The Happy Birthday Murder (13 page)

The next morning, I called Celia Yaeger and asked if we could speak again. She invited me over and I decided to leave Eddie with Elsie, as I recalled that Mrs. Yaeger's house was quite elegant, with breakables everywhere you turned, and I thought it would be smart to avoid a catastrophe.

I arrived at one-thirty as planned and she asked me once again if I would join her for a glass of sherry. This time I turned her down and she didn't take one for herself. We sat in the living room and made small talk for a few minutes. She seemed to be on top of all the local gossip, and she knew I had been in touch with Laura and that we had been out to Connecticut.

“You certainly move fast,” she said.

“I really want to find out what happened. Two people died very horrible and unnecessary deaths. If someone was responsible for one or both of those deaths, he should be brought to justice.”

“You're certainly right about that. How do you think I can help you?”

I was a little less sure of myself at that moment than I had been when I walked inside her house. If she was in constant touch with Laura, anything I asked had a good chance of getting back to her, and that was what I had hoped to avoid. But I was convinced this woman knew everything there was to know about townspeople.

“This is a little awkward,” I said. “I'd like to ask you some questions in absolute confidence.”

“I will keep your questions to myself, but I reserve the right not to answer them.”

“Fair enough. I've been giving a lot of thought to why Larry Filmore got a phone call in the middle of the night twelve years ago and drove away immediately.”

“I understand he told Laura there was trouble at the plant, but it turned out he hadn't gone there and there wasn't any trouble.”

“That's right. He went somewhere else, maybe to several places, but one of the places he went was Connecticut.”

“How very strange.”

“Mrs. Yaeger, there must have been some secret in his life, something very threatening, enough to make him get out of bed and drive a distance when he was told to. Do you have any idea what that secret could have been?”

“No idea at all. Of course, everyone who knew Larry must have pondered why he took his life. If anyone came up with an answer, I don't know about it. I never thought of a reason.”

“Was there any gossip?”

“I don't listen to gossip.” It was a strange thing for this woman to say. It was clear she knew everything that was going on, but I assumed she didn't consider that to be gossip. “There was lots of speculation after Larry died.
Most of it had to do with whether he was in financial trouble, but the business has thrived. If Laura discovered that he had debts of any sort, gambling debts or the like, she's kept it to herself. And let me add, I don't think there were any.”

“You know,” I said, “there are other kinds of secrets in people's lives. When I was a youngster, I remember hearing that a meteorologist on the radio who called himself ‘Doctor' didn't really have a doctorate after all. Someone wrote to the station, someone who knew him years before, and told them. They investigated and found the charge to be true. The man lost his job.”

“I see what you're saying. You think Larry may have lied about something in his past and someone was blackmailing him about it.”

“Something on that order.”

“Well, I didn't know him when he was a boy. He and Laura bought their house here after they were married. I assume the police looked into his past when he died.”

“I'm sure they did, and I know they didn't find anything. But there's always the possibility…” I let it hang, hoping she would follow my line of thought.

“He could have married someone under a different name; he could have fathered a child before his marriage.”

“Those are the kinds of things.”

“I don't know of anything like that, Chris. And I can tell you honestly, I never heard a whisper about such things. I know Laura quite well and I spent a lot of time with her after what happened. If she had fears of anything in her husband's life becoming public, she never told me.”

“Well, I guess that's it then. It looks like a dead end.”

“But it isn't a dead end,” she said briskly. “You're on the right track. Either Larry killed himself because of some secret he never shared, or he was killed for some reason we
don't know about and it was made to look like suicide. I wish I knew how you could find out what that is.”

“So do I.” I stood and picked up my bag. It had been a long shot, but I couldn't leave these questions unasked. “Thank you for being so cooperative.”

“There is one thing I can do,” she said. “Before you go, give me a minute. Let me see if I can find it.” She left the room and went upstairs.

I waited in the living room, wondering what she was looking for. She was gone for several minutes. When she came down the stairs, she was holding a small bag.

