“Who’s Bud?” Sylvia asked.
“Her son, Mom. Bruce Case, Jr. You know him.” He turned back to Betty. “Are you up to telling him?”
“I don’t want anyone else to. Don’t you think I ought to tell him at once exactly what happened, Kirk? I mean, instead of just vaguely talking about an accident and having him find out later that I shot his father?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s going to take a lot of courage.”
“He might not forgive me if he learned what happened from someone else. He may not anyway, but I think there’s a better chance if I’m frank with him right from the start.”
“I’m sure he won’t blame you,” Sylvia said, giving Betty a pat on the arm. “As I remembered him, he’s an awfully nice boy.”
“Suppose we go inside and let Mom drum up some breakfast,” Marshall suggested.
“All right,” Betty agreed. “Bud will be waking up any time now.”
Inside, Betty directed Sylvia to the kitchen and oriented her on the locations of cooking utensils and supplies. Despite her poor memory for faces, there was nothing vague about Sylvia when it came to cooking. She was perfectly at home in any kitchen. When Betty left her alone to go upstairs she was mixing a coffee-cake batter before Betty got as far as the entry hall.
Betty was gone a full half-hour. When she finally came back downstairs she had young Bud by the hand. The boy was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. His face was expressionless, but his red-rimmed eyes showed that he had just stopped crying.
“Hello, Mr. Marshall,” he said formally.
“Morning, Bud.” He gave Betty an inquiring look.
“I explained exactly what happened,” she said. “He understands that it was just an unfortunate accident.”
Marshall said, “We’re all sorry about your father, Bud.”
“Thank you,” the boy said in the same formal tone.
Marshall’s heart went out to the youngster. It must have been a tremendous shock for a ten-year-old to be awakened with the news that his father was dead. After the first flood of grief, the boy obviously was attempting to prove he was a man by exhibiting no emotion whatever.
He wasn’t quite succeeding, despite his poker face, though. He was clinging so tightly to his mother’s hand, Marshall wondered if the grip was hurting her.
At least he seemed not to blame his mother for the accident. By the relieved look on Betty’s face Marshall realized she had dreaded that he would. It must have taken considerable courage to face him and frankly tell him everything.
Sylvia came from the direction of the dining room and said, “I’m all ready for everyone. We’ll just use the kitchen table.” She looked curiously at Bud. “Hello, young man.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Marshall,” Bud said.
Sylvia’s memory seemed to be working better than usual at the moment. After only momentary puzzlement at how the young man knew her, she said, “You’re Bud, Betty’s son, aren’t you? I’m sorry about your father.”
“Thank you,” Bud said.
Sylvia, who was a marvelous cook, had managed to turn out a delicious coffee cake during the half-hour Betty was upstairs. She offered to cook bacon and eggs also, but no one wanted any. Bud, who probably ate a substantial breakfast ordinarily, if he had a typical ten-year-old’s appetite, merely picked at a piece of coffee cake and drank a glass of milk. Marshall managed to eat two pieces and Sylvia had one, but Betty had only coffee.
By eight a.m. the breakfast dishes were done and they were all seated in the front room when the doorbell rang. Marshall went to answer it.
It was Chief Meister and a tall, unsmiling man in civilian clothes who carried a large square box by its handle. Beyond them, in front of the porch, Marshall could see a uniformed policeman seated behind the wheel of a squad car.
The chief introduced the unsmiling civilian as Harold Farroway of the state police crime lab. Inviting them in, Marshall re-introduced Farroway to everyone in the front room. When this formality was completed, the chief asked Betty’s permission to show Farroway around upstairs.
“Of course,” she said. “Want me to go with you?”
“I know the way around,” Meister said.
He left the lab man upstairs and returned alone.
“We’ll want to take a look at your roof,” he said to Betty. “Got a ladder around here?”
“There’s one already in place at the back of the house,” she said. “I’ve already been up there this morning. There’s a piece of rope tied to an air-vent pipe right over the window where the screen was cut.”
