The Will to Kill Read online

  It was at the bottom of a dresser drawer filled with frilly French-type underthings, wrapped in a sheer black negligee. A Smith & Wesson .22 Escort, a perfect little purse gun. I used the fabric of the silky garment to lift the weapon gently by its grip with forefinger and thumb and sniffed the barrel. Recently fired. I checked the five-shot clip and only four bullets remained.

  This was almost certainly the gun that killed Wake.

  Too easy, I thought.

  At the vanity, in her jewelry box, it took about fifteen seconds to find the single plastic green button earring that just had to be the mate of the one I’d found on the art studio floor.

  Too goddamn easy.

  I closed the lid on the jewelry box, leaving the orphan earring right where it had been.

  “Can I help you, Mike?” came Madeline Dunbar’s voice, with an edge I’d never heard before.

  I turned and said, “You’re the one who needs the help. Listen to me—go back downstairs and find somewhere to sit quietly until—”

  She came at me with her claws out and I slapped her, just hard enough to get her attention.

  Her hand on her cheek, her big green eyes filled with rage and confusion, she stood there trembling for a moment, then slapped me back, harder than I had her.

  I let her see a grin with some teeth in it. “Have we got the hysterics out of the way? Because you’re going to need a friend.”

  Her eyes narrowed, as if trying to bring me into focus, and she said, “What are you talking about?”

  “Do you own a gun? A little handgun?”

  The eyes widened again, her expression mingling indignation and fear. “What if I do? What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Where do you keep it?”

  She gestured irritably toward the nearest nightstand. “At my bedside—in case some strange man I didn’t invite comes wandering in here!”

  “When did you fire it last?”

  Her eyes and nostrils flared. “When did I…? What?”

  “Somebody fired it. Recently. And it’s wrapped up in some lingerie, in that dresser.”

  Her forehead furrowed. “I… I don’t understand, Mike. I don’t understand any of this…”

  I brushed red hair away from the side of her face; the ear lobe was bare and did not show any impression in the flesh indicating a clip-on earring had been there recently.

  “What are you doing? Keep your hands off me!”

  “When did you last see Wake?”

  “This morning, I think! What is this about?”

  I told her.

  She stumbled over and sat on the side of her bed. Her mouth hung open and her eyes were wide and moving quickly, as if events were moving too fast and she was working to keep up.

  “Either you killed Wake,” I said, standing before her, “and are a very stupid girl. Or somebody is framing you. And I don’t think you’re stupid.”

  Her chin was crinkling. “Mike… will you help me?”

  “I won’t clean up that crime scene or this bedroom, either. You’re better off letting the frame stand until somebody… maybe me… can show how some bastard or bitch fitted you for it.”

  Her face was blank with helplessness. “What should I do?”

  “What I said before. Go find somewhere downstairs to sit and wait for the cops to show. I haven’t called them yet, so you have time to think back through the evening, back through your day, and see if you can come up with anything helpful. Okay?”

  She nodded. She tried to get to her feet but was unsteady, and I helped her. She was in my arms, her face lovely, her expression pitiful.

  “I’m sorry I slapped you,” she said.

  “I’m sorry I had to slap you. Shall we go downstairs?”

  We were coming down just as Dorena was guiding Chickie up to the bedroom with the view he liked. Dorena looked at Madeline and me curiously, with what might have been a hint of jealousy, and said, “Hello, you two.”

  I said, “Tuck him in quick and come find me.”

  Dorena frowned a little, but nodded, correctly reading my serious tone.

  “Night, Chickie,” I said.

  “Night, Mike.”

  I used a phone in the library to call the State Police, since we weren’t within the city limits of Monticello, although I might have called the Sullivan County sheriff. But my hunch was that this was one big investigation—Wake’s killing added to the now probable murders of both Chester Dunbar and Jamison Elder—and Corporal Sheridan was already familiar with the case, if not quite working it.

