A Will To Murder (27 page)

“I need to talk to the police, then.  Will you accompany me?”

Everyone looked at the speaker.  It was Jac.

“Do you have anything that might be useful for your husband’s defense?”  Walker asked carefully.        

“I don’t know if it will help, but it will explain things,” said Jac soberly.  “I slept with Lance, and Phil found out.”

Chapter 16

The next morning the phone rang in the Cummingses’ room at the Chichiteaux Motor Inn.  Bert was in the shower, so Rose answered it.  Arthur was still asleep.

It was Jac.  “Could you take Army and Marshpool out to breakfast?  I’d promised that I’d treat them, but I need to buy some supplies since I’m stuck here at this Bed and Breakfast, and frankly, I don’t feel like facing either of them this morning--especially Marshpool.”

Rose’s face was stony, but she kept her tone civil.  None of the family had been pleased to hear Jac protest, ‘I was just trying to take his mind off his sister’s death, okay?’

“Why don't you tell them you can’t make it and let them eat by themselves?”

“Army’s broke, as usual.  They need someone to pay for them.”

Rose sighed.  “All right, we’ll do it.  Where are they staying?”

“Room one-eleven at the Holiday Inn.  Also, I need to stop at home and feed Barksdale.  I think everyone’s forgotten him.”

“Oh my God!  He must be suffering unspeakably.  First Woofie and now Barksdale!”

“Will you stop that!?  He was fine yesterday.  He has a water bowl out and you forget Sheila’s always slipped him plenty of leftovers.  He’s not starving or dying of thirst.  I’ll call you after I’m done.”

“Who was that?” Bert asked.

“My sister,” said Rose with disgust.  “We’re taking Army and Mrs. Marshpool out to breakfast.  Jac says Army is broke, and she doesn’t want to face Mrs. Marshpool.”

“I don’t want to face her either!” Arthur grumped from the bed.

“Tough, honey; we have to do it,” his mother replied curtly.  

Bert gave his son an evil, sympathetic, grin.

“Noooooo!” the boy wailed.  “Noooooo!  You don’t understand!  Mrs. Marshpool hates me.  Can’t you just leave me here?”

The phone rang again, and Rose answered it.  “Oh, hello, Eric.  No, I haven’t heard anything new.”

Arthur seized the receiver and drew it towards his mouth.

“Honey!” scolded Rose, struggling for the telephone.

“Can you and cousin Bradley take me out to breakfast?” Arthur yelled desperately into the phone.

“I suppose we can,” Eric replied.  “Let me speak to your mother.”

“Arthur!” Rose wrestled the phone away from her son.  The boy looked pleadingly at her.

“Well, all right,” Rose said after listening for a moment.  “We’ll drop him by, then.”

After leaving Arthur, the Cummingses met Armagnac and the housekeeper at the Holiday Inn and drove them to a restaurant.  While they studied their menus, Rose announced,  “I refuse to believe Phil shot Lance.”

Armagnac rubbed his red-rimmed eyes with a thumb and forefinger.  “I can’t believe it either.  Jac’s not worth killing anyone for, and Phil knows it.”

“But all the evidence points to him,” Bert objected.  “Fingerprints, ballistics, buying the gun.  Why buy the gun if he didn’t intend to shoot somebody with it?”

“Maybe he bought it for protection,” said Rose.  “The house--wasn’t exactly safe.”

“Could he have put that CD player in your Dad’s car?” asked Bert.

“He
never
would have done that to father,” Rose insisted.

As a son-in-law of the old man, Cummings thought otherwise.  Phil had probably endured more than he could stand of James, and if Jac had been the only child to inherit from her father, it would have been in Phil’s financial interest.  Yet the Salisburys were already wealthy, and even Bert couldn’t imagine Phil killing Katherine.  Nor was there any reason for his brother-in-law to have killed Colette, if Colette hadn’t died of natural causes.

Rose stood.  “I’m calling the house to check on Barksdale.  Maybe Willowby remembered to feed him.”      

After his wife left, Bert said to the others, “Well, what do you think?”

Armagnac grimaced.  “I’d think Heydrick was guilty of all of it, except Aunt Katherine.  Heydrick detested father, and we know he took a dislike to both Lance and Colette.  He’s already confessed to Woofie.  But my aunt?  Never.  Maybe she actually did die of a heart attack.”

Mrs. Marshpool was eyeing Bert, and her expression made Bert wary.

“Mr. Cummings,” the housekeeper asked.  “What did you do with my house keys after you took them that day?”

