by Gloria Dank
“Alone?”
“No. My sister was there. She can corroborate what I say.”
“All right.”
“Of course,” Snooky said mildly, “I’m her favorite brother. She has a soft spot for me. She’d say anything I told her to. And my memory is so bad these days. Now let me think—was I home in the cabin, or was I out in the woods, hunting game with Roger’s Winchester rifle?”
“Good-bye,” Bentley said to Sarah. “I’ll be here tomorrow morning around nine o’clock to interview Mrs. Ditmar.”
“Good-bye, Detective.”
“And as for you, young man,” the detective said, “I’m glad you think it’s so funny. Murder is no laughing matter.”
Snooky, sobered, shut the door behind him. The little detective was right, he thought. Murder is no laughing matter.…
4
Bernard tapped absently on the typewriter keys as he listened to Snooky’s report. “All right,” he said. “So Dwayne and Gertie admit that they were in the woods, in the right spot at the right time. Roger and Sarah say they were home. Irma was home as well.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Snooky.”
“Is that all, Bernard? Can I relax now? My spying duties are over for the moment?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Snooky stood up, stretched like a cat and disappeared into his bedroom. Bernard looked at the page in the typewriter. His random typing spelled out:
MXCTLKEIC EKXLEKDJFIL C,EK3K4LSKCK05
His eyes took on a dreamy, faraway expression. He sat quietly for a few minutes, gazing at the hearth, then turned back to his typewriter.
GN?
This, in his own special shorthand, stood for “Gun?” Underneath he typed,
MTVE? (Motive?)
WLK N TH WDS (“walk in the woods”)
NGGMNT (“engagement”)
FMLY (“family”)
He was looking in sleepy satisfaction at these notes when Snooky came back in and settled down on the sofa with a book.
“You don’t mind if I read in here, do you? It’s too cold in my bedroom. Where’s that blanket? By the way, Bernard, I’ve decided we’re having chicken à l’orange tonight. How’s that?”
“Fine.”
“I’ll go shopping a little later on.” Snooky leaned back on the cushions with a sigh. “It’s good to be young, and have nothing to do. You don’t understand that, do you, Bernard? Were you ever young?”
“I was young,” Bernard said shortly.
“I can’t imagine it. I can’t see it, personally. It’s not something I can picture. You, young.” Snooky put his head on one side. “Nope, I can’t visualize it.”
“I was young. I was your age once. I was your age only seven years ago.”
“What was it like for you then? You hadn’t met Maya yet, had you? What was it like?”
“It was,” said Bernard, “a barren wasteland.”
“Because you hadn’t met my sister?”
“Yes.”
“That’s touching, Bernard. A little nauseating, but touching. Where were you living then?”
“In New York City.”
“Really? Where?”
“On the Upper West Side. I had a studio apartment. It was the size of this living room. Maybe a little smaller. The bathroom was in the kitchen.”
“Sounds luxurious. Were you dating?”
“Now and then,” Bernard said stiffly.
“Really? Who?”
“None of your business, Snooky.”
“Oh, come on. It’s just the two of us. Maya isn’t around. What kind of women were you dating? What were they like?”
“They were morons and imbeciles, with an occasional psychotic thrown in.”
Snooky nodded. “I can understand that. I really can. That’s what it looks like, sometimes. Like you’re the only sane person and the rest of the world is crazy.”
“Yes.”
“And then you met Maya.”
“Yes. At a party. A literary party.”
“No. You? You went to a party?”
“I was forced to go.”
“By whom?”
“My agent.”
“Oh. So you met Maya there.”
“Yes.”
“And you asked her out?”
“Yes, I did.”
Snooky waited, but Bernard was not forthcoming. He had lapsed into a melancholy silence.
“You know,” said Snooky, “I don’t want to complain, because you and I so rarely have these little tête-à-têtes, but I’ve talked to dogs that were more communicative.”
“It’s a simple enough story, Snooky. You know most of it. I dated before I met your sister. Then I met her. Then we got married. Then I found out about you. You know the kind of hell that’s turned my life into.”
“When you met Maya, did you have a special feeling?” asked Snooky tentatively. “You know … a special feeling?”
“A special feeling. Yes. Yes, I did.” Bernard drummed his fingers on the top of his typewriter.
“What did it feel like?”
“I don’t know, Snooky,” Bernard said irritably. “I can’t describe it.”
“Was it different from anything you had ever felt before?”
“Yes, it was.”
“How soon did you know you were going to marry her?”
“I don’t really know. After a few months, maybe. It takes me a while to get to know someone. By the way, is this conversation about Maya and me, or is it about you and your numerous girlfriends?”
“I’ve never had a special feeling,” said Snooky sadly. “Never.”
Bernard stared at him gloomily, signifying that he did not particularly care. Misty stirred and yawned. They could hear Maya humming in the kitchen as she prepared lunch. The cold blue sunlight slanted in through the windows and gleamed chestnut-gold on Snooky’s hair.
“So what were they like?”
“Who?”
“These women that you dated.”
“I’ve already told you. Morons, psychotics and imbeciles.”
“What else?”
