Patrick Robinson - To The Death

And there would be questions about this Mystery Woman, he knew that. Which was why he had stopped off for a drink at the Estuary. To get away from it all, just for an hour. To tell the truth, Joe was pretty fed up with the Mystery Woman himself. Where the hell was she? Still, he had a good chance of some answers tomorrow.

At the time, the Mystery Woman was dead to the world, sound asleep in a luxury room, four thousand miles away, in Dublin ’s Shelbourne Hotel. She was beyond the dragnet, perhaps beyond the law, exactly the way she had planned it. The Virginia police did not even know her name.

The late-night news bulletins on American television were full of it. The story had “more legs” than anyone realized, especially the bit about the Barker Pecker. By 10:30 P.M. on the East Coast, Detective Joe Segel’s name was a household word, more or less.

The Fox Channel led with it. The newscaster, filmed standing outside the Estuary Hotel, announced: “This was the sex attack that went violently wrong. Right here in this rather sleepy little town, way down on the Rappahannock River, a highly regarded local businessman was found dead this morning with a jeweled dagger jutting from his chest.

“He was in a state of disarray, and police believe, judging by his condition, he had been involved in some kind of sexual assault on another person.

“He was found in the parking lot of the Estuary Hotel in the town of Brockhurst, Virginia, and police say he was killed around midnight. Right now there is only one suspect, the beautiful barmaid from the hotel, Carla Martin.

“The dead man, Mr. Matt Barker, owner of a local garage, had been drinking there during the evening, and was believed to have asked Miss Martin out, but she refused. The two left the bar twenty minutes apart, and Miss Martin, say police, has vanished, leaving a perfectly ordinary little American country town in a state of shock.”

At this point, the newscast switched to interviews, showing footage of the detective in charge of the crime, Joe Segel, stressing the importance of finding Miss Martin, who, he said, had taken a great deal of trouble in covering her tracks.

Then they went to one of Matt Barker’s friends, Herb the photographer, who was unable to shed one scrap of light on the reason for Matt’s death, or indeed the whereabouts of Carla.

The next lady had been saved by the news producers for the big payoff line. Mrs. Price, the hotel cleaning lady who had first discovered the body, said, “Well, it gave me a very nasty shock, I can tell you. Matt Barker lying there with that big thing sticking out of him.”

Mrs. Price, I assume you mean the dagger?

“Nossir. I do not mean the dagger.”

Cut to studio. Smiling anchors, serious man, dazzling blonde. Really great television. Half the country was rolling about laughing. That’s what it’s all about, right? Leave ’ em laughing. Even in the middle of a murder hunt.

The morning newspapers tackled the Brockhurst killing boldly. The Washington Post made it the second lead on the front page under the headline:

MURDER MYSTERY STUNS VIRGINIA TOWN Police Seek Vanished Barmaid.

Other publications were more lurid. One of the tabloids came up with:

SEX-CRAZED GARAGE MAN MURDERED BY BARMAID

Another went with:

SEX BRAWL IN HOTEL PARKING LOT ENDS IN DEATH

So far as Joe Segel was concerned, the only thing that mattered was that they all carried the identity picture of Carla Martin. And they all stressed the importance of locating the Mystery Woman. Joe hoped that by lunchtime they would have some serious leads. This was the kind of high-profile local murder that could not be allowed to go unsolved.

It was Wednesday, July 4, a national holiday, but murder hunts do not stop for those. Joe had set up a reception desk with three operators drafted in from another town to take the calls. And there were calls, dozens of them. But they were geographically hopeless. Joe had drawn a large circle on his wall map of the area, a sixty-mile diameter, with the town in the middle. That’s thirty miles in any direction.

Almost all the calls named or identified suspects outside the murder zone, places too distant for Carla to have made it to work every day. She had stated to Jim Caborn that she wanted to live in or near Brockhurst. And in Joe Segel’s opinion, that absolutely ruled out anyone more than thirty miles away.

There were leads that needed to be followed, but Joe’s policeman’s instincts, honed by a lifetime in the force, were telling him they were not yet on the right track. At least they were telling him that until the phone rang for him personally, and Mrs. Emily Gallagher informed him that she would very much like to see him at her house, something concerning Matt Barker’s murder.

Mrs. Gallagher was a lady who commanded enormous respect in the area, with which she had a lifelong family association. There were also those who knew her daughter was married to one of the most important men in America. Joe Segel was rather proud she had called him, and he asked one of his team to drive him immediately to her house and wait.

When he arrived, Mrs. Gallagher had recovered her decorum, having almost been pulled into the Rappahannock by Charlie an hour before. She had made some coffee, and now she was ready to talk to Joe about the pretty dark-haired girl who had suddenly vanished from her life, as thoroughly as she had from Joe’s.

The detective listened wide-eyed to Mrs. Gallagher, who swiftly established that she knew more about Carla Martin than anyone else he had spoken to. Admiral Morgan’s mother-in-law recalled a conversation in which Carla had mentioned her “apartment,” and once her “doorman.”

She also had a fleeting suspicion that Carla either may have been foreign or had lived abroad for a long time. She had never forgotten that sentence “I give you one little piece, if you behave.” Future conditional. The mistake of a foreigner. Joe Segel really liked that.

Emily also recalled once asking what Carla had been doing on such a fine day, and she had mentioned that she just sat on her balcony and read some magazines. Apartment, doorman, balcony. Vital observations, not because they led to anything specific, but because they ruled out so much.

But the key point Mrs. Gallagher raised was the conversation she had in the hotel, possibly an hour before the killing. “That Matt Barker was harassing Carla,” she said. “I saw him, and I heard him. I told her to be careful, he was entirely the wrong type of person for her to go out with.”

“Careful, Emily,” said Joe. “He was successful, well-liked. And he did drive a Porsche.”

“He also had some very rough edges, entirely inappropriate for my friend Carla,” she replied. “I just hope this is all sorted out soon. And that she can come back to help me with Charlie and Kipper.”

“Who’s Kipper?” asked Joe.

“Oh, he’s my daughter’s spaniel. She and Arnold are going to Europe for three weeks, and I’m in charge of the dog.”

Joe smiled. He really liked Mrs. Gallagher, and he asked her once more, “You really have no idea where she lived?”

“Absolutely none. But it could not have been very far away. She was always on time, and I presumed she left her car in the parking lot at the hotel. But I never saw it. Not here. She always walked.”

So far as Joe was concerned, the mystery, if anything, deepened. And Mrs. Gallagher should have been a detective. He was grateful to her, and interested in how genuinely surprised she was that Carla had left without a word.

Lt. Commander Jimmy Ramshawe was on duty. His boss, the director, Admiral George Morris, had been away since the previous weekend, visiting his son in New York. He would not be back until tomorrow morning.