Murder Makes the Wheels Go Round Read online

  Fortunately the reading material and their second drinks arrived together. They both planned to make an early evening of it, not wanting to continue such an unproductive and violent day. The Detroit paper started with a little local homage to the Super Planty before diving into the meat of the recent murder.

  “State Police Captain Georgeson announced that the preliminary lab reports indicate the dead man was slain sometime Wednesday. There was no connection with the gunfire today. Jensen’s body was placed on the car’s rear seat floor after death. Experts as yet can’t determine whether the victim was shot in the car or not. The car was on public display and unguarded for 24 hours. Access to the area it was in is restricted to MM employees and their guests. The Super Planty itself has been impounded by the State Police for further investigation.”

  “Mm,” said Arnie. “That puts the finger on someone in the inner circle, doesn’t it? The car was unguarded for 24 hours, in an area virtually restricted to our friends, the MM executives.”

  “And their guests or families,” John added.

  Arnie frowned but did not rise to the bait directly.

  “Assume that Ray’s body could have been dumped in the car only when there wasn’t a crowd around it. Then it was only last night or early this morning it was done. Remember Buck said people started showing up far earlier than usual today.”

  John nodded. “Of course Jensen’s body could have been in the Plantagenet all the time.”

  Arnie looked doleful. “It is possible. But obviously the police are going to start digging around for motives.”

  And John finished the thought, “...of which there are many.”

  Arnie brightened slightly, “Yes. Plenty of people who wanted Ray out of the way--”

  And he was interrupted by a neighbor, “You have said a mouthful.” A car rental executive as it turned out. John agreed silently, including he thought Celia who was still considered too unwell to answer questions. Another drink turned Arnie’s attention to another subject. He dug into his pocket to produce it, “Have you seen this?”

  It was a document he had obtained during a brief abortive foray into the MM controller’s office that afternoon. It was not the papers alone that were trumpeting the details of the murder, John saw. An incautious memo had been hastily circulated by someone at MM. After urging member of the MM family to refrain from discussing the death, whose passing was mourned by all, the HR executive went on to rebuke the security staff for laxity in preventing the theft of fire arms. “The police have informed us that the murder weapon was a service revolver of the same make and caliber as those issued to MM guards. Such a revolver had been stolen from guard headquarters at the Plantagenet building just last Tuesday. The memo went on to say, after the horse was out of the barn, proper precautions, etc. and so on would have prevented it and new procedures were being implemented immediately.

  “I’ll look forward to Thad’s take on it. Ready to go to dinner Arnie?”

  At that moment the union was readying a counterattack to be launched Monday morning not restricted to internal circulation. Lashing out at criticism about the gun theft the union blamed HR for laying the blame on hourly guard employees. They added it was not certain yet even if the stolen gun was the murder weapon. And going on that the murderer not the victim of the theft was responsible for the death. On top of that the union objected to the employee having their pay docked for the stolen equipment, ending up inquiring nastily whether management was deflecting focus from the police considering who had the most to gain from Jensen’s death. Thad congratulated the writer, “Not bad Sid. Not bad at all,” as he smiled.

  John felt that under the best of circumstances the prospect of a weekend spent in the Detroit suburbs was not one to cheer about. Accordingly he tried another tact to extricate himself.

  Brad Withers, the Sloan President, killed John’s escape plan. “I’m sorry to ask you to stay, John, but I was talking to George...” And John quietly surrendered with both the Chairman and President wanting him to stay. In short, the Sloan wanted a top executive on the ground when the smoke cleared, whenever that was John lamented forlornly. John had his doubts. Happily he also had a healthy, or as Miss Corsa might say, unhealthy, dose of curiosity that rendered his staying less galling than for a less curious person.

  Nevertheless he couldn’t get away from illinformed speculation about Jensen’s murder anywhere in the motel and in every medium he read or saw. By Sunday the national TV pundits were even on the bandwagon, analyzing everything in terms of the murder from Foreign Relations to the Moon Probe. The Sunday papers feasted on it with more detail about the sensational aspects of the murder.