  As it happened, Sheridan was in Monticello on another matter, and I asked the dispatcher to pass the call along to the corporal with (as this was a homicide) some urgency. That meant we wouldn’t have the half hour or more wait of Sheridan driving over from his cop shop.

  I was back at the Formica-top table, smoking a Lucky, when Dorena hurried in, frowning, saying, “Here you are. What is going on, Mike?”

  “Have a seat,” I said, and she did, and I told her about my discovery in the art studio above the garage. I did not inform her of either the lime-green earring near the corpse or the cute little .22 wrapped up in silk and lace in Madeline’s dresser.

  “I thought Wake tried to kill Chickie,” she said numbly, staring into nothing.

  “It seems like he did. But somebody killing him appears not to have anything to do with that, other than the general feeling I get that murder is in the air around here. Seems somebody in this house wants a bigger piece of the family pie.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I took smoke in, let it out. “Chickie dies, the inheritance pot gains a mil. Wake gets murdered, another mil. The killer is batting .500 tonight.”

  “Mike… you don’t… you don’t suspect me?”

  “Who stands to gain but you or Dex or that backward boy upstairs? Or Madeline, who with Wake gone gets early access to his dough?”

  “Chickie didn’t try to murder himself!”

  I shrugged. “Okay. So we’re down to you, Dex and Madeline. And I have good reason to believe that Madeline didn’t kill Wake.”

  “What good reason?”

  I shook my head. “A detective has to keep a few cards to himself. But what I believe won’t keep the police from hauling her sweet tail to the hoosegow tonight. She will go directly to jail and will not collect a million dollars.”

  Her eyes were moving quickly again. “I… I don’t love Madeline, but I can’t imagine she would… Mike, this is terrible. Horrible.”

  “Could be a long night. You want me to make you some coffee?”

  “Please. But why a long night?”

  “The art studio and the garage itself will be considered a crime scene. And this house will be searched top to bottom.”

  I made the coffee. Dorena just sat there, looking shell-shocked.

  It took Corporal Jim Sheridan only about fifteen minutes to get to the Dunbar estate. I met him at the front door. He was alone but said a B.C.I. investigator and a full forensics team would be along shortly.

  “Kind of a break that you were so close by,” I said.

  We were still on the porch.

  “Yeah, well,” he said, “I was working that other case. The missing girls?”

  “Nothing on the latest one?”

  He shook his head glumly. “Nothing. Tonight I was questioning the waitresses at the All-Night Room at the Concord, to see if any of ’em saw the girl talking to somebody in the club—specifically, that guy she was seen yakking with in the parking lot. Another damn dead end.”

  “You’ll crack it. I just wouldn’t put any money on that girl still being alive.”

  He sighed. “Nor would I. Shall we start with the garage?”

  “I’ll give you the nickel tour,” I said.

  We detoured just briefly to take in the carriage house, where I told him of the attempted murder of Chickie Dunbar. While this would probably not be considered a crime scene, the forensics guys would check that metal fi
replace for prints.

  In the garage, up the ladder and into the studio, I pointed out the earring and said it belonged to the victim’s wife.

  “You’ll soon find out,” I said, “there was no love lost between her and Wake.”

  “Rumor has it he was a homosexual.”

  “I would say rumor is right. Madeline was just a front, to keep things looking respectable. But the arrangement was rubbing both of them the wrong way.”

  Sheridan’s eyes were slits. “She sounds like our prime suspect.”

  I nodded. “Somewhere in here you’ll find an ejected .22 shell. And when you go through her bedroom, you’ll find the other lime-green earring and a little popgun that’ll almost for sure be your murder weapon.”

  His grin had a little self-satisfied sneer in it. “So we’ve got her cold.”

  “It stinks on ice is all that’s cold about it. She’s no fool. She wouldn’t kill her husband and serve herself up on a platter to you cops.”

  He was shaking his head. “That’s not my judgment to make, Mike. We’ll see what the B.C.I. investigators think.”

