The Manx Murders Read online

Three

  FLORENCE ACKERMAN TOOK ONE last inventory in front of the mirror. Makeup in place; lipstick—not overdone; earrings secure; no dandruff on the shoulders of her charcoal-gray blazer. She fluffed the flounce of her silk blouse, finger-combed her newly blond hair, and left the room, ready to face the world.

  It was something she did every day of her life, even on Saturdays and Sundays in August down in D.C., when Flo knew not only that she was going to be the only person anywhere near the office, but also that, car air-conditioning or not, she’d look like a drowned rat by the time she got to her office.

  She did it because it was part of the ritual of success. She could at least start off looking her best. Besides, cultivating habits of quality could pay off. This whole Pembroke business was important to the Agency, to the environment (and therefore to the nation), and to her career. It was a marvelous opportunity. The only reason she was here in the first place was that all her superiors—any one of whom could ordinarily have swooped up an assignment like this—had their eyes on the election results. Those who weren’t political appointees yet were trying to be, and they were all busy buttering up politicians.

  That suited Florence fine. She hadn’t quite reached that stage yet, but she’d get there. And if any of the butterers were successful, that would mean room for her to move up, too.

  Of course, there was another reason all the higher-ups in her section had passed on this assignment, one that Flo was too honest with herself not to admit—at a time like this, nobody wanted his buttery fingerprints on a failure.

  Neither did she, but, then, she didn’t mean to fail. If it took the famous Professor Niccolo Benedetti to get those asinine Pembroke brothers out of their respective snits and put the unit into production, well, she had gambled that her friendship with Jan Higgins would let her be the one to get him there.

  And it had worked! The old man was ensconced in this very hotel, two floors up, and she’d just heard from him that his assistant had arrived, and that the two men were ready to be briefed.

  Flo looked at her bulging Coach portfolio and reflected ruefully that she had plenty to brief them on.

  And she was curious about something on her own. She wanted to see this assistant, this Gentry character. She wanted to know what sort of husband her old friend had snagged.

  Benedetti himself greeted her at the door. “Ah, Miss Ackerman. Do come in, dear lady.” The old man’s voice and manner were elegant; for one mad moment, Flo was afraid he was going to kiss her hand. Instead, he merely led her to a chair, then sat himself.

  Benedetti looked exactly the same as the last time she had seen him, up in Jan’s house in New York State. Huge, bulky body, like a loosely connected pile of logs draped with thick tweed; small, catlike head with the sloping forehead and slick black hair; shining black eyes; blue-and-white polka-dot bow tie. But there was a difference. Up until the end of her last meeting with him, until the time he’d agreed to come here, he had been bored, almost resentful. Now he was alive. There was something about this that intrigued him. Flo would have to pin it down and exploit it. She wanted him interested and working until he figured out whatever was going on around here.

  “It’s nice to see you again, Professor,” she said. “I hope the suite is okay.”

  “The suite is excellent. There are even good, big windows for my painting.” He gestured toward a covered easel against the wall. “It will be especially good if the sun ever manages to come out.”

  Flo tilted her head. “I don’t know if you’ll have much time for painting, Professor.”

  He smiled at her. “I always have time. It is my way of speaking with my subconscious. But you must not worry. I promise the taxpayers will get their money’s worth.”

  It was Flo’s turn to smile. “I am happy to say Professor, that except for my own humble salary and expenses, this is not costing the taxpayers a cent. The Pembroke brothers are paying your fee—all of it—and all expenses for you and your staff.”

  “Va bene.” Benedetti nodded. “Excellent. They will be the more eager to cooperate, then.”

  “They have been all along. Willing to cooperate, I mean.”

  “Not with each other. People who are willing to cooperate with each other do not choose experts on human evil to mediate their disputes.”

  Flo had to admit he had a point. “In any case, Professor, I want to thank you for looking into this. I truly—”

  Benedetti held up a hand. “No thanks are necessary, Miss Ackerman. If this were truly a favor, it would be to your friend and mine, Dr. Higgins. But, in fact, it is no favor at all. I have simply come to believe I can further my work by looking into this matter and so—But here is Ronald.”

