The Odd Job

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “Ought to be locked up in a zoo,” growled the policeman. “With the tiger, for preference. Here, drink your coffee while it’s hot. So what did you do?”

  Sarah managed to get a swallow or two into her, it helped a little. “Luckily for me, I’ve made that run so many times that I’ve picked up a few dodges myself. I strung the fellows along until I came to a spot I had in mind, then ditched them rather neatly, if I do say so. The thing of it is, when I rattled off that number just now, I can’t honestly say whether I was remembering the one that I’d got several close looks at on Sunday or if it was actually the same number plate both times.”

  “You didn’t write it down the first time, by any chance?”

  “No. I was more concerned with not getting hit and watching my chance to shake them off.” She tried a little more of the coffee and began to feel almost halfway human. “Don’t you think it’s time we ordered? You must be starving. I’m going to stick with something bland and simple, like a plain omelet, but you order whatever you like. Mrs. Tawne’s lawyer says the executors are allowed to charge off expenses to her estate, assuming there is one.”

  Drummond emitted a noise that might have become a laugh if he hadn’t nipped it off short. “You’re a gutsy lady, Mrs. Bittersohn, if you don’t mind me saying so. Now, where’s that waiter?”

  He glanced around in an authoritarian way and the young fellow reappeared. “I guess we’re ready to order. The lady wants a plain omelet and I’ll try the roast beef sandwich. Tell ’em not to stint on the gravy.”

  While they waited for their food, it was impossible to stay away from the topic that was uppermost in both their minds. “Did you get a look at the driver?” Sarah asked. “Was there anyone else in the car?”

  “Could have been. All I really remember is that crazy driver.”

  “Male or female?”

  Drummond shrugged. “Who can tell, the way people dress nowadays? But I’m pretty sure it was a guy. Cops develop kind of a feeling. I don’t suppose you got a look inside?”

  “Oh no. I was wondering what Dolores did with her bankbooks. I wasn’t even aware of the car until all of a sudden there it was, almost on top of me. Are you quite sure that swerve was deliberate? You know how flustered some drivers get if they’re not used to our notorious Boston traffic.”

  “I sure do,” Drummond snarled, “but I’ve had enough experience on traffic duty to tell who’s just a stupid klutz and who to book for a charge of driving to endanger. That bas—er—driver was out for blood. And I’m going to get him. I don’t know how, but he’s mine. You want some more coffee?”

  “I want my omelet.” Sarah glanced at her watch. “And I can see why, I hadn’t realized it’s almost half past one. I’m so sorry.”

  “Ah, that’s all right. I’m used to eating at odd times.”

  The lunchtime rush was over by now, their food was not long in coming. Sarah’s plain omelet was daintily garnished with four green grapes, a slice of orange, and a ruffle of kale; Drummond’s roast beef sandwich was a great slab of half-raw meat swimming in gravy. Each of them tried to avoid looking at what the other was eating. Both relished the hot food, neither could let go of the bizarre incident that had shaken them so horribly.

  “You know, Mrs. Bittersohn, it almost seems to me as if that driver might have been hanging around the square, waiting his chance. He and whoever was with him could have been double-parked over by the T station as if they were waiting for somebody, and speeded up when he caught sight of you in the crosswalk.”

  “But you were with me,” Sarah argued.

  “I was on the other side of you, watching out in case some cowboy made a quick left turn. The guy driving the Toyota might not have realized that we were together.”

  “How could he have known that I’d be here at all?”

  “Not to alarm you, Mrs. Bittersohn, but let’s assume he’s the messenger who left the hatpin at the desk in the Little Building. He could have hung around watching until you picked up the envelope and been tailing you ever since.”

  Sarah shook her head. “Actually I think it’s more likely that he lost me after my houseman Charles and I left the hatpin with Lieutenant Harris late yesterday afternoon, and picked me up again this morning when I stopped in at the station to get Mrs. Tawne’s keys. I don’t know whether Lieutenant Harris mentioned to you that somebody had tried to drill a hole through the wall into the office where I’d been working. That was why I’d phoned Charles to come and escort me home. Then I realized it wouldn’t be a good idea to lead somebody with an electric drill directly to my house on Tulip Street, so Charles and I spent the evening in the rain confusing our trail. I bought this outfit as a disguise after I’d been to the lawyer’s office this morning but it was probably a waste of money. All my stalker would have had to do was phone the station early and ask whether Mrs. Bittersohn had stopped by to collect Mrs. Tawne’s keys, then wait in ambush until a woman about the right size went in and came straight back out. He must have got a jolt when he saw you helping me into a police car.”

