Murder in High Place by Emma Lathen

Author:Emma Lathen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: Simply Media
Published: 2017-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

By seven o’clock the next morning, Ben Safford knew what had happened at the Barnes house. When he reached his office, he learned one thing further: Karen Jenks was still missing.

Jolted, Safford voiced his first thought: “No, I don’t know where she is—but, my God, Rigsby, you don’t think a girl ransacked that house and clubbed Mrs. Barnes!”

“She’s a good-sized girl,” said the phone calmly, “and that kid Gallagher would do anything. We ran him down at a coffeehouse in Georgetown, but he doesn’t have much of a story for how he spent the evening. And he can’t, or he won’t, tell us where the Jenks girl is now.”

Ben exchanged a worried look with Doug Travers, who was on the extension. After promising to inform Rigsby if Karen Jenks turned up, he decided he could ask some questions. “What about everybody else? Are they in the clear?”

Rigsby was evasive. “There are some loose ends,” he replied. “It isn’t easy for most people to produce an alibi for twelve-thirty at night. Unless they’re married. And we don’t really trust wives.”

Whose wife was he thinking of, Ben wondered. Aloud, he said he was pleased to hear that there were other suspects.

“We’ve got open minds, Mr. Congressman,” the phone replied. “But it’s kind of funny—Mrs. Jenks is the only one who’s missing. And no one seems to know where she is.”

“You’re not going to put out an official call for her, are you?” asked Ben, alarmed.

The answer was not reassuring. “Not yet,” said Rigsby. “Not yet.”

After he hung up, Ben looked wordlessly at Doug Travers. Then: “Well, it could be worse,” he said. “They still think the field is wide open.”

“Yeah,” said Travers.

Ben ignored the tone. “But I wonder what Phil Barnes was keeping under wraps? There must have been a reason for that burglary.”

“Not to mention that murder,” Travers added.

There was another uncomfortable silence. Ben roused himself. “Well, whatever it is, it’s somebody else’s baby. We have to get some work done around here—that’s why we came in on a Saturday.”

Travers headed for his own office. Ben himself was going to put in four hours of dictation. That should go a long way toward clearing the decks. Ben had a strong feeling that it was now or never.

After his usual preliminary struggle with the tape recorder, he got through a long letter to Roy Hacket, one of his Newburg supporters. He outlined an evasive reply to Mrs. Dorothy Bandolier, who regularly complained about U.S. gun laws, taxes, and foreign policy. Mrs. Bandolier was a one-woman explanation for Ben’s feelings about those who urge people to write their congressmen.

After Ben had dealt with Mrs. Bandolier, he picked up letter number three and discovered the first tentacles of political conspiracy. It was from Justin F. Gebhard who was, as the letter-head proclaimed, executive vice-president of Gebhard & Gebhard. Gebhard & Gebhard, Ben knew, not only manufactured precision instruments in a large modem factory, they made substantial contributions to the Newburg Republican organization. Ben

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