“The last murder—”
“The last murder so far,” the professor corrected him.
“So far.” Ron sat back in his chair. “The last one so far, Jastrow, is almost too direct to be true. Diedre was onto it before. So was Shaughnessy in the police department, before Jastrow was even killed.
“Jastrow was an ex-sheriff’s man, and a crooked one. If anything, he gave new meaning to the word ‘pig.’ ”
“So there we have it,” Buell began, but Ron said, “We’re not finished yet. There are some hog-applications among the investigators too, you know.”
Ron saw Janet get red, and drop her glass on the rug.
It was empty, but the stem broke off. Ron bad been waiting for two days for her to catch on, but he never thought she’d take it like this.
When Janet spoke, though, he realized the red was not from embarrassment, but from anger.
“Of course!” she snapped. “Of course! Let’s take me, first. I was born in Arkansas. I went to the University of Arkansas. As anybody knows, the athletic teams at the University of Arkansas are nicknamed ‘the Razorbacks,’ and everybody knows a razorback is a kind of wild pig. Right?”
Ron could only nod. What was she so upset about?
Diedre said, “How exciting!” and Ron could have strangled her. “How about me, how do I fit in?”
Buell was indulgent, “Now, Love ...”
“It’s okay, Buell,” Ron said. “It just so happens that Chester Whites are another commercial breed of hog raised in this country, the same as Poland-Chinas.” Diedre looked pleased.
“Now, when we come to the police,” Ron went on, still wondering what was eating Janet, “we have a little more trouble. Fleisher, for example, is the German word for ‘butcher,’ and you can assume a butcher would be familiar with hogs ...”
Buell laughed. “Not Fleisher’s butcher.”
“Exactly. As for Shaughnessy, Michael Francis Patrick Shaughnessy—well, it’s reaching, but’s that’s a name that’s as Irish as Paddy’s pig.”
“And you said it took a little imagination,” Janet said quietly.
“As for myself, unless you want to count my football career, or lump me in with the cops as that kind of ‘pig,’ I’m ashamed to confess I can’t think of anything.”
Diedre was playing the game. “If people referred to you as ‘Private Investigator Gentry,’ you’d have the right initials.”
Buell laughed again. “If he includes Fleisher because of the translation of his name, he’s got to accept that one.”
His fiancée looked shrewdly at him. “What about you, Buell?” Diedre asked. She turned to Ron. “There’s nothing to link the professor either, is there? That doesn’t seem fair, does it?” She smiled brilliantly, “Buell and the professor shouldn’t be left out.”
Ron looked at Benedetti, and saw in the black eyes a command to go ahead.
“Only the professor is left out, Diedre,” he said quietly. He turned to the reporter. “Do you want to tell it, Buell, or should I?”
SIXTEEN
BUELL HAD KNOWN IT was coming, not only all evening, but since the whole business started, and even before that. He’d prepared and prepared, and it bothered him that, now that it had happened, he still didn’t feel ready. He held it against himself; he considered it a weakness in himself, all the worse because he hadn’t known previously that it existed.
“You tell it,” he said. He found himself hoping that what Ron had found out wasn’t what Buell had been concealing, that instead it was something innocuous like all the other foolishness Ron had come out with tonight. He stepped on the hope and crushed it—if it were some silly thing, they would have only mentioned it in passing, like they had for everyone else.
Ron said, “Well, for one thing, your real name is Peter Buell Chandler ...”
That was enough to tell Buell he’d been right to stifle that stupid little hope. “Tatham was my mother’s maiden name,” he said.
“I know,” Ron said. Buell met the professor’s eyes. An illusion of the light made them look like pits, like something you could fall into if you weren’t careful. The old man’s look was unsettling but strong; Buell felt an almost tangible snap as he tore his eyes away.
“You’re from an old, and very rich family down south in Knox County,” Ron went on, “that has produced some very successful evangelists, or popular ones, anyway. I guess you’d have to measure an evangelist’s success in terms of souls saved, right?
