by Alice Duncan
“You’d have what?” Betty Lou’s tone was avid.
My heart squished and started aching as I recalled the events of the prior night. Or this morning. Whenever it was. “My very own body would have shoved the knife even farther into his back, is what. I got his blood on my hands.” Not to mention having scraped said hands on the dirt and rubble scattered around the body.
“Oh, Annabelle, how horrid for you.”
To my utter humiliation, my eyes filled with tears. “Yes, it was horrid. And now everyone in town thinks Phil and I were doing something dirty, and we weren’t, but I can’t tell anyone but you the truth. I even lied to the police chief.” I hauled a handkerchief out of my skirt pocket and wiped my eyes. “And I still don’t know what Mr. Calhoun was hiding in his office. If he was hiding anything.”
“I bet he was,” said Betty Lou fiercely. “The whole family stinks. That rat Herschel was every bit as bad as his old man.”
Merciful heavens. While I’d known for a week or more that Betty Lou wasn’t fond of her employers, I hadn’t expected such condemnation from her. Generally even people who had disliked a person didn’t say bad things about him or her after he or she was dead. Tradition and all that. “Really?”
“Really. Ever since the will was read and the family discovered Mr. Calhoun hadn’t left them as much money as they expected, Herschel’s been a bear around the house. Stomping and throwing fits and swearing to beat the band. And Gladys has been crying into her lace-edged hankies until you’d think she’d dry up. If Mrs. Calhoun’s lip prunes up any more, she’s going to have more wrinkles than a raisin.”
“Oh, dear.”
Mrs. O’Dell and Mrs. Lovelady entered the kitchen then and we had to shut up. They both frowned at Betty Lou, and Mrs. O’Dell said, “Miss Jarvis, here’s the covered dish I brought for the family. I expect you’re saving the dishes in here.”
Clearly she didn’t believe she should have had to bring her dish into the kitchen herself, such a menial task being beneath her. But Betty Lou only said, “Thank you, Mrs. O’Dell. I’ll take it. I was just offering Annabelle some comfort. She had a terrible time last night, you know.”
Mrs. Lovelady tutted in sympathy, but not Mrs. O’Dell. Eyeing the both of us with disfavor, Mrs. O’Dell said, “I suppose so, although I should say Herschel Calhoun suffered a bit more than she did.”
“Of course,” I said, hating her in that moment.
She sniffed and left. Mrs. Lovelady offered us a sympathetic glance and then she left, too. Betty Lou and I waited a moment, to make sure nobody else was going to interrupt us. Then Betty Lou said, “But that’s not the strange part.”
I perked up slightly. “There’s a strange part?”
“Yes.” Betty Lou took another quick gander around the kitchen. “Just yesterday, Herschel perked up. I don’t know why, and I don’t know what caused the change in his attitude, but he was as sassy as sassy could be and kept saying things like, ‘I’ll take care of everything, Ma,’ and ‘It’s going to be all right now,’ and stuff like that. He always did think he was God’s gift to the world, but he got totally too big for his britches then.”
“And you say this happened only yesterday?” This was indeed a puzzling circumstance, and one I didn’t understand the least little bit.
“Yes. All of a sudden. I don’t think he told his mother or sister what changed his attitude, either, because they were still down in the dumps, and Gladys got exasperated with him and told him to shut up. But he didn’t. He only laughed and rubbed his hands together as if he knew something she didn’t know.”
“Hmm. How odd.”
“Very odd. And it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that whatever he thought he’d discovered that would change his fortune is what got him killed.”
“Makes sense to me,” I said after thinking about it for a second. “But, darn it, what was it?”
Betty Lou shrugged. “I have no idea.” She cast a glance at the kitchen door. “But listen, Annabelle, I have to get back to work. I don’t want their majesties to come in here and accuse me of shirking my duties.” She rolled her eyes. “Do you want to try the office again tonight?”
Did I? Without Phil? In the dark and the cold? Well . . . “Would you mind staying up late to stand guard? I don’t dare ask Phil to help again. He’s furious with me. He doesn’t like being talked about.”
