Partners In Crime (24 page)

Perhaps it was hearing the male authority of
his voice. Perhaps she was just beaten down by hours of
interrogation. Or perhaps it was Auntie Lil's gentle voice and
demeanor that prompted her to tell them where Stanley Sinclair was
hiding.

Auntie Lil wrote the address down in her
notebook, then asked, "Can you give us directions?"

T.S. could hardly believe her nerve, but the
tearful Mrs. Sinclair gave her quite thorough directions in a
halting voice. They were to return to the city and take the Lincoln
Tunnel to Highway 3 West, then follow that to Interstate 80. Their
home was in the Poconos, just past the Delaware Water Gap.

They rose to go and Auntie Lil seemed not to
mind the fact that one of her best lace handkerchiefs from County
Cork was still clutched tightly by Mrs. Sinclair.

"Do you have a sister?" Auntie Lil
asked.

The woman nodded. "A sister-in-law."

"I think perhaps you should go stay with her
immediately. You know that you may be in danger, too."

The woman looked up with startled eyes.

"Promise you'll call her?" Auntie Lil asked
on her way out the door.

Muriel Sinclair nodded and watched as they
drove away. T.S. could see her reflected in the rearview mirror, a
thin and vulnerable creature outlined in the doorway of an
overpriced house in a not-quite-ritzy-enough section of a Long
Island suburb. He sighed. As soon as he saw Stanley Sinclair again,
he swore he'd be nicer to him.

"Can't you drive any faster, Theodore?"
Auntie Lil looked anxiously at her elegant watch and sighed.

"No, I can't." They were zooming down
Interstate 80 headed west at seventy miles per hour. "This road is
swarming with state troopers. What are we supposed to tell them if
we get stopped?"

She sighed again. "I know we're getting
near, but I have this feeling we're always a step too late." He
knew what she meant. He increased his speed, checking the rearview
mirror.

It was a typical Poconos community resort
home: a shingled A-frame house with a wrapping redwood deck that
was situated on an acre plot around a man-made lake. Every house
looked empty and, this early in March, only the evergreens provided
any privacy among the bare trees. For the next few months, at
least, houses would be clearly visible on either side of the
Sinclair's. The overall effect of the community was that of giant
Monopoly houses thrown down around the lake from above.

They saw no signs of occupancy as they
pulled into the driveway. Indeed, T.S. was not sure it was even the
correct house.

"Are you sure this is it?" he asked Auntie
Lil. "These all look alike."

She consulted her notebook. "Yes. This is
it."

"It looks very quiet." He automatically went
around to her side and helped her from the car. They stood, his
hand still on her arm, looking up at the silent house. Neither
wanted to pull away from the other.

"He would hardly be lounging about in the
open." But Auntie Lil spoke uncertainly.

"Where do you suppose his car is?"

  “
I'm sure he was
smart enough to park it at another house. Or perhaps down by the
lake." She shivered and T.S. began to take off his jacket. She
waved it away. "No, I'm not cold. I just don't have a good feeling
about this." She took a tentative step forward and
stopped.

"What is it?"

"It is quiet, Theodore. No birds, no sound
of water. No wind. Like the whole world is waiting." She shivered
again. "We're being watched."

''Nonsense.'' He spoke loudly, hoping to
find real courage in his false bravado. "Only by Stanley
Sinclair."

They moved forward to the bottom of the
stairs. "I'll go up first," T.S. told her, waving her behind him.
She fell obediently into place.

"Stanley!" he called out. "It's T.S.
Hubbert. The police are looking for you." There was no reply. "I
know you didn't do anything. We can help you. I want to help."

They mounted the steps slowly, Auntie Lil
lightly touching his waist from behind.

"The door's unlocked," T.S. announced to
break the ominous silence. He swung open the door and peered
inside, then abruptly  turned around and faced Auntie Lil. "Go
back to the car," he ordered.

"No." She stood her ground. "Something has
happened, hasn't it?" He didn't answer. "It's no good, Theodore.
I'm not in this for a lark." She tried to push past him again and
he moved to block her way.

