Abigail Browining - Murder Most Merry

“The accountant who testified against Lo Scalzo and Pollin in New York last year,” Belford said. “John Graham. We gave him and his family new identities under the Witness Relocation Program. They’ve been living in the city for eighteen months. And now. Professor, we’ve got an exam for you. Question one: How did the mob find out who and where Graham was? Question two: Why did they hire a broken-down vet to waste him instead of sending in a professional hit man?”

Loren had a sudden memory of one of his own law-school professors who had delighted in posing impossible riddles in class. The recollection made him distinctly uncomfortable.

He stayed with the investigators well into the evening, helping Lieutenant Krauzer of Homicide and Sergeant Holt and the F. B. I. agents interrogate all the actual and possible witnesses. Shortly before midnight, bone-weary and almost numb with the cold, he excused himself, trudged out into the public area of the airport, retrieved his luggage, and grabbed a tasteless snack in the terminal coffee shop. He found his VW in the underground parking garage and drove through hard-packed snow back to his high-rise.

He was unlocking his apartment door when he heard footsteps behind him and whirled, then relaxed. It was the woman, the one in the tan hooded coat who had been standing in the line directly behind John Graham at the time of the murder. “Please let me in, Mr. Mensing,” she said. Her voice was soft but filled with desperation, her face taut with tension and fatigue. Loren was afraid she’d collapse at any moment. “Come on in,” he nodded. “You need a drink worse than I do.”

Ten minutes later they were sitting on the low-backed blue couch, facing the night panorama of the city studded with diamond lights, a pot of coffee, a bottle of brandy, and a plate of cheese and crackers on the cocktail table in front of them. Slowly the warmth, the drinks, and the presence of someone she could trust dissipated the tightness from the woman. Loren guessed that she was about thirty, and that not too long ago she had been lovely.

“Thank you,” she said. “I haven’t eaten since early this morning, I mean yesterday morning.”

“Let me make you a real meal.” Loren got up from the couch. “I don’t have much in the refrigerator but I think I could manage some scrambled eggs.”

“No.” She reached out with her hand to stop him. “Maybe later. I’d like to talk now if you don’t mind. You may want to kick me out when I’m through.” She gave a nervous high-pitched giggle, and Loren sat down again and held her hand, which still felt all but frozen.

“My name is Donna,” she began. “Donna Keever. That’s my maiden name. I’m married. No, I was married. My husband died just about a year ago. His name was Greene, Charles Greene.” Her eyes filled with tears. “It was a year ago last week,” she mumbled. “You must have read about it.”

Loren groped in the tangle of his memory. Yes. that was it, last year’s Christmas heartbreak story in the media. Charles Greene and his six-year-old daughter had been driving home from gift shopping, going west on U. S. 47, when a car traveling east on the same highway hit a rut. The eastbound lane at that point was slightly higher than the westbound because of the shape of a hill on which U. S. 47 was built. The eastbound auto had bounced up into the air, literally flown across the median, and landed nose first on top of Greene’s car. Then it had bounced off, flown over the roofs of other passing cars, and landed in the ditch at the side of the highway. Greene, his child, and the other driver, who turned out to be driving on an expired license and with his blood full of alcohol, all died instantly. “I remember.” Loren said softly.

“I was ill that day,” Donna Greene said, “or I’d have been shopping with Chuck and Cindy. That’s the only reason I’m still alive while my family’s dead. Isn’t life wonderful?”

“It was just chance,” Loren told her. “You can’t feel guilty about it and ruin the rest of your life.”

“No!” Her voice rose to the pitch of a scream. “It wasn’t chance. That accident didn’t just happen. Someone wanted to kill Chuck or Cindy or me. Or all of us!”

She broke then, and Loren held her while she sobbed. When she could talk again he asked her the obvious question. “Have you told the police what you think?”

“Not the police, not the lawyer who’s handling the wrongful death claim for me, not anyone. It was only last week that I knew. A burglar broke into my house a week ago Monday night, came into my bedroom. He was wearing a stocking mask and he—he put his hands on me. I screamed my head off and scared him away. The police said it was just a burglar, but I knew. That man was going to kill me! The police think I’m exaggerating, that I’m still crazy with grief because of the accident.”

“How about family? Friends? Have you told them of your suspicions?”

“My parents and Chuck’s are all dead. My older brother ran away from home about fifteen years ago. when I was fifteen and he was twenty, and no one’s heard from him since. I don’t work, I don’t have a boyfriend and I just couldn’t go to my women friends with something like this.”

“What made you come to me?” he asked gently.

“Out at the airport auditorium, when that policewoman or whatever she was paged you, I recognized your name. I’ve read how you’ve helped people in trouble. When they let me go I looked up where you live in the phone book and came up here to wait for you.”

“Why were you at the airport?’

“I had to get away. If I stayed here I knew that burglar would come back and kill me, if I didn’t kill myself first. And I was right! You were there, you saw-that man. that gunman standing a few feet from me and he called my name. Donna Greene, and I started to turn and he shot at me and hit the man next to me in the line. Oh, God, somebody, help me!” She broke again, terror and despair poured out of her, and Loren held her and made comforting sounds while his mind raced.

Yes. the two names, John Graham and Donna Greene, sounded just enough alike that in the crowded terminal, with noises assaulting the ears from every side, both of them might have thought their name was being called and turned. To Loren, less than a dozen feet away, the name had sounded like “Bonreem.” But which of the two had Frank Wilt been paid to kill? If Donna was right, the double-barreled question posed by Agent Belford became meaningless. And if she was the intended victim, what would the person who had hired Wilt do next?

All the time he was soothing Donna Greene he fought with himself. “Don’t get involved again,” something inside told him. “The last time you saved someone he went out later and killed a bunch of innocent people. This time you’re already partly responsible for Wilt’s death. And for all you know this woman may be a raving paranoid.”

And then all at once he knew what to do. something that would reconcile the conflicting emotions within him and make his Christmas a lot brighter too. He waited until Donna was under control again before he explained.

“I’ve been thinking.” he said. “I don’t think I’m qualified to judge whether you’re right or wrong about being the target at the airport. But I know someone who is—a woman private detective up in Capital City named Val Tremaine. She’s fantastically good at her work. I’m going to ask her to come down and spend a couple of days on your case, getting to know you, talking with you, forming judgments. You’ll like her. Her husband died young too and she had to start life over.” He disengaged himself gently and rose to his feet. “I’ll make the call from my study. You’ll be all right?”