The Sedgemoor Strangler and Other Stories of Crime

The Kiss of Death

The Diamonds were spending Christmas in New York. Steph’s elder sister Ellie lived in Brooklyn. The sisters had years of family gossip to catch up on, so when the big detective tired of watching daytime TV, he slipped out of the apartment and took the subway into Manhattan and called on Johnny Flanagan, a detective with the NYPD who was once attached to Bath police for a short time. The two had got on well.

“You want action?” said Johnny, over coffee.

“I wouldn’t want to get in the way.”

“No problem. We have a case right now. It’s been handled by a couple of rookies and I think I should take over. There’s an outside chance it was murder.”

“I want action, then.”

The action in this case arose from the death of one Fletcher Merriman, aged seventy-eight, the senior partner in a small firm of accountants with an office in Canal Street. Old Mr Merriman had died in the Mount Sinai Hospital two weeks before, of heart failure.

“On the surface, straightforward,” Johnny explained as they bumped along a street more potholed than Diamond had ever encountered in a large city. “The old guy was admitted with stomach pains. Mount Sinai treated him for gastroenteritis following an office party. The heart attack came later.”

“Poison?”

“The autopsy report is in. They found a trace of betaphenyl-ethylamine.”

“Quite a mouthful.”

“In more senses than one. It produces the symptoms of gastro-enteritis. In a feeble individual — he had a heart condition — this can lead to a collapse of the cardiovascular system.”

“You think someone popped him a dose of the stuff?”

Johnny took his hands off the wheel and spread them to show it was anyone’s guess. “Peter, my friend, this is straight out of a whodunit. Merriman wasn’t a nice old guy at all. Everyone at the party had good reason to want the son of a bitch dead.”

“Everyone — how many is that?”

“Three.”

“Small party.”

“Makes our job easier.”

“Absolutely.”

“You don’t mind spending Christmas Eve on this?”

Smiling, Diamond said, “It was either this or White Christmas on TV.”

“Am I missing my favorite movie of all time? I hate this job.”

The outer office of Merriman & Palmer was small, filled with desks and machinery. The surviving partner, Maurice Palmer, was there with a trainee, Sylvie Smith, tidying up for the Christmas break. Fiftyish, in the obligatory dark suit, Palmer had the look of a man who needed the holiday. “Actually, I’ll be spending it in Key West,” he said with more than a hint of self-congratulation. “Nicer weather.”

Johnny didn’t bother with introductions. So far as anyone here was concerned, Diamond was with the NYPD. “So this is where the party was held.”

“No, the party was in here.” Palmer swung open a door. “My office.”

The crime scene.

A carpeted room dominated by a kidney-shaped desk with nothing on it except a phone. Shelving along two opposite walls stacked with account books and filing boxes. Palmer admitted his visitors, turned in the doorway and said to Miss Smith, “Why don’t you finish what we were doing?” Then he closed the door. “Fletcher worked from this office for many years before he retired in nineteen-ninety.”

“So you invited him to your party?”

“His party. He brought it to us. He wheeled himself in — you know he used a wheelchair? — with three bottles of sherry, sweet, medium and dry, a box of mince-pies and a huge bunch of mistletoe, and told us it was party time. He liked to surprise people. His annual treat.”

“If it’s an annual treat how can it be a surprise?” said Johnny.

“We had no idea which day he would come in.”

Diamond spoke for the first time. Johnny had told him to feel free to join in. “From what I hear, he was better off springing surprises than receiving them.”

“His heart condition, you mean? Sure, he had to be careful. He’d had two coronaries since retiring. He withdrew entirely from the business. I’ve run it for years.”

“But he was still the senior partner?”

“Right. He deserved some reward for all the years he put in.”

“Meaning he had a big slice of the profits?”

“We’re still a respected name around here.”

“You’ll keep the name?”

“Sure.”

“And will his family get a share of future profits?”

“There is no family.”

“So it all comes to you now?”

Maurice Palmer turned deep pink above his white collar. “Until I take another partner. I’ll need to. Volume of work.”

Diamond glanced at Johnny. “You don’t mind if I carry on?”

“Be my guest.”

“Let’s get back to the party. What kind of bash was it?”

Palmer frowned. “What did you say? Bash? I wouldn’t call it that.”

“Did you have a mince-pie?”

“Two, actually.”

“No ill effects?”

“I can eat anything.”

“Did Mr Merriman have one?”

“He had two, like me. The ladies had one each.”

“Did he eat his pies right away?”

“One of them. The other was here on the desk for some time. He had it eventually.”

“Did you finish the sherry?”

“Not quite.”

“Three bottles between four of you would have been good going. And was the mistletoe put to good use?”