  Another man emerged from the other room. He said, “Oh. Sorry. Professor, you should have told me. I was just letting Janet know that I’d managed to dodge all the lightning bolts. Hi. You must be Flo Ackerman. Janet told me to give you her love.”

  The phrase “or yours” streaked involuntarily across Flo’s mind. My God, she thought, he’s gorgeous. Over six feet tall, naturally blond (unlike, say, Flo), well built, face just rugged enough not to be pretty, with the glasses adding just the right touch of intellectualism.

  She was shocked. Back in college, they had always been gawky, mousy Janet and pudgy, pimply Flo. They’d come together out of mutual outcast status. Not that there was anything wrong with them. Janet was a refugee from a childhood as a musical prodigy in the South; Flo had been Green when all the young people she’d grown up with were too busy being Jewish American Princesses to be interested in the environment. To them, the phrase “natural habitat” meant Bloomingdale’s, or its Sparta University equivalent, Farnum’s.

  Flo and Janet managed to scrape up a few losers for dates, but mostly they had each other to talk to, which was just fine with them. Graduation came. Janet went on to postgraduate work, eventually getting a Ph.D. in psychology. Flo had ridden a wave of sheer competence or affirmative action, she didn’t know which, to the staff of the EPA. They’d stayed in touch.

  Now, after ten thousand dollars or so spent on dermatologists and ten thousand skyscrapers’ worth of exercise on her stair-climber machine, Flo was no longer pimply or pudgy. Thanks to L’Oréal (and she did keep reminding herself she was worth it), she was a blonde. And as far as she knew, Janet was still as gawky and mousy as ever.

  But look what little Janet got to take to bed every night.

  Flo was shocked again, this time at her own reaction. How dare her old friend show her up like this? Who the hell did she think she was?

  She made herself stop. This was unworthy. This was stupid. And it was moronic, and profoundly antifeminist, to judge herself or any other woman on the basis of the man in her life. Surely her consciousness was above that.

  “Miss Ackerman?” Ron Gentry said.

  “Excuse me? Oh. Sorry I was gathering my thoughts for the briefing. And, please, call me Flo.”

  “I’d be pleased to, if you’ll call me Ron.”

  “Ron it is,” she said.

  “And the Professor likes to be called ‘Professor.’ ”

  The old man scowled at him. “Basta.”

  Ron grinned. “Certo, Maestro.”

  Flo unzipped her portfolio. Oh, hell, she thought. The glasses are probably a façade, anyway. He’s probably dumb as a post. And no good in bed, either.

  She held up an aerial photograph, in color, of a wooded area. It looked like an old stereopticon slide. The shot showed two Victorian mansions, maybe, Ron judged from the apparent height of the photo, three-quarters of a mile apart. The houses were identical piles of brick, four stories high, with slate-and-copper roofs and a great deal of fancy filigree on the windows.

  “Two of them,” he said foolishly. For a second, he saw a smirk cross Florence Ackerman’s face, then she went on.

  “The one on the right is Alpha House; the one on the left is Omega House. Both were built by Humbert Pembroke in 1923 on the birth of his twin sons, Cl
yde and Henry. Clyde is the elder by ten minutes.

  “As children, the two boys were inseparable, and that lasted well into adulthood. They played in the same backfield at Penn. I’ve got a picture if you want to see it.”

  “Please,” the Professor said.

  She handed it over. Benedetti looked at it and passed it to Ron. “Which one is which?” the old man asked.

  “Clyde is number thirty-four; Henry is number forty-three.”

  “Thank you,” the old man said. “But I doubt they will be wearing their uniforms when I meet them, eh? Is there another way to tell them apart?”

  Flo Ackerman scowled. Was the old man mocking her? Benedetti had that effect on people. Finally she decided he hadn’t been, which was a good guess on her part. Ron knew that when Benedetti actually did want to insult somebody, the insultee was left in no doubt about it at all.

  “Well,” she said, “you’re not likely to see both of them at the same time, but there is a way. Clyde Pembroke has a purple crescent-shaped mark on his left brow. A forceps mark.”

