“My wife doesn’t know. Tigger claims Ashe tried to rape her but my wife says that’s baloney. Anyway, she used the incident to tag on to my wife and gate-crash the SCRC, where she’s since done some volunteer work, don’t ask me what. She’s also roped Appie Kelling into working there, which in itself is a form of sabotage. Captain, why don’t you let Brooks and me follow up on the Tigger angle while you track down those two muggers we fingered today and the one in the purple running suit? It might also be helpful to run a check on who’s behind the Thanatopsis Trust.”
“You telling me how to run my department, Bittersohn?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Captain.”
“In that case, why don’t you and Mr. Kelling check out this Tigger while we handle the rest of it? Let me know the minute you come up with a result. You’re not the Lone Ranger and Tonto, you know.”
“Right, Kemo Sabe. Are we dismissed?”
The captain shrugged. “What’s your hurry?”
“These goddamn jeans are threatening to destroy my marriage.”
“Next time wear a miniskirt. Dismissed.”
The captain flipped a switch on his intercom. “Have an unmarked car waiting downstairs to drive two gentlemen, one of them slightly disabled, to the address they’ll give you. The driver should be prepared to take a statement from a witness who’s being held in protective custody. Need a wheelchair, Bittersohn?”
“Levity is unbecoming an officer of your rank,” Max told him coldly. “After you, Brooks.”
Chapter
18
BACK AT TULIP STREET, they found their witness bearing her confinement with fortitude. Since Theonia and her aides-de-camp couldn’t be riding herd on Annie every moment of the day, Mariposa had put in an emergency call to her Uncle Pedro, a widower of suitable age and friendly disposition. She’d equipped Annie with a portable TV, Charles’s walkaround stereo, a deck of playing cards and several good things to eat. Pedro had brought along a jug of sangria and his maracas. Theonia had gone downstairs to see whether they might like a nice historical novel to read aloud together but hadn’t been able to make herself heard over the cries of “Cha cha cha.”
Annie was pleased to meet Sergeant Cooley, but she didn’t want to make a statement. She wanted to form a conga line. After less unsober heads had prevailed, however, and Mariposa had made her a lovely milk shake, Annie talked a blue streak. By now she’d decided she’d performed an act of heroism by stealing that Graperoola can from the Broken Zipper, though she hoped she hadn’t got Bulgy in trouble.
At last Sergeant Cooley closed his notebook, regretfully declined a glass of sangria and a turn with the maracas and went away to file his report. Max went home to be excavated from Mike’s jeans, soak his chafed limbs in a hot bath, and receive Sarah’s welcome news about the Inness.
“Good work, little mother. Have you told Dolph and Mary?”
“I tried to. Mary said wasn’t that nice and did I think she’d better tell the rental company to bring another hundred chairs, just in case? They’ve had a hundred and thirty-seven acceptances so far and Mr. Loveday’s in a tizzy because I didn’t put ‘black tie’ on the invitation.”
“To an auction? Is he out of his mind?”
“He thinks it would have elevated the tone and encouraged the patrons to bid higher. I wish he’d keep his bright ideas to himself. Mary’d be fine if he’d only leave her alone and quit harping on how to treat the right people. He’s getting her down.”
“Loveday ought to be locked up in the basement with Annie,” said Max. “She’d straighten him out fast enough.”
“What’s happening over there, anyway? Theonia told me Annie has a boyfriend. I hope she doesn’t lift his watch and spoil what could be the start of something beautiful.”
“I don’t think it’s his watch she’s after.” Max decided his legs were back in working order and got out of the tub. “Hand me a towel, please, angela mia. I think I’ll slip into something comfortable. Bed, for instance.”
“Surely you can’t be that badly off. What have you been doing?”
Max told her.
“And it was actually Tigger who threw that Graperoola can with the drugs in it? Max, that’s appalling. She couldn’t possibly have been recruited in so short a time, could she? It appears she and Ashe must have been working together all along. You know, I shouldn’t be surprised if Tigger was a Slime reporter herself. That could be why she always hung around at Aunt Appie’s parties never saying a word but taking everything in. Writers are always rather crazy, aren’t they?”
