Нэнси Пикард - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 128, No. 6. Whole No. 784, December 2006

The woman who had been in the tiny red dress wasn’t wearing the dress anymore. A red towel was wrapped around her body, as if she’d been ready to take a shower. Her head was stuffed into the toilet bowl like so much excrement. Someone had held her head under the water until she drowned. Her hands were limp on either side of the bowl. If she’d given the murderer a fight, she had lost. What a shameful way to die. Jericho saw to it that no one saw the state of the corpse except for him (and Kelly Greene, who had seen too much already). He would not disturb the corpse before the tech boys showed up.

The others watched every move he was making as he examined the bedroom. This wasn’t some highway accident that you just couldn’t turn away from. They had all spent the afternoon with this woman. So he walked over and closed the door to cut off the gawkers’ view.

He found her journal. It was sitting beside a half-eaten bagel spread with cream cheese. She’d made an entry before she’d been stuffed into the toilet and drowned. “I think I’m in trouble” was all it said. Short, simple, and completely damning. If the girl in the scarlet dress was suspicious of one of the others in this mansion, surely she had confided in someone.

Someone had gone through her things. Her bureau drawers were all open and clothes were scattered about. What had they been looking for? Was it a robbery gone bad? Had a thief been caught with his hand in the cookie jar? The woman in scarlet was a powerful Hollywood executive. She’d been sporting fine jewelry all night. Had someone wanted her fine necklaces and bracelet so much that they resorted to murder? Or was it something more personal? Did someone in this mansion have a bone to pick with little miss tiny red dress?

Jericho came across a key to her door as he prowled about the room. He locked the scene of the crime up tight for the tech boys. They would arrive right after the storm let up, whenever that might be. The way the wind and sky were warring right now, it didn’t look as if that would be before morning. That gave Detective Jericho plenty of time to interrogate the people at this happening. He figured he might as well get some interviews in while the events were still fresh in everyone’s mind. He descended the steps. As he scanned the lobby full of distraught players of a game suddenly turned real, he saw immediately who he wanted to question first.

He escorted the sniffling Kelly Greene into the kitchen, despite the simmering glare he got from Oliver Powers. The radio personality seemed to distrust him, though he had never given the gargantuan man any reason to be suspicious. Jericho made note of his reaction. Perhaps the powerful Mr. Powers was trying to cover his own guilt by pretending to suspect Jericho of foul play. But Oliver would have to wait. He had to focus his attentions now on the woman who discovered the body.

Kelly Greene was sniffling still and Jericho couldn’t help but believe the tears were real. He’d seen a number of her films and was quite positive that she was not a good enough actress to manufacture such waterworks. But were they tears of shock and fear, or simply the reaction of a woman who had done a terrible thing and was having a hard time dealing with it? There are many people in this world who have murdered but are not natural killers. Most people don’t have the stomach for it. They might muster the drive to complete the act, but guilt gets them in the end. Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t have closed half their cases if the killers hadn’t wanted to be caught.

Jericho took Ms. Greene’s hand gently in his. The personal touch. He was a friend. You could tell ole Adam anything. And Kelly Greene did tell him everything, precious little that it was. She had gone up to check on the woman in red. She had rapped on the door several times, and getting no response, had tried the doorknob. The door had been open. Kelly went inside, calling the woman’s name. No answer. Kelly admitted that she had started getting worried. She saw the drawers that looked like someone had gone through them. Then, entering the bathroom, she saw the woman in the red towel. That’s when she’d run downstairs, hysterical. She hadn’t seen anything else. She didn’t notice anyone acting suspicious.

“Has anyone talked to you about her jewelry?” Jericho asked.

Kelly Greene looked off into the distance, searching her memory. She came up with a little something. Yes, the pale teenager from the South had asked Kelly if she thought the jewels complemented the red dress. “Very pretty,” the girl had said, or so Kelly Greene recalled. Was the actress just trying to throw Jericho off the scent?

Jericho went upstairs again, to the scene of the murder. He wanted to verify that the woman in scarlet was no longer wearing the diamond jewelry. He carefully pulled her submerged head out of the toilet and looked inside the bowl in case something had slipped off. Nothing. Her ears were naked; her neck was bare; her wrists were empty of ornamentation. Jericho now had a solid motive for her murder. This wasn’t personal. It was pure greed. Or was Kelly Greene just making it look like that? He hadn’t made up his mind yet, but all signs right now pointed to the pale teenager.

The teenager’s name was Sally Freddins. She sat silently in the conservatory as Jericho circled her. He wanted to intimidate her a little, but the girl seemed to live on a planet all her own. No, she didn’t know the woman in red. No, she hadn’t thought about anyone, including herself, stealing the jewels. No, she hadn’t paid any attention to the woman’s necklace or bracelet or earrings. No, she didn’t give one hoot or holler what Jericho “suspected” or what he found missing in the scarlet-toweled corpse’s room, or that Detective Adam Jericho had put sixteen murderers behind bars in his long and illustrious career. Sally Freddins just wanted to go back to Texas.

Jericho finally excused her after she ducked more than a dozen questions, answering without more than a mumble. He did notice the cut on the side of her head, though. Had the demure albino been in a tussle? Had the poor victim in the scarlet dress put up a fight, trying to defend herself against a lunatic kleptomaniac teen who was holding her head in the toilet? Jericho watched the antisocial girl leave and wondered just what she was doing at this little party when she so obviously detested companionship. Was she here merely to rob other rich snobs? Sally was at the top of Jericho’s list.

The old woman with the blue hair was named Margaret Painsbum and she soon became a veritable pain in Detective Jericho’s bum. Jericho managed to ask her only one question before she turned the tables on him, interrogating him like a CIA agent with a Communist mole in the hot seat. Jericho actually found himself sweating inside that sunshine-yellow coat, feeling like he was under a hot lamp, though the library to which they’d retreated was shadowy and cool. He wondered if the old hag might have been a cruel librarian or maybe a prison guard before she married Gene Painsbum of Painsbum Enterprises a century or so ago. “Do you have an alibi for the time the victim was attacked and killed?” she demanded. “You’re the only one of us who is not independently wealthy, so isn’t it logical that you would most desire the valuable jewels? I noticed you eyeing the woman earlier tonight; did she spurn your romantic advances and you reacted violently? Just what did you learn from all those psychopaths you tracked down?”

Jericho finally let her go after almost half an hour (or was it Mrs. Painsbum who let the detective go?). But not before he noticed that she had a slight tear in the brim of her peacock hat. Had she been in a struggle? Surely someone so regal would never prance around in such shabby headdress. Unless she did not want to draw attention to the ostentatious hat’s absence if she’d tried to get rid of the torn evidence. Jericho’s gut now made him suspect the old woman of foul play.