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5:30 a.m. Sunday, August 30th, 1992
BAILEY and Dobson both watched Padget seal the plastic bag that contained the telephone wire which had been used to garrote Talia. It was evidence in a homicide now, and they couldn’t use it to repair the connection with the outside world. They would still have to wait for the ferry to come this afternoon, but that wasn’t a disappointment to Bailey, or likely the murderer for that matter.
Padget signed across the seal as Bailey declined once again. He wouldn’t want to cause more problems down the line than he could help, after he had disappeared on them. Next, the bag would go into the safe in the butler’s room, beside the samples of wine from last night. And once the police criminologists compared the cut ends of that wire with what remained attached to the utility pole, it would confirm that was where the murder weapon had come from. But Bailey didn’t need that to know the murderer had kept the length of cord and used it to kill Talia. But why?
Bailey wanted to discuss it with Padget, but not with the lawyer looking on. After Sam had notified the federal agent, she’d sped away to summon Dobson, and the man had shown up swiftly, right when Padget had arrived with his accoutrements. There had been no opportunity for a private chat then, so it would have to wait until the lawyer had left.
Hopefully that would be soon. They’d done all they could do, and all that remained was to lock up the room. So Bailey turned to Dobson. “Well, councilor, are you satisfied?”
The lawyer gave him a cold stare. “What do you mean by that? I’m not happy this woman is dead.” Of course, he didn’t look unhappy either.
“I mean—are you satisfied that we’ve done what needs to be done?”
“I don’t think any of this needed to be done. It would have been better to seal this room and leave everything for the police. But since you were determined to do this, it was important that I witness it, so that I can testify to what you did in court, should it come to that. You don’t want a defense lawyer to get the murderer off on some technicality concerning chain of evidence, do you?”
Bailey refrained from pointing out that Dobson himself was a lawyer and asking him if he wouldn’t use technicalities when they suited him. Instead he simply nodded. “Now.” And he included Padget in the conversation with a glance. “Since Talia had already quit, her body might not have been found until much later. And the murderer may not know yet that we know she’s dead. So I suggest we keep this to ourselves. Her killer might let something slip.”
Dobson’s face flushed, and he inflated with outrage. “Nonsense. For all we know, Oak might have committed suicide or had a heart attack, but this is murder. We have an obligation to warn everybody that they may be in danger.”
“And at the same time warn the murderer that we’ve found Talia’s body.”
“Do you think they wouldn’t assume she might be found at any moment? The killer must surely be on guard already, so I can’t see how anything would be gained by acting on your suggestion. And as an executor of the estate and trustee, I have a definite responsibility to the family, so I’m going to let them know about this and give them my advice.”
Bailey lifted his eyebrows. “Advice? Now what would that be?”
The lawyer looked up and down his nose at Bailey. “My suggestion will be that they stay together, for safety’s sake, until the authorities arrive.” With that, Dobson turned, opened the door, and walked out of Talia’s room.
Padget and Bailey both breathed a long sigh of relief and then looked at each other. But Bailey did not want to talk then and there, with Talia’s body on the floor—though they’d chatted easily enough with Oak’s corpse at their feet last night. It felt different, crude, to converse with her lifeless remains lying in his peripheral vision, even covered as they were.
So he nodded at the camera and bag in Padget’s hands. “How about I go with you to see everything safely stored away?”
“Sounds good to me. I was just thinking about how much sense Dobson’s advice made—I’d rather not be alone right now myself.”
Shaking his head at the notion that the federal agent might be scared, Bailey followed the man out of the room and waited while he locked the door to the crime scene behind them. Then they walked to the door on the right at the end of the hall and went into Padget’s own quarters. The sparse room was as neat and tidy as Bailey’s and only slightly larger, but then it had to accommodate a safe. Padget walked straight to it, setting the evidence bag and his camera on top of the safe so he could spin the combination lock. He swung the door open and stowed it all away before turning back to Bailey and gesturing at the lone chair.
But Bailey preferred to stand while they talked. “So, what do you think?”
A small smile played at the corners of the man’s mouth. “If this is a test, I imagine I’ll fail. We were already pretty convinced Oak was murdered, since you smelled the cyanide. Dobson still doesn’t know about that, does he? Anyway, Talia’s murder merely confirms that.”
