Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 853 & 854, September/October 2012
- Автор: Макдермид Вэл, Манфредо Лу
- Год: 2012
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 853 & 854, September/October 2012». Краткое содержание книги:
I went outside to call Sheriff Pierce, wondering if he’d dismiss me as a conspiracy nut.
It was near nightfall when Dave found me and handed me his cell. “Your Uncle Sheriff wants to talk to you.”
“Since you’ve been so helpful in this case, I thought you and Dave might like to be here when we bring the suspect in,” Sheriff Pierce said. “Your call.”
Part of me definitely did not want to be there, but I felt I had to.
When we got to the station I was thrilled to learn that all the charges against Darby had been dismissed and he was being processed out, but I felt ill about what I knew was about to happen.
The door opened and Jared — Deputy Fowler — came into the room with two more officers close behind him. He nodded to me as he came closer, but the smile was long gone. He lifted his cuffed hands as if rebuking me. “So this is your doing? You’re nuts, you know that? Why are you accusing me?”
“The gold record,” I said. “The Grand Funk Railroad. It wasn’t on the original list of albums I gave you. Only the three of us were there when Darby gave it to Noland. Noland’s gone and Darby has no memory of that day. I’d forgotten about it myself, actually. I never mentioned it to you, the sheriff, or anyone else.”
He laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “This is never gonna stick, you know. Albums are untraceable, remember? And I am not a neophyte. Darby and I listened to each other’s albums all the time so fingerprints aren’t going to tell you anything. I haven’t done anything wrong.” He curled his lip in an Elvis-worthy smirk. “Hey, listen, could I call you once I get kicked free? Maybe we could get some dinner or something — listen to some tunes,” he said, drawing out the last word.
I could hear Dave cracking his knuckles behind me.
As the deputies carted Fowler away to booking, the sheriff crossed his arms and glared after him. “Never was any kind of deputy,” he scoffed. “Politics I had to take him in the first place. We found the albums at his place. He’s so arrogant he didn’t even hide them. But he’s right about one thing; we’ve got no way to prove they were Darby’s. I suppose if he gets a good lawyer he could get away with it.”
I smiled. “I’m going to break a confidence, Sheriff Pierce. I don’t think Darby will mind. He puts a sticky note way back inside each record jacket documenting when and where he got the record. You wouldn’t know it was there unless you were looking for it. Normally, he takes them out when he sells the record, but he was planning to sell those to me and he knows I like to see where they came from. I’m betting they’re still in there.”
The sheriff smiled broadly. “Good to know,” he said.
“Can you tell us what happened now?” Dave asked.
He motioned us to sit. “Darby was acting strange when we picked him up and Beth swore there was no way he’d been drinking,” he said. “She set in on me that morning and hectored me into having him tested for GHB — the date-rape drug. She had a friend in college who got dosed at a party. Next morning the girl was talking gibberish and didn’t remember a thing, just like Darby. Beth wouldn’t let it alone until I had the doc run the test and sure enough—”
“I still don’t understand,” I said.
“Sorry, that didn’t segue, did it?” the sheriff said, running his hands through his close-cropped gray hair.
“Segue”? Who was this guy?
“Okay, from the beginning,” he said. “Fowler ran into someone in town that night, most likely Ted Mayhall, who told him about the row Darby and Noland had gotten into about those records. He decided to drive on out there and see what was what, maybe horn in on the deal himself. He always liked hanging out with rich guys but at the same time he resented them. Anyway, he’d just come from a sweep of one of the downtown trouble-spot bars, where he’d confiscated a vial of GHB. Phone records show Darby was on the phone with one of his business interests in China around that time, so he was likely in his office in the bedroom wing when Fowler arrived, leaving Fowler alone in the atrium with Noland. We don’t know what transpired between the two of them, but some kind of argument blew up and Fowler ended up grabbing the first thing he could put his hands on and cracking Noland in the head with it. I’m sure he didn’t mean to kill him; Fowler’s not evil, he’s just — worthless. But whatever his intentions, Noland’s not any less dead.”
“And then he drugged Darby?” Dave asked. “How?”
“The theory is, Fowler heard Darby coming and dragged Noland’s body into the record room. Maybe Darby looks around for Noland and decides he’s in the bathroom, whatever. He sets down a glass of juice he’s brought in with him and goes off to find Noland and it’s then that Fowler remembers the GHB in his pocket and gets a bright idea. He spikes the drink and waits. Darby comes back, has a few sips, and is out cold. Fowler was smart enough to take the drinking glass with him, but not smart enough to get rid of it. We found it at his place too. We’re testing it now. We think he dragged the body back out, put a stack of records on the changer so it would sound to anyone wandering by like they were still listening to music, staged the scene by dousing them to make it look like they’d been drinking heavily — then on the way out decided to scoop up the stack of records for his trouble.”
“I’m Deputy Fowler,” Dave whispered into my ear, “but you can call me plain ol’ scumbag.”
Back at Darby’s the celebration was in full swing. The man of the hour was taking a shower, “washing the jail off himself,” as Nadine reported. Everyone else was gathered in the kitchen, where the table was fast filling with food as Nadine ferried things from the refrigerator. Beth tried to help, but Nadine shooed her away.
“Nadine!” Beth said, squeezing her hands into fists. “I want to help you. Look, Nadine, I don’t know how to be a rich man’s wife. I don’t know how I’m supposed to act or how to do things. I just want to be a regular person. I want us to be friends, family even, not — whatever we are now. Can’t we, please, work on that?”
Nadine stared at her for a long moment and I saw her face soften. “Yeah, we can,” she said finally. “’Course we can.”
Kyle was stuffing finger foods into his mouth at a rate so accelerated it was clear he hadn’t had the foresight to stock in food for his self-imposed confinement. His eyes — well, eye — was red rimmed and looked like he’d been crying. Beth pulled me aside to tell me that he’d finally confessed to her he’d planned to steal some of the expensive jewelry Darby had given her. He’d gotten as far as taking it from her dressing room and squirreling it away, but when the time came to give it to the fence he couldn’t go through with it.
“We’ve got lots of things to work through, but we are talking now at least,” she said with a wan smile.
Darby came into the room to our hoots, hollers, and hugs. Then, as if the thought had come to all of us at the same moment, we fell silent, remembering that Noland Nicholson wasn’t going to be celebrating anything ever again.
“Awful quiet in there,” came a deep voice from the doorway and we turned as one to see John Daws standing on the porch. His work clothes had been replaced with pressed chinos and a crisp white shirt. Nadine looked undone, but motioned him in. “Darby,” she said, then cleared her throat. “John is, well, he’s—”
“I’m her boyfriend,” Daws cut in, and for the first time he smiled. “And how silly does that sound? We’re way too old to be sneaking around. She wouldn’t even let me pick her up for a date. Had to meet me at the movies or go to the next town over to have supper together. That’s not right. We like each other. I want to keep seeing her. You got any problems with it?” he asked Darby.