Murder At Midnight Page 14

  “Go with it,” he ordered in a voice flinty with purpose. “Let’s nail his sorry ass to a masthead.”

  But just as Scott completed the last page of copy, Violet called him and asked him to put a hold on it until after he’d spoken to Philip.

  “I’ve never seen him as upset as this over anything.” Scott could hear the concern in her voice. “Please, drop over to his office as soon as you can. There’s something really important that he wants to tell you about the Romney Towers.”

  * * * *

  Mitford Realty was housed in a Georgian style building, surrounded by immaculately kept grounds. An ornate birdbath, for ornamental purposes only, stood idly in the middle of the lawn.

  “Go right on in, Mr. Preston,” Roxanne cooed. A far cry from her attitude towards him the last time he had been there, Scott mused. On that occasion she had been unhelpful to the point of rudeness.

  Above a white artificial Christmas tree strung with red lights, there was a banner wishing everyone the best of the season.

  “Scott, so good of you to come over on such short notice,” Philip Mitford fairly purred, extending a chilly hand.

  He looked as elegant as ever in a black pinstriped suit with a fresh pink carnation in the lapel. But his face was pale, and showed signs of strain.

  His oak panelled office was lined with wall shields displaying various types of real estate, and community awards that he had won. Mitford was a generous supporter of local charities.

  “About this awful business concerning the Romney Towers,” he began at once. “I hoped to avoid it…However, this recent spate of interest by your newspaper leaves me no choice but to––as they say in the vernacular––spill the beans.”

  There was a discreet knock on the door, and Roxanne entered bearing a tray with a silver teapot and dainty cups. Her musky perfume lay heavy on the air for a long time after she left.

  According to Mitford, it was the building contractor who was to blame for the health problems at the Romney. “I didn’t find out about this until it was too late and the damage had already been done,” he confided.

  They had, he said, been using shoddy building materials to cut corners on expenses. This eventually led to water leaks, which in turn resulted in mould. “There are a lot of people today very sensitive to moulds,” Mitford declared. “This is, I believe, where all the health problems plaguing the Romney tenants has arisen from.”

  “Wow,” Scott whistled under his breath. This quite unexpected revelation was going to expose the crooked building contractor to a myriad of lawsuits. It was also going to sell a lot of newspapers.

  * * * *

  “But I don’t understand why Philip didn’t come clean about this before.” Violet frowned. Her hair looked tousled beneath a skimpy kerchief. It was a dismal Saturday afternoon, and the store lights were all on, although scarcely past the lunch hour.

  “Well he said that he did what he could to remedy the damage, after the reason for the water leakage became evident,” Scott explained. “But unfortunately by that time, the mould had become so well-entrenched that without actually ripping out the walls, it was impossible to get rid of it all.”

  “But that still neither explains nor excuses, why he didn’t report the contractor that was responsible for the mess,” Violet insisted.

  Scott sighed and patted Gemma, who immediately rolled over onto her back and invited him to play. “Well it’s easy for us to sit in judgement on his actions now, but it would have caused a horrendous scandal at the time. Frankly, I can understand why he just did nothing, hoping it would all blow over.”

  “It probably would have done,” Violet interjected. “If it hadn’t been for Ben looking for an apartment in the Romney.”

  “I have an appointment to see the building contractor this evening,” Scott said. “His name is Harvey Blundell, and he lives way out near Whistler on the Sea-to-Sky Highway.

  A customer came into Granny’s Attic, bringing a chilling breath of frosty air with him. “I think we’ll have snow before morning,” Violet predicted, pinning a price ticket on a nineteenth century rag doll.

  She was right. Just as Scott navigated his way cautiously along the dark serpentine road, the wet flakes began to fall, splatting greasily against his windshield and making visibility more difficult than ever.