“Anyway, both your father, H.P. Chandler, and his older brother W. K. Chandler, became preachers, though they didn’t get along so well—”
“Buell has told me all about this,” Diedre said.
“Buell’s father wanted to sell off some of the land to the tenants at prices they could afford, and Buell’s Uncle Willy didn’t. And Buell’s father preached to mixed audiences, when he toured the North, and that drove his uncle wild.”
Ron nodded. “And coming back from one of those trips, H.P. Chandler’s bus collided with a truckload of migrant workers, killing Chandler and his wife among others. Buell at first went to live with his maternal grandmother, but with his local political clout, and money judiciously spread in the right places, his uncle got custody. How old were you, Buell, ten?”
“Nine and a half.” He gave a bitter chuckle. “Tell me not in mournful numbers, right? That is the mournfulest number in my life.” Buell leaned forward and shook a finger at Janet. “You know, for all your expertise, Doctor, you can’t tell me a thing about people exulting in power. I know all about that. You can’t tell me anything about people trying to play God. Down in Knox County, Willy Chandler is God. I’ve seen him torment souls—and felt it, too. Do you know he used to let me believe he caused that accident; that he had it done? I didn’t find out till years later it wasn’t true. He used to mention my daddy’s death, then tell me to keep in line.
“So nothing in this Hog case is really new to me, I can tell you. You want to study evil, Professor, you go down to Knox County and you study up on old Willy Chandler.”
Buell never could have anticipated how good this was going to feel. It was like—like testifying, something he hadn’t done since his daddy died. He was testifying, not to the truth of the Lord, but to the lies of Willy Chandler.
“He was evil, Professor—I meant to say he still is, though he is close to death now. He could go any day, and I know one person who won’t be shedding any tears for him.”
“You keep yourself informed, I see,” the professor said.
“Lord, yes I do keep myself informed. I’ve kept myself informed from the day he threw me out. Making sure, you understand, that he’d be true to his principles, especially the one about not making wills. Because that’s going to be my revenge. I swore then and I swear now, on my parents’ souls, that I’d wait out that old bastard, and change Knox County into a decent and just place, the way it should have been long ago. And I’ll throw out my uncle’s damn Guardians when I do.”
“Guardians?” Janet said.
Buell’s apprehension was gone now, obliterated by the relief of letting his vow be heard. He explained, “The Guardians of America, Janet. Uncle Willy’s answer to the Ku Klux Klan, American Nazi Party—that kind of filth.”
“He came out with it in the early sixties,” Ron said. “Backlash to the civil rights movement. In 1963, two members were tried for torturing, then killing two Rhode Island women in Knox County trying to get blacks registered to vote. Hung jury. There were other rumors, but nothing came of them. Chandler wasn’t personally implicated.” Buell snorted; Ron went on. “Since then, they’ve moved nationwide; they like to move into conflicts like busing, for example, emotional issues, but with decent, sincere people on both sides, then stir up hatreds for all they’re worth.”
“Which is horrible, of course,” Diedre said. “But what does this have to do with Buell?”
“Well, according to my correspondent, the guy who dug up this stuff for me, when this orga
nization was first begun in Knox County, it was called the Holy Order of Guardians of the South. H.O.G.S.”
Buell got up, and walked to Diedre’s bar setup. He got a tall glass, filled it with ice, then poured God’s own clear water over it, and sat back down. “Put them all together, they don’t spell ‘Mother,’ do they?” he asked. “Still, Ron, I don’t know if I’m so thrilled with the idea of you hiring your fellow private eyes to check up on my past.”
Ron shrugged. “It’s not like it’s so terribly sinister, Buell, or even so hard to dig up. And it’s not a question of guilt—the name change was strictly legal.”
“And I’ve been with Fleisher when most of the murders were committed, which is what you really meant to say.”
Ron didn’t bother to deny it. “The professor taught me to be a stickler for completeness. Once I started with the Hog tie-ins, I wanted to make sure I had everybody checked out.