“Confirms what?”
Padget threw up his arms. “That we’re dealing with a homicidal maniac? Because I can’t make any sense out of somebody killing Keener, Oak, and Talia too.”
Bailey sighed. “The obvious assumption would be that both Oak and Talia knew too much.”
“I suppose Oak could’ve known something that would shed light on who killed Keener, and then as Talia was a maid she might’ve seen or heard something that could’ve told us who murdered Brandt or Oak. And then they both needed to be silenced.”
“And why hadn’t she told someone already? Especially if it related to that first murder. And when did she have an opportunity to see or hear anything about Oak’s death? She’d already quit and spent all her time in her room or the kitchen. So unless Mrs. Trimble is the murderer, I have a hard time seeing how Talia came by knowledge of who killed Oak.”
Padget held up his hands in surrender. “Okay. We both know it wasn’t Mrs. Trimble. I was trying to make sense of all three deaths is all.”
Bailey smiled grimly. “And speculating is good. Just don’t be so defensive—finding potential problems with different theories is part of the process.”
“Wait. After Oak was poisoned, you said it was probably the same person who’d killed Keener, because it seemed the same poison was used. But Talia wasn’t poisoned at all. And even I know murderers usually use the same methods again and again. So since she was killed in a completely different way—doesn’t that indicate she was probably killed by a different person? Could there be two separate murderers here in the house?”
“I don’t think so. It’s true that murderers tend to stay with the same modus operandi—if it worked for them once, they will continue to rely on it.” And often there was a psychological reason for the method a murderer employed. “But that’s not always the case. Here we’re looking at a cold, calculating killer who planned at least one poisoning. That shows a predisposition, true, and presumably it’s why the murderer used the same method on Oak when they decided he had to die. But whatever reason somebody had to kill Talia, when would they have had an opportunity to poison her? Unless the person we’re talking about is Mrs. Trimble.”
Padget smiled. “That gives us a definite reason to cross the cook off our suspect list, doesn’t it?”
Bailey simply nodded. “Indeed. If the poisoner were Mrs. Trimble, she could’ve eliminated Talia in the same way without any difficulty. Unless she has a particularly devious mind and figured that we would rule her out if she used a different method.”
The federal agent blinked but said nothing for a long moment. “I really don’t think she’s that crafty.”
“No. It was a joke.” He wasn’t sure why people had a hard time understanding when he was trying to be funny. “Anyway, there are several similarities between how the three victims were killed. Each of these murders was planned in advance and carried out adroitly, for a start. And I doubt we could have two highly efficient and cold-blooded killers here.”
“How do you know Talia’s murderer was deliberately conceived and executed? Because the killer kept and used that length of wire? Couldn’t he have only wanted to prevent us from using it to repair the line?”
Bailey shook his head. “It would have been easy enough to dispose of, and it would’ve been really incriminating if it had been found on their person. I have to conclude they took that length of wire with them because they saw a use for it. And that would almost certainly have been what they did use it for. Now, what else can we deduce from what we saw?”
Padget narrowed his eyes in concentration, trying to recall the scene in his mind, probably, as well as think it through. After a long moment, he offered a tentative conclusion. “Well, she was wearing her nightgown, so her murder must’ve been after she’d gotten ready for bed but before she had dressed for the day. So sometime in the night or the wee hours of the morning.”
“It was still well before sunrise when we saw her body for the first time, and she’d clearly been dead for a while—a couple hours, at least, though I’m no expert.”
“But I’m sure you’ve seen your share of corpses over the years.”
“True.” Though thankfully those years were not only far in the future but also a long time in Bailey’s personal past. “So we can safely say she was killed sometime in the middle of the night. And her door would’ve been locked, so she let her murderer in.”
Padget nodded. “Someone she trusted.”
“Or at least someone she had no reason to fear. Do you remember the position of the body? How it must’ve happened is this—she opened the door and turned her back to the person as she started to walk away. But she didn’t get very far from the door before her killer had looped the wire around her neck and begun strangling her, then twisted their hands to apply some torque. Talia would’ve died without ever having had a chance to cry for help or make any noise that would’ve woken someone sleeping in the rooms nearby.”
