Murder to Go

by Emma Lathen

  Without a word, Young half carried her, half led her from the room.

  He left behind frozen silence.

  “Great!” said Frank Hedstrom at last. “That’s exactly what we need. Our little Iris in hysterics!”

  Thatcher, who had hastily snatched up a stray copy of Vogue, emerged from shelter. He was torn between a desire to forget the entire episode and curiosity. “Do you think she’ll be all right?” he inquired of Joan Hedstrom.

  “Oh, Iris will be all right,” she replied with a calm worthy of Miss Corsa. “Ted will look after her.”

  Thatcher eyed her. “Does that mean that . . . er . . . do you mean that Mrs. Young has . . .?”

  She was almost roguish. “Oh yes, Iris has a tendency to get—carried away.”

  “Good God!” said Thatcher with real feeling. He was truly impressed with the understatement.

  “That’s just fine,” Frank Hedstrom said irritably. “I’ve seen Iris go off before—but why make a dead set against me?”

  That too was an aspect of the affair that interested Thatcher.

  Serenely Joan counted stitches. “Well, every now and then Iris hates you, Frank.”

  Hedstrom was beginning to look punch drunk, and Thatcher could scarcely blame him.

  “What!” he yelped. “Hates me? What have I done to Iris? Hell, I thought we were supposed to be friends.”

  Hedstrom sounded bewildered. Joan, on the other hand, might have been dispensing immutable feminine lore.

  “It’s not anything you’ve ever done, Frank. It’s what you are.”

  If she expected this to solve the problem, she was doomed to disappointment. Both men required further enlightenment.

  “Er—do you think you could expand that, Mrs. Hedstrom?” Thatcher suggested, fully alive to the danger of plunging into murky areas.

  “What do you mean, what I am?” her husband demanded, goaded.

  Joan Hedstrom selected her words carefully, as if dealing with perversely slow children. “Iris hates you—sometimes—because she resents the fact that Ted plays second fiddle to you.”

  “Second fid—? You mean she thinks that Ted doesn’t get a fair cut?” Hedstrom was trying to reduce this to manageable proportions. Thatcher decided that the effort was futile, and he was right. “Ted’s getting rich from Chicken Tonight, and Iris knows it.”

  With gentle authority, Joan corrected her husband. “Money doesn’t matter,” she said, confirming Thatcher’s worst fears. “Iris doesn’t care about money. She cares about Ted. You know, it’s a shame that we didn’t reverse our husbands. I wouldn’t mind being married to a second fiddle.”

  Hedstrom took a long gulp from the glass he had forgotten. “Look, Joan, baby,” he said. “Whose side are you on? Maybe you and Iris wouldn’t mind the switch, but what about me?”

  His wife smiled at him warmly. “You know what I mean,” she said. “The trouble is that Iris is too intense. And she’s especially intense about Ted.”

  Hedstrom pondered this. “Yeah,” he said doubtfully. “I follow you there.”

  Intensity, thought Thatcher, is one thing; accusation of murder is another.

  Joan Hedstrom was continuing. “Of course, Ted is pretty intense himself. What I meant is that Iris got hysterical because she’s so worried about Ted. She’s not a good judge about him. When Captain Stotz turned on him today—well, that set her off. You know how protective she feels. Any threat to Ted, and Iris nearly goes insane.”

  Hedstrom was decisive, and Thatcher honored him for it. “Let her go insane in her own home, then. We’ve got enough troubles around here. For God’s sake, Joan, she’s as bad as Browne. We’re in the middle of a murder investigation. You’ve got to expect the police to ask questions. What’s she afraid of? That Ted will be suspected?”

  She put down her knitting and spoke very slowly and distinctly. “She’s afraid of more than that, Frank.”

  He stared at her blankly. Then: “What does that mean?” Joan Hedstrom did not want to put it into words, so Thatcher did so for her.

  “I take it Mrs. Young is afraid that her husband might actually be guilty. Right, Mrs. Hedstrom?”

  Joan nodded, Hedstrom erupted, and Tom Robichaux, at his jauntiest, entered the room.

  “Well, now,” he said cozily. Then, with instinctive gallantry, he remarked upon the sparkle in Mrs. Hedstrom’s eye, the roses in her cheeks.