“I was the self-appointed photographer at the birthday party,” she said. “I owned a good camera and I came with a few rolls of film. The Filmores didn't want a professional photographer at the party and they were pleased when I volunteered my services. For me, it was a pleasure. I didn't know everyone there, but I went from table to table taking pictures, talking to the guests. I really enjoyed it. I got some good ones of Larry and Laura. What I intended to do was make an album and give it to them as a gift, but after what happened, I didn't even have the film developed for a long time. I'm not sure I've ever really looked at all the photos.” She handed the bag to me. “The film envelopes are in here. I doubt whether you'll learn anything of interest, but why don't you give it a try?”

“Thank you very much. I will certainly look at all the pictures. Has Laura seen them?”

“No. I didn't have the heart to show them to her. She never asked about them and I just put them away. That's what took me so long upstairs. I wasn't sure where they were. It's been so long.”

“Are they labeled?” I asked.

“No, but you'll recognize Laura, and the man with her is Larry. If you have any questions, she'd be the one to ask. She knew everyone there; I didn't.”

I shook hands with Celia and went home, the little bag on the seat beside me. Like Celia, I didn't think I'd learn anything, but it was worth an hour to find out.

Since Eddie was taken care of for the afternoon, I went home and took the pictures out of the bag. There were two envelopes of over thirty pictures each, all of them enlarged to four-by-six, so they were easy to inspect. Most of them were quite boring, one table after another of people gathered along one side so they all fit in the picture. Everyone looked ridiculously happy. Everyone was dressed elegantly. The one picture that sent a shock wave through me was the one with my aunt. She looked so healthy, so happy, so vibrant. She was such an important person in my life, filling in for my parents when they died, that I feel her loss to this day.

I looked at every picture of every table. Finally, I found a group of pictures of the Filmores. Laura looked radiant, her dress surely an expensive designer model. The man beside her was good-looking, healthy-looking, and appeared to be as happy as one would expect at such an occasion. Their children appeared in a couple of pictures with them and also other people who obviously wanted a picture of themselves with the birthday man.

I kept the clearest photo of Larry Filmore on the table and started looking for him in other pictures. He hadn't gone to the tables to be photographed, but he was at the head table next to his wife and several people I did not know, one of them almost certainly his mother. He was
eating, talking, standing behind someone, and pointing at something on the table. In one picture, he was looking to his right at a man who was not dressed as a guest but was standing just behind the people who were seated and leaning over toward Larry. It looked as though Larry was being told something or asked something. I got a magnifying glass and held it over the picture. The man carrying the message looked vaguely familiar, but where had I seen him? I held the glass as steady as I could and looked at his face. His hair was shaggy and he had a mustache. He was wearing what might have been work clothes.

And then it dawned on me. He was the janitor at our church. I got up and put my coat on. Taking the photos, I went out to the car and drove to the church.

There were no classes or meetings this afternoon and the building was very quiet. I went to the main office, but it was locked. The confessionals were empty and the priest was nowhere to be found. I started looking in the classrooms and meeting rooms, but one after the other they were empty. Finally, I found my way down to the furnace room. The door was open.

I stuck my head in and called, “Hello!”

“Yeah?” The voice came from behind the boiler, but its owner emerged a moment later. “Oh, Mrs. Brooks. You looking for me?”

“I think so. I'd like you to look at a picture. Is this you, Roger?”

He put on a pair of glasses and took the picture from me. “Look at that,” he said with a smile. “That musta been taken a long time ago. Look at all the hair I had.”

“Twelve years ago. That was Mr. Filmore's birthday party.”

“Ah. I remember now. What a party that was. What a terrible thing happened afterward. You weren't here then, were you?”

“No. I moved to Oakwood about half a dozen years ago. My aunt lived here, Margaret Wirth. She was at the party.”

“Mrs. Wirth, yeah. Nice lady. Always had a good word for everyone.”

