it together? Had she been reading Vera’s vintage mysteries? “You mean you think we conspired to kill Chadwick?”

She smiled and nodded.

“Why? Why would we do such a thing?”

“Theft is my guess.”

My jaw dropped. “Theft? We are not thieves.” Most of us weren’t, anyway. Oh, Kev, Kev, Kev.

This woman was good. I knew that none of us had killed Chadwick. Absolutely knew it. I knew that Miss Troy and Thomas the butler had been there and that Chadwick had been alive and smirking when we left. Why then was she able to make me so very nervous?

I reminded myself that the police can lie and mislead to get you to incriminate yourself. That had been drummed into me as a child.

I said, “We aren’t. And no matter what you say, nothing can change the fact that what I’ve told you is true.” Okay, that was a bit of a circular argument, but I did feel panicky. “It’s like you’re out to get us.”

“Or if the shoe fit and you ran away in it.”

“We didn’t run away. And you can’t have any proof that any of us was upstairs and hit Chadwick—for whatever reason—and then pushed him. We weren’t there. Vera didn’t take the elevator. Kevin didn’t go upstairs. I didn’t.”

“Did I say he was killed upstairs?”

Was she just trying to rattle me? “But I assumed since he fell down after the blow—”

“Maybe there was a dispute about the price of the books and then tempers flared. A statue was lifted and brought down hard and—”

“What statue?” I cast my mind back to remember a statue. Nothing came to mind.

“Oh, but there was.”

I slumped. “Didn’t you say that Chadwick had been thrown or pushed down the stairs?”

“Mmm. With some force.”

“But, how would we have gotten him up there? I could hardly lift a man. Vera even less so. And Kevin—”

“From what I hear, your Mr. Kelly is very fit and used to manual labor.”

“I don’t know if I’d call moving a body manual labor. Anyway, Kev would throw up.”

“I hardly think so.”

“I know so and I also know he didn’t do it. And he never went upstairs.”

“Evidence says otherwise.”

My patience was fraying. “It couldn’t. You’re trying to rattle me, and you’re wasting your time. We didn’t do it. You don’t have any proof that we did, because there’s no proof to be had. Simple as that.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes. Really.” I usually resist the Kelly temper that is half my heritage, but this time it was hard to.

“How then do you explain Mr. Kevin Kelly’s fingerprints on the statue found by the head of the stairs in Summerlea?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“But I can’t explain it. Wait, there was a statue—marble, I think—on the small table outside the powder rooms. A nude kneeling figure. Is that the one? It’s possible that Mr. Kelly picked it up to admire it. But it was still on the table when we returned to the sitting room, where Chadwick was very much alive. It wasn’t very big. I can’t imagine that could be a murder weapon.”

Even as the words came out, I knew how foolish they sounded. That thing was made of marble. Of course it could have cracked a skull.

Castellano opened her mouth to speak, and I burst out, “And we were not separated, after that, until we left, when, as I’ve mentioned, Chadwick was not only alive but said good-bye to us.”

“It was good-bye, all right. You’re going to have to tell the truth or you will find yourself charged as an accessory to murder. If not conspiracy to commit murder.”

Sammy Vincovic’s face flashed through my mind. He was shouting,
No comment.

I swallowed. “I want to speak to an attorney.”

“Sounds like guilty talk to me.”

“You know that I am entitled to legal counsel.”

“Your choice, of course. It doesn’t look good, you know, if you’re stalling us. An innocent person would cooperate with the police.”

“You wouldn’t be denying me my right to an attorney, would you?”

“Why? You don’t need one if you haven’t done anything.”

I didn’t trust Castellano. “I want legal advice. I think you are trying to set us up.”

She shrugged. “Why don’t I arrest you? We’ll head to the station and then you’ll be one hundred percent entitled to a lawyer.”

I frowned. I wasn’t falling for the innocent person talk. There have been many, many innocent people filling jail cells and many, many guilty ones walking free. My uncles like to say, it’s all in the way you play your cards. I didn’t know what cards I had, let alone how to play them. I didn’t really have a lawyer either. I’m a researcher for a book collector. I’m saving to get back to grad school. It wasn’t like I needed legal counsel on retainer. Vera had lawyers, but they didn’t practice criminal law.

The one time I’d really needed Sammy, my uncles had arranged it. They had footed the bill for his time without being asked. I couldn’t let that happen this time. I’d hoped never to see him again. Now I needed him and I didn’t even have his number. I had no idea how to reach him. My Uncle Mick, Uncle Lucky and Karen were in Manhattan (I thought) on some business that it was better I didn’t know about. Kev was on the run.

“I need to make a phone call.”

