87

“TAKE IT EASY, EARL,” LIAM MOORE PAYNE SAID FOR THE tenth time in an hour.

“No, I won’t take it easy. I know how much this family has ridiculed the Batemans, and me especially.”

“No one’s ridiculed you, Earl,” Liam said soothingly.

They were sitting in the office of the museum. It was nearly five o’clock, and the old-fashioned globed chandelier spread a murky glow over the room.

“Look,” Liam said, “you need a drink.”

“You mean you need a drink.”

Without answering, Liam got up, went to the cupboard over the sink, got out the scotch bottle and glasses, then the ice tray and a lemon from the refrigerator.

“Double scotch on the rocks, with a twist, coming up, for both of us,” he said.

Mollified, Earl waited until the drink was set in front of him, then said, “I’m glad you stopped by, Liam.”

“When you called, I could tell how upset you were. And, of course, I’m more than upset about Maggie’s disappearance.” He paused. “Earl, I’ve dated her casually over the last year or so. You know, I’d call and we’d go out for dinner when I was in New York. But that night at the Four Seasons, when I realized she’d left without saying a word to me, something happened.”

“What happened was that you ignored her because you were glad-handing everyone at the party.”

“No, what happened was that I realized what a jerk I’d been, and that if she told me to go to hell, I’d have crawled there on my hands and knees, trying to make it up to her. But besides making me realize how important Maggie has become to me, that night gives me hope that maybe she’s okay.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The fact that she walked out without saying a word when she was upset. God knows she’s had plenty of reason to be upset since the minute she arrived in Newport. Maybe she just needed to get away.”

“You seem to have forgotten that her car was found abandoned.”

“For all we know she got on a plane or train and left her car parked somewhere and someone stole it. Maybe even kids joyriding.”

“Don’t talk to me about joyriding kids,” Earl said. “My theory is those same kind of juvenile delinquents committed the theft here last night.”

The shrill sound of the doorbell startled both men. Earl Bateman answered his cousin’s unasked question: “I’m not expecting anyone,” he said, and then smiled brightly. “But then, maybe it’s the police telling me they found the casket.”

*   *   *

Neil and his father joined Chief Brower in the funeral museum parking lot, and the chief cautioned Neil to control his tongue and to leave the questioning to the police. The bells from Maggie’s house had been placed in a shoe box, which Detective Haggerty now carried unobtrusively under his arm.

When Earl took them to the museum office, Neil was startled to see Liam Payne sitting there. Suddenly uncomfortable in the presence of his rival, he greeted him with minimum courtesy, although he took some comfort in knowing that neither Earl nor Liam knew of his relationship with Maggie. He and his father were introduced simply as two of her concerned friends from New York.

Bateman and Payne went to get chairs for the men, taking them from the funeral scene in the front room. The irritation was clear on Bateman’s face when they returned. He snapped at his cousin. “Liam, your shoes are muddy, and that’s a very expensive carpet. Now I’m going to have to vacuum that whole viewing room before I leave.”

Then, in an abrupt shift, he turned to the detectives. “Have you any news about the casket?” he asked.

“No, we don’t, Professor Bateman,” Brower said, “but we do have news about some other artifacts we think you own.”

“That’s ridiculous. Nothing else is missing except the catafalque,” he said. “I checked. The casket is what I want to know about. You have no idea the plans I had for it. The outdoor display I told you about. That casket was going to be part of the most important exhibit there. I’ve even ordered mannequins of horses with black plumes, and I’m having a replica built of the kind of funeral carriage the Victorians used. It will be a stunning display.”

“Earl, take it easy,” Liam Payne said soothingly. He turned to Brower. “Chief, is there any new information about Maggie Holloway?”

“No, unfortunately there isn’t,” Brower told him.

“Have you considered my suggestion that Maggie simply wanted to escape the terrible pressures of the last week and a half?”

Neil looked at Liam scornfully. “You don’t know Maggie at all,” he said. “She doesn’t try to escape problems. She faces them head on.”

Brower ignored both men and spoke to Bateman. “Professor, at this point we’re simply trying to clarify a few matters. You’re not required to answer our questions. You do understand that?”

“Why wouldn’t I answer your questions? I have nothing to hide.”

“All right. From what we understand, the bells that you had cast for your lecture on Victorians who feared being buried alive are all packed away. Is that true?”

The anger was clear on Earl Bateman’s face. “I simply will not go into that Latham Manor incident again,” he said sharply. “I’ve told you that.”

“I understand. But will you answer the question, please?”

“Yes. I packed the bells away. Yes.”

Brower nodded to Haggerty who opened the shoe box. “Professor, Mr. Stephens found these bells in Maggie Holloway’s home. Are they similar to the ones you have?”

Bateman paled. He picked up one of the bells and examined it minutely. “That woman is a thief!” he exploded. “She must have come back here and stolen these last night.”

