Murder on the Cliff (17 page)

Charlotte was glad that forensic science had confirmed her conclusion.

“The scrape is five feet to the side of where the body was found, but we can account for that by normal deviation. The distance to the top of the railing is fifty-seven feet: at that height, a deviation of half an inch can mean several feet by the time the body hits the ground. The more significant fact is that the body landed so far away from the base of the cliff.”

“Any chance that the body was moved by the tide?” asked Lew.

“No.” Miller shook his head. “High tide was at six forty-four this morning, shortly after Miss Graham found the body. At that time, her legs were submerged up to mid-calf and that’s as far as the water level got. The same goes for the wind: there was a light wind that night, but not enough to make any difference in where she landed.”

He was interrupted by the appearance of a policeman carrying a life-sized dummy covered in white canvas. A crude face with large, slanted, black-pupiled eyes, a piquant heart-shaped mouth, and a tiny upturned nose had been drawn on the head with a black Magic Marker.

“Aha! The star of the show has arrived,” said Miller. “Isn’t she lovely? I got a guy I know who works in a sail loft to sew her up for me from yacht canvas. He’s made dummies for me before. Drowning cases: to see where the currents might have taken the body. Hard to know where to look otherwise.” He shouted over to Kilkenny. “Our dummy’s here, Chief.”

The police chief joined the group, accompanied by a young policeman with a video camera. As the young man filmed, Miller explained:

“She’s constructed around a plastic skeleton. Precisely five feet six inches and one hundred and eighteen pounds, the victim’s height and weight. Okay, young man,” said Miller, turning to the policeman who was holding the dummy, “set her up.” He walked over to the railing. “Right here.” He tapped the spot where the obi clasp had left its mark.

The policeman placed the dummy where Miller had indicated.

“We’re going to do this two ways,” Miller continued. “First, we’re going to have her push herself.” He lifted the dummy up and draped it over the railing. The arms and head hung downward, the feet were on the floor. “Though how she could have held onto a sake cup in this position is beyond me. Anyway, we’ll give it a shot. Okay, Chief,” he said. “I guess we’re ready.”

The chief notified the group below that the reconstruction was about to begin. Another cameraman stood at the bottom of the cliff, waiting to film the dummy as it hit the ground.

“She would have had to kick up her feet to propel herself over the railing,” Miller explained. Stepping forward, he grabbed the dummy’s feet and flipped them upwards. As they watched, the dummy fell straight down and landed on its head at the base of the cliff. Miller looked up: “Well, I think we can say with some certainty that she would have suffered some head injuries had she tried to kill herself this way, which she did not.”

“What
were
the results of the autopsy?” asked Charlotte.

“Well, she died at once as a result of internal injuries,” he said. “I estimate that the body was moving at between thirty-five and forty miles per hour when it hit the ground. The aorta was ruptured, as were her heart and kidneys. Her backbone, pelvis, knees, and ribs were fractured, and her right lung was perforated by a broken rib. And, as you know from viewing the body, Miss Graham, both of her legs were broken at the ankles.”

“I was surprised at how little blood there was.”

“That’s common in falls,” Miller explained. “You can have a fatal cerebral injury with no external signs of injury at all.”

“Do we know the time of death?”

“Sometime between twelve and two.” Miller continued: “Now I’ll tell you how I think it did happen.” He took a position at the railing, pretending to hold a sake cup in his hands. “As I figure it, she was standing here under this crooked old pine tree looking out into the night. Why wasn’t she in bed? I don’t know—that’s for you sleuths to figure out.”

As he spoke, Charlotte suddenly remembered the words from “Evening Rain”—
The two of us, moored together. The rendezvous tree
—and it dawned on her why Okichi-
mago
had been standing there: she had been waiting for her lover! Charlotte thought that Shawn had chosen the song because it was raining, but she now realized that it was a cryptic message to meet him at the pine tree.

Miller interrupted her thoughts. “Miss Graham, would you like to play the geisha?” he said, with a courtly little bow. “I think it’s a role that you’re already familiar with.”

She smiled in assent and stepped up to the railing.

“Now, as I figure it, the murderer would have sneaked up on his victim from behind. I imagine he would have clasped her with both arms around the legs and flipped her over. Like this.” He demonstrated on Charlotte. “He must have done it very fast; she was caught entirely by surprise. Not only were there no marks of violence, she didn’t even drop her sake cup.” He unclasped Charlotte’s legs. “She goes sailing off the cliff, and that’s that.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, Doc,” said Lew.

