Moonlight Becomes You (21 page)

She started to close the door again. “Barbara,” he said, his voice pleading, “just give me a little more time. Don't leave me now.”

Her only answer was to close the door with a firm click.

*   *   *

Brower arrived promptly at eleven. He sat bolt upright in the armchair opposite Norton's desk and got right to the point.

“Mr. Norton, you were due at Nuala Moore's home at eight o'clock the night of the murder?”

“Yes, my wife and I arrived at perhaps ten after eight. From what I understand, you had just arrived on the scene. As you know, we were instructed to wait in the home of Nuala's neighbors, the Woodses.”

“What time did you leave your office that evening?” Brower asked.

Norton's eyebrows raised. He thought for a moment. “At the usual time . . . no, actually a bit later. About quarter of six. I had a closing outside the office and brought the file back here and checked on messages.”

“Did you go directly home from here?”

“Not quite. Barbara . . . Mrs. Hoffman, my secretary, had been out that day with a cold. The day before, she had taken home a file I needed to study over the weekend, so I stopped at her house to pick it up.”

“How long did that take?”

Norton thought for a moment. “She lives in Middletown. There was tourist traffic, so I'd say about twenty minutes each way.”

“So you were home around six-thirty.”

“Actually, it was probably a bit after that. Closer to seven, I should think.”

In fact, he had gotten home at seven-fifteen. He remembered the time distinctly. Silently, Malcolm cursed himself. Janice had told him that his face could have been read like an open book when Irma Woods had delivered the news about Nuala's will. “You looked as if you wanted to kill someone,” she had said, a smirk on her face. “You can't even plan to cheat someone without something going wrong.”

So this morning he quickly had prepared answers to questions that he anticipated Brower would ask about his reaction to the canceled sale. He would not let his emotions show again. And he was glad he had thought the situation through thoroughly, because, in fact, the officer asked a number of questions, probing for details of the proposed sale.

“Must have been a bit of a letdown,” Brower mused, “but on the other hand, every realtor in town has a house like Nuala Moore's, just begging to be bought.”

Meaning, why did I want this one? Norton thought.

“Sometimes people can really want a house just because it grabs them. It says ‘Buy me, I'm yours,' ” the chief continued.

Norton waited.

“You and Mrs. Norton must have really fallen in love with it,” Brower conjectured. “Word is, you mortgaged your own house to pay for it.”

Now Brower was leaning back, his eyes half closed, his fingers locked together.

“Anybody who wants a house that badly would hate to know that a relative of sorts was about to arrive on the scene
and maybe mess things up. Only one way to prevent that. Stop the relative, or at least find a way to keep the relative from influencing the owner of the house.”

Brower stood up. “It's been a pleasure talking to you, Mr. Norton,” he said. “Now, before I go, do you mind if I have a word with your secretary, Mrs. Hoffman?”

*   *   *

Barbara Hoffman did not enjoy dissembling. She had stayed home last Friday, pleading a cold, but actually what she had wanted was a quiet day to think things through. To placate her conscience, she had brought home a stack of files from the office, which she intended to clean up; she wanted them to be in good order if she decided to tell Malcolm she was leaving.

Oddly enough, he had inadvertently helped her to make her decision. He almost never came to her house, but then unexpectedly he had dropped by on Friday evening to see how she was feeling. He, of course, did not realize that her neighbor Dora Holt had stopped in. When Barbara had opened the door, he had bent to kiss her, then at her negative look, had stepped back.

“Oh, Mr. Norton,” she had said quickly, “I have that file on the Moore closing that you wanted to pick up.”

She had introduced him to Dora Holt and then made a show of going through the files and picking out one to hand him. But she hadn't missed the knowing smirk and the lively curiosity in the eyes of the other woman. And that was the moment when she knew the situation was intolerable.

Now, as she sat facing Chief Brower, Barbara Hoffman felt sneaky and very uncomfortable telling him the lame story about why her employer had come to her home.

“Then Mr. Norton only stayed a moment?”

She relaxed a bit; at least here she could be entirely truthful. “Yes, he took the file and left immediately.”

“What file was it, Mrs. Hoffman?”

Another lie she had to tell. “I . . . I'm . . . actually, it was the file on the Moore closing.” She cringed inwardly at the stammered apology in her voice.

“Just one more thing. What time did Mr. Norton get to your house?”

“A little after six, I believe,” she replied honestly.

Brower got up and nodded at the intercom on her desk. “Would you tell Mr. Norton that I'd like another moment with him, please.”

*   *   *

When Chief Brower returned to the lawyer's office, he didn't waste words. “Mr. Norton, I understand the file you picked up from Mrs. Hoffman last Friday evening was one concerning Mrs. Moore's closing. When exactly was the closing scheduled?”

“On Monday morning, at eleven,” Norton told him. “I wanted to be sure everything was in order.”

“You were the purchaser, but Mrs. Moore didn't have a separate lawyer representing her? Isn't that rather unusual?”

“Not really. But actually it was her idea. Nuala felt it was absolutely unnecessary to involve another attorney. I was paying a fair price and was handing the money over to her in the form of a certified check. She also had the right to stay there until the first of the year if she desired.”

Chief Brower stared silently at Malcolm Norton for a few moments. Finally he stood to leave. “Just one more thing, Mr. Norton,” he said. “The drive from Mrs. Hoffman's house to your home shouldn't have taken more than twenty minutes. That would have gotten you home by a few minutes
past six-thirty. Yet you say it was nearly seven. Did you go anywhere else?”

