A Dismal Thing To Do

by Charlotte MacLeod

  This was not to say Bert didn’t adore Annabelle and so did Madoc, up to a point. They dawdled along so they’d arrive just before noon, timing it neatly so Annabelle could go into her whirlwind act, producing a Thanksgiving feast out of the old cookstove in about three minutes flat and getting them all sat down to it before Bert had got the top off the rum bottle to give himself and Madoc the ritual snort. They’d have been just as well fed if they’d arrived two hours earlier, but the effect wouldn’t have been so exciting.

  For a while there was little conversation except of the “This is delicious” and “Any more in the pot?” variety. Annabelle expected her cuisine to be taken seriously, and it was worth the attention. When they’d got down to the tea and pie stage, though, it was she herself who raised the question.

  “But you still haven’t told us what you’re doing here on a weekday. Don’t tell us you’ve run out of crooks to chase. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw your car pull into the yard.”

  This was a doubtful premise. Annabelle wasn’t many inches taller than Janet, but three kids and a lot of good cooking had increased her girth to about twice her sister-in-law’s. She amplified on this theme for a while, then Bert gave her a big kiss on the mouth to staunch the flow and give Janet a chance to start her story.

  It was quite a yarn, starting out with Muriel’s tale of a good pine washstand going cheap and winding up in the barn of a poor old widow with a shaky ladder up to the loft.

  “And she actually let you climb it, knowing the state it was in?” cried Annabelle. “You should have sued her!”

  “A poor old widow? Besides, her eyesight was so bad she couldn’t have seen how rickety the ladder was. I could, and I knew I was taking a risk, so it was my own stupid fault. I figured with a heavy coat and boots and all, I’d be well enough padded not to hurt myself if it did break, which just shows you how wrong a person can be. Let that be a warning to all of us,” she added with a meaning look at her youngest nephew, who was given to putting on his father’s Loyal Order of Owls regalia and hurling himself off the top of the henhouse, shouting, “Owlman to the rescue!”

  “What gripes me is that I still don’t have a washstand and my mother-in-law’s arriving a week from today. You don’t suppose Marion has one over at the Mansion she wouldn’t mind selling?” Janet knew the mere mention of Marion’s name would set Annabelle off for at least another hour while the boys went back to school for the afternoon session and Bert and Madoc adjourned to the barn to see how the livestock were doing and maybe exchange a few words about the Grouses and the McLumbers.

  On any normal day, it would be taken for granted Janet would help Annabelle clear the table and cope with the dishes. She did make one feeble attempt to pick up some teacups, then stopped, holding on to the back of a chair. “Guess I’d better go lie down for a while.”

  Annabelle was instantly at her side. “Do you want to go upstairs to bed?”

  “Why don’t you just help me into my nightgown and bathrobe? Then I can lie down here on the couch. If I can’t help, at least we can visit.” So Annabelle rambled on in her warm, quick voice as she tidied the kitchen and then sat down to darn a sweater of Bert’s that he’d snagged on the cream separator, and Janet smiled and put in a word edgewise now and men. Between times, she nodded off, knowing Annabelle wouldn’t be a whit offended if she noticed. Being together was what counted.

  Out in the barn, more serious conversation was going on.

  “So that’s why I want Jenny out of Fredericton, Bert,” Madoc wound up. “This case is so damned hush-hush that I’m to handle it by myself and they won’t even tell me what it is I’m supposed to be looking for. What matters most to me is that I don’t know whether somebody’s also looking for Janet, and I don’t dare leave her there alone to find out.”

  “I should damn well think not,” Bert replied. “But will she stay? You know Jen.”

  “It was her own idea to come here. She knew she’d be safe with you and Annabelle and Sam Neddick. If I honestly thought I was putting any of you in danger, I’d have bunged her straight into hospital under guard and kept her there. I still will if it becomes necessary, so if you see the least little sign of anything out of the way, you damn well let me know in a hurry. Do you think it’s safe to tell Sam?”

  Bert grinned. “Hell, he probably knows more than you do already. But Sam will keep his mouth shut, unless there’s something he thinks you or I ought to know. So all you want from Belle and me is to keep Janet safe and quiet till she gets better, eh? She’s not hurt bad, is she, Madoc?”