Palmer lowered his voice. “You must understand that Fletcher belonged to a generation when political correctness was unknown.”

“He was an old goat?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Would the women?” asked Johnny.

“They wouldn’t be so disrespectful.”

“You didn’t have to kiss him under the mistletoe. Let’s speak to someone who did.” As Diamond reached for the door, Johnny put a hand on his arm. “In here. Ask her to step inside, will you?” Then he told Palmer in the lofty tone he had used to his assistant, “Why don’t you finish what you were doing out there?”

Sylvie Smith looked nervous. She was as neat as a convent balance sheet, not much over twenty, with dark, intelligent eyes. Johnny invited her to sit down. The only chair without filing boxes on it was her boss’s high-back executive job in black leather.

Johnny smiled at her. “Give yourself a treat. One day all this could be yours.”

She perched uneasily on the edge of the chair.

“So how many of old Mr Merriman’s surprise parties have you attended?”

“This was the first. I joined the firm in January.”

“You must have wondered what was going on when he rolled through in his wheelchair waving a bunch of mistletoe. Did he insist on a kiss?”

Her mouth hardened into a thin line. “Not immediately. His word for it was a cuddle.”

“And yours?”

“It makes me sick to think of it.”

“If you’d complained, you’d have lost your job — and there aren’t many openings for junior accountants?”

“That’s for sure.”

“Did you know the party was an annual event?”

“Dee said something about it, but I thought she was winding me up.”

“Dee is the other woman who works here?”

She nodded. “She’s been here six years. She’ll be fully qualified next year.”

“And she isn’t in today?”

“Off for the holiday.”

“Gone away?”

“I don’t think so. She has an apartment in the Village.”

“Lives alone?”

“Apparently.”

“What age is Dee? All right, that’s an indiscreet question. Is she under forty?”

“I don’t know. She hasn’t told me.”

Diamond took over again. He’d been looking at the flat ceiling. The lighting was recessed. “I’m trying to picture this party. Presumably the old boy sat in his wheelchair under some mistletoe. I can’t see where it was attached.”

“We had to tie string across the room, from the top of one shelf to the other. Then the mistletoe was tied to the string.”

“Got it. When you say ‘we’...?”

“Dee and myself.”

“I’m getting the picture now. So whoever tied the mistletoe to the string must have stood on the desk to do it. Who was that?”

Sylvie sighed. “He told me to do it. Said I had longer limbs.” She hesitated and reddened slightly. “I happened to be wearing a short skirt.”

“The picture is even clearer. Did he hand you the mistletoe himself?”

“No. Dee did. He watched.”

“So when he’d seen enough, and the mistletoe was in place, the party got under way. Drinks all round, no doubt. The food and drink was here on the table?”

“Yes.”

“Sherry glasses?”

“Mr Palmer keeps some in his drawer.”

“As every boss should. And who did the pouring?”

“Old Mr Merriman.”

“Do you remember if the sherry was new? Were the bottles sealed at the neck?”

“Sure. He had to borrow scissors.”

“You know why I’m interested? Something upset his stomach. What about those mince-pies?”

“They were fresh from Maisie’s, he said.”

Johnny said quietly, “Maisie’s is one of the best bakers in New York.”

Diamond asked Sylvie, “Were they open, these pies, or closed, in the traditional way?”

“They had lids, if that’s what you mean.”

“Closed, then. Did you have one?”

“Of course. I enjoyed it.”

“And could anyone have slipped the old man a mince-pie from anywhere else?”

“I don’t see how. We were all in here together.”

“Making merry?”

“Going through the motions.”

“I expect a few glasses of sherry helped.”

“Not when he grabbed me and forced me onto his lap. That was disgusting. His bony old hands were everywhere.” She shuddered. “It went on for over a minute. I could have strangled him.”

“But you didn’t,” said Johnny. “Did Dee get the same treatment?”

“It wasn’t quite the same. She was wearing a trouser suit.”

“And did Mr Palmer kiss you?”

“That was no problem. Just a peck on the cheek. He doesn’t go for me, anyway.”

Johnny thanked her and opened the door to the outer office. “We need Dee’s address,” he told Palmer.

“Dee? There’s nothing she can add.”

“How do you know? Maybe she saw something you and Sylvie missed.” He got the address and they drove to Greenwich Village right away.

The apartment, just off Washington Square, was classily furnished. Dee was a classy lady, with a sexy drawl to her voice. She was not at all fazed by their arrival. She offered them coffee and Johnny accepted, mainly to get a moment alone with her phone and check on the last call she’d received.

Quietly he passed on the news to Diamond. Dee’s latest call was from the Merriman & Palmer office a few minutes after the detectives had left.