  “Didn’t stop him, though, did I?” Drummond replied somewhat bitterly. “He must have followed us to the studio building and made a lucky guess about Kenmore Square when he saw us leaving the building on foot.”

  “Yes, but your being with me would have forced him to change his plan of attack. If he was really out to murder me, it would have been easier and less risky to catch me alone in the studio and knife me or choke me or chuck me out the window onto the turnpike in front of a truck. Did you want some dessert?”

  That was too much for Officer Drummond. “My God! Is that what they teach girls in those fancy finishing schools?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Sarah. “My father didn’t believe in schools for girls. If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to wash up as best I can, I’ve used up all the paper napkins mopping the blood off my knee. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind making a quick trip to the drugstore, if there is one, and bringing me back some gauze pads and adhesive tape, and a pair of knee-high nylons?”

  “Sorry, nothing doing. My orders are to stick with you.” Drummond made a halfhearted gesture toward the check that their waiter laid on the table but Sarah scooped it away.

  “I’ll take care of this. But please, may I be let off the leash for just a few minutes?”

  “Okay, Mrs. Bittersohn, but I’ll be right outside the door. Holler if you need me.”

  Sarah put money on the table, including a generous tip for the helpful young waiter, and let Drummond escort her as far as the women’s-room door, which he insisted on her holding open long enough for him to make sure nobody was lurking behind the toilet bowl.

  There was nothing she could do about her lacerations and abrasions except sponge off the dried blood and the few trickles that were still running down her shin. Fortunately the gray flannel skirt was a bit loose around the waist; she pulled it as far down over her hips as it would go without falling off, trying to hide the extent of her injuries as best she could. Clean hands, combed hair, and fresh lipstick, a little of which she smudged on her cheeks so that she wouldn’t look quite so much like the corpse she had almost become, lifted Sarah’s morale a trifle; anyway, it was the best she could do. She opened the door just in time to catch her allegedly vigilant watchdog emerging from the men’s room.

  “There you are,” she said. “Now the drugstore, if you don’t mind. I can’t go into the bank looking as though I’d lost a fight with wildcat.”

  She was limping badly, she couldn’t help it. Fortunately Kenmore Square abounds in amenities. Officer Drummond explained to a kind pharmacist that the lady he was assisting had fallen and hurt herself. The kind pharmacist, a youngish woman, took Sarah behind the counter, helped her shed the remnants of her panty hose and wash out the sidewalk grit with peroxide, offered soothing antibiotic salve and heavenly feeling gauze pads, told Sarah to put ice on her bruises when she got home, and sent a clerk over to the hosiery rack for some dark-taupe knee-highs. S
he even knew where the High Street Bank’s branch was situated, just a short hobble from where they were. Since it was not the Kelling way to hug strange pharmacists, Sarah voiced her gratitude in warm tones, paid her modest bill, and limped as nimbly as she could manage out of the drugstore and into the bank.

  They didn’t have much time, the bank closed at three. Sarah went directly to the reception desk and spoke to the middle-aged man in charge.

  “My name is Sarah Kelling Bittersohn. I’m a depositor at your bank and executrix for another of your depositors, Dolores Agnew Tawne, who died Sunday afternoon. I’m supposed to transfer whatever money she had in your bank to my own trustee account. I haven’t found any bankbooks yet, so I assume they’re in one of her safe deposit boxes. Is there someone I can talk to?”

  “Just a moment, please.” The man flipped a switch and spoke into his headset. “Mrs. Fortune, there’s an executrix here for the estate of a Mrs. Agnes Torn. She wants to talk to you, she’s brought a policeman with her. Shall I ask them to wait?”

  He listened, then nodded. “Mrs. Fortune will see you. Turn right past the counter, third door on the left.”

