Murder to Go

by Emma Lathen

  Ogilvie pursed his lips. He was a tall, bald man with a handsome presence who prided himself on a strong sense of responsibility. In the reassuring voice that stood him in good stead as chairman of the United Fund, he replied, “I’ve done what I can to insure that this move is the best one we can make at the time. Robichaux and Devane have done a thorough job of stock valuation. I spent a week in Trenton, at Chicken Tonight’s regional headquarters, and, as I said before, they showed me everything I asked to see. I have hired investigators to look into their over-all operations. I’ve tried to find out how stable their top management is, how their cost programs are working—everything!”

  “And?” demanded his interlocutor.

  Ogilvie shrugged well-tailored shoulders slightly. “As far as I can see, Chicken Tonight is going to be even more successful than it has been. I know that it’s not our sort of business, but it’s profitable. There’s no doubt of that. And, in these days of conglomerates . . .”

  When they finally went their separate ways, Southeastern’s directors allowed themselves to be even more frank.

  “Sure, Ida,” said one well-known lawyer to his wife, “it’s a sentimental loss—like tearing down Liberty Hall. But between you and me, if we get a little more money and a little less high-minded Old Philadelphia, well, I think we can handle that boat you’ve been talking about.”

  Morgan Ogilvie, whose family had founded Southeastern Insurance, was just as forthright.

  “No, of course I’m not happy, Margaret. I had hoped young Morgan would succeed me. And Midge’s Ted is doing very well in Sales. It’s a real pleasure to see the next generation coming along. For that matter, I don’t think I’m going to enjoy working as part of Hedstrom’s outfit. But in this world it’s money that counts. And there was absolutely no denying . . .”

  Mrs. Morgan Ogilvie, a majestic woman, did not incline toward sympathy.

  “Perhaps,” she said ironically, “we should give Lena the night off and call Chicken Tonight.”

  CHAPTER 3

  ADD TOMATOES

  MRS. OGILVIE did not call Chicken Tonight, but millions of others did. All in all, chicken Mexicali looked like another triumph, one of an unbroken string.

  Accordingly, headquarters, in a large office suite on the fifteenth floor of the Hotel Montrose, did not ring with self-congratulation, but with purposive bustle directed toward the future. At Chicken Tonight they were learning to take triumphs in stride.

  “. . . sales figures from New England are here,” said a shirt-sleeved youth. “Up twelve per cent. And there’s a breakdown on the motel business that that guy in Edgartown tried out. He’s got seventeen motels tied up, and he did over eight thousand dollars each night in July and August. It’s a real idea, Frank.”

  “Good,” said Frank Hedstrom. “I liked that motel tie-up myself. Tell Wally I want to push it. Start advertising in the motel journals. OK, Bill, leave the stuff. I’ll go over it later.”

  The door closed behind Bill. Hedstrom and his closest associate tried to continue their talk.

  “That motel angle is a good one,” said Hedstrom, glancing idly through the bulky report Bill had deposited. “Oh, and by the way. Mexicali is going to be our most successful promotion yet. I owe Iris something nice.”

  “Iris?” said Ted Young, looking up from a folder of cost studies.

  “Mexicali was your wife’s idea, boy,” said Hedstrom. “Remember? After you went to Acapulco? You came back scared to death I had really gotten out of hand. Iris came back suggesting Mexicali.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Ted Young.

  Hedstrom watched him withdraw into private calculations. Good old Ted—great with facts and figures. People—even Iris, his wife—were something else. But without Ted could Frank Hedstrom have made the long haul from Oak Park, Illinois?

  Hedstrom did not honestly know. The ideas were always his, the fierce, driving ambition. Ted had supplied the prudence, the doubts, the brake. The ideas and the daring were paying off, and a lot of people knew it. Just where did the prudence and doubt fit into Chicken Tonight’s high riding?

  “Frank,” said Young, “Southeastern’s proxies are pouring in. I hear they’ve got at least thirty percent of the stock already.”

  The telephone trilled. “Hedstrom,” he said. “Yes, put him on. Yes. . . . Yes, Ted was just telling me. Better than we thought. . . . What? . . . Yes.”

