Death on Deadline - Robert Goldsborough Page 0,44

that David had told me about, I’d sell to him. Mr. Wolfe, I had been thinking for a long time about selling my Gazette holding anyway. I’m looking to expand my business in Boston, and frankly, I need the cash.”

“Had you considered selling to your brother?” Wolfe asked, gesturing toward David with a hand.

“It never came up,” she answered smoothly, “probably because together we own only a little over a third of the stock, and it wasn’t likely that he would have been able to get enough of the rest for a majority. In all honesty, I was ready to go where I could get the most money.”

“How did Mrs. Haverhill react to your answer?”

“She was furious. She tried to use the family-loyalty angle, but I told her I wasn’t buying it. I said that was hypocritical of her, especially considering that she had effectively blocked David’s chances of being either publisher or chairman. Then she told me my father would have wanted the paper kept out of MacLaren’s hands at all costs. My answer was that it was presumptuous of her to tell me what my father would have wanted. I am quite capable of figuring that out for myself. Basically, that’s how our meeting ended.”

“Did you see her again?”

Donna shook her head and studied the carpet.

Wolfe tried to pour beer, found the bottle empty, and set it down. “Mrs. Palmer, where were you Friday evening between six and—”

“Hold on!” David Haverhill shrilled. He was out of his chair again. “We said we’d come here, but we didn’t say we’d sit for an inquisition, which is what this is beginning to sound like. Donna, you don’t have to answer any more questions. This man has overstepped his bounds. He—”

This time it was Carolyn’s turn to cut in. “David, it’s all right,” she said, laying a hand on his arm and talking to him as a mother would to a child. “We don’t have anything to hide. After all, we were together almost all of that time.”

“Of course we don’t have anything to hide,” he whined, shaking off her arm, “but it’s the idea that we’re being treated like suspects when there hasn’t even been a crime, for God’s sake.”

“Mrs. Palmer, please continue,” Wolfe said coldly, fixing Haverhill with his three-star glare.

“From midafternoon until Harriet was . . . discovered, I was in the small conference room on the twelfth floor.”

“Was someone with you all of that time?”

“No. I don’t have an office in the Gazette Building, of course; I come to New York so infrequently. When I am here, I usually set up shop in any available conference room. I had a lot of paperwork from my business to catch up on, so I brought it with me from Boston. I was alone from, oh . . . about three-fifteen or so until around six-thirty, when David and Carolyn came in to talk. We were still there when the word came . . .”

“And no one saw you for more than three hours, until your brother and your sister-in-law joined you?”

“That’s not quite true. I was making a lot of phone calls related to my business—I’m in public relations— but I did leave the conference room at least twice to ask one of the secretaries to photocopy some papers for me.”

“What did you talk to these two about?”

“A little about my trip, but mostly about my meeting with Harriet, and David’s, too. But I suppose you want to ask him about that yourself.”

“I do indeed.” Wolfe turned to David, who had been casting increasingly greedy glances at the bottles on the serving cart. “Mr. Haverhill, am I correct that you met with your stepmother shortly before noon that day?”

“Yes.” You’d have to pry his mouth open to get more than that. It was obvious he wasn’t going to volunteer anything.

“And the essence of your conversation?”

He crossed his arms and tilted his head to one side, probably thinking that pose made him look like a tough customer. “If you’re so damn smart, I think you can pretty well guess that, can’t you?”

“I’d prefer to hear it from you, sir.”

David looked from Donna to Carolyn to me. He wasn’t seeing us, he was merely giving his eyes a change from Wolfe. “All right,” he sighed. “She asked me, almost before I had a chance to sit down, if I would sell my shares to that damn trust of hers. I told her thanks, but no thanks. She yelled something like ‘So