  They made the arrest at two-thirty-seven that morning.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Monticello Courthouse, with its impressive gray stone, green trim, and grand dome, might have been erected specifically to conceal the dingy brown-brick building directly behind it. Dating back half a century or so, the blocky county jail with its eighty-nine cramped cells was not where you might expect to find a lovely redhead like Madeline Dunbar.

  Yet, there she was, sitting on the edge of her brown-blanketed cot in the same cobalt-blue blouse and slacks as the night before, her face scrubbed of make-up and looking quite attractive, for a woman in Hell, anyway.

  They had let me in the black-barred cell with her and I sat next to her on the cot. I presented myself as her lawyer’s representative, which was true in a very sideways way: the Dunbars had, after all, hired me to investigate the suspicious deaths of their father and butler through the attorney I work with in Manhattan.

  “Mike,” she said, her expression tortured, her eyes wet, “I would never have killed Wake. I’d never kill anyone! But Wake… you may find it hard to buy, but I loved him, once upon a time. Loved him very much.”

  “That doesn’t jibe with anything I’ve observed, honey. We both know that Wake was gay.”

  She winced. “But he was only… half gay. Or maybe three-quarters.”

  “You mean, his gate swung both ways?”

  She nodded. “Our for-appearances-only arrangement of the last few years was something that developed… me playing the good wife while he flitted around the Village. Initially, I thought he loved me. Our sexual relationship was normal enough. He sometimes seemed to be going through the motions, but I never really suspected. Finally he told me he had someone else, and that it was a man, and when the theatrics were over, and that took weeks, we agreed to stay married.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  Her mouth twisted. “Why do you think? For the money. With a million-dollar inheritance looming, why not live a lie for a few years?”

  I gave her half a smile. “But you didn’t, did you, doll? You found your own men to show him, and yourself, that you were still very much a desirable woman.”

  I might have slapped her again. She said, “Mike… that sounds so… harsh.”

  “Maybe, but all you needed to do was look in a mirror and see what guys like me see, which is a beautiful woman.”

  She smiled a little. “That’s better. That’s not harsh at all.”

  I touched her hand. “What was the last straw, sugar? What sent you openly running around on Wake with every Tom and Harry’s Dick?”

  That got a little laugh out of her. “Well… it was Wake’s own wild behavior. That guy he left me for turned out to be the first of many. My loving hubby called me a nympho! What was he, but the male version of that?”

  “Satyr’s the term. How ugly did it get between you two?”

  She shrugged. “There were occasional fights, but only arguing, never anything physical. I wouldn’t have minded him getting a little rough… oh, I know that sounds terrible, but it maybe would have meant he still cared, a little.”

  She began to cry. She had a box of tissues ready for that.

  I held her hand till she got hold of herself, then when she did, I squeezed a little.

  “Here’s the problem,” I told her. “Everything you’ve told me about your relationship with Wake… while it’s very compelling, even moving… doesn’t help your situation.”

  “But…”

  “I have to be harsh again, honey. That you once loved him, and were spurned… particularly thrown over for a man… has murder motive written all over it.”

  Her face took on a terrible blankness. “My God,” she said quietly. “It does, doesn’t it?”

  “That saying about the truth shall set you free? Doesn’t apply here.”

  Her eyes grew huge and her mouth became a contorted thing. “But I didn’t kill him! I swear I didn’t!”

  “I believe you. I’ve seen many a frame in my time, but never one more obvious than what you were fitted for. It may be that the cops’ll be smart enough to see through it… but we can’t count on that.”

  The wet eyes suddenly had hope in them. “You do believe me. You… you’re going to help me?”

  “I said you needed a friend. Well, you’ve got one. We’ll start with lining you up with the attorney I work with back in Manhattan.”

  “What about Mr. Hines?”

  I shook my head. “He’s not a criminal lawyer and, anyway, I’m not sure where his loyalties lie. You’re a Dunbar, yeah, but only by marriage. And the biggest suspect in this thing is a longtime client of his—Dexter Dunbar.”

  She frowned in thought. “You suspect Dex? Why not Dorena?”

