Friends till the End (19 page)

Maya looked startled but obediently did so. She had just met most of them herself.

“Heather and Harry, this is my husband Bernard … Sam, Ruth, my husband Bernard … you know Isabel already, of course … this is her father, Walter Sloane and her brother Richard.…”

Bernard remarked to Heather Crandall that he was tremendously sorry about the incident with Linus and the ears.

Heather looked charmed and said it was all right. Children were so fanciful, weren’t they? They lived in a world of their own, and believed nearly everything that was told them. She told Bernard that he must have had very strange karma with Linus in order to frighten him so much at first meeting.

Ruth Abrams was obviously grateful to be rescued from her persecutor and talked to Bernard for quite a while about cats. Ruth loved cats. Why, they had owned a cat as far back as she could remember.…

The funeral seemed to have dampened Harry Crandall’s garrulousness. He spoke briefly to Bernard about
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
, but his heart was not in it. He stood to one side, looking pale and saying little. Walter and Sam were standing together awkwardly. Bernard moved over to them and began to talk.…

By the time the reception was over, Bernard had spoken to everyone in the ill-fated circle around the Sloanes. In the car on the way home he was silent, as usual. Maya regarded him nervously.

“It’s so
unlike
you, Bernard. I don’t understand it.”

Bernard smiled.

A week later Sam Abrams was rooting about in his basement workshop. He kept all sorts of things down there. There was a sewing machine (broken), a workbench, three old rusty filing cabinets, one kid’s chest of drawers from when Marcia was young, the cat box, piles of old wire and rope, and a set of tools. He had promised Ruth that he would clean it up sometime, and he kept promising, but somehow it never happened. He liked it the way it was. The only problem was, it was so messy that most of the time he didn’t know where things were. Right now he was looking for a Phillips screwdriver, a small one. He thought he had put it over there on the bench, but it wasn’t there
now, and unless the cat had knocked it off he wasn’t sure where it could be.

He would have to get this place organized, he thought, arms crossed, looking around him. Ruth was right, it really was a mess. He had gotten everything nicely organized at work—all the file cabinets in order for once, everything filed away neatly—now that the employees could work and concentrate without cringing before Walter’s bellowing voice. Yes, everything was running smoothly there, for once. He felt good about that.

But this basement was another problem. Now where
was
that screwdriver? He supposed he could use a nail file or something like that if he had to, but it wouldn’t be nearly as good.…

It was somewhere between the piles of old newspaper and the discarded cardboard boxes that he realized that the pest killer was missing. It was a new kind, very expensive, and he had bought just a little bag of it to try this summer on the lawn. The plants
would
get red spider mites and mealybug, and nothing seemed to help, but this product advertised, “Pests gone in five days.” Five days! He’d believe it when he saw it. In his experience mealy-bug could run through an entire plant population, inside
and
outside.

He looked around doubtfully. Wasn’t it here that … no, well, maybe not. He thought he had put the bag of insecticide on this shelf here, next to the old brown bottle of dried-up ointment, but maybe not. Or perhaps the cat had gotten to it and it was somewhere on the floor, being batted around like a toy mouse.

He cursed and surged forward again in search of the Phillips screwdriver. He really
would
have to clean up the basement one of these days!

Jim Voelker sat at his desk, hunched over in frustration. He was looking through his files on the Sloane case.

Voelker had a methodical turn of mind. His notes were carefully kept and neatly organized. He had a list of the people involved and their various interconnections. He had doctors’ reports, medical examiner’s reports, finger-prints and background data. He had transcripts of interviews, names, addresses, dates and photographs. All of which had gotten him nowhere.

He sat back with a curse. Damn it, he thought. There were only a few suspects in this case. It should be obvious. Surely the murderer would have overplayed his or her hand by now.…

But they hadn’t. They remained as safe as they were in the very beginning, and somewhere, in a nice suburban home, one that he had visited, somebody was laughing at him even now.

The thought made him furious. He stood up and kicked the wastepaper basket. It fell over and rolled away. The other detectives in the room glanced at each other but said nothing. They knew better than to interfere with Voelker when he was in one of his Moods. That was how they referred to it around the department, one of his Moods with a capital M. Voelker was a likable guy but he had a temper when he got going.

Voelker grimaced to himself. He knew he had a bad
temper but he usually managed to hold it in. His friends usually told him that he bottled it up
too
much, rather than the opposite.

Bottled it up …

That got him thinking …

Who was it among these people who bottled things up, perhaps for a long time, in silence?

Who was it who held things inside until one day they couldn’t hold it in any longer?

Who was the
nicest
person in this group of ill-fated friends?

He sat down and went back through his files again.…

Meanwhile, Bernard and Snooky were having another one of their face-offs in the study.

“So you’re sure,” Bernard was saying, “you’re absolutely
sure
you didn’t see anyone tamper with Sloane’s glass at that first party?”

“I’m sure.”

“It must have been very cleverly done. Think, Snooky. Didn’t you see
anything
?”

Snooky closed his eyes for a moment, then shrugged. “You have to understand, Bernard. I didn’t know anyone was about to be poisoned. I’m not clairvoyant. As I recall, I spent most of the evening worrying that the hors d’oeuvres were going to run out.”

“Yet that woman must have seen something.”

“Freda?”

“Yes.”