  Young waited patiently, a permanently middle-aged man with rimless glasses and an anxious mien. He had been a high-school classmate of Frank Hedstrom’s, but he had always been the wizened schoolteacher. Frank, it seemed, would go on being the basketball star forever.

  “Robichaux,” said Hedstrom, cradling the phone. “He wants us to lunch with him tomorrow.”

  “Old gasbag,” said Young.

  Frank Hedstrom raised almost colorless eyebrows. “He’s done all right by us, Ted.”

  “We could have done it without him,” said Ted Young stubbornly.

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “What do you mean, Frank? Listen to me.”

  The door opened to cut off an argument, and admitted a secretary.

  “Here’s that cost breakdown you asked for, Mr. Hedstrom,” she announced breathlessly. “All about those new pumps we’ve got to bid on—”

  She was interrupted by an elderly man brandishing telegrams. “The test-kitchen studies on chicken Bavarian give it the OK.”

  “OK,” said Hedstrom quickly. “Angie, put that stuff down here. And, Phil, tell them to go ahead. We’ll get Jack to schedule a Bavarian Month.”

  “At Christmas,” said Angie raptly.

  Hedstrom was reading the telegrams. “Not a bad idea,” he said.

  Chicken Tonight was a business where every minute, every hour, every day produced news—about costs, about equipment, about men, about contracts. Ted Young and Frank Hedstrom thrived on interruptions. In the beginning, it had been from wholesale grocers, truck rentals, unions; now it was Wall Street bankers, real-estate developers, and chambers of commerce. But the tempo was the same, and so was the message; here was movement, here was drive, here was money being made.

  Newcomers to the Chicken Tonight organization, whether at headquarters in New York, at the Chicken Tonight Test Kitchens, at any of the six regional warehouses or in any individual shop, got used to a ceaseless flow of spot checks, of detailed instructions, of questionnaires, of improved methods, of new products. They got used to them—or got out.

  “There’s your weak spot,” Tom Robichaux had said during an earlier inspection visit. “It all rests on you.”

  “And on Ted here,” Hedstrom had answered calmly. “He’s been my right arm from the beginning.”

  Robichaux was bored by visits to industry. He had fallen back on a truth long obvious to him. “If Chicken Tonight grows the way I think it can grow, you need more than a right arm. You need an organization.”

  “He’s right,” said Ted Young colorlessly.

  “Eh? Oh yes. Yes, indeed,” Robichaux had said. He had forgotten that Ted Young was present.

  Even so, there was now a director of marketing, a corporate-development manager, a product-studies specialist—all well-paid professionals, all ready to make the run for the roses with Chicken Tonight.

  But when Frank Hedstrom thought aloud, he still did it with Ted Young.

  “Ted, we’re going to have to think about producing our own chickens,” he announced. “I’ve said it before. This buying them from Pelham Browne and the rest is costing us too damned much money.”

  Young frowned.

  Hedstrom was used to that frown. “I don’t like being tied to these long-term contracts.”

  And Ted Young was used to Frank Hedstrom; he knew that this was only the beginning, in more ways than one.

  Five flights up in the Hotel Montrose, the same topic was being discussed before a large mirrored dressing table in a suite fragrant with expensive perfume.

  “You know, Frank has this bee in his
bonnet about producing his own broilers. Ted doesn’t like the idea at all.”

  “Well, they’ll settle it one way or the other,” Joan Hedstrom replied casually as she stooped to place her street shoes neatly on the rack.

  “But which way? The right way or the wrong way?” Iris Young demanded.

  “I don’t suppose it makes all that much difference.”

  Iris Young laid down her hairbrush with a familiar sense of exasperation. “Honestly, Joan! Anybody would think you didn’t care. Don’t you know that Chicken Tonight can’t afford to make mistakes at this stage of the game?”

  Joan Hedstrom sank back on her heels. Her mild blue eyes widened. “What makes you think they’re going to make a mistake?”

