A Palette for Murder Page 17

  “I’m coming with you,” Vaughan said.

  “If you insist,” I said, opening the back door of Fred Mayer’s taxi.

  “In here, Mrs. Fletcher,” one of the officers said, indicating the back of his marked squad car.

  “No,” I said. “We’ll follow.”

  “What’s going on?” Mayer asked. “Am I in some sort of trouble?”

  “No,” I said. Vaughan jumped in the taxi with me. “Just follow the police car, Mr. Mayer.”

  “Let me have those Tums,” he said, falling in behind the squad car. I handed them to him over the seat. The police vehicle turned on its flashing lights and siren, and picked up speed. Mayer kept pace, saying, “At least I won’t get a speeding ticket.”

  We reached the town dock where a small gray building was surrounded with police cars, their swirling lights cutting through a dense fog, turning it into multicolored cotton candy. Vaughan and I got out of the taxi and were approached by Police Chief Cramer.

  “He’s in there?” I asked, pointing to the building.

  “Yes.”

  The harsh sound of a policeman’s voice through a bullhorn violated the ears. “Mr. Muller, this is the police. You are to come out with your hands up. You will not be hurt in any way. I promise you that. Just come out and everything will be fine.”

  There was silence following what undoubtedly had been an oft-repeated announcement. I noticed a cop crouched by the door to the boathouse. He kept low as he ran back to where we stood. “He says again he wants to talk to this Fletcher broad.”

  The moment he said it, he saw me standing there. “Are you—?”

  “Yes. I’m that Fletcher broad. Don’t let it bother you. I’ve been called worse.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. It’s just that—”

  Chief Cramer cut him off. “Are you willing to talk to him, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “That’s why I’m here, Chief.”

  “We’ll escort you to the door. Talk to him through it.”

  “What if he wants her to go inside?” Vaughan asked.

  “That’s up to her,” Cramer said, nodding at me.

  “Let’s see how it develops,” I said. “Come on. I left a dinner that’s getting cold.”

  I was led to just outside the boathouse door. Uniformed cops with guns drawn flanked me. One of them nodded. I returned the nod.

  “Hans?” I said in much too soft a voice. “Hans?” Louder this time. “Mr. Muller, it’s Jessica Fletcher.”

  We waited. There was no response.

  “Mr. Muller. Are you in there?” I said, fairly shouting this time.

  Still no sound from inside.

  “I’m going in,” I said.

  “No, ma’am, not without the chief’s order.” He looked back to where Cramer stood with Vaughan.

  I instinctively reached for the door handle and turned it, pushed the door open. The only light inside was from the police cruisers that came and went in red bursts through a large skylight. I narrowed my eyes and saw a man’s body on the floor. He was sitting up, his back propped against a wall.

  I didn’t hesitate. I stepped inside and went directly to the slumping body of Hans Muller. A handgun was on the floor a few feet from him. Next to it was a half-empty package of cigarettes, and a butt smoked down to its filtered end.

  I came to his side and peered into his round face. I thought he was dead, but he proved me wrong by saying, “Mrs. Fletcher. You came.” His breathing was labored, low rasps coming from his heaving chest. His beefy hand found mine.

  “Yes, I came. Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

  “Mrs. Fletcher, I did not kill that young girl.”

  “No, I don’t think you did.”

  Police came through the door, flashlights illuminating us together on the floor. I held up my hand to keep them away. I said to Muller, “Do you know how the model, Miki Dorsey, died?”

  He coughed, sending his large body into spasm. He managed, “Ya.”

  “Was it poison? Was it a poison called ricin?”

  His answer was to squeeze my hand tightly, and then to let out an anguished, painful gasp. His free hand went to his chest. His eyes opened wide, filled with fear. “It was—”

  He shuddered. His grip on my hand loosened. A gurgling sound came from his throat. And he was still.

