Ghost on the Case (Bailey Ruth #8)(61)
Alan Douglas was intelligent, quick, thoughtful, absorbed in the world of his mind. There was nothing threatening about him except for the intensity of his light blue eyes when I asked if he thought the proprietary claim against the car would be waived.
Todd Garrett
Motive:
Anger. Wilbur exploded at Todd and ordered him to make the rounds at the civic club to say he’d spoken without authority about the SIMPLE Car. Todd took great pride in being the public face of the company. Did the prospect of humiliation in front of those he wanted to impress push him to violence?
Stress. Todd tried hard to appear competent in a demanding environment, but he knew he owed his position to his long-ago kindness to a high school outcast. His inheritance was enough that he could remake his life, hunt and fish and never have to be embarrassed again.
Todd Garrett opposed Alan Douglas’s SIMPLE Car vehemently. Did he resent a younger man with only two years at the company receiving the respect and attention of Wilbur? Or was he opposed because he felt the plan lacked merit?
Points against Todd:
He was angry and humiliated by Wilbur’s order that he walk back his criticism of the SIMPLE Car.
He hunted so he definitely knew how to handle guns, very likely owned several guns.
His job was beyond his capability.
He was quick to claim he overheard a conversation that provided a motive for Alan Douglas to kill Wilbur.
The inheritance would afford him a life without hassle or demands or insults.
Points in Todd’s favor:
He was Wilbur’s oldest friend and Wilbur had treated him handsomely.
He defended Susan Gilbert.
Harry Hubbard insisted Todd was a good old boy, a man who kept his word, protected the weak, and valued the code of the Old West. Such a man would not attack from behind.
Murder requires a hard spirit, a toughness that can be described as callousness. Murderers do not see other living creatures as special, irreplaceable, miraculous. Those who protect life and those who save lives have a reverence for the intelligence in every mind, the love in every heart, the utterly unique reality of each and every person whether a violin virtuoso in a Berlin orchestra or a seal hunter in Alaska or a new mother in the Amazon jungle. Imagining all the people in this world, each one with a beating heart and feelings of joy or anger or fear or hope, is as staggering as looking up at billions of blazing stars in the night sky. To escape the burden of that reality, many of us hunker in our shells like turtles, making the world small, manageable, narrow, focused.
A murderer doesn’t see or feel the awesomeness of life. A murderer sees an obstacle to a goal.
Ben Fitch, George Kelly, Harry Hubbard, Alan Douglas, Todd Garrett.
Which one?
? ? ?
As Mama always told us kids, “If you knock your head against the wall and all you get is a sore head, you need a new start.”
In the huge marble entrance foyer, the chandeliers were only dimly lit. A Tiffany lamp on one corner of the massive rosewood desk glowed softly. Rose Bower appeared closed for the night. I snatched up a Gazette. Perhaps if I read everything Joan Crandall had written I would find a new direction, a hint, a help.
I move from one place to another by thinking where I want to go. However, when transporting a material object, such as a newspaper, I must transport the physical item through space. I was midway up the marble stairway when I heard a clatter of steps that suddenly stopped.
I looked over the banister.
The pretty young attendant stood at the foot of the stairs. Perhaps her last task before leaving the desk unattended at night was a check of the second floor to make sure no room service tray rested on the floor outside a guest room. Rose Bower’s kitchen was always staffed and ready to respond to requests. Even from here, I could see the utter incredulity on her face.
Earlier I’d let the sheets flutter to the floor, confident she would attribute the odd occurrence to the vagaries of the heating system. That solution didn’t apply here. Even the most imaginative observer could not possibly believe the heating system buoyed a Gazette halfway up the stairs.
I had no choice. Firmly clutching the newspaper, I kept climbing though I increased my pace.
From her vantage point, the newspaper had been rising as if in someone’s hand and now it rose as if the climber moved with alacrity. I reached the landing, started up the last section of steps, frankly as fast as I could manage, reached the second floor, made a smart left, and knew I was no longer observed.
With a quick glance up and down the hall, I hurried to Will’s Room. I put the paper on the floor, moved through the door, opened the door, retrieved the newspaper. I settled in one of the expansive leather chairs—I could almost smell saddles and hay—and began to read. Six stories pertained to the investigation. I read every word. On one hand, I could take pride in the fact that I was aware of every reported fact. On the other hand, I didn’t find anything to help me choose among the five men.
If I could at this moment contact Sam Cobb and tell him who committed the murders and how to capture him, I would have done so knowing, thanks to the Gazette, that Susan was not only saved, but her life was going to be wonderful. The stories in the Gazette pictured her as a stalwart aide to the authorities whose actions were praised by the Fitch family and her detainment a matter of her protection.
At noon tomorrow that picture would be as smashed as a delicate Dresden figurine flung from the Rose Bower stairway to the marble floor below. At noon tomorrow Neva Lumpkin’s press conference would center on the arrest of Susan Mary Gilbert on two murder charges.