Death on Deadline - Robert Goldsborough Page 0,46

day asking for a meeting with all of us after she’d finished talking to MacLaren.”

“Indeed?” Wolfe’s eyes opened wide. “Who received copies of this memo?”

“I presume all of us in the company who held stock— me, Donna, Scott, Carl, Elliot Dean.”

“How was the memo worded?”

David screwed up his face. “Mm, it was just typed on a half-sheet of paper, nothing formal. I think it said ‘Dear David: Please stay until after I’ve talked to I. M. I’ll want to meet with you for a few minutes then.’ And she signed it.”

“I got the same note, same wording,” Donna confirmed.

“When were these sent?”

“I got mine about four-thirty,” David answered.

“That was probably about the time mine was delivered to me in the conference room,” Donna chimed in.

“How did Mrs. Haverhill even know you would still be in the building to receive the memo?” Wolfe asked Donna.

“I’d told her in the morning that I was going to be working in the conference room until at least six.”

“I assume neither one of you has your copy of the note?”

They both shook their heads and David spoke. “So many memos float around a paper that if we kept them all, we’d suffocate inside of a week.” He sneered at Wolfe, who ignored him.

“But you’re sure her signature was genuine?” His eyes moved from one to the other.

“Without doubt,” Donna announced crisply. “She had a very distinctive signature. And they were delivered by her secretary, Ann Barwell—at least mine was.”

“Mine too,” David yapped.

“Very well,” Wolfe said, leaning back. “Do you know specifically why she wished to meet with you?”

David shrugged, bored. He had a short attention span. “I assumed it was to announce that MacLaren was going to get control of the paper; what other reason would there be?”

“Madam?” he said, turning to Donna.

“That’s what I think, too,” she said. “But after her meeting with him, she just couldn’t face us—or anything.”

“This presumes that your cousin also was selling to him,” Wolfe observed.

“I’d say that was a foregone conclusion,” David said. “I didn’t talk to Scott after he saw Harriet that afternoon, though I know he also had been approached by MacLaren and had decided to sell. But you’ll get a chance to ask him yourself; rumor has it he’s coming here later today.” He took a malicious pleasure in the word “rumor.”

“That’s correct.” Wolfe nodded, turning toward Carolyn. “Madam, I haven’t forgotten you. What were the circumstances of your presence in the Gazette Building on Friday?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but David was faster. “Carrie was there because I asked her to be—we make all our big decisions jointly. We’re a team, and I consider her completely equal on that team.” She’s a damn sight more than your equal, I thought as my eyes moved to Wolfe for his reaction.

“I’d like to hear what Mrs. Haverhill has to say,” he replied testily.

Carolyn liked being the center of attention. She struck a pose that would have warmed the most jaded fashion photographer and cleared her throat. “As Dave said, we’re a team on matters affecting either of us. Several times in the past, he’s asked me to sit in on family conferences involving the Gazette. It looked like this would be an important occasion, and of course he wanted me there.”

“When did you arrive?”

“In the building? Let’s see, it was about six-fifteen, wasn’t it, dear?” she asked David. Her smile was stingy and studied.

He looked at her adoringly and she went on. “I came right up to Dave’s office—he was just finishing up a small meeting—and we talked for maybe five or ten minutes before going down the hall to where Donna was working. I hadn’t seen her since she’d gotten back and was anxious to hear about her trip.”

“Mrs. Haverhill, how did you feel about what was happening at the Gazette?”

“You mean the sale to the MacLaren Organization? Oh, I was sorry to see the paper passing out of the family’s hands. But you know, as impressive and decisive as Harriet could be, she also was rigid. And I think that rigidity was what ultimately would have cost her the paper.”

“By rigidity, I assume you mean her unwillingness to delegate authority to others, specifically members of the immediate family?”

Carolyn’s smile was glacial. “Of course, that and her dictatorial ways in general. Whenever either Dave or Scott came up with an idea on how to improve some aspect of the operation, she invariably belittled or dismissed it. She just couldn’t bear the idea of letting