“Quite sure,” said Shandy. “And how did you feel this morning when you learned Ungley had been killed?”
“Hell, how would anybody feel? You leave a man alive, you go home and hit the sack, you wake up the next morning and he’s gone. Makes you stop and think.”
“And precisely what did you think, Mr. Twerks?”
With some effort, Twerks managed to raise his eyebrows, causing the festoons of adipose tissue to quiver in a most unappetizing manner. “What did I think? Well, I suppose—oh, anno domino and that kind of stuff. You know.”
“You didn’t wonder what Ungley had been doing behind the museum?”
“Naturally I wondered. But like Ottermole here said, I figured he must have got caught short and couldn’t get in to use the john on account of leaving his keys on the table.”
“But he could have made it back to his own place in a few minutes.”
“A lot can happen in a few minutes, Professor. A man’s kidneys aren’t what they used to be when he gets to be Ungley’s age. Or when he gets to be my age, now that I think of it. Excuse me a second, will you?”
Twerks vanished. Shandy and Ottermole were left alone in the midst of this tartan nightmare, with a stuffed moose glaring down at them. Shandy got the impression the moose would have liked to charge were he not inhibited by the fact that three-quarters of him was missing.
“If you ask me, this is a big, fat waste of time,” Ottermole remarked in a low tone, as if not to startle the moose. “What do you bet he’s getting himself another drink?”
“I’d be astonished if he isn’t,” Shandy replied. “Twerks wasn’t down at the clubhouse this morning, was he?”
“Not to the best of my recollection.”
“He appears to be very accurately informed about what was said there.”
“Find me one person in town who isn’t, by now.”
“M’yes, that is a point to consider. Twerks is a bachelor, is he not?”
“Most of the time, yeah.”
“Who keeps house for him?”
“Ethel Purkiser and her husband. Ethel cooks and cleans. Jim cuts the grass and washes the car, stuff like that.”
“Purkiser? I don’t believe I know them.”
“They’re not the kind you’d be apt to run into. I mean, Ethel’s got sense enough to come in out of the rain if you tell her real slow and careful, but with Jim you sort of have to let it sink in a while.”
“Twerks employs them as an act of benevolence, then?”
“Not so’s you’d notice it. Jim and Ethel earn their keep and then some. See, people that are kind of slow in the uptake often make better workers than the smart ones. They do what they’re told instead of arguing back, and they don’t get sick of doing the same things over and over. They don’t keep yelling for more money, either. Long as they’ve got a good roof over their heads and plenty of grub in their bellies, they’re satisfied to take what you give ’em. Twerks is cute as a fox, though you’d never think it to look at him.”
A fox might have a more innate sense of decency, Shandy thought, than to sweat good work at low wages out of people who weren’t equipped to stand up for their rights. He couldn’t see a speck of dust on any of those intricately entangled horns and antlers, and he’d already noticed on the way in how clean the yard around Twerks’s brown-and-yellow monstrosity was, in contrast to most of the leaf-strewn lawns in town, not excluding his own.
Twerks was not only disgusting, he was rude to keep them standing here so long. Ottermole had consulted his digital watch (another present from his doting wife) five or six times before Twerks at last wandered back into the room carrying, as they’d expected, a half-consumed drink;
“Sorry I took so long,” he had the grace to apologize. “I got a phone call. From a friend of mine.”
Again something odd happened to the facial flab. Shandy finally realized Twerks was giving them a knowing wink, to signal that the call had been from a willing woman. He was quite sure it hadn’t.
“Who do you think killed Ungley?” he asked point-blank.
Twerks slopped a little of his drink, then took a hasty gulp to make sure no more of it got wasted. “What do you mean, who killed him? Ungley cracked his skull falling over that harrow. You said so yourself, Ottermole, and so did Melchett.”
“Yeah, well, that was just a preliminary finding,” said Ottermole, giving his jacket zipper a fast up-and-down. “I’ve collected more evidence since then,” he didn’t look at Shandy, “and it turns but he was bashed over the head with that loaded cane he carried. Either his or Henry Hodger’s, that is. We’re not sure yet.”