“I don’t blame him.”
“No,” I said, feeling truly lousy, “I don’t, either.”
Betty Lou thought about my question for a moment. “Yeah. I suppose I can do that. It means I’ll be exhausted tomorrow but with any luck, Mrs. Calhoun and Gladys will have to go to the funeral parlor and arrange for another funeral and I’ll get to rest up some.”
“Golly. Another funeral.”
“Yeah. At least the people who were murdered were both stinkers. It would be a real shame if they’d been nice.”
“That’s true.”
Later when I recalled that conversation, I felt a little callous about our dismissing the lives of two men so casually. On the other hand, Betty Lou was right. They’d both been stinkers, and better stinkers die than folks people actually liked and who were kind to others.
Knowing I’d have to face Mrs. Calhoun and Gladys, I left the kitchen with Betty Lou, only she went to the front door to do her duty as maid of all works, and I went to the parlor. Reluctantly. I wasn’t sure how I’d be greeted, as it had been I who’d discovered both Mr. Calhoun’s and Herschel’s bodies. Not that it was my fault I’d done so, but you never know how people will react. In some irrational fit of something-or-other, maybe the Calhoun ladies would blame me for the demise of their menfolk.
I paused next to the kitchen door for a moment, sucked in a big breath for courage, whispered a brief prayer to a God who, if He had any sense, had stopped listening to me whine a long time ago, and marched to the parlor. As soon as I set foot over the threshold, all conversation ceased and darned if every single person in the room didn’t turn and stare at me. I felt myself get hot and wished I’d removed my heavy coat. Oh, well, too late for that now.
Holding my chin up, I approached Gladys. I didn’t see Mrs. Calhoun anywhere. “Good morning, Gladys. I just came to bring one of my mother’s delicious pies for the family and to say how very sorry I am about your brother.”
My words seemed to break the spell of silence that had settled over the room, because people began buzzing again. It looked to me as though her brother’s death had honestly rattled Gladys, and I felt sorry for her.
“Thank you, Annabelle,” she said in a shaky voice. “It was very kind of your mother to bake a pie for us.”
“She’d have come herself, but she had to watch the store. My father had to go to Dexter, and my brother’s at school.” Not that she cared about that. I’d started babbling, which is my usual reaction when I’m nervous.
“Well, it was very kind of her. And you, too. It . . . it must have been awful for you to find . . .” Her words drifted off into her handkerchief, which she held to her drippy eyes.
“I’m so very sorry,” I repeated. “How’s your mother? She must be terribly upset.”
“Devastated,” Gladys said. “She couldn’t even come down to thank people, so I have to do it all. She’s upstairs lying down, with Mrs. Jenkins attending to her.”
Good Lord. She must be in a bad way. Mrs. Jenkins was a nurse people hired when they’d had an operation or an illness and needed somebody with nursing skills to attend to them.
“Well . . .” I didn’t know what to say, so I said that. “I don’t even know what to say to you except that I’m so very, very sorry. What a terrible blow to your family, and coming so quickly after your father’s passing makes it even worse.”
“Oh, nobody cared about Daddy,” said Gladys in an unguarded moment of truth. I heard a couple of gasps from the crowded room. “But Herschel . . . well, Herschel was an idiot sometimes, but I loved him. He was my brother. And somebody stabbed him in th
e back!” And she broke down in tears.
Gee, I wondered if I’d miss my obnoxious brother Jack if somebody stabbed him in the back. Somehow, I don’t think I’d be as broken up about Jack’s passing as Gladys was about Herschel’s, but I might be wrong. Family was family, after all. Anyhow, it sounded to me as if the worst part of everything in Gladys’s mind was the way Herschel had met his end.
“I’m so sorry,” I repeated wretchedly, wishing I could do something for her.
“And I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Gladys went on after recovering herself. “We have no money. I don’t know what Daddy did with it, but it’s gone. I might have to get a job! Oh, Lord!” And off she went, crying again.