“I wouldn’t get too excited about it,” said Diamond. “Any col-league would tip her off that the cops were on their way.” He took a book from the shelf by the door and flicked through the pages.

“Here’s our problem,” Johnny told Dee over the coffee. “Old Fletcher Merriman was taken ill on the day of the party. He may have been poisoned, triggering the heart attack. If so, we need to find out how he got the stuff into his system, and who did it. He brought his own food and drink to the party, right? Poured the drinks himself, in full view of everyone. Handed out the mince-pies fresh from Maisie’s”

“Did they find poison inside him?” Dee asked as calmly as if she were enquiring about last night’s rain.

“A trace.”

“Why would anyone want to poison him?”

“Oh, come on,” Johnny said. “Maurice Palmer stood to gain. The old man’s death leaves him in control of the business.”

Her eyes widened, obviously shocked. “Surely you don’t suspect Maurice?”

Diamond looked up from the book and chipped in. “And Sylvie Smith was so disgusted by the groping she got that she felt like strangling him.”

Sylvie as a suspect was more plausible to Dee. “She’s got a lot to learn about men.”

“His behavior didn’t bother you, then?”

“I’ve been six years with this firm. I know what to expect from Fletch the lech.” She ran her fingertip thoughtfully around the rim of her cup. “Here’s a theory for you, gentlemen. Is it possible during a kiss to pass a capsule into someone’s mouth?”

“In theory,” said Johnny.

“But nasty,” said Diamond, thinking this had the reek of a red herring.

“Something like digitalis, that is taken by heart patients, but dangerous in an overdose?”

“What gave you this idea?” asked Diamond.

She shrugged. “In the absence of any other theory...”

“Ah, but I do have another theory. A better one than yours.” He replaced the book on the shelf. “Might I look into your bed-room?”

“What for?”

“To test my theory. This door?”

She was in no position to stop him.

A packed suitcase lay on the bed. “Going away for Christmas?”

“People do.”

He stepped closer and checked the label. She was bound for Key West.

Johnny took a look. “Better cancel your plans, lady. You’re not going any further than our precinct building.”

“She’s singing?’‘said Diamond.

“She will. Better than a choir of angels.”

“You’re sounding festive, Johnny.”

“It is Christmas Eve. How did you crack it? What made you check the bedroom? Just a hunch?”

Diamond pulled a face at that. Hunches didn’t feature in his philosophy. “Dee is a cool lady. Worked hard at her job, grinding through the columns, promising herself a promotion next year. She saw the younger woman, Sylvie, bright and ambitious, and decided she wasn’t going to wait and be overtaken. Took her opportunity to send the senior partner to his final reckoning. Cozied up to Maurice Palmer and offered to spend Christmas in Key West with him. He was already thinking of taking on a new partner — professionally.”

“You worked all this out from what we heard?”

“Don’t kid me, Johnny. You were suspicious.”

“So how exactly did she kill Fletcher Merriman?”

“With mistletoe berries.”

Johnny was skeptical. “Peter, mistletoe is romantic, part of the magic of Christmas.”

“Like Bing in a red and white cap? I checked her bookcase. There was one on the wild plants and flowers of America. Several deaths are credited to your romantic plant, through children swallowing berries at Christmas.”

“Kids,” said Johnny. “He was no kid.”

“Adults don’t usually make the mistake of eating the berries. He was tricked into eating them. In a tired old body susceptible to heart problems, as Merriman’s was, the poison triggers stomach pains and nausea, like enteritis, and a failure of the cardiovascular system. It’s in the book, Johnny. She knew. The poisonous principles in mistletoe are something called tyramine and...”

“Go on.”

Diamond smiled and shook his head. “You said it once. It began with ‘beta.’ The stuff they found in the body.”

“How did Dee give it to him?”

“While everyone else was distracted. At the moment Sylvie — the young one — was climbing onto the desk in her short skirt, Dee was holding the mistletoe, and she stripped some berries from the branches. She waited for her next opportunity, and it came when the old man was fondling Sylvie under the mistletoe. Nobody noticed Dee lift the lid of the mince-pie old Merriman had waiting on the desk, and press the berries into the mincemeat. After he’d finished mauling Sylvie, he ate the poisoned mince-pie.”

“You don’t think Palmer had a hand in it?”

“No. He wouldn’t have told me about their trip to Key West. It was the first thing he mentioned. The perpetrator had to be one of the women.”

“And it couldn’t have been Sylvie.”

“Right. She was under close surveillance from the old man. She didn’t have the opportunity to remove the berries and add them to the pie.”

“Good result.” Johnny pulled out his desk drawer and took out a bottle of Scotch and two glasses. “Let’s drink to a white Christ-mas.”

“And not a mince-pie in sight,” said Diamond.