Питер Ловси - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018

“If you ask me, he’s trying a little too hard to create an unverifiable alibi,” I told Julius. “Notice how he made it a point to say that he paid with cash? And how nobody would be able either to remember him or dispute his being there?”

Julius grunted for my benefit, and then proceeded, to no avail, to try to shake Haisley from his story. After an additional fifteen minutes of this, Julius gave up and told Haisley they were done and that Haisley should be able to find his own way out. The Premiere Wines’ webmaster looked stunned by that.

“You mean I’m free to go?” he asked.

“I have no authority to hold you. You were always free to leave whenever you wanted.”

Haisley pushed himself to his feet, looking somewhat shaky. Julius waited until Haisley had his hand on the doorknob to ask him how Desmond Grushnier first established contact with him. Haisley turned back and looked at Julius as if he had no idea what he was talking about.

“I don’t know anyone named Grushnier,” he said.

Julius didn’t bother to say anything further, and his eyes glazed as he watched Haisley leave his office. I watched Haisley over several webcam feeds to make sure he left the townhouse without causing any mischief, and once he was out the front door, I remarked to Julius that if I had to make a wager, I’d bet Haisley hadn’t heard Grushnier’s name before.

Julius made a sour face. “Even if the man’s involved, Grushnier would’ve used an underling to deal with him, and there’s only a slight chance Grushnier’s name would’ve been mentioned. But it still serves our purpose to rattle him.”

One of the reasons Julius wanted to rattle Haisley was that I had arranged with Stan Green to follow him the moment he left the townhouse. If Haisley was shaken up enough, maybe he’d try to go on the run or lead Stan to incriminating evidence. If Haisley attempted to go back to Boston Premiere Wines, Green would intercept him and take him somewhere to babysit him until Julius had a chance to question the other suspects. Julius didn’t want any of them being warned in advance about Duncan’s murder. Obviously, Duncan’s murderer would know, but Julius was hoping that the killer would slip because of that fact — either letting the tension of the moment get to him (or her), or put on a poor show of acting surprised when told the news.

It was ten minutes to twelve and the next suspect was scheduled to arrive at a quarter past. Julius got up from his chair so he could go to the kitchen and make himself a prosciutto, heirloom tomato, basil, and mozzarella cheese sandwich on a French baguette for lunch. He had a bottle of Moscato wine chilling in the refrigerator, and from the longing look he gave it, I know he would’ve liked to pour himself a glass to go with the sandwich, but he steeled himself and left the wine in the fridge. No doubt he considered himself to be showing superhuman resolve by not drinking any wine until he had the case solved.

At five past twelve Stan called to report that Haisley had tried going back to work, but Stan stopped him before he could make his way inside, and now had him at a coffee shop for “additional” questioning. I told Julius this, and he acknowledged me with a grunt between bites of his sandwich.

The next suspect was four minutes early and Julius showed yet another sour look from having the last mouthful of his lunch interrupted. My heart bled for him over the hardships he had to face, or at least my virtual heart did.

“The nerve of some people,” I told Julius. “Do you want me to call her and tell her to come back in four minutes?”

Julius ignored my sarcasm and, after chasing the last bite of sandwich with a sip of coffee, simply said, “No need, Archie.” He got up and headed to the front door so he could greet Irene Doyle, Boston Premiere Wines’ cashier and bookkeeper. I knew she was fifty-six from her driver’s license, but in person I would’ve guessed she was ten years younger. Medium height and slender, she resembled photos I’d seen of Rita Hayworth from a movie database. The fact that Jim Duncan was half a foot taller than her and outweighed her by ninety pounds didn’t mean she couldn’t have killed him. I’d found the coroner’s report earlier this morning through some hacking, and learned that Duncan was hit seven times on the back of the head with a tire iron, the blows being struck at a downward angle. Another tidbit I found from my hacking was that the tire iron came from Prescott’s car. My guess about what happened was that the killer pulled a gun on Duncan, marched him into the bedroom, made him get on his knees, and then beat him to death. Any one of the four suspects could’ve done it.

Julius didn’t like to feed murderers, but I decided not to read too much into the fact that he offered Doyle coffee and refreshments — after all, he must’ve been planning to head back to the kitchen to pour himself another cup of French roast and nab a piece or two of biscotti he had gotten from the North End. Doyle declined the refreshments, but accepted the coffee. Once they were settled in Julius’s office (and as I had predicted, he had taken two pieces of biscotti), Doyle claimed that she couldn’t believe anyone at Boston Premiere Wines had stolen the missing Lafite Rothschild.

“There has to be some sort of mistake,” she insisted. “Honestly, we’re like family there.”

“There are all sorts in a family,” Julius said, “including thieves and cutthroats. If you had to pick one of your coworkers to be a thief, who would you pick?”

“None of them!”

“How about Smiley?”

She looked surprised at that. “You know Jim’s nickname?”

“I was told he was given the name because of his dour personality.”

“Jim’s a very sweet man who likes to make people think he’s a curmudgeon. We all have our nicknames at work. It’s just a fun thing we do.” She smiled secretively at Julius. “I bet you can’t guess mine.”

“Red?” Julius said, hazarding a guess.

She considered that. “Not a bad guess since my hair’s red and I work in a wine shop selling plenty of red,” she said. “But no. Mr. Prescott gave me the nickname Bunny a few weeks after I started working at the wine shop because of how fast I work.”

“Yeah, right,” I told Julius. “For the hell of it, I created an image of what Irene Doyle must’ve looked like at twenty-four, which was how old she was when she started working for Prescott. Ten to one he gave her that name because she had the looks back then to be a Playboy Bunny.”

Julius signaled me that I was no doubt right. He asked Doyle about George Easter, the shop’s buyer, and whether he could be trusted. Doyle insisted that she’d trust her life with Buggy, that he’d been working at the store almost as long as she had.

“Buggy?” Julius asked. “Did he get that nickname for being mentally unstable?”

“No, of course not,” she insisted. “When George started working at the store he liked to call a shopping cart a buggy, and the name stuck.”

“Quaint,” Julius offered.

“Did you notice that she blushed just now?” I said. “That’s her tell to show she’s fibbing. Easter resembles a large beetle, at least from his driver’s license, and that’s got to be the real reason for his unfortunate nickname.”

Julius hadn’t seen any of their driver’s-license photos yet so he didn’t bother agreeing or disagreeing with my assessment. Instead he pressed on, asking whether Easter could be a thief, and Doyle insisted that wasn’t a possibility. She also insisted the same was true about Gary Parker, whose nickname turned out to be Crabby, but she claimed that was because of his love for crab-meat and not because of a bad-tempered personality. When Julius asked her whether Bill Haisley could be a thief, she took a sip of coffee as a delaying tactic before blushing slightly and answering no. I didn’t bother to mention to Julius that she was lying.