A Handy Death

Ross saw Mike Gunnerson’s grizzled head appear at the cabin door of his plane as it stopped in Albany to take on passengers. Ross noted his friend with pleasure. For one thing, they would be able to discuss the case on the flight to the city and thus save time; for another, Mike must have started the Quigley Agency on the job or he wouldn’t have been on the plane. Mike never left jobs half finished.

Gunnerson looked about the small cabin, located Ross, and dropped into the adjoining seat. He found his seat belt and fastened it, and then faced Ross.

“Well? Any luck tracing Old John’s money?”

“You first,” Ross said. “I gather you got the Quigley Agency working on Anne — and Grace — Melisi. Are they any good?”

“Who? The Melisi girls?”

“The agency!” Ross said with a touch of asperity.

“Oh, I didn’t bother with them for that. I’ve got them on something else,” Mike said airily. “I found Grace Melisi myself.”

Ross grinned. “You dog! Holding out on me! Where did you find her? And when do we get her to New York?”

“We don’t,” Mike said, his face now somber. “She’s dead. I found her in the cemetery.”

“Dead!”

“That’s right.”

“Since when?”

“A little over two years.”

“Natural causes?”

“Completely,” Gunnerson said with conviction. “I spoke with the doctor who signed the certificate, as well as with the coroner, although they didn’t need an autopsy. She died in the county sanitorium. Tuberculosis. She’d had it for years.”

“Damn!” Ross bit his lip and stared from the window, thinking. All the triumph he had been feeling at having discovered Quirt’s identity in the matter was wiped away by the news of Grace Melisi. Ross suddenly realized how much he had been depending on locating the woman. The plane was lifting off; he turned to Gunnerson. “Where do we go from here?”

“I’m still having the Quigley Agency check on her background. Her sister moved some time ago, and we’re looking for her. Maybe she can tell us something. If we find her. When does the trial start?”

“The day after tomorrow. You know that.”

“I guess my subconscious was trying to protect me by making me forget,” Mike said with a smile.

“Anything on a boyfriend?”

“That’s another thing the agency is checking out. I spoke with a few of her friends at the sanitorium; apparently she never married.”

“Well, pray they come up with something.”

“Right,” Mike said. The lighted seat-belt sign went off; Mike loosened his belt without removing it. “Your turn, now. What did you find out about John Emerich and his money?”

“Billy Dupaul was born out of wedlock,” Ross said quietly. “Pierre Dupaul apparently was a husband of convenience. It seems the true father sent a monthly check from the time Billy was a baby until he came of age.”

“Anyone we know?”

“Charley Quirt,” Ross said evenly.

“Quirt!”

“That’s right. It explains a few things that have been bothering me, but it complicates a lot more.” Hank raised a finger. “One, it probably explains what Marshall told Billy that night in the hotel that got him started off on that binge—”

“I can see where, to a kid like Billy Dupaul, someone telling him his folks weren’t married — and with liquor in the place — would not only get him mad but start him making a few inroads into the bottles,” Mike said. “There’s only one question.”

Ross looked at him without speaking.

“How would Marshall have known? Was it common knowledge in Glens Falls? Or Queensbury? And if it was, how come Billy never heard it?”

“It wasn’t common knowledge,” Ross said slowly. “You’ve just raised a damned good question. Obviously, somebody used Marshall. Told him the story and asked him to pass it on to Billy.”

“But even so, why would Marshall do it? I thought that up until then they were supposed to be good friends?”

“I’d guess that the operative word in that sentence is ‘supposed,’” Ross said. “My hunch is that Marshall probably hated Billy all his life. It’s pretty tough taking favors all your life.” He suddenly snapped his fingers. “And I have another hunch—”

“We have another hunch,” Gunnerson said. “If Marshall had been paid to start Billy off on that binge, then Marshall could also have been paid to hand over the gun to the payer. Right?”

“Very right,” Ross said. “And when Don Evans started nagging Marshall for information, someone got nervous. And that was the end of Marshall.” He turned around to Gunner-son. “Mike, what do you think?”

“I think it only leaves one question.”

“What’s that?”

“Who,” Mike said, and turned to look out the window across the plane.

Chapter 14

Hank Ross entered his office the following morning to find a strange girl in charge of the telephone switchboard. She was extremely young, slight, and very blue-eyed. He frowned and started to walk past the small barrier into the central offices, when she held up her hand. It was tiny with long red nails that looked as if they had been honed, but the gesture was authoritative.