  Inconsequently, Thatcher suddenly wondered what a notable ladies’ man would have made of Iris Young’s performance.

  Or of Joan Hedstrom’s explanation for it.

  CHAPTER 15

  REMOVE FROM HEAT

  MOST MEN returning to their offices after a weekend at the vortex of a sensational murder could safely rely on being the center of spellbound, not to say ghoulish, interest on Monday. If John Putnam Thatcher ever harbored such unworthy illusions, they were speedily punctured.

  At first glance, his secretary’s greeting was encouraging.

  “Oh, Mr. Thatcher, I’m so glad you were able to get in. We do need you this afternoon,” Miss Corsa said, her voice barely able to contain surprise at this unlikely turn of events.

  Thatcher was too experienced to suppose that her remark had any reference to the financial activities of the Sloan Guaranty Trust. Miss Corsa held a healthy, and perfectly justifiable, opinion of her own abilities along these lines. Any trifling question about investing in heavy industry in newly emergent nations she could handle herself. Indeed, Thatcher had long suspected that only her respect for protocol permitted him a view of the documents daily crossing her desk. As for those he did not see—well, he was too wily to raise awkward questions.

  “And what do you want me to do?” he asked cautiously. Rash promises, he felt, could all too easily lead to a reversal of their roles.

  Miss Corsa was kind. “It’s very simple,” she reassured him.

  The Sloan, like all self-sufficient worlds, was far more preoccupied with its own concerns than with those of alien territories. As a matter of politeness, as a matter of relief from temporary tedium, it might summon a passing interest in outside affairs such as Presidential elections and space probes. But at the moment, with drama rampant in every corridor, it had no time for sabotage and murder in places so distant as New Jersey and Maryland.

  As Miss Corsa elaborated her proposal, it was borne in on Thatcher that while he had been frittering his time away on the travails of Chicken Tonight, preparations for the Trinkam Anniversary Celebration were nearing climax. The solicitation phase was over. Munificent contributions had flowed in from people as far apart—in every sense of the word—as the bank tellers on the first floor and the directors in their tower suite. The final sum was so staggering that gift selection posed unprecedented problems. Gone were thoughts of luggage, gold watches or portable bars. Indeed, at first there had seemed to be only one solution—gutting Charlie’s office completely, then transforming it into a bower of roses.

  Cooler heads prevailed. The Committee had formed a subcommittee, on which every power bloc in the bank had tried for a seat. Miss Corsa’s simple narrative of the complexities that ensued irresistibly reminded Thatcher of the Vietnam peace talks. The delegates finally chosen were, to a man, battle-hardened office politicians.

  “And who,” asked Thatcher, “is representing the Trust Department?”

  “Mr. Gabler is acting for the senior trust officers. And Mr. Nicolls for the junior trust officers.”

  There was clearly no need to worry about a department that could collar two such coveted seats.

  “And I suppose there’s been trouble about coming to a decision?” Thatcher pursued, wondering where he came in.

  Indeed there had. The negotiators had avoided taking hard positions. Instead, they had adopted a “here’s a top-of-the head suggestion, see what you think of it” posture during open meetings, while caucusing savagely in the smoke-filled employees’ cafeteria. Special interests had emerged. The lower ranks were all in favor of an object the
y had located at Hammacher Schlemmer which would enable Charlie to take a sauna bath, acquire a sun tan and do isometric exercises while enjoying a professional massage. In short, he could occupy all his office hours without having to fall back on the tasks for which he was paid. This choice seemed inspired by a burning desire to keep Mr. Trinkam in good condition for as long as possible.

  The front office, with the conservatism that had wafted its members to their current eminence, was opting for a Persian rug of incomparable silken splendor. Everett Gabler had warned against the introduction of Oriental opulence: there was already too much of the sheik in Charles F. Trinkam. His animadversions had been a tactical error; they almost succeeded in swinging the secretaries over to the prorug faction.