  Suddenly, the damp, dank room was filled with police, their lights illuminating every comer. Chief Cramer knelt by Muller’s lifeless body and touched the big German’s neck in search of a pulse. There was none.

  Using a handkerchief, an officer picked up the revolver and showed it to Cramer. The chief sniffed the end of the snub-nosed barrel. “Hasn’t been fired,” he said. He opened the chamber. “Empty. No bullets.”

  “What killed him?” I asked.

  Vaughan Buckley came to where I stood and put his arm around me. He looked down at Muller and muttered, “My God!”

  As another policeman moved past us, his foot caught something on the concrete floor and sent it to the tip of my shoe. It was small, the size of a vitamin or pain-relieving gel. I picked it up and held it in my palm. It was a plastic ampoule that was broken in half. It reminded me of an electrical fuse of the type that’s been replaced in most homes by circuit breakers.

  “What do you have?” Vaughan asked.

  I showed him.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know, but I have a hunch.”

  I showed the ampoule to Chief Cramer. He asked the same question Vaughan had asked.

  “I think it might be what killed Hans Muller,” I said. “Could you have what’s left of the contents of this analyzed?”

  “Sure. But why? What do you think it is?”

  “Ricin.”

  “Ricin?” Vaughan said.

  “A poison, the same one that might have killed Miki Dorsey, and maybe Joshua Leopold.”

  Cramer took the ampoule from me and placed it in a small plastic bag a uniformed officer handed him.

  “What’s in his pockets?” I asked.

  “I’d rather wait for the crime-scene boys before anyone touched him.”

  “Of course. His ever-present cigarettes are there,” I said, pointing to the package and the butt.

  They were collected by an officer, and placed in plastic bags.

  “That single butt, Chief Cramer. Remember the package of cigarettes I gave the coroner?”

  “Yes?”

  “Would you see to it that this butt is compared to the cigarettes in that package, the one I gave you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Am I free to leave now?”

  “Sure. Will you see her home, Mr. Buckley?”

  “Certainly. Come on, Jess.”

  Fred Mayer stood next to his taxi as we approached. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “A death,” I replied.

  “Back to Santa Fe Junction?” Vaughan asked. “We left our dinners.”

  “The last thing I want,” I said.

  “We’ll go to the house,” he said. “No, first we’ll swing by Scott’s Inn and pick up your things. You’re staying with us for the rest of your so-called vacation.”

  “No, Vaughan, I don’t want to impose. You have all that work going on and—”

  “I’m your publisher, Jess, which makes me your boss in a sense. And your boss says you’re staying with us.”

  “All right,” I said, “but I can’t give up—I don’t want to give up my room at the inn.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I might need to use it. I’ll stay with you, but only with that caveat.”

  “Fine. Mr. Mayer, first stop is Scott’s Inn.”

  Chapte Twenty-four

  I took from my room at Scott’s Inn only enough personal items for that night. Vaughan accompanied me to the room but didn’t notice the second phone or the answering machine. The little red light on the machine wasn’t flashing; no one had called.

  We settled in the Buckleys’ kitchen. I was hungry by this
time; Vaughan put shell steaks on a gas barbecue on the patio, and Olga whipped up a simple salad.

  “Delicious,” I said after we’d eaten.

  “You have some constitution,” Olga said, “being up for a meal after what you’ve been through tonight.”

  “After what she’s been through twice since arriving in the Hamptons,” said Vaughan.

  “Three times,” I corrected. “I was there when Miki Dorsey died.”

  “Yes, three times,” Vaughan said. “I’m sorry about all this, Jess. Somehow, I feel responsible by having invited you here.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Whether I’m responsible or not, tell me about this poison you think might have killed Hans.”

  “Ricin?” I told them what I’d learned about it from George Sutherland.

  “Whew!” Vaughan said. “That’s remarkable.”

  “Hans had a background in intelligence, didn’t he?” Olga said. “With East Germany?”