“That so?” Twerks gave the police chief a look that was remarkably sober, coming from one who took his drinking so seriously. “Then let me tell you something. You’d better be damned sure before you go around making any more cracks like that one, or Henry Hodger’s sure as hell going to slap a lawsuit on you and take you for everything you’ve got. Including your badge.”
And that was about all they got out of Twerks. Not even another chance to turn down a drink, as Ottermole observed bitterly after they’d gone back to the cruiser.
“Damned waste of time,” he snarled. “He was slopped to the eyeballs.”
“I think not,” said Shandy, “and I’m wondering why he tried to make us think he was. I’m also wondering why he didn’t ask us for more details about Ungley’s murder and—er—succeeding developments. Unless that phone call was, in fact, from one of his fellow members, filling him in. Pommell, for instance. What in Sam Hill is that infernal racket? The car’s not blowing up, I hope?”
“It’s just the two-way radio,” Ottermole explained. “Works a little funny sometimes. They must be trying to get me from the station.”
He fiddled with the controls, gave the speaker a few dainty taps, and at last dealt the bottom of the dashboard a lusty kick. At once, transmission became clear as a bell.
“Chief Ottermole. Mayday! Mayday! Hey, Chief, you there?”
“I’m here,” Ottermole bellowed into the transmitter. “Can you hear me, Budge? What’s up?”
“Congressman Sill just sent in a riot call from the college.”
“What the hell’s he doing up at the college? And why can’t Security take care of whatever the hell’s happening?”
“I asked him, Chief. He just kept on bellowing, ‘Send a squadron of police.’ Heck, we couldn’t raise a squadron with a derrick. There’s just you and me on duty, and you said if I left the switchboard you’d—”
“I know what I said, and I meant it. You stay right where you are, Budge. I’ll go find out what the hell’s going on. Any other calls?”
“Yeah, Mrs. Lomax. She can’t find her cat.”
“Edmund?” cried Ottermole, visibly stricken. “Jeez, maybe the killer—”
“Don’t sweat it, Chief. Edmund’s right here, flaked out on your chair. He got sick to his stomach after he ate your jelly doughnut, so I thought I’d better let him sleep it off before I sent him home. I’ll call her back after a while and tell her we pinched him for loitering with intent over at the Ingrams’. He’s got his eye on that cute little white female of theirs with the gray spot over her whiskers.”
“She ain’t that kind of a girl. They had her fixed.”
“So what? The organ may be gone, but the music remains. That’s what my great-aunt Mabel used to say after they took out her whatevers.”
“Never you mind your great-aunt’s whatevers. You been reading them girlie magazines on duty again?”
“Who, me? Say, Chief, you want to come back here and take over? I wouldn’t mind going to the riot myself.”
“Sure you wouldn’t. Anything for a laugh. You stay where you are. And get back to Mrs. Lomax before she has a conniption. She probably thinks Edmund’s been catnapped. Better call George in so I can get you up there if I need you.”
Ottermole broke the connection, frowning. “Now what the hell?”
“What the hell indee
d,” Shandy concurred. “It’s not like President Svenson to allow rioting on campus. Unless, of course, he started the riot himself.”
Chapter Twelve
THAT SVENSON HAD DONE so was entirely possible, but what was Congressman Sill doing up there sounding the alarm? Ineffectual old coot though he was, Sill’s lobbying efforts had not been of the sort to endear him to the denizens of Balaclava Agricultural College. Or to any farmers anywhere, for that matter. Maybe the students were burning him in effigy as a pre-Halloween prank and he’d been silly enough to take umbrage.
But how could he have found out what they were up to, and what was he doing in Balaclava Junction when he ought to have been coming back from Boston on the five o’clock bus?
Possibly some exasperated statesman had thrown him out of the committee room neck and crop, and shipped him home in a padded van. It would be agreeable to think so. When Ottermole started the engine again, Shandy settled back to enjoy the ride and speculate with pleased interest on what might actually be happening up on campus.
