The Body in the Bouillon ff-3

by Katherine Hall Page

  “I don't see why the police have to know about Ellery, since he couldn't have killed Eddie. I would like to tell them the rest, though."

  “Fine, if you think it will help. Anything to get this settled."

  “And what about Leandra? Do you think it was an accident?"

  “No. I wish I could. But I also can't think of any reason why someone would want to kill her or how it connects to Eddie's death."

  “And how about the attack on Charmaine?" Dunne had told Faith to go along with Charmaine's version of the event, despite his own skepticism. They might get more information that way.

  “It's very puzzling. Possibly someone Eddie was blackmailing. Wanted to scare her, so she wouldn't keep the business going.”

  Faith looked slightly confused, and Julia said,

  “Oh yes, I'm fairly certain that Charmaine and Eddie were partners in many ways. She's not as silly as she looks. But I don't think she'd commit murder. Too worried about her position, or hoped-for position, in society.”

  Ellery walked into the room with a stack of letters.

  “I hope what you're waiting for is here, my dear."

  “Thank you, I think I have already found part of what I've been waiting for." She looked at Faith gratefully. "Do you know I'm suddenly very hungry. Are you sure you won't change your mind and join us for lunch, or haven't you developed a taste for New England boiled dinner yet?”

  Faith did not know how to answer. What leaped to mind was scarcely polite—something like "only when old shoe leather and boiled dishcloths are not available." She rose and thanked them instead, then quickly went down the hall around the rear to the elevator. There was no way she was taking the stairs.

  She picked Ben up at school and settled him at the table with a dish of applesauce while she made sandwiches for their lunch. Ben liked food to appear immediately. He wasn't much for deferred gratification at this stage. She was having some trouble with it herself. She wanted to call James' number, but she'd have to wait. The demands of a two-and-a-half-year-old boy were too unpredictable, and the last thing she wanted was to be interrupted in the middle of the conversation by Ben's newest activity—a manic imitation of a character he'd invented called "Super Dog." Super Dog could fly, leap tall doghouses at a single bound, and crush any number of dog bones in one bare paw. The furniture was taking quite a beating, and Faith was trying to restrict Super Dog to the yard, but it didn't always work.

  By two o'clock, Ben was asleep surrounded by the several dozen stuffed animals he insisted on keeping in his bed. Faith hoped someone would simply give him some Gund stock for Christmas rather than another bear, irresistible as they might be.

  She went downstairs and got the number from her purse. There wasn't any area code, which meant Muriel knew it or it was nearby. She dialed and it started ringing. Her lucky day.

  A man answered. "Winthrop Chambers.”

  “May I speak to James Hubbard, please?”

  “Jimmy? He's not here right now."

  “Do you know when I might be able to reach him?"

  “It's kind of hard to say. He's usually here in the morning. Who should I tell him called?"

  “That's all right. I'll call him back. Thank you.”

  Faith hung up quickly. She went to get the Boston phone book from the closet. The Winthrop Chambers was on Beacon Hill—the wrong side, away from the common. It was probably a rooming house or some sort of resident hotel. She'd find out in the morning when she went there. Now that she knew where he was, it would be better to go in person. A phone is too easy to hang up.

  She hoped John Dunne would come before Ben woke up, but time passed and he still hadn't arrived. It was after three and a shrill cry, "Mommee! Mommee!" meant Ben was awake and ready for more action.

  She had no sooner set Ben up with gold twine and the box of wooden spools he had painted to make necklaces for Christmas presents when the phone rang. It was Detective Dunne.

  “I'm up to my ears here, Faith, and I won't be able to get over today. Maybe tomorrow. Find out anything?”

  Faith gave him a quick report on her conversation with Julia.

  “The guy was a real operator," Dunne commented. "I'm not surprised he got iced. Now I've got to go. By the way, I don't think there's any point in your going back there."

  “I thought I'd go to the Christmas Party on Friday night. Maybe someone will drink too much eggnog, break down, and confess."

  “That would make life easier, but I doubt it. Still, going to the party is a good idea. Get your husband to go with you. No wandering around those halls in the dark.”

  She remembered to tell him her theory about why Leandra might have been pushed, then they said good-bye and she hung up the phone with a slight feeling of annoyance. All these big—and in Dunne's six-foot-seven case, very big—overprotective males. She knew their attitude was supposed to make her feel cared for and cherished, but they wouldn't talk to Murphy Brown that way.

  Ben was singing the Winnie-the-Pooh theme song over and over to himself and threading the spools. The capacity for endless repetition that children this age had always amazed Faith. Ben only knew the words "Winnie-the-Pooh," and it was beginning to sound like a mantra. She sat down next to him with her notebook. So far it didn't have anything written in it. She gave Ben a kiss on the top of his head, and he interrupted his tune to smile radiantly up at her. Maybe another child wasn't such a bad idea.