  After one affronted look at the papers Arnie plunged off to inquire after the well-being of Celia, now in seclusion at her sister’s home. He returned some hours later more downcast than ever, John notice, though he tried to be sociable. During his absence John had been comparing newspapers and their points of view. DC said wrote, “State Department to Intercede for Prince Pulbul;” Chicago throbbed to the human drama, “What Dark Fate Stalked Ray Jensen.” Boston was just querulous, “What’s Going On This Time at MM?”

  John had pushed what seemed to be 20 pounds of papers across the table when he spotted Arnie returning. He started with a light touch, “Hugh may have to invest in drying me out after all this. French is pretending everyone loved Jensen and everything is just hunk dory.”

  “Well, what can he say,” John posited.

  “He could keep quiet, couldn’t he?” Arnie almost barked.

  “Yes, that would be the best course,” John commented before going on, “But without silence we’re left without much to say for the facts have to be faced. The gun was stolen their on Tuesday, the day before Jensen’s murder. Makes it look premeditated.”

  Arnie nodded and drained his glass, “I know, I know. And they have to explain how Jensen could be missing from Wednesday to Friday without anyone reporting it. They can’t very well issue a PR release saying Jensen was such an SOB everyone assumed he was lying low. Or that he was such an annoyance they were just grateful that he wasn’t around. But still, I wish French would shut up.”

  John nodded as he was expected to do so. John had suffered through endless conversations about MM; but Arnie had called his wife, Esther, who was evidently as energetic as voluble, and had bravely gone off to proffer comfort to Celia, the bereaved widow.

  John cautiously asked, “And Mrs. Jensen?”

  Arnie sighed deeply. “She’s going to be in real trouble thanks to Audrey. You remember that business she blurted out, just before the presentation got under way?

  “I’ve been remembering it vividly for the last 2 days.”

  “Well that Wahl woman gave the police a souped up version that put Celia into the soup. She said Celia was talking about running into Ray. And Celia, the little idiot, went along with that story. That was Friday afternoon, when the police finally talked to her. Then when they realized how long he had been dead, they got after her. And she gave some story about quarreling with some maintenance person about where she parked her car. You can see how all that would look to the police.”

  John said wryly, “I’m not sure they don’t look that way to me.”

  Gloom settled over Arnie. “Me too. But whatever Madsen has been up to, she doesn’t deserve more trouble. Frankly she is at the breaking point. The last year clearly hasn’t been easy for her. Now this. And the police will be on her until she tells them the truth about Friday morning.”

  He paused, oppressed by his own recital. John was glad Arnie had missed some of the public speculation about Madsen and Celia that was running riot in the motel, but could think of nothing to say to Arnie to cheer him up so remained silent.

  “What I need is another drink,” declared Arnie.

  The end of the weekend brought no perceptible improvement to the situation, outside of an investment newsletter the Director of Technical Services brought to their attention Monday morning.
r />   The market letter started briskly:

  “Well, one of our stocks that got rained on last week, Michigan Motors, known as MM, and I don’t think it will dry out soon. In fact I am feeling bearish about all auto stocks now. Of course people will keep buying cars. But they do so emotionally not reasonably. And who wants money tied up in an industry where their executives are either in jail or shot up? Jensen dropped from sight for a few days and no one say they saw him. Odd, to say the least. Now if you are looking for a speculative stock, look on the OTC market.”

  The letter went on to suggest high voltage generators were the coming thing.

  By Monday night even Hugh was beginning to have second thoughts about MM. He ordered Berman back to New York to report on current developments. Arnie was in a savage mood as he packed. “You’ll keep an eye on Celia?” he asked John,

  John who came into his room to bid him bon voyage in a socialable spirit, said he would as much as possible. Arnie went on. “I wish Hugh would make up his mind whether he’s hot or cold on MM.” Prudently John refrained from comment. Suddenly Arnie paused and said accusingly, “And I wish I knew why you are staying John. Don’t tell me it’s because Walter had sold the Investment Committee. The MM issue is a dead duck as you have said before.”

