"Or half a dozen other nationalities," the young man interjected. "Isn't that sort of thing a bit old hat?"
"In general, yes, almost useless, but in this particular instance it might be significant," she said, but did not elaborate further. "Was there anything else interesting in the findings?"
The young man ran through the sheaf of papers in his hand: "His left wrist had been broken, probably some time during puberty, and what skin remained on the palms of the hands did indicate some calluses, as if he'd done rough work at some time. The nails, on the other hand, were fine, rather delicate and well cared-for. Not like, say, a mechanic's or a construction worker's or even a seaman's. That's rather curious too, come to think of it."
Penny sighed. "And he does not fit the description of any missing person locally or in New England?"
"Not that the police have discovered so far."
"And the inquest is when exactly?"
"Tomorrow at Barnstable County Court, 2 o'clock, I believe."
"And then you'll bury him, even if you still don't know who he is?"
"Yes, he'll be buried as a John Doe in the Masuit cemetery. Our storage facilities here are pretty limited, we're not like a big city where they have a regular morgue, but we can always get him up again if necessary. He's O.K. now, we embalmed what was left." This seemed to cheer him up considerably.
Feeling she had probably got all she was going to get out of Dave Baxter, Penny thanked him effusively and they parted. As she hurried back to the Langley cottage, Penny felt a mounting excitement about the anticipated luncheon with the Dimolas. Now she could hardly wait to test her burgeoning theory.
In this she was doomed to disappointment, for pinned to the door was a note from Ann to say the Dimola luncheon had had to be postponed—no reason given—and would Penny make it dinner with them tomorrow. "Hob-son's choice," snarled Penny, and went grumpily off to finish her letter to Toby.
She was not left long in peace, however, for hearing noises in the lounge she went out to find Officer Birnie there with a rather worried-looking Ann in tow. "He wants us to go to Zeb's place to see if we can spot any other missing items," Ann explained. She sounded unenthusiastic but Penny jumped at the opportunity, though she knew perfectly well she could be of little or no help.
They were met at the house by the indignant mammoth cat, who had to be placated with food before they could proceed with their search. "If only you could talk," Penny mourned, as she watched him systematically demolishing a huge bowl of milk, "between us we could have this thing sewn up in a jiffy."
Ann checked the considerable Indian collection upstairs and averred to the best of her knowledge nothing was gone. Penny elected to go through the notes on the desk and Ernie Birnie applied himself to the file cabinet. Penny went diligently through the neat piles of "dig" notes, archaeological journals and offprints with which the desk was laden. She had little hope of finding anything significant but wanted to see what Zeb had been up to on the dig, for yet another idea had just struck her. She deftly separated his notes on the Indian cemetery and the grid plan of the site from the rest and, with a quick look to see that Birnie was not watching, slipped them into her sling bag for further study. A quick riffle through the rest of the papers brought to light just one anomalous scrap, a single leaf torn from a scratch pad on which Zeb had been doing some strange sums. It read: "1978-34 = 1944? Possible"; then "1944-5 1st pit. CE 3rd Div. RD PC? check. It. Camp. Imola?" It made no sense, but that too disappeared into her pocket-book. "Nothing here," she announced, and got up to join Ernie Birnie who was frowning at something, his lips pursed in a silent whistle. "What have you found?" she asked him.
"If it had been murder, one dandy little motive," he mumbled, too engrossed to realize he was-talking to the enemy.
She squinted sideways at the paper in his hand and her own eyes widened. It was an insurance policy for SI50.000, with a double-indemnity clause for accidental death. "Who is the beneficiary?" she whispered, and answered her own question, "Carson Grange, the nephew."
Birnie came to with a start and glared at her. He asked, "Not that it's any of your business, but did you find anything gone?"
"Nothing at all," she said sweetly, "and I think this is a complete waste of time since we don't know what he had to start with." Nonetheless he doggedly insisted they make an inspection of every room before admitting defeat. He ended up in the dining room, gazing in frustration at the faint mark in the dust. "TV here, typewriter, stereo, silver ... all here except for that blasted photo," he fretted. "K it was a sneak thief, it sure was a strange one!"
