Читать книгу The Impetuous Mistress - George Harmon Coxe - Страница 7

FOR the next few agonizing seconds there was no sound in the room and neither of them moved. Out on the highway a car raced past and the sound of a girl’s laughter drifted through the open door and served to break the spell that death had woven. Rick found he was holding his breath and let it out. He swallowd to loosen his throat.

“Nancy,” he said huskily. “My God, Nancy!”

He pushed up from the floor and his knees were stiff. “Nancy,” he said again, his voice quiet now, and with that she uttered a small cry and ran to him and flung her arms about him and held on hard.

“Oh, Rick,” she wailed. “I was so frightened.”

He could feel her tremble against him, hear the muffled sobs as she buried her face in his shoulder and reaction shook her. For a little while longer he did not know what to do or what to say. His glance came to the straw bag and he found himself checking the contents—the lipstick and keys and tissues; the cigarette case and gold lighter; the compact which had been jarred open to spill traces of powder on the rug.

Finally he took a breath and put his hands on her shoulders. He pushed gently and when she lifted her face he saw the dark lashes were matted and the green eyes wet. Still holding her shoulders he pushed her still farther from him and steadied his voice with an effort.

“What happened?”

“I—don’t know, Rick. There wasn’t any car outside and I thought—”

She swallowed and tried again.

“She was like that when I came in. I didn’t know what happened. I didn’t touch her but I saw her face. . . . Her face, Rick,” she said, her voice breaking again. “All twisted and blue and—”

“All right.” He made his voice sharp to blot out such memories and make her concentrate. “I know how you must have felt, but right now we’ve got to think. Come here.”

He led her to the nearest chair and pushed her gently back into it. He stepped over to the table and poured some brandy into the clean glass. He told her to take a swallow and waited until she had obeyed.

“Now,” he said. “Think, darling. How long were you here?”

“Not more than a few minutes.”

“How many? Four, five?”

“About that.”

“Which way did you come from, the Sound side?”

“The other way.”

“You didn’t see anyone near here or any car?” He watched her shake her head, seeing the color coming back into her cheeks and aware from her frown that she was trying to think. “So you came in and found her just like that. You didn’t touch her. Was there anything else—”

He stopped as a peculiar look came into her eyes. “Maybe I just imagined it,” she said slowly. “But I was standing there looking down at Frieda and not knowing what had happened or why and I thought I heard something.”

He waited, some new tension intermingling with his thoughts. “Like what?” he said.

“Like—well, it might have been a door closing. . . . Please, Rick, I’m not even sure I heard it. I could have imagined it; I could have imagined almost anything the way I felt.”

“But you thought it was a door. Then what?”

“It sounded as if it came from somewhere out back and I started to look. I don’t know what made me. If I had stopped to think, if I’d had any sense, I would have screamed and run out the front door.”

Rick swore under his breath, not knowing whether all this was imagination or not but understanding that she had done a very foolish thing. In spite of himself his mind raced on to conjure up the frightening picture of what might have happened, and the question he asked had but one answer.

“You didn’t see anything? Or hear anything more?”

“I went down the hall to the back door. I didn’t dare look into the bedrooms. By then I was too busy telling myself it must have been my imagination. I was standing there by the hall doorway when I heard the front doorknob rattle and I didn’t stop to think it might be you. I didn’t know who it was. I just ran back into the bedroom.”

Rick understood this much, for he too had jumped to conclusions about the body on the floor when he found the convertible gone and his sedan standing in its place. Now, aware that this was not the time for speculation, he took the glass from Nancy and asked if she wanted more brandy before he put the bottle away.

“No. . . . What’re you going to do?”

“Call the police.”

“Yes, I guess you have to.” She stood up and took the bottle and glasses from him. “I can put that away. I’ll rinse the glasses.”

When he had been connected with the state police barracks he said what he had to say and then, as he put the telephone down, he realized that there was another call he had to make.

Frederick J. Brainard knew his daughter was coming here at nine. In the course of investigation the police would notify him. They would get his opinion of Rick Sheridan, would hear of a relationship that had been unfailingly unpleasant, would know why he wanted a divorce. Better then to tell him the shocking news by telephone and let him come tonight.

