He Huffed and He Puffed Read online

The Beard laid a hand on her arm. “Don’t stay too late, Jo. And for heaven’s sake, eat something!”

  “I will, I will,” she assured him. “Don’t fuss so, Harvey.”

  “You pay me to fuss.”

  She grinned at him and left with her friends. Once the star attraction was gone, the others started drifting out through the nearest street door. A woman in her forties came out of the dressing room carrying a garment bag and a small suitcase. Strode held the street door open for her and followed her outside.

  Three cabs were lined up along the curb. The maid, Strode supposed she was, got into the first one and rode away. Strode went to the second, handed the driver a fifty, and said, “Get lost.” The cab took off.

  Strode climbed into the third cab and told the driver to wait. The street door opened and The Beard came out, a violin case in his hand. He headed straight for the one cab in sight, but his face fell when he saw it was occupied. “Oh, why is it so hard to get a cab in this town?” he complained. He asked the driver to come back for him.

  Strode rolled down the window and said, “Can I give you a lift? I’d be happy to.”

  The young man hesitated. “I’m only going as far as the Hilton.”

  “Then there’s no problem,” Strode smiled. “That’s where I’m going too. Please—get in.”

  The Beard got in next to Strode, hugging the violin case to his chest. “It’s only a few blocks, but I do hate to walk on the streets at night when I have this.” He patted the case. “Thank you for giving me a ride.”

  “My pleasure.” The cab driver had been listening and knew where to take them. “That wouldn’t happen to be Joanna Gillespie’s violin, would it?” Strode asked.

  “Yes, it is. It’s a Guarnerius, so you can see why I have to be careful.”

  Strode had never heard the word; but from the way The Beard said it, Guarnerius obviously meant valuable. Strode made several extravagantly complimentary remarks about the concert. The young man was pleased, and by the time the cab pulled up to the Hilton he’d agreed to have a drink with Strode. First he had to see that the violin was put safely in the hotel vault, and then the two men went into the bar.

  His name was Harvey Rudd, the bearded young man said, and he was Joanna Gillespie’s personal assistant. Dogsbody, Strode translated. He ordered bourbon while Harvey asked for an Australian lager Strode had never heard of. “I don’t like this town,” Harvey confessed after tasting the lager. “I’m never comfortable here. Jo likes it. She knows people here, and they’re always making a fuss over her. But I feel at loose ends in Pittsburgh.”

  Strode mentioned having seen the maid leave. “Are there just the three of you?”

  “At the moment, yes. Jo’s manager will be joining us later in Boston. And when she gives a recital, we have her accompanist and his valet. We’re at half strength just now.” Politely he inquired why Strode was in Pittsburgh.

  A business deal he anticipated closing tomorrow, Strode told him, and turned the conversation back to Joanna Gillespie. “I was delighted to find she was playing here tonight—a real stroke of luck. Have you been with her long?”

  “Three years. You know, I’ve just realized I’m hungry. Do you want something to eat?”

  Since Strode was still digesting the corned beef he’d had only a short time earlier, he declined. When Harvey Rudd had some food and a few more lagers inside him, he relaxed and began to chat easily. He seemed happy to have found someone to talk to, in a town he considered less friendly than New York.

  “I just hope Jo remembers to eat,” he worried, pushing back his empty plate. “She doesn’t always. When she’s practicing or sometimes just out having a good time, like tonight, she doesn’t always remember. Did you know she’s diabetic?”

  “Yes, I’d heard,” Strode said. “Amazing how she manages to do so much.”

  “Well, everything doesn’t always get done. Diabetics are supposed to eat on a regular schedule, and when she forgets—she’s going along just fine and then bang! It hits her. The shakes, cold sweats, dizziness. Really knocks her out. It takes her a couple of days to get back in stride again. And that makes it hard on everybody.”

  Meaning yourself, Strode thought. “Does she ever have to cancel a performance?”

  “Very rarely. But it shouldn’t happen at all. Then I have to notify her manager if he’s not with us and change all the transportation arrangements and hotel reservations and the like. And it’s all preventable. I dearly love Jo Gillespie—she’s a terrific person and the greatest violinist in the world and if she’d just remember to eat when she’s supposed to, she’d be perfect.”