  Vaughan laughed. “He talked about it. Frankly, I always considered it a case of fantasizing by Hans. You know, trying to inject intrigue into what was basically a pretty dull life.”

  “Let’s assume his background did include some sort of clandestine life,” I said. “That would have given him access to a wide variety of things that kill.”

  “True,” said Vaughan.

  “But I have a problem,” I said.

  “Which is?”

  “Even if this potent poison, ricin, that I think was used to kill Miki Dorsey and perhaps Joshua Leopold, came from Hans Muller, I somehow can’t buy him as having used it to murder anyone.”

  “I never would have thought it, either, Jess,” Olga said.

  “But if what I’ve pieced together is true—that there is a definite link between Muller, Maurice St. James, Blaine Dorsey—and if Miki Dorsey had been cut out of her role as Leopold’s exclusive representative— and if Jo Ann Forbes had begun to put this together and lost her life because of it—then—”

  Vaughan and Olga looked at me.

  “Then what?” Vaughan asked.

  “One of them is the murderer,” Olga said. “Right, Jess?”

  “Or someone murdering for them,” I said.

  Olga made tea, and we sat on one of their screen porches. It had gotten warm and humid; the cicadas made their presence noisily known, harmony provided by an occasional cricket. It had been a clear night, but low clouds now obscured the moon and stars.

  We didn’t say much as we sat in the dark. I suppose we each were dealing with our individual thoughts and reactions to what by now had become a pattern of death in the pretty, pleasant Hamptons. Hans Muller had been their friend, and now he was dead, probably of a poison he administered to himself, the same poison that perhaps had killed Miki Dorsey. But that was supposition on my part. A second autopsy on her was crucial to proving my thesis.

  Vaughan, who’d left the kitchen and the porch a few times to take phone calls in his study, broke the silence: “I know one thing for certain, Jess.”

  “Yes?”

  “If you thought there was media interest in you before, this nasty episode with Hans tonight will make your life hell.”

  I nodded in agreement. He was right, of course. I didn’t relish the thought.

  I eventually excused myself and went to the pretty guest room above their three-car garage. Olga had laid out fresh towels for me and a small basket of pretty-smelling soaps. How she came up with fresh flowers on such short notice was a mystery to me, but she had.

  I got ready for bed, and was about to turn out the light when I saw that there was a phone in the room. I hesitated picking it up in case someone was on the line. But I did, and received a dial tone. I pulled the slip of paper from my purse on which was written the number of the new phone in my room at Scott’s Inn and dialed it.

  “You have reached—”

  The moment I heard my voice begin to give the outgoing message, I punched in “1,” then “0.” My message stopped. A mechanical male voice said, “You have one message.”

  I heard the tape rewind. And then a man’s voice said: “I understand you wish to buy a sketch by a certain famous woman. I have that sketch. I will call again.”

  There was a “beep,” and all went quiet.

  I hung up and tried to place the man’s voice. I failed. I detected the hint of a Southern accent. I also had the feeling the voice was being disguised in some way; the old place-a-handkerchief-over-the-mouthpiece routine? I was tempted to tap into the message again but decided it could wait until morning.

  Sleep came later, and with some difficulty. I assume I dreamed, but had no recollection when I awoke in the morning to birds singing and sunlight streaming through the windows, what those dreams might have been.

  I used the phone to call Fred Mayer’s little office across from police headquarters. I’d told him I’d let him know when I needed him that day.

  “ ‘Morning, Mrs. Fletcher. Just sitting here listening to the news about that fella last night down at the town dock.”

  “What are they saying?” I asked.

  “Seems he was a German guy. Maybe a spy. The announcer says the cops suspect suicide.”

  “What else was said?”

  “Just that you were there, a regular heroine, going inside to try and save him.”

  “That’s not what I did. Can you pick me up at Mr. Buckley’s house in an hour?”

  “Yes, ma’am, provided I can get the cab out of the driveway.”

  “Why would that be a problem?”

