Ed McBain - The House That Jack Built

“The possibility exists that he may have witnessed the murder. We would like very much to find…”

“What do I have to do with this?” Sophie said, and looked at her watch. “You’ve got twelve minutes. And speak up, you’re fading. My horn’s on the fritz, I told you that.”

“I thought I was shouting,” Matthew said.

“What?”

“I said I thought I was shouting !”

“Yes, well, you are,” Sophie said.

“Mrs. Brechtmann,” he said, “tell me about your granddaughter and her friends.”

“Oh, I see,” Sophie said, and shook her head. “The little bitch has surfaced again, is that it?”

“Are we talking about…?”

“We’re talking about Helen Abbott,” Sophie said. “What the hell does she have to do with your client?”

“Mrs. Brechtmann, two of your granddaughter’s friends were…”

“I have no granddaughter,” Sophie said.

Matthew looked at her.

“Helen Abbott told me…”

“Helen Abbott is a liar and a fortune hunter,” Sophie said. “And so is her father.”

“Her father’s in the hospital,” Matthew said. “Did you know that?”

“No, but I’m happy to hear it,” Sophie said.

“In any event, Helen Abbott has two friends…”

“The little bitch.”

“… named Billy Walker and Arthur Hurley…”

“Yes, I spoke to Hurley on the telephone.”

“That’s exactly what she said.”

“Did she tell you what the conversation was about?”

“I gather it had something to do with money. She said something about your meeting her price…”

“Fat chance of that!”

“… your writing a check…”

“I’d rot in hell first! Helen Abbott’s claim is an entire falsehood!”

“What is her claim, Mrs. Brechtmann?”

“Why, that she’s my granddaughter.”

“And you say she isn’t?”

“Of course she isn’t! I have only one child, Mr. Hope, my daughter, Elise. Elise has never married and she’s certainly never had any children.”

“Then why would Helen Abbott…?”

“Mr. Hope, I really don’t choose to go into a matter that for the past month and more has brought extreme discomfort to me and my daughter.” She looked at her watch. “You still have nine minutes. You told me on the phone that I might be able to help your client. The meter’s ticking. Speak.”

“Did you or your daughter know anyone named Jonathan Parrish?”

“Parrish? No.”

“Do you have any idea why Arthur Hurley and his friend would have been watching the Parrish house?”

“No. My only contact with Hurley was on the telephone.”

“Billy Walker made reference to some pictures. Would you…?”

“Pictures?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of pictures? Paintings? Photographs?”

“I have no idea. I’m asking you.”

“What about them?”

“He said he knew they would bring trouble.”

“The pictures?”

“Yes. Do you know what he meant?”

“No. Pictures? No.”

“Mrs. Brechtmann…”

“You’ve got seven minutes.”

“But who’s counting?” Matthew said, and smiled.

“I am,” Sophie said.

“Mrs. Brechtmann, I know you don’t want to talk about Helen Abbott, but…”

“That’s right, I don’t.”

“I appreciate that. But I already know that her father came to see you sometime in December, just before Christmas…”

“That’s true.”

“And Helen herself came here last month sometime.”

“Yes, the little bitch.”

“And I really would appreciate it if you could tell me something about those visits…”

“No.”

“… because I’m defending an innocent man who…”

“I said no.”

“… may go to the electric chair if I can’t prove…”

“Mr. Hope, I admire your tenacity, but…”

“Mrs. Brechtmann, if those visits are even remotely connected with the case I’m handling…”

“I don’t see how they can be.”

“Please,” Matthew said.

She looked at him.

“Can you please spare me the time?” he said.

She looked at her watch.

“Five minutes is all you’ve got left,” she said.

Matthew smiled.

“You’re on,” he said.

“This was just before Christmas,” she said. “Last year. Just before Christmas…”

The man introduces himself as Charles Abbott. He tells the security guard at the gate that he wishes to see Sophie Brechtmann on a matter of some urgency. Sophie remembers the name out of the distant past, twenty or more years ago, the young chauffeur employed by her husband. British, as she recalls. Handsome young man. She vaguely remembers blond hair and blue eyes. She asks Karl to send him up to the house.

Charles Abbott comes into the living room. The room overlooks the sea. The sun is shining on this nineteenth day of December. It does not feel like the holiday season here in Calusa. It never does. Sophie can still remember Christmases in New York. The snow. The biting cold. Here in Calusa, although the room is dressed for Christmas — a huge tree in the comer, a wreath on the wall opposite the fireplace, evergreen garlands draping the banisters that lead to the upper stories of the house — one is aware only of the sunshine and the sea. No, this is not Christmas. Not for Sophie, and perhaps not for Abbott, either, who spent the first eighteen years of his life in England.

He has changed over the past… how long has it been?

He reminds her that he left his employment here nineteen years ago. Well, just a tad more than nineteen years ago. Nineteen years and four months, to be exact, doesn’t she remember? He smiles when he says this. Sophie feels suddenly uncomfortable.

He is, she supposes, in his late forties now, still handsome in a shabby sort of way. But advancing age has not been kind to him. He is far too thin. His hair is not quite as brilliantly blond as it was in his youth. His blue eyes seem faded. He has grown a sloppy mustache, and it tilts rakishly under his nose when he smiles. The smile continues to make Sophie uneasy. Why is he smiling this wax? What does this former employee want here in the Brechtmann house?

He tells her he is here about his daughter.

Helen.

Sophie politely says. “I didn’t know you had a daughter, Charles.”

“Come off it,” he says.

She looks at him.

“I beg your pardon,” she says.

“How’s Elise these days?” he asks.

The informal use of her daughter’s first name irritates Sophie further. She is reaching for the intercom button when Abbott says, “I want a million dollars, Mrs. Brechtmann.”

She blinks at him in astonishment.

“To keep quiet about little Golden Girl’s baby,” he says.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sophie says.

“You know what I’m talking about,” Abbott says. “I’m talking about Elise’s baby ! I’m talking about Helen, who’s your granddaughter , Mrs. Brechtmann. I want a million bucks , Mrs. Brechtmann!”

“Yes, I heard you,” Sophie says.

“No, I don’t think you did,” Abbott says. “You want to keep your Beautiful Beer beautiful, Mrs. Brechtmann? Or do you want all those beer guzzlers out there to know your darling Golden Girl got herself pregnant by the chauffeur?”

“This is absurd,” Sophie says, and immediately presses the intercom button.

“Yes, Mrs. Brechtmann?”

Karl’s voice.

“Karl, come to the house at once!”

Matthew waited.

Sophie Brechtmann was silent now.

Outside the living room, the sea sparkled in the sunshine.

“There was no substance at all to his claim,” she said. “It was something he’d pulled out of thin air. Elise was a child when he started working here, only sixteen or seventeen when he left, can you imagine the nerve of the man? To concoct such a ridiculous story? To come back with a clumsy blackmail attempt after all those years? I had Karl toss him out like the scurrilous dog he was.”