I watched the killer’s face on that line. I think it got to him a little bit.
“The killer wanted to round things off neatly,” Haig went on. “He knew better than to leave a note when he pushed Jessica Trelawney out of her window. Now, though, he wanted to establish Gregory Vandiver as the villain of the piece, and award him a posthumous citation for multiple homicide. At this very moment he may be cursing himself for his stupidity. He might better save himself the effort. I already knew him as the killer. This was by no means his first witless act. But it is to be his last.”
Haig closed his eyes again. I can’t speak for the rest of the company, but for me the tension was getting unbearable. I knew something the rest of them didn’t know, and I wished he would hurry up and get to the end.
“This morning I called Mr. Shivers. In addition to being my client, he was for a great many years both attorney and friend to the late Cyrus Trelawney. He was able to supply me with the last piece of my jigsaw puzzle, the question of motive.
“I had realized almost from the beginning that motive was the key element of these murders. The most immediately obvious motive was money. The case is awash with money. Cyrus Trelawney left a fortune in excess of ten million dollars. But the more I examined the facts, the less likely it seemed that money could constitute a motive.
“Why, then, would someone want to murder five women who had virtually nothing in common but their kinship? Several possibilities presented themselves. The first was that, having determined to murder one of them for a logical reason, he might have wished to disguise his act by making it one link in a chain of homicides. Gregory Vandiver, for example, could have had reason to do away with his wife. If he first killed some of her sisters, he would be a less obvious suspect for the single murder for which he had a visible motive.
“The fault in this line of reasoning is not difficult to pinpoint. If a person wished to create the appearance of a chain of murders, he would make the facade an unmistakable one. He would not disguise his handiwork as accidental death or suicide. He would make each act an obvious murder, and would probably use the same murder method in each instance. So this was not a faked chain of murders, but a very real chain of murders.
“And then I saw that the answer had to lie in the past. These girls were being killed because they were the daughters of Cyrus Trelawney. The man had died three years ago, and after his death his daughters began dying. First Robin, then Jessica, then Melanie. And now Caitlin.”
He did start to put his feet up then, I’m positive of it, but he caught himself in time.
“I’ve told Mr. Harrison that this case reminded me of the work of a certain author of detective stories. Our New York has little of the texture of Lew Archer’s California, but in much the same way the sins of the past work upon those of us trapped in the present. If I were to find the killer, I had to consider Cyrus Trelawney.
“Cyrus Trelawney.” He folded his hands on the desk top. “An interesting man, I should say. Fathered his first child at the age of forty-eight, having beforehand amassed a fortune. Continued fathering them every three years, spawning as regularly as a guppy. Brought five girls into the world. And one son who died in his cradle. I began to wonder about Cyrus Trelawney’s life before he married. I speculated, and I constructed an hypothesis.”
He paused and looked across his desk at Addison Shivers. “This morning I asked Mr. Shivers a question. Do you recall the question, sir?”
“I do.”
“Indeed. Would you repeat it?”
“You asked if Cyrus Trelawney had been a man of celibate habits before his marriage.”
“And your reply?”
“That he had not.”
(This was paraphrase. What Mr. Shivers had actually said, Haig told me later, was that Cyrus Trelawney would fuck a coral snake if somebody would hold its head.)
“I then asked Mr. Shivers several other questions which elicited responses I had expected to elicit. I learned, in brief, that Mr. Trelawney’s business interests forty-five to fifty years ago included substantial holdings in timberlands and paper mills in upstate New York. That he spent considerable time in that area during those years. That one of those mills was located in the town of Lyons Falls, New York.”
“That’s very interesting,” the killer said.
“Indeed. But the others do not understand what makes it interesting, Mr. Bell. Would you care to tell them?”
“I was born in Lyons Falls,” Bell said.
“Indeed. You were born in Lyons Falls, New York, forty-seven years ago last April 18th. Your mother was a woman named Barbara Hohlbein who was the wife of a man named James Bell. James Bell was not your father. Cyrus Trelawney was your father. Cyrus Trelawney’s daughters were your half-sisters and you have killed four of the five, Mr. Bell, and you will not kill any more of them. You will not, Mr. Bell. No, sir. You will not.”
Eighteen
Of course everybody stared at the son of a bitch. He didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were on Leo Haig and he was as cool as a gherkin. His forehead looked a little pinker, but that may have been my imagination. I couldn’t really tell you.
“This is quite fascinating,” Bell said. “I asked around when I heard you were investigating Melanie’s death. I was told that you were quite insane. I wondered what this elaborate charade would lead to.”
“I would prefer that it lead to the gas chamber, sir. I fear it will lead only to permanent incarceration in a hospital for the criminally insane.”
“Fascinating.”
“Indeed. I shouldn’t attempt to leave if I were you, Mr. Bell. There are police officers seated on either side of you. They would take umbrage.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Bell said. His cheeks puffed out as he grinned. “Why, if this were a movie I’d pay to see it. It’s far more thrilling in real life.”
Haig closed his eyes. Without opening them he said, “I have no way of knowing whether or not Cyrus Trelawney was your father. You do not resemble him, nor do I perceive any resemblance between yourself and his legitimate offspring. Very strong men tend to be proponent, which is to say that their genes are dominant. Much the same is true of fishes, you might be interested to know. I would guess that you resemble your mother. I suspect you inherited your madness from her.”
A muscle worked in Bell’s temple. He didn’t say anything.
“I don’t doubt that she told you Trelawney was your father. I don’t doubt that you believe it, that you grew up hearing little from her than that a rich man had fathered you. It certainly made an impression upon you. You grew up loving and hating this man you had never met. You were obsessed by the idea that he had sired you. Had he acknowledged you, you would have been rich. Money became an obsession.
“One learns much about a man from his hobbies. You collect money, Mr. Bell. Not in an attempt to amass wealth, but as a way of playing with the symbols of wealth. Little pieces of stamped metal moving from hand to hand at exorbitant prices. Pfui!”
“Numismatics is a science.”
“Anything may be taken for a science when enough of its devotees attempt to codify their madness. There is a young man in this city, I understand, who spends his spare time, of which I trust he has an abundance, analyzing the garbage of persons understandably more prominent than himself. For the time being he is acknowledged to be a lunatic. If, heaven forefend, his pastime amasses a following, garbage analysis will be esteemed a science. Learned books will be published on the subject. Fools will write them. Greater fools will purchase and read them. Pfui!”