Death on Deadline - Robert Goldsborough Page 0,23
a stepmother, I shouldn’t be saying this, but I often wonder why she married him in the first place.”
“Back to your nephew,” Wolfe said. “Is he likely to sell to MacLaren?”
“I honestly don’t know. When I first told Scott about my plan to establish a trust, he didn’t like it at all—I believe he had always held out the hope that someday he’d get to be chairman. I think he sensed I put more faith in him than in David. And I’m sure he was hurt that I didn’t name him one of the three trustees.”
“He’s got enough equity so that if he stayed in your camp, along with Mr. Dean and Mr. Bishop, you could maintain control of the newspaper,” Wolfe observed.
“Don’t think that hasn’t been on my mind. Together, the four of us hold fifty-two percent. By Friday I hope to know exactly where Scott stands—where everybody stands. Mr. Wolfe, you’ve asked most of the questions, you’re exceedingly good at that. Now I’ve got one: What kind of reaction have you gotten from your letter in the Times?”
“You’ve been most candid,” Wolfe began, taking a deep breath. “I’ll return that candor, although as you’ll see, it isn’t a sacrifice; I have little to lay before you. Mr. Goodwin spent much of the morning answering the telephone. We’ve had many inquiries from newspaper and television reporters, but only two calls from potential purchasers, if indeed they can be so termed. Neither of them is a likely candidate.
“It is possible, however, that more calls have come in the last hour,” he continued. “Both instruments in this room are turned off so we wouldn’t be interrupted, and Mr. Brenner will have fielded any messages. Archie, call Fritz.”
I switched on the phone, buzzed the kitchen, and got a quick fill-in. “Three,” I said, looking first at Wolfe and then at Harriet. “All from the media.”
“I have another engagement,” Wolfe said, glancing at the wall clock, which read three minutes to four. “Mr. Goodwin will keep you abreast of any major developments.” He hefted his bulk upright and dipped his chin a full half-inch. For him, that’s a flourish.
In one of those fluid motions I would have expected from a woman forty years younger, Harriet Haverhill rose, and Elliot Dean scrambled to his feet, clearing his throat and tugging on his school tie. “Thank you very much for your time,” she said to Wolfe. “I would appreciate knowing what Mr. MacLaren has to say tonight.”
“It’s very possible he will tell you himself when you meet with him on Friday,” Wolfe said, dipping his chin a second time. Score another point for etiquette. Sometimes I wish I had a video camera, to record such momentous occasions. As I ushered our guests to the hall, Wolfe boarded the elevator to the plant rooms.
Harriet gave me a smile that rated close to ten on the sincerity scale, and I got a whiff of a nice scent, although I couldn’t name it. Dean harrumphed all the way down the stairs. He was still in a snit as they climbed into the dark blue Lincoln limo at the curb. I waved from the stoop as it pulled away, but I can’t report whether they returned it because the windows were tinted. I’ll just assume they did.
Seven
I went back to the empty office and dropped into my desk chair. What are we doing? I asked out loud. There’s no case, and the bank balance is down over thirty big ones because of that silly ad. The owner of the Gazette comes to see us, and she doesn’t seem to know what the hell is going on with her own crazy family. Wolfe talks to her for an hour and comes away with nothing, zero. But then, what was he after in the first place? Okay, so he’s a genius and I usually can’t keep up with him. This time, though, there seemed to be nothing to keep up with. I decided he was showboating, but then I vetoed that because I couldn’t see where it was getting him.
I finally concluded that all those years up in the subtropical plant rooms, four hours a day, six days a week, had baked his brain. Having established that, I turned to the germination records Theodore had left for me and begin entering them on file cards, vowing to nag Wolfe again for a personal computer so we could cut down on all the paperwork orchid growing entails. During the next hour, four