Going Out in Style (18 page)

Snooky was gazing with quiet pride at the items he had managed to buy, in a few free moments allotted to him. He had picked up a gray silk tie for Bernard, identical to the other two that Bernard already owned, and a hat he thought might fit him. For Maya he had scavenged a wool skirt and an oversized white sweater. For himself he had bought only the purple Ronald McDonald tie. He had glimpsed it through the crowd and could not resist. Now he knotted it wearily around his neck and said, “I wouldn’t worry, Lisa. Whoever took that wooden rabbit is cursed enough.”

“But it’s not
fair
, Snooky. It’s not right to steal.”

“They can’t mean to display it. Maybe somebody needed firewood, have you thought of that?”

“Even so, they should have paid for it,” said Lisa, who had a one-track mind. She went back to adding up columns of figures.

“Come on, George,” said Susan wearily. “It’s time to go.”

“All right, Susan.” George, in his free time, had managed to pick up four of his own shirts. Susan looked at him with fond despair.

“George, I don’t believe you. You paid money for those shirts? George, there were some
nice
shirts on sale today. What about them?”

“I like these shirts, Susie. These are mine.”

“Well, I bought these two for you. They’re not great, but they’re better than the ones you have. And this sweater is for Harold.”

Albert was collapsed in his chair. He felt hot and tired. His good nature had been repeatedly abused by the shoppers, who had offered him less than he thought he should take but more than he felt he could refuse. He was positive he had taken in far less money than anybody else. Gretchen, at the table next to him, had been a model of efficiency. She was counting through her cigar box with a pleased expression on her face.

The room had emptied out a while ago, and now the volunteers began to stir, wearily lifting themselves from their chairs and hobbling toward the door.

“We’ll come back later and clean the place up, Jessie,” said Gretchen, closing the cigar box with a satisfied
click
. “All right?”

Jessie did not reply. She was sitting slumped in her chair, her head resting on her arm.

“Jessie?”

Snooky, almost at the door, looked back. In a few rapid strides he was next to Jessie. He bent over her.

The missing letter opener from Lisa’s table was buried squarely in the center of Jessie’s back.

Snooky straightened up and his eyes met Albert’s. Albert gave him a startled, questioning look. Gretchen began to scream, a high-pitched agonized sound.

“Jessie … oh, no … oh, God, no …!”

“Let me get this straight,” said Bernard. “The woman was stabbed to death with one of the sale items sometime toward the end of the bazaar?”

“Yes.” Snooky played listlessly with his Ronald McDonald tie.

“How do you know it was toward the end?”

“Because, Bernard, the three thousand women shouting prices at her half an hour earlier would probably have noticed if she was dead.”

Bernard had to admit that was true. He leaned back and looked quietly out his study window. The willow tree in the backyard was bare, its branches whipping in the breeze.

“And she had seen something—the night your friend was killed?”

Snooky nodded. “That’s what I gathered from what Gretchen was saying. She was nearly hysterical, and she kept on talking, talking, talking until the police came. She said Jessie had driven by the Whitaker house that night. It was dark out and she said at the time that she didn’t see anything, but I guess she did. And there was something else—something about a Barbie doll Gretchen saw her playing with last night. She was walking it around on the floor and Gretchen said she seemed all funny about it.”

“A Barbie doll,” mused Bernard. “So Jessie saw someone going into the Whitaker house—someone who later said they weren’t there … someone, perhaps, she wouldn’t dream of suspecting, so she forgot all about it until last night—”

Their eyes met. Snooky nodded.

“Exactly,” he said.
“Someone she wouldn’t dream of suspecting …”

The door opened and Maya came in. She had a worried, maternal expression on her face and was holding a steaming cup of brown liquid. “Here, Snooks. Drink this now.” She thrust it at him.

Snooky eyed it dubiously. “What is it, My?”

“Just drink it and don’t ask any questions. It’s one of Bernard’s new recipes.”

Snooky gave a weak, trembly laugh. “Dog food, eh, Bernard?”

“Just do what your sister says and drink it, Snooky.”

Snooky drank it. In between gulps he said,

“Hot cider, rum, a little brandy, orange juice, honey, cloves, cinnamon—hey, Bernard, this is the same as before, isn’t it? Where was I? Honey, cloves, cinnamon …”

When he was done he said accusingly, “That wasn’t any different.”

“Yes, it was,” said Bernard.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“There was something else in it?”

“Yes.”

“Something I missed?”

“Yes.”

“Not dog food again?”

“No.”

“Oh. Then what was it?”

“Lethe,” said Bernard.

“Lethe? What’s lethe?”

“Forgetfulness, Snooky. Now go lie down and take a nap, will you?”

After Snooky had gone upstairs, Maya said, “There wasn’t anything different in that recipe, was there, honey?”

“No. Just the power of suggestion.”

“I see.”

Maya sat down on the edge of Bernard’s chair and he put his arm around her. “This is terrible, Bernard.”

“Yes.”

“It’s so bad for Snooky to have to go through this. He has a sensitive nature, no matter what you say.”

“It’s worse for the people who were murdered.”

“Yes. I know. I’m not forgetting them.”

“I know.”

They sat for a while in companionable silence. Twilight began to fill the room with a cold blue light. Maya leaned down to give her husband a kiss. “I’m going upstairs to check on him. Make sure he’s asleep, and not tossing and turning. How are you doing? Should I turn on the lights as I go?”

“No.”

She regarded him with the same anxious, maternal expression she usually saved for Snooky. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Maya.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to think,” said Bernard. “I’m going to think very, very hard.”