His voice was grim. "No. Wait here. At least
let me make sure it's safe."

"It's safe for us," she called after him. "I
don't think it's you or me they're after." When she got no reply,
she followed him in and found T.S. standing in the middle of an
arched, rectangular living room. Stairs to the right led up to a
sleeping loft. The downstairs room was dominated by a large stone
fireplace. Stanley Sinclair lay on the hearth, part of his head
removed by a gunshot. The fireplace stones nearby glistened with
blood and a dark pool had collected around his skull.

T.S. and Auntie Lil stood shoulder to
shoulder staring down at the body. T.S. was thinking about the thin
figure of Muriel Sinclair, framed in the doorway of their house.
Auntie Lil was thinking of how close they had been to preventing
the third murder.

"There's the gun," Auntie Lil said softly.
Her words seemed to reverberate loudly off the empty walls and T.S.
jumped reflexively. She pointed to the right of Sinclair's crumpled
body. A blue-gray handgun glinted in a beam of afternoon sunlight
streaming in through the skylight above them. The gun seemed too
small to have created such harm. The sunlight reflected the amber
of the cedar shingles and a fine dust of gold swirled about them as
they stared at the dead body.

"Do you think he did it to himself?" T.S.
asked, more out of hope than conviction.

"No, I don't," Auntie Lil responded
immediately. She pointed and he followed her lead. Stanley
Sinclair's fly had been unzipped. T.S. saw that he'd been wearing
royal blue briefs and looked away. Auntie Lil stared down at the
gun. "I've never seen a real gun up close before." She bent to get
a better look.

"Don't touch anything," he warned.

She stood up and glared at him. "Of course
not, Theodore. I'm not an imbecile." She moved closer to the body
and T.S. followed unwillingly.

"He's quite dead," she said. "It doesn't
seem like he could have any blood left in him. How long do you
suppose he's been lying there?"

T.S. stared at the pool of blood. He had
always expected it to be red, but it was dark purple in the
reflected sunshine. He imagined he could see it almost pulsating.
"I couldn't say." He bent down and touched the dead man's skin,
pulling his hand away quickly as if burned. "He's not really warm
anymore."

"He may have been dead by the time we talked
to his wife." She said this for the same reason T.S. had thought
it. There had been nothing they could do to prevent it.

"We should call the police." T.S. said this
doubtfully and her response was immediate and swift.

"Not yet, Theodore. I really don't think we
can afford to waste an evening being questioned about why we were
here. We haven't anything to tell them, yet, and we've got to buy
some time to pull it all together." She stared down at Sinclair.
"We'll call them anonymously after we leave." She straightened and
looked around the room. "See if he gave us any help before he died.
Here—use this." She rummaged in her pocketbook and produced another
frilly handkerchief from her endless supply, tossing it to T.S.
with a distressingly professional air. He combined it with his own
handkerchief to create crude mitts and avoid leaving fingerprints.
Auntie Lil kept her customary gloves on.

T.S. searched the house. It
was sparsely furnished with mass-produced modem pine tables and
chairs. A wood frame couch that folded out into a bed with a futon
mattress added the only color to the room. On top of its flowered
cushions lay a copy of that morning's
Post.

"He saw the article about Boswell's death in
the paper this morning."

"Yes," Auntie Lil answered. "Perhaps he had
intended to go in to work but something in that story made him
change his mind. Something confirmed what he had suspected
yesterday. You said he was puzzled. Perhaps his question was
answered by something he read. Look around some more."

They moved cautiously about the quiet room.
Between their whispers, tiptoes and the soft afternoon light, T.S.
began to feel he was in a church. He looked back at the dead man
and did, indeed, wish for the comfort of a church.

Auntie Lil was carefully
poking about a long counter that jutted out from one end of the
room and marked off the kitchen area from the main living space. It
seemed the only lived-in spot in the house. Several bar stools were
pulled up to its tiled surface and papers and books were stacked at
one end. She moved them cautiously with one finger. "Brochures
about tourist traps," she remarked with little interest. "A notice
about garbage pick-up and recycling instructions." She pulled a
section of the
Post
off the top of a stack of books.

