Smart House by Kate Wilhelm

Author:Kate Wilhelm [Wilhelm, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9780843930436
Publisher: Leisure
Published: 1989-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

The next morning the fog swirled outside the window wall, was lifted by the offshore breeze, dissipated, then formed again. Charlie watched it broodingly as he and Constance waited for their breakfast.

“Problems?” Constance asked.

He nodded. “Time problems. Not enough at the right time. Look, let’s place people and set them in time as if they were cherries being plopped in whipped cream. First, we know Rich was alive at ten-forty-five, and we can assume he was alive at eleven when Maddie used the elevator. And Gary was alive at eleven-ten or eleven-fifteen. But by then everyone’s pretty much accounted for. We have to make another assumption, that Rich died first, simply because the others were all together from eleven-fifteen on. See what I mean by not enough time at the right time?”

Constance raised her eyebrows questioningly, but he was gazing at the restless fog. “Around eleven,” he said unhappily, “Harry hears Bruce and Maddie fighting in the kitchen, and the elevator is clear. Rich must be alive somewhere. Harry goes to chat with Alexander. Milton and Laura take off for the roof.

Maddie and Beth watch the movie until Beth goes to her room. Bruce is alone, wandering about. Then at ten after eleven, Milton and Laura rejoin others either in the television room, or the library. Beth and Jake come downstairs together. Bruce is with others in the TV room when they all hear Gary laugh, and smell popcorn. Meanwhile Harry has gone upstairs. So he’s free now, but he wasn’t free earlier. So it seems that almost anyone could have found time to get Rich, but not Gary. He’s a problem.”

She said in a low voice, “Alexander was alone from the time Harry left him until after the body was found in the elevator.”

“Yeah,” he said gloomily. “And he’s probably the only one who really needed to keep Gary and Rich, and the project, alive and well and funded.”

“And,” Constance added thoughtfully, “we really only have Harry’s word for it that he looked in on the people watching the movie before he went upstairs after talking with Alexander. It’s possible that he was free from then on, too.”

“Milton saw him,” Charlie said. He sounded disgusted. “He didn’t mention it, but it’s in his notes of his own movements. Harry looked in seconds after Milton got down from the roof rendezvous. It’s not the sort of thing he would be likely to want to talk about, I guess, but he did make a note of it.”

“But that still left him time…”

Charlie was shaking his head. “There’s the problem of Rich, though. And damn, I don’t want to think about two killers, a conspiracy—” He stopped when Mrs. Ramos entered with the breakfast tray.

While she was placing soft-boiled eggs before Constance, and then pancakes and eggs for him, he asked, “When Gary made popcorn at night, what did he use? An automatic gadget, a pan, what?”

She raised her eyebrows a fraction of an inch; her idea of a surprised expression, he assumed.

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