Schemers

22

I ’ve been beating my head against this Cullrane murder all day long,” I said to Kerry that night after dinner, “and all I’ve got for the effort is a headache.”

“Well, I hate to say it, but that could be because you’re trying to build a case where none exists.”

“I don’t think so. Angelina Pollexfen could be guilty, sure, and the shooting could’ve happened the way Yin and Davis have it figured, but there’re too many inconsistencies-Pollexfen gathering her and Cullrane together in the library, feeding them drinks that were almost certainly drugged. The three-hour time lapse. The doors apparently being bolted from the inside for no good reason. Plus the kind of man Pollexfen is, plus the blackmail and revenge motives.”

We were in our mom-and-pop chairs in the living room, a wood fire going, cups of espresso on the table between us. Emily was there, too, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch, reading Pride and Prejudice for her school English class. Behind her, Shameless lay draped half on the couch and half on her shoulder in one of his typical cat poses, purring loud enough to override the crackle of the fire. Entire family in after-dinner repose, everybody comfortable except me.

“There’s a wrongness about the crime scene, too,” I said. “I was in the library only three or four minutes, but I must’ve picked up on something because it didn’t feel right afterward, still doesn’t feel right.”

“In what way?”

“Well, for one thing, it seemed staged. The more I think about it, the more everything about the case seems staged.”

“The missing first editions, too, you mean?”

“Yes. All part of the same plan.”

“So you’re saying Pollexfen took the books?”

“More likely him than anybody else.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Start the ball rolling. Set up a motive for his wife to kill her brother.”

“But the murder method… that’s what doesn’t make sense.”

“It will if I can figure out the how and the why. How do you arrange a shooting inside a locked room so you have a perfect alibi when it happens? And why use a shotgun, a weapon that makes a hell of a mess? Most of the carnage was confined to the fireplace, but there were blood spatters on some of the book spines. As passionate as Pollexfen is about his collection, why risk the damage?”

“Maybe he didn’t realize how much of a mess there’d be.”

“He’s too smart to overlook something like that.”

“The shotgun was the only weapon in the library?”

“The only gun in the house. Kept loaded and prominently displayed.”

“Then it must’ve been a necessary part of whatever the trick was.”

“Sure. But a big, heavy piece like that… cumbersome, impossible to gimmick.”

Kerry sipped her espresso. “Is it possible Pollexfen shot Cullrane before he left for the auction? Recorded the sound of the shot, say, and set a timer so it played when it did?”

“Good theory, but no, that’s not the answer.” I glanced over at Emily and lowered my voice. “The room stank of burned powder and all the blood and gore was fresh. The shot we heard in the hallway is the one that killed Cullrane, no doubt of that.”

“Well, then, I’m totally baffled. I can’t imagine any other explanation.”

“Neither can I. But there has to be one. He staged it all, right down to handing me his key so I’d be the one to unlock the two dead holts. And with precision timing.”

“Are you certain the timing was so precise?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it seems incredible that he could arrange the shooting to the exact moment you and his secretary were in the house with him. How could he know he’d arrive home exactly when he did? He might’ve gotten stuck in traffic driving back from downtown.”

I rattled that around inside my head. “You’re right,” I said. “The shooting didn’t have to be perfectly timed. For that matter, Pollexfen didn’t have to’ve been in the house at all for the plan to work.”

“Just luck he was there when it happened?”

“From his point of view. Cullrane could already have been dead when Brenda Koehler and I came in. All Pollexfen really needed was a couple of witnesses to testify to the fact that the library door was locked. But that still doesn’t help explain how he managed the shooting.”

“There’s another thing I don’t understand,” Kerry said. “Why would he devise such an elaborate scheme in the first place? I mean, if you’re going to kill one person and frame another, why do it in such a complicated way?”

“Give himself a perfect alibi.”

“Still. It seems so… overblown.”

“Yes, it does. Bothers me, too, but-”

“Maybe he did it that way because he wanted to fool you, Dad.” Emily, from her cross-legged slouch on the carpet.

Kerry said, “Emily, you’re supposed to be reading, not eavesdropping on adult conversation.”

I said, “No, wait a minute. What did you mean, maybe he did it to fool me?”

“You and the police,” Emily said. “You said he collects mysteries and he’s a big fan. What if he worked out a puzzle he thought nobody could solve, like in Agatha Christie’s books? Only instead of writing it, he actually did it because he thinks he’s smarter than real-life detectives.”

Well, by God, I thought. My thirteen-year-old logical minded, casually brilliant daughter.

Out of the mouths of babes.

I couldn’t sleep. Cullrane’s murder, the elusive wrongness of the crime scene, the gimmick that I couldn’t quite figure out. And Emily’s insight into Pollexfen’s motives, which I should have realized on my own. Cullrane had as much as presented me with the same insight on Tuesday: He’s a schemer, you’re a private eye. If you’re smarter than he is, you’ll figure it out like Mickey Spillane.

Pollexfen, the mystery buff. Pollexfen, the sly manipulator. Completely in character for him to have devised what he considered a perfect crime and then to set it into motion, not only as revenge against two people he hated but as a match of his wits against those of trained investigators. It would explain the “stolen” first editions, the report to the police, the insurance claim-all part and parcel of a twisted and deadly game. Hell, he’d even thrown out little clues. His request to Barney Rivera that Great Western assign its best investigator to the case. Quoting the Sherlock Holmes dictum to me. A goddamn open challenge.

Yes, but what about the time element? Cullrane had been blackmailing him for a long time; he’d hated his wife for a long time. Waiting until he figured out the right gimmick? One factor, probably, but there had to be another-a trigger of some kind, the final push across the line between intellectual game and actual murder.

Something Cullrane had done, maybe an increased demand for money? Possibly. The poor state of Pollexfen’s health? More likely. His age, his heart condition, those increased insurance premiums. Say he’d been told or intuited that he didn’t have long to live. So why not go out in an egocentric blaze of glory, one suited to his intelligence, his passion for crime fiction, the nature of his victims, his penchant for manipulation. End his life basking in the glow of his cleverness and final triumph. Also perfectly in character.

Well, that wasn’t going to happen. Not if I could help it.

How to prove his guilt to the police? Everything I had so far was circumstantial or speculative. They wouldn’t listen unless I could offer some proof, or at least a plausible explanation of how the murder was committed.

What was it about the library, the crime scene, that had struck me as wrong? Concentrate. I visualized the room again, replayed in stop time the few minutes I’d spent in there.

The shotgun in relation to Cullrane’s body?

No.

The position of the body?

… Yes, but that wasn’t all of it.

Angelina Pollexfen’s position?

No.

What then? Something else, something else…

The books.

The stack on the couch. And the blood-spattered rows next to the fireplace.

Yes, dammit, the books!