“But the question is this: Why did I have to dig it out? You say yourself, you’ve kept yourself informed. Don’t say Hog-H.O.G.S. never occurred to you. So what are you hiding?”
Buell finished his water, put down his glass. This was what he’d been afraid of. His life could go empty again with the next word he spoke.
He said it like a prayer. “Diedre,” he said. “I’m hiding Diedre.”
He saw hurt on her face, something he never wanted to see. To make it stop, he said quickly, “Diedre, Love, don’t you see? If Uncle Willy ever found out about us, all my—all our plans for Knox County would be gone? That if anything could make him make a will so as to cut me out, that would? That surely would, Love.”
“Oh, Buell,” Diedre said, “of course I understand.” She went and held him tight and cried on him. “It must be terrible for you.”
“I can’t give you up, Love, and I don’t want to give up the dream. I ... wasn’t sure you’d understand.”
“Well, I do understand.”
“I don’t understand,” Janet said.
“Mrs. Chester’s first husband,” the professor explained, “by whom she has a son, was a diplomat—the ambassador to the United Nations from the nation of Liberia. A Black African nation, eh? I am sure Mr. Tatham was quite correct. The thought of his nephew marrying what the reprehensible Reverend W.K. Chandler would call a ‘nigger lover,’ and assuming guardianship of a racially mixed child, would surely seem sufficient cause to change his position about leaving a will.”
“But still,” Ron said. “You could have told us. Or at least Fleisher. I don’t expect he’d go out of his way to help the W.K. Chandlers of the world.”
“I was afraid of leaks, Ron,” the reporter said. “Things leak. The press knows that better than anybody, just like we know how the cops work; that’s why I was sure even before I got the first note that this was going to be a big case: I know how hard it is to fake an accident.”
Benedetti scratched the back of his hand. “Since you know the police so well you must know that facts concealed at the beginning of an investigation are considered far more significant than they might deserve to be when they are discovered later on. I suggest you explain the whole situation to Inspector Fleisher, as soon as possible.”
“You mean tonight?”
“This minute,” Benedetti said. “I will go with you. I mean to speak to the inspector myself.”
They said their goodbyes. It took a while, because Diedre was a great practitioner of the casual kiss, where you touch cheeks and peck at the air. It was a social convention that always struck Ron as a striving after intimacy, and it seemed even worse in the slightly strained atmosphere he’d caused with his little lecture.
It was arranged that the professor would go with Buell to the police station, and Ron would take Janet home, but outside, on the slushy sidewalk, Janet said, “It won’t be necessary, you know.”
“What won’t be necessary?” Since they’d arrived at Diedre’s, the temperature had gone up slightly, and the stars and moon were a little fuzzy around the edges; it was going to snow again. Terrific, Ron thought. In a thousand years, they’ll finally catch Hog, frozen in ice like a mastodon.
He missed her answer. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Janet’s voice was frozen in ice. “I said, it won’t be necessary to drive me home.”
“Why not? You’re not upset, are you?”
“Upset? Of course not.” Ron had never heard a more obvious lie. “It’s just that now that I know I’m a suspect, there’s no further reason for you to keep an eye on my reactions any more, is there? I don’t want to take up your detective energies—”
Ron threw up his hands. “Oh, for God sake—”
“I’m surprised you let me get my hands on Mrs. Reade yesterday! Weren’t you afraid the old razorback might cut her throat?”
“That’s not funny. Hell, it’s not even a good pun!” They were both shouting now.
Janet stamped her foot, making a small eruption of slush, which she ignored. “Of all the sneaky, amateurish—”
“Shut up!”
Ron was more than a little surprised when she did, until he saw that she hadn’t shut up because he had said so, but because of the rage caused by the fact that he even had the nerve to say so.
He started talking while he had the chance. “Dammit, Janet, what are you so sensitive about?” She turned her back on him; he kept trying. “Nobody thinks you’re Hog. My God, you’re part of the team! The professor has accepted you!”