Penny refused to join battle again. "Is there any late word on Zeb's condition?" she asked.
"No, condition stable but unchanged. The doctor says he could stay that way for days, months or years, no telling about it. They'll let us know the minute there's any change and we'll send someone over pronto."
"You mean he's unguarded?" Penny said in sudden alarm. "But what if another attempt on him is made?"
"Only unguarded in a manner of speaking." He gave her a savage grin. "We're not that stupid, you know, even if we can't spare a policeman to camp outside his door. No one gets in to see him, and no one had better try if they know what's good for them!" And on that triumphant note he took his leave.
They picked up Penny's young namesake and got back to Ann's cottage in exhausted silence. "I'll start supper," Ann said, and disappeared into the kitchen. "And I'll make us a drink," Penny volunteered, but they were almost immediately startled out of their domestic clatter by a pounding on the door. "I'll get it," Penny called, and Ann came wide-eyed to the door of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.
Penny swung the door open to confront a young man in the gray uniform of a state trooper. Elation briefly surged in her; Detective Eldredge must have relented and sent this young man to fill her in on the murder after all. "Oh, you've come about the body in the bog?" she said brightly. "Do come in."
The young man took off his trooper's hat and stepped across the threshold, and as he turned his profile to the light a resemblance leaped out at Penny; she saw at the same instant that he was red with suppressed fury. "I most certainly have not come about the murder," the young man snapped, "I have come about Zebediah Grange, and I want to know what the devil you did to him, and what you were doing searching in his house!"
"I don't understand," Penny stammered, "I tt^ought the local police were handling that We were there with one of them. What business is it of the state police?"
"It's very much my business," the young man roared, "I'm Zeb's only close kin—I'm Carson Grange!"
CHAPTER 7
As Penny faced up to the angry young man she felt a sinking certainty that Zeb's eccentricity and single-mindedness was a hereditary trait in the Grange family. Patiently she explained Zeb's summons to her, showed him the two letters, introduced Ann—who hastily confirmed her story —explained their presence in the Grange house as the official summons of the Barnstable police, referred him to Officer Birnie as reference and generally tried to calm kim down.
His initial anger gradually faded, but he remained truculent and suspicious, and things were definitely not progressing any too well when young Penny innocently entered on the scene and saved the day. Roused from her nap by the unaccustomed deep, booming voice in the house, she came toddling sleepily out to investigate, took one look at the tall young man and marched purposefully toward him, her arms raised. "Dada?" she asked hopefully.
It was as if someone had waved a magic wand over Carson Grange; his truculence disappeared in a flash and his weather-beaten, long-jawed face broke into a delighted grin, revealing white, even teeth. He squatted down and took the small hands in his large one. "Hi there, young lady, and who might you be?"
Ann went a bright pink. "Oh dear, Tm afraid she has a tendency to do that," she apologized, and a further introduction was made.
Carson was quite unfazed by this new development. In fact he appeared to have forgotten his i
nitial hostility and, for that matter, the object of his visit. He settled cozily down in a chair with young Penny on his knee and accepted the offer of a drink from a relieved elder Penny. "Have a boy of my own about this age," he informed them. "Fascinating stage, isn't it?" The two women perched uneasily with their own drinks and gazed rather bemusedly at the animated conversation that was developing between the rugged trooper and young Penny, who suddenly seemed to have an endless stream of information to impart.
The vision of the $150,000 insurance policy danced before Penny's eyes and she tried to imagine this young man cold-bloodedly striking his uncle down and arranging the accident scene. For all of his air of suppressed violence she found it difficult to do. But he did have a quick temper, that was very evident; a quarrel, a sudden blow, his uncle face down in the mud, turning him over and, in a sudden panic, fleeing—yes, that would be conceivable. But there was still that wretched whisky bottle which pointed to premeditation, and this she found hard to accept either.
