Stuff Driscoll 02 Anatomy of a Crime by Rufus King

Author:Rufus King [King, Rufus]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery;classic;detective;crime;murder
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2018-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Stuff Driscoll left Oscar Fortisman and the protégé studio in a very thoughtful frame of mind. As he walked toward the main house along a twisting pathway fringed with tall hibiscus, he was more deeply concerned than ever with the possibility that murder had been done—deviously, cleverly done.

And if he was right, there was every probability that the murderer would get away with it.

There was the rub.

Even if he was right, he needed proof.

Clear-cut evidence that would convince Jerry Atterbury, the County Prosecutor, that a Grand Jury would hand down an indictment. Clear-cut in the face of Bill Ainsworth’s official insistence as Medical Examiner that any verdict other than suicide was simply reaching for the moon. The thought caused Stuff to smile. The venerable cliché no longer held water: the moon had been reached if only, to date, with a couple of cruel smacks against its inoffensive and romantic face.

He reviewed his so-far slender handful of pointers. It was indicative enough for him. For Atterbury, no. For Ainsworth, no. For a Grand Jury, decisively no. It needed weight—tangible flesh on its skeleton bones.

Would the killer have to be driven from his overconfident sense of success and security into some overt, self-incriminating act? Was it along those lines that the case must develop? A psychological sniping with verbal bullets, each one depositing its festering virus of doubt, exposure, finally of panic? And then—?

A trap.

That was the answer—a trap.

The pathway, private within its sheltering hibiscus hedges, skirted the northern border of Edmund’s patio before forking toward the highway in one direction and toward an entrance to Edmund’s wing of the chateau in the other. Stuff paused at the fork and looked through interstices in the shrubbery, out across the patio, and focused on the French doors through which the extortion note had been tossed.

If, Stuff thought, a chance passerby—no, a passer with a purpose—

He filed the thought, and pushing through the hedge, crossed the patio and went into Edmund’s suite. Edmund’s body was gone to Memorial where Ainsworth would handle the post mortem. The technicians were finished, their gadgets packed to go. Stuff had a word with a lab man regarding certain exhibits that were specified for analysis. Perhaps the oddest among these objects designated was a crumpled ball of facial tissue.

Stuff then issued a blanket dismissal, with the exception of one patrolman to stand guard in a roving assignment against curiosity seekers and the Press.

Then, alone, he went to a desk telephone and put through a call to his Fort Lauderdale home.

“Vi?”

“Yes, Stuff?”

“I’m at the Helbersk. I’m afraid the luncheon date with Hal and Jenny is out. Explain for me, will you?”

“Of course.” Vi had been breakfasting with Stuff when the call had come through linking suicide and blackmail with Edmund, and ordering Stuff to take over. She had been incredulous. She remained so. “Dear, is it true? The suicide angle, I mean. It’s so abysmally out of character for Edmund.”

Stuff said noncommittally, “Bill Ainsworth insists there’s no doubt about it. He called it a classical case.

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