Death on Deadline (13 page)

After I finished, I dialed Wolfe’s bedroom. “I assume you’ve read the papers,” I said.

“Yes,” he grumped.

“Cheer up. That’s the best picture of you they’ve ever run. What does it take to satisfy you?”

“The coverage was adequate. What do you want?”

“First, Carolyn will be coming with the others today. Second, the phones are ringing again—from the
Times
and a bunch of others. Fritz is taking them in the kitchen. Anything special you want me to say?”

“Just reiterate my conviction that this is a murder. If they want specifics, as they surely will, you must say that I have none. As to any other questions they may ask, I trust that your combination of experience, intelligence, and ingenuity will suffice.” He hung up before I could react to that last bit, which I think was supposed to be a compliment, but with Wolfe, you’re never completely sure.

Fritz came in with seven more messages, and I started on the callbacks, which took me almost an hour. They were all singing the same song; of course: Why did Wolfe contend she was murdered? And they all came away empty-handed, which made them crabby. In fact, a couple were downright rude, particularly a TV reporter, known for his charm and Grecian profile, who, when he found he wasn’t getting anywhere with his questions, demanded to know in an enraged shout if this was a slimy publicity stunt on Wolfe’s part to generate more business. “Hasn’t the fat guy got any shame at all?” were his last words before I slammed down the receiver. Another TV newshound, a woman, announced that she and a crew were coming over immediately to interview Wolfe, and she didn’t seem to hear me when I said he wouldn’t see them. When she and two guys with their gear actually did show up an hour later, they exercised their thumbs on our bell for ten minutes and finally gave up, settling for some exterior footage of the seven steps that probably would be featured on the eleven-o’clock news.

By the time I’d returned the last call, which was to a paper in New Jersey, I was tired—make that
very
tired—of the members of the press, and I made a mental note to tell Lon that reporters ought to be forced to take lessons in civility.

At ten-forty, Wolfe came down from his room carrying the
Times Magazine
and the “Week in Review” section, both of which he always read in his office before doing the magazine’s crossword puzzle. He sat, rang for beer, and started in on the “Week in Review.” After five minutes, I swiveled and faced him. “Do you want a fill-in on the morning’s calls, or are you totally satisfied that I took care of everything in my usual superb fashion?”

Wolfe sighed and set the paper down. “I suppose I’m going to hear a report whether I care to or not. Very well, get on with it.”

I gave him a quick rundown on most of the conversations, but I switched to verbatim when I got to the really obnoxious ones, mainly to enjoy the expressions on his face. He scowled, frowned, and made some acid observations about the state of journalism in America, particularly the TV brand. He was in the middle of a diatribe about photogenic morons when the phone rang.

“Here comes another one,” I groaned. “You can listen in and get a firsthand earful.” Wolfe grimaced but picked up his receiver.

“Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”

“Yes, Mr. Goodwin, my name is Audrey MacLaren. May I speak to Mr. Wolfe, please?” The voice was smooth, cultured, and British.

I looked at Wolfe and he shook his head but stayed on the line. “I’m sorry, he’s occupied right now. I’m his confidential assistant, however; can I help you?”

“Well … yes, if you would relay a message to him. You may recognize my name—I’m the former wife of Ian MacLaren, and I just read the story in today’s
Gazette
about his investigation. He’s right, Harriet Haverhill was murdered. I know who did it, and I would like to hire him to prove it.”

Wolfe’s eyebrows went up, and mine probably did too. I looked at him for instructions and got an almost imperceptible nod. “I will certainly pass your message along,” I said. “Assuming Mr. Wolfe finds it of interest, when would you be available to come and see him? Are you in New York?”

“Yes, I live here now—Connecticut, that is. And I could come at any time that is convenient for Mr. Wolfe.”

“What about tomorrow, say at”—I paused and Wolfe held up three fingers—“say at three o’clock?”

“That would be fine,” she said, and I gave her our address and took her phone number.

Wolfe and I cradled our receivers together. “Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “What do you make of that?”

He was frowning. “We need to know more about this woman—before tomorrow.”

“Saul?”

“Yes, get him. See if he can come today.”

As I said at the beginning of this narrative, Saul Panzer is a free-lance operative, the best in the business. What I didn’t mention is that for Wolfe he’d drop anything else he had going. Despite that high regard, however, he might not be able to help us on such short notice, given the demand for his services.