  Mrs. Fortune, a harried-looking woman of fifty or so in a gray suit much like Sarah’s, emerged from some inner fastness. “What was the name again? Are you a relative of the deceased?”

  “No, I’m executrix for the late Dolores Agnew Tawne. My name is Sarah Kelling Bittersohn and this is Officer Drummond, who’s helping me. We found her safe deposit keys and her original will in her studio a while ago, but we haven’t turned up any bankbooks; so I’d like to have her boxes opened in order to transfer any funds she may have left to my trustee’s account.”

  Mrs. Fortune had brightened her businesslike suit with a pair of green-framed eyeglasses hanging from a string of pink and green beads. She put them on and peered suspiciously through the lenses. “You said boxes. Are you saying that this Mrs. Tawne had more than one?”

  “She had more than one key, at any rate, and they’re not mates.”

  Sarah took the two midget keys from her handbag and laid them side by side on Mrs. Fortune’s desk. “I found this one in her top dresser drawer, with her will. The other had been hidden under the paper lining in the bottom drawer. Here are the envelopes, you see they’re both marked ‘High Street Bank’ and have different numbers. It’s possible, of course, that one of the keys might be to a box that she’d had some time ago and quit paying rent on; she was always careful about money. Anyway, I thought I should bring them both.”

  Mrs. Fortune pecked at her computer, then shook her head. “There’s only one box listed under Mrs. Tawne’s name.”

  “Then I wonder if the second box could have been her brother’s.” Though whether the late Jimmy Agnew would ever have owned anything worth keeping at the bank was, Sarah thought, highly improbable. “Or somebody else’s,” she modified. “I expect you have ways of tracing a key number back to a name.”

  “Yes, we can do that, if we have to. But not till you show me some identification.”

  “Of course. Here’s my court order, and my driver’s license with my photo on it, and Mrs. Tawne’s will with myself named as executrix. I’ll be dropping off the will at her lawyer’s office, he can vouch for me if you want to call him. His name is Redfern, his address is on the will. Is that enough for you?”

  “Plenty.” Mrs. Fortune even managed a grim smile. The top-drawer key was immediately matched to the name of Dolores Agnew Tawne. The other one put up a fight; it was not until an assistant brought Mrs. Fortune a typed card from an old wooden file in a back room that the computer was able to dredge up the relevant information. The box had been rented on December 3, 1967. Never once since that date had anybody requested access to it. This explained why the card had got shunted onto an inactive list despite the fact that rent was still being paid for it every year on the dot.

  The name in the old file card matched the name on the computer; it was LaVonne LaVerne. Who she might be or might have been was probably going to take some finding now that Dolores was gone. Nobody of that name was listed in the Boston phone book or in any of the suburban directories that were the only reference sources Mrs. Fortune had ready to hand. No matter. There were places enough to look: the voting lists, the census, the Boston Public Library’s unstumpable reference department. Personal ads could even be run in the Boston papers if all else failed, which seemed very unlikely.

  Mrs. Fortune was not up for in-depth research, that was clear. She wanted LaVonne LaVerne to show herself or quit haunting that long-unopened safe deposit box. She seemed almost to suspect Sarah of deliberately withholding information.

  “And you’re absolutely sure, Mrs. Bittersohn, that Mrs. Tawne never once mentioned this LaVerne woman to you?”

  “No, never,” Sarah insisted. “As I’ve been explaining ever since Sunday, Mrs. Tawne was less a personal friend than a professional acquaintance. She could be sociable enough when she felt like it, but her conversation was generally related to the Wilkins Museum, where she worked. Her job seemed to be her major interest.”

  “The Wilkins Museum? Oh yes, I remember her now. Big woman with a loud voice. So she’s dead. Well, we all have to come to it sooner or later. We’d better get to those boxes, we haven’t much time.”

  Chapter 13

  SARAH HOPED HER KNEE wasn’t going to start bleeding again. Luckily she hadn’t far to walk before Mrs. Fortune ushered her and her bodyguard into a windowless room lined with safe deposit boxes, each to its own steel-lined cubbyhole and its own set of locks. Taking the two keys that Sarah handed her, she checked the number on the first box against the number on the key and the number on her list, and unlocked the little door.