  Strode laughed. “I wonder why she’s so careless about something as important as that?”

  “I have a theory. Her mother insisted on treating her like an invalid when she was a child, and I think Jo is still proving Mama was wrong. Even though the poor woman’s been dead nearly two years.”

  “Did you know her? The mother?”

  “Unfortunately. Mustn’t speak ill of the dead and all that, but I swear that woman enjoyed playing the invalid herself. She was diabetic too, you know. And Jo’s father as well. Both her parents were diabetic.”

  “That seems odd—two diabetics marrying? Or is that something the blood tests don’t test for?”

  “According to Jo, they had two different kinds of diabetes. Her father didn’t develop his until he was well into middle age. He was one of those sluggish, overweight people who sometimes get it late in life. But Jo’s mother had juvenile diabetes, and Jo inherited it from her. It was just a nasty coincidence that Papa became diabetic too, later on.”

  Strode shook his head. “What an unlucky family. That’s a lot to overcome.”

  Harvey nodded vigorously. “You bet it is. But Jo’s kinda sick of hearing about it. Nobody seems able to write up an interview without mentioning that she’s the diabetic offspring of diabetic parents. It makes Jo sound as if she’s pitching for sympathy, you know?”

  So Joanna Gillespie wants to play down her diabetes, Strode thought. Interesting.

  “But the really dumb thing is,” Harvey Rudd went on, “it wasn’t that that made the most trouble for her. I’m not telling tales out of school, everybody knows about it. I mean her parents. They were her biggest obstacle.”

  “Mmm … I think I read somewhere they didn’t want her to play the violin?” Where he’d read it was in the file Castleberry had prepared.

  “They didn’t want her to play in public. It was Papa, mostly. He was adamantly opposed to her ‘displaying herself’—as he so charmingly put it. Papa thought music was a perfectly acceptable hobby to pursue in the privacy of one’s home, but that’s all. Just a little skill that one develops for one’s own amusement.” Harvey uttered the last sentence with all the disgust such philistinism warranted. “Even when she emerged as the premier violinist playing today, he never really understood what a special person his daughter was.”

  “Unfortunate. Parental obtuseness … well.”

  Harvey played with his empty glass. “She is special, you know. There’s nobody else quite like her. She can do things with a violin the rest of us can’t even think of, much less do. People like that shouldn’t have to put up with stupid obstacles in their paths. They should have things made easy for them.” He laughed self-deprecatingly. “That’s my job. I try to make things easy for her.”

  Strode was capable of the occasional generous gesture. “I think she’s lucky to have you,” he said, and meant it. His companion grinned with pleasure. Harvey Rudd was an intense young man whose entire life was wrapped up in Joanna Gillespie’s career; what hurt her, hurt him. “Where do you go next?” Strode asked.

  “Home to Boston, then London and Berlin. And then six glorious weeks with nothing to do at all! I think it’s called a vacation. For Jo, of course, that just means more time to practice.”

  They talked a few minutes longer and then left the hotel bar. The two men parted company at the elevators, each heartily
glad to have made the other’s acquaintance. On his way to his room Strode was thinking young Harvey had provided him with a perspective he’d lacked. Joanna Gillespie was a rich woman; she could give free concerts the rest of her life and still die rich. By the same token, she could live quite well on what she made playing the fiddle and never need the money she’d inherited. There was, however, a considerable difference between being able to live quite well and being out-and-out rich.

  But it wasn’t just the money. The Gillespie family relationships had evidently been more strained than Strode knew. If parents and daughter had been on good terms, the violinist would never have thought of killing them, money or no money. But she’d been deprived of a normal childhood by being told she was an invalid; there was bound to be some resentment left over from that. Papa had opposed her pursuit of a career; he’d never understood or cared that music was the raison d’être of her life. And Mama—well, Mama had made her sick.

