The Happy Birthday Murder (8 page)

The next morning I called Betty Linton. Jack and I had continued our conversation the previous evening, and he had suggested some questions for me to ask.

“I hope I didn't scare Laura,” Betty said. “She seemed very tense. I wasn't really lost. I just wanted to come out behind my friend's house, not a house down the road. Some of the neighbors are a little sensitive about trespassers.”

“She's fine. It was a very instructive hike. We could both see how easy it would be to get turned around or walk in circles.”

“And Darby never went walking alone. Even now, I shudder when I think about how he must have felt.”

“Betty, I want to ask you about what happened during the time he was missing. Did you publicize his disappearance?”

“Oh, yes. I was on local radio several times. I taped a plea for people to look for him. And I was on television with a picture of him.”

“Anything else?”

“A bunch of us put up flyers on trees and poles with a picture and my phone number.”

“Did you offer a reward?”

“Ah.” She paused. “No, we didn't. There was a lot of discussion about it. I would have paid the person who found him everything I own; I'm sure you understand that.
But there was something wrong with offering a reward, as though he were a piece of property, not a person. The experts we talked to thought it was better not to.”

I agreed with her decision and the reasons that led to it. “Did anyone call during the time he was gone?”

“Several people. No one said they had him in their living room. Mostly they thought they'd seen him in one place or another. I let the police know whenever I got a call like that.”

“Did you take their names and numbers?”

“Yes, I did. But nothing ever panned out, as you know.”

“Did anyone ever call asking for a ransom?”

“You mean as though he had been kidnapped?”

“Yes.”

“No. And we didn't think that had happened. There was one call, though.” Her voice drifted off.

“What was it?”

“It was probably just someone looking to pick up some easy cash. He asked if there was a reward.”

“What did you say?”

“I asked if he knew where Darby was. He said he didn't, but he would really look hard if there was something in it for him.”

“What did you do?”

“The police had a trap on my line and they traced the call to a pay phone in town. No one was there when they got there. There was a flyer on a pole right near the phone, so I assumed the man had seen it, put a quarter in the phone, and called me up. It was annoying, but I didn't really think much of it. He sounded very rough, if you know what I mean.”

“Did the police follow up on it?” I asked.

“There wasn't much they could do. Phone booths are full of fingerprints. In fact, I think they said when they got
there a woman was using the phone. I don't think it was anything serious, Chris.”

I was making notes as we spoke. I've learned not to overlook what other people think of as unimportant details, not that I thought this was necessarily meaningful. And I was well aware that whoever made the call was lost to me.

“You're probably right,” I said.

“What were you thinking of?”

“Just that perhaps Darby strayed into the home of someone who thought he might use the situation for personal benefit, try to extort money for Darby's return.”

“Nothing like that happened.”

“I'd like to go to the houses that Darby might have found, if you know where they are.”

“I have a map that shows a lot of details, including houses in the area. After twelve years, I'm sure many of those people are gone.”

“Even so.”

“Then let's do it. You've made me feel that the explanations I accepted may have been wrong. If there's a truth I don't know, I'd like to find out what it is.”

We made an appointment for next week and she promised to find the list of houses and locate them on a map.

I was aware from listening to the news over the years and from talking to Jack about interesting cases that in kidnappings there were often calls from pranksters and opportunists. The fact that the phone booth the man called from was right next to a pole with a flyer probably indicated opportunism more than anything else, although you never could tell. It was certainly heartwarming to know that people believed they had sighted Darby—and maybe one or more of them had—and had taken the time to call. If there had been a ransom demand, the police would have followed up on it, no question about that.

With arrangements made for the Darby side of the case, I called Laura Filmore and asked whether I could talk to people at the plant her husband had owned. She had already checked and found that the night watchman who had been on duty the night her husband disappeared was still working there and still working nights. I didn't look forward much to talking to someone in the hours after midnight, as I am the opposite of a night owl, but I thought I could get there by seven in the morning if he would be there tomorrow. She called me back fifteen minutes later and said Charlie Calhoun would be there overnight and if I got there at eight, when he went off duty, we could have a cup of coffee and talk in the cafeteria. I promised to be there.

For all the years I lived at St. Stephen's, I got up at five in the morning. Getting up at six-thirty was a piece of cake, and I could be back home in time for a real breakfast and mass.

“One more thing,” I said, winding up the call. “Now that we are pretty sure your husband was in Connecticut during his disappearance, can you go back over your guest list and let me know what people at the party came in from Connecticut?”

There was no answer.

“Laura?”

“I can't do that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I knew you would ask. I told you very truthfully yesterday that I didn't know anyone in the part of Connecticut we visited, and none of the people Betty knew matched the ones I have known, but I can't give you any names.”

“Then there were guests from Connecticut.”

“There were and they weren't involved. I would stake my life on it.”

“How close were they to where we walked in the woods?”

“They lived within the range of mileage on Larry's car,” she said evasively. “I didn't mention them because I can't let you talk to them.”

“Laura, I don't think you can decide in advance—”

“I have decided,” she interrupted. “That's it. It's final.”

“I hope you change your mind,” I said. “If you do, you can call me.”

“I won't. That's the end of it.”

It was the end of our conversation. I had thought she had been completely forthcoming in Betty Linton's house yesterday, but obviously she had kept this to herself. I was annoyed, but there wasn't much I could do. Even if I could find people who had been at the party, they were unlikely to recall, after so many years, out of four hundred people the name of one person or two who might have driven down from Connecticut. I would have to let it lie.

In the meantime, there was the delicate matter of finding out whether there were secrets in Lawrence Filmore's past. Since Jack has a good relationship with the Oakwood Police Department, he went over there in the afternoon to see if he could wheedle information out of them. He was gone longer than I thought he would be, and Eddie and I had come home from our walk when he finally pulled into the driveway.