  The junior trust officers wanted to enrich Charlie’s life with a miniature Henry Moore sculpture—overlooking the fact that he had been having a roaring good time for years without benefit of aesthetics. The Investment Division had alienated everybody by shameless self-touting; they wanted to give Trinkam a baby portfolio of selected stocks. Other elements favored an astrakhan coat from London, a directoire desk allegedly used by Napoleon, and a set of Renaissance banking texts from the Palazzo Medici.

  Not for the first time, Thatcher marveled at the riotous imaginations concealed beneath the Sloan’s staid exterior.

  “And do you foresee any resolution of this conflict, Miss Corsa?”

  Miss Corsa told him that the time for electioneering was over. The subcommittee must come to a decision that very day. It was, therefore, planned that their final session should take place in Mr. Trinkam’s office where they could view with their own eyes its deficiencies and its amenability to improvement. Mr. Thatcher’s role was to lure Mr. Trinkam out of his den and keep him occupied for at least two hours. Did he think he could do that?

  “I could call Mr. Trinkam now,” Miss Corsa murmured helpfully.

  Thatcher was fully alive to the benefits of a plan that insulated him so completely from the final convulsions of the subcommittee.

  “Do so,” he directed. “And after an hour or so you might send Mr. Bowman in.”

  Miss Corsa departed to alert all outposts. Her activities shortly produced Charlie Trinkam, insouciant as ever.

  “Well, John, so the fuzz let you go?” he greeted his superior. “Don’t you rank as a suspect?”

  “As a matter of fact, they let us all go. They didn’t have enough to hold anyone. That’s the trouble, too many suspects. But I find it hard to believe that they’re seriously concerned with Tom and me.”

  “Robichaux!” Charlie brayed. “One look at his record and they’ll cross him off the list.”

  Thatcher raised his eyebrows.

  “Anybody with his marital problems who settles for the divorce court hasn’t got the stuff for a good murder.”

  For years Charlie had been predicting that Tom Robichaux would finally marry someone who would dig in her heels and resist termination.

  “No.” Thatcher shook his head. “Tom has got some secret selectivity principle of his own. It’s like calling to like.”

  “That sounds,” said Charlie comfortably perching on a corner of the desk, “like a couple of dinosaurs baying at each other. But about this murder. The papers didn’t have much in the way of facts. Said it all happened at some sort of hunt club. What were you doing there?”

  “Oh, they use it as a country club. But the setting was a godsend for the murderer.” Thatcher explained about the horse show and the consequent disruptions. “The place was unbelievable pandemonium. Inside, the normal dining and dancing. Outside, horses and grooms and trucks. And both coming together in the parking lot where the murder took place. As a result, the police haven’t been able to make any headway tracing movements in the lot and on the grounds—and I don’t think they will. For instance, Sweeney could have been hanging around for the better part of the day, and everybody would have assumed he had something to do with the horse show.”

  Charlie swung a gleaming shoe in small arcs. “Well, a couple of motives leap to the eye. I suppose that’s what the police are concentrating on. First and foremost, there’s Frank Hedstrom. Sweeney was strangled, wasn’t he? Say Hedstrom sees him and recognizes the man who’s ruined his business. He goes into a blind rage and throttles him on the spot.”

  “Even the police rejected that theory. Sweeney wasn’t strangled with bare hands. First he was struck over the back of the head, then he was strangled with Mrs. Hedstrom’s scarf.”

  “All right,” said Charlie with unimpaired gusto. “Hedstrom’s afraid that office living has made him soft. So he rewrites the scenario. First he picks up a rock and cracks Sweeney over the head. Then the scarf!”

  Thatcher looked up alertly at the reference to soft office living. Had Charlie heard rumors of the sauna-cum-masseur? “No,” he said regretfully, “it’s not that easy. Sweeney was bludgeoned with some kind of sandbag. Probably a sock filled with sand. And Mrs. Hedstrom’s scarf was brought by someone from the Hedstrom house. All of which suggests premeditation.”

  Charlie tut-tutted. “That’s a nice bunch of playmates you had down there,” he said disapprovingly.

  “Efficient, anyway,” Thatcher grunted. “It was a bloodless murder. Anybody could have done it, then walked back onto the dance floor without a sign.”