Meister frowned, apparently not appreciating amateur investigation in advance of police investigation, but he made no comment. Excusing himself, he went outside.
Marshall trailed after him, and after a moment Betty and Bud came outdoors, too. The boy was again gripping his mother’s hand tightly.
Marshall recognized the stocky, red-haired man behind the wheel of the squad car as a patrolman named Charles Graves. Chief Meister was leaning in the window of the car talking to him, and Graves was nodding his head understandingly.
The man climbed from the car just as Marshall reached the bottom of the porch steps and Betty and Bud came out the door.
“Hi, Kirk,” he said. “ ‘Morning, Mrs. Chase.”
He went around the side of the house to the rear.
Chapter VI
The chief retreated to the far edge of the drive, from where he could see upward to the front slope of the roof. Marshall waited for Betty and Bud to reach him, then walked with them over to stand next to the chief.
After a few minutes Charles Graves appeared on the peak of the roof and worked his way cautiously downward to the air vent. He bent over it for a considerable length of time, finally straightened with a length of rope in his his hand. Climbing back to the peak, he disappeared over it.
When the policeman came back around to the front of the house, he handed the rope to Chief Meister. It was about a two-foot section of half-inch hemp, a type of line commonly used in the area both as anchor line and for small-boat mooring.
“It was tied in a fisherman’s knot,” Graves said. “It had been pulled so tight I couldn’t slip it and had to pick the knot loose. No wonder he cut it, if he was in a hurry.”
Meister examined the cut end of the rope. “I guess this cinches it that the cat burglar was on the roof last night. This couldn’t have been tied there earlier than last night.”
“Why not?” Marshall inquired.
“Because it rained from ten to eleven last night. The rope would still be damp if it had been there before eleven p.m.”
Marshall, in bed at Lydia’s apartment, hadn’t even been aware that it had rained. He doubted that he would have made such a quick deduction even if he had known it, though. His respect for Barney Meister’s investigative ability climbed a notch.
They all went back inside except for Officer Graves, who climbed back into the radio car. As they entered, Harold Farroway came down the stairs carrying his laboratory kit in one hand and an empty screen frame in the other.
“I got a couple of good sets of prints from the window,” he said to Meister. “I’ll need the prints of all household members so we can eliminate their prints.”
“That will be just Bud and me,” Betty said. “Any time you’re ready, just set up your equipment.” She looked curiously at the empty screen frame. “Are you taking that with you?”
“Uh-huh. It’ll be returned.” The lab man leaned it against the wall next to the front door.
Farroway set up his fingerprinting equipment on the dining-room table and took Betty’s and Bud’s prints. Then he asked Betty what funeral parlor she had called, presumably because he planned to fingerprint the corpse.
“The Joyce Funeral Home,” she said.
“Anybody else you know who might have touched the window at some time or other?”
“Chief Meister did last night.”
“I used a handkerchief,�
� Meister said dryly. He turned to Farroway. “You have everything you need?”
“I think so.”
“Then I guess we’ll be running along,” the chief said to Betty. “Thanks for your co-operation. There’ll be an inquest, but I imagine it’ll just be a formality and you may not even have to appear. I’ll let you know.”
“All right,” Betty said. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Farroway.”
“Same to you,” he said unsmilingly. “Good-by, Mrs. Marshall.”
“Good-by, Mr. — ah …” Sylvia said, and let it trail off.
Farroway nodded to Marshall and Bud, went over to the door and picked up the screen frame. Chief Meister held the door for him. Marshall followed them both out to the police car.
“Just routine,” Farroway said laconically. He laid it against the back of the front seat and climbed in the back of the car.
“How about the cut-out portion?” Marshall persisted. “Did you look for that?”
“He already has it,” the chief said. “We picked it up from the ground beneath the window on the way out last night.” He got into the front seat.