He jumped up and ran down the hall and up the stairs, the others following him. On the third floor, he threw open the door of the storeroom and hurried to a shelf on the right-hand wall. Reaching up, he yanked at a box that was wedged between two others and pulled it out.

“It’s too light. I can tell already,” he muttered, “some of them are missing.” He rifled through the protective plastic popcorn until he had satisfied himself as to the carton’s contents.

Turning to the five men standing behind him, his face a deep crimson, his eyes blazing, he said, “There are only five of them here. Seven are missing! That woman must have stolen them. No wonder she kept harping on them yesterday.”

Neil shook his head in dismay. This guy is crazy, he said to himself. He really believes what he’s saying.

“Professor Bateman, I must ask you to accompany me to police headquarters,” Brower said, his tone formal. “I have to inform you that you are now a suspect in the disappearance of Maggie Holloway. You have a right to remain silent—”

“You can forget your damned Miranda warning,” Earl shouted. “Maggie Holloway sneaked back in here, stole my bells—and maybe even my casket—and you blame me? Ridiculous! I think you should be looking for the person who helped her. She never did this alone.”

Neil grabbed the lapels of Bateman’s coat. “Shut up,” he shouted. “You know damn well Maggie never took that stuff. Wherever she found the two bells she had, they meant something mighty significant to her. And you answer me something. Some kids saw a hearse and Maggie’s station wagon leave here around ten o’clock last night. Which one were you driving?”

“You shut up, Neil,” Brower ordered.

Neil saw the anger on the police chief’s face as Robert Stephens yanked him away from Earl Bateman.

I don’t give a damn, he thought. This is no time to tiptoe around this liar.

“You mean my hearse?” Bateman asked. “That’s impossible. It’s in the garage.”

More rapidly than he had ascended the stairs, Bateman rushed down them and directly outside to the garage. He yanked up the door and ran inside, closely followed by the other men.

“Someone did use it,” he exclaimed, peering through the vehicle’s window. “Look at it. There’s dirt on the carpet!”

Neil wanted to throttle the man, to beat the truth from him. How had he gotten Maggie to follow him in that hearse? Or was someone else driving her car?

Liam Payne took his cousin’s arm. “Earl, it’s going to be all right. I’ll go with you to headquarters. I’ll call a lawyer.”

*   *   *

Neil and his father refused to go home. They sat in a waiting area at the police station. From time to time, Detective Haggerty joined them. “The guy has refused a lawyer; he’s answering everything. He insists that he was in Providence last night and can prove it with phone calls he made from his apartment during the evening. At this point, we simply can’t hold him.”

“But we know he’s done something to Maggie,” Neil protested. “He’s got to help us find her!”

Haggerty shook his head. “He’s more worried about his casket and the dirt in that old hearse than he is about Ms. Holloway. His scenario is that she brought someone with her to steal the casket and bells, someone who drove the casket away in the hearse. The ignition key was in clear sight on a hook in the office. In a few minutes, his cousin is going to take him back to the museum to pick up his car.”

“You can’t let him go,” Neil protested.

“We can’t not let him go,” Haggerty said.

The detective hesitated, then said, “This will come out anyhow, and it’s something you’d be interested in knowing. You know we also are looking into accusations of improprieties at Latham Manor, thanks to the suicide note of that lawyer who killed himself. While we were out, the chief got a message. He’d made it top priority to find out who really owns Latham Manor. Guess who does? None other than Bateman’s cousin, Mr. Liam Moore Payne.”

Haggerty looked around cautiously as though afraid Payne would appear behind him. “I guess he’s still inside. He insisted on staying with his cousin during the questioning. We asked him about owning Latham. Readily admitted it. Says it’s a sound investment. But apparently he doesn’t want it known that he owns the place. Says that if people knew, he’d have the residents calling him with complaints or requests for favors. That kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?”

*   *   *

It was nearly eight o’clock when Robert Stephens turned to his son. “Come on, Neil, we’d better get home,” he urged.

Their car was parked across the street from police headquarters. As soon as Stephens turned the ignition key, the phone rang. Neil answered it.

It was Dolores Stephens. She had gone home when they left for the museum. “Any word about Maggie?” she asked anxiously.

“No, Mom. We’ll be home soon, I guess.”

“Neil, I just received a phone call from a Mrs. Sarah Cushing. She said that her mother, Mrs. Bainbridge, is a resident at Latham Manor, and that you were talking to her today.”

“That’s right.” Neil felt his interest quicken.

“Mrs. Cushing’s mother remembered something that she thought might be important and called her daughter, who looked up our number trying to track you down. Mrs. Bainbridge said that Maggie mentioned something about a bell she had found on her stepmother’s grave. She asked if placing a bell like that was some sort of custom. Mrs. Bainbridge said it just occurred to her that Maggie might have been talking about one of Professor Bateman’s Victorian bells. I’m not sure what any of this means, but I wanted you to know right away,” she said. “I’ll see you in a while.”