  “You know a lot about them,” Ron said.

  Flo nodded ruefully. “I’ve spent months trying to get those two to stop bickering. I’ve found out everything about them that I could. Too bad it hasn’t worked.”

  “Obviously,” Benedetti said, “they are no longer inseparable.”

  “No,” Flo said. “They’re not. Their father died in 1950, leaving Pembroke Manufacturing in equal shares to ‘the boys,’ as everybody calls them—forget they’re both around seventy.

  “At that, they did a good job of it. Seemed always to be one step ahead of the future, if you know what I mean. Great environmental record. Pembroke Manufacturing switched to making electronic components and stuff early on, so they’ve thrived while other companies in the Northeast went out of business. Clyde and Henry are worth about two hundred twenty million each, as far as anyone can tell.

  “They fell out about 1952. Clyde took up with a local girl named Sophie Havelka. Wrong side of the tracks in the days when that still mattered.”

  “It is an unfortunate facet of human nature, Miss Ackerman, that people will always erect tracks between themselves and their neighbors. The desire for unearned superiority is one of the most irradicably pernicious ones we possess. But I am interrupting you. Please go on.”

  “It’s a short story,” Flo continued. “Clyde was in love with Sophie, then Henry was, too, then she married Henry. They had a son, who lives at Omega House. I’ll fill you in on all that stuff later. Sophie died ten years ago.”

  Flo pushed her hair off her forehead with her fingertips. Janet frequently made the same gesture. Ron wondered who’d picked it up from whom.

  “The brothers stopped being inseparable when Henry wound up with Sophie, but they still got along. The real trouble started about five years ago.”

  “When Clyde got into cats.”

  “Exactly. You see, Henry is a bird-watcher. Fanatical. Most of his share of the Pembroke estate is a nature preserve, and he’s gone out of his way to make sure all the birds native to this area have what they need to live.

  “He was absolutely furious when Clyde decided he was a cat person. Said the cats would slaughter the birds.”

  “But,” Ron protested, “purebred cats in a cattery are not about to be let loose anywhere, let alone in a nature preserve.”

  “I agree with you. And Clyde says it’s never happened and never could happen. But Henry just won’t be convinced on the subject. Wait until you meet him.”

  “With bated breath,” Ron lied.

  “Henry swears bird fatalities have risen since the cats moved in.” Flo Ackerman shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying herself.

  “So about three years ago, Henry retaliated. With the ice cream.”

  “With the ice cream,” Benedetti echoed.

  “That’s right. Henry set his son, Chip—actually, Humbert` the second—up in the ice-cream business. Gourmet stuff. Small batches, limited distribution area, high price. Chip’s Creamery Ice Cream. I don’t know if it’s available as far north as Sparta.”

  “A couple of places,” Ron told her. “I hear it’s pretty good. How is that a revenge on cats? Or rather on Clyde?”

  “The ice cream plant is on the estate.”

  “In the middle of a nature preserve? How the hell did that happen?”

  “You’ve got to understand the socioeconomic picture, Ron,” Flo began. Ron’s eyes usually glazed over at the sound of the word “socioeconomic,” but he forced himself to stay tuned in.

  “For one thing,” Flo continued, “there’s a lot of the estate that isn’t nature preserve, and that’s where the plant is. For another thing, there’s virtually no unemployment in this town, while towns all around here are dying slow deaths. I don’t like it, but you have to recognize a Pembroke can set any kind of zoning variance he wants up here, with few questions asked.”

  “I still can’t figure out where the revenge comes in.”

  “Clyde is convinced the smells upset the cats.”

  Ron thought, My God, a pair of them. He said, “Please go on.”

  Flo shrugged. “There’s not much more to tell. One of the scientists at the factory came up with the smoke scrubber, an improvement on anything in the line before. Pembroke Industries patented it, and were all set to go into production. We’d tried to make everything easier from the regulatory angle. Then, a month ago, Henry dug in his heels. No production, no licensing so somebody else could make it. It’s his way of punishing his brother.”

  “What for now?”

  “For making the birds go away, Ron.”

