The Viola Brothers Shore Mystery

by Viola Brothers Shore

  Well, sure, when two local boys are hauled in and it’s got to be one of them. I let her have it straight. “Cyril Weddle has the New York-Philly crowd, being Old Philadelphia Cream Cheese. But the Kulic boys grew up around here and took their turns flipping Burgerbuns, so all the farmers and other plain Petes don’t like Bud Kulic being locked up as a ‘Material Witness’ while Weddle can strut around ‘In the custody of his counsel.’ Pfui! And you can tell Mr. Daniels, comes re-election, there’s more of us than he thinks!”

  “Oh, by that time—” She gets out her cigarettes but me, I’m smoking inside. “My son-in-law doesn’t handle cases to win votes, but strictly according to his lights. They could be stronger, maybe, for this particular jigsaw puzzle, but if people hold pieces in their laps—” I see Rubberface Scudder listening and I pick up my cup. She whispers, “Sit still. I wouldn’t say anything he couldn’t figure out himself. Who is he anyway?”

  “He’s a character that used to sit at Alma’s tables and now he sits at mine. Sells shares in a Burial Society.”

  She talks lower. “Listen, Katy, the truth can’t hurt Bud Kulic if he’s innocent. If—And when the puzzle’s all put together what looks like a cloud turns out to be a puppy’s nose. In life everything’s interconnected, everything leads to something else. And one murder leads to another if you let the murderer walk the streets.”

  “In the custody of his counsel!” I remind her.

  “Or maybe we’re pushing the background in the middle? The middle is a motive and a face. Two faces with two motives is too much, and where there is too much, something is missing. Was Alma Taylor such a beauty with only Sex in her life?” Alma was blonde and cow-pretty and about as hot as arithmetic. “So let’s look for some interconnection between her life and her death. Because if somebody had to get rid of her, he might begin thinking about some other somebody who might be holding the connecting piece—”

  I’m back to two hands. Mine are like ice and she covers them. “I’m not trying to scare you, Katy. Only believe me, everybody’s name is Jones.”

  I don’t know if it’s her voice or her eyes, but I’m a bottle and somebody’s pulling out the cork—A lock clicks and Pop starts downing lights and I snap back, “Talk to Mr. Daniels.”

  “Why do you think I come down here on such a night? For the bus ride? Believe me, we have excellent Danish pastry in New York.”

  “But the coffee—” I shake out her sealskin. “And your granddaughter.”

  “Aiee…” she starts fishing for a nickel.

  “Excuse me,” says Rubberface Scudder, handing her his card. “My jalopy is outside.”

  She looks him over. “Well, Mr. Scudder, you couldn’t sell Katy or me a cemetery plot, but if you want to be so kind—”

  “I’d be happy to drop you, and Miss Katy too.”

  It’s no night for walking. Or riding either, we find out, crawling the last mile to the Daniels’ house. Mrs. Bendovid piles out and all of a sudden I wish I’d walked.

  “Come on, Katy, you’re staying here.” I don’t need any sales talk, because at least I’m sure what she’s selling.

  Scudder slams his door but by that time the Daniels door is open and a bear hug is going on that’s strictly for the Joneses. “Why so late? And why didn’t you phone?”

  “Why—why—Because three heads are better than two and this is Katy Levin who needs to thaw out. Her room is like an icebox.” I don’t know where she got that. “Who can afford a fireplace on tips?”

  “You’ll get used to her,” Steffie says to me, and we start upstairs. “I’ve got a fire in the guest room.”

  “It’s not too much trouble?”

  “Oh, poof.” She’s a cute kid with saddlebrown hair and serious squirrel-color eyes. “Tante Fayga never makes trouble. Except for Father.” So then we seem to understand each other and I don’t need an R.S.V.P. to dunk in a hot tub with nobody listening to how long you let it run.

  When it’s off, I can hear Steffie in the next room. “It’s on his desk now, and my clue is in the deep-freeze if you want to look—”

  “You wrote to me that it’s a frozen hamburger. What’s to look?”

  “But the stain on the paper bag the hamburger was in! A reddish stain!”

  “So if it isn’t ketchup, the report’ll say so.” This is a new one on me. Nobody ever mentioned finding any frozen hamburger.

