Murder Can Rain on Your Shower (31 page)

dishes. But finally, at ten after eight, the last little plate was squeaky clean and back on the shelf with

the rest of its ilk.

Then I put in a call to Chief Porchow.

The chief wasn’t in today, the man on the other end

of the line advised. Well, I’d been afraid of that. I crossed my fingers that Porchow wouldn’t be unavail

able this entire Labor Day Weekend.

‘‘Is there any way he can be reached?’’ I pressed.

‘‘I’m not certain. It’s his day off. Who am I speaking

to, please?’’

‘‘My name is Desiree Shapiro, and this is in refer

ence to the murder of Bobbie Jean Morton. I have

some critical information for Chief Porchow.’’

‘‘I’ll try to contact him for you, Ms. Shapiro. Let me have your phone number, and I’ll get back to

you.’’

Less than five minutes later I heard from Porchow

himself.

‘‘What is it you have to tell me, Ms. Shapiro?’’ he inquired politely—although with a certain degree of

skepticism.

‘‘It’s sort of complicated to discuss on the phone.’’

‘‘And this can’t wait until tomorrow?’’

‘‘I suppose it can, but I figured you’d be anxious to

hear what I’ve discovered.’’

My response must have hit him straight in his dutybound psyche, because he said—but not without some reluctance—‘‘I have a few things to see to this morn

ing. I could be in Manhattan in the early afternoon, though. Suppose we make it your apartment at around

two o’clock—all right?’’

‘‘Sure. But if it would be any easier for you, I’d be happy to drive out there,’’ I offered.

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‘‘I’d really appreciate that, if it wouldn’t be too

much trouble for you.’’

I assured him that it wouldn’t be any trouble at all, following which Chief Porchow provided me with very

detailed instructions to the Forsythe Police Station.

On the way out to Long Island I began to rehash

my last little get-together with the chief. I mean, talk about embarrassing!

That evening, immediately after questioning his

marital status, I’d tried to explain to the man that my only reason for becoming so personal was that I

thought he might be interested in meeting a friend of mine. One look at his face, however, and I could tell that he wasn’t having any of this ‘‘friend’’ business. In

fact, I knew exactly what was going through his mind:

A
friend?
Now,
where
have
I
heard
that
one
before?

But as awkward as I felt about seeing the guy again,

what I had to convey to him today was far too impor

tant to permit my discomfort to interfere.

Chief Porchow’s directions had been so precise that

I only made one unwitting detour before arriving at

the station house, which occupied a small Colonialstyle building that, from the outside, could have fooled you into assuming it was a private home.

The place was hardly a hub of activity this afternoon.

Milling around the large main room were only three

officers—two male and one female. A second woman, a

middle-aged lady in street clothes who’d doused herself with an almost lethal dose of Obsession, was seated at a desk off to the side. She was occupied at present with

polishing her nails and cracking her gum. (Isn’t it reas

suring that these can be done simultaneously?) She

raised her head at the sound of my footsteps.

‘‘C’n I help you?’’ she called out, punctuating the

question with a snap of the chewing gum.

I walked over to her. ‘‘My name is Desiree Shapiro.

Chief Porchow is expecting me.’’

‘‘Yeah, he told me. Follow me.’’

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201

The chief occupied a fairly spacious office, attrac

tively if rather sparsely furnished in teak and brass. He rose and leaned across his desk to shake my

hand perfunctorily. ‘‘Have a seat, please, Ms. Sha

piro,’’ he invited, gesturing to the chair facing him. Then, once I was seated: ‘‘Now, what is it you’re so eager to pass on to me?’’

‘‘Uh, I think . . . rather, I
know
who killed Mrs. Morton.’’

‘‘And how did you happen to come into possession

of this information?’’

‘‘Well, I’ve, uh, been investigating her murder, too.’’

‘‘I don’t quite understand. According to your own

statement, you hadn’t even met the deceased until

recently.’’

‘‘That’s true. But . . . umm . . . her nephew re

quested that I check into things.’’

‘‘Her nephew?’’

‘‘Yes, Allison Lynton’s son—the fellow who’s en

gaged to marry my niece.’’

‘‘He was concerned that we might have come to

regard his mother as a suspect—is that it?’’

‘‘Actually, he doesn’t have the slightest idea about

that. Mike spoke to me about looking into Mrs. Mor

ton’s death as soon as it happened.’’

‘‘I gather he doesn’t regard the Forsythe Police De

partment as capable of apprehending his aunt’s killer,’’

Porchow commented wryly.

‘‘Oh, it’s not that. It’s just that with a private investi

gator who’s practically in the family, Mike thought—’’

‘‘Whoa! Back up! Are you telling me you’re a
PI?
’’

From his tone and the extremely unfriendly expression

that accompanied it, Porchow must have had difficulty

restraining himself from adding a
yecch.

I smiled weakly. ‘‘Guilty.’’

He muttered something to himself that sounded

like, ‘‘Just what I needed.’’ After which, he addressed

me directly. ‘‘May I ask why you didn’t mention this before?’’

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Selma
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I hunched my shoulders, gave him another weak

smile, and mumbled, ‘‘It never came up.’’

‘‘Right,’’ he said none too pleasantly. ‘‘Well, let’s just get on with this. You’re claiming that you’ve iden

tified the person who poisoned Ms. Morton.’’

‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘Okay. Let’s hear it, then.’’