“Roger, that's you and that's Mr. Filmore. Do you remember why you came into the party to talk to him?”

“Sure, I remember. He got a phone call.”

“At the church? How could that be?”

“I got no idea. I just know I was sittin' upstairs watchin' TV and the phone rang and a guy asked for Mr. Filmore.”

“So you went and got him,” I said.

“I went down to the ballroom, went over to the table, told him he had a phone call, and left.”

“And what did he do?”

“He followed me out. He went up to the office and picked up the phone.”

“Did he talk long?”

“A coupla minutes.”

“Did you hear what he said?”

Roger gave me a look.

“I don't mean were you listening in on the call. I mean, you were there and maybe you heard something.”

“He told the guy to leave him alone. He said he was busy. He said, ‘I'll call you tomorrow.' ”

“Did you tell that to the police?”

“No. Why should I?”

“I just wondered if they questioned you.”

“About what?”

“Mr. Filmore committed suicide. I thought maybe the police talked to people who had been at the party.”

“They didn't talk to me.”

“Thank you, Roger. You've been a big help.”

I went to the pay phone and called Laura. She wasn't home, so I took a chance and drove to the school. When I got there, I walked through the parking lot till I found her
car. The children were just getting out, so I stood near the car till I saw her.

“Chris. Are you looking for me?”

“Yes. I want to talk to you about something that happened at the happy birthday party.”

Her face clouded. “It's cold here. Can we drive to my house?”

“Sure. I'll take my car.”

She pulled into her driveway first and then into the garage, using her remote door opener. I parked in the driveway and we went inside together.

When we had our coats off, I told her I had talked to Celia, who had given me the pictures taken at the party.

“The pictures,” she said, as though it were a revelation. “I forgot all about the pictures. She was our photographer that night.”

“That's what she told me.” I took out the photo of Roger talking to her husband.

“Oh, look at that,” she said. “There's Larry's mother on the left. I'm not there. I must have been talking to guests. Is that Roger? What's he doing there?”

“Just what I asked. I've just been to see him. He was telling your husband he had a phone call.”

She seemed stunned. “Someone called him at the party?”

“You didn't know?”

“He never said a word. Do you know who it was?”

“A man. Roger heard the conversation, or part of it. He was a little embarrassed. He thought I'd think he was eavesdropping. He heard your husband say,” I looked at my notebook, “he wanted to be left alone. He said he was busy. He said, ‘I'll call you tomorrow.' ”

“I never knew anything about this,” Laura said almost in a whisper.

“My question is this: How did this person know to call your husband at the church?”

“I don't know.” She thought about it, her brow furrowed. “Maybe—oh, I know. Larry put the church number on call forwarding. In case there was a problem at the plant, they would be able to reach him. He did that all the time.”

“So the person calling didn't know where Larry was.”

“No. He probably called the house and it rang at the church. But this is amazing, Chris. It means the person who called in the middle of the night may have called earlier that night.”

“And Larry never told you?”

“He never said a word. I couldn't even tell you what time this happened, but I can give you a range. We started with cocktails at seven and then we all sat down about eight for the dinner. There's food on the table, see? I bet we were finishing our main course when I left the table to walk around and talk to people. Larry was sitting with his mother. She was a slow eater and I'm sure he stayed till she was finished. So I'd guess the call came in about nine o'clock, maybe a little earlier.”

“And he was probably back at the table when you got back for dessert.”

“I suppose so. Since I had no idea he had left.”

“Laura, think back. Did your husband get phone calls that he tried to keep secret from you?”

“Chris, Larry got calls all the time. He worked on committees for charities and museums and service organizations. We had a second phone line put into the house long before people started getting a fax line or a line for the computer. When his phone rang, he often took it in his office at home. I never asked who it was or what it was about, because it didn't interest me. If he thought I would want to
know, he told me. I didn't tell him every time one of my friends or organizations called.”

“I understand.”

“But this is very interesting.” She looked at the picture again. “He looks concerned, doesn't he?” she said with the knowledge of how the events had played out so long ago. “If only he'd told me.”