  Under that clear, inquiring gaze, Iris became even more urgent. “Sometimes I think you don’t realize what’s at stake. Chicken Tonight is one of the miracle stocks on the market right now. But it’s still new. It wouldn’t take much to upset it. Why, if Frank and Ted go into raising their own broilers, that would mean canceling all their contracts. Then if they bit a snag or their costs went too high, they’d be sunk. Don’t you see that?”

  Joan Hedstrom remained as placid as ever. “I’m sure they’ll figure out something.”

  “That’s not good enough. Chicken Tonight could come down as fast as it went up. And particularly now, when they’ve got this merger on their hands.”

  “I don’t know how you know all these things, Iris. You must spend hours reading those financial pages. Why bother? Everything will work out. It always does.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” her friend asked almost menacingly.

  “What in the world do you mean?”

  “What if Chicken Tonight folded?”

  “Then Frank would just have to start something else,” his wife said with unimpaired serenity.

  For want of a better outlet, Iris Young recaptured the hairbrush and attacked her hair with stinging vigor. She was not really surprised at Joan’s response. For the better part of fifteen years, she had been trying to goad Joan Hedstrom into reactions that matched her own tempestuous surges of excitement and despair. And never successfully. At sixteen, Joan had been a calm, friendly, optimistic girl. She had not changed.

  She was now inspecting her companion’s appearance. “You look stunning, Iris. I’m so glad you settled on the sea green. The black wasn’t half as good on you.”

  Iris had finished her cloud of black hair and was now fastening long gold earrings. Her tilted image smiled back from the mirror. The slight irony in that smile was lost on Joan. That too was a feature of the past fifteen years. As far as Joan was concerned, Iris often smiled that way.

  “You’re right, Joan,” Iris Young said. “But I would have bought the black if you hadn’t been with me.”

  Years ago, it had been accepted between them that Joan was the authority on fashion, just as Iris was the arbiter of social protocol. Joan Hedstrom herself was undramatically good-looking; her carefully lightened sandy hair and darkened brows required conventional clothing. But her unerring eye found ample scope in dashing creations that suited Iris’ sinuous figure, raven hair and hazel eyes. Similarly, as Joan Hedstrom’s income grew, it was Iris who prodded her into country clubs, riding lessons for the children, caterers for her parties.

  But now they were at a crossroads. This much was clear to Iris Young, if not to Joan Hedstrom. Now they had moved into circles where women gowned in Paris and jeweled on Fifth Avenue were the visible symbols of their husbands’ success. At the reception today, people would be more interested in the wife of Frank Hedstrom than in the wife of Ted Young, no matter how beautiful she was.

  For one dizzy moment at Bergdorf’s, Iris had almost forgotten this great truth. The black dress had beckoned because in it she would have been an important man’s wife.

  Which was absurd. Her husband was an employee of Frank Hedstrom.

  “You were right,” she repeated firmly, “absolutely right.”

  “Yes,” said Joan, happily unconscious of Iris’ thoughts. “You know, Iris, I am really looking forward to next weekend. It will be our first weekend at the new house. And with the boys working this way, I’m really happy we’ve got it. I don’t know why you had to work so hard to convince me we needed a place out in the country.”

  Iris was affectionately mocking. “You always fight change.”

  “But now I see that you were absolutely right. It will be just the way you said. A place on the Chesapeake, miles from the city or even the suburbs.”

  “Not exactly the way I said. I’ll never know why you insisted on building a new house. What I had in mind was an old Southern Colonial, a plantation house. You know perfectly well you can afford it. A showplace, with a veranda and acres of lawns and gardens!” Iris’ eyes sparkled at the picture she was painting. “You could have had waxed parquet floors with Oriental rugs. French windows opening out from the drawing room and living room. We could have found some Southern Georgian furniture and Chinese wallpaper. It would have been perfect!”

  Joan laughed. “Perfect! Until you put Frank and Joan Hedstrom into it. Not to mention the kids! It would never have been right for us. Oh, Iris, we talked it all out. And you did agree with me in the end. We wanted a place where we could all relax, where Frank and Ted could get some fishing and duck hunting, didn’t we?”

