The Recycled Citizen

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “No, but that don’t mean anything. There must have been at least three hundred people here tonight I never set eyes on before.”

  Sarah found Genevieve’s cooking brandy and poured out a stiff shot for the jittering gardener. “Here, George, drink this. How did you happen to find him?”

  “We’d put out ropes on stanchions to keep the cars out of the flower beds, the way we used to when old Mrs. Kelling gave her lawn parties. I’d been going around coiling up the ropes and putting the stanchions together in little piles, the way we always did. Then I thought I’d open the toolhouse so Walter and Harry could get out one of the big garden carts and pick them up to put away. Used to be you could leave things till morning and nobody’d bother them, but not any more. So anyway, I just opened the door and there he was.”

  “Did you turn on a light?”

  “Sure. The switch is just inside the door. I reached in and flipped it on and—Christ! Where’s the boss?”

  “In the ballroom, I think. My wife will find him,” said Max. “Come on, George, we’d better get back there.”

  “I don’t want to go back.” Nevertheless George gulped the last of his brandy and hoisted himself out of the chair.

  Sarah found the card Genevieve had posted over the telephone, with numbers on it for the fire department, the doctor, the police and, though this last was hardly the sort of thing to inspire one’s confidence in a cook, the hot line to the poison clinic. Sarah dialed the police and gave her message to a cool, matter-of-fact voice at the other end of the line. Somebody, she was assured, would be right over. Then she went to look for Dolph.

  In the meantime Max was hurrying George back to the toolhouse. This was no paltry garden shed but a sturdy little one-story building of gray granite blocks trimmed in red brick. A concrete ramp for the carts and mowers led up to a pair of extra wide wooden doors like the ones that used to be put on garages back in the days of the Hupmobile and the Pierce Arrow. A new-looking brass lock held them together.

  “Just a second.” George took out a bunch of keys and went to work on the complicated lock. “Got to keep everything locked up nowadays,” he grunted. “Guys-come around with trucks and clean you out if you give ’em half a chance.”

  “But you didn’t keep the doors locked this evening?”

  “I sure as hell did. So many cars coming and going, all you’d need would be one closed van and whammo! I don’t know whether you realize it, Mr. Bittersohn, but garden equipment’s expensive these days. One riding mower alone could set you back a few thousand bucks depending on what you get. The. boss always wants the best; he says it saves money in the long run. So like I said, I keep everything locked up. So maybe you can tell me how that guy got inside without me knowing?”

  “Is this the only way in and out?” Max asked him.

  “That’s right,” George confirmed.

  “Aren’t there any windows?”

  “Two at the back and one on each side, but they’ve got heavy iron grilles bolted over them, right into the bricks.” George gave his key one last turn, pushed open the right-hand door and flipped the light switch without going in, to show Max how he’d done it before. “You look. I don’t want to.”

  Max looked and said, “Christ!”

  “Do you know who he is, Mr. Bittersohn?”

  “Have you ever had a man out here from the SCRC who called himself Ted Ashe?”

  “According to Harry Burr, Ashe was supposed to come tonight, but he never showed up. But this is nobody from the SCRC. Look at his clothes.”

  “Is Burr still around?”

  “Far as I know.”

  “Get him, will you?”

  Harry Burr couldn’t have been far away. When he came, Max was still standing in the same spot, looking down at the grotesque unreality of a pickax with a heavy ash handle, one tine pointing up at the roof, the other buried in a well cut, neatly buttoned, expensive light brown suede sport jacket. There wasn’t any blood showing, just that deadly sweep of tempered steel.

  Max couldn’t see whether the pickax was pinning the body to the floor, but it was standing so stiff and firm that he thought it must be. Ashe was lying quite peacefully on his back. His legs weren’t contorted, his arms were not raised to ward off the blow. His dead face showed no look of horror, but dead faces seldom look anything but dead.

  “Go on in, Harry,” he heard George say. “He wants you.”

  “I want you, too, George,” Max called out. “And Walter, if he’s around. Stay outside if you want, but don’t go away.”