“All right, then,” Castellano said. “You are volunteering to answer questions. If you want your rights and your phone calls and your lawyer, then we’re going to have to head down to the station.”

The office door squeaked open. Castellano turned and glared at the man who lumbered through it. Sammy Vincovic appeared, fastening the top button of his blue two-button suit jacket, which managed to be tight and rumpled at the same time. Had he slept in it? Still, at the sight of his blocklike body and wild black, wavy hair, I felt a huge surge of relief.

“Who the hell are you?” Castellano snapped. “This is a police interview.”

He smoothed his random waves. “Sammy Vincovic. I’m Miss Bingham’s lawyer, and I’ll be sitting in on this interview.”

Castellano glared at Stoddard. The glare said, “You idiot. You let her contact a lawyer?” No words were necessary to convey this. For a second, Stoddard lost his studied cool. He shook his head, meaning, “Not on my watch.”

How, then?
I wondered.

Castellano narrowed her eyes at Vincovic. She returned to her questions.

“So you were about to explain how Kevin Kelly’s fingerprints ended up on the murder weapon.”

I opened my mouth to repeat that they couldn’t have been.

Sammy said, “My client has nothing to say.”

She said, “Miss Bingham, you really should answer this question. Evading it could go badly for you.”

“To repeat, my client has no comment. And I would like a word with her.”

As I was not under arrest at that point, Castellano had no choice but to vacate the chair and leave the study. Stoddard slouched out, looking chastened. She cast an angry glance at him, and he shrugged languidly and shook his head. I heard him say, “She didn’t call anyone. We had coffee.”

Kellys do not cry, and as I was a Kelly, I had to keep my eyes dry. I must say I felt like sobbing and wailing, but that was, of course, out of the question.

As the door closed behind the two detectives, Sammy said, “Now you can fill me in.” He glanced at the door and touched both of his small, neat ears. I got the message. Say nothing I didn’t want them to hear. Say only what was on the record. I could do that. It took a while to get the whole story out. He wanted every detail about the invitation, the luncheon and our relationship with Chadwick Kauffman.

“We didn’t have a relationship with him. We got the invitation out of the blue. It was purely business. A cash transaction,” I whispered with a glance at the door.

“You never met him before?”

“Not him and not them. He wanted to sell some books to Vera, who was willing to give him an excellent price for
them. Everyone would be ahead. It was a good thing. There was no reason at all for anyone to hurt him.”

“Okay, now tell me what she asked you.”

I did my best to repeat all the questions. “She’s saying that Kevin’s fingerprints are on a statue and that the statue is the murder weapon.” I reached out and touched his beefy arm. “There’s no way that’s possible. Kevin wasn’t upstairs. None of us were. We could see the staircase clearly from the foyer and the sitting room and we had no way to know there was an elevator. So even if we were capable of murder—which we aren’t—I couldn’t have killed him. Vera and Kev couldn’t have either. Anyway, even if one of us had been upstairs—which we weren’t—Chadwick was alive and smirking when we left.”

Sammy gazed at me, waiting.

“You do know that the police don’t have to be truthful with you during interviews, don’t you?”

Oh. Well. Of course I knew that. “I don’t think she was lying, but I knew she was wrong. Kev might have touched that little marble statue. But it was still there when we went back to the sitting room. The lieutenant seems like a decent person. Tough, but decent.”

Sammy let out a booming belly laugh. “That’s cute, kid. You can’t go by what she looks like. She’s a detective investigating a murder. Her job is to break down your resistance and get the answers she needs to solve the case. This guy was a big shot, and the murder is in the news. She’ll be under pressure. But that’s not our problem.”

“No. But we do have a problem. The whole situation is a problem. I’ve been thinking about it. I told you Castellano said that Lisa Troy and the butler don’t even exist—well, they do exist. But obviously they’re not who they said they were.”

“Yep. Got that.”

“It’s all so theatrical. I felt like I was in one of the Ngaio Marsh books that Vera bought.”

“Theatrical?”

“Yes, everything about it felt staged. But who would stage it?”

Sammy leaned forward and his black eyes bored into mine.

I returned his gaze. “So there’s only one thing it could be.”

He nodded. “A setup.”

I
SUPPOSE IF you were a defense attorney, you’d prefer something a bit more concrete to keep your client out of jail. Yelling, “Setup!” only gets you so far.

Sammy sat thinking. At least he wasn’t one to scowl.

I said, “Thank you for coming. I felt I was being ground down and fast. How do people survive hours and hours of questioning without accidentally implicating themselves?”