“Not always, but I suppose it helps. Oh, I forgot to tell you Bill Jones checked out Chet Arthur with that boilermaker friend of his brother’s. Arthur did work for Grotters and Wales. He was foreman of the mop-and-broom department; at least he had a couple of guys to help him sweep the floors. But he earned a steady salary, never spent a cent he didn’t have to and did have pension money coming to him when the factory shut down, so there’s no reason to suppose Mary’s inheritance isn’t perfectly safe.”
“That’s one piece of good news. At least I hope it is. I’d better call Aunt Appie and see if she’s remembered Tigger’s name yet.”
“Try her on James James Morrison Morrison Wetherby John Dupree,” Max suggested.
“Where did you ever pick that up?”
“I have my methods.”
“Well, let’s hope Aunt Appie has her wits about her for a change and has dropped that asinine schedule business. Oh dear, why couldn’t I have been born into some other family? Darling, I’m terribly afraid we’ll have to give our son Kelling for a middle name. Unless you’re willing to stand for Jeremy Frederick Adolphus Beddoes? Aunt Emma would be shattered if we left out Uncle Bed. I thought if we simply use Kelling, we can say it’s for all of them.”
“I don’t know,” said Max. “There’s a certain ring to Jeremy Frederick Adolphus Beddoes. Speaking of rings, isn’t she answering?”
“Too soon. She’s still hunting for the phone. She has it on one of those extra long cords, you know, because Uncle Samuel would never pay for an extension, and she never knows where she put it last time, so she has to get hold of the cord and track it down hand over hand. Aunt Appie? It’s Sarah. No, not Sarah Gamp, your niece Sarah. The one who’s married to that amusing man whose name you can never remember. Speaking of names, I was wondering if you’ve remembered Tigger’s?”
Appie began to talk. Sarah closed her eyes and prayed for patience. Max brought her a chair and, after a while, a glass of milk.
“Getting back to Tigger,” she managed to put in at last, “what’s her proper name? You said it was out of Winnie the Pooh.”
“She said it was out of A. A. Milne,” Max hissed, but his whisper was drowned by a happy shriek from the receiver.
“That’s it! You clever, clever child. It’s Perdita. Perdita Follow. Because Perdita means ‘lost,’ you see, and Pooh got lost in the woods. And when he saw more and more tracks going around the tree, he thought some other animal was following him. You see how obvious it is? Silly old me, I’ve been wearing holes in my thinking cap and here it was, right in front of me. All I’d have needed to do would have been to look at dear old Sam’s teddy bear. I keep Winnie—short for Winston, you know—sitting in Sam’s favorite chair for company now that my darling’s not with me any more. Vare thinks it’s silly. I expect you do too.”
“Not a bit,” Sarah replied. “It makes perfect sense to me. Uncle Sam was the beariest man I’ve ever known. Give Winnie a pat for me. And you’re marvelous to remember, Aunt Appie. Perdita Follow. Max, you’d better write that down before we forget again.”
“Max,” crowed Appie from the far end of her telephone cord, “wasn’t he that boarder of yours who had the affair with Alice Beaxitt ages ago?”
“No, you must be thinking of James James Morrison Morrison Wetherby John Dupree. I have to say good-bye now, but don’t hang up. Max wants to talk with you.”
Max had not in fact
wanted to talk to Apollonia Kelling. He’d wanted Sarah to ask Appie how she’d become acquainted with Perdita Follow and where Perdita Follow was living now that Vare had severed connections with her. He gave it his best shot. When at last he extricated himself from a maze of non sequiturs and hung up no wiser than when he’d started, Sarah had the grace to apologize.
“I’m sorry, darling, but I simply couldn’t have taken any more. Aunt Appie’s rather like sunburn, you know. If you expose, yourself too long, the suffering becomes unbearable. Did you manage to get any sense out of her about Tigger?”
“In a word, no. But at least we got the name. I’ll call it in to the police right now. Are we eating in, or do you want to go someplace?”
As Max was still wearing only his bathrobe and slippers, his offer struck Sarah as being somewhat less than wholehearted. “They treated me to lunch at the museum. Why don’t you light the gas log and we’ll have trays in front of the fire instead? Did you get lunch yourself, by the way?”
