Chip Harrison: Make Out With Murder

He said, “I had a visitor during your absence. Mr. Ferdinand Bell.”

“What did he want?”

“To be helpful. A noble ambition, but I’m not sure he achieved its realization. He described the swerving of his automobile with an excess of detail. Listening to him, I very nearly felt that I was in it at the time. It was not a feeling I particularly enjoyed.”

“Did he have anything else to say?”

“He had some things to say about Miss Andrea Sugar. He brought to my attention the possibility that a lesbian relationship might have existed between her and Jessica Trelawney.”

“No kidding.”

“He seemed shocked by this. I find his shock more interesting than the relationship itself, certainly. He also said that Mr. Vandiver is in serious financial difficulties.”

“You couldn’t prove it by the house.”

“So I gather. Mr. Vandiver has apparently suffered some financial reverses.”

“How would Bell know that?”

“I’m not sure he knew that he knew it. He was letting his mind wander in my presence, talking generally about the flightiness of the sisters Trelawney. Jessica’s homosexuality, Melanie’s hippie lifestyle, Kim’s hour upon the stage—”

“Kim seems pretty straight-ahead to me.”

“Your bias on the subject has already been noted. He also alluded to Caitlin’s liberated sexuality, which he cloaked with the euphemism of nymphomania.”

“I’m not positive it’s a euphemism.”

“Be that as it may. And that led him to Gregory Vandiver’s infirmity of purpose. Vandiver made some substantial investments in rare coins about a year ago. He consulted Bell, and purchased the pieces through Bell and on Bell’s recommendation. He specifically sought out items for long-term growth, the blue chips of the coin market. Barber proofs, Charlotte and Dahlonega gold, that sort of thing. Then a matter of months ago, Vandiver insisted that Bell unload everything and get him cash overnight. It seems Vandiver did realize a profit on his investment, if a tiny one, but that Bell would have advised him to hold indefinitely, and certainly to hold for several months, as an upturn could be expected in the market. But Vandiver insisted on selling immediately, even if he had to take a loss.”

“Meaning that he needed cash, I guess.”

“So it would seem. The money involved was considerable. I had to pry this from Bell, who evidendy believes that matters communicated to a professional numismatist come under the category of privileged information. Gregory Vandiver liquidated his numismatic holdings for a net sum of $110,000.”

“He had that much invested in coins?”

“I find that remarkable. I find it more remarkable that he had a sudden need for that much cash.”

I nodded. “I wonder,” I said.

“If he could have placed the bomb in the car?”

“Yeah. I suppose it’s possible. Say he gets a train earlier than his usual one. He comes straight home and goes straight to the garage and wires the bomb to the Mercedes. He knows he’s safe because he’s not going to drive the car. He doesn’t even think about Seamus because Caitlin usually drives herself.” I stopped for a moment. “No, it doesn’t add up. He wouldn’t know she was going to use the car then. He didn’t know I was there, so there was no way to know she would drive me home.”

“He could assume she would use the car eventually, however.”

“But why bother getting home earlier than usual? He could have planted the bomb some other time.”

Haig leaned back and played with his beard. I asked a few more questions that he didn’t respond to. I went over and watched the African gouramis while he did his genius-in-residence number. While I was watching them, I saw the female knock off a guppy. It didn’t bother me a bit.

Haig said, “I would like to know at what time Gregory Vandiver left his office.”

“So would I.”

“I would also like to know where Gordon McLeod spent the afternoon. And his source of income.”

“So would I.”

“There are other things, too. Several extremely curious things. I am going to have to know considerably more about Cyrus Trelawney.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Hmmmm,” he said.

Wong brought us some beer and we sat opposite each other drinking it and arguing about where I was going to spend the night. “There is a pattern to all of this, Chip,” he told me. “There are going to be more deaths. One develops the ability to sense this sort of thing. There have been four deaths already since the case engaged our interest. Melanie’s was the first. The other three have been gratuitous. The prostitute, the sailor, the chauffeur.”

“Manservant,” I said.

“When a manservant dies at the wheel of his employer’s car I have difficulty in not regarding him as a chauffeur. Three gratuitous deaths. There will be more deaths, and they will be more to the point. I sense this.”

I went through my usual mental hassle as to whether he was a genius or a nut case.

“I would prefer that these deaths not occur. I will, in fact, endeavor to prevent them to the best of my ability. It is for this, after all, that I am employed. But, failing that, I would at least prefer that one of these deaths not be suffered by you.”

“I’d prefer it, too.” I said. “To tell you the truth.”

“You expose yourself unnecessarily by returning to your rooming house.”

“I expose myself to worse than that on the couch. I could die of a backache.”

“You could have my bed,” Haig said.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous.”

“I would not mind the couch.”

“Oh, come on. I’ll walk a couple of blocks and I’ll be home, for Pete’s sake. It’s nothing to worry about.”

So I headed back to my rooming house.

That was my first mistake.

My second mistake happened as I was on my way up the steps to the front door. A guy came out of the doorway to the left of my building, and two other guys came out of the doorway to the right of my building, and one of them asked me if I was Harrison, and I made my second mistake. I said I was.

They kicked the shit out of me.

I’m going to leave it at that. Haig doesn’t think I ought to. He wants me to handle it like Dick Francis and describe the beating they gave me, a blow at a time. With the proper discipline, he maintains, I can run the scene to ten or twelve pages instead of getting it over and done with in seven words. The thing is, I don’t want to spend that much time remembering it. They kicked the shit out of me, very coldly and systematically, doing everything to assure me that there was nothing personal in what they were doing. Then they walked off in different directions, and I crawled into my rooming house and upstairs and got into bed.

Everything was worse in the morning. Things really ached. I dragged myself over to Haig’s office and he took one look at me and threw a fit. What infuriated him the most was that I hadn’t called him immediately so that he could have had his doctor look at me. I said I was pretty sure nothing was broken. He called his doctor, who made a housecall, which I felt was completely unnecessary. I think he came over for an excuse to look at the fish. But while he was there he also looked at me and pronounced me physically fit. I had a lot of bruises, and they were going to look increasingly ugly for the next week to ten days, but I had no broken bones and there was no evidence of internal injuries.

“You should have stayed here last night,” Haig said.

I suppose he couldn’t resist saying that. I didn’t bother replying to it.

I had things to do, but they started with Kim and I couldn’t see her until after noon when the hulk would either go to the docks or pretend to. I called Andrea Sugar, but failed to reach her. So I helped Haig with the fish until Wong brought us some lunch. I can’t remember what it was, only that it had slivers of almonds in it and it was delicious. Afterward Haig picked up the phone and called Addison Shiver’s office. The old lawyer was in conference, but would return his call.