“Laura, let's assume something happened in his life that could have brought embarrassment to him. Think back to the time before you had two phone lines and before you were both involved in your projects. Do you remember being curious then about mysterious phone calls?”

“There were no mysterious phone calls. And we didn't have an unlisted number. Anyone could have looked us up in the book and called us.”

“And you never had any sense that something peculiar was going on in his life?”

“Never.”

“Did you ever get strange or threatening calls on your line?”

“Nothing besides wrong numbers. No heavy breathing, none of the calls women sometimes complain about.”

“Did you have separate answering machines?” I asked.

“I had one. Larry didn't. He felt if it was important, they'd call back. And he forwarded his calls when we went out.”

So no one could leave a threatening message that Mrs. Filmore might hear when she came home. Perhaps that was by design. “And your husband was in the book, too, I suppose.”

“Well.” She looked a little sheepish. “Actually, mine was unlisted. Larry thought it was safer that way. We had two very different numbers. They didn't roll into one another.”

“And after he died, what did you do about his phone number?”

“I kept it. Mostly the telemarketers call that one now. And my kids know they can reach me on that one if my line is busy and they need me. It's still listed and mine is still unlisted. Why do you ask?”

“I just wondered whether the person he went to see that night might have called after your husband died.”

“I would have told the police,” Laura said. “No one called, not on his phone and not on mine.”

“So either he gave up or he felt it was too dangerous to pursue whatever it was he was after.”

“Or it was moot,” Laura said. “If Larry was involved in something, and I don't for a minute believe he was, after he was dead, it could do much less harm.”

“I guess so. Well, I have the rest of the pictures if you'd like to look at them. But I'd like to keep them for the time being.” I handed her the bag.

She pulled out the envelopes and started through them. As she scanned them, small sounds came from her, as though these reminders were alternately painful and pleasant. Occasionally she smiled. Suddenly I saw a tear drop on the table. She brushed her eyes and continued till she had seen all the photos. Then she gave them back.

“It's very hard,” she said. “Many of the people there are gone now. Your aunt is one of them. Larry's mother is another. She never recovered from the shock of her son killing himself. It just broke her.”

“I'm sorry this has been so painful.”

“But you're learning things, Chris. I wish I could tell you more.”

“Were your parents at the party?”

“They died years before.”

“No brothers and sisters?”

She smiled. “I was a spoiled only child.”

“From where?”

“Wisconsin.”

“Cold winters,” I said.

“Very. But good cheese.”

I collected the photos and went to Elsie's to pick up Eddie. He was in a good mood, as he always is when he visits her. We all sat for a bit and talked. It's very relaxing to be with Elsie. She's a woman who is very comfortable in her life. There were times when she worked, times when she stayed home with her children, even a time when she did both for a while. Now she has added being a surrogate grandmother to her list of accomplishments, and I marvel at how good she is at it. Sometimes I wonder if I will miraculously learn to cook wonderful foods and bake marvelous cookies by the time I reach that point in my own life. But with an almost-four-year-old, I have some time to work on those skills myself.

“That's a nice discovery,” Jack said that evening.

“But all it tells me is that someone called him, someone he didn't want to talk to. It doesn't tell me who it was or why he called.”

“You know it's a man now.”

“True. One small step.”

“And Laura claims she had no idea this guy was calling her husband?”

I explained about the two phone lines, the many calls, the lack of an answering machine. “You don't ask me who I'm talking to every time I pick up the phone.”

“True. And with two lines, they could both be on the phone at the same time.”

I sighed. “I think our house is complete with one phone line.”

“OK with me. So what's next?”

“There are still houses I haven't been to. And I've only walked through a small part of the area Darby may have covered in Connecticut.”

“I don't want you getting lost.”

“I have a compass, remember? That should keep me from going in circles.”

“Wish I could keep from going in circles. Maybe I'll take a compass to work with me tomorrow.”