“Big deal,” she said bitterly.
“It is a big deal!” He was getting offended now. “Whether you know it or not I swear to you, you and I are the only two people in the Western Hemisphere to whom Benedetti has ever admitted having anything less than perfect confidence in himself. I never hope to see the day he starts baring his soul to people he thinks might be murderers!”
Nothing. He still had nothing but a long stretch of back and some windblown hair to talk to.
“It’s not as though I singled you out or anything. I had some sort of stupid connection or other on everyone but the professor!”
She whirled on him, stamping her foot at the same time. “You could have at least told me!” The dramatic effect of this maneuver was somewhat diminished by the unfortunate accident of her foot’s having come down on the edge of one of Sparta’s multitudinous potholes, which had been concealed by slush. Janet’s foot twisted under her, and she went down to the sidewalk like a felled birch, saying “Oh!”
Ron fought heroically not to laugh—and won, until Janet fought her way up to a sitting position and said, “Don’t you dare stand there trying not to laugh at me!” He laughed so hard his glasses fell off, and he had to do a little acrobatic dance to catch them, at which point the woman on the sidewalk laughed, too.
“I’m such a klutz,” Janet said at last.
“I’m going to hang a sign on you,” Ron told her. “ ‘Dangerous When Provoked.’ Are you all right?”
“I seemed to have twisted my ankle,” she said, rubbing it. “Would you help me up, please?”
Ron knelt beside her. Janet put her arm around his shoulders, and they stood up. “Can you walk?” Ron wanted to know.
She took a step, wobbled, said, “No.” The shoulder was replaced.
Ron said, “I’m glad you’re tall enough that I don’t have to stoop to carry you. I’d be a hunchback by the time we got to the car. Do you want to go and have that X-rayed?”
“No—ow—I’m sure I just sprained it. I do it all the time.”
“Okay,” Ron said. “You’re the doctor. Actually, I’m kind of enjoying this.” He said it hoping to see Janet blush, and got his wish. But he also meant it. He smiled.
It was, in a comic way, like a three-legged race. Ron propped Janet up while she dug her key out of her purse, then helped her across to the couch. She sank down to it and wiggled out of her overcoat, while Ron slid an ottoman under her injured left foot.
It was a big room; Ron liked it. The sofa was a light green, the two ch
airs slightly darker. The window curtains were the same color as the sofa; the rug was a muted orange. One wall was all shelving, mostly for books, but it also contained a stereo and portable TV. There was a desk with an old-fashioned typewriter against the other wall. In the middle of the floor, standing like an altar, was an ebony baby grand, gleaming and obviously cared for. There was a complementary wood glow—a rich red—from next to the piano. It was a guitar, a Martin, in a stand, just waiting for a pair of hands to bring it to life.
Janet directed Ron to the bathroom, where she told him he’d find an Ace Bandage in the medicine cabinet. He went there, and chuckled to find enough Ace Bandage, gauze, tape, Mercurochrome, and liniment to set up as the trainer of a football team. He selected the right-sized bandage, and brought it back to the living room.
Janet spurned his offer to wrap her foot for her. “I’ve had plenty of practice,” she told him, grinning ruefully.
Ron sat in one of the chairs. “The reason I didn’t tell you about this pig business is that I didn’t believe it myself. I probably never would have said it to anybody, but the professor egged me on—probably to torment me. Or Buell. He gets like that sometimes.”
She was shaking her head. “Don’t explain. I was childish, really.” She laughed. “That’s the only advantage of being a psychologist—it doesn’t stop you from acting irrationally, it merely lets you talk intelligently about it later on.”
“Which is nothing to be sneezed at,” Ron said. He changed the subject. “That’s a beautiful guitar.”
“Thank you. I bought it for myself the day after I gave my last piano recital.”
“Why did you give that up, Janet?”
Hog Murders Page 15