  John tried to maintain his dignity by saying, “I’m curious. If American industry has just developed a new method for solving executive personnel problems, I believe it is my responsibility to keep the Sloan informed.”

  Fortunately Arnie’s attention was directed elsewhere or he probably would have guffawed as the engineers did to hapless Hauser.

  John had developed a fundamental curiosity over the weekend. Who had killed Jensen? He was surprised to discover he had no intention of leaving Detroit until he found out.

  Chapter 7

  Under the Hood

  By afternoon the next day John found his curiosity leading him into strange byways. “So you are a friend of Mrs. Jensen’s,” said the matron on the couch disapprovingly. “I am afraid she is low, very low indeed.”

  John decided that this remark was not a general moral judgment but a reference to Celia’s position within the Protestant Episcopal faith. It was merely the latest in a series of brilliant non sequiturs which were giving his afternoon the flavor of an antic venture in another world. An involuntary glance of appeal toward his hostess produced nothing more helpful than a platter of tastefully arranged finger sandwiches.

  It was no doubt a high sense of personal obligation to the absent Arnie which brought John, and a mystified Mack, 80 miles from Detroit to the gray stone rectory in Lansing which now housed Celia as well as her sister and brother-in-law. But no personal obligation would have led John to accept Mrs. Burns’ invitation to tea while awaiting Celia’s return if he had realized that this function represented the terminal activity of the monthly meeting of the St. Andrew’s Altar Guild. Before the full horror of his situation became clear, John had been imprisoned on a long narrow sofa barricaded by a bench like coffee table laden with fragile, and possibly valuable crystal dishes of comestibles. They now rattled dangerously as he shifted his legs. “I beg your pardon, Miss Tickbourne?” he murmured politely to the angular spinster next to him.

  Miss Tickbourne as it developed harbored doubts which she was confident John could allay, as she asked, “Would a cope make the more appropriate gift for the rector? Hand embroidered of course.”

  “Naturally,” John said. He added that so much depended upon the knowledge of the recipient that he was hesitant to offer anything in the way of a decisive opinion. Creditably done, he thought for a man who didn’t understand a word of what she had said. He was fortunate to be interrupted at this point.

  “I understood,” said Mrs. Prescott militantly, “that the Committee had agreed on the cope.”

  Tickbourne’s eager face assumed a timidly mulish cast, “But a Eucharistic vestment, somehow it shows so much more feeling, and dear Father Burns is so sensitive to these distinctions,” as she dithered to a stop.

  “Father Burns, indeed,” snorted Prescott, who was John feared the kind of woman who prides herself on calling a spade a spade, continued, “That sort of talk may be very well under certain circumstances Lavinia but it is an awkward way to refer to a married man.” Turning a gimlet eye on her victim she delivered the final blow, “Almost indelicate.”

  Bridling under this assault, Tickbourne took the offensive. Celibacy she said had never been required by Anglican doctrine. Except in the case of those in orders, she admitted. And speaking of orders, here a new and sinister animation enlivened her voice, had she told them about the letter which had just come. Father John was the inspiration. He understood her feelings so completely. She was sure she had brought it with her. She would just read them the part about self-doubtings.

  Her 2 companions instantly recognized what was apparently a habitual peril so leaped into action. Prescott put one large capable hand on a platter of sponge cake and presented it rather menacingly before Tickbourne’s face. Mrs. Fulham countered with talk, “We all know that Mr. Burns is sensitive. And Mrs. Jensen being his sister-in-law makes things so difficult for him just now. It was bad enough when she was living apart from her husband. But now. All This notoriety. Naturally the rector is upset.”

  John glanced uncharitably across the room where Burns, the only other male present, was lounging against the mantelpiece, balancing a teacup and mediating a dispute between 2 fluttering parishioners. Burns looks fully capable of dealing with any in-law problem as well as most others. Indeed, John suspected, he seemed to be enjoying the limelight. And why not, John mused.