  “These guys are nuts.”

  “I won’t give you an argument on that. But it is true, you know. The birds are gone. A whole section of forest—acres of trees—and not a bird around.

  “I’ve been out there. Henry is furious, but personally I find it frightening. Not a chirp. Not a feather. Nothing.”

  Four

  THEY WERE MET AT the door of Alpha House by a plump, smiling, middle-aged woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Everson, but whom Dickens would have called Mrs. Kumfy, or Mrs. Homebuddy, or something like that.

  She went with the house. Mrs. Everson led them down the great hall, past bronze cherubs three feet tall with loudly ticking clocks in their tummies; artificial flowers made of feathers in impossible colors, kept under gleaming bell jars on top of frilly white table scarves; milk-white glass sculptures of women with serene, blank-eyed expressions on their lovely near-Greek faces no matter what unlikely posture their bodies had gotten into; and several pieces of North American and African wildlife that were being used for various decorative and utilitarian purposes (there was, for instance, an elephant’s-foot umbrella stand with actual umbrellas in it.) Ron could think of nothing but The Old Curiosity Shop. Ron and Flo Ackerman had fallen well behind the others.

  “Hey, Flo,” he whispered. “What the hell?”

  It wasn’t the most cogently asked question of Ron’s detective career, but Flo understood it.

  “This is a Tale from the Feud,” she said. “When old Humbert, the boys’ father, died, the boys divided the contents of the old house between them. Then Sophie came in and laid down the law. I got this from some women in the village who knew her when. She didn’t get around, apparently, to dropping her friends until a year or so after the wedding.”

  Ron shrugged. “Sophie married a rich man. I assume these other women didn’t. Jealousy can color memories.”

  “Of course it can,” Flo conceded. “But the more you hear about our Sophie, the more you’ll find the ring of truth in it. Anyway, she told them she told Henry, if you follow me, that she wanted modern, ultra-modern. A completely new house for a completely new life.”

  “That’s a quote?”

  “Secondhand, but yeah. So all the Victorian stuff had to go. Henry was all set to give it to a museum, but two things went wrong.”

  “I can har
dly wait.”

  “Well, museums weren’t that hot to snap this stuff up in the fifties, for one thing. There was still a lot of it around. For another, Clyde went crazy. It even got in the paper here, if you can believe that. Clyde’s point was that their mother had bought all this ... this ...” Flo gestured vaguely at an exquisitely intaglioed suit of armor that Ron wouldn’t have minded owning himself. Or possibly at a portrait of a child in a high-collared Sunday suit that was so awkward that Ron couldn’t decide if the painter had been a major incompetent or a genius giving the world a portrait of a kid who really hated church.

  “Their mother had bought it ...” Ron prompted.

  “Right. So, Clyde said, how dare Henry try to get rid of it? Henry’s response, which also made it to the paper, was nasty. He said something to the effect that when your mother is alive and you are single, you do your best to please her. But when someone becomes a man, and marries, he must then try to please his wife. A good mother would understand, according to Henry. Of course, Henry never met my mother.”

  Ron grinned. “Mine either.”

  “The upshot of the whole thing,” Flo went on, “was that Clyde took over all the tchotchkes, enough to fill a house twice this size, big as this one is, and crowded them in here.”

  “And Mrs. Everson and her predecessors have been dusting them ever since.”

  “Exactly. Henry’s left them to the state of Pennsylvania in his will.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be bowled over.”

  They caught up with Mrs. Everson and the Professor at the door of the study, a room paneled in oak so dark and gleaming it reminded Ron of an inside-out coffin. It was filled with deep leather furniture. There was an array of bottles on a mahogany bar in the corner.

  “Please be seated,” the housekeeper said. Her smile was a veritable beacon. Benedetti must have been working his Old World charm on her again. He was incorrigible in his pursuit of what he called “true Beauty—mature Beauty,” and male chauvinist pig though the old man might be, none of the beauties in question had ever complained.

  Ron was about to sink into one of the leather chairs, when a bellow came from not far away. “Mrs. Everson!” the voice said. “Bring them here! Now!”