Deception (27 page)

If there was a murderer among them, as Dan seemed to think, she was hard-pressed to guess who he was.

Even Olivia stopped by Jill’s office on her way to the board meeting Cyrus had called. “I heard you took a tumble down a mountain,” she said with her usual flair for words.

Thanks for your concern, Olivia.” Jill stood up and followed her cousin into the conference room.

How are you, Jill?” Cyrus asked as the two women entered the room.

Paul and Philip were equally concerned, especially Paul who apologized for having teased her the day before.

Also sitting at the large conference table was Richard Sidel, the lead designer for the Falcon Department Store in lower Manhattan.

Jill took a couple of minutes to tell everyone that she was fine and another minute to suggest holding a general meeting to brief the employees.

“They deserve an explanation,” she said’ looking at each of her colleagues. “And the assurance that the running of the company will not be affected.”

Cyrus nodded. “I was planning to do just that, Jill, shortly before the lunch break.” He turned to Cecilia, who sat behind him, taking notes. “Remind me, Cecilia, will you?”

Returning his attention to the five people around the table, he added, “I must also warn all of you that Constable Becker of the Livingston Manor police, will be questioning everyone at B&A and checking all

Philip leaned forward. “You mean… we’re under suspicion? He thinks one of us tried to kill Jill?” Cyrus sighed. “Apparently so, Philip. But there’s no need for alarm. It’s just a routine questioning and I’m fairly confident that whoever is behind this ruthless attack on my niece does not work here.”

“When does Constable Becker intend to start this.. questioning?” Paul asked.

“Some time tomorrow. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to move on to another matter.” From the open briefcase on the table, he pulled out a stack of correspondence. “The bids for the Falcon Department Store.”

Glancing at her watch, Jill realized that today was December 20, the day the bids were due in. “Who’s the low bidder?”

“Mulligan & Son, which surprised me as much as it probably surprises you.”

“Are you sure?” Philip asked. “Ever since Pete took over his father’s business, he hasn’t come even remotely close to a low bid in any of our projects.”

“See for yourself.” Cyrus passed them each a copy of all six bids. “He came considerably lower this time—two hundred thousand dollars lower.”

Olivia made a note in her pad. “Then I guess he gets the job.”

“That’s for the developer to decide.”

“But if he’s the low bidder-”

“The developer still has the final word,” Cyrus said. “Should he have any reservations at all about the contractor, he has the right to refuse the bid and go to the next one. However, I’m fairly sure Ted Falcon will not turn Mulligan down. His last two projects came in way over budget and he’s watching his money.”

Cyrus glanced around the table. “Now the question is, can we work with the man? Personally, I have no problem with him. I know there was bad blood between him and my brother, but he’s always been civil to me. As for Simon’s suspicions that Mulligan was using inferior material, I’ll pass that information to Ted Falcon and let him decide if he wants to take a chance or not.”

He turned to the project’s head designer. “Richard, you’ll be working with Mulligan more closely than any of us. What do you think?”

Richard shrugged. “As long as the man does what he’s paid to do, we’ll get along fine.”

Cyrus’s gaze rested on Jill. “Jill? Any reservations?”

Plenty, Jill thought. After that outburst in her loft last week, she wished she never had to lay eyes on the man again, unless, of course, he turned out to be her father’s killer, in which case she’d see the bastard behind bars. But until Dan or Wally could prove his guilt, she had no right to let her personal feelings interfere with a job.

“No,” she said with a firm shake of her head. “And even if I had, I wouldn’t want to influence the developer and have Mulligan accuse us of manipulating the bids again the way he did with my father. That kind of publicity could be disastrous.”

“Then it’s settled.” Cyrus lay the palms of his hands on the table. “I’ll messenger the bids to Ted immediately.”

As Cyrus adjourned the meeting, no one noticed Olivia’s huge sigh of relief.

This time, when Dan knocked at Joshua’s door, the caretaker was tinkering with an old pocket watch.

“Hi, Joshua.” Dan gave him a friendly grin and held up a small brown paper bag. “I have that heating coil for your toaster.”

Joshua’s eyes, suspicious at first when he didn’t see Jill, lost some of their hostility. “You do?”

Dan handed him the bag. “See for yourself.”

After a short hesitation, Joshua took the bag and let Dan in. “My friend put his card inside,” Dan added. “So whenever you can’t find something in Livingston Manor, give him a call and he’ll get it for you.”