“No. Perhaps I was mistaken about the time I arrived home.”

Why is he asking all these questions?
Norton wondered.
What does he suspect?

43

W
HEN
N
EIL
S
TEPHENS GOT BACK TO
P
ORTSMOUTH
,
HIS
mother knew immediately from the look on his face that he had not been successful in locating the young woman from New York.

“You only had a piece of toast earlier,” she reminded him. “Let me fix you breakfast. After all,” she added, “I don't get much chance to fuss over you anymore.”

Neil sank into a chair at the kitchen table. “I should think fussing over Dad is a full-time job.”

“It is. But I like it.”

“Where
is
Dad?”

“In his office. Cora Gebhart, the lady whose table we stopped at last night, called and asked if she could come over and talk to him.”

“I see,” Neil said distractedly, jiggling the cutlery his mother had set in front of him.

Dolores stopped her preparations and turned and looked at him. “When you start fiddling like that, it means you're worried,” she said.

“I am. If I had called Maggie as I intended last Friday, I
would have had her phone number, I would have called, and I would have found out what happened. And I would have been here to help her.” He paused. “Mom, you just don't know how
hungry
she was to spend this time with her stepmother. You'd never guess if you met her, but Maggie's had a pretty bad time of it.”

Over waffles and bacon, he told her all he knew about Maggie. What he didn't tell her was how angry he was at himself for not knowing more.

“She really does sound lovely,” Dolores Stephens said. “I'm anxious to meet her. But listen, you've got to stop driving yourself crazy. She is staying in Newport, and you've left her a note, and you have the phone number. You'll
surely
reach her or hear from her today. So just relax.”

“I know. It's just that I have this rotten feeling that there have been times when she needed me and I wasn't there for her.”

“Afraid of getting involved, right?”

Neil put his fork down. “That's not fair.”

“Isn't it? You know, Neil, a lot of the smart, successful young men of your generation who didn't marry in their twenties decided they could play the field indefinitely. And some of them will—they really
don't
want to get involved. But some of them also never seem to know when to
grow up.
I just wonder if this concern on your part doesn't reflect a sudden realization that you care a lot about Maggie Holloway, something you wouldn't admit to yourself earlier because you didn't want to get involved.”

Neil stared at his mother for a long moment. “And I thought Dad was tough.”

Dolores Stephens folded her arms and smiled. “My grandmother had a saying: ‘The husband is the head of the
family; the wife is the neck.' ” She paused. “ ‘And the neck turns the head.' ”

Seeing Neil's startled expression, she laughed. “Trust me, I don't agree with that particular piece of down-home wisdom. I think of a husband and wife as equals, not game players. But sometimes, as in our case, what
seems
to be is not necessarily what
is.
Your father's fussing and complaining is his way of showing concern. I've known that since our first date.”

“Speak of the devil,” Neil said, as, through the window, he spotted his father walking down the path from his office.

His mother glanced out. “Uh-oh, he's bringing Cora in. She looks upset.”

In a very few minutes after his father and Cora Gebhart joined them at the kitchen table, Neil understood why she was upset. On Wednesday she had sold her bonds through the broker who had been so persistent in trying to get her to invest in a venture stock he had recommended, and she had given the transaction a go-ahead.

“I couldn't sleep last night,” she said. “I mean, after what Robert said at the club about not wanting another one of his ladies to lose her shirt . . . I had the awful feeling he was talking about me, and I sensed suddenly that I'd made a terrible mistake.”

“Did you call this broker and cancel the buy?” Neil asked.

“Yes. That may be the one intelligent thing I did. Or
tried
to do—he said it was too late.” Her voice trailed off and her lip trembled. “And he hasn't been in his office since then.”

“What
is
this stock?” Neil asked.

“I've got the information,” his father said.

Neil read the prospectus and the fact sheet. It was even worse than he expected. He phoned his office and directed
Trish to put him through to one of the senior traders. “Yesterday you bought fifty thousand shares at nine,” he told Mrs. Gebhart. “We'll find out what's happening to it today.”

Tersely he appraised his trading associate of the situation. Then he turned again to Mrs. Gebhart. “It's at seven now. I'm putting in a sell order.”

She nodded her assent.

Neil stayed on the line. “Keep me posted,” he ordered. When he hung up, he said, “There was a rumor a few days ago that the company whose stock you purchased was being bought by Johnson & Johnson. But unfortunately, I'm positive it's just that—a rumor intended to inflate the value of the stock artificially. I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Gebhart; at least we should be able to save
most
of your capital. My associate will call us back as soon as he makes a trade.”

“What makes me furious,” Robert Stephens growled, “is that this is the same broker who got Laura Arlington to invest in a fly-by-night company and caused her to lose her savings.”

“He seemed so nice,” Cora Gebhart said. “And he was so knowledgeable about my bonds, explaining how even though they were tax-free, the return didn't justify all that money being tied up in them. And some were even losing buying power because of inflation.”

The statement caught Neil's attention. “You must have told him about your bonds, if he was so knowledgeable,” he said sharply.

“But I didn't. When he phoned to ask me to lunch, I explained I had no interest in discussing investments, but then he talked about the kind of clients he had—like Mrs. Downing. He told me that she had had bonds similar to the ones many older people hold and that he made a fortune for her. Then he talked about exactly the bonds I hold.”

“Who is this Mrs. Downing?” Neil asked.