Padget had paled—he must have been visualizing what Bailey had been describing—and he had to gulp before he spoke. “Does that help us figure out who her killer was?”
Bailey frowned. “Not much. I have a hard time seeing Talia blithely turning her back on Quill in the middle of the night, or Elaine Keener for that matter. But people do some peculiar things, so it’s difficult to rule anyone out.”
“But wouldn’t it have had to be somebody who belonged in the staff section? The murderer would have had to knock on Talia’s door, which could have woken one of us. If you or I had come out and seen the killer in the hall at her door, they’d be exposed. Wouldn’t it be too much of a risk for them to take?”
“Well, I think it’s safe to say this murderer is a risk taker as well as ruthless. But just knocking on Talia’s door in the night wouldn’t imperil them, as she’d still have been alive. And I’m sure they’d have had some story ready for that eventuality. The real danger would only have come when they were leaving her room, but that threat would’ve been negligible. This tells us a lot about the killer’s personality, but I’m not sure it helps us identify them. Because we don’t really know any of these people.”
Padget’s eyes opened wide, and Bailey could almost see a light bulb appear above his head. “What about the new maid?” Flummoxed, Bailey was unable to respond right away, and the man continued with his theory. “I know what you’re going to say—like Dobson she wasn’t here when Keener was murdered. But we hadn’t noticed she was in the house this weekend, not until last night. So she could have been here three weeks ago as well. She might be the paid assassin we were speculating about before.”
Bailey knew his mouth was hanging open. “Do you really see her as a hitman?”
The federal agent nodded eagerly. “She may be a slight little thing, but I noticed a steely look in her eyes. She’s a hard one.”
Clutching his side to try to keep from laughing, Bailey doubled over and wheezed while tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. How long had it been since he’d allowed himself to laugh out loud? This had to be the first time he’d been tempted to let go, in several years at least, and at a totally inappropriate moment. Thankfully he was just able to control himself.
Finally he straightened up, wiped the tears from his eyes, and gave Padget an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you earlier. Sam’s with me.”
Padget blinked. “I see. Of course I should have known you wouldn’t have come without some kind of backup, and it explains the look in her eyes. The woman is law enforcement.”
Bailey thought the notion of Sam as his backup highly amusing, but he was glad she wasn’t here to hear it. And she wasn’t and had never been law enforcement. He thought he knew why she was so intense, but he’d never really known her from before, so he couldn’t be sure. “Anyway, she arrived together with me, so I can say for sure she didn’t kill Keener.” Laughter threatened to bubble up again, but he squelched it back down.
“So what do we do next?”
“Well, I’d like you to tell Mrs. Trimble about Talia. And try to keep an eye on her. I’ll inform Quill and Hope and warn them to be on their guard. Our lawyer friend is taking care of the family.”
Padget looked confused. “But you were just arguing with Dobson about keeping it quiet.”
“I wanted to see how he’d react if I made such a suggestion. But the truth is, he was right. Our priority right now is to make sure no one else dies before the cavalry arrives.”
“That’s most important alright, but what about finding the killer? What can we do?” He was really asking what he could do, but Padget was already in over his head and shouldn’t be encouraged.
Bailey nodded soberly. “The best thing we can do is go about our ‘regular’ duties keeping our eyes and ears open. Every murderer makes mistakes. It just takes keen observation to spot them.” He had told Sam pretty much the same thing. Hopefully it would keep them both out of too much trouble. “I’ll let you know if I think of something specific for you to do to help. But right now we’d better start warning people there’s a killer among us.”
Padget seemed satisfied with that, and the two of them left the room, the federal agent heading toward the kitchen and Bailey to the back stairs, then up to the second floor. It would be interesting to see Quill’s reaction to the maid’s murder. But it would have to wait. Sam had had her chance with Turner, but she’d said he was holding out on her. Now with this third death, Bailey was through leaving Turner alone. It was time for ‘Mr. Hope’ to tell all.
When Bailey knocked softly on the door to Turner’s suite, it was opened almost immediately. The man was already up—awake, alert, and dressed for the day. That wasn’t any surprise, but Bailey would have preferred if the man was still sleepy from having crawled out of bed, rather than looking back at him with a wary expression.
Bailey tried shocking him. “Talia is dead.”