  Strode unlocked the door to his room and went in. He was fidgety, not ready to sleep yet. One used to be able to count on bellboys to provide certain services, he mused, but no longer. Strode knew he’d want a woman tonight; he always did, when he was moving in for the kill. He should have brought Tracy with him.

  No, that would have been a mistake. Tracy was beginning to think of herself as Mrs. A. J. Strode number five, and that was bound to mean trouble. Strode had no intention of marrying her. Tracy was a great-looking babe, and she was funny; he got a kick out of listening to her chatter. But she was also willful—she’d probably say independent. A kept woman, independent!

  The truth was, Tracy just liked getting her own way. Still, he would have been glad of her company right then. He decided to call her number in New York. He got the answering machine; she was out.

  Strode frowned. That was something else that needed looking into.

  A ringing telephone woke Strode at eight the next morning.

  It was Joanna Gillespie herself. After apologizing for calling so early, she explained she already had a luncheon engagement. “I’m still not going to sell, Mr. Strode,” she said pleasantly. “I hope you didn’t come to Pittsburgh on my account.”

  “Ah, but I did,” he said smoothly. “At least let’s talk—don’t make my trip a complete waste. It won’t hurt to talk about it, will it?”

  “No, so long as you aren’t expecting anything,” she agreed. “I tell you what. I was about to order breakfast—why don’t I order for two? We can talk while we eat.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll need half an hour.”

  Thirty minutes later Joanna Gillespie opened her door and greeted him with an automatic smile. She wore a bulky top of the kind Strode hated because it so successfully hid a woman’s figure. Last night she’d worn a floor-length skirt and today she had on gray slacks. Must have bad legs, Strode thought. Her face was bare of make-up; she certainly hadn’t put herself out any on his account. But she seemed relaxed and at ease, quite a contrast to the intense ball of fire he’d seen in action at Heinz Hall the night before. He complimented her on her performance.

  “Thank you. It did go well, didn’t it?” she said, taking it for granted that he would have gone to hear her play. “It was a good audience. Very up.”

  “They were ready to applaud before you’d played a note,” Strode remarked with amusement.

  “Some audiences are like that. Others come in with Show me! written all over their faces.”

  “Which kind do you work harder for?”

  She shrugged. “Once I start playing, I forget there is an audience. It doesn’t really matter.”

  They were in a comfortable-looking suite; Strode could see one bedroom and a small kitchen. When breakfast arrived, Strode insisted on signing for it and they sat down to eat. He spotted a couple of sweet pastries on the cart and knew they were for him. Joanna Gillespie put a jar of diabetic honey beside her plate for herself.

  She slouched at the table and ate slowly, chewing each bite thoroughly before swallowing. Her movements were deliberate and unhurried, and she looked Strode straight in the eye when she spoke. She was courteous and pleasant to him, but it was obvious she was not at all impressed by having someone like A. J. Strode seeking her out.

  Well, that would change.

  “Where’s your, er, retinue?” Strode asked innocently. “You don’t travel alone, do you?”

  “No, but I don’t sleep with them. They’ll be here at ten. And I told the desk to hold my calls. So you can say what you’ve come to say without fear of interruption.”

  But Strode waited until they were almost finished eating. “How’d you come to buy House of Glass stock in the first place?” he asked her.

  “It was my financial manager’s advice. He handles all my investments.”

  “And he’s the one telling you not to sell?”

  “Not exactly. I called him after your second offer, and he said I was right to hold on to the stock. I watch my investments, Mr. Strode, and House of Glass has sent me some nice dividends.”

  “Call me A. J.”

  “Glad to. And I’m Jo.”

  “You know, Jo, there are other companies I could put you on to that’ll return even bigger dividends. I made you a generous offer. You could make a nice profit on those shares right now and reinvest the entire amount.”

  She shot him a quizzical look. “But the fact that A. J. Strode wants those shares so badly tells me they must be pretty valuable. Why? What’s going to happen with House of Glass?”

  “What’s going to happen,” he said softly, “is that I’m going to close it down.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Close it down?”

  “About ninety percent of it. And when I do, how much do you think your shares will be worth then?” He let her think that over for a minute. “I am going to take over, you know. If not with your shares, then with someone else’s. So you either make a profit now or take a big loss later. Up to you.”