As they started up the hill, though, he felt his brows beginning to knit. “Is that radio of yours acting up again, Ottermole?” he asked.
“What?” the chief shouted over the chugs and rattles. It was high time Town Meeting voted the police a new cruiser as well as a new boiler. Unless this was the boiler they were riding in.
“I said is your radio on?” Shandy roared. “I hear a funny noise. Aside from all the other funny noises, I mean.”
“You must have good ears.”
“I do.” Shandy had unusually acute hearing, as many a student had learned a syllable too late. “Shut off that dratted engine a second, will you?”
Ottermole obliged. The chugging and rattling subsided, but the funny noise continued. Shandy cranked down the window and stuck out his head.
“By George, they are rioting. Listen to that.”
A great many voices were doing a great deal of yelling, in any event. As they listened, the random shouts settled into a steady chant.
“We won’t flirt with Dirty Bert! We won’t flirt with Dirty Bert!”
“Oh, Christ!”
It suddenly occurred to Shandy that he’d been supposed to think of something. He’d got so wrapped up in Professor Ungley’s murder he’d temporarily forgotten the potential bombshell parked underneath that misbegotten silo. The students must have found out Bertram Claude was planning to speak on campus, probably from that jackass Sill in person, and were reacting as any sane person might have expected them to. Were Ottermole to go charging up there in the police cruiser, they’d start rotten-egging him. Then the fat would be in the fire for sure.
“Ottermole,” he said quietly, “as man to man, I think it would be a sound move for you to go back and—er—make sure Mrs. Lomax’s cat gets home safely.”
“Huh? What for?”
“Because that call of Sill’s was just some more of his usual grandstanding. What’s happening up here is nothing you need to get involved with. In a nutshell, Bertram Claude has requested permission to make a campaign speech in our auditorium. The students have got wind of his request and are—er—making their opinions known, that’s all.”
“You can say that again,” said Ottermole as the volume of sound increased. “What the hell would Claude want to speak to the college for? Cripes, they’d tear him apart and stomp on his guts.”
“There is that possibility,” Shandy conceded. “I must say I don’t understand his reasoning myself, assuming that he does in fact reason.”
“You going to let him?”
“Me? I don’t have anything to say about it. The decision is up to President Svenson.”
“Hell, he wouldn’t say yes, would he?”
“That,” Shandy hedged, “is a question I’m not prepared to answer. The president may feel Claude’s as entitled as the next person to air his views.”
“They could use some airing,” Ottermole grunted. “Claude stinks to high heaven, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Hold the thought, Ottermole, and thanks for the ride.”
Shandy was getting out of the cruiser when Ottermole’s chop-fallen look made him pause in compassion. “If you’re going to be around later this evening, I’ll try and get Professor Joad to come down to the clubhouse and help us test for bloodstains. That’s something else we ought to do as soon as possible. There’s always the chance Ungley was killed inside and shoved out a back window or some thing.”
“By who, for instance?”
“At this stage, I’d have to say by almost anybody. What if he didn’t forget his keys and did return to the clubhouse after the rest had gone?”
“What for?”
“How do I know? Maybe he forgot his hat, or had to use the bathroom as you suggested earlier. Anyway, he could have dropped his keys back on that table where Mrs. Pommell found them, leaving the door unlocked since he didn’t intend to be there long—it’s the old-fashioned kind you have to turn yourself, I gather—and somebody followed him in. Or what if the entire Balaclavian Society membership rose up in a body when he’d got to about the fifteenth penknife on his agenda, and slaughtered him to shut him up?”
“That sounds more likely to me,” Ottermole grunted. “Cripes, the things people will do to kill time! Okay, Professor, I’ll deliver Edmund like you said, then go home and have a bite of supper. We usually eat early so’s the kids and I can have a game of Cops and Robbers before they go to bed. You can either call me at the house or check with the station and they’ll pass on the message.”
“Right. I’ll be in touch.”