“Dead?”
“Murdered. Strangled in her own bedroom.”
Turner paled under that tan of his. “Not Talia. Why her?” He backed up and waved Bailey into the room and closed the door behind him.
Bailey frowned. “I was going to ask you that.”
“You don’t suspect I had something to do with her death?”
Looking the man straight in the eye, Bailey had to admit that Sam was right. Turner might be a different person in some ways, but he was still fundamentally the same man. Not the type to harm anybody. But she was surely right about the rest too.
“I think there’s more that you could tell, something that would help solve these murders. I don’t believe you would want anyone else to get killed because you wouldn’t talk. So spill. The next person to die might be you.”
Turner almost smiled. “In a sense, I’m already dead.” Then he stared down at the foot of his bed.
Bailey didn’t know what the man meant, but he had to get through to him somehow. “Think about Talia. Her killer came to her at night with a length of telephone wire he’d cut from the utility pole outside the house and garroted her from behind. And she’d let him, or her, in. It was a nasty death. You can’t tell me she deserved that, whatever her faults. So why won’t you cooperate?”
Turner looked up with sad eyes. “What I know won’t help you uncover a killer, or I would have spoken up before this. It will probably only confuse the issue.”
“You were Keener’s confidential assistant, intimate with his affairs both personal and private, for thirty years. And you’re telling me you don’t know things that would shed light on who killed him, who might’ve murdered Oak and Talia, or why?”
“If you’re looking for motives, you must have all you can handle already. There’s no shortage of people who would’ve preferred Brandt dead, but there isn’t anything I can add to what you must’ve already found out.”
Bailey narrowed his eyes. “What about the separate letter he’d left you that was mentioned in the will? What were those instructions?
Turner nodded. “Alright, I’ll tell you, but you’ll see it only muddies the waters.”
“Well? We don’t have much time.”
“Brandt had been getting more and more paranoid the past few months and had given me a sealed envelope, to be opened as soon as possible after his death, with instructions about how I was to handle everything. My last job for him.”
“Did you have something to do with those samples of the wine he’d drunk going missing?”
“Missing? I hadn’t heard that.” He sat down at the foot of his bed with a relaxed face. “It fits, and I suppose I did have something to do with it.”
It sounded like it might end up being a long story, so Bailey dragged a chair around so he could sit facing Turner. “Alright. Explain.”
“Right after I was sure Brandt was dead, I went up to his bedroom, having volunteered to make the necessary calls. The first thing I did was open that envelope. The instructions were quite clear—I was to make sure Brandt’s lawyer was notified immediately. I called Dobson right away, got ahold of him at his New York office and told him about Brandt’s death and the circumstances surrounding it. And I know he had his own instructions about what to do, but it’s no use asking me, because I don’t know what they were.”
The lawyer could’ve been up to anything in the time between Turner’s call and days later when the authorities finally found him. But Bailey was starting to get an idea what it might’ve been, and he imagined Turner was ahead of him. “And then?”
“I was to make sure his personal physician got there as quickly as possible and that he understood Brandt had died a natural death and wrote a certificate without delay. And I was supposed to delay the arrival of the authorities as long as possible, so that the mortuary people could come and take Brandt’s body away before the cops could get to it.”
“That sounds awfully fishy. Why would Keener want to thwart the police like that? Why did you go along with such a thing, and did you really wait before notifying the proper authorities?”
Turner stared back. “He was my employer and it was my job. And what did it matter if he wanted to interfere in the investigation of his own demise? All I did was call his lawyer and physician, then allow Padget to assume I’d called the police as well—the doctor had come and gone by the time the butler realized the cops weren’t coming.”
It certainly muddied the waters, just as Turner had warned him. Bailey figured Dobson had probably played a role in that evidence disappearing, as well as the police not being able to execute the warrant for Brandt’s body before it had been reduced to ashes. And Turner had done his bit to help.
Then Bailey remembered the vindictive nature of Keener’s will, and he started to see the man’s instructions to Turner and what he assumed Dobson had done in a different light. Oak had been embezzling from Brandt, and the temperamental maid Talia had become a troublesome dalliance, and both of them had now been murdered.
He gave Turner a penetrating look. “How sure are you that Brandt Keener is actually, truly dead?”