“I grabbed a hunk of cheese and an apple next door while Brooks was inventing the heroin.”
“Then you must be famished. Just a minute.”
The microwave oven had been Max’s idea, not Sarah’s, but she had to admit it came in handy at times like this. Though she hadn’t yet stooped to commercially frozen dinners, she’d learned how to package her own, freezing single-plate servings so she’d have emergency meals ready to accommodate her husband’s often unpredictable comings and goings. By the time he’d finished the one modest Scotch and water that was his usual pre-dinner drink, she had Yankee pot roast with mashed potatoes and gravy, Wayside Inn style, steaming in front of him. Another tray with salad and hot corn muffins was at his elbow.
“This looks great,” he told her. “Aren’t you having any?”
“Of course.”
She fetched her own tray and sat down in the other armchair, which he’d drawn up to the fire beside his own. For a while they didn’t talk much. When Max had emptied his plate, he reached over and took her hand.
“Very good, dear. What’s on your agenda for tomorrow?”
“I thought I might ask you to run me out to Chestnut Hill right after breakfast. Theonia was going to help, but she won’t be able to now that she has Annie to look after, and Mary’s going to need all the help she can get. Or I could take the subway and have Dolph pick me up at the station.”
“Nothing doing. You stay out of the subway.”
“But I shan’t be carrying an Inness this time.”
“You’re carrying a Bittersohn. The start of one, anyway. What if somebody shoves you down the stairs?”
“Nobody ever has before. Max dear, are you getting paranoid about this baby?”
“Why the hell shouldn’t I? He’s half mine, isn’t he?”
“Of that you may rest assured, my darling. But as you so rightly remarked, I’m the one who’s carrying him, so I think you ought to tell me straight out if you think I may possibly be in any personal danger over this Graperoola business.”
“Sarah, think about it. We can be fairly sure there’s been hell to pay, or soon will be, somewhere not far from here over that trick Brooks and I played this afternoon. Whoever Perdita Follow’s working for can’t know we’re the ones who got on to their delivery system, unless they’ve got somebody planted in the police department or unless Annie’s a double agent with a walkie-talkie pinned to her garter belt. However, Perdita Follow knows you’re Dolph’s cousin, she knows you have a connection with the SCRC because she trailed you there and she knows you’re married to a detective. She was at Ireson’s Landing with Vare that time,* remember?”
“Yes, of course, and since Tigger was the one who dropped the heroin, she’ll be the first person suspected of stealing it and substituting the dummy. Therefore she’s going to need a scapegoat in a hurry and I’ll do as well as anybody. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“I just hope it’s not what she’s thinking. I’m going to give the police another call.”
Sarah shrugged and began filling the dishwasher. The idea was too weird to be frightening, but then Tigger was weird too. She was more relieved than she’d have cared to admit when Max came back to her smiling.
“You’d never believe it. The captain had to go over to the State House on business. He was going around to park the car and there she was, strolling along right in front of the Swedenborgian church. So he hopped out and made the collar in person. Tigger’s not talking, even to call a lawyer, so they’ve put her in the cooler to think it over.”
“I always said she was crazy,” said Sarah. “Now whoever she’s working for will be sure she’s run off with the heroin. That’s a break for our side, isn’t it?”
“Looks that way, kid. You do understand why we had to plant that dummy?”
“Max darling, what else could you do? You had no case for the police until you had the heroin to show them, and how else could you have got hold of it, short of mugging Phyllis yourself? Now, with all those photographs and everything, you’ve handed the responsibility over to them without putting Dolph and Mary on a limb. It was an absolutely brilliant maneuver and you know it. Want some dessert?”
“Sure. Come here.”
*The Bilbao Looking Glass
Chapter
19
SARAH LEFT MAX IN long-distance conclave with Pepe Ginsberg, called a Boston Cab and was in Chestnut Hill with her working clothes on by half past nine. Since Theonia hadn’t been able to line up costumes for the young actors and actresses, her first stop had to be the attic. It was going to be a longer one than she’d intended, because Mary had not a glimmering of where anything was in that vast expanse of trunks and boxes.