“I hope so. We’ll see when we do the next reconstruction. I like these kinds of cases. Usually, the cause of death is clear. If there’s a hole in the front of the guy and a hole in the back of the guy, you can be pretty sure that there’s a hole through everything in between. But something like this takes some brain work”—he tapped his temple with a forefinger—“I look at it as a puzzle, like an acrostic or a crossword.”

The two policemen who were carrying the dummy back up the cliff had finally reached the top; it couldn’t have been an easy load to haul.

“Okay, fellas,” said Miller, as they carried the dummy onto the gallery. “Put her right here.”

The policemen propped the dummy up against the railing.

Standing aside, Miller gestured to Lew. “Would you like to do the honors, honorable city solicitor?”

“I’d be delighted,” said Lew. “Where should I start from?”

“Let’s say from inside. Although it’s possible our murderer could have come from around the side of the building. He would have had to be more quiet that way, though.” He stomped a foot on the floorboards. “These boards make a lot of noise when you walk on them. Then again, he could have been in his stocking feet. Probably was, if he had any brains. Though I’ve discovered over the years that a lot of criminals have no brains at all.”

Lew leaned over and removed his shoes.

“Aha, I like a man who strives for authenticity,” said Miller. Once again, he picked up the walkie-talkie and notified the men below that the reconstruction was about to take place.

After placing his shoes to one side, Lew crossed the gallery and took up his position just inside the sliding wooden doors. Then he stealthily tiptoed across the gallery. As he reached the dummy, he quickly clasped her around the abdomen and flipped her neatly over the railing.

Charlotte leaned over the railing to see. Propelled by the force of the push, the dummy’s legs flew outward, whirling the body around in a flip. As the head came around, Charlotte could see the upside down eyes staring, as if in fright. It landed feet first, and then fell backward, coming to rest in exactly the same position in which she had found Okichi-
mago’s
body: on its back with its head toward the cliff, about eleven feet out. The dummy had landed directly below, not off to one side as Okichi-
mago
’s body had. But according to Miller, that could be accounted for by a deviation in the force of the push.

“Perfect,” said Miller, with an ear-to-ear grin. “I guess you guys—and gals”—he looked over at Charlotte—“had better start looking for a murderer.”

“Dr. Miller,” asked Charlotte, “would a woman have been capable of pushing Okichi-
mago
over, or would it have required the strength of a man?”

“I’ll defer that question to the honorable city solicitor.”

“Sure,” Lew replied. “It was a snap.”

As they were leaving, Paul drove up with Nadine in his Jaguar. After getting out of the car, they approached Lew and Charlotte. They were a striking couple. Although Paul was by no means handsome, he was always impeccably dressed and carried himself with an air of quiet authority. Nadine was lovely: a petite figure, glossy black hair worn in an elegant French twist, and a warm and gracious smile. Charlotte could easily see why Marianne hated her: it was the hatred of the ugly duckling for the beautiful swan. By contrast, everything about Marianne seemed forced, cold, and pushy. But Charlotte could also sympathize with Marianne. Although she didn’t know Nadine, she shared the visceral distrust that the woman who has always supported herself has for the woman, be she wife or mistress, who rides graciously through life on the coattails of a wealthy man. Nadine was a modern version of Okichi: a sake cup which was carried to a man’s lips only as long as there was still sake in it.

“I see the police are still here,” said Paul, nodding at the string of police cars in the driveway. “We couldn’t get here before. We had to attend a meeting of the Black Ships Festival Committee. How’s it going?”

At closer range, Charlotte noticed that he looked drawn and haggard; purplish-red circles hung below his bulging brown eyes.

Lew explained the outcome of the reconstruction.

“Oh, how terrible,” said Paul. “The police told me when they called yesterday that they doubted it was suicide. But I can’t believe it. Who would want to murder her? She didn’t even know anyone here.”

But despite what he said, Paul looked quietly pleased at the news, as if he were relieved that her death was a murder and not a suicide.

“I’ve asked Miss Graham to help the police with the case,” Lew continued. “As you may know, she’s had some experience in solving murders.”

“God knows, another head never hurts in these matters,” said Paul. “I’m sure the police will be asking us plenty of questions, but if you have any you want to ask, Miss Graham, please don’t hesitate.”

“I just have a couple,” Charlotte replied. “If Okichi-
mago
didn’t commit suicide, that means someone else entered the house and removed the sake cup and the comb and mirror from the display cases.”

“Yes, I guess it does,” said Paul.

“Were you here at the time?”

“I must have been,” he replied, glancing over at Nadine. “I gave Shawn Hendrickson a ride home, but that couldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes. But I didn’t hear anything, if that’s what you’re asking. I went to bed around a quarter past one. I read for a while, and then went right to sleep.”