It's an old saw that children always know people's natures better than adults, she thought, they scent danger like animals do, and so if that's a Golden Rule, he's as harmless as a newborn babe—I've never seen such instant empathy between a child and an adult. Moreover she could certainly use an ally; by the determined set of Carson's jaw, he looked as if he would make a formidable one. She decided to follow her instinct. When she could get a word in edgewise between the enraptured pair, she said, "Mr. Grange, I am deeply concerned about what has happened to your uncle, and since you are obviously equally concerned, I feel that I should explain my part in all this."
His face sobered and he again looked dangerous. "Yes, I would very much like to know about it and about you. The local police have been very tight-lipped about the case and I know virtually nothing."
Rapidly she sketched out her role in the affair, the letters from Zeb and her finding of him in the bog. "About that there is one very puzzling thing, something I hope you can enlighten me on. You must realize that I had not set eyes on your uncle for some thirty years up to last fall and I know virtually nothing about him, so I'm not asking this in a spirit of nosiness but merely as a vital bit of information —was your uncle an alcoholic or an ex-alcoholic?"
He frowned and hesitated before replying. "Up to two years ago when I moved to the Cape I had known very little of my uncle at all, but since that time I've seen him frequently and I can say without reservation that, during that period, he has never taken a single drink, nor has there been any alcohol in his house. Why?"
Penny told him and added, "And what I found more than a little strange was that the local police did not make a single mention of either the bottle or of the whisky odor on him—almost as if they knew he had a problem and were covering up. But they missed something—your uncle had not drunk any of the whisky. It was just made to seem so by his attacker."
"I see," he said slowly. "Well, in that case ... yes, you're right. He told me that after his accident he was terribly despondent for a time and tried to drown himself in a bottle, but that Rinaldo pulled him out of it; sent him to a clinic in Vermont and then watched over him like a mother hen when he came out."
"The omnipresent Rinaldo," Penny murmured.
"Tell me, what kind of whisky was it?" Carson asked unexpectedly.
Penny tried to picture it, "Canadian Club," she said at last
"Then whoever did it knew something of Zeb's former history but not enough." His tone was decisive. "You see I know for a fact that Zeb never drank anything but Scotch and one particular brand of Scotch at that—Johnny Walker. He told me so himself. So it was a plant"
"But I suppose with all the recent stress he was under since last fall he could have been tempted and he could have changed his taste," Penny demurred.
"Zeb change? Never! Anyway, I would never have let him baby-sit Bobby for an instant if I thought he had gone back to the bottle, and there was never any sign of it in the last six months."
"Baby-sit Bobby?" Penny looked at him in dumbfounded amazement at this new insight into Zeb's domestic activities.
Carson's jaw jutted a little further. "Yes, well when Bobby's regular baby-sitter couldn't look after him and I was on duty, Zeb often used to take him—they got on very well. I'm a single parent," he explained.
"Why so am I!" Ann exclaimed, breaking her rapt silence. They appraised one another for a critical moment as if doubting the other's capabilities as a parent.
"So that certainly seems to bring me right back to my original view that Zeb was silenced before he could talk to me of this other affair and that a clumsy and ineffectual attempt was made to have it look like an accident," Penny said. "So we are back to the body in the bog, and here I could certainly use your help since you're with the state police."
He squirmed in his chair. "But Fm not actually involved in that; the South Yarmouth police are handling it. I work out of Bourne. Anyway, why are you so sure there is a connection?"
"I wish I were sure, but it's the only thing that makes any sense. Zeb specifically mentioned the Pergama affair in which I was recently involved and which was a question of murder and drugs. When he took me to the Indian graveyard he obviously was going to show me something in that grave. Whatever it was was gone, and this terrified him. Then comes the finding of the body this spring and his second summons to me. Ergo, I assume that that's what he expected to find and that somehow it is all tied in with the Dimola family, specifically Rinaldo, because of your uncle's evident and fanatical devotion to him."