He had to look up the number and when he had his connection he had to identify himself before Brainard could be summoned. Even then Rick could feel the hostility in the blunt voice.

There is no easy way to break such news, no kind words to lessen the shock. Rick did as best he could, speaking hesitantly, using the words that came to him and hearing the spoken questions and reactions that were first unbelieving, then suspicious, and finally crushed.

“But strangled,” Brainard said when he could accept the fact that his daughter was dead. “How could this happen? Who did it?”

“I don’t know,” Rick said. “It happened while I was out of the house. When I came back I found her on the floor. I’ve already called the police.” He paused and the silence came to be broken by a single word that had a savage inflection.

“No!”

“What?”

“It didn’t just happen. No one would just walk into a house and do a thing like that. A man would have to have a reason and you had a reason, a good one. I know why she went there. She expected you’d fight with her—”

“Mr. Brainard!”

“I’ll make no accusation until I have the facts, but I’m warning you now that I’ll find out who did this if it takes every dollar I have. Remember that, Rick. If you happen to be the one, God help you!”

Rick heard the receiver crash down at the other end of the wire. He put the telephone gently in its cradle and wiped the perspiration from his brow. When he turned he found Nancy watching him with anxious eyes. She asked whom he was talking to and he told her. He did not add that Brainard already thought that he, Rick, had killed Brainard’s daughter.

A state police cruiser was first on the scene, its occupant a burly, uniformed officer who listened briefly, looked long enough to make sure Frieda was dead, and then asked for the telephone. Another car came presently with two more uniformed men and after that Rick began to lose track of the others who came in civilian clothes.

He and Nancy were allowed to wait in the studio while the medical examiner performed his duties and the technical men went through their practiced routine. The captain of the western division came to question them briefly, but in the end the duties of investigation fell upon two men: a lieutenant from the Special Service branch of the state police, and the county detective representing the state’s attorney’s office.

The lieutenant’s name was Legett, a tall, spare man of forty or so with a rectangular face and alert dark eyes. He wore beige tropical slacks and a lightweight sport jacket and no hat, so that there was only the quiet persistence of his manner and prying gaze to suggest to the uninitiated that he might be an officer of the law specializing in homicide. County Detective Manning was a rotund man of indeterminate age, who wore a gray business suit and metal-rimmed glasses. When they were ready for more detailed information they came into the studio, which was an extension of the living room.

“You were the one who found her, Miss Heath?” they said.

“Yes.”

“We’d like to get your story,” Legett said and nodded toward the open doorway. “We can use another room.”

Nancy stood up. Her face was composed now and as she straightened her shoulders and pulled down the jacket of her suit she glanced at Rick. He gave her a nod of encouragement and the best smile he could; then watched proudly as she marched from the room with her chin up.

When he had a cigarette going he looked slowly about the paneled room. He considered the two illustrations he had done for True-Fruit, which stood propped against the wall on the old trestle table, wondering if he would be able to deliver them to Ted Banks in the morning. Both were boy-girl jobs, one showing the edge of a tennis court and the other at dockside with the boy and girl in bathing suits looking down at a sailboat which had been moored there.

One of the advantages of having an agent nowadays was the equipment and studio room such agents provided. Ted Banks and his partner had a whole floor in a mid-town building, and in addition to the private cubbies for each artist who wanted one, there was a well-equipped photographic studio. With model prices the way they were, most artists posed their people the way they wanted them and got their photographs in an hour or so, using the prints to work from later on. In Rick’s case he did most of his roughs at the studio and his finished art here in the country at this time of year.

He considered the portrait of Elinor Farrell and decided he had no worries in that direction since it was practically finished. He looked at the homemade racks in the corner where his unframed but completed work was stacked. Free-lance work, mostly oils, with a few in gouache and tempera, of various sizes and subjects, some fairly recent but most of them old.

A few were experiments done between the big war and Korea, but the majority had been done at Frieda’s insistence after he had come back the second time. She had never had any objection to his being an artist but she had argued for serious art, and prestige; something, as she put it, she could be proud of. He was still working on salary for the advertising agency then and he had painted furiously in his spare time, knowing somehow that his work was not quite right but not certain why. His draftsmanship was excellent and he was a pretty fair colorist but his brushwork was not good enough. The one-man show that Frieda arranged for him proved it, at least for the time being.