  Tickbourne, torn between the delights of regaling her audience with a blow by blow account of her letter and hearing the latest gossip, chose to be diverted, saying, “I understand that Mrs. Jensen point-blank refused to rejoin her husband,” she whispered in suitably confidential tones. “And only a few days before his...er...death.”

  “But there was a reconciliation, protested Fulham, a plump pouter pigeon of a woman who evidently tries to believe the best of everyone despite the odds against her.

  “Just a sham,” said Prescott authoritatively. “It was only for the look of things during his trial.”

  John abandoned the effort to ease his legs into the narrow slit provided for their disposition. He had not anticipated that the ladies would prove such a fruitful source of information. Thus he set down his cup and entered the conversation, “I had not realized that the disagreement between the Jensens was of such long standing.”

  The ladies assayed his probable intimacy with the family and came to the same conclusion, not too close for comfort but close enough to be interested. Prescott replied, “One might almost say that the disagreements date from their marriage.”

  Fulham piled on sadly, “I am afraid Jensen was not what one would hope for in a husband. Totally wrapped up in his work and not much interested in a family life, and there were no children.”

  3 heads bowed in unison at the total conjugal failure. Tickbourne roused herself to the duties required of a church stalwart, “Nevertheless that is no excuse for a wife to leave her husband. And whatever his faults there was no talk of separation until last summer.”

  Fulham clucked unhappily, but this did not deter Tickbourne from her conclusion, “Until Mrs. Jensen met Mr. Madsen.”

  “Now there, I think we have a great deal of smoke and very little fire,” Prescott added.

  “No,” the good natured Fulham spoke with a calm certainty. Edgar played golf with Belton the other day and he said Jensen went down to Ann Arbor to have it out with Madsen. They had a terrible quarrel by all reports. The neighbors almost called the police, and the while university is talking about it. So there must be something to it.”

  John was beginning to understand why Celia wanted out during this Altar Guild meeting, as he added, “When was this?”

  “Sometime last week. Just after Mrs. Jensen said she wouldn’t be leaving Lansing,”
Fulham replied.

  Last week John reflected. No wonder Ray Jenson had not been in evidence at MM. He had only returned from prison last Monday. The police thought he had been murdered just 2 days later. In the interim he had apparently traveled to Lansing for one fight with his wife and then 40 miles for another in Ann Arbor with Madsen. Worst of all for the parties, both fights were common knowledge. When this became known to the police, the pressure must have increased on Celia to explain her cryptic remarks just before the discovery of his body. At the moment things also looked bad for Madsen.

  His review of these facts was interrupted by the arrival of a young woman in a black jersey, skirt, and stockings. Her ensemble was enlivened by a heavy silver crucifix suspended on a long chain around her neck. She seemed intent on taking leave of everyone present with a handshake here, a few whispered words there, a cordial invitation for John to join them again as she left the room after speaking earnestly with the rector. Her departure was a clear signal to the rest of the gathering. “Mary Ellen has to get back to her children, “explained Tickbourne. “She comes to play the organ at our service; always so faithful.”

  John reminded himself that maternity takes many forms. A good deal of complicated shuffling, regrouping, and querying about cars followed before the Guild made its exit and left the 2 men alone when Mrs. Burns removed the food, dishes, and cups.

  “Glad you enjoyed it,” said the rector with his guest’s tempered thanks thereafter. “Let’s see. You wanted to speak to Celia. She should be back shortly.”

  “Was Mary Ellen after you for confession again?” Mrs. Burns asked upon her return.

  “Well, as a matter of fact, yes,” Burns admitted. “She wants to come in tomorrow before school lets out.”

  “I really don’t see why she can’t make do with the General Confession like everyone else.”

  Unhappily the rector answered, “Confession is an established prerogative of the Anglican believer. When the need is felt--”