"Bingo." She nodded toward
the pile. "Another dead boutonniere. On top of a stack of library
books. Listen to the titles—
Psychology of
the Criminal Mind; Women and Violence; Deviant Behavior
and
Manifestations of
Anger."
She looked up at T.S. "Sounds like
he had someone definite in mind." She moved down the counter.
"Here's a cup of coffee." She sniffed at it. "Not old. He must have
brought it here with him."

T.S. opened the refrigerator. Inside was a
loaf of bread, a large, unopened package of sliced bologna, ajar of
mustard and a new bottle of Pepsi. He was reminded of lunches when
he was a little boy. It saddened him deeply. "I guess he was
planning to stay for a while," he said.

"Food?"

"Yes. Bologna and bread."

Auntie Lil sighed. "He hadn't time to think
of anything else. Hello, what's this?" She was peering down at a
memo pad. "Looks like he stole his memo paper from Sterling &
Sterling."

T.S. peered over her shoulder. "We all do. I
even have a few pads at home myself."

"Look what's written on it." She stepped
aside and he bent over to see the note better.

"R.I.P." was written across the top of the
page in Sinclair's fussy, spidery handwriting. The letters were
heavily underlined.

"Rest in peace?" T.S. wondered aloud. He
reread the pad. "That's certainly morbid. It's his handwriting,
though." He sighed, then stopped and looked up at Auntie Lil.

"Ralph I. Peabody," they said together.

T.S. was elated. He was in the game, no
longer one step behind.

"I think it's time to pay him a visit,"
Auntie Lil added quietly.

They searched the upstairs sleeping loft
carefully but nothing more of interest was found. By the time they
left the house, the sun was low in the afternoon sky and an evening
chill enveloped them. Auntie Lil shivered in her cardigan sweater,
reminding T.S. of her age. He helped her into the front seat of the
car and ordered her to stay put while he checked to make sure they
had left no signs of entry. This time she obeyed.

They drove quickly away from the lakeside
resort community, passing no other cars on the road. They reached
the main highway and T.S. pulled into the first rest stop they
reached. Afraid to call the police directly  for fear he would
be taped, he dialed the operator and explained that he had passed a
house while birdwatching, seen an open door and entered to find a
man shot to death. He doubted anyone ever really birdwatched in
that subdivision, but for a cover story it would have to do. He did
not give his name or any other details, other than the address, and
hung up before the operator could protest that it wasn't her job to
report murders. Let them do whatever they wanted. Nothing would
bring Stanley Sinclair back.

He drove slowly back to Manhattan, being
careful to observe the speed limit. He did not want to be stopped
for any reason. There must be nothing to connect them to the
carnage they had left behind.

If he had any qualms about leaving the scene
of a crime, they vanished quickly once Auntie Lil outlined what she
saw as their next step.

"Do you agree that embezzling or insider
trading is not behind this, dear?" she asked him after nearly a
half hour of brooding silence.

"I think so. Stanley Sinclair monitored the
firm and partners' accounts, but he didn't really have access to
any of the in-house systems that could manipulate funds. He would
have had to have accomplices in several areas and that's unlikely.
Besides, I don't think he was very smart but, like his wife, I do
believe he was honest."

"That's it. Just your feeling?"

"Yes. And the feet that the three people
killed so far have no real connection to each other, at least none
that I know of. Cheswick was on the investment side at Sterling
& Sterling. Boswell was on the banking side of things. And
Sinclair was essentially administrative. They couldn't have been
helping each other, they operated in far too different spheres. I
can't figure out what the connection between them could be."

"That's what bothers me, too," Auntie Lil
admitted. She gazed out the windows at the mountains as they passed
by. They loomed large and forbidding in the early evening darkness.
"Do you want to hear what I think?" she asked.

"Do I have any choice?'' he wondered out
loud, but smiled when he spoke. He felt a great need to smile and
erase some of the sadness they had left behind them.