Boy, I really didn’t know what to say to that. I’d been working in our family’s store ever since I was a kid, but that was merely a part of my life and an enjoyable part, too. The store also included the whole family, which I imagine made a difference. I guess suddenly having to get a job might be rough on someone who’d never been employed and who’d always considered herself above such mundane things as working in order to pay the bills. Therefore, I said, “I’m so sorry,” yet once more and got the heck out of there.
What a harrowing experience that had been. Fortunately for the state of my mood, Mr. Deutsch, the butcher, was a jolly Swiss fellow. Some folks in town thought he might be a German masquerading as a Swiss—people didn’t like Germans much in those days because of the late Great War—but I took him at his word. Anyhow, he was a nice man, and I liked him.
I was very glad when he wrapped up our family’s pound of round steak and I finally got back home again.
Unfortunately for me, Pa and Jack had both returned from their various occupations while I’d been gone. Oh, joy. Another scolding. And in front of my idiot brother. I wasn’t sure I could stand it.
Chapter Fifteen
Later I could only thank my lucky stars that Pa had decided to take me aside and query me about my overnight adventures out of the company of my brother.
It still wasn’t easy, mainly because I had to maintain the lie about having telephoned Phil to walk with me.
“We weren’t doing anything wrong, Pa,” I said in a pleading tone. “Honest, we weren’t.”
“I hope to God you weren’t, Annabelle. Your mother and I would be mighty disappointed in you if you were. We’re disappointed enough already. You know people are talking about the two of you, don’t you?”
I hung my head. “Yes.”
“Your mother and I didn’t rear our children to be talked about like that, Annabelle, and none of our children has ever given us any grief before. Well,” he amended honestly, “except for Jack, but he’s young. You’re old enough to know better.”
“But we were only walking,” I said in a feeble attempt to defend the indefensible.
Pa sighed. “Just don’t let it happen again.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
It was a promise I’d be able to keep, since Phil didn’t want anything to do with me after the previous night’s debacle. What a depressing thought.
The rest of the day wasn’t too bad, however. I manned the store and folks came and went, and some of them asked me about finding Herschel’s body, but nobody mentioned my involvement with Phil. Poor Phil. I didn’t deserve him. I had the sinking feeling he was beginning to think the same thing all by himself, which made me feel even lower than I already did.
Myrtle Howell came over to chat during an afternoon break. Naturally, she’d heard all about my discovery of Herschel Calhoun’s body.
“Annabelle, how do you do it?” she asked, leaning over the counter in a conspiratorial manner.
After heaving a huge sigh and doing some leaning of my own, I said, “Beats me. It’s a gift, I guess.”
“Boy, it’s not a gift I’d want.”
“I don’t want it either. Maybe it’s more like a curse.”
“And Phil was with you? You do know that’s mainly what people are talking about, don’t you? Whatever were you doing out in the middle of the night with Phil?”
So, since I trusted Myrtle, who was my very best friend in the whole world except maybe Phil when he wasn’t mad at me, I told her.
“Oh, dear. I’m so sorry, Annabelle. Nobody wants to believe you two weren’t up to mischief.”
“I know they don’t,” I said bitterly. “People thrive on thinking the worst of each other. But there isn’t a thing I can do about it. I even had to lie to Chief Vickers. I couldn’t very well tell him I was aiming to enter somebody else’s house and plow through an office, could I?”
She shook her head. “Can you take a little break, Annabelle? Maybe get an ice-cream cone or something?”
“It’s about thirty-five degrees out there, Myrtle,” I pointed out. “It’s not exactly ice-cream weather.”
“True, but—”
“Anyhow, I don’t think my parents would be amenable to me taking a break any time soon.”
“They’re mad at you?”
“What do you think?”
She covered my hand with hers. “I’m so sorry, Annabelle.”
And she left the store, feeling almost as sorry for me as I felt for myself.
Lucky for me, the subject of my midnight jaunt didn’t come up at dinner that night. Jack, brat that he was, tried to bring it into the conversation but Pa gave him the look, and he shut up pronto. No one ever defies that look from my father. Dinner was good. Ma cooked up the Swiss steak as she’d promised, and we ate it with fried okra and mashed potatoes. Yum.
