Murder Keeps A Secret Read online

  “I can’t stand in the path of justice,” Carroll replied. “But if there’s any way to keep it confidential, I’d appreciate it. And if it’s needed officially, I would expect to have it subpoenaed in an orderly way.”

  “I’m sure that will be no problem,” Frost said. “Just give me a few moments to jot down some quick notes.”

  Carroll got up and stood looking out the window until Frost had finished. “Unless there’s something more, I’m going back to Philadelphia,” he said, once Frost had put his notebook away.

  “By train?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll walk you to the station.” Reuben consulted his timetable and determined that they both could take the same PJ&B shuttle to Princeton Junction.

  Walking through the campus, Frost realized that he must make polite conversation, though his mind was hardly engaged in what he was saying.

  “How did you decide to leave your papers to Princeton?” he asked the Justice.

  “Everyone was after me. The law schools, the University of Iowa, even that Herbert Hoover outfit at Stanford. John Harlan left his papers to Princeton and was very satisfied with the treatment he got. It’s near where I live, and I like the building—I don’t think being in the same literary mausoleum as John Foster Dulles will rub off. So that’s why I decided on Princeton. So far I’ve kept them closed. They’re for future historians. Supreme Court Justices shouldn’t kiss and tell.”

  Frost silently gave thanks that Dine Carroll had let his virtue slip ever so slightly that day. At Princeton Junction, he thanked the Justice abundantly.

  “I’m glad to be of assistance, Mr. Frost,” Carroll said. “Just keep me out of the tabloids.”

  “I’ll do my best, Mr. Justice,” Frost replied.

  Then he headed for the tunnel to the New York train while Carroll went straight ahead to the Philadelphia side.

  24

  Computing

  “I hope you had good luck today,” Cynthia said to her husband when he arrived home. “Peter Jewett is off the suspect list.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Cynthia recounted a call received earlier from Bautista, though it was all she could do to keep from laughing as she did so. As the detective had told her the tale, Jewett’s car had been found at a motel in the Berkshires early that morning. Jewett had apparently spent the night there with a young woman who was about to graduate from Amherst.

  The professor had again flared up in anger when the state police questioned him. But the girl panicked and confessed all. Jewett had been her thesis adviser and she had become infatuated with him. Two weeks earlier—on the night when David Rowan was murdered—she had contrived to deliver her completed thesis to him at his apartment. One thing led to another and she had spent the night. And several other nights after that, ending with the Thursday evening of what was to have been a long, romantic weekend when the police found him.

  “Crotchety old bachelor, indeed,” Reuben observed. “Some misogynist.”

  The tale of Jewett’s tryst was interesting, and certainly amusing, but Reuben did not take time to savor it. He was more eager to tell his wife of his own discoveries of the day.

  They didn’t even pause for their customary drink, but discussed the murders until well into the evening. They had no doubt that the killings were linked to the memorandum Reuben had read that afternoon in the Princeton Library. But the logical implication, that Wheeler Edmunds had committed the murders, did not hold up. How could Edmunds, a highly visible candidate for the Presidency, recognizable to almost everyone, evade his Secret Service escorts and the press corps and disappear long enough to kill two men? It was not possible. Yet the memorandum pointed to a powerful motive—Edmunds’s almost certain desire, as a Presidential candidate, to keep secret his conservative writings for Justice Ainslee. And, for what it might be worth, he had the same blood type as David’s murderer.

  “Can you imagine what would happen to Edmunds’s campaign if that memo came out?” Cynthia asked her husband. “The way you describe it, you don’t have to be a militant feminist to find it shocking. Or a homosexual.”

  “I suppose he could say it was the callowness of youth,” Reuben said.

  “Except that he was an adult when he wrote it. It makes his liberalism look terribly phony. The hypocrisy of it!”

  “We just have to think this through, my dear. But right now I’m going to bed. Wake me up if you get any good inspirations, will you?” Frost kissed his wife good night and went off to the bedroom.