“You didn’t even hear Miako barking?”

Paul tugged thoughtfully on his neatly trimmed reddish-gray beard. “No, I didn’t hear him bark. But I’m not sure he would have barked at an intruder. He’s not a barker. More of a lap dog than a watch dog, I’m afraid.”

“Were the doors locked?”

“Yes. I locked them before I went to bed. But the burglar alarm wasn’t turned on. The caterers had been going in and out all evening. I had turned it off and forgotten to turn it back on again.”

“Any signs of forced entry?”

“None that I’ve noticed, but I haven’t really checked.”

“What about you, Mrs. Ogilvie?” Paul’s glance had led Charlotte to think that Nadine might have spent the night with him.

“Paul asked me to stay until the caterers had finished packing up,” Nadine replied. “But that only took a few minutes—ten at the most. Then I went home. I got home a little after eleven-thirty.”

“Did your son stay here with you?”

“No, he went on ahead. It’s only a five-minute walk.”

Charlotte remembered that Nadine’s house stood near the intersection of Narragansett and Bellevue. “Any servants?” she asked Paul.

“Just the housekeeper, Mrs. Engel. But she doesn’t live in. Ordinarily, she comes in just during the day, but she stayed late last night to help with the party. She went home about ten-thirty, I think.”

“Thanks, I appreciate your help,” said Charlotte.

Lew dropped her off at the head of Bellevue Avenue, where she ate a quick lunch. Then she headed over to the casino. She was due at the casino theatre at twelve-thirty for the “Afternoon of Japanese Culture,” which started at one. She would start looking for the murderer there. It looked as if Nadine was out of the picture. Her story was probably true: it was unlikely that she would have spent the night with Paul with her sons at home alone. As for gaining entry to the house: Charlotte had assumed that Okichi-
mago
, being Paul’s house guest, would have had a key, but her murderer, if there was one, would have had to force his way in. The police would no doubt be looking for signs of forced entry, as well as for fingerprints on the sake cup, comb, and mirror, and the display cases from which they had been taken. The burglar alarm being turned off was a lucky break for the murderer. But if he hadn’t known the alarm was turned off, wouldn’t he have been taking a big chance by breaking in? It didn’t take a criminal genius to figure out that the house would be equipped with an alarm system: there probably wasn’t a house on the Cliff Walk that wasn’t. Unless the murderer was someone at the party, who, seeing the caterers going in and out, concluded that the alarm had been turned off and assumed a tired host would forget to turn it back on at the end of a busy evening. But it was a chancy assumption. Or, the murderer could have been someone who knew how to turn off the alarm himself, namely Marianne or Lester. There was another reason Charlotte wanted to question them as well: Marianne’s flirtation with Shawn had provoked a scene at the close of the party. Lester had called Marianne several unpleasant names, whereupon she had refused to ride home with him. After dropping Charlotte and the Smiths off at Briarcote, Lester had returned to Shimoda in search of Marianne. What had happened after that was anybody’s guess, but it was likely that either or both of them were at Shimoda at around the time that Okichi-
mago
was killed.

Although Paul had been responsible for importing the geishas for the Afternoon of Japanese Culture, it was actually Marianne who was coordinating the program. The program consisted of three parts. The first was a charity fashion show of Marianne’s “Geisha” collection sponsored by a Boston department store. The show was what was known in the fashion industry as a trunk show: the collection that had been unveiled to rave reviews in New York two weeks ago would be traveling across the country from Newport to San Diego, giving loyal customers in places like Chicago, Dallas, and Atlanta a chance to buy Marianne’s designs on their home turf. The second part was an exhibition of traditional Japanese song and dance performed by the geishas. Charlotte assumed it would be similar to the performances at the geisha party. The third part was a performance of a traditional Japanese puppet play by a Japanese-American puppet theatre troupe from San Francisco. Charlotte was looking forward to the puppet theatre, which she had never seen. The puppets were half the size of a human adult, and each was manipulated by three men: one for the head, body, and right arm; another for the left arm; and a third for the feet. The puppets’ ability to portray human emotions was said to be nothing less than miraculous. Overseeing these events would be the mistress of ceremonies, Okichi of
Soiled Dove
, otherwise known as Charlotte Graham. Under her arm, she carried the script that Paul had hastily revised from the one he had originally prepared for Okichi-
mago
. Apart from delivering the script, she had no idea what she was supposed to do. But that was okay: after fifty years in front of the cameras, she was used to improvising.