  “We’re all here.” Somewhat shamefaced, George followed Harry Burr into the toolhouse. A third man in denim pants and jacket came after them.

  “The police should be along soon,” said Max. “No doubt you’ll have to answer a lot of questions again for them, but humor me, will you? Harry, can you recognize this man? Forget the clothes, just concentrate on the face.”

  Harry concentrated, then nodded. “I know him. It’s just that I’d never seen him cleaned up before. He’s a recent member of the SCRC who’s been calling himself Ted Ashe.”

  “You never thought that was his actual name?”

  “I suspected from the start that Ted was playing a role.”

  “Had you any idea why?”

  “Not really. At first I hoped he might be a plainclothes policeman trying to get a line on all those bag snatchings our people have been subjected to lately. Somebody seems to be taking too fundamentalistic a view of the text, ‘From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.’ Perhaps Dolph Kelling has mentioned the muggings to you? You’re a relative of his, I understand?”

  “My wife is. Yes, I’ve heard about the trouble you’ve been having. But why do you say at first?”

  “Because the snatchings have continued right up through yesterday and Ted hadn’t seemed particularly interested, even when one of our most loyal workers was killed by a mugger. That happened this very week, so you see the situation is steadily worsening. We buried him on Tuesday, and Ted didn’t even attend the funeral service. That wasn’t what made me change my mind, though; it was more what you’d call the final disillusionment. Once I’d got to know him, Ted simply didn’t feel like a policeman. That sounds absurd to you, I expect, but then you can’t have been arrested as many times as I have. And am about to be again, I suppose.”

  “Why? Did you kill Ted Ashe?”

  “No, but I don’t expect the police will believe me. They seldom have in the past. But what a hideous way for anyone to die. Would you mind if I said a little prayer?”

  “Go right ahead.”

  Max felt ashamed that he hadn’t been thinking of Ashe as a human being with a life to lose but only as a sleazebag who’d most likely set himself up for what he’d got. Nobody deserved to die like this. Nobody had the right to appoint himself another’s executioner. He tried to pay respectful attention to Harry Burr’s prayer but couldn’t help hoping it wouldn’t be a long one. He was damned uneasy about who might have been on the business end of that pickax, and there were some things he wanted to find out before the police got here.

  “Who besides yourself has a key to this place?” he asked George as soon as he decently could. “Walter, have you?”

  “Not me,” said the other gardener. “The boss has one, of course. I guess old Mr. Kelling did when he was alive, though I can’t remember him ever using it.”

  “Me neither,” George put in. “Mr. Kelling never did anything around the place but march along the paths, taking a swat with his cane at any plant that wasn’t growing the way he wanted it to. Us guys had to trail along like we was the privates and he was the general, listening to him tell us all the things we were doing wrong.”

  “The boss now,” said Walter, “he’s different. Something goes wrong, he’d just as soon roll up his sleeves and help you fix it. Remember the year of the big blizzard, George, when the ice started to melt and the drains were backing up into the cellar and we couldn’t. get ’em u
nclogged? The boss grabbed that pickax and—”

  Walter became aware of what he was saying and shut up fast.

  “Getting back to the keys,” said Max, “aren’t there any more of them around anywhere? What happened to old Mr. Kelling’s key after he died? And shouldn’t there be a master key up at the house? Suppose you’re not around for some reason, George, and Walter has to get into the toolhouse? What does he do?”

  “Damned little, from the look of the place when I get back. Aw, I’m only kidding. Walt’s okay. That’s right, Mr. Bittersohn, he’d go up to the house and ask Genevieve to let him take the key off the big board. It’s hanging right beside the kitchen door.”

  “Convenient.”

  “Yeah. Mr. Kelling liked to keep everything where it could be got hold of in a hurry in case we got invaded by the Martians or whoever. The boss is so used to having the board there, I don’t suppose he ever noticed it’s not the smartest place in the world to keep the keys. Anyway, I don’t suppose he goes into the kitchen much.”