He had sold two pictures. When commissions were paid he barely made expenses, and the fact that she could support him while he perfected his techniques was an argument that had no appeal. He did three portraits for wealthy friends of hers and felt they were quite good, but he knew then that for him the so-called serious art must wait. It would be wonderful indeed to be another Eakins or Homer or Bellows or Hopper some day, but for the present he wanted to be a successful illustrator and that meant the advertising field.

It seemed now that he had been right. He had sold his work right from the start, small things in black and white first, taking what he could get and doing the best he could with it. He was not yet getting top prices and the demand for his color work was spotty, but he was getting there—

He snapped his thoughts in place at the sound of some commotion in the other room and when he glanced through the doorway he caught a glimpse of Frederick Brainard. He could hear his voice mingling with others but the words remained indistinct. He knew he would eventually have to face his father-in-law and the prospect was discouraging because Brainard had blamed him for the original elopement, and his dislike for Rick had been consistent over the years. He knew, too, that the man loved his daughter despite the fact that they were usually at odds over some matter. Now, because he had no choice, Rick could only wait and it took longer than he thought. It was nearly a half hour later that Brainard came through the doorway with Lieutenant Legett at his side and advanced two steps before he stopped.

Rick stood up, not knowing what to expect, and in the silent moment that they stood there with eyes locked, he remembered again that Frederick J. Brainard was a man of some importance in Fairfield County.

There were many more wealthy but few who had taken more interest in public affairs and local politics, possibly because Brainard was not a commuter. As president of the Brainard Tool Company, which had been founded by his grandfather, he ruled a modest but prosperous business with its principal plant near Greenwich, and his waterfront estate was not far away.

A well-setup and vigorous man in his late fifties, he had thick gray hair, a stubborn, muscular jaw, and an outdoor look that was genuine and came from golf and sailing. Generally respected for his integrity, he was to many a domineering man, determined to win all battles whether business or personal and impatient with failure. His character was deficient in some things, chiefly a sense of humor, and to Rick there had always been a lack of sympathy and the ability to see any side of an argument but his own. Now the face had a grayish tinge and his voice was thick and unsteady.

“I’ve told the detectives about you and Frieda,” he said. “And the divorce and why she came here tonight. I also told them about her inheritance.”

He hesitated and Rick waited, understanding how hard the man had been hit, seeing the signs of grief that could not be hidden, and finding no words that could express his sympathy. That Brainard might accuse him surprised him not at all and, at the moment, he did not even resent the words that followed.

“I’ve told them that, in my opinion, you’re the only man who had a possible motive to do such a thing.” He paused again, mouth working. When he started to move forward, Legett touched his arm and he stopped.

“Remember what I told you over the phone,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion. “If you did it, so help me, I’ll see that you pay if it’s the last thing I do.”

He stopped abruptly, shoulders sagging. He let Legett turn him toward the door. A moment later he was gone and Rick suddenly felt tired and old and despondent. He crushed out his cigarette, and because he could no longer stand still, he began to pace the room, head down and eyes brooding. He was still at it when he heard a new voice in the other room. By the time he could turn, Tom Ashley was walking toward him, Legett trailing.

“Jesus, Rick!” Ashley shook hands hard. “I just found out about Frieda. I don’t know what to say. I still can’t believe it.” He gave Rick’s hand another hard squeeze and let go. “Is there anything I can do? If there’s anything at all—”

“Thanks, Tom. There isn’t anything anyone can do right now.”

“Well, do you—” He broke off to turn on Legett. “Do you guys have any idea—”

“Not yet, Mr. Ashley.” Legett’s eyes had been busy and now his tone was casual. “You’re Mr. Sheridan’s next door neighbor?”

“That’s right. The little white house. I drove up and saw all the cars and the lights, so I came over.”

“You weren’t home this evening.”

“No.”

“Mind telling us where you were?”

“Hell, no. I went out to eat around seven thirty or a quarter of eight,” he said, and named a restaurant.