  “I picked it up in my scarf the day we all combed Willow Wood for the weapon. But Father stuck it in the freezer and just sent the bag to the Lab because he’s so thorough. I did want to show up Mr. Bing Bang Bingham.”

  “That’s Sheriff Bingham?”

  “His nephew. He’s just a Deputy that had the luck to find the kidnapped Brandeau baby. And that great achievement got our hero his badge and a new Buick from the Brandeaus and an idea that nobody can dig up a clue but J. Edgar Bingham. I can’t stand him!”

  Which is like me saying, Who wants a sulky counterman that don’t know what he wants only this isn’t it; Bing at least knows what he’s after and to Seventeen his six-feet-one must be an eyeful with his special Deputy’s belt and gloves—“I swear,” she keeps on, “he’s got J. Edgar’s picture in his watch! Not that a girl would be found there dead—a moron that gets you on a dance floor to hear about all the Bingham Badges, and he’s going to be the star on top of the family tree! Poof! Every clue he brings in just muddles this case more. We once solved a case and I knew if I could get you down here—”

  “It’s nice of you to think of poor Tante Fayga stuck home with only a job and nine meetings,” she’s saying when I come in. Her hair is pinned up in little anchovies and Steffie is curled in a blue quilt with one twin bed groaning under the both. “I’m no Lady Whimsical but if a little common sense will help—”

  “Let’s go,” Steffie says and opens a briefcase. “Father keeps a duplicate file in the safe because of things missing from the office and I worked like a fool arranging this junk because I knew you’d say, ‘Facts—Interconnections—and don’t put the foreground in the middle.’”

  “Grandchildren you need!” says Mrs. Bendovid and hands her a page.

  “Not chronologically?”

  “Your father starts with the crime and works back? Well, I respect professional experience and training.”

  “Yatatayatata,” says Steffie, and begins to read her notes:

  On February 1st John (known as Stutterbug) Stacey burst into the Sheriff’s house on Willow Lane, a dead end with no other houses.

  Stacey: C-come out and look at my c-car!

  Sheriff: Been looking at it since the Bazaar, wondering when it would thaw out. Sprain your foot?

  Stacey: I was l-laid up and—C-come on!

  Sheriff: I’m no tow-car. What’s eating you anyway? Look like you’d seen a corpse.

  Stacey: I d-did! In the t-trunk compartment! Sheriff Bingham found the body of a girl jammed into the compartment, a blood-soaked brown coat wrapped around her head, which had been battered beyond recognition. There was no purse or other means of identification.

  Deputy J. E. Bingham: The Taylor girl had on a brown dress at the Bazaar! I told you she was missing!

  Sheriff: I thought you were just playing G-man.

  “His own Uncle!” Steffie crows. “Want the questioning of Stutterbug?”

  “Not if it has to be stuttered. They checked his story?”

  “But definitely. We Hoytonians all went in one bus and saw him park there, and we drove him home from the Bazaar with a sprained foot. So, while everybody was Bazaaring, somebody found a perfect place to dispose of a body.”

  “A perfect place to dispose of a girl, because nobody brings a body into the Sheriff’s front yard to hide. If there was no blood, the coat could have absorbed it.”

  “But definitely. Father reasons the murderer could have (a) left the body in sight; (b)
buried it in frozen ground, using time he couldn’t account for; and (c) expected the car to be driven away.”

  “Your father is a good reasoner,” quells his mother-in-law, “and we can unmuddle all those dark swarthy foreigners seen by Mrs. A. J. Tackaberry of York Road. Take a paper, Katy, and write down INTERCONNECTIONS. First, Between Murderer and Locality. Go on.”

  Coroner Garrity couldn’t say what caused the head fractures, but something flat and heavy like a rock.

  “Not a tack-hammer,” I point out, “just because they found one in the Kulic ash heap!”

  “The Lab report’s on Father’s desk. But there wasn’t a stone we didn’t turn over.”

  “So where did it go? Does somebody carry away a rock that’s more anonymous just lying there? Mark down Interconnection 2: Between Weapon and Murderer. Next? What’s next?”

  On attempting to identify the body, Kulic, Sr., fainted. Bud Kulic refused to cooperate but Mrs. Kulic mentioned a ripped hem in Alma’s brown dress held up by a safety-pin, a jagged birthmark shaped like a 7 and an enlarged bunion joint.