After Maya had left, Bernard sat silently at his desk. The world outside turned blue in the early winter evening, then gray, then black. His form faded along with the light, until he was a silent motionless shape in the darkness. His mind was clicking along rapidly. A third murder … another person who had seen something or known something, and there could be a fourth or a fifth or a sixth before the killer finally felt safe.

He sat quietly for a long time, going over the whole affair from the beginning. Bernard had a precise, methodical mind, something that was not utilized a great deal in his profession, which called more on his reserves of intuition and creativity. Now he went over everything that had happened in detail. Bella’s death … Mrs. MacGregor’s death … 
something she didn’t see
 … the earring … 
who planted it on him?
… Jessie Lowell’s death … 
who was it she had seen?
…

Bernard stirred and sighed. Under the desk, Misty raised her head and gave him a reproachful look which he could not see in the darkness. He felt annoyed with himself. There was something that Snooky had said recently; something that had stuck in Bernard’s mind, if only he could recall it; something that had gone by unnoticed at the time, but now was prickling at him like a thorn, announcing itself and its own importance …

He remembered Aunt Etta sitting like a mushroom on the hard sofa in her living room, saying, “She shut her mouth and wouldn’t say anything except that it didn’t make any sense.…”

It didn’t make any sense
.

Of course nothing about this case did make much sense.

If only he could remember what Snooky had said. It was an offhand comment, one of Snooky’s specialties, and Snooky himself, as usual, had no idea what he was actually saying.…

For a long time there was complete silence in the study, except for the sound of Misty’s gentle snores. Suddenly Bernard gave a loud grunt. Misty moved and grumbled at his feet.

Bernard grunted again; he sounded happy. He turned on the lamp, took out his notebook and carefully printed:

Then he put down the Magic Marker and began to think even harder than before.

*      *      *

Detective Janovy was feeling very frazzled. Jessie Lowell was dead. He thought he knew why someone had killed her, but he still did not know who that killer was. Half the citizens of Ridgewood were on his back, protesting that
they
could have been killed, and that an insane murderer was on the loose in their quiet town. One thing Janovy was sure of, in this case where he was not sure of anything, was that the killer was not insane. Jessie Lowell had been killed because she knew something, and she had chosen to announce that fact at the top of her voice in a crowded room.

Still, having a murder take place during the rummage sale was bad for the sale (most of the citizenry had sworn off ever going there again), bad for Ridgewood, and bad for everyone involved. Whoever was doing this was quickwitted, thought Janovy for the hundredth time. He or she had seen their chance and taken it, while the room was still crowded and everyone’s attention was focused on the sale items. The murderer had chosen an opportune moment, when the room was full enough, but not so full that Jessie’s apparent fatigue would be noticed and remarked upon.

Mrs. Furness, little Johnny’s mother, was having heart palpitations. She sat in Janovy’s closetlike office and gestured with wide sweeping motions of her hands, nearly knocking Fish out the door.

“I was standing right there next to her,” she was saying. “
Right there
, I’m telling you. How awful! The murderer could have been anywhere … right behind us … I’m telling you, it gives me the trembles to think of it. A murderer standing behind me. My heart isn’t very strong, you know.”

Detective Janovy was of the private opinion that Mrs.
Furness’s heart was as strong as a mule’s, but he did not contradict her.

“Not strong at all,” Mrs. Furness went on with evident pride. “Why, just the other day the doctor was telling me that I should avoid any shocks to my system—I’m telling you, this could have
killed
me.”

“Yes. Yes. Terrible. Tell me, Mrs. Furness, what exactly did Jessie Lowell say to you?”

Mrs. Furness hemmed and hawed, obviously preferring to discuss the state of her cardiovascular system, but finally got down to brass tacks.

“… and then she said it didn’t make any sense and she thought everyone was thinking about it completely backwards,” she finished in triumph. “At least, I
think
that was what she said. I wasn’t giving her my total attention, you see—it was so loud there, and as a matter of fact there was this darling little evening bag I had my eye on—”

Janovy and Fish exchanged glances. “Thank you very much for coming by with this information,” Janovy said. “We appreciate it, Mrs. Furness.”

She fairly bristled with self-satisfaction.

“Of course, Officer. I felt it was my civic duty.”

She shook hands with both of them and left.

Janovy leaned back in his chair and said, “ ‘Everyone was thinking about it completely backwards.’ Any idea what she meant by that, Fish?”

“No, sir.”

“Could she mean there’s another suspect—one we haven’t thought of?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Janovy did not know either. It made him very uneasy.

“Any fingerprints on that letter opener, Fish?”

“No, sir. It had been wiped clean.”

Janovy nodded wearily. “What are we down to, Fish? We can’t wait until they’re all killed off before we have a suspect.” He ticked off the names on his fingers. “Albert and Susan Whitaker, Gretchen Schneider, George Drexler. Etta Pinsky wasn’t at the sale yesterday, and anyway she has no apparent motive for any of these murders. George Drexler couldn’t have killed Bella Whitaker, but he might be in on it with Susan. Albert and Gretchen might be working together, as well. What do you think, Fish? Are we looking for one person working alone, or for a team?”

Fish looked more mournful than ever and said he didn’t know. It was a strange case. It didn’t quite meet the eye.

Janovy agreed wholeheartedly. It didn’t meet the eye. The more he found out, the more complicated it seemed.

The whole business worried him.

He rose to his feet and said, “I want to talk to Gretchen Schneider.”

He looked with compassion at the tall sticklike figure in front of him. In the course of a few hours, Gretchen seemed to have aged several years. Her face was ravaged, swollen red with tears. Albert, sitting by her side in the Whitaker living room, looked absolutely deflated, collapsed in upon himself. His fair hair stuck out wildly in all directions, and his big square face looked drained and empty. He had taken off his glasses, and his eyes looked strangely unfocused.