Placing his hands on the window frame, Marshall said, “What do you think, Barney? It all check out?”
“Seems to so far. I’m kind of glad.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, there’s always a possibility in a case like this that it was rigged as an accident. I didn’t like that bit last night about her husband sleeping in the downstairs study. Seemed to indicate they’ve been having a little marital trouble. And she didn’t impress me as being very grief-striken. Frankly I had some suspicion when I first arrived last night that she’d deliberately killed her husband, placed the meat cleaver in his hand afterward, and made up the cat-burglar story.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Marshall said.
“Seems to be now,” the chief agreed. “Unless there’s some unexpected development, looks like she’s in the clear. I hope so. I always kind of liked Mrs. Case. Never knew her well, but she was always friendly when we met.”
“She’s a pretty nice gal,” Marshall said.
When the police car had driven off, Marshall went back inside and found his mother alone in the front room.
“Betty and Bud are washing the ink off their hands,” Sylvia explained.
In a few minutes Bud came downstairs alone.
“Mom’s changing clothes,” he said. “She’ll be down in a minute.”
It was about fifteen minutes before Betty re-appeared. She had changed her slacks and sweater for a dark blue street dress and she also wore a tiny hat.
“Are you planning to drive to the paper soon, Kirk?” she asked.
“I’m supposed to be there at nine. It’s getting close to that.”
“Then could you drop me and Bud off at the funeral parlor? I don’t really feel up to driving.”
“Of course.”
“Leave Bud here with me,” Sylvia said. “The reason I came was to help you.”
Betty glanced at Bud. “I don’t like to impose.”
“You just go ahead and don’t worry about a thing. If you’re not back by noon, I’ll give Bud his lunch. We’ll be fine, won’t we, Bud?”
“Yes, ma’am. Go ahead, Mom. I don’t want to go to the old funeral parlor anyway.”
Betty looked a little surprised. Obviously she had thought her son wouldn’t want to be parted from her even for a short period while his grief was still fresh. But apparently his reluctance to visit the funeral parlor counterbalanced his need for his mother’s comforting presence. Marshall suspected from the boy’s expression that he thought the purpose of the visit would be to look at his dead father, and was appalled by the idea. Actually, of course, Betty merely intended to make funeral arrangements.
“All right,” Betty said. “You be a good boy and mind Mrs. Marshall, Bud.”
When he dropped her in front of the Joyce Funeral Home, Marshall suggested that Betty phone him at the paper when she was ready to go back home.
“Of course I won’t,” she said. “I’ll call a taxi. I’m not going to interrupt your work.”
“I don’t mind,” he said.
“I do. But you might drop by this evening if you have nothing to do. I suspect I’m going to be lonely. Do you know if your mother plans to spend the night?”
“Probably. Dad thinks you shouldn’t be alone, and she agrees with everything Dad says.”
“Then you can have the excuse of bringing her a nightgown and toothbrush. She didn’t bring anything along, did she?”
“Not unless it’s in her handbag. I’ll stop out there for lunch and find out what she wants. Don’t expect me very early tonight, though. I’m going to have to get some sleep during the first part of the evening.”
“It’s later on that I’m going to need company,” Betty said. “I know I’m going to dread going to bed, and will probably sit up until all hours.”
He drove on to the newspaper office, getting there just at nine a.m.
Lydia Harrison’s job was to handle classified ads, and her desk was beyond a counter just inside the front door. She was therefore the first staff member Marshall saw each morning.
“Hi,” she said, rising and coming over to the counter. “I’ve already heard about the shooting. It was all over Ward’s Restaurant when I had breakfast there. We hardly need a newspaper in this town. Wasn’t that a terrible thing?”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Mom’s out there now, staying with the kid. I just dropped Betty at the funeral parlor.”
“Oh. That was certainly nice of your mother. I suppose Betty’s all shook up.”
“As a matter of fact she’s taking it pretty well. I plan to run out there again at noon and see how things are.”