Bert glowered at her.  “I don’t think you need to know, Letitia.”

“You realize,” said the housekeeper coldly, “that although we have several keys to the front door and gates, the only keys that exist to the individual bedrooms are
on that ring
.”

Armagnac was giving them a confused look when Rose returned. “Willowby says Barksdale’s okay, but he sounded rather strange on the phone.”

“Why shouldn’t he?” Boyle commented.  “It’s been that sort of week.”      

After breakfast, the Cummingses dropped Armagnac and the housekeeper back at their hotel, but when Rose and Bert were about to say goodbye, the phone rang.  Rose, who was nearest, answered it.   

“Oh thank God,” Jac gasped at the other end.  “I’ve gotten hold of you.  I’ve been calling everybody.  I can’t find either Richie or Willowby at the house.”

“What!”

“I can’t find them!  I took Richie to the house to feed Barksdale, and Richie said he didn’t want to accompany me while I went shopping.  So I asked Willowby, who was working on a car, to keep an eye on Richie until I returned.  I came back about an hour later and can’t find either of them!”

“Maybe Willowby just took him somewhere.”

“Willowby’s jeep is still here!  Rosey, I’m scared to death.”    

“Think for a moment.  They could have taken a walk on the grounds.  That’s what I would do if I had a rambunctious boy with me.”

“You think so?” Jac’s tone was shaky.

“What is it, honey?” Bert asked.

Rose told the others.  

“Then we need to call the police,” Mrs. Marshpool said firmly.  “Get them on the phone, Ms. Cummings.”

Rose added a few comforting words to Jac, then hung up.  A moment later she was connected to Detective Escott.  After she explained her sister’s worry, the detective did not reply for a moment.  “Detective Escott?” Rose prompted.

“Ma’am, I wish you had something else to tell us.  We’ve just received a report from our fingerprint lab.  We have that Jazzy F*KU case from your gardener’s shed, and your gardener’s fingerprints are on it.  Heydrick claims he rescued the case and its paper inserts from a burn pile set alight by your chauffeur, Willowby.  Normally we would be skeptical, but the lab says that Willowby’s prints are on the case as well.  We were just getting ready to send an officer out to Rollingwood to ask your chauffeur some questions.”

Rose lowered the receiver.

“What’s wrong?” Bert said.

“Ma’am?  Ma’am?” the receiver squawked.  

“They found the CD case and Willowby’s prints are on it,” Rose said weakly.

Her husband took the phone away from her.  “This is Bert Cummings here, Escott.”

“Mr. Cummings, will you call your sister-in-law?  We’re sending officers out to the house right now.”

When Bert did, and Jac heard about Willowby’s prints, she screamed.

A string of police cars reached Rollingwood some minutes later, with Bert’s Camry soon after.  

They found Richie, though not Willowby.  Richie was lying dead on the ground by the disused arch.  Jac had discovered her son just a few moments before the police arrived, attracted by Barksdale’s interest in the rose bushes.  The dog had already eaten part of Richie’s arm.

In his motel room, Eric hung up the phone.  Bert had just told him about Richie and Willowby.  Since Arthur was watching TV with Frederick and the cats, Eric jerked a thumb towards the door, a gesture only Bradley could see.  “Arthur, we’re stepping out to get a map from the motel office.  We’ll be back in a moment, okay?”

“Okay,” the boy replied.

“Let’s talk inside the car,” Eric said after the two men left the room.  Once seated, he told Bradley the news.  

“Jesus.  Why would anyone want to murder a little kid?” Smith said.  

“Bert says Jac was having hysterics.  Her husband’s been arrested and now her son’s dead.”

“This is unbelievable.  What about Briarly?”

“The police have brought her to the station, but no one’s told her anything yet.  She doesn’t even know about her father’s arrest.  You realize one of us is going to have to tell Arthur about his cousin.”  The two gazed at the motel room door unhappily.  

“What happened to Richie?”

“A blow to the head.  He was found lying with his head on top of a rock, and the rock’s got blood on it.  The police are considering a fall from the roof, but they haven’t ruled out murder.  Some toy soldiers were found on the roof that Jac said belonged to her son, and they were right above the spot where the police discovered the body.”

An odd look crossed Bradley’s face.  “I caught him fighting with Arthur on the roof the other day.  You know, he really might have fallen off the roof by accident, if he had decided to go up there again.”

“I doubt it,” said Eric firmly.