  “Like those typewriter ribbons you’re supposed to be able to change in white gloves,” Charlie mused. “That seems to dispose of the maddened-rush theory. I never liked it, anyway. For one thing, it didn’t explain what Sweeney was doing down there.”

  “That’s the point which Hedstrom and Young seized on. If you assume that Sweeney was killed by the man who employed him to poison that truckload of chicken Mexicali, then his presence follows naturally enough. Either he came down to see his employer or he came down to tell all to Hedstrom. In either case, the employer killed him to seal his mouth.” Thatcher paused before adding, “And that, unfortunately, leaves the field wide open.”

  Charlie had an objection. “You mean Hedstrom too?”

  “At least provisionally. Though nobody has come up with a reasonable theory as to why he should poison his own product.”

  “Whereas everybody can think of a reason for this Ted Young. The number-two man trying to discredit the number-one man.”

  “There’s more against Young than just that.” Briefly Thatcher recapitulated the police disclosures of the Young-Sweeney encounter in Trenton. “So they have strong grounds for believing that Young would have recognized Sweeney if he had seen him. And I have grounds for believing that he did.” Thatcher repeated the conversation on the terrace between Iris and Ted. “At the time, his wife thought he was lying about seeing someone in the parking lot. She thought he was trying to distract her. I did, too, for what that’s worth. I only overheard a fragment of their talk. But now . . .”

  Charlie whistled soundlessly. “Yes. If he hired Sweeney and then suddenly saw him at the club, apparently waiting for Hedstrom, Young really would have stiffened. That would explain a lot.”

  “It explains something else that has been bothering me. If Young was behind the sabotage, there’s no mystery about how Sweeney’s employer found out about Sweeney’s existence.” Thatcher used a finger for punctuation. “Young already knew about him.”

  “You mean it was no accident that Sweeney was perfect for the job—a drifter with no family who’d just been fired. Someone who’d have no objection to skipping town for a couple of months.”

  “Exactly. You know yourself how hard it would be to pluck just the right man from the roster of a company that you didn’t know anything about.”

  Charlie was politely incredulous. “Oh, come on, John,” he said. “Fifty dollars to a girl in the personnel office? It’s done all the time.”

  Thatcher agreed up to a point.

  “Yes, it’s done all the time by, say, companies who are looking for technicians with rare skills. But then there’s no troublesome aftermath. But if you’re p
lanning a wholesale poisoning, you can’t rely on the girl’s keeping quiet. Not to mention the fact you have to find the girl first and that too leaves a trail.”

  Charlie had a sudden thought. “Good God, there haven’t been any sudden accidents to people in the Personnel Department of Chicken Tonight, have there?” he asked, horrified.

  “The police thought of that one.” Thatcher smiled grimly. “Hedstrom tells me they’ve put the personnel people through a fine sieve. Everybody is alive and accounted for. And the police are convinced that no girl was asked to run through the files and produce somebody with Sweeney’s peculiar qualifications.”

  “You’re right, then. That points the finger at Young.”

  Discontentedly, Thatcher thrust his feet into a low desk drawer and tilted his chair back. He looked out the window a moment before summarizing.

  “Not very conclusively. Not in the light of everybody else’s behavior. But, regardless of whether Young really was up to anything, I’d be prepared to wager good money that his wife thinks he was. It wasn’t until police suspicion veered toward him that Mrs. Young became hysterical and started to lash out at Hedstrom. She was in perfect control until then.”

  Charles laughed shortly. “That was some party. First a murder. Then a police investigation. And finally a raving hysteric.”

  “Not so hysterical if her outburst was planned to shift suspicion away from her husband,” Thatcher said dryly.

  “Was there any suggestion that the murderer had to be a man? Was it physically impossible for a woman?”

  “With Clyde Sweeney unconscious? I imagine a ten-year-old child would have been strong enough. But it doesn’t seem like a woman’s murder, does it?”

  “‘Wonderful what they can do when they set their minds to it,” Charlie said with the cheerfulness of the lifelong bachelor. “And it would explain the scarf.”

  “Yes, as far as the scarf goes, premeditation applies only to the men. Either of the women could have brought it accidentally.”

  “‘Then, for my money, Mrs. Young is still on the list. And not so far down, either.”