“How long were you there?”

“I don’t know. I had a couple of drinks. Maybe an hour and a quarter or so.”

“That would make it around nine or a little before.” Legett glanced at his strap watch. “It’s now ten forty.”

“Well?”

“Where did you go after you left the restaurant?”

“I drove out along the shore and parked.”

“Alone?”

Until then Ashley’s replies had been quick and matter of fact. Now he hesitated, a small frown warping his brows and his eyes narrowing. For the first time he seemed to sense that the questions were not idle ones, that Legett was investigating a murder and still looking for suspects. His shoulders straightened slightly and they were thick shoulders, for Ashley was a strongly built man, hard-necked and bulky in his slacks and sport shirt.

“Yes, Lieutenant,” he said, “and if that sounds a little fishy to you I’ll try to explain it. I’m a writer. I spend ninety per cent of my time not writing but thinking. To think, I have to be alone and I like it quiet if possible. I can show you where I parked and the cigarette I chucked out the window if that’ll be of any help.”

The pointed irony of such an explicit explanation was not lost on Legett, but he gave no sign that it bothered him. He lean face remained impassive and his voice was unchanged.

“You know Mrs. Sheridan?”

“Certainly. She published my first two books.”

“How many have you written?”

“Three.”

“Who published the third?”

“Nobody—yet.” For an instant Ashley’s gaze wavered. “I just finished it. I haven’t signed a contract with anybody.”

“Did you know she was coming here tonight?”

“No,” Ashley said and then his eyes flickered to Rick and he seemed to realize that such a statement might trap him. “What I mean is, Rick told me over the phone this afternoon that she was coming but I didn’t know when.”

Legett had a few more routine questions which Ashley answered, but by that time Rick was no longer listening; instead his mind had moved backward as he recalled that Ashley had once been very friendly with Frieda.

In a way Ashley was responsible for his building in that neighborhood. For he had met the writer at a party in Wilton over a year ago when Ashley was finishing his second book. Both had been stags at the party and they’d had quite a bit to drink and they wound up late at Ashley’s house where Rick had spent the night.

He had already been thinking of building a house and the following day Ashley introduced him to a real estate man and the three of them looked for likely locations. In the end Rick settled for the adjoining two acres, and as time went on they had become good friends.

Ashley’s first book had been a critical success but had not earned much in the way of royalties. Frieda’s firm had published it and Rick knew that she had worked hard in helping Ashley with the second one, which turned out to be a resounding hit. Ashley knew about the separation and he had made sure of Rick’s attitude before admitting that he was seeing a lot of Frieda during the time he was working on the book. In more recent months there had been no mention of Frieda, and Rick had the impression that the affair, if there had been one, had petered out. He did know that Ashley was now engaged to a girl in Westport whose family was socially prominent. He had met the girl—she was only twenty-two—and had found her engaging, attractive, and apparently entirely sold on Ashley. . . .

“All right, Mr. Ashley,” Legett was saying by way of dismissal. “We’ll be in touch with you. Thanks for your help.”

“Sure.” Ashley nodded to Rick. “Don’t forget, chum. Anything you want, just yell.”

When Legett came back he had the county detective with him and this time they shut the door and asked Rick to sit down. Manning took a small notebook out of his pocket and gave it his attention while Legett started the ball rolling.

“Miss Heath has told her story,” he said, “and now we’d like to hear yours. Take it from the time you got out of the car here and tell it in your own words.”

Rick did the best he could and it did not take long. When he finished, Manning cleared his throat.

“How long have you wanted this divorce?” he asked in flat, impersonal tones.

“I began to think about it a couple of months ago.”

“Because you wanted to marry Miss Heath.”

“Right.”

“What was your wife’s reaction?”

“Negative. She said she’d think about it, and why did I want it. You know—things like that.”

“When did you talk about it again?”

“Last week.”

“What did she say that time?”

“She said she liked the arrangement we had.”

“She must have said more than that.”

“She said a lot more than that,” Rick said as he recalled the rather stormy scene and Frieda’s announcement that if he tried to get a divorce she would probably fight it. “But what it amounted to was that she had no intention of making it easy for me to marry Miss Heath.”