“Usually they don’t. That’s why you don’t allow yourself to be interviewed without representation. They trip you up. They get you rattled. The next stage they’d be saying that Vera Van Alst or Kevin didn’t back up your story and pointed the finger at you.”

“I wouldn’t fall for that,” I said.

“Says the kid who didn’t think the cops would lie to her. These people have training. You’d be surprised what they can get people to admit to, whether they’re guilty or not.”

“I don’t see how she can have any proof. It was impossible for any of us to kill him. I kept telling her that, but she didn’t believe me.”

“Remember this: She’s not paid to believe you.”

“Speaking of paying, who called you? I am grateful that you’re here, but was it Uncle Kev?” Of course, that was ridiculous because Kev never had enough money for a bus ticket.

He shook his head. “Not Kevin. And as I’m representing you, he’ll need his own counsel.”

“I guess they’ll have to find him first.”

Sammy said, “That’s bad.”

“How bad?”

“It’s a murder investigation and he’s disappeared. So pretty bad.”

“Well, technically, he’s out on an errand. He doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“You sure about that?”

“Of course I am. Uncle Kev always does errands when the police come knocking. It’s like an instinct for him. But he didn’t hurt Chadwick. You have my word on that.”

“I’ve learned one immutable fact in my career: Anything’s possible where people are involved.”

“Unless the laws of physics were temporarily suspended allowing time travel, Uncle Kev couldn’t have killed Chadwick. But the two people who were in the house could have.”

“You mean Lisa Troy, who doesn’t exist, and the butler that no one has heard of?”

“Exactly.”

He nodded. “I hear you, but that won’t get you out of this. Never mind. With luck, they left some kind of evidence. Fingerprints. Whatever. Let’s give Castellano something to think about.” He straightened his collar and tie, brushed a bit of dust off his too-tight suit jacket and tugged at it.

I figured I wasn’t the only person who’d thought that Castellano was pretty spectacular. I said, “Don’t let yourself be seduced by that pretty package.”

“I’m your lawyer. I don’t get seduced, but she is . . .”

I waited.

“. . . quite a woman.”

“No kidding. And you still haven’t told me who called you. Was it Uncle Mick and Uncle Lucky? How would they have found out?”

He shook his head. “Not your uncles.”

“But who? Vera?”

Vera could probably pay his fee, although I would expect a bit more of the Francis I silverware to disappear.

“Not Vera.”

Not uncles. Not Kev. Not Vera.

“Who? I think I have the right to know.”

“A friend of yours.”

“Really?”

“He asked me not to tell you.”

My heart clenched. I hoped it wasn’t Sal Tascone, the best-dressed and most dangerous man in town. I’d done my best to stay away from him, and I didn’t want to fall into his clutches now. Sal had once done me a favor, but with two favors, I’d be really in his debt, and I wasn’t prepared for that. I was going straight, not going straight to the mob.

“If it’s Sal, I’m going to have to let you go.”

Sammy gave a short bark of laughter. “No, not Tascone. I don’t work for him. You think a lot of yourself, don’t you, kid? And you’re wise to steer clear.”

“I don’t get it, then. No one knows. Only Vera, Kev, you and me, the signora, I suppose, the cops and . . .”

He reacted to that. The corner of his left eye twitched, and he tugged at the collar of his wrinkled jacket.

I stopped. Stared. Tyler Dekker knew, and his face had reflected his misery at accompanying his colleagues to question me about a murder. He’d met Sammy Vincovic, and he was smart enough to figure out how to reach him in Syracuse.

Was Smiley my savior?

Vincovic wasn’t saying. “There was only one condition, and that was that no one could know who called me.”

“Seriously? You don’t think I’m at a disadvantage not knowing who hired you to represent me?”

He smiled.

I tossed my verbal grenade. “Is this the first time you’ve been retained by a cop?”

Vincovic might have been a wily street fighter, but the look on his face told me I’d scored a direct hit.

“So that’s why Tyler left me alone. He was calling you. I thought he’d abandoned me.” Abandoned me
again
, I thought. It hadn’t been that long ago when he’d left me on my own in one of the most dangerous situations of my life.

“I can’t tell you who called me.”

“Fair enough. But now I know, and I’m grateful that he got you here. I’m not sure how I can afford your fees, but I’ll find a way.” I figured putting off grad school for another couple of years was probably the way, and I might still need some help from my uncles. They’d do what they could. They think that legal representation is like food and water, one of life’s necessities.

“Ready to face the big, bad detective again?” he said.

I stood up. He gestured for me to sit down. “Look relaxed. Remember that you’ve got friends. And ‘no comment’ is your only comment.”

Castellano strode through the door almost the second that Sammy Vincovic opened it. He smiled at her. It was the smile of man who is very, very impressed by a woman. “Welcome back, Detective.”