‘‘I’d better begin by filling you in on how I came to

the conclusion that I did. Last night I suddenly real

ized that the killer had to have some
specific
knowl

edge
in order to commit this crime. Keep in mind that she brought monkshood with her that Sunday. Not

arsenic, not cyanide—monkshood. A
plant
. Which is a pretty decent sign that all along the perpetrator’s intention was to poison the salad. I mean, it would be

kind of obvious to have those little leaves floating

around in the champagne, for instance, right?’’

‘‘So you’re saying that whoever did Bobbie Jean

was familiar with this particular poison.’’

‘‘That’s certainly true, of course. But what I’m get

ting at is that she also had to be aware that (a) it’s customary at Silver Oaks for the salad to be placed on the table
before
the guests go in for lunch and (b) the dining room is accessible by a door other than the

main entrance. Both of which would indicate that the perp was someone who’d been to the country club

prior to that Sunday.’’

‘‘Don’t you think this same thing occurred to us,

Ms. Shapiro?’’ Chief Porchow growled. (As you may

have noticed, this was not a particularly cordial meet

ing.) He reached for a pencil now and began idly tap

ping it on his desk, which I found terribly distracting.

‘‘Those women we viewed as possible suspects were

all questioned regarding a previous visit. None of

them, however, admitted to having set foot in the

place before.’’

Now, I won’t pretend that I wasn’t jolted by Por

chow’s having picked up on this important clue before

I had. But I took consolation from the fact that
I
was

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CAN
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ON
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203

about to tell
him
who murdered Bobbie Jean—and not vice versa.

‘‘Naturally,’’ he continued, ‘‘I’m excluding Ms. Lyn

ton when I say this, considering that she couldn’t very

well deny having been at the club prior to that Sunday.

The problem is,’’ he said meaningfully, ‘‘Ms. Lynton

has an alibi, at least at the present time. Someone who

claims to have never left her side that day. Not for one single moment.’’ I started to squirm. ‘‘As for the others, I haven’t been able to confirm the truthfulness

of their responses.’’

‘‘Well,
I
can confirm
positively
that one of those ladies wasn’t leveling with you, Chief Porchow.’’

‘‘Proves nothing, I’m afraid. Nothing at all.’’ Por

chow tapped the pencil more forcefully now, as if for emphasis. ‘‘If this alleged poisoner of yours did lie, she may merely have been attempting to remove her

self from suspicion.’’

‘‘Do you really believe that an innocent person

would realize the implications involved in a prior

knowledge of the place? And by the way, my informa

tion came from two separate sources—both of them

very good friends of the killer’s—who casually men

tioned it to me in conversation.’’

‘‘Explain something, Ms. Shapiro, will you? Why

would the guilty party say anything to
anyone
about having been to that club before?’’

‘‘I suppose it’s because she had no idea this would wind up being relevant. Either she hadn’t decided to kill Bobbie Jean—Mrs. Morton—at that point, or she

hadn’t figured out yet how she’d be going about it.’’

‘‘That may very well be the explanation. Still, lying about her familiarity with the crime scene is hardly proof that the woman you have in mind did the

murder.’’

‘‘There’s more. Please, just hear me out. You see,

that familiarity is merely what led me to put up my antennae. After this, I was able to appreciate the sig

nificance of another factor.’’

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Selma
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‘‘Listen,’’ an exasperated Chief Porchow muttered,

snapping that lousy pencil in half, ‘‘don’t you think it’s time you ended this little game of yours? Just who

is it you’ve damned as Mrs. Morton’s poisoner?’’

‘‘I’ll show you.’’

I opened my handbag and began rummaging around

for one of Ellen’s yellow photo envelopes, which had apparently made its way to the bottom of the bag.
I
mean,
wouldn’t
you
know
it?

As I was frantically searching for the thing, Porchow

drummed his fingers on the desk. Causing me to ap

preciate the pencil. ‘‘I’m
wai
-ting, Ms. Shapiro.’’

At last I laid hands on the envelope. I placed it in front of him with a flourish.

‘‘Meet the killer of Bobbie Jean Morton,’’ I said

triumphantly.

Chapter
33

Dramatic as it was, this proclamation did not exactly inspire Chief Porchow to jump up and down. Empty

ing the envelope of the three prints it contained, he spread the photographs in front of him. ‘‘Lorraine

Corwin,’’ he said matter-of-factly.

‘‘That’s right.’’

He inclined his head to one side as he looked to

me for an explanation.

Stretching across his desk, I gestured toward the

snapshot of the headless Lorraine Corwin—the shot

that most clearly illustrated my point. ‘‘Don’t you

see?’’ I all but shouted, rapping my knuckle on one of Lorraine’s long white gloves.

It was obvious that he didn’t.

I settled into my chair again. ‘‘Let me explain,

okay? According to what you told the Lyntons,

monkshood is a highly toxic substance that can be

absorbed by the skin. This means that whoever stirred

in those leaves would have been an idiot not to wear gloves. In fact, it’s more than likely she had on a pair of plastic gloves underneath the cotton ones, to be

doubly certain of avoiding contamination.’’

Porchow countered with, ‘‘Sounds reasonable. But

who’s to say one of the other suspects didn’t have a pair or two stashed in her pocketbook that she utilized

at the appropriate moment?’’

‘‘And wasted all that time pulling them on and tak

ing them off? Listen, the perpetrator had to have had

serious concerns about being discovered; it was essen