The Chronicles of Owen Keane by Terence Faherty

Author:Terence Faherty [Faherty, Terence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Terence Faherty

Sergeant Edgecomb and Herman were waiting for us when we got in. They’d parked their cruiser at the parking-lot end of the pier, and we saw its flashing lights from a long way out, the last of the series of lights that had guided us home.

On land, the gale we’d sailed through seemed like nothing more than a stiff breeze. Just enough to whip the tails of Edgecomb’s plastic raincoat around his legs as he watched me walk the pier.

“What happened to you?” he asked at the end of that walk.

I ran a hand through my wet hair. “Pirates.”

“Is this on the level about you knowing who killed Sims?”

“On the level.”

I told the two policemen my story in their squad car, me in the guest suite in back.

“I suppose you can prove all that about Mrs. Corelli and Tony,” Edgecomb said when I’d finished. There was anger in his voice, much more anger than I’d heard him express over the death of Sims.

“No,” I said. “But Arthur Banfield can.” I was betting the old man still had the private detective’s report from 1953. Probably still in the original envelope.

“That stroke of hers isn’t a phony.” The sergeant dropped his voice. “I checked.”

“So she had an accomplice.” Both Edgecomb and Herman shifted in their seats to look at me. “Her hired man, Winston.”

I saw the light of admiration fade from Herman’s eyes.

Edgecomb said, “Winston was with Mrs. Corelli last night. We checked that, as well. He’s been sleeping at the hospital, outside her room. The night nurse had him in sight the whole time.”

I didn’t have an understudy for Winston in mind. Edgecomb did. “Your friend Ms. Tucci is still a good fit. She and Mrs. Corelli could be in this together. For all Ms. Tucci knew, they were avenging Tony. Mrs. Corelli was just using her.”

He said the last part to soften it, but it was still too hard for me. “I was with Marilyn in Mrs. Corelli’s hospital room. They didn’t plot anything.”

“They could have had it all worked out before Mrs. Corelli had her stroke. Before Ms. Tucci came up here.”

I thought back to the near trance Marilyn had been in on the train. It was exactly how someone contemplating the murder of a stranger would act.

Meanwhile, Edgecomb was still selling. “And there’s that pill bottle. If Sims put it in his pants pocket to point to his killer, it could only be Ms. Tucci.”

I’d forgotten that damn pill bottle, Marilyn’s link to the crime. For a spiked heartbeat or two, I interpreted that clue as Edgecomb had. I saw Marilyn as guilty. I saw my long day’s work as having tightened the noose around her neck. Then I settled down. I started with the pill bottle and asked myself to whom among Ava’s possible accomplices it might point.

“Walter Towe,” I said, pressing both hands against the screen that separated me from the policemen. “He’s a druggist, isn’t he?” One who pushed smoking cures at his son.

“A pharmacist, right,” Edgecomb said.

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