But we were in luck. Saul answered on the second ring, and when I told him Wolfe wanted to know if he was available, he said he’d be right over. Twenty minutes later, I opened the front door, and Saul, in his standard-issue rumpled brown suit and flat cap, stepped over the sill, winked, and strode into the office.

“I appreciate your coming,” Wolfe said, reaching across the desk to shake hands, which says a lot about his feelings for Saul.

“No problem,” he answered, dropping into the leather chair and nodding at my offer of coffee. “Things have been a little slow the last few days.” I didn’t believe that, but it sounded good.

“As you surely know,” Wolfe said, pressing his palms down on the desk blotter, “I am interested in the death of Harriet Haverhill.”

Saul nodded and Wolfe went on. “I am convinced she was murdered, and I’ll be happy to elucidate if you wish.”

“Not necessary,” Saul said.

“Very well. What do you know about a woman named Audrey MacLaren?”

Saul took a sip of coffee and screwed up his already wrinkled face. “First wife of that newspaper guy who’s been trying to grab the
Gazette,”
he said. “English. Got dumped by MacLaren when he married a society babe from out West—Palm Springs, I think. After the divorce, which was maybe three years ago, she moved here from London. She had a couple of kids by him, never remarried. If I remember right, she lives someplace over around Stamford or Greenwich.”

One corner of Wolfe’s mouth turned up slightly, which showed amusement but was more than anything else a salute to Saul. As I’ve mentioned, both Wolfe and I pride ourselves on being thorough newspaper readers who generally keep up pretty well with current events and names in the news, but we’re simply not in the same league with Saul Panzer, who always, seems to know more than the
World Almanac, People,
and
Who’s Who in America
combined.

“Saul, I’m seeing this woman tomorrow at three,” Wolfe said. “I realize this is absurdly short notice, and I’ll certainly understand if you decline, but I’d like before our meeting to know a number of things about her.”

“Fire away.” Saul didn’t pull out a notebook because he doesn’t use one; he keeps everything filed away upstairs, which seems to work just fine.

Wolfe finished his coffee and pushed the cup away. “Mrs. MacLaren is coming here tomorrow because she says she knows who murdered Harriet Haverhill and wants to hire me to unveil him. This reeks of flummery, perhaps a puerile attempt to implicate her former husband, for whom I gather she holds no warm regard. But the woman has piqued my curiosity.

“What I want to learn is something of the circumstances of their divorce. Were the proceedings initiated by her husband, as your comments about the woman from Palm Springs would seem to suggest? What are the custody arrangements? What kind of settlement did she receive? For instance, does she maintain any kind of equity in his publishing empire? And does she have a residual bitterness toward Mr. MacLaren? Now, if you find this kind of investigation as distasteful as I do,” he said, making a face, “perhaps you’ll want to decline.”

Saul shook his head. “I’ve gotten into lots seamier stuff than this. I could just about give you the answers to some of your questions right now, but they’d be at least partly speculation, and that’s not what you want. I should have something by tomorrow at this time. I’ll check in with Archie,” he said, thanking us for the coffee and rising to go.

I saw him to the door, made a crack about how I bluffed him out of the biggest pot in our last poker game, and went back to the office, which Wolfe had vacated. My watch read eleven-fifty, meaning, this being Sunday, that he had gone to the kitchen to strategize next week’s meals with Fritz. That left me to straighten up the office for our afternoon visitors.

C
OMPARED TO WOLFE’S RIGID SCHEDULE
during the week, Sunday in the brownstone is downright free-wheeling. Sometimes he goes to the plant rooms to putter, sometimes not. And the meals are pretty much catch-as-catch-can after breakfast. This day, partly because guests were coming at two, Wolfe ate early in the kitchen with Fritz—the two of them boldly experimented by adding pompano and scallops to their New Orleans bouillabaisse recipe and pronounced the operation a success. That was more meal than I felt like, so I made a pastrami-on-rye sandwich that I had with a glass of milk in the office while reading the accounts of Saturday’s Mets-Dodgers game at Shea, a sixteen-inning dandy won by the Mets on an inside-the-park home run.