"You think Rinaldo may have murdered someone?"
Penny threw up her hands in despair. "I just don't know, and until I meet the Dimolas I really can't say anything further. But you must know the officers on the case and could be of enormous help in passing on details of their findings to me and in trying to convince them there is a connection between the cases. I have tried and failed, but they might listen to you. There's still so much to find out. Will you be going to the inquest?"
"No, I'll be on duty, where, unfortunately, I must go now as well." He disentangled himself from young Penny's fond embrace and got up. "But I'll do what I can. I'm as anxious as you are to get to the bottom of this. Dr. Spring. I suggest we work together and pool information." He turned to Ann with an engaging smile. "Is it all right if I come around tomorrow? I could bring Bobby to play with Penny?"
"I'm afraid we're booked for then," Penny said hastily. They settled for early afternoon the day after and he took his leave over the protestations of the toddler. "I wonder what happened to his wife," Ann said thoughtfully, as she towed her bowling offspring away.
The inquest was underway, the twelve good men and true, headed by a formidable-looking forewoman, installed in their box, the judge-coroner on his bench, and a very young-looking assistant D.A. questioning the witnesses. Penny found herself gazing at the open-mouthed gilt codfish dangling from the ceiling of the old county courtroom and feeling great empathy with its bewildered expression; she was feeling that way herself.
The evidence of the discovery of the body had been taken from the young Robert Dyke, who had gone a faint green again at the very recollection of his unexpected find and had hurriedly left the courtroom after his testimony. He was followed by a young man from the county pathologist's office, who went over the medical report, which contained all the same data Penny had already heard but to which the jury listened with pop-eyed attention. And he was duly followed by a middle-aged, quiet-looking man who turned out to be the foreman in charge of the Dimola Enterprises cranberry bogs. Penny sat up and took notice.
The foreman appeared to be nursing a faint grievance against Robert Dyke. "Trespassing he was," he said severely. "Those bogs are clearly posted; he had no right to be there."
"Luckily for the interests of justice he was," the assistant D.A. put in, "otherwise the body might not have been discovered so quickly. But kindly confine yourself to answering my questions, Mr. Jones. Now. When and why was that bog flooded?"
/> The foreman cogitated. "First week in October, and we flood them every year to protect the bushes from frost damage, same as always." He seemed positively aggrieved by the assistant D.A.'s ignorance.
The forewoman of the jury, who had become so interested in the proceedings that her massive bosom was now resting on the rail of the jury box, boomed unexpectedly, "Kind of early for the flooding, wasn't it. Bill? Some folks hadn't finished harvesting by then."
The young D.A. gave her an annoyed glance and the judge-coroner, starting out of a postprandial doze, rapped for order. "By whose orders were the bogs flooded that early?" the D.A. continued.
"Mr. Dimola's, Mr. Steven Dimola's." Penny's interest quickened. So it was not Alexander, Rinaldo's right hand in the main business, who was occupied with the bogs, but the scholarly Steven; she wondered why.
"And was this arrangement usual?"
"Nothing was usual just then. Mr. Rinaldo Dimola had just got sick. It was him normally gave us the orders, the bogs being a kind of hobby of his, though most of the time he left it to me."
"And did Mr. Steven Dimola give any reason for this early flooding?"
Frowning, Jones pondered again and answered, "Far as I can recollect I did say it seemed a mite on the early side to me, then he said the meteorological"—he boggled over the word—"forecast was for a hard early freeze, and we'd better be prepared. He was right too. I never did see such a winter in all my years on the Cape." There was a sympathetic groan from the jury. "That bog froze in the second week of October and stayed froze till February."
"So it would have been impossible for the body to have been put in the bog during that whole period?"
"Not unless they chipped through the ice, which don't seem likely to me," Jones agreed.
"And the draining?"
"We had that warm spell the third week of February and I run most of it off then."
"On Mr. Steven Dimola's orders?"
"No, on my own. Wanted to see what damage had been done to the bushes—not bad as it turned out."
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