  “As far as we can tell, it’s mostly bruises and a few superficial cuts from the broken glass. That’s part of the problem. It won’t take her long to get back on her feet, and I don’t want her going anywhere, not even down into the village. Maybe you can put Annabelle up to starting her piecing a quilt, or something of the sort that will keep her indoors and occupied. I may be around for a few days myself, if you can stand me.”

  “Tickled to have you. Matter of fact, Fred Olson was telling me just yesterday that we might have to call you out here again. Seems Pitcherville’s in the midst of a major crime wave.”

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  Bert grinned. “Somebody stole Perce Bergeron’s old truck.”

  “The one his father used to carry the stud bull around in?”

  “Hell, Madoc, how’d you know that?”

  “We have our methods. What color was this truck?”

  “Kind of a dirty barn red, or used to be.”

  Janet had said the truck she saw was painted dark green. The first thing any sensible thief would have done would have been to repaint it a different color.

  “Could you describe the truck for me?”

  Bert could describe the bull who’d served the Bergerons, not to mention the lady Guernseys and Holsteins of the area, so long and so well. He was clear on every detail from the horns to the hooves, but when it came to what make and year the truck was, he couldn’t rightly recollect. “Fred Olson could tell you better than I,” he apologized. “It’s more in his line of work than mine.”

  That was true, Fred being not only Pitcherville’s town constable but also its town mechanic, and its blacksmith when there was any smithing to be done. “Then I’ll take a run down there,” said Madoc. “I owe him a courtesy call anyway. Does Annabelle need anything from the village?”

  “I hardly think likely. If there is, one of the boys can scoot down for it after school. Young Bert, most likely. He’s in love with the little Williamson girl. Or was, last I heard. Cripes, they grow up fast nowadays.”

  Madoc said he supposed he’d be saying the same thing himself in a few years’ time, and got into the motor pool car he’d borrowed instead of the Winnebago. He hadn’t wanted to shake Janet up in the old Renault. As for her own car, it was in a garage somewhere near Harvey Station and it could damned well stay there, as far as he was concerned, till his birds were safely in the bag.

  Fred was glad to see him. Madoc was equally glad to see Fred. He had considerable respect for the overweight, middle-aged, one-man police force who’d braved Pitcherville public opinion—and that took some braving—to call in the Mounties on the off-chance there might be a murderer loose in the village, and thus bring him together with Bert Wadman’s younger sister.

  “Hello, Fred. I understand you’ve been wanting to call a high-level conference on the subject of a missing wedding vehicle.”

  “Wedding vehicle? Oh, I get it.” A grin found its way with some effort through and around the jowls and wrinkles. “Yep, we got a grade-A crime wave around here. Perce Bergeron’s old bull truck an’ a dozen two-by-fours from Jase Bain’s junkyard.”

  “Well, well! This is more serious than I thought. Has Bain filed suit against you yet for negligence or malfeasance?”

  “No, but he’s workin’ up to it. Care to set a spell?”

  “Thank you.”

  It was warm enough in the garage
with a fire of wood scraps burning in the stove Fred had fashioned from an oil drum and a few angle irons. The seating arrangements weren’t fancy. The chair Fred offered had a hunk of plywood roughly nailed on over the hole where the cane had let go, and that was the best of the lot, but it did well enough.

  The constable picked up the teakettle that was simmering on top of the oil drum and gave it an interrogative slosh. Madoc shook his head.

  “No tea for me, thanks. I’ve just got up from one of Annabelle’s little snack lunches. Any ideas about who’s waving the crime?”

  “Nary a one. Sam Neddick don’t know, an’ neither does Maw Fewter. Sam still goes to see ’er now an’ then, for old times’ sake. Annabelle sends things down sometimes when she bakes. Once or twice, Sam’s even paid out his own money for a bag o’ gumdrops. Maw’s talked herself into believin’ he really meant to marry her Dottie.”

  “What does Sam think of that?”

  “Doesn’t bother him none. Let ’er think if it gives ’er any comfort, is the way he looks at it. Don’t cost him nothin’. O’ course he picks up all the village gossip at the same time.”

  “I can imagine. What’s new on the grapevine?”