As Ottermole dispersed peaceably, Shandy headed for the shouting. As he’d expected, he soon ran into a seething mass of malcontents, some of them carrying hastily made placards mounted on tomato stakes. He tapped one of the more vocal card carriers on the arm.
“For your future enlightenment, young lady, there’s only one ‘s’ in bastard.”
“Oh, hi, Professor Shandy. Thanks,” she replied politely. “Can you think up any good rhymes for Claude? I’m sick of screaming Dirty Bertie.”
“Understandably so.” He rubbed his chin. “Maude? Sod?” A vision of Edmund flitted across his mind and he added, “Double-pawed?”
“None of those has the right ring to it, somehow.”
“Sorry. The atmosphere around here is not conducive to the poetic mood. How did this fracas get started?”
She shrugged. “It just did, I guess. That old man who’s always making speeches came around about half an hour ago and started plastering up posters about Bertram G. Claude and free private enterprise. Some of the kids got sore and then it kind of snowballed. Free private enterprise!” She waggled her sign furiously. “You know what he means by that. Let the rich guys do as they please and to heck with the rest of us.”
Despite her righteous dudgeon, the young woman began to giggle. “The old coot brought his girl friend with him.”
“Girl friend?” Shandy’s eyes narrowed. “She wouldn’t be a fluffy little blonde with somewhat prominent blue eyes, by chance?”
“Wearing a bright red coat and a blue-and-white scarf and making a spectacle of herself all over the place. Do you know her?”
“I’ve seen her around.”
Heading the silo drive and digging an elephant trap for Thorkjeld Svenson to fall therein. Ruth Smuth might be short on principles, but she certainly was long on gall. Shandy doubted very seriously that Sill had brought her. Most likely, it was Mrs. Smuth who’d dragged the old halfwit along to help her put on her show. Her object must be to put Svenson at odds with the student body and remind him she had him under her thumb. Or thought she had.
No thought about it. As of now, she did. How in Sam Hill was Svenson to be got out from under?
The young woman student was tugging at his coat-sleeve. “Professor Shandy, I’ve thought of something. You wouldn’t happen to have a Magic Marker on you, by chance?”
“I’ve got this thing I use for labeling plant
sticks.”
Shandy produced the pen. The student took it, flipped over her sign, and scribbled, “Let’s Declaw Claude” on the back.
“Thanks, Professor. How’s that for a slogan.”
“First-rate and congratulations on the spelling. Carry on, and may your efforts be rewarded.”
There was no sense in telling her that declawing Ruth Smuth would be more to the point. Without his alleged campaign manager, Claude wouldn’t have a talon hold on campus in the first place. As it was, he’d clearly be letting himself in for a rough time up here if he tried to make that speech. But if he got the raspberry, Thorkjeld Svenson would get a lot worse from Ruth Smuth.
Good gad! The dirty work had already begun. Shandy couldn’t believe it, but there it was, a little parade of television mobile news units and newspaper reporters in cars, except for one on a motorcycle who had to be Cronkite Swope from the Balaclava County Weekly Fane and Pennon, crawling through the mob with the cameramen already shooting film out the car windows.
This was no spontaneous free-for-all, but a carefully orchestrated performance. There was no way those media people could have got out here this fast. According to the student, Sill and Smuth hadn’t even arrived until about half an hour ago. It would have taken a while for the students to notice what they were up to, to get hot under the collar, to hunt up their poster boards and plant sticks and get this thing rolling.
Sill hadn’t put in his riot call to Ottermole until less than ten minutes ago, but he or his lady friend must have alerted the news services at least an hour before. They wouldn’t have done that unless they’d been positive in advance there’d be a demonstration to cover.
Their timing was perfect: late enough for most students to be out of classes, early enough for daylight to take pictures by, and just right for the six o’clock news broadcasts. Who’d touched off the fuse, and how? Shandy looked around for the young woman who was set on declawing Claude, but she’d been sucked into the maelstrom.
Something the Cat Dragged In Page 10