“Yeah, you’re right.  All those deaths.  Someone’s friggin’ clever.”

“And it looks like Willowby.  He was the obvious choice, living in the carriage house and working on the cars.  And he was in the right place to start the player with the remote.”

“But why did he kill all those people?  Hey, wait a minute!  
He wasn’t even in the house when Lance died
.  We
saw
that.  He
couldn’t
have killed Lance.  Maybe the others, but not Lance.”  

“Bert said the police can’t guess at a motive.  I’m beginning to think we must have some natural deaths here.”

“Not Lance’s.”

“You know, Wendy may be right.  Maybe the killer has an accomplice.”

“Could we have a serial killer here?”

“Damned if I know.  Some of these deaths are so senseless.  Why kill Richie, for example?  He wasn’t going to inherit anything.  But serial killers don’t usually have accomplices.”  

“Shit,” said Bradley, shaking his head.

“Rose is coming by to pick up Arthur.  We need to tell him about his cousin.”

Bradley shut the door, but Arthur didn’t glance away from the TV.  The boy was holding Frederick in his lap, and Purrball was lying on the stuffed animal.  Muffin was dozing against Arthur’s leg.  Unknown to the boy, who would have gagged if anyone told him, he was a perfect tableau of cuteness.

Eric lost his nerve.  “You tell him,” he said to Smith, “you’re his relative.”  

Bradley gulped.  “Um, Arthur.”  

“Huh?”  The boy did not look up.

“Uh,” Smith stalled.  Eric made vigorous pushing motions in the direction of the boy.

“I have some bad news.  I know this isn’t the best time to tell it, I mean, no one likes to interrupt Bugs Bunny,” (Eric made strangling gestures), “and what with these deaths and everything, this isn’t wonderful.”

Arthur turned towards them.  Instantly, Eric froze and looked solemn.  The boy’s eyes widened.  “Are my Mom and Dad all right?”

“They’re fine.  It’s something else.”

Arthur’s eyes bugged out.

“Your cousin Richie has just been found dead at Rollingwood.  It appears he died from a fall off the roof.”

Arthur whooped.  Startled by the noise, the cats raced under the beds.  Frederick was thrown into the air and caught.  

“Arthur!” said the two men in horror.

“Party Poopers,” the boy retorted.  “Hey, did he try to steal your penny and kill you, too?”

Sternly, Bradley said, “Arthur, this is no time to be thrilled.  You may not have cared for your cousin, but the Salisburys are in shock and so are your parents.  Try to maintain some decorum, okay?  Look doleful.”

The boy tried this for a second, frowning.  Then he giggled.  Eric and Bradley exchanged defeated glances.

Unexpectedly, Arthur quieted down.  “Aunt Jac is upset?” he asked.

“Very,” said Eric.

“Oh,” the boy replied soberly.

There came a knocking on the door.  “That must be your parents,” said Eric.       

“Remember, doleful!  Doleful!” Bradley urged.

“I don’t even know what the word means,” Arthur complained.  “How can I be doleful if I’m not sure what it is?”

Eric opened the door.

“Hey, a chick!” said Arthur rudely.  Wendy was standing there, business-like in a blue suit and heels, and carrying a suitcase.

“You’re not bad looking,” the boy told her.

“Thank you,” Wendy replied as she stepped inside the room and put down her suitcase.  “I like disinterested compliments.  Hello, guys.  I thought it was time I arrived.”

“Is she your girlfriend?” Arthur asked Eric.

“Uh, yeah,” the reporter admitted.

“Eric has a girl-friend!  Eric has a girl-friend!” Arthur taunted.

“Where are you staying?” Eric asked, yearning to kick the boy.

“Here.”

“Here in this motel?”

“Here in this room.”

“Here?!” asked Eric, pointing to the floor.

“Here.”

Maxwell looked at Bradley.  “You’re going to have to move over.”

“For whom?  You or her?  I don’t care.  Do you snore?” Bradley asked Wendy.

“No.”

“Eric does.”

“Then I guess I’ll be sharing your bed, Mr. Smith,”  Wendy said ruefully.

“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes spastics in the ba-by carriage,” Arthur sang.

“Is this your rabbit?” Wendy asked.

The boy nodded warily.  “Her name’s Frederick.”

“She’s very cute.”

Arthur shrieked and ran into the bathroom, appalled.  He’d only meant to compliment her.  He hadn’t realized she’d be so mean.

“Have you told him about his cousin?”  Wendy asked.

“Yeah,” replied Eric.