  Time to play What Do We Know? she told herself—the "we" being Dunne and Fairchild, which sounded like something that ought to go public and make a bundle on the stock market.

  She wrote "Edsel Russell" on the top of the first page and listed the following notes: "Thirty years old. Born in Aleford, left as teenager. Good-looking. Liked women. Liked kinky sex. Dealt drugs. Not a user. Blackmailer.”

  Then she wrote: "Motives, Means, and Opportunity." It looked serious. She paused. She knew for certain that he was blackmailing Merwin Rhodes and Bootsie Brennan. He might have been planning to blackmail Denise, as well as sell her drugs. He'd tried to blackmail Julia. He'd blackmailed Jim Keiller, but Jim was dead and in no position to commit murder. Julia was out because she knew Faith was in the guest room. Merwin Rhodes was probably out for the same reason, but Leandra might not have told him. Bootsie was unlikely because of the weather. The same for Denise. Anyway, John Dunne said they hadn't turned up any tire tracks or footprints outside in the snow. She started to jot this all down. Somehow she couldn't envision any of these people tying Eddie up and then decorating his chest with knives. There was also the strong possibility that someone else at Hubbard House was being blackmailed.

  Dunne had let her see a list of who was there that night. A few residents had gone away early for the holidays, but virtually everyone else was on the premises. Even Mrs. Pendergast. She had the strength. Faith had watched her knead dough, and the muscles on her upper arms stood out like brand-new tennis balls. But Mrs. Pendergast!

  Then there were the Hubbards. They were all there, yet it seemed unlikely they would deal with their employee problems in quite this manner. She suddenly remembered the way Donald had looked at Eddie at the Holly Ball. There was no doubt he was jealous. Could Eddie have been waiting for Charmaine and gotten Donald instead? Who else? Sylvia Vale would do anything for Roland Hubbard and Hubbard House. If she knew what Eddie was up to, would she have resorted to murder to get him to stop?

  She scribbled away, stopping to tie Ben's loops of spools. He insisted she put one on. She got him some cookies and milk, a shameless bribe to leave her alone for a while longer.

  At the top of the next page she wrote "Leandra." She was sure whoever had pushed her had wanted something in her purse. John Dunne hadn't ridiculed the idea either when she'd mentioned it to him on the phone. But what? It wouldhave had to be something small enough to fit in Leandra's bag, which was big, but not more so than a breadbox. The bag wouldn't have held a three-volume novel or a baby, for example—however Ernest and important. The classic ite
m would be incriminating letters, but she didn't think those were the kinds of things kleptomaniacs took, although she was by no means expert on this point. She made a note to ask Tom what he knew about the subject and then consult the Ale-ford library.

  She turned a page and wrote "Charmaine." Dunne continued to be almost positive she had staged the attack on herself. That meant she was trying to divert suspicion away from herself, which revived the theory that Eddie was lying in state waiting for her. But what had she told Donald? Going out for some fun on a snowy evening, darling, don't wait up? She made another note reminding herself to find out if Donald's room had a bath attached or if an occupant would have to leave for his or her ablutions.

  She leaned back in the chair and pulled Benjamin onto her lap. He had looped all the rest of the spool necklaces around his own neck. "Ben's a beautiful Christmas tree!" he chortled.

  “You're my little tree," Faith said, and hugged him, mindful of the disparity of her actions and thoughts. While her arms twined around her adored son, all she could think of was whether Dunne had been able to trace the knives yet. She'd forgotten to ask him. She also wanted to know if they'd determined whether Eddie had been tied up before or after death. If after, it could have been an attempt to make it look like a woman did it—Eddie didn't seem to be the type to let a man tie him up for fun and games.

  Ben struggled to get down, and as she got up to follow him, she was uncomfortably certain that she was a lot closer to the why of Eddie Russell's murder than the who.

  Just before she started to put together the risotto coi funghi they were having with broiled bluefish for dinner, she called Millicent Revere McKinley. Millicent would know whatever there was to know about James Hubbard, and Faith was trying to fit him into the puzzle. So far there didn't seem to be a place for his piece.

  Ben was watching "Sesame Street," which providentially popped up on the screen at all hours of the day, and Faith dialed the number, confident that she had a way to make Millicent talk.

  “Hello, Millicent? This is Faith Fairchild."

  “Oh?" Millicent managed to convey serious doubt with the interjection—as if perhaps it were someone pretending to be Faith Fairchild, God only knew for what reason.

  “Yes," Faith declared emphatically. "I wanted to ask you something, and I also happened to remember you had asked me for my grandmother's