Bernard bared his teeth at him. “I don’t like to talk about my old girlfriends when Maya is around.”
“Why? She doesn’t care.”
“I know, but it upsets me, and then she has to calm me down. Well, when I first came to New York, I met a woman who worked in advertising. She was crazy. All she ever did was work and smoke. She never ate. We didn’t have much in common.”
“Uh-huh. I can see that. And then?”
“Then I went out with a woman who worked in real estate. She had a little brat of about five or six who hated me. That didn’t last long.”
“The kid hated you?”
“Yes.”
“How could that be?”
“Don’t be coy, Snooky. You know how much I hate children. Well, this little kid hated me back. He used to pinch me when his mother wasn’t looking.”
“Did you tell on him?”
“No.”
“Oh. I would have. And then?”
“Well, there was one other person I dated in New York before I met Maya. She worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She was a curator or something, I never got it straight. We used to go to concerts there together. She was a good person.” Bernard seemed to sink further into a melancholy mood.
“What happened?”
“She left me. Suddenly. Her old boyfriend came back to town and she went back to him.”
Snooky was thunderstruck. “I’ve been left. I know how that feels. Were you upset?”
“No,” said Bernard. “I was delighted. Naturally I was upset. What do you think, Snooky? Do you think I have no feelings at all?”
“Were you on the rebound when you met my sister?”
“No. That was almost a year later.”
“Tell me, Bernard. If this woman dumped you—”
“I wouldn’t say ‘dumped,’ ” objected Bernard. “ ‘Dumped’ is such
a cruel, unfeeling word. I would say ‘betrayed.’ ”
“Whatever. If this woman left you, does that make her a moron, a psychotic or an imbecile?”
Bernard brightened perceptibly. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Perhaps all three,” said Snooky kindly, and settled back on the couch with his book.
Later that evening, Snooky cornered Maya in the kitchen. He said in an excited whisper, “Bernard and I had a conversation this afternoon, Maya. An entire conversation. We sat and talked in the living room, just the two of us.”
“I’m so happy for you that I could cry.” Maya was heating up some milk for cocoa. “What do you think? Is this hot enough?”
“Wait till it bubbles around the edges. We sat and we talked for a long time. Bernard opened up and told me more about his past than he ever has before. Maybe more than he’s ever told anyone before, except of course for you.”
“I’m sure that made his day.” She measured plain baking cocoa and sugar into three mugs.
“I don’t see why you have to be so cynical. Bernard and I have never had a real conversation before.”
“Bernard told me about it, too,” said Maya, tilting the hot milk from the pan into the mugs.
“Did he? Did he really? What did he say? Was he excited about it, too?”
“Yes, he was, Snooky.”
“I knew it. It was a breakthrough in our relationship, Maya. A breakthrough. What did he say to you?”
“Well, you know Bernard. He doesn’t say much.”
“Yes, I know. But he must have said something about it.”
“Well, if you really want to know, he said, ‘Snooky was prying into my past today. I told him about Diane.’ ”
Snooky was crestfallen. “Diane? Is that the art museum curator?”
“Yes.”
“That’s it? That’s all he said?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“That I was prying into his past?”
“Yes.”
“It’s so unfair. I don’t understand it. How can you get along with him?”
“He did say one more thing.”
“Really? What was that?”
“He asked if I could manage to keep you out of the living room while he’s trying to work from now on.”
Snooky was furious. “This is the end. I’ve had it. My trust and confidence have been abused once too often. And to think that I spied on my own girlfriend’s family for him. How can you have married him, Maya? The man has no human attributes whatsoever.”
“Don’t fret, little one,” she said affectionately, and handed him a cup of cocoa.
The next morning at nine o’clock, Snooky was at the door of Hugo’s Folly to greet Detective Bentley.
“Detective. What a pleasure. I could hardly sleep all night, knowing that you’d be here today.”
“Is Mrs. Ditmar ready?”
“She’ll be down in a minute. Come with me.” Snooky led the way into the living room, where he and the detective sat and stared at each other.
“It’s a strange business,” Snooky said at last. “Any idea who did it?”
“We’re following up on every clue we have, Mr. Randolph.”
“Yes. Yes, I’m sure you are.”
The door opened and Irma came in, leaning on Sarah’s arm. She was very pale today and wore no makeup at all. In the harsh silver light of the living room, she looked nearly a hundred years old. She was wearing a peach-colored satin bathrobe over a nightgown, and on her feet were fuzzy bunny slippers. The contrast of her blue-veined legs and the childish slippers was strangely incongruous, and touching. Irma sank into one of the armchairs with a grateful sigh.
“Mrs. Ditmar,” said Bentley. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I understand what a shock this must have been.”
“Yes,” Irma said simply. The skin around her mouth whitened, her lips drawing inward.
“Mrs. Ditmar, please tell me about your relationship with Bobby Fuller.”
“We were engaged to be married.”
“And you announced your engagement—?”
“Last Friday. A few days before he died.”
“How long had you known him?”
“About three months.”
“Would you say the news of your engagement came as a shock to your family?”