Starting about one-thirty, I caught myself looking at my wrist every three or four minutes, so I went upstairs and got busy with such matters as deciding which suits to take to the cleaners tomorrow. I was back at my desk scrubbing the typewriter keys with a little brush at five after two when the doorbell rang.

Seen through the one-way glass in the front door, they didn’t seem like brother and sister. David Haverhill appeared older than his forty-four years. He was tall and lanky, probably an inch over six feet, with hair the color of a grocery sack. It fell on the right side of a long, angular face that looked like it didn’t know how to smile. And I’m sure a smile was the farthest thing from his mind right now. He came in pale and stayed pale.

It was easy to pick out Carolyn—David was clutching her arm possessively. She was tall, too, and blond, her hair just a shade lighter than platinum. She wore it skinned back tightly and tied in a bun—without doubt my least-favorite style—and her well-arranged, blue-eyed, ivory-skinned face had a self-assured look. Ten to one it was her usual expression.

I’m happy to report that Donna Palmer bore no discernible resemblance to her brother. She might have been five-four—in her heels. She probably put “dark brown” on her driver’s license, although I would have called her hair black, and she wore it shoulder-length, framing an oval face with green eyes, a slightly turned-up nose, and a mouth that looked like it knew how to smile, even though now wasn’t the time. And if Lon hadn’t told me she was thirty-nine, I would have pegged her at seven years younger.

“Mr. and Mrs. Haverhill, Mrs. Palmer? Please come in,” I said, swinging open the door and standing aside. He scowled, Donna frowned, and Carolyn stayed with her assured look, chin tilted up. But none of them said a word as they walked into the front hall, where I caught a hint of Madame Rochas on Donna. I also got a good look at her figure, which was fuller and more to my liking than Carolyn’s. I guided Donna to the red leather chair, motioning the couple to the yellow ones, then went around behind the big desk to push the buzzer. “Mr. Wolfe will be right in. May I get any of you something to drink?”

“Thank you, no,” David grunted as if speaking for all of them. I’d bet he’d already had a couple.

I looked at the two women, my face asking the same question. They both shook their heads, Donna giving me an almost-smile and Carolyn keeping it poised and unshakable.

I headed for my desk just as Wolfe entered, detoured around the guests, got behind his own desk, and sat. “Mrs. Palmer, Mr. and Mrs. Haverhill,” he began formally, dipping his head a fraction of an inch to each of them. “I appreciate your making the time to see me. Now, if—”

“Well, we don’t appreciate being here,” David said. His voice was pitched just below a shout. “It’s because Carl twisted our arms—that’s the only reason we came. Well, maybe not the
only
reason,” he corrected himself, with a glance at his wife, who nodded serenely. “We also want to know why you’re running around telling the whole world our stepmother was murdered. It’s a sad enough time for us without having her memory defiled by all this murder talk!” He was halfway out of his chair during the tirade, and he sank back when he finished, brushing his wispy hair off his forehead and thrusting his jaw forward. When he was mad, his nose twitched.

Wolfe considered him for several seconds, then turned to the women. “Does either of you wish to make a statement before I begin?”

“I agree with David,” Donna said in a voice that was both soft and strong as she crossed one nicely formed calf over the other and smoothed the skirt of her blue dress. “It’s tragic what happened to Harriet, and to have this murder gossip on top of it … I know you’re a friend of the
Gazette,
but I just don’t understand this.”

Wolfe turned to Carolyn, who gave him a shadow of a smile. “I have some thoughts, but I’d prefer to hear what you have to say first,” she said in a husky tone. This one is interesting, skinned-back hair and all, I said to myself. I began to see why Harriet and Lily had been impressed with her.

Wolfe leaned back, his eyes going from Donna to her brother and then to Carolyn. “As I’m sure you all are aware, Harriet Haverhill was here last Wednesday, along with Mr. Dean. She—”

“It was because of that stupid ad of yours in the
Times
,” David hissed.

“If I may continue.” Wolfe narrowed his eyes. “Yes, it was my advertisement that brought her here. And I had sufficient time with her to convince me that this was in no way a suicidal person.”

“Oh, great,” David said, leaning forward again as if he were getting ready to spring. “Ten minutes with her, and you’re the world’s greatest expert on Harriet Haverhill.”