She pointedly ignored him and took the best seat in the house again. I must say, the desk suited her as much as her outfit did. Bad Cat reached out and took a swipe at the boots as she passed. I didn’t blame him. Good Bad Cat.

Stoddard slouched into the room and leaned against the wall, with his hands in his pockets. I half expected him to whistle a carefree tune.

Good Cat—not such an able judge of character—jumped into Castellano’s lap. The resulting shriek was very amusing for Stoddard. He had to turn his face away to get that grin under control. Castellano might have shot him otherwise.
Sammy, on the other hand, rushed forward to help and, one assumes, brush the cat hair from her skirt.

“Back off,” she said.

Sammy raised his hands in mock surrender. Good Cat leapt away and settled on the fainting couch, his back now turned to Castellano.

Bad Cat took the opportunity to give it another try. He crept behind the desk. At the end of Castellano’s high leather boots he found some quite expensive hose that went perfectly with the caramel suit. It was only a matter of time until Bad Cat hooked his claws into those. If Castellano was in a bad mood now, I could only imagine what she’d be like if her fifty-dollar stockings were ruined.

I said, out of complete self-interest, “The cat that jumped on your lap is the friendly cat. The other that’s aiming for your leg now, and I mean right now, might scratch or bite. Better let me take care of him.”

“You stay where you are. I’m not worried about any cat. That jumpy one took me by surprise, is all.”

I figured she was in for more surprises, but hey.

Sammy said, “I’ll keep an eye on the cats.”

I reminded myself he was on my side, even if he did seem to be more impressed with Castellano by the second.

From the look on her face, Castellano did not think that Sammy Vincovic was any kind of heartthrob. More like some kind of bug she’d like to stamp on.

Sammy’s smile widened as he watched her. It had definitely reached his wily black eyes.

“Stop grinning,” she said.

It would have taken more than that.

“Detective Castellano, you’re grasping at straws here,” he said—much like I might have said, “Lemon blueberry cheesecake, two slices, please.”

“I don’t think so, Counselor.” Her eyes hardened and she shot me a look.

I sat up straighter.

“Think again. My client has answered all your questions and given you a statement. She was in Summerlea. Her fingerprints will be there, as will dozens of others. I am assuming you are interrogating everyone. She and her employer agree on the circumstances. Chadwick Kauffman was alive when they left. There was no reason to kill him.”

“She was seen leaving—”

“So was the guy with the delivery van. I assume you’ve got him in a room somewhere and you’ve taken his fingerprints and his statement and are still giving him a hard time.”

“If there was a driver. None of you seem to have noticed the company name.”

“There was a driver! We saw him.”

“We have only your word for that.”

“What about the people walking on the road?”

She lifted her shoulders in a bored shrug.

Sammy’d had enough. Or he was worried I’d go and blow it. He said, “Either charge my client or let her go about her day. We’re through here.”

I gave an involuntary gasp. Charge me? I didn’t mind Sammy playing chicken with Detective Castellano, but really,
charge me
?

Castellano said, “We’ve applied for a warrant to search the house.”

Sammy shrugged his meaty shoulders. “You want a warrant to search Vera Van Alst’s home? Good luck with that.”

Ooh. Vera might not have been the sunniest of characters, but, hated or not, she was still influential in Harrison Falls and she sat on the hospital board with at least one judge. Sammy was right. They’d have to make it good.

Castellano rose and stalked out the door. Stoddard slouched after her, looking very Tom Sawyerish. The door closed softly behind them.

Bad Cat took his disappointment out on the drapes.

I felt a rush of relief.

Sammy said, “She won’t let this go. She’s not the type. We
have to get our story airtight and do a bit of research while we’re at it.”

Just what I’d been thinking. But I was worried. What if I was wrong about Vera’s influence? “I think they do have enough to get a search warrant. We were at the scene of a murder. Our story isn’t backed up. Even though Vera’s powerful in the community, a lot of people hate the Van Alsts. That probably includes some judges.”

“Sure, they’ll get it. No problem. You are innocent, remember? So we have to take certain stands.”

“Right. General principles.”

“And, speaking of, here’s my card. Memorize my cell number. Call the minute something happens. If you get new information, if the police show up again after this. Doesn’t matter what or when.”

“It will take you more than a couple of minutes to get back from Syracuse,” I said, staring at the card dubiously.

“There’s no going back to Syracuse until we’ve got this under control.”

I exhaled with relief. Sammy was a lawyer you could lean on.

Castellano stuck her head back in the door. “Don’t leave town.”

Sammy showed her his best dental work.