“They were delighted,” said Irma firmly. “Absolutely delighted. Anyone who knew Bobby would be.”
“Where were you on the day he died?”
“I was here, in the house.”
“Alone?”
“No, Sarah was with me.”
“All day?”
Irma looked at her niece appealingly. “Well, of course we weren’t together every minute of the day …”
“My aunt was upstairs and I was downstairs, in the kitchen,” said Sarah smoothly.
“But you were both in the house all day?”
“Well, of course I did go out for a little while to do the shopping …” said Irma.
“And you were here alone?” said Bentley to Sarah.
“Yes, Detective. But I stayed right here. I was busy making pot roast in the kitchen. It was a new recipe and everything always takes so much longer when you do it for the first time.”
“So true,” piped up Snooky. “I remember once, I was trying out this new recipe for mushroom strudel, and it took me forever. You wouldn’t think it could be so difficult, but it can. I couldn’t get the pastry to fold up right, and—”
“When was the last time you saw Bobby Fuller?” Bentley asked Irma.
“—Kept ten people waiting for dinner,” Snooky concluded, unruffled. “Finally had to send out for pizza.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Irma. “Let me see. Oh, yes, it was Saturday. The day after Snooky’s dinner party. We went out for dinner and a movie. That was the last time.”
“Mrs. Ditmar, who would want to kill your fiancé?”
Irma met his gaze calmly. “Nobody.”
“Nobody?”
“Absolutely not. Everyone loved Bobby. They were happy for me, because I was happy. So very happy. And let me tell you, Detective, that any suspicions you might have about my family are simply—well, simply ridiculous. I resent it.”
“So what is your explanation of your fiancé’s death?”
Irma produced a lacy white handkerchief from the pocket of her bathrobe and waved it vaguely in the air. “An accident,” she said. “A tragic, tragic accident. That’s what it was.”
The detective took her over and over this, but Irma held fast to her belief that Bobby had died as the result of a hunting accident. “It does happen. You remember, there was that case in New Hampshire last winter. Those hunters are crazy. They’ll shoot at anything.”
“Does that include your brother?”
Irma stiffened. A steely glint came into her seawater-green eyes. Her eyes looked paler than usual, washed out, as if all the tears had drained them of their normal color. “Roger is different,” she said fiercely. “Roger is a … a humanist.”
Nobody knew what she meant by this, but she said it proudly, as a mark of esteem. Bentley was puzzled. “You don’t think he would shoot at anything that moved out there?”
“No, no, of course not. If he had a trigger finger, he’d have shot Gertie long ago. She’s always taking her nature walks while he’s out hunting in the same section of the woods.”
Snooky felt she had a point. Gertie was so large that while it seemed impossible that she could be mistaken for a deer—a moose, perhaps, or a caribou, although he didn’t think they inhabited these parts—there was no doubt that she afforded a neat target. If Gertie had spent years marching in safety through the woods, that argued against the hunting accident theory.
“That’s insulting,” Irma was saying now, her voice raised. “That’s insulting, Detective.”
Bentley was looking slightly cowed. “It’s something I have to ask you, Mrs. Ditmar.�
��
“How dare you imply that anyone in my family—my family—would kill anyone for money! As if I would cut them off without a cent anyway! They know me better than that. I wouldn’t have left all my money to Bobby—why, it wouldn’t have been fair!”
Sarah, Snooky noticed, was gazing out the window with a peculiar expression on her face.
“It was Hugo’s money, anyway. I owe it to him to take care of the family. I’ve always been fair about the money, everyone knows that. So it’s ridiculous to imply that anybody thought I’d let Bobby steal the money away from them. Money is a great responsibility,” said Irma heatedly. “A truly great responsibility. That’s why Hugo left it all to me. He knew I had a business sense, that I could handle it. And I won’t listen to any more lies and slander. Everyone wishes me well; everyone in the family loves me. Do you have a family, Detective?”
Bentley, who was in fact an orphan and a bachelor, shook his head.
“I knew it,” Irma said cunningly. “No family, eh? Well, then you don’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like. But I won’t listen to any more of these innuendos. Sarah, come with me.”
Bristling with indignation, she rose to her feet and left the room. Snooky and the little detective sat in silence for a moment.
“She knows something,” Bentley said at last, “but she’s not telling.”
“This is a family, Detective. They all stick together.”
Bentley shook his head. As an orphan and a bachelor, he had spent his life on the outside of families, looking in. Irma’s discovery of this had bruised his feelings. He had a tender inner core on the subject, like a lonely barnacle. Now he shook his head again. “Families!”
“They’ll do anything to protect each other.”
“Even hide a murderer in their midst?”
“Yes,” said Snooky slowly. “I think so. Even hide a murderer.”
Bernard looked up from his typewriter as Snooky came in. “Hi. How was the interview?”
“Honestly, Bernard,” said Snooky, dumping a bag full of groceries onto the table, “I don’t see how you can ask that. Don’t you know that I hate people prying into my past? Yes, I sat in on the interview, and yes, I know all about it, and no, I’m not going to tell you a word. I respect your privacy, you respect mine.” He went into his bedroom and the door shut with a bang.
