The Death Dealer

Page 42

Genevieve stared at Nikki. “I—I can’t do this.” She gulped for air. “I just can’t….”
“Just breathe and you’ll be fine. And then I want you to come with me. I’ve found William Morton’s grave. It’s just over there, and I was thinking you might be able to sense something, because you have a connection to this case that I don’t.”
“Do you see these people all the time?” Genevieve asked, finally able to speak coherently again.
“Not all the time, but often enough. You really do get used to it,” Nikki told her. “I swear to you, Genevieve. You’ll be all right. You haven’t passed out, and that’s a good sign.”
Why pass out when she was certifiably crazy? Gen thought.
Then she straightened her shoulders. It was still daylight. The cemetery wasn’t shrouded in mist. In fact, it was beautiful, filled with monuments to the dead, to the persistence of love beyond the grave. She took a deep breath. “Show me the grave,” she said to Nikki.
CHAPTER 17
At first the police weren’t as cooperative as Joe had hoped for, but then Brent asked to see Detective Ryan Wilkins, and after several minutes the detective came out and greeted Brent warmly, suggesting they go around the corner to a coffee shop to talk.
The day was warm, so they sat at an outside table, and Wilkins produced a file. “I copied everything we have for you. Told the chief about your research down here maybe helping put an end to our cold case, and he was obliging.”
“Thanks. This is terrific,” Joe said, opening the file.
A lot of the information was dry. He started with the medical examiner’s report, and the cause of death was simple: strangulation by a right-handed killer.
“We had no clues. Nothing to go on. To begin with, the Mortons were very neat and orderly people. There was no dust on the basement floor, so…no footprints.”
“The house hadn’t been broken into?” Joe asked.
Wilkins, a handsome black man of about forty, shook his head. “No. No sign of forced entry in any way. The house is out in the country. No close neighbors. Mrs. Morton was at a meeting of her garden club when it happened.”
“She discovered the body?” Brent asked.
Wilkins nodded. “Yes. She went down to the basement looking for him and found him in the wine cellar. She tried to revive him, so he’d been moved when the paramedics, and then my partner at that time, Sharon Autry, and I arrived. We’re pretty sure it was done by a friend of the family or someone smart enough to wear gloves, because we didn’t find any fingerprints that didn’t belong there. We talked to every single family friend, and everyone had an airtight alibi for when the murder occurred. We just ran out of clues and leads. Mrs. Morton still calls, and I tell her that I’ll never really close the case while I’m alive, but…” He lifted his hand. “Crime goes on.”
“What about any local Poe enthusiasts?” Joe asked. “There must be some kind of Poe society here, with this being where Poe grew up.”
“You bet. And yes, we covered that angle, too. All our ‘Poe people’ were thoroughly checked out,” Wilkins told them. “Thoroughly,” he repeated for emphasis.
“How about a Poe researcher who was visiting from somewhere else?”
“I can make some calls for you today, find out if any of those folks remember anyone else being in town. But, you know, anyone’s free to come here to research Poe without having to check in anywhere,” Wilkins pointed out.
“We appreciate you seeing what you can find out. We’re afraid we may have a serial killer on our hands who started off slowly but is building up speed,” Joe said.
“Will do,” Wilkins promised, then looked at Brent. “So you’re off to see Nancy Morton, I hear.”
“Yes, how did you know?” Brent asked him.
“She called me,” Wilkins said. “She wanted me to know you were coming, in case maybe you can find an answer to things I couldn’t.”
“You okay with that?” Brent asked.
“Absolutely,” Wilkins said easily. “I don’t give a damn how things are solved, as long as the bad guys are stopped. Well, you know, so long as no one has to do anything too illegal.”
Joe was certain that that too had been thrown in not just as a figure of speech, but with purpose.
A little while later, they all shook hands, and Wilkins headed back to the station. Back in the car, Brent directed while Joe drove, and in a little while they were on the outskirts of the city, where the houses became estates, and where neighbors could go months without seeing one another.
At last they drove up a long driveway to a porticoed house. It was new, but had the look of an old southern mansion. A maid in a cheery, flowered apron answered the door and led them in. Nancy Morton was waiting for them in the parlor, tea service at the ready on a silver tray. She was a slim woman of at least sixty. She looked younger, but had the slightly pinched look that came from plastic surgery, though it had been done well. Her hair was tinted an ash blond and was elegantly coifed.
