Chip Harrison - Make Out With Murder

I didn’t say anything for a minute or two. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and straightened up on his stool. He forced his smile back in place.

A wistful look came into his eyes. “There’s something I’ve always wondered about, Chip. May I call you that?”

“Sure.”

“Something I’ve always wondered about. That skid I took. I grew up in an area where winter was long and severe. I learned to drive on snow and ice, how to react to sudden skids. Not to fight the wheel, to turn with the skid, all of those actions that are contrary to instinct and must consequently be learned and reinforced. And on the day of the accident I reacted as I had been trained to react.”

“But it didn’t work.”

“No, it did not. And I’ve wondered if there couldn’t have been a possibility of mechanical failure involved. I had the car looked at. It wasn’t damaged all that severely, and if Robin had been sitting beside me and wearing a belt—” His face darkened. He bit his lip and went on. “They found that the steering column was damaged. I had never thought before that it might have been tampered with. Now I find myself wanting to seize on the possibility to whitewash my own role in the affair. If the car had been sabotaged, if some fiend intentionally caused that accident—”

He got to his feet. “You must excuse me,” he said. “I have a nervous stomach. I’ll be a few moments. You might like to have a look at the coins in that case. There are some nice Colonials.”

I had a look at the Colonials. I couldn’t really tell you if they were nice or not. I also had a look at the books on his desk and in the glass-fronted bookcase. They all seemed to be about coins, which probably stood to reason. Some of them looked very old.

I was thumbing through a book called The United States Trade Dollar , by John Willem, when Bell came back. “An illuminating book,” he said over my shoulder. “The Trade dollar was coined purely to facilitate commerce in the Orient. The Chinese traders would put their personal chop marks on them to attest to their silver value. I’ve a few pieces in stock if you’d care for a look at the genuine article.”

He showed me three or four coins, returned them to their little brown envelopes and put them away. “My library is my most important asset,” he said. “There’s a motto in professional numismatics — Buy the book before the coin. The wisest sort of advice and all too few people follow it. Numismatics is a science, not just a matter of sorting change and filling holes in a Whitman folder. Take those Trade dollars. The whole history of the China trade is waiting to be read there.”

He went on like that for a while. I tend to look interested even when I’m not, which Haig tells me is an asset; people reveal more of themselves to people who appear interested. So I listened, and it really was pretty interesting, but it wasn’t getting me any closer to the man who killed Melanie and tried to bomb Leo Haig’s house.

I found an opportunity to get the conversation back on he rails and brought up the question of motive. “Suppose someone did sabotage your car. He couldn’t have been certain of killing just Robin. He would have had a shot at killing you, too.”

“That had occurred to me.”

“Well, anyone who’s busy killing off five sisters probably wouldn’t draw the line at including someone else here and there. Who benefited by Robin’s death?”

“Financially?” He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s no secret, surely. Except for a few minor bequests, I inherited Robin’s entire estate.”

“But suppose you had both been killed in the accident.”

“Dear me. I hadn’t thought of that. I’d have to check that, but it seems to me that I recall a provision to cover my dying before Robin. It would also cover simultaneous death, I presume. It’s my recollection that the estate would be divided among her surviving sisters.”

“I see.”

“I’d have to check, but that would present no difficulty. My lawyer has a copy of Robin’s will. I could call him first thing Monday morning. Just let me make a note of that.”

He made a note of it, then looked up suddenly. “I say, Chip. You don’t think I ought to consider myself in danger now, do you?” He laughed nervously. “It’s hard to take | seriously, isn’t it? But if it ought to be taken seriously—”

“Do you have a will?”

“Yes, of course. I drew up a new will shortly after Robin’s death. A few thousand dollars to a couple of numismatic research foundations, some smaller charitable bequests, and the balance to my sister in Lyons Falls.”

“And you inherited Robin’s estate free and clear?”

“Yes. Shortly after we were married we drew wills leaving everything to one another absolutely without encumbrance.” His eyes clouded. “I expected it would be my will which would be put to the test first. I was seventeen years Robin’s senior. She preferred older men, you know. Her first husband was as old as I am now when she married him. There’s a history of heart trouble in my family. I naturally expected to predecease Robin, and although I hadn’t all that much to leave her I wanted my affairs to be in order.”

I told him I didn’t think he was in any danger. No one could now expect to profit from his death. The news didn’t cheer him much. He was too caught up in thoughts of his dead wife.

I asked if he knew anything about Jessica’s will. “I barely knew Jessica,” he said. “The Trelawney sisters were not close, and Robin and I kept pretty much to ourselves. Most of our close friends were business associates of mine. Coin dealers are gregarious folk, you know. We hardly regard one another as competitors. Often we do more business buying from each other and selling to each other than we do with actual collectors. No, I don’t know anything about Jessica’s will. I did go to her funeral, just as I went to Melanie’s. I don’t honestly know why I attended either of them. I had little enough to say to anyone there. I suppose it was a way of preserving my ties to Robin.” He lowered his eyes. “We had so little time together.”

“How did you meet her? Was she interested in coins?”

“Oh, not at all. Although she did come to share some of my interest during our life together. She was growing interested in love money, those little pins and brooches made of three-cent pieces, a very popular jewelry form of the mid-nineteenth century. I would always pick up pieces for her when I saw them. No real value, of course, but she liked them.” He smiled at some private memory. “How did I meet her? I was a friend of her first husband, Phil Flanner. I suppose I fell in love with Robin while she was married to him, although I honestly didn’t realize it at the time. Phil died tragically; a stupid accident. I began seeing her not too long after the funeral. I was drawn to her and enjoyed her company, still not recognizing what I felt as love. Gradually we both came to realize that we were in love with one another. I wish we had realized this sooner, so that we might have been married sooner. We had so very little time.”

When I got back to the house on 20th Street, Haig was on the top floor playing with his fish, repairing the leakers with rubber cement. When I asked if he wanted me to help, he grunted. I stopped in the kitchen where Wong was hacking a steak into bite-sized pieces with a cleaver. I left without a word. When he’s chopping things he looks positively dangerous and I try to stay out of his way. I went downstairs and talked a little with some of the girls.

“Why they wanna blow up Maria?” Carmelita wanted to know. “She don’ never hurt nobody. One guy, he say she give him a clop, but Maria never give nobody no clop. He get his clop somewhere else. Maria tell him, you get your clop from your mother, she say.”