  “Well, the biggest news seems to be you an’ Janet. Anything fresh to keep the pot boilin’?”

  “Plenty, I’m afraid. Poor Jenny took a bad tumble yesterday and banged herself up in grand style. I expect I’ll be branded as a wife beater before the day’s out.”

  Fred chuckled, as Madoc had hoped he would. “I shouldn’t be surprised. How’d it happen?”

  “I’m blaming Marion Emery, myself. If she hadn’t presented us with one of those old-fashioned pitcher and bowl sets from the Mansion, Janet wouldn’t have been out hunting for an antique washstand to set it on.”

  Madoc repeated the yarn Janet had spun to Annabelle. Fred nodded in complete sympathy.

  “That’s a woman for you. Whatever she can’t have, that’s the thing she wants most. Mine’s been yammerin’ at me to move all the furniture out of our Marilyn’s room an’ turn it into a sewin’ room for herself. Marilyn’s finishin’ up at Acadia this year, an’ be darned if she didn’t announce her engagement to a nice young feller from Digby whose father runs a lobster pound. Does all right, too; sells ’em to the tourists in summer an’ ships ’em down to Boston in the winter. The boy’s studyin’ to be a lawyer, but at least he’s got somethin’ to fall back on if the law don’t pan out. Though I don’t know’s I’d want to fall back on a lobster, myself.”

  Fred chuckled again. “So the gist of it is, they want to be married as soon as Marilyn graduates, which means she won’t be comin’ back to stay and the wife wants to get goin’ on the bridal gown an’ the bridesmaids’ dresses. Any furniture Marilyn don’t want, Millie’s goin’ to get rid of, she claims.”

  “Well, before she sells any of it, ask her if there’s one of those washstands with a hole on the top and a shelf underneath. I’ll pay whatever she asks to keep my wife off any more rotten ladders.”

  “Hell, is that what Janet was lookin’ for? I got one right over there in the corner. Don’t ask me where it came from. I’ve forgotten, if I ever knew. It ain’t in too bad shape, far’s I can see. I could slap on a coat o’ fresh paint.”

  “If you do, I’ll run you in for disturbing the peace. The idea, I believe, is either to preserve them in a suitably battered condition or else to strip them down and then restore them, whatever that may mean. If you’d just brush off the cobwebs and let me know what you think it’s worth?”

  “Hell’s flames, how do I know what it’s worth? You better take a look for yourself before you decide whether the thing’s even worth luggin’ home.”

  Fred set aside the chipped graniteware basin that had been sitting in the top since God knew when. Together, the two upholders of law and order went over the washstand. Barring a few grease stains and too many coats of the wrong color paint, each one knocked off in spots to show the color underneath, they pronounced it sound and fit to travel. This was definitely a strip-and-restore job, and that was fine with Madoc. It would give Janet something to work off her surplus energy on, once she got some back.

  “Want to take it with you now?” Fred asked. “Or shall I run it up in the truck later?”

  “Why don’t you take it, if you don’t mind? Janet will be glad of a chance to say hello. But about the money—”

  Fred gave Madoc a sly grin. “Tell you what. You get Perce Bergeron’s truck and Jase Bain’s lumber back for me, and we’ll call it square.”

  “But suppose they’re beyond getting? Would you settle for the thieves who took them?”

  “I’d settle for anything that will get Perce an’ Jase off my back.”

  “In that case, it’s a deal. Now Fred, can you describe this truck of Bergeron’s in detail?”

  “I can do a little better’n that. Why don’t you take yourself a run out to Bergeron’s and ask Perce for a picture of it? He must have hundreds of ’em. Old Elzire, Perce’s father, was a real sharp feller. He believed it paid to advertise. He’d have postcards printed up with a picture of the truck an’ the bull an’ some cute sayin’. ‘Why wait till the cows come home? We’ll throw the bull your way,’ that was one of ‘em. ‘Service with a smile,’ that was another.”

  “Catchy,” said Madoc.

  “Ayup. Elzire was a smart one, all right. It was a good idea, you know, cartin’ the bull around to the cows instead o’ makin’ the farmer drive ’em to stud. That truck put Perce’s food on the table an’ clothes on his back, an’ sent him to school, an’ he darn well knows it, eh? Hell, he’d rather ’o lost his mother-in-law. A damn sight rather, though you needn’t tell ’er I said so. I used to have a few of Elzire’s postcards kickin’ around myself, but don’t ask me what became of ’em. Anyway, I expect likely you’d as soon go get Perce’s story for yourself. Straight from the bull’s mouth, as you might say.”