She greeted Brent with a wide smile and rose up on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek. Then she offered a hand to Joe.
“I’m Joe Connolly, Mrs. Morton,” he said.
“Nancy, please,” she said. “Why don’t you two sit down? I’ll tell you everything I can, but I’m afraid it’s not much.”
They accepted tea, despite the fact that they’d just had coffee. It seemed to be important to Nancy Morton that she provide them with something.
“This is a beautiful house,” Joe commented, taking his cup.
“Thank you. William designed it,” Nancy said, and sighed. “We never had children. We didn’t plan it that way, but we…we just never had them. But we were very lucky. We had a good marriage, got along well, enjoyed the same things. Gardens, literature, music.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Joe said quietly.
She smiled and absently touched the pearl necklace she wore. “Thank you. He was a good man.” She smiled wistfully. “Detective Wilkins is very sweet. I know he thinks I should move, but…this is my home. I still feel close to William here.”
“We’re sorry to dredge all this up again, Nancy,” Brent said.
“Don’t be. I don’t mind. Especially if anything I say can help.”
“Why don’t you just tell us about that day? If it won’t be too painful,” Joe said.
She looked off into the distance, as if she could see into the past that way. “I had gone out around ten. I had a meeting of the garden club. We were planting flowers in one of the local parks. I had dirt all over me when I came home. I had to explain that to Detective Wilkins, because at first the detectives thought that was suspicious. It was Sophia’s day off, so William had been alone. I got home around one and left the car in the driveway, right where yours is now, because I thought I’d hop into the shower, and then William and I could go to a late lunch. We’d talked about that over breakfast. But when I came in and called him, he didn’t answer. He kept his office down in the basement, with all his books and his computer. And of course, the wine cellar is down there. We don’t have a fancy refrigeration system, just the old brick walls and wooden racks. I assumed he had to be downstairs, so I went down, but he wasn’t at his desk. I walked into the wine cellar and…and there he was.” Tears dampened her eyes. “I tried mouth-to-mouth, but it didn’t do any good. Then I called 9-1-1, and the paramedics came, and the police. I couldn’t help thinking that if I had just gotten home sooner, I might have been able to save him, but the police said that he’d been…strangled, and that he was already dead when the murderer left him there. But I’ll still always wonder….”
“And nothing was taken?” Joe asked.
“Nothing I was aware of. Nothing valuable, certainly.”
“Your husband had all kinds of files on Poe, didn’t he?” Joe asked.
She stared at him, clear-eyed and frowning. “Files on Poe? Of course. He wrote a book. It was fiction, of course, but his research was impeccable.”
“Were any of his notes missing?” Joe asked.
She was briefly silent. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know. His desk appeared to be in order.”
“Nancy, do you mind if we go downstairs and look around?” Brent asked.
“Of course not.”
She led the way down a carpeted staircase. The basement was as she had described. There was a huge, polished desk with a computer in the center of the room. There were bookshelves lining two walls and a filing cabinet against a third wall.
The fourth wall was brick and held the door to the wine cellar.
They didn’t need to ask her. She walked straight through the door and they followed. It wasn’t a huge wine cellar, but it went beyond modest.
“He was lying over there,” she said softly. “Right by his favorite merlot.”
The floor was as dust-free as Wilkins had described it. Nancy obviously liked a clean house.
“Do you mind if I look through the filing cabinet?” Joe asked.
“Not at all,” Nancy told him.
There were many files on many authors. William Morton had kept newspaper clippings and magazine articles, along with his own notes. There was, as expected, a folder dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe, containing a few articles and some pictures that had been taken at various sites. But it was curiously…small.
A man who had written a book on Poe should have had far more information, Joe thought. Admittedly, this was the age of the online investigation, but still, when compared with all the information William had stored away regarding Thoreau, Emerson and others, his file on Poe seemed suspiciously slim.
“Did you ever help your husband with his research, or with his filing?” Joe asked.
Nancy played with her pearls again. “Good heavens, no. I wouldn’t have dared interfere.” Nancy led them back upstairs then, and paused by the fireplace to pick up a framed photo of a clean-shaven man with graying hair and a pleasant, dimpled face.