  But he spent the night worrying the problem, tossing and turning so vigorously that Cynthia finally left him to sleep in the guest room. He was still tired in the morning.

  “I’ve got the jitters and not a single new idea,” he told his wife Saturday morning. “What can I do?”

  “You haven’t seen the Fragonard show at the Metropolitan. It’s delightful, and it’s closing soon. Go over there and calm yourself.”

  Frost took her advice. Yet all the alluring colors, fantasies and mild eroticism of the Fragonards did not calm him; his thoughts remained obsessively on Wheeler Edmunds.

  Perhaps lunch would help, he concluded. He found his way to the patrons’ dining room, a pleasant and quiet haven away from the Museum’s Saturday crowds. As he ate his lunch and drank a glass of wine, Reuben pulled out the tiny notebook he always carried and began making notes. Methodically he wrote down, in no particular order, all the clues, unanswered questions and inferences that might still have relevance after the elimination of Fortes, Knowles and the philandering Jewett from suspicion.

  If I put these together right they will tell a story, he told himself. He ordered a second glass of wine, hoping it would stimulate his imagination to organize the miscellany into a coherent whole. He focused on Marietta Ainslee’s and Ralston Fortes’s concern with Garrett Ainslee’s sex-coded engagement calendars; was there any significance to this disappearance now that Fortes was no longer a suspect? Thinking about the missing case files, he tried to imagine who, apart from Wheeler Edmunds, might have been interested in their contents.

  Then, sipping his wine, he tried to free-associate on the name Elizabeth, the enigmatic clue furnished by the dying Jenkins. He attempted to recall every Elizabeth he had ever known, or ever heard of. Suddenly, he had an inspiration. He was so shocked by his own insight, bizarre as it was, that he overturned his wine glass. A waiter came running and offered to replace it. But Frost stood up quickly, both to avoid the small stream of wine flowing off the table and to get the check. He had the answer, he knew it, but he had to go off quietly to reflect on whether the pieces now fitted together. And what pieces were still missing.

  Frost hurried out of the Museum and walked to the nearest entrance to Central Park. Alone and unbothered, he sat on a bench in the early-spring sunshine and tried to complete the story to which he was sure he had found the conclusion. Nothing that was already known, and on his list, contradicted his theory.

  But there were pieces missing. He wrote down what he still needed to know and devised a battle plan. His internal computer, with its manifold connections, had to be turned on. Within half an hour he knew exactly what he had to do and hurried home, eager to start what would become a marathon of telephoning.

  He was glad that Cynthia was not home. His instincts made him confident that he had solved the puzzle, but there was no harm in buttressing his hypothesis further before trying it out on her. He did, however, call Bautista and tell him his new thoughts. The detective was not dismissive, but he did not display unbounded enthusiasm either.

  “Do you think I’m crazy, Luis?” he asked.

  “No, not at all. Maybe you’ve got it. Right now, though, I’d say you had a plausible case—but no probable cause to collar your suspect.”

  “You sound like your friend ADA Munson. Let’s put it this way. Are you willing to help me or not?”

  “Of course I am. Any port in a storm. What do you want me to do?”

  “Can yo
u get to the Secret Service?”

  “I suppose so. They’re not the most cooperative bunch of guys, but I’ll try.”

  “Good. I’ve got some questions for them. Listen carefully.” Frost set out his queries and for good measure repeated them a second time.

  “I’ll get on it right away,” Bautista said. “Where will you be?”

  “Right here at home. By the telephone—or more likely, on it.”

  Frost began implementing his battle plan by trying to locate Harrison Rowan and Emily Sherwood. He was going to set up a conference call through the operator with both of them on the line, but was spared the necessity when he learned that Emily was spending the weekend with Harrison in Fairfax. At a less stressful time, he would have speculated pleasurably on the significance of this circumstance, but now he scarcely gave it a thought. They got on separate extensions so that he could question them jointly about what exactly had happened at the party following the Reuff Dinner—a party Frost now deeply regretted not having gone to. He quizzed them thoroughly, rephrasing his questions in slightly different ways to make sure he fully understood their recollection of events.