  She stared at him a moment and said, “God, how I hate being bullied! Why do you want to shut down a profitable company like House of Glass?”

  “Business,” he answered shortly.

  “Business.” She thought a moment. “House of Glass must be hurting you somehow. Are you a competitor? And you’re out to smash the competition? Is that it?”

  “Very good, Jo.” He gave her the lupine smile that had intimidated stronger adversaries than Jo Gillespie. “I’m doing you a favor, coming to you first. I go to the next guy, I buy his shares, he makes a profit, you take a bath. So what’s it going to be?”

  She didn’t answer immediately. Then: “What if the next guy says no, too? And the next one? And the one after him? You wouldn’t have raised your first offer to me if you had a string of stockholders lined up eager to sell you their shares. I’m sorry, A. J., but something doesn’t ring true here. I’m going to have to talk this over with my financial manager.”

  Strode shook his head. “Jo, Jo … you know you’re forcing me to do something I didn’t want to do. I was hoping to keep this friendly. I come all the way here from New York—”

  “A fifty-minute flight.”

  “—and I show you how to keep from losing money on your House of Glass shares, and you still won’t sell.” He paused. “Do you remember a man named Ozzie Rogers?”

  Her face tightened. “Who?”

  Strode repeated the name. “An old-style Texan. A familiar type—all muscles and bullets and shoot first and ask no questions at all. Ozzie’s one of those mercenaries who advertise their services in gun magazines. They’re really something, those ads are. Some of them are nothing more than thinly disguised offers to commit murder for a fee. Ozzie’s ad is one of the thinnest.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” she asked with a show of casualness.

  Strode smiled. “Ozzie tells an interesting story. He says a lady sent him a plane ticket to New Orleans for what he calls a ‘meet’—and meet they did. She was looking for someone to kill two people, an older man and his
wife. But then she changed her mind and backed out.” He leaned over the table. “You were that lady, Jo. Ozzie identified you from a picture we showed him. And I have his signature on an affidavit saying so.”

  She was silent a moment and then muttered, “How much did you pay him for that?”

  “Five thousand,” Strode answered blandly. “Ozzie’s not the brightest chap in the world—he had no idea how much his identification was really worth. But that’s neither here nor there. What’s significant is the fact that you consulted him about committing two murders for you. You wanted him to kill your parents.”

  “What are you talking about? My father had a coronary and my mother died of insulin overdose!”

  “That’s what their death certificates say, yes. But you and I both know they were helped along. What was the matter, Jo? Just couldn’t wait for a natural death?”

  “I didn’t hire Ozzie! You know that!”

  “But I don’t know why. Afraid the killings could be traced to you? Or did you just decide Ozzie didn’t have the brains to do the job the way you wanted it done? It sure as hell wasn’t conscience, because you went ahead and did it yourself. You killed your father, and then you waited a year and you killed your mother.”

  “You’re crazy as a loon.” Jo stood up abruptly, jarring the table.

  “How’d you kill your father, Jo?” Strode asked. “An air bubble in the blood stream? That would look like a coronary, and it seems to me a needle would be a diabetic’s natural weapon. It’s what you used on your mother a year later. Oh, I know the coroner’s report said she’d been drinking and forgot she’d already taken her daily injection—at a time when she was alone in the house and there was no one to help her. Supposedly. But you were there, weren’t you? You gave her that overdose. What did you do then, Jo? Did you wait long enough to see the sweating, the confusion, the coma? Or did you leave her to die alone?”

  “Get out of here!” she shouted. “Get out right now!”

  “It was a pretty nice setup,” Strode went on unheeding. “On top of their diabetes, your folks had other problems, didn’t they? Your father had developed emphysema. He smoked too much, he ate too much, he drank too much. The man was a walking coronary waiting to happen. And your mother was in even worse shape. Nephritis, wasn’t it? They were two mighty sick people. So if you were caught playing your needle games, you could always claim they were mercy killings and hope to get a jury that went for that sort of thing.”