  “Oh, yes!” Iris said quickly with the half-gasp that sudden recollection of her husband always evoked. In her enthusiasm for gracious living she had momentarily forgotten him.

  “And the boys need a good rest,” Joan continued persuasively, “with all their worries. They’re in the office day and night.”

  “Ted burns himself out,” Iris said with sudden intensity. “Frank is just a cockeyed optimist.”

  It was not the way Iris Young had planned things. In her senior year of high school she had fallen in love, with a passion that was almost shocking to a girl accustomed to playing the belle of the ball. She had known instantly that she would work and scheme and slave to make a good life for Ted Young. The future had been very clear to her. She would take a job so that Ted could go to accounting school. Then they would have children, carefully spaced so as not to be a drain on the financial resources of their early years. Then they would reap their reward. In the evenings she would leave a house lovingly designed to provide comfort and warmth for its owner; she would drive to the station in a convertible and wait for Ted. On weekends they would go out. They would still be young enough to enjoy themselves. They would travel, they would give their children all the advantages. They would be conscious of having built a good life together.

  As the first stages of her program unfolded, she had watched the young Hedstroms with disapproval. Joan had her first baby as soon as propriety allowed. Frank worked days and went to school at night. Joan had a second baby. Then Frank, with utter irresponsibility, decided to go into business for himself. The Hedstrom standard of living, already marginal, plummeted sharply. Frank needed money to keep going. He borrowed from everybody and tried to talk Ted into a partnership. He was refused. Still, he kept going on a shoestring, in spite of babies, in spite of debts, in spite of everything.

  And now here they all were. Iris had all the things she had dreamed of, even more. The convertible, the house, the parties. Her imaginary picture had been realized. Except for one thing. If Joan had had a place in that picture—and it was very hard for Iris to imagine a world without Joan—it had been as a loyal admiring chorus. Not for one moment had Iris visualized herself playing second fiddle to Joan. But she was, however little Joan realized the fact.

  Iris Young smiled ruefully at her brilliant reflection. As she applied the final drops of perfume behind her ears and in the hollow of her throat, she could see Joan conscientiously emptying her street purse. Dear Joan! No one could really grudge her success. Then the wide, moist lips tightened. But Joan’s husband was something else again. Little Frank Hedstrom! It was ridiculous.

  Because, thought
Iris with a sudden, bitter insight, it didn’t much matter what she did. But Ted? Ted wasn’t going to play second fiddle to anyone. Not as long as she could do anything about it!

  “Ready?” asked Joan sunnily.

  “Ready as rain,” said Iris Young.

  CHAPTER 4

  BRING TO A BOIL

  AMERICAN CUISINE and American television have many points of similarity, some of them the subject of ill-natured books by visiting British academics, French lady intellectuals and Italian journalists. Both industries have markets big enough to make the Common Market look like the corner delicatessen; both advertise with superlatives designed to whet jaded appetites: “sun-kissed, dewy-fresh,” “an hour of impeccable taste,” “from icy mountain streams,” “from the entertainment capital of the world.” The essence of American culture can be found where they coincide, in the food commercials on TV. Revolting as this may seem to visiting and domestic intellectuals, U. S. immigration data—like U. S. supermarket sales—prove that “rich creamy mayonnaise with that homemade flavor” and “luscious strips of delicious coconut” are just what a lot of people, Americans and otherwise, eat up, figuratively speaking.

  So it was doubly ironic that TV delivered the initial blow to the food industry. First blood was drawn during prime time: ten-thirty, Eastern Standard Time.

  A situation comedy pursued its relentless course. The young, lovely widow dithered between laughter and tears as her three photogenic (if genetically improbable) children machinated to get themselves a new daddy.

  “Oh, Jeremy!”

  “Gee, Ma! I just asked Mr. Perkins if he wanted to marry us.”

  (Maniacal audience laughter. Close-up of widow.)

  “Oh, Jeremy.”

  Whatever towheaded Jeremy was going to say (after “Gee, Ma!”) was lost. Suddenly an adult voice intruded into the world of Peter Pan: “Stand by for a network alert. We interrupt this program . . .”