“Thanks.” Like a child with a present, Joshua looked inside the bag and pulled out the part, inspecting it carefully. Satisfied it was what he wanted, he took it to the kitchen counter and set it beside the dismantled toaster. “How much did it cost?”

Dan dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. “There’s no charge.”

Joshua’s face clouded. “I want to pay you.” Digging inside a cookie jar in the shape of a pumpkin, he pulled out a few bills. “Mr. Simon says a man always pays his debts.” He handed Dan three one-dollar bills. “I have more money in my sock drawer.”

Dan realized Joshua would be deeply offended if he refused the caretaker’s money, and took the three dollars. “That’s just right, Joshua, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” The caretaker sat down at the dining table again and picked up the watch, looking at it closely.

“That’s a very nice piece you’ve got here.” Dan wished he knew something about pocket watches. It would have helped break the ice.

“Mr. Simon gave it to me. He said if I could fix it’ I could keep it.”

“Simon was nice to you, wasn’t he?”

With a small jeweler’s screwdriver, Joshua began to unscrew the back plate. “Yeah, he was. He let me buy the cabin.” He looked up, his eyes suddenly bright with pride. “I have a receipt and everything.”

“I’m sure you deserve it. Jill told me how hard you work.”

“I like to work.” With a precision Dan found remarkable for a man with such large hands, Joshua began to remove the other screw, his face so close to the watch that his long hair brushed against it.

“Did you ever see anybody get mad at Simon?” Dan asked after a while.

To his surprise, Joshua smiled. “Mr. Wally got mad at him sometimes, when they played cards.” He chuckled. “One time he called Mr. Simon an old schmuck. But he was just pretending to be mad.”

“You like Mr. Wally?”

“Yeah. He takes me shopping in his police car and sometimes he lets me turn on the siren. And he gets me work so I can earn my own money.”

Dan would have expected nothing less from Wally. “What about the night Mr. Simon died, Joshua? Did somebody get mad at him? For real?”

Joshua’s expression darkened. “I don’t know nothin’ about that.”

“I think you do, Joshua.” Dan was careful to keep his voice low and even. “But you don’t want to tell me. Why is that? Are you afraid of something? Or someone?”

“I’m not afraid.” He pulled himself straight. “I can take care of myself. That’s why Mr. Simon gave me this job, ‘cause I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can, Joshua. But even people who can take care of themselves get scared sometimes. I do.”

The confession didn’t bring the effect Dan had hoped for. Joshua remained bent over his work, his expression sullen.

“You want to know what I think happened that night, Joshua?”

Joshua didn’t reply.

“I think someone came to see Mr. Simon and did something very bad to him. Maybe that person even killed him.”

Unexpectedly, Joshua sank the point of his screwdriver into the table, his face contorted as if he was about to cry. “No!” It was a heart-wrenching cry that sent a shiver down Dan’s back.

“He didn’t kill him! He didn’t!”

Dan lay a hand on the big man’s quivering shoulder to calm him. “Take it easy, Joshua. It’s okay.”

“He didn’t mean to hurt him.” Tears of anguish filled the caretaker’s eyes and ran down his cheeks.

“Who didn’t mean to hurt him?”

Joshua’s answer was barely audible, but Dan heard it’ and was rocked by it.

“Mr. Cyrus.”

Twenty-Seven

For a few seconds, Dan remained perfectly still. Cyrus? It couldn’t be. Joshua was wrong. According to

Wally, Cyrus was nowhere near Livingston Manor that night. Slowly, Dan withdrew his hand from Joshua’s shoulder. “You saw Cyrus at Simon’s house?” Wiping his wet cheeks with his sleeve, Joshua nodded.

“Did you see him from your kitchen window?” Maybe the distance and the darkness had impaired his view.

Joshua shook his head. “The house was all lit up but I didn’t see Mr. Simon’s Jeep, so I was afraid I’d left the lights on.” He cast Dan a quick, guilty look. “I do that sometimes, when I take things there.”

“And you went to turn the lights off.” Joshua nodded again. Remembering that Joshua was most comfortable when he was asked a direct question, Dan leaned across the table. “Did you go inside the house, Joshua?”

* He shook his head once more. “I stayed outside, in front of the window.”

“And what did you see?”