  “Are we getting close to something, Reuben?” Rowan asked.

  “I hope to God we are. All I can ask is that you remain patient just a while longer,” Frost replied. He hung up the phone with satisfaction. Harrison and Emily had confirmed his educated guesses. So did Grace Mann, an hour later, when Frost quizzed her as to precisely what she knew about the possibility that David Rowan might become a speechwriter for Wheeler Edmunds.

  Bautista called back as Frost was pondering his next move. The detective had crisp answers to the questions Frost had posed, including the whereabouts of Wheeler Edmunds when David Rowan and Horace Jenkins had been killed.

  “The night Rowan was murdered, Edmunds was finishing up two days of appearances in the city, including that dinner you went to on the twenty-eighth,” Bautista said. “On the twenty-ninth, he had a small dinner at Gracie Mansion with the Mayor and went to LaGuardia immediately afterward to fly to Chicago. The night Jenkins was killed he had a fundraising party at the apartment of Monroe Parkhurst, over on Central Park West. He’s an architect, I understand. Then he and his party went up to Elaine’s for dinner.”

  Frost’s luck was holding. Monroe Parkhurst was an old friend and fellow member of the Gotham Club. But before calling him, Frost roused the duty officer at City Hall to find out where he could reach Kelley Milke, the Mayor’s principal assistant. Tracking her down in the Hamptons—after persuading the young child on the other end of the line to please go and get her mother—he learned what he wanted to know about the Mayor’s dinner. Then he called Parkhurst and reached his wife, Veronica. Parkhurst was out and not expected back until early evening, so he posed his question to Veronica.

  “This is a very strange request, but do you still have the guest list for the party you gave for Wheeler Edmunds last week?”

  “I think so,” she said. “The doorman downstairs had one to check people in. I’m sure I’ve still got it, but just let me look.” She went off the line and Frost drummed his desk nervously as he waited. “Reuben? Yes I do have it. Why?”

  “I’ll explain when I see you. Can I come over and get it right now?”

  “Why, of course, but …”

  Frost cut her off without further elaboration. Almost in seconds he was on the street hailing a cab to the West Side.

  On the way across town, Frost tried to devise a plausible story for his odd request to Veronica Parkhurst. Could he say that he and Cynthia were thinking of giving a party for Edmunds? No, that wouldn’t wash. The Parkhursts’ guests had presumably each given the $1,000 statutory limit, so it would make no sense to invite them to a new fundraiser. Nor was the timing right, planning a party when the crucial New York primary was all but over. Truth will out, he finally told himself. He would simply have to tell the woman her list might help in solving David Rowan’s murder. She would be mightily puzzled, but that was the best he could think of.

  Veronica Parkhurst was indeed perplexed, but handed over her party list without objection after hearing Reuben’s sketchy explanation of why he wanted it.

  “I also have one other question, Veronica,” Frost said, posing a query he would repeat perhaps twenty-five times in the next few hours.

  “Thank you,” Frost said simply, and noncommittally, when she had given her answer. “If Munroe has a different recollection when he gets back, have him call me at home, would you? And give him my best.”

  Frost examined the list as he rode back home. It was perfect, from his point of view, the doorman’s meticulous checks indicating precisely who had been at the party. And he was gratified to see that he knew, at least vaguely, almost half the names on the list. That would be enough to conduct the telephone poll he had in mind.

  Back in his library, Frost looked over Veronica Parkhurst’s guest list once again. Then, with the Manhattan telephone book and the Rolodex in front of him, he set to work and began calling the party guests he knew. Since it was a beautiful April Saturday, many of them were in the country. Nonetheless, by the end of the afternoon, through successful calls on the first try, referrals from maids and children to other numbers in the country, and callbacks from messages left with answering machines, he had asked a single question of two dozen of the Parkhursts’ guests. To his satisfaction the answers were uniformly negative and to his relief none of those he talked to really pressed him as to why he was calling.