  “And nothing good?” She’s no fool that Mrs. B. “Even the Coroner mentions at least the girl was a virgin.”

  “‘No evidence of criminal attack,’” Miss Daniels reads from her report of the Coroner’s final report.

  Alma Taylor had eaten ground beef and mustard pickle prior to death, which resulted from strangulation before the fractures of the head, shoulder, and fourth finger—

  “And how anybody could imagine Cyril Weddle smashing her finger for a cheap topaz-and-silver ring—”

  “It belonged to the Borgias—” It’s out before I think and Steffie snaps it up. “You testified that Alma said she found it.” Well, she did. “With a card from the Borgias?”

  “Once in the john she showed me how the stone lifts and she said, that’s where the Borgias kept poison.” (“And you know who I’d like to use it on! I’m supposed to say I found it because some G.I. swiped it out of a museum in Florence, Italy”—But that can’t do Bud any good.)

  “All right, Interconnection 3: Murderer and Ring—because we don’t have here a plain robbery.”

  “Definitely not! Her purse turned up in a dressing room after the Bazaar with money and the usual junk and one thing that isn’t generally known—an old tattered travel-folder with some faint numbering. The Lab brought up PO 713-or-8, and that’s Police Chief Petrie’s home phone—Pontiac 718, so maybe—”

  “So maybe we put down PO 713-or-8 and see what’s in the picture we’ve got.”

  I’d like to go to sleep once without seeing that picture, which is only another case to the County Attorney’s daughter. Steffie says, “Alma Taylor was murdered some time after leaving the Bazaar and before midnight, when the Sheriff’s household returned to Willow Lane, by someone close enough (a) to expect a spotlight on his whereabouts; (b) to smash her face to delay identification or because he hated her; (c) with a weapon that could be traced to him; and (d) taking her silver ring ditto. Okay?”

  “A Daniels come to Judgment!”

  “Oh, poof. By the way, Father got a long-distance call about the ring and that’s where he is now. Maybe if—if—”

  “If Grandma had wheels she would be a wagon. So now we work back. What happened, Katy, when Alma was first missed?”

  “We thought she got fed up with Hoytstown—” (Watch it, Katy, no slips about that fight in the dressing room.) “Somebody said she was taking a trip around the world and—”

  “Who? Who told who?”

  “Mom Kulic told Bing—that’s young Bingham. And he said, Funny she didn’t mention it Sunday, and Pop asked was he trying to make himself a new case, and why didn’t he find whoever hid little Billy Brandeau in the Old Mill? Everybody knows waitresses have itching feet—” Didn’t I, before the Kulics got their family arms around me?

  “But, Katy, somebody knew where Alma was. Somebody showed a special interest?”

  “Cyril Weddle. He seemed very upset.”

  “Naturally. I suppose Bud Kulic was upset too?”

  “I wasn’t noticing him particularly.” (Not since the day I ran over to borrow Mom’s sleeve iron, because she has every kind of pressing gadget, and Bud was shooting off about everything being handed down to him. The others could hand it down to the next, but he’s stuck the rest of his life flipping Burgerbuns ‘—because Mom wants her whole family settled around her with somebody Mom picks out! Well, if she’ll just hand down my bank account, I’ll pick my own—’ I didn’t press my sleeves for Em Kulic’s wedding and who cared. Bud walked into the Church with Alma.) “Scudder showed a special interest in Alma going off without her clothes, but Mom said maybe somebody promised her new ones. Everybody thought Scudder had a yen for Alma himself, he was always trying to date her. And so was Cyril.”

  Steffie sits up. “Wait! If he had a Freudian fixation—”

  “If. If. If he had wheels he would be a taxi with both doors open. Write down Scudder and forget Cyril.”

  “Why? He lied about driving her from the Bazaar! And about the gouge over his eye. And about his glove (which you didn’t mention being found under Alma!). Then when Bing found the mate and had a perfect case against him, his Mama brought in a lawyer and he got away with the world’s prize fish story!”

  “Maybe we could find some fish in it. You’ve got Cyril’s statement?”