“Mr. Simon and Mr. Cyrus were mad at each other?. They were yellin’.”

“Did you hear what they were yelling about?” He shook his head and covered his face with his hands.

“Were you scared, Joshua?”

“Yes. Mr. Simon…” He pulled his hands away and just sat there staring at them, huge, callused hands as big as bear paws.

“What did Mr. Simon do?”

“He hit Mr. Cyrus.”

Once again, Dan was taken aback. “He did? Are you sure?”

Joshua nodded.

“Did Cyrus hit him back?”

Joshua nodded again.

Oh, Christ. This wasn’t good. Not good at all. “Was Simon hurt?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Picking up the screwdriver again, he began stabbing the table with short, even strokes. “His head hit the fireplace.”

“Joshua, this is very important. Do you remember what time it was when you saw all that?”

Joshua squinted as he tried to remember. “I think it was late, maybe eleven o’clock. I was watching a funny show on TV.”

“What show was that?”

“I forgot what it’s called. It’s about a fat man who drives a bus. His friend works in the sewers.”

It sounded like the old Jackie Gleason comedy show, Dan thought. But he’d have to check the listings to know.. “Was the show called “The Honeymooners’?“Joshua lay the screwdriver down. “Yeah.”

Dan was silent for a moment, trying to make sense out of what he’d just heard. Cyrus had lied, which explained why he hadn’t wanted to discuss the case with him.

At the time, Dan had attributed this reluctance to the fact that Cyrus had never been overly fond of him, but he realized now that it was more than that.

“Did Simon get up after hitting the fireplace?” Dan asked gently.

“I don’t know. I ran back home and went to bed.” Joshua lowered his head as if in shame. “I hid under the covers.”

Considering the man’s distress, Dan wondered how he had managed to keep the secret all this time. “That’s okay, Joshua. Lots of people hide under the covers when they’re scared.”

The caretaker gave an emphatic shake of his head,

* sending his long, unruly hair flying. “I should have helped him. He hurt his head and that’s why he went off the road.”

“No, Joshua, that’s not why he went off the road.” Dan didn’t have the heart to tell him that Cyrus’s blow might have killed Simon. “He went off the road because it was dark, and it was raining, and the roads were very slippery.”

“Mr. Cyrus didn’t mean to hurt him,” Joshua whimpered. “He loved Mr. Simon. He was his brother.”

“I know.” Dan felt lousy. of all the investigations he had conducted over the years, all the tricks and resources he’d had to rely on to get the information he needed to nail a murderer, none had ever left such a bad taste in his mouth as this one.

“You’re not going to arrest Mr. Cyrus, are you?” Joshua’s red-rimmed eyes watched him intently.

“I can’t arrest people, Joshua. I’m not a policeman.” “Mr. Wally is a policeman.” He looked worried again. “Is he going to put Mr. Cyrus in jail?”

“Wally is Cyrus’s friend. I’m sure he’ll try to help him.”

The remark seemed to have a calming effect on Joshua but did little to relieve Dan’s own turmoil.

How in the world was he going to tell Jill that Cyrus had just become his number-one suspect?

After thanking Joshua, Dan didn’t stop at Wally’s office as he had intended, but drove back to Manhattan.

When Jill’s cab let her off in front of her apartment building a little after six o’clock, Dan was leaning against the wall, waiting for her.

“You’re late,” he said, kissing her. “When did you become such a stickler for time?” “Since some maniac tried to kill you.” In spite of his light tone, Jill picked up on his strange mood immediately. “Is something wrong?”

“I’ll tell you upstairs.”

Something inside Jill’s stomach shifted. She wasn’t sure she could take any more bad news. Once inside the loft, however, she dropped her purse on the foyer table, walked into the living room and turned to Dan.

“Well?”

“I talked to Joshua again. And this time he told me the truth.”

“Which is?”

“He saw someone at the house the night your father died.”

Jill held her breath. Was that it? Was she finally going to find out the name of her father’s killer? “Who?”

“Cyrus.”

She flinched as if the word had struck her. “What?” Taking her hands, Dan pulled her toward the sofa and forced her to sit down. “That’s what Joshua couldn’t bring himself to say the other day. He didn’t want to get your uncle in trouble.”

She yanked her hands away. “But that’s ridiculous. My uncle wasn’t even there that night. He was home. He was the first person Wally called about the accident.”