“I should have done something about this place by now,” Mary fretted, “but I get cold feet just looking at it. I’d be tempted to call in the junkman myself, but you know Dolph.”
“I don’t mind a bit. It’ll be fun rummaging around,” Sarah lied bravely. “Why don’t you go out in the garden and pick as many flowers as George will let you have? The frost will be killing most of them soon, anyway, so we might as well get the good out of them. Aunt Emma says there’s nothing like lots of big, splashy floral arrangements to create a party atmosphere and loosen people up.”
“Just so it loosens up their pocketbooks. When you say many, do you mean a bucketful?”
“I mean all the buckets you can fill. You can’t imagine how many flowers a big arrangement uses until you’ve done one.”
Filling the pails kept Mary busy most of the morning and did her good. By the time she came in from the garden, rosy, relaxed and complaining about her back, Sarah had unearthed a cache of wonderful flapper dresses that must have belonged to Dolph’s mother, who was considered flighty and had once done the Charleston at a debutante cotillion. She’d also found straw boaters, derbies, blazers and crew sweaters with preposterously high necks that would do for the boys.
They had a bite of lunch, with the inevitable glass of milk for Sarah, then they got to work on the flowers. Gradually the atmosphere of the great, still rooms lightened.
Mary had sent Dolph off early to the SCRC, knowing he’d drive them crazy with helpful suggestions if he stuck around. He was back by half past four, though, bringing Harry Burr, Jeremy Kelling, and Jem’s faithful squire, Egbert. A while later Max arrived with a carload of half-fledged thespians, dumped them at the door and. went back to collect a few more.
Sarah was dying to ask him whether there’d been any further developments during the day, but there were the actors’ costumes to be fitted, their duties to be assigned and Uncle Jem to be kept at bay. Max and Dolph should have realized what a bevy of bright young things in Roaring Twenties garb with rolled stockings and rouged kneecaps would do to Jem’s aging hormones.
And of course everyone had to be fed. There was no way Genevieve could have fixed enough canapés for the expected crowd, baked two thousand cheese straws and managed to serve a sit-down dinner. At Sarah’s sugges
tion she’d set out platters of ham and chicken sandwiches and filled Great-aunt Matilda’s second biggest tureen with hot clear soup that could be drunk from a mug. People simply went and helped themselves when they felt hungry, which in the actors’ case appeared to be most of the time.
No liquor was served. Mary had asked Sarah about that and got a firm thumbs-down. “Don’t do it, Mary. These are just kids who mightn’t know when to stop. The last thing you want is a bunch of half-stewed waiters slopping champagne all over the guests. Give them each a bottle to take home afterward, if there’s any left.” -
This was not to say that Jeremy Kelling didn’t get his customary outsized martini, or that he wouldn’t have shared it with the cutest and giggliest of the actresses if Sarah hadn’t offered to wring his neck the moment he tried.
“God, you’re getting to be a worse prude than Aunt Matilda ever dared to be,” he sputtered. “Since when can’t a man perform the purely altruistic gesture of offering a lady a little refreshment?”
“You’re here to raise money, not whoopee,” was Sarah’s unfeeling retort. “Give Dolph some if you’re feeling altruistic. He looks as if he could use a mild anesthetic about now. Good heavens, is that Aunt Emma’s bus already?”
It was, and the already wasn’t so early, either. Time had flown, as time has a way of doing when one could best use an extra half hour to catch one’s breath. Emma floated in at the head of her brigade, bestowing smiles and kisses right and left, exclaiming over the massed flowers in the majolica jardinieres, the servers in their amusing costumes, the luscious canapés on their silver platters, the silver buckets full of cooling champagne.
“Absolutely perfect! I couldn’t have planned it better myself.”
This, from Emma, was the ultimate accolade. “No really, Mary dear, we’re none of us a bit hungry at the moment. We picnicked on the bus. Just let’s get these dear people out of their wraps and set up the chairs for the musicians. Perhaps if some of these muscular young men could roll the piano just a wee bit closer to the archway—”
The Recycled Citizen Page 16