  Memories of his previous trips along this very same stretch of highway were sitting uneasily in the forefront of his mind. The first time when he had been almost run off the road after meeting with Garrick Boyd at the Black Friar Inn, the second, when Boyd himself had fallen victim at the very same spot, and the third, when he had followed Alec Webb, who also ended up on the cliffs below. A mental image of Webb’s car balanced precariously on a narrow ledge, high above the crashing waves made Scott decrease his speed even more.

  Harvey Blundell lived in a modest house that overlooked the old lighthouse at Lowry Point. A stockily built man with a mop of white hair, he had the healthy complexion of an outdoorsman.

  “It’s a bit off the beat and path,” he admitted. “But I love the quiet.”

  When he heard about Philip Mitford’s allegations, he grew purple with rage.

  “I just don’t believe this,” he roared, poking at a blazing log in the fireplace, and sending sparks flying in all directions. “I always knew Mitford was a crook, but this…well it’s bloody well outrageous and he doesn’t have one iota of proof.” Blundell paused for a few minutes and took a deep breath. “I’ll sue him out of existence for this.”

  He poured two large glasses of Scotch. “Cheers,” he said with a face that glowered like a storm cloud. An ageing Black Labrador called Tess sensed his mood and circled nervously around him.

  “It’s okay old girl,” he assured her. “We’re just teetering above the abyss, that’s all.”

  Scott glanced around at the comfortable room with its solid furniture and glass-doored bookcases.

  He told Scott that he was a widower, and had lived alone there for many years. “As you can see, I’m by no stretch of the imagination a millionaire. So heaven knows what I’m supposed to have done with all that ill-gotten graft from the Romney contract?”

  A foghorn moaned out its warning across the icy reaches of Howe Sound, as the snow thickened and swirled down like a galaxy of dancing polka dots.

  “You better stay here until morning,” Blundell invited. “It’s suicidal to be travelling on the See to Die in weather like this”

  Scott had made friends with Tess, who followed him into the guest bedroom with its south facing view of the sea. A small hurricane lamp stood on a corner dresser. He was relieved that he wouldn’t have to drive home that night on the icy crooked back of the Sea-to-Sky Highway. “Thank you, I really appreciate this.”

  * * * *

  “But just because he’s a nice guy, doesn’t mean he didn’t cut corners on the building materials.” Violet was adamant. “Good heavens my dear, some of the sweetest people have turned out to be serial killers.”

  Flynn had been anxious spending the whole night alone. He had stuck to Scott like glue ever since. Now he competed with the telephone for attention.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” insisted Violet. “You think I’m biased. But that’s not altogether true.”

  Scott had not told Greg Mowatt about Mitford’s allegations against Harvey Blundell, so on impulse, he decided not to include them in the upcoming article.

  “They’re unproven,” he defended his decision to Violet. “They’re just one man’s word against another’s.”

  “Oh stuff and nonsense,” she scoffed. “The truth is that you simply don’t believe Philip, but have accepted the word of a total stranger instead.”

  “I’d want to do a lot more digging around before I printed something as damning as that against anyone,” he told her curtly.

  Yet even as he defended his actions, he knew that she was at least part way correct. He really didn’t like Philip Mitford, and had felt the very opposite about
Harvey Blundell.

  “Thank you.” Blundell had just read the article about the Romney Towers that did not include a mention of himself. He telephoned Scott at once. “This will give me a breathing space to decide what to do, and is much appreciated.”

  But Philip Mitford was incensed by the omission.

  “I won’t be satisfied until I have your damned meddling nephew’s head on a platter,” he warned a shocked Violet. Then he stormed into Greg Mowatt’s office without an appointment, brushing Meg aside rudely when she tried to stop him.

  But Greg was away for the day, leaving the irate Mitford no option but to turn around again and walk out. His silver-topped ebony cane tapped out an angry staccato on the tiled linoleum floor.

  * * * *

  The article created quite a stir. Mail increased by forty per cent, and the switchboard had never been busier. There was the usual quota of cranks, of course. One woman thought a religious group that she did not like had cursed the building. Another said that had it been constructed during an unfavourable astrological period.