  “This is the Tawne box.” Mrs. Fortune slid the long, narrow green box out of its niche. “Now, Mrs. Bittersohn, do you want to check the contents of this one and put it back before we take out the LaVerne box, or would you rather open them both together?”

  “Together, please.” Sarah’s chief concern by now was to get through with what had to be done here and go home and put her leg up.

  “This way, then. Here, you hold the first box while I take out the other one, that’s so I’ll have no chance to pull a switch on you. You may be wondering why I’m not getting written permission to open the LaVerne box, but since it’s never been opened once in all this time and the key was presumably in Mrs. Tawne’s possession, and since you’re now the executrix, it’s for you to say. It’s quite possible, you know, that there never was a LaVonne LaVerne in the first place. We get some weird things happening here; people dying intestate and leaving boxes full of false teeth, glass eyes, stock certificates issued by companies that went bust half a century ago. We never know.”

  Mrs. Fortune had been getting the second box out as she spoke. She motioned for Sarah to follow her to a row of cubicles along the fourth wall, opened the door to one of them, and switched on an overhead light. “Please don’t take too much time, we close on the dot of three. Be sure to hook the door from the inside.”

  She placed the LaVerne box on the shelf that served for a desk, backed out of the cubicle, and left Sarah to herself. It was like being shut up in a piano crate, there was barely room for a single wooden chair drawn up to the shelf. Sarah dutifully secured the outdated hook-and-eye fastening and opened the box that had been rented to Dolores Tawne.

  Good, here were the bankbooks, two of them. One showed a total of just under fifteen thousand dollars, the other only a few hundred. Judging from the many small deposits and withdrawals, the latter must have been Dolores’s method of handling her weekly expenses; the former, then, must be her life’s savings. There had been withdrawals from the larger account also, though none recently. That biggest and latest one must have been her payment for Jimmy’s funeral. Even in death he’d sponged on his sister. In life, how many of her hard-earned dollars had been poured unthinkingly down her brother’s always-ready throat?

  At least there was enough here to set
tle Dolores’s small estate. Sarah put the two bankbooks in her handbag and lifted off a tan-colored silk scarf with a blue paint stain in one corner that had been laid over whatever else was in the box. She might have known Dolores would leave everything in perfect order, but why had Dolores gone to the bother of wrapping all her bits and pieces in Christmas paper, and tying them up with narrow red satin ribbon?

  There were a fair number of these little packages, roughly five to six inches long, not more than two or three inches wide. Curious, Sarah slipped the wrapping off one of the packets. What she found was a purple velvet-covered jeweler’s case, somewhat rubbed but still in excellent condition; she opened it and gasped.

  The era of the beaux and belles, the macaroni, the nonpareil, and latterly the railroad tycoon was over. No man these days wore a great, flamboyant gem in his cravat or on the bosom of his boiled dress shirt; but somebody didn’t seem to care. Sarah opened another of the elegant little cases, and another, wishing she had time to see them all. Some of the stickpins were relatively modest, if diamonds of only two or three carats in elaborate gold settings could be considered so; others were splendid enough to make a rajah sigh with envy.

  Sarah knew what she was seeing, and it scared her stiff. There was no way Dolores Tawne could have come by this collection honestly. How in heaven’s name had that handmaid to molting peacocks and housemaid to Madam Wilkins’s hideous majolica managed to pull off a crime of this magnitude? And what was the position of the executrix with a court order that gave her full responsibility for the estate of Dolores Agnew Tawne?

  If only Max were here! But he wasn’t, and Mrs. Fortune must be having kitten fits outside the cubicle and the LaVerne box hadn’t even been opened. Halfway excited, halfway dreading what she might find, Sarah raised the lid that had lain shut for thirty years.

  What Sarah found was hardly anything at all, just a yellowed letter-size envelope stuffed with handwritten pages that she mustn’t take time to scan, a half dozen or so black-and-white eight-by-ten photographs that had been rolled up for so long that they’d have to be wrestled apart and flattened under a heavy weight before one could get a proper look at them, and, of all things neither bright nor beautiful, six long, sharp, businesslike steel hatpins.