“Oh,” Lydia said. “I won’t wait for you then.”
He and Lydia customarily had lunch together. There was no suggestion of disappointment in her tone, though. She seemed to accept matter-of-factly that at the moment his attention was on Betty Case in her hour of trouble, and was gracefully willing to step into the background. As he moved on to the stairs leading to the newsrooms, he thought again that Lydia was certainly an undemanding woman. He wondered a little uncomfortably if before long he was going to have to make a choice between her and Betty.
Then another thought occurred to him. Lydia had mentioned nothing about anyone at Ward’s Restaurant suggesting that the shooting might not have been an accident. And surely she would have if she had heard such a suggestion. Apparently the townspeople in general lacked Chief Meister’s suspicious mind, for Marshall was sure that if such a thought had occurred to anyone, the rumor would have spread over the town like wildfire.
Upstairs he dropped into his father’s office for a few moments to brief him on developments, then went to the city room to write up the story. Because of the local social prominence of the Cases, it was going to be a page-one story, but in deference to Betty he made it a bare factual account, avoiding any hint of sensationalism.
When he pulled the copy from his machine, he called a copy boy and told him to rush it into his father’s office.
At noon he drove back out to Rexford Bay and had lunch with Betty, Bud and his mother. Betty said the funeral was arranged for Wednesday afternoon. She also said she had phoned her Aunt Audrey and Uncle George in Rochester, and they would arrive the next morning to stay with her until after the funeral. Therefore Sylvia would be relieved of the necessity of keeping her company and could go home the next day.
“Aunt Audrey is my last living relative,” she said. “She’s Dad’s sister, you know. I think you met her years back, Kirk.”
“I vaguely remember,” he said. “They visited your parents back when we were in high school. Isn’t he a banker or something?”
“President of the Reed Trust Company. That’s Uncle George’s last name: Reed.”
Before Marshall left to return to work, his mother gave him a list of items to pack in an overnight bag and bring back tha
t evening.
“Don’t plan on me much before bedtime,” he told her. “I didn’t get any sleep last night so I plan to hit the sack for a couple of hours after dinner.”
“That’s all right,” Sylvia said. “I won’t need any of it until I go to bed.”
Chapter VII
Marshall and his father had a restaurant dinner together that evening; afterward Marshall went home and slept until nine o’clock. It was about a quarter of ten when he arrived at Betty’s house with his mother’s overnight bag.
Bud was already in bed and Sylvia announced that she was retiring, too. She left Betty and Marshall alone in the front room and went upstairs.
As soon as the older woman was out of sight Betty went over to where Marshall was seated on the sofa and slid into his arms.
“Know why I wanted to see you so badly tonight?” she breathed against his lips.
“Why?” he asked, gently kissing her.
“Because it’s going to be a long time before we can be together again. To satisfy the conventions, I’ll have to act the grieving widow for perhaps months. I can’t start having gentlemen callers immediately after the funeral.”
“I suppose the neighbors might talk,” he agreed.
“It’s going to be hard, Kirk, because I’m not a grieving widow. I’m as sorry as can be for what happened, but we both know I no longer loved him and meant to leave him. Do you think I’m callous for wanting you when my husband isn’t even buried yet?”
“Just what do you mean, wanting me?” he asked cautiously.
“Just what it sounds like. I want you to take me. Right now.”
Her lips moved against his and he felt her tongue press urgently against his teeth. When he parted his jaws slightly, it thrust deeply into his mouth. Her hand groped for his and pressed it to her breast.
After a time he raised his head and said in a low voice, “We can’t here. Suppose my mother or Bud came downstairs?”
Jumping to her feet, she took his hand and drew him erect. Leading him to the entry hall, she drew him down it past the staircase to the door of the den and pulled him inside. Flicking on the overhead light, she closed and locked the door, then crossed to the single window and drew the drapes.
This Game of Murder Page 4