Neil gave his father the details of the message Dolores Stephens had passed along. “What do you make of it?” Robert Stephens asked his son as he started to put the car into drive.

“Hold it a minute, Dad. Don’t pull out,” Neil said urgently. “What do I make of it? Plenty. The bells we found in Maggie’s studio must have been taken from her stepmother’s grave and from someone else’s, probably one of the women from the residence. Otherwise why would she have asked that question? If she did go back to the museum last night, which I still have trouble believing, it was to see if any of the bells Bateman claimed were in that box were missing.”

“Here they come,” Robert Stephens murmured as Bateman and Payne emerged from the police station. They watched as the men got into Payne’s Jaguar and, for a few minutes, sat in the car, talking animatedly.

The rain had ended and a full moon brightened the already well-lighted area around the station.

“Payne must have taken dirt roads when he came down from Boston today,” Robert Stephens observed. “Look at those wheels and tires. His shoes were pretty messy, too. You heard Bateman yell at him about that. It’s also a surprise that he owns that retirement place. There’s something about that guy I don’t like. Was Maggie dating him seriously?”

“I don’t think so,” Neil said tonelessly. “I don’t like him either, but he obviously is successful. That residence cost a fortune. And I checked on his investments operation. He has his own firm now, and clearly he was smart enough to take with him some of Randolph and Marshall’s best clients.”

“Randolph and Marshall,” his father repeated. “Isn’t that where Dr. Lane said his wife used to work?”

“What did you say?” Neil demanded.

“You heard me. I said that Lane’s wife used to work at Randolph and Marshall.”

“That’s what’s been bugging me!” Neil exclaimed. “Don’t you see? Liam Payne is connected to everything. He owns the residence. He must have had the final say in hiring Dr. Lane. Doug Hansen also worked for Randolph and Marshall, although for only a brief time. He has an arrangement now whereby his transactions go through their clearing house. I said today that Hansen had to be operating out of another office, and I also said that he’s clearly too stupid to have worked out that scheme for defrauding those women. He was just the front man. Someone had to be programming him. Well, maybe that someone was Liam Moore Payne.”

“But it doesn’t all quite fit together,” Robert Stephens protested. “If Payne owns the residence, he could have gotten the financial information he needed without involving either Hansen or Hansen’s aunt, Janice Norton.”

“But it’s much safer to stay a step removed,” Neil pointed out. “That way, Hansen becomes the scapegoat if anything goes wrong. Don’t you see, Dad? Laura Arlington and Cora Gebhart had applications pending. He wasn’t just turning over the apartments of residents. He was cheating applicants when there were no apartments.

“It’s obvious that Bateman uses Payne as a sounding board for his problems,” Neil continued. “If Bateman had been upset because Maggie inquired about the Latham Manor incident, wouldn’t he be likely to tell Payne about it?”

“Maybe. But what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that this Payne guy is the key to all this. He secretly owns Latham Manor. Women there are dying under what seem to be unexceptional circumstances, yet when you consider how many have died recently, and factor in the similarities—all of them pretty much alone, no close family to check on them—it all starts to look suspicious. And who stands to gain from their deaths? Latham Manor does, through reselling those now-empty apartments to the next name on the list.”

“Do you mean to say that Liam Payne killed all those women?” Robert Stephens asked, his tone incredulous.

“I don’t know that yet,” his son replied. “The police suspect that Dr. Lane and/or Nurse Markey may have had a hand in the deaths, but when I talked to Mrs. Bainbridge, she made a point of saying that Dr. Lane was ‘kind,’ and that Markey was a good nurse. My hunch is, she knows what she’s talking about. She’s sharp. No, I don’t know who killed those women, but I think Maggie had come to the same conclusion about their deaths, and she must have been getting too close for comfort for the actual killer.”

“But where do the bells come in? And Bateman? I don’t get it,” Robert Stephens protested.

“The bells? Who knows? Maybe it’s the killer’s way of keeping score. Chances are, though, that if Maggie found those bells on graves and looked up those women’s obituaries, she had started to figure out what really happened. The bells might signify that those women were murdered.” Neil paused. “As for Bateman, he seems almost too weird to be able to take part in anything as calculating as this. No, I think Mr. Liam Moore Payne is our connection here. You heard him make that idiotic suggestion to explain Maggie’s disappearance.” Neil snorted derisively. “I bet he knows what has happened to Maggie and he’s just trying to ease the pressure of the search.”

Noting that Payne had started his car, Robert Stephens turned to his son. “I take it we’re following him,” he said.

“Absolutely. I want to see where Payne is going,” Neil said, then added his own silent prayer: Please, please let him lead me to Maggie.