“Took some doing,” he said, patting Eddie on the back.

“Where did you go?” Eddie asked.

“I had to talk to a policeman.”

“I wanna talk to a policeman.”

“They're very busy, Eddie. Maybe another time.”

“Learn anything?” I asked.

“He had a pretty clean record. Coupla traffic violations, nothing serious. The file on the suicide is closed: no crime,
no case. No one offered me a peek and I don't want to upset anybody by being pushy. That's the quickest way to wear out your welcome in this business.

“Someone at their house was once rushed to the hospital during a party. One of the older cops remembered it. They thought it was a heart attack, but it turned out not to be serious. I don't think there's anything there.”

“I'll ask Laura,” I said, making a note in my book. It was surely something she would remember.

“I'll get on the computer on Monday and see what I can find out. I'll check his wife out while I'm at it.”

“Laura?” I said with surprise.

“Why not? Doesn't hurt to cover all bases. So you're getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow?”

“A little after the crack. And I'll be back by the time you two lazy guys are getting up.”

I told him later about Laura's admission.

“I can understand it,” he said. “Suppose I had to say whether my mother or sister had been somewhere that might make her a suspect in a crime. I'd sure as hell rather not connect her, even if I was absolutely sure she'd done nothing.”

“If there's one thing I've learned in looking into all these cases in the last few years, it's that you don't know anyone except yourself. It's true I trust you completely, but I've seen trustworthy people lie and evade the truth so many times that I can't dismiss the possibility that the Filmores' friends in Connecticut are in some way connected to his death.”

“You're right to be skeptical, Chris, but maybe Laura's friends are people going back to early in her life, or maybe even a sister or brother. Think of how they would feel if they knew Laura had given their names as possible suspects.”

I understood, but it hampered my investigation. “Doesn't
matter,” I said. “She's not giving up the names. I'll have to work around it and hope they're not the ones.”

On Sunday morning my old habits kicked in and I awoke five minutes before the alarm went off. I crept out of bed, thinking how strange it was to see Jack lying there fast asleep. Typically, he's an early riser like me, and on weekends, if he gets up before me, he lets me sleep.

I dressed quietly and went out to the car. It was so still out, I could hear every rustle of the leaves as I walked back to the garage. Laura had given me driving instructions, in fact the exact route her husband always took from Oakwood, and I followed it to see what he had always seen and to time it.

I arrived at the plant before eight and parked in the visitors' area, although the lot was almost empty. They closed on weekends, and I assumed the few cars were those of security and maintenance staff. Inside, I found a stocky middle-aged man in a uniform sitting inside a room with a bank of TV monitors, a round desk with enough lights to decorate a Christmas tree, and a black walkie-talkie station. It all looked pretty high-tech to me. I knocked on the door and he looked up and waved me in.

“You must be Mrs. Brooks,” he said.

“I am. And you must be Charlie Calhoun.”

“Right you are. Why don't you take a seat in one of the comfortable chairs outside? My replacement's in the building and I'll be out as soon as he signs in.”

“Fine.”

I went out to the lobby and sat in a maroon chair that was truly comfortable. I had hardly taken my coat off when a young man in the same security uniform Charlie Calhoun was wearing came into the lobby.

“You waiting for someone?” he asked.

“Mr. Calhoun.”

“He'll be right out.” He went inside the office and Charlie Calhoun emerged a moment later, carrying two large cups of coffee.

“This way, ma'am.”

“I'm Chris,” I said. “Let me take one of those coffees.”

We walked down a long hall and into an empty cafeteria. He turned the lights on and we sat at a table for four near a window. Outside were woods. It seemed a lovely place to eat a meal.

“I'm Charlie,” he said, offering his hand. “Mrs. Filmore said you think the boss didn't kill himself.”

“There's a good chance he didn't. I don't know if I can prove it, but I think it's worth a try.”

“Well, if it hadn't happened the way it did, I wouldn't've believed it, either. He wasn't the suicide type.”

“I'd like to assure you that anything you tell me will not get back to Mrs. Filmore.”

He grinned at me. “What? You think I'm going to rat on the boss? No way. There's nothin' to rat about. He was as good a boss as you could find. Once when I got some real bad news in the middle of the night, he came over and sat here so I could go home. They don't make 'em like that anymore.”

I agreed. “But there may have been people who didn't see eye to eye with him.”

“There always is. He got in a shoutin' match once with a young guy who was new and was takin' advantage. That's a long time ago and the little creep didn't have the guts to hurt anyone anyway.”

“You have a name?” I asked.

“Not at this late date. I prob'ly wouldn't recognize it if I saw it.”

“Mrs. Filmore said you were on duty the night Mr. Filmore disappeared.”

“I'm on every Saturday night, unless I'm sick or on vacation. I swing out, you know, off on Sunday and Monday, so I was here.”

“Mr. Filmore told her, after he got off the phone in the middle of the night, that there was trouble at the plant.”

“I been over this with the police a thousand times. There wasn't no trouble, nobody ever called except my wife, and I never saw him.”

“Could someone else have called to tell him there was trouble that night?”

“Don't see how. I don't think there was another soul in the building. They was all at the party. You know about the party?”

“Mrs. Filmore told me about it. Is there a reason why you didn't go?”

“I'm not much of a party man. You gotta get dressed up—that was a fancy shindig, you know?—and they needed someone here like always. Mr. Filmore, he said he'd get another guard, you know, from an agency, but hey, they don't know the place like a regular. I said just save me a piece of cake; I'll stick with the job.”