  “Got to be a dozen cars and trucks belonging to newspapers and radio stations and the like. Seems they know I’m your driver and intend to follow me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He laughed. “Hey, don’t be sorry. Most excitement I’ve had in thirty years. Be there in an hour.”

  Should I cancel him, and try to avoid the press by using other means of transportation?

  No. They’d find me no matter how I elected to get around.

  “Yes,” I said. “An hour.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  I felt like I was in a parade.

  I sat in the back of Fred Mayer’s taxi as we led an entourage of media vehicles from the Buckley house into town. Vaughan and Olga had urged me to lay low, to use their pool and tennis court, to lounge about and read, nap, relax. Although a hoard of workmen had descended at eight, Vaughan assured me they would not be hammering and sawing everywhere, and that I could find spots of solitude and relative silence.

  I knew they meant well; the contemplation of what they suggested was appealing.

  But I was determined to move the day along, and to take every step that might help that process.

  I ran into Scott’s Inn, where Mr. Scott was at his desk.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Fletcher.” He gave me a wry smile. “Looks like you just seem to attract murder.”

  “Goodness, I hope that’s not true,” I said as he handed me a batch of message slips, which I didn’t bother to read. “Besides, the gentleman who died last night wasn’t murdered. He committed suicide.”

  The moment I said it, it flashed across my mind that maybe Hans Muller hadn’t committed suicide. Could someone else have been in the boathouse and used ricin to kill him?

  I went upstairs and listened to the message again. I played it over and over. There was something vaguely familiar, but I still couldn’t identify who owned the voice.

  I called Police Chief Cramer.

  “Mrs. Fletcher, I’m glad you called.”

  “I thought I’d better check in.”

  “You should know you’re not alone in this.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I just got off the phone with a Sheriff Morton Metzger from Cabot Cove.”

  “You did? Why did Mort call you?”

  “He says he heard about last night from TV news, and wanted me to know that he was holding me and my department pers
onally accountable if anything happens to you.”

  “He didn’t really say that?”

  “Yes, he did. Actually, he sounded like a nice fellow. I’m sure he meant well.”

  “Mort is a—nice fellow. He means well. Have you heard from Dr. Eder?”

  “He called just before your sheriff friend did. Called from the city. Those cigarettes you gave him are being analyzed as we speak. He says the forensic scientist knows a lot about this ricin you think might be in them.”

  “Good. What about a second autopsy on Miki Dorsey?”

  “Should know for certain by noon. I think it’s pretty well decided. There’s some heavy influence being peddled on that issue.”

  “So you said. What about her father?”

  “Went back to London last night.”

  “I wish he hadn’t done that.”

  “Why?”

  “Just a feeling.”

  “You have lots of those, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “I suppose I do. A family curse. I don’t suppose you have any new information on Mr. Muller.”

  “Dr. Eder is doing an autopsy this afternoon as soon as he gets back from the city.”

  “What was in his pockets?”

  “You asked that last night. I have an inventory. I can get it for you.”

  “Could I come by and see it?”

  “Any time. I plan to be here most of the day.”

  I emerged from Scott’s Inn into the crowd of press people who’d followed me there. They started shooting questions at me. I paused at the top of the steps leading to the porch, held up my hands, and said, “I am going shopping. Then, I intend to enjoy a quiet lunch—alone.”

  The number of questions tripled, all having to do with my having been present in the boathouse last night. I waited patiently until the din died down, then said, “Ladies and gentlemen, you are chasing the wrong person. I am here in the Hamptons to enjoy a much-needed vacation. A few unfortunate events have gotten in the way of that. I don’t intend to allow any other distractions to interfere with my leisure during my final days here. I will say nothing else to you, and I would appreciate being left alone. Thank you.”

  As I settled in the rear seat of Mayer’s taxi, a female reporter asked him where he was taking me next.

  Mayer laughed: “With this lady, you never know.” He turned to me. “Where to, Mrs. Fletcher?”