  Around 10:15 Alma came up to me at the Buffet, very upset and said, “Take me out of here!” so I had them wrap up my Supercargo—that’s a Doubledecker with chow-chow. Kulic’s stuff is all Dittybags and Y-Bombs and stuff Bud picked up in the Merchant Marine.

  I thought a car was following us and pulled up to see who passed. But instead a small dark coupe swung into Willow Lane. I backed in and saw an empty crate down by the fence—

  Question: You didn’t feel the motor?

  No, we figured it was somebody cutting across the woods. We ate the Supercargo and I asked why she was so steamed up and she said, “You’d be steamed up too if you were counting on something and all you got was a piece of tin and a lot of promises! Keep it quiet! How long—till I’m gray?”

  I asked if Bud was scared of his mother and she said, “She’s got them all buffaloed. Ever notice her hands? They got so big from keeping them around everybody’s bank account. Over $2000 he earned himself! I told him what to do.”

  So we talked about families having big money for rewards and stuff but if a fellow needs a new car, oh, no! that’s for G-men that don’t even find the kidnaper. She kept getting more and more worked up but when I tried to pet her down, she got sore. I grabbed her and she smacked me and ran up Willow Lane. So I started up the crate.

  Question: But you didn’t pass her?

  No, I figured she got another hitch. But then I got worried about the wrong kind of hitch and stuff and I wasn’t very proud of my part.

  “H’m. Quite a kettleful, including red herrings. But maybe this kidnapping might have an intercon—?”

  “I’ll say! Mrs. Brandeau is Cyril’s aunt and if he saw a way to raise money—”

  “If. If knishes you want, everywhere you see knishes. If I remember, after the alarm went out, one Deputy phoned in he was on the trail of a small, dark coupe. A small dark coupe followed Cyril and could have been waiting behind the Sheriff’s house—”

  “And whoever was in it caught Alma and picked up Cyril’s glove!”

  “Not Bud!” I said. “Mom found him asleep at 10:30. The Cream Cheese crowd say a mother’d alibi her son, but wouldn’t your father’s trained seals break a phony alibi?” I’m selling it to myself too. “Can’t a guy have a headache and go home? And if your mother threatens to brain deputies with an ironing board, they’ll find some hammer in your ash heap!”

  “Especially the Sheriff’s little Busy Beavers. If Bud had just cooperated, Father wouldn’t have felt he was h
olding something back and that he’d soften up—”

  “Like cement! And poor Pop’s a changed man and Mom—!” From a big round apple to a scarecrow with two holes burned in for eyes!

  “So stop being Katy Superjones and turn up the pieces in your lap and don’t say What pieces, if I knew I wouldn’t ask! When was the last you saw Alma?”

  Here it comes.

  “I relieved her at 10.”

  “She took her purse?” (Wait a minute—purse—numbers—Alma and her lucky numbers—) “Fifteen minutes later she was so upset she left it in a dressing room. Where she had a fight?”

  But if Bud didn’t kill her—? And this Interconnection’s beginning to get me. Anyway, the cork’s out. “Mom wanted to know if Bud really went home and I couldn’t find him, but I heard Alma’s voice coming out of a dressing room. It sounded like, ‘How many numbers do you want?’”

  Mrs. Bendovid’s eyes are looking right through me. “What else, Katy? What else did you hear?”

  It still burns my tongue coming out. “Alma said, ‘You don’t scare me, you don’t dare lay a hand on me! I know what I’ve got and I’m through playing tiddlediwinks!’”

  “And you thought it could only mean one thing! A woman has only one meaning, one ambition, one mainspring, the same key unlocks us all! Do we have to believe that too? What made Alma tick? Why did she leave the farm? What did she want? Why did the Kulics say she was going around the world?”

  “Because that’s what she wanted!” Of course! Saying Jerusalem, Egypt, Damascus, her eyes lit up.

  Steffie is riffling through papers. “Her sister said Alma never cared about boys—here it is—‘When she told me her lucky number came in, I thought she won the money to go and see all those places with faraway names—’”

  “So there it was all the time—the key to Alma Taylor. In Hoytstown she took a job. So she didn’t have the money, but she expected to get it. She was ‘counting on something and getting a lot of promises.’ From whom? ‘I know what I’ve got’—what? Come on, Katy, what?”