  “Besides, I think he still feels funny about changing things around from where his aunt and uncle put them,” Walter added. “I guess I would, too, if I’d been brainwashed all those years like he was. God, it was pitiful. Here’s this great big grown man, old enough to be somebody’s grandfather and the only one of ’em that knew which end he was standing on, and they still bossed him around like he was a little kid. He’d come out to the tennis court and whack balls around to let off steam. The boss had one hell of a forehand. Sometimes you’d think the ball was going right through the backboard.”

  “Mr. Bittersohn doesn’t want to hear all this stuff, Walt,” George interrupted. “Getting back to those keys, Mr. Bittersohn, I don’t suppose it would be too hard for somebody to get hold of one if he had access to the house and knew where the master was kept.”

  “Nobody could have swiped yours and put it back without your knowing?”

  “No way.” George hauled out his bunch of keys again and showed Max how the ring was attached to his trouser loop by a slim chain. “They’d have had to take my pants, too, and I’d sure as hell have noticed that. The key must have come from the house. You better go talk to Genevieve.”

  Chapter

  21

  GENEVIEVE WOULD HAVE TO wait; the police were already here: Lieutenant Codfin in a smart blue suit and Sergeant Mufferty in a trim blue uniform. Osmond Loveday brought them around from the front entrance. He’d managed to get his outer garments on this time: a sedate black homburg, a black cashmere topcoat, and the de rigueur white silk scarf. Dolph came lumbering up from the ballroom wing at full bellow and met them just as they entered the toolhouse.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” he roared. “Sarah tells me somebody’s been—oh, him.”

  “You know this man?” asked Lieutenant Codfin.

  “I damned well ought to. He’s been cadging meals off me under false pretenses for the past two months. What’s he doing here? I told him to get out and stay out.”

  “When was this?”

  “Who are you, since you’re so damned free with your questions?”

  “Oh, sorry. Lieutenant Codfin, and this is Sergeant Mufferty. And you’re Mr. Adolphus Kelling, the owner of this property, if I’m not mistaken?”

  “You’re not. This is my cousin, Max Bittersohn.”

  “Max Bittersohn is your cousin?”

  “Married my cousin. Same thing, isn’t it? Where the hell was I? Oh, Harry Burr, who came to help out; and these two are my gardeners, George Hanover and Walter Presman. Both of them, I may say, are thoroughly reliable men who’ve been with us for—how long, George? Twenty years?”

  “Twenty-three years this past June, boss. I’m the one who found him, in case they want to know.”

  “My God! Must have given you an awful turn. Better go ask Genevieve for a slug of whiskey.”

  “I’m okay, boss. Mrs. Bittersohn gave me some brandy.”

  “Mr. Hanover,” said Lieutenant Codfin with considerable determination, “how did you happen to find him?”

  “How could I miss him? I opened the door and there he was, just like he is now.”

  “You didn’t touch him at all?”

  “I started to try for a pulse, but as soon as I laid a finger on his wrist, I knew it was no good. So I locked the door again and ran up to the house yelling for the boss. But Mr. and Mrs. Bittersohn were in the kitchen when I got there. He said he’d come with me and she’d find the boss. I figured, him being a detective, he’d know what to do, so I came back with him.”

  “And exactly what did you do, Mr. Bittersohn?”

  “Asked my wife to telephone the police, came out here and took a look, got George to round up the other two men who’d been working in the grounds and waited for you.”

  “Quite right and proper,” said the lieutenant, making it plain by his tone that he knew perfectly well Max was leaving out all the more interesting parts. “Now, Mr. Hanover, you said you locked the door again before you went to the house. Does that mean you’d had to unlock it in order to discover the body?”

  “I didn’t open it to discover the body. I opened it to put away some ropes and stanchions we’d been using to mark off the parking areas.”

  “That’s right, you held some sort of charity function here this evening, Mr. Kelling. I hope it went well. Was the dead man one of your guests?”

  “He was supposed to be one of our workers.”

  “Perhaps I can explain,” Osmond Loveday interrupted.

  “Why the hell should you?” Dolph retorted sourly. “I’ve got a mouth on me, haven’t I?”

  “Excuse me,” said the lieutenant, “I still don’t have this gentleman’s name.”