  “She’s a possibility, and so is the kid Chickie, if he’s been sandbagging us. But Dex is a man with real money trouble, and a thirst for getting into more of it. You as Wake’s murderer takes you out of the inheritance picture and tosses another million into the Dunbar pot. That could be mighty tempting to somebody in Dex’s straits. And he has complete access to the estate—the art studio and your bedroom, for example. He would know about your gun. He would know where to find your jewelry box to plant an earring.”

  She was shaking her head a little; it was all coming at her very fast. “Mike… what should I do?”

  “Nothing. Sit tight. Clam up. You haven’t given a statement yet, have you?”

  “No. I haven’t said anything… just that I’m innocent.”

  “Well, that never hurts.” Never did any good, either. “You tell them they’ll be hearing from your lawyer, and that he’s in Manhattan, so it may take a while. No harm in buying a little time.”

  “Time I spend in here,” she pointed out.

  “Tough it out. I intend to clear you of this, fast. With a little luck, you won’t have to spend more than a day or two behind bars.”

  Her smile was a pleasure to see. “You’re wonderful.”

  I got to my feet. “I hear that from dames all the time.”

  “You’re funny. You talk like Guys and Dolls.”

  “Sweetie, Guys and Dolls talks like me.”

  * * *

  Outside the jail in the parking lot, Corporal Jim Sheridan, in an echo of the first time I saw him, was leaning against his black-and-white having a smoke. He looked as crisp and cool as the morning in his gray uniform and purple-banded Stetson. He had on the sunglasses again, too.

  As I ambled over, he said, “How’d it go with your client?”

  I smirked as I lit up a Lucky. “You know I can’t tell you that, Jim. But thanks for greasing the wheels some so I could get to her.”

  His sunglasses lenses reflected me back at myself. “You really think she’s innocent, Mike?”

  That was worth another smirk. “She’s not innocent, not with that shape… but she’s no murderer.”
/>   His expression was weak for such a square-jawed face. “I grant you she was sloppy about it, but she may have lost her head and—”

  “No. If she did it, and she didn’t, it had to be very damn premeditated. Madeline Dunbar had to take that gun out of her nightstand drawer and walk outside and over to the garage and climb those fold-down steps, maybe having to yank the cord to bring them down herself, all of which is plenty of time to cool off, but no, she goes up there and shoots her husband in the back, cool as you please, yet somehow manages to lose her earring, leave a shell casing behind, and then go back to her room and hide her gun away in a sublimely stupid fashion. Balls.”

  “I won’t say I don’t see your point. But murderers are people, and people don’t always act rationally.”

  “I’ll write that down.” I took smoke in, let it out. “So what’s your involvement now? B.C.I. will be taking over, right?”

  He nodded. “I’m just support now. The local gendarme. This B.C.I. guy Bullard, Mike… you met him last night?”

  “Briefly. A charmer.”

  A shrug. “He’s good at what he does, but he’s a hard-nosed bastard. Some might even say he’s an asshole. Just a word to the wise.”

  “Should be sufficient,” I said lightly. I nodded toward a figure walking across the parking lot toward us. “Who’s this freight train?”

  “Oh, hell,” Sheridan said very softly. “It’s that Linda’s father.”

  “Who’s Linda?”

  “Our most recent missing girl.”

  He was a small, bespectacled, mustached man about fifty in a dark, indifferently tailored brown suit, a lighter brown tie flapping. He was barreling right toward us with an expression of unmistakable angry frustration.

  “Corporal Sheridan! Corporal Sheridan!”

  The trooper smiled in a polite way but didn’t reply until the little man had planted himself before us. “Mr. Cohen,” he said with a nod.

  Mr. Cohen was trembling, and displeasure quavered in his voice. “I don’t know whether I’m lucky or not, running into you. I’m here to see the sheriff, to see if he might have any advice for Linda’s mother and me, besides what you seem to be recommending, which is sit on our damn hands.”

  Sheridan held up a palm. “Mr. Cohen, we are investigating. We’re looking for your daughter. Nothing new yet. You’ll be my first call.”