Then I had to stay awake until midnight. I was exhausted after that morning’s antics, even though my mother had allowed me to sleep in, so sitting up late wasn’t any fun. I read for quite a while, some Dr. Thorndyke stories by R. Austin Freeman. I generally loved Dr. Thorndyke, and the stories kept me interested, but that night my eyes kept sneaking shut in spite of the quality and intrigue of the stories. Therefore, I got up and walked around my room several times, thinking exercise might be the ticket. It wasn’t.
The weather outside had dropped down to nearly freezing, and my room was almost as icy as the outdoors. I’d put on trousers—I didn’t plan on anyone seeing me but Betty Lou—and a flannel shirt, donned heavy woolen socks and my sturdy shoes, and wrapped a quilt around my shoulders. The quilt was a pretty one my mother had made a couple of years prior, and it contained lots of my old clothes. I could look at a particular patch and it brought back happy memories of school outings, family holidays and stuff like that. But it wasn’t awfully warm. Therefore, I went to my closet and got out the cardigan sweater Aunt Minnie had knitted for me a couple of Christmases back and buttoned it up. I set aside a pair of woolen gloves to put on before I went out and a woolen scarf I aimed to muffle myself in.
Still cold. Darn it. When I glanced at the clock on my bedside table, it told me the time was only ten-thirty. Another hour and a half of freezing to death and trying to stay awake. I didn’t dare get into the bed for fear I’d fall smack asleep and not wake up until morning. I also didn’t dare set the alarm for midnight, because it would indubitably wake up everyone else in the house when it went off. Nuts.
I grabbed my heavy coat and put it on. Then I sat on a hard chair in my room and stuffed my hands into its pockets. Something crunched.
What was this?
Frowning, I pulled several leaves and dried twigs from the right pocket. I didn’t recall stuffing leaves and junk in my pocket last night, but evidently I had. I threw the leaves into my wastebasket, then noticed a crumpled piece of paper among them. I lifted it out of the basket, uncrumpled it and read, my eyes opening wide as I did so.
If you expect to maintain your charade, you’d better cough up the dough you paid my father to keep your secret. If you don’t, I’ll go straight to the coppers and expose you as the murdering mobster you are. H. Calhoun
What on earth?
I reread the note. It still said the same thing. But however did it get into my pocket?
Golly, was this note connected with whatever had caused Herschel Calhoun to jolly up during his last day of life on this earth? Was he blackmailing somebody? Somebody his father had been blackmailing? And had that somebody killed both father and son? That’s what it sounded like to me, although I admit to having had my attitude influenced by the detective novels I read.
But . . . shoot. I’d have to show this to the police chief. He’d not be happy with me for keeping it from him this long, but it wasn’t my fault I didn’t know it was in my pocket, was it? No, it was not, and I’d tell him so, too. I’d been in serious shock after almost falling flat on top of a dead body.
It turned out that finding the note shocked me into wakefulness, for which I was grateful, even though the note puzzled me a good deal. I prowled my room, thinking, thinking, thinking, wondering who in the tiny town of Rosedale, New Mexico, could have a past black enough to engender blackmail. And a mobster? We didn’t get a whole lot of mobsters in Rosedale. They mostly hung out in New York City and Chicago.
Chicago . . .
But that was nonsensical. Firman Meeks looked about as much like a mobster as I did. Or Phil. Or poor Richard. Still and all, he’d come to us from Chicago. On the other hand, he was small and skinny and looked kind of like a pencil, and I couldn’t, even when I squinted into the dark night and tried my best, feature him being a bloody murderer. I didn’t much care for him, but he evidently possessed enough good qualities for Betty Lou to have become fond of him. Betty Lou was a sensible girl who wouldn’t fall for an evil person. Wasn’t she? Mind you, Firman Meeks seemed a little oily to me . . . but more in the vein of a Uriah Heep than a vicious murderer. Picturing him as a killer was far-fetched, especially in light of the fact that both Edgar and Herschel Calhoun had been big, hearty men, either one of whom could have sat on Firman Meeks and squashed him flat.