  But one letter stood out from the rest. Anonymous and with no distinguishing marks it simply stated that the Romney Towers had been built on an illegal toxic waste dump. Scott would probably have disregarded it as the work of yet another crazy, had it not contained an interesting enclosure. It was a difficult to read newspaper clipping, crumpled and brown with age, about the appointment of a new director at E.B. Walsh Chemical Industries. His name was Stewart Dorian Mitford.

  “Philip’s father I’d wager,” Ben declared. Historical deeds, property transfers, development plans and newspaper articles relating to the entire harbour area around the site of the Romney Towers littered Scott’s desk. “And Walsh Chemical was only a stones throw from where the Romney now stands.”

  “The river flowed orange and brown with toxic waste, while the company was in its heyday,” said Scott. “This was pollution on a grand scale.”

  “It’s strange too,” pondered Ben, “that Mitford Senior never developed that particular parcel of land. He just let it sit there and grow weeds for over forty years. That was long after Walsh went bankrupt in the crash of 1929.”

  “But as soon as he died,” Scott picked up the thought. “Philip began to develop it almost immediately. By that time it was in a hugely valuable location, as the whole harbour area on that side of the river became gentrified and upmarket.”

  “Right. But didn’t the local authority require a soil analysis before building on such a major scale?”

  Scott shrugged. “Even so, with Mitford’s money anything is possible.”

  “Well it would certainly explain all the health problems related to the Romney. And Mitford’s fury when we started poking around.”

  “We need to have a soil sample taken right away. Can you imagine the furore that will cause, if it turns out the way that I think it will?”

  * * * *

  “Contaminated!” Greg exclaimed with a great deal of satisfaction. “Fairly oozing with significant quantities of arsenic, mercury, lead and asbestos.” He tut-tutted in disgust, raised his bushy eyebrows and shook his head.

  In the street below, a group of carol singers entertained shoppers with a medley of Christmas favourites. The haunting strains of “Silent Night” drifted up through a raw December afternoon, under a dingy grey dishrag of a sky.

  “We’ll move in for the kill tomorrow,” he announced with relish. “Give our friend Mitford something extra to celebrate over the holiday season!”

  * * * *

  Violet added the finishing touches to a Victorian Christmas window display. An old fashioned tree surrounded by a rocking horse, dolls and a rosewood cradle.

  “I just can’t believe this,” she fumed, indicating the offending issue of the Morning Herald. “How could you do this, without even consulting us first? Are you absolutely certain that Philip knew that the site was contaminated before be began building on it?”

  “Why don’t you ask him that yourself?” suggested Scott.

  * * * *

  “It’s all a lie, of course,” Mitford raged. “Father never told me the site had been used as a dumping ground for toxic waste, or I would never have built on it. What kind of monster do they think I am?”

  Violet poured him another glass of brandy from the crystal decanter on the sideboard. It was an overcast Christmas Eve. Foghorns wailed from the harbour.

  “Not a word about the soil analysis that was approved at the time by local government officials,” he added angrily. He tossed down his drink in one greedy swallow. “But then I daresay they would claim that I had bribed them, so perhaps it’s best left alone.”

  Violet shivered and buttoned up her sweater. The Mitford mansion was prone to draughts. “So where do we go from here?”

  “God only knows. But if you’re talking about the immediate future, I’m going to have another drink!”

  “We have to answer these charges, dear, and suggest some sort of a resolution.” Violet hated to see her new husband so upset, and at Christmas time too. She was furious with Scott for being the cause of it. After all Philip was part of the family now, and they had to stick together.

  “You’re right, of course,” Mitford agreed. “I’m working on it, believe me.” For he wasn’t about to let a lifetime of hard work, and the careful building of a sterling reputation, be destroyed without a fight.

  He intended to offer his side of the story on a television interview with a friendly newscaster. He had not known that the site was contaminated. Soil samples taken at the time, did show some toxins were present, but these had been cleaned up. He would then pledge to get to the bottom of the present crisis, even if it meant tearing down the building and rehousing its tenants.