“She wasn’t in love with you—your wife, I mean?”

“Not for years.”

“The feeling was mutual?”

“It was.”

“Then why do you think she refused to co-operate. Was it a question of money?”

“No. I think she just wanted to be difficult.”

“Were you surprised when she phoned this afternoon and said she was ready to talk? Have you any idea what changed her mind?”

Rick thought about this before he replied. He had no way of knowing if something had happened in Frieda’s personal life that made her find a divorce desirable, or whether her father had instigated the offer. For Brainard saw in Ricky the son he had never had; he would have liked nothing better than to bring the boy up as he saw fit and without interference from Rick.

“No,” he said. “I don’t know why she changed her mind.”

“Did you reach an agreement tonight?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“She wanted full custody of my son and I wouldn’t go for it.”

Manning cleared his throat again and exchanged glances with Legett. “You said before that you had an argument and you walked out on your wife. Why? Because you were afraid you might kill her?”

The question was so close to the truth it put Rick on the defensive and his reply was both resentful and irritated.

“Are you married, Manning?”

“We’re talking about you, Mr. Sheridan.”

“Okay. We had an argument. We wound up shouting and getting nowhere and I walked out because I was sore. I’ve done it before and so have a million other guys because when you get into that kind of argument with your wife you can’t win.”

“There was a bruise on one cheek,” Legett said. “Know anything about that?”

“No,” Rick said, lying because he was afraid of the truth.

“You walked out,” Manning said. “Her car was there. You kept walking.” He glanced at his notebook. “You don’t know how long you were gone but when you got back your wife’s car was gone and you found Miss Heath with your wife’s body.”

“Not with the body. She was in another room.”

“Miss Heath said she got here about a quarter of ten and you came four or five minutes later,” Legett said. “What do you think happened to that convertible.”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to guess?”

“She could have picked someone up after she left her father’s place—”

“You mean a hitchhiker?” Manning asked.

“No. Someone she had a date with. He could have been sitting in the car waiting for her—I didn’t even look at it—and if there was anyone in the car he could have killed her and then driven it off.”

“Where?”

“How do I know? Maybe to the station.”

“We’re a little partial to motive in cases like this,” Manning said. “And I wouldn’t kid you. You’ve got a beaut. Maybe you’ve read about such things in the papers. A guy nuts about some girl and the wife holding out on the divorce. Sometimes the wife gets killed.”

Rick made no answer but he knew with discouraging certainty that it had happened before; could even have happened tonight if he had not run away.

“There’s another motive, too,” Legett said. “Your father-in-law says your wife inherited a trust fund from her mother. About two hundred thousand at the time. Worth about four hundred thousand now. Do you know what happens to that money?”

Rick had forgotten about the trust fund but he knew the terms well enough. The income from the fund was to be Frieda’s until she was forty, at which time she got control of the principal. Now that she was dead the money would be held in trust for Ricky to be his when he was twenty-one.

“I know what happens,” he said, “but what about it? That money will never be mine.”

“Suppose the boy dies, too?”

Rick started out of the chair, his face stiff and pale at the cheekbones, his eyes hard as they fixed on Manning’s round bespectacled features.

Legett moved in front of him, his tone placating.

“Easy, Mr. Sheridan. Right now we’re considering all possibilities.”

The county detective seemed not to have moved a muscle. He sat where he was, his gaze reflective. Under its spell Rick calmed down and measured his words.

“I didn’t kill my wife,” he said. “I happen to love my son very dearly.”

“Mr. Brainard tells us,” Manning continued as though he had not heard, “that his daughter got about fifteen thousand a year from that trust before taxes. That income is yours to do with as you please until the boy’s of age. In my book that’s a motive.”

He heaved out of the chair and put his notebook away. After a glance at Legett he said: “Let’s go down and get some of this on paper, Mr. Sheridan.”

“What about Nancy Heath?”

“She’ll have to come, too.”

“Why? She told you—”

“She’s a witness. She’ll have to sign a statement. There’s a policewoman with her now.”

“But—she lives in New York. How long will she have to stay?”

“I don’t know. But when she’s finished, if she wants transportation to New York, we can provide it.”