  Reuben jubilantly reported the results to Cynthia when she returned from an afternoon of shopping. She was skeptical of her husband’s theory as he described it; on the other hand, the pieces did seem to be falling into place and, like Bautista, she did not discourage Reuben from pressing ahead.

  “There’s one question I have for you, my dear, about the Reuff Dinner,” he said finally. He posed it, and his wife, after careful thought, gave him the answer he had hoped to hear.

  “Perfect,” he said. “Now all I have to do is arrange a meeting with the candidate.” After some delay, he got hold of Bautista again.

  “Can you find out from your Secret Service friends where Edmunds will be tomorrow or Monday?” he asked. “And who I should talk to about making an appointment to see him?”

  Bautista, now sounding more enthusiastic about Reuben’s theory, said he would try to find out.

  Soon—though not soon enough for the now impatient Frost—Bautista had a report. Edmunds was in San Francisco. He was scheduled to fly East overnight, but was landing in Buffalo in preparation for another round of last-minute upstate appearances before the New York primary on Tuesday. He would be coming into LaGuardia late Monday afternoon for an intensive round of appearances and TV interviews that evening.

  “Who should I talk to?” Frost asked.

  “Her name is Jean Kirby,” Bautista said. “They’re all at the Biltmore in downtown L.A.”

  By now Frost was weary of making calls on the rotary-dial telephone—one of the last in New York City—in his library. Maybe he and Cynthia really should get push-button instruments, he thought, though he knew that the telephone company would try to sell him phones like the infernal new contraptions at Chase & Ward he so much despised. After a preliminary call to Los Angeles information, he got the Biltmore, but could not locate Ms. Kirby. He left a message, with instructions that it was “urgent” (though he suspected that all messages to the scheduler for a major political candidate were “urgent”), and hoped for a call back.

  While he waited, he fixed a drink for himself and for Cynthia and, once again, explained to her what he believed he had figured out.

  Ms. Kirby called back while he and Cynthia were talking.

  “Ms. Kirby, I must introduce myself. My name is Reuben Frost. I’m a lawyer in New York City and it is imperative that I see Senator Edmunds when he gets here on Monday.”

  “I don’t see how that will be possible, Mr. Frost,” the woman replied. “As you can appreciate, Mon
day is the last day before the primary election and the Senator’s schedule is completely booked.”

  “I understand. And you have no reason to think that I am anything other than a crank. But I beg you to give the Senator a message: tell him that it is absolutely imperative that I see him privately about a highly sensitive matter—namely, the murder two weeks ago of the historian David Rowan. Tell him that it is absolutely in his best interest to see me. It won’t take long—I won’t need more than fifteen minutes. If you care about your candidate’s future, you will give him my message.”

  Ms. Kirby sounded understandably dubious, but said she would convey the message. She took down Frost’s number and rang off.

  Within the hour, Wheeler Edmunds himself was on the line.

  “Mr. Frost, I don’t believe I know you,” he said.

  “We have met, Senator, but there’s no reason you should remember me. We met at Lowell Oatsman’s last week, where I asked you if David Rowan was about to become one of your speechwriters.”

  “Oh, yes, I think I do remember,” the Senator replied—not without conveying that perhaps Reuben was some demented ancient mariner, dogging his path.

  “Mr. Rowan was murdered here two weeks ago. I’ve been working very closely with the New York police in trying to solve the crime. As circumstances have developed, there are certain matters that I feel I must take up with you.”

  “I barely knew the man,” the Senator protested. “I’d never met him before Elliott Reuff’s dinner.”

  “I’m aware of that, Senator.”

  After a considerable silence, Edmunds asked if he understood correctly that the police were involved.

  Reuben saw his opening. “That is a correct statement, Senator. However, I am not a policeman and have no official connection with the Police Department. My desire is to see you as a private citizen, without any participation of the police.” He was about to add, “at this point,” but stopped himself in time.

  Frost heard muffled talking in the background; he guessed that Edmunds had his hand over the receiver.