  “Osmond Francis Loveday, formerly confidential assistant to Mr. Frederick Kelling, now serving Mr. Adolphus Kelling in a somewhat similar capacity,” Loveday replied smartly. “That was why I thought I should endeavor to make myself useful. If I’m not needed here, I may as well go back to the house.”

  “Go ahead,” said Dolph.

  “Stick around,” said the lieutenant. “Sergeant, you’d better go back to the cruiser and contact the station. Ask for the homicide team and tell them to put a rush on it. Mr. Loveday, your employer has stated he told the deceased to get out and stay out. Were you present when he did so?”

  “I certainly was, and I may add that Frederick Kelling himself could not have handled the incident more forcefully.”

  Walter snickered. “Are you kidding? Mr. Kelling used to pick ’em up by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants and pitch ’em into the geranium beds. I’ve replanted more geraniums than you can shake a stick at. He chucked a policeman halfway down the front drive once, just for trying to sell him a ticket to the Policemen’s Ball.”

  “I recall the incident as if it were yesterday,” Osmond Loveday replied with what must have struck Lieutenant Codfin as decidedly misplaced pride. “Mr. Kelling was a man of firm principles. He believed policemen ought to be out guarding the public welfare, not prancing around a dance floor.”

  “Blast it, Osmond, will you leave Uncle Fred out of this?” Dolph shouted. “You’re getting as soft in the head as he was. I do not go hurling people around. I never laid a hand on Ted Ashe. Ask Sarah, she was there.”

  Loveday cleared his throat. “In point of fact, Sarah went upstairs right after you—er—ushered Ashe out and closed the door behind you.”

  “You’re saying that both Mr. Kelling and Mr. Ashe were then on the outside, while you and this woman you refer to as Sarah were left on the inside?” demanded the lieutenant.

  “That is correct. I’d offered to help, but Dolph said my assistance was not required.”

  “So what did you do, then? Did you look out the window to see what was happening?”

  “No, I didn’t. Sarah—formerly Sarah Kelling and now Mrs. Bittersohn—had suggested I circulate among the guests in the adjoining rooms to find out if they’d noticed the disturban
ce.”

  “And had they?”

  “Apparently not. Mrs. Emma Kelling’s musical ensemble was playing, people were chatting, and of course the auction was going on. Most of their attention seemed to be on the bidding.”

  “I see. Just out of curiosity, Mr. Loveday, what would you have said if you’d been asked for an explanation?”

  “Mrs. Bittersohn had told me to say a reporter had tried to gate-crash and had been ejected, which was true as far as it went.”

  “Then you knew Mr. Ashe was a newspaperman?”

  Loveday glanced at Dolph. Dolph turned to Max. “You tell it.”

  “According to my information, Lieutenant, the man we’d known as Ted Ashe wrote feature articles for a publication called Syndicated Slime, using the name Wilbraham Winchell. I’ve been told he also had other noms de plume, but I don’t know what they were. Anyway, as Winchell, he’d been doing a series about graft and corruption in charitable agencies and was reputed to have been in the habit of manufacturing evidence himself if he couldn’t find any in the course of his so-called investigations. He’d recently attached himself to the Senior Citizens’ Recycling Center, which was established by Dolph Kelling and his wife, Mary, and which tonight’s auction was designed to benefit. We assume Ashe had selected the SCRC as his next target. We also assume Ashe was another of his aliases, but we’d only just discovered the Wilbraham Winchell identity and hadn’t had time to pursue the matter.”

  “How was the imposture discovered, Mr. Bittersohn?”

  This was a tricky bit. “Serendipitously, as you might say. I was showing some photographs of the SCRC people to a friend of mine a couple of nights ago, and he happened to spot Ashe, whom he’d met as Winchell in a nightclub recently and also at a cocktail party.”

  “Would you mind giving us this friend’s name, just for the record?”

  “Not at all. It was Bill Jones. Know him?”

  “Oh, Bill Jones? Sure, I know Bill. Doesn’t everybody?” Lieutenant Codfin’s affability became a degree less professional. “Then it was Bill who told you Ashe falsified his information when he was writing as Winchell?”