  Chuckling at his own wit, Fred told Madoc how to find Bergeron and said he guessed maybe he’d better get back to lining Jim Allenby’s brakes. However, Madoc was not quite ready to let him go.

  “By the way, would you happen to know a chap from somewhere around these parts named either Grouse or McLumber who went into the military quite some years ago and did pretty well for himself? He’d be around your age, give or take a few years, tall and sturdily built, probably blond when he was younger but grayhaired now, roundish face, florid complexion, and bright blue eyes that look as if you could take them out and play marbles with them.”

  “Cripes yes, that’d be Charlie Grouse. I went to school with him. Eyeball Grouse, we used to call him. General Grouse nowadays, from what his relatives try to make you believe, but I don’t think Eyeball’s ever got quite that far. Colonel or major, I forget which. They say he’s turned into a kind of a stuffed shirt, but what the hell, he’s entitled, is the way I look at it. Yep, you got to hand it to ol’ Eyeball, he didn’t do so bad for a boy from Bigears. You run into him down to Fredericton, eh?”

  “Yes, but please don’t mention it if you should happen to run across him. I’m not supposed to know who he is.”

  “Huh. So he’s gone in for the cloak-an’-dagger stuff now? Well, I s’pose that’s all part o’ the game if you want to get ahead. ’Twouldn’t be my cup o’ tea an’ I shouldn’t o’ thought it would o’ been Eyeball’s when we was playin’ one ol’ cat at recess forty years ago, but that’s the way it goes. If he ever lets you in on the secret, tell him Fred Olson says hello. At least I don’t have to make believe I ain’t me.”

  Chapter 8

  PERCE BERGERON WAS PRECISELY where Fred Olson had said he’d be, out in his barn looking mournful. He was sitting on a high stool at a workbench built into the front left-hand corner, doing something to a piece of equipment whose use Madoc could guess the general nature of but didn’t care to hear the particulars.

  “Afternoon, Mr. Bergeron,” he said. “I’m Bert Wadman’s brother-in-law. My name is Rhys.”

>   “Oh, the Mountie. Glad to meet you. Fred Olson sent you over about my truck, I’ll wager.”

  “As a matter of fact, he did. I’ve brought my wife for a little visit with Annabelle, and Bert happened to mention your problem. I came down to ask Fred about it, because I thought it might possibly tie in with a bigger one we’ve run into.”

  “You mean there’s a gang going all over the province stealing bull trucks?”

  “Heavy equipment of various sorts, actually. From the way Fred describes your truck, I’d doubt very much if there are many like it around.”

  “And you couldn’t be more right. I’ve never seen another one like ours. My father built that bull box himself, and had it mounted to his own specifications. Pa was a man ahead of his time, if you want my opinion. Only the time caught up with us and now it’s all this goddamn artificial insemination. Hell of a way to treat animals, but what can you do?”

  He threw down the instrument he’d been working on, and pulled out a drawer from under the bench. “Fred tell you about my father’s advertising campaign? Now, that took imagination and enterprise. That was Pa all over, imaginative and enterprising. Damn, I miss that truck! It’s like losing Pa all over again.”

  “You were his only son, Mr. Bergeron?”

  “Hell no, I was his fifteenth. Some of them were twins, of course. Pa was sixty-seven when I was born, and as good a man as he ever was. Sired two more after me, but they were both girls, Annette and Finette. Mama called her that because she said Finette was positively the last, and she was. Mama wasn’t getting any younger herself by then, you know. ‘Forty-eight’s too old to be washing diapers,’ I can remember her saying. So Pa bought her a new washing machine, which didn’t change her mind any, not but what she didn’t appreciate the gesture, you understand. Yes, Mr. Rhys, I’ve got brothers old enough to be your grandfather. Damn near old enough to be mine, if it comes to that, scattered from here to hell and gone. They all turned out imaginative and enterprising, like Pa. Lit out and made their fortunes in the wide world.”