Bernard stared out of the window. Snooky, frustrated, picked up a rubber band and began to twang it vigorously. “I’ve thought about it over and over again,” he said, “and I haven’t come up with
anything.
Everyone was acting normally. They all seemed to be having a good time. Those parties were just like a hundred others I’ve been to, except that somebody died. I’m telling you, Bernard, to me it doesn’t add up. It just doesn’t make any
sense.
”

“Oh!”

“What? What is it?”

Bernard remained silent.

“What? What did I say? What is it? What are you thinking about?”

Bernard shook his head slowly.

“Nothing. Thank you, Snooky. It’s just something—something I should have realized a long time ago.…”

Jonathan, Marcia and Melvin had finally departed, driving off in a cloud of dust with plenty of shrieked “good-byes,” and Ruth felt extremely relieved. She told Heather so.

“I’m
extremely
relieved.”

“Yes. It was a drag to have the kids around, wasn’t it?”

Ruth thought about this. It wasn’t exactly a drag, it was … it was hard to put her feelings into words.…

“No. I don’t know. I guess so. I guess it was,” she said unhappily. “It’s not that I don’t love seeing them, of course I do. It’s just so—so
difficult.
”

“You’re such a nice person, Ruthie,” Heather said, sitting down at the kitchen table with a cup of murky brown liquid. “Some twig tea?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“You should have thrown them all out days ago.”

“Oh, Heather. I can’t. I can’t do that. They’re my
children.
”

Heather could do that, Ruth thought, almost enviously. She looked at her friend—so tall, so slender, so capable—she knew how to handle her family. She had Harry twisted around her little finger, and the boys did whatever she said.

Ruth had never been that way. Her kids had run rampant over her from the time they learned to walk and talk. She was just a big mushy pushover, that’s what she was. Even Sam bossed her around sometimes.

Thinking of Sam reminded her. She said, “You know, Heather, Sam found the strangest thing the other day.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, he was in the basement, in his workshop,” Ruth said, her face going all pink, “and even though he was looking for something else he realized—well, he realized all at once that the insect killer was gone. You know. We bought this new kind to try this summer—our lawn is such a mess, we’re really embarrassed in front of the neighbors—
just a little box of it, and now we can’t find it. He called me down and we both looked for it, but it simply isn’t there. Unless, of course, the cat could have gotten hold of it.…”

“That’s odd,” Heather said. She put down her cup and looked gravely at her friend. “That’s very odd. Insecticide, you say?”

Ruth nodded hopelessly. “And it
worries
me, you know, because of all these terrible things that keep happening … we wondered whether it had something to do with it.”

“I think the police were looking for a certain kind of insecticide. Yes, I’m sure they were.”

“Oh!” said Ruth nervously. “Maybe—maybe I should go tell them?”

“On the other hand, maybe your cat has it.”

“He does get into everything,” Ruth said vaguely. “The cat, I mean. You can’t trust him anywhere. I don’t know. I could go to the police, Heather, and it could turn out to be nothing, nothing at all—I’d be so
embarrassed.
What if they turned the basement upside down, and it turned out the cat had taken it somewhere and hidden it to play with?”

“Was it in a box?”

“A bag. A little bag, about this big.” She gestured. “Perfect for the cat to get his claws into.”

“Maybe the cat buried it somewhere.”

Ruth looked doubtful. “Ye-e-es,” she said. “I suppose so.”

“Ruth, who’s been in your basement in the past few months?”

“Oh, my goodness, I don’t
know.
Really! I don’t know if I could
say
—”

“Think, Ruth. It might be important.”

Ruth thought. She thought very hard. It was a novel experience for her, and not unenjoyable. She drank her twig tea and thought it over while Heather drummed her fingers softly on the table.

“This is fun. It’s sort of like sleuthing, isn’t it?”

“Ruth, this isn’t fun at all. It’s serious. Now, who’s been down in Sam’s workshop?”

“Well—well, of course, the kids have been in and out. And Melvin’s down there whenever Sam will let him.”

“The kids don’t count. Think, Ruth. Who among our circle of friends?”

Ruth thought. She cogitated deeply. A worried frown appeared on her face. Her forehead wrinkled even more than usual. Finally she looked up with a sigh.

“Nobody,” she said.

“That’s impossible.”

“It’s not. I mean—nobody! No one’s been down in that basement except for Sam. Why would they, after all? There’s nothing down there but junk. Well, not
junk
, exactly. Sam’s projects.”

“Who’s been over at your house, then? Who knew about the new insecticide you had?”

“Oh, goodness, Heather,
everybody
knew! Sam told everybody about it. He was all excited, you see—it was supposed to get rid of mealybugs in five days—we’ve had such problems with—”

“He didn’t tell me,” Heather said.

Ruth looked at her doubtfully. “Are you sure? Really? I could have sworn that at the tennis party—”

“I’m sure. I never heard about it.”

“I thought everyone knew,” Ruth said miserably. “Who thought it was important, anyway? I can’t remember things like that.”

“Listen, Ruth. You have to go to the police about this. Yes, you do,” Heather said firmly, seeing the look of dismay on her friend’s face.

“But, Heather,
nobody
could have taken it—it’s probably just somewhere on the floor, you know, where the cat’s been playing with it …” Her voice died away as she saw Heather’s expression. “You don’t believe that, do you?”