  * * * *

  Lisa Craig must have got wind of the contaminated Romney site, Scott concluded. He relaxed at his desk after a long day. Perhaps she overheard a telephone call that Mitford had with one of his cronies, or a snatch of conversation during an office conference? But either way, she somehow discovered the dirty and explosive secret that would have blown the whole deplorable enterprise sky high, had it been reported to the proper authorities.

  But then she never had a chance to do that. She was murdered just a short time after making the cryptic remark about the Romney, to her mother.

  Then it hit him with all the force of a body blow. Garrick Boyd always maintained that he and Lisa argued in the hours before her death, about her jealousy over other women. But the waitress, who served them at the Peach Tree Inn, overhead a reference in their heated dispute to someone she thought was named “Ronnie.”

  Scott had speculated that this might have been someone Lisa was sleeping with. Hence, Boyd’s anger and motive for killing her. But now it all fell into place like a hard to fit piece of a jigsaw puzzle. It wasn’t “Ronnie” they had been saying, but “Romney.” It hadn’t been a person at all, but a building.

  So Boyd knew about the contaminated site also, and was probably trying to persuade Lisa to keep quiet about it. Being the type of personality he was, he would see a blackmailing potential here too good to be spoiled.

  But had he killed her to keep her quiet about it? For the first time, Scott conceded, there was a concrete motive for the prime suspect in her murder, to have actually committed the crime.

  * * * *

  “So you think it was Boyd after all?” Ben wrinkled his nose and sneezed. “But then that leaves poor Victor Kenny locked away for a crime he did not commit.”

  “And Slater determined to keep him there, and the file neatly closed,” Scott agreed, feeling a nasty twinge of guilt. For he had stirred up the whole kit and caboodle in the first place, thereby landing the unfortunate Victor in an asylum for the criminally insane.

  * * * *

  “Get out of here,” Slater warned, only half in jest. “If you think I’ll reopen the Craig case, based on your wild suppositions, you can think again.”

  In the courtyard below, icicles hung
from the fountain like stalactites, catching the reflections of a brilliant sun. It was the early days of the New Year, and a muddled let down feeling clogged the atmosphere like grey cotton wool.

  “I believe Boyd was blackmailing Mitford to keep quiet about the toxic Romney site,” Scott ploughed on undeterred.

  “Well if you are right, Boyd must have been a virtuoso amongst blackmailers,” Slater commented dryly. “Alec Webb has alleged the same thing.”

  “But it certainly explains how he was able to afford an expensive penthouse apartment, and a holiday villa in Portugal,” Scott insisted.

  “Look I’m concerned about the Craig case only,” stressed Slater. “And that remains closed, with Victor Kenny as the perpetrator. Until, I am provided with concrete evidence to suggest otherwise.”

  * * * *

  “Detective Slater, my name is James Lester and I’m an attorney at Baines, Young and Renwick in Whistler. I am in something of a dilemma here in a matter that involves client confidentiality and trust.” It was late afternoon on an overcast winter’s day. A heavy shroud of mist cloaked the North Shore Mountains.

  By the time Lester finished speaking, Slater looked as if he had been felled with a poleaxe. “Yes, please do come in,” he invited. “I can assure you that you are doing the right thing.”

  My God would this pesky Craig case never be laid to rest, he wondered miserably? Just when the Morning Herald had stopped all their sensational articles about it; Victor Kenny was safely locked away; and it was no longer in the forefront of his mind either; Boom! It had struck again, when least expected, with all the velocity of an unexploded bomb.

  “James Lester was Garrick Boyd’s attorney, Sir,” Slater explained.

  Police Chief Tom Harrington wore a look that would have sunk a destroyer.

  “Boyd left him a letter, with instructions that it be opened only in the event of his suspicious death.” He handed Harrington a copy of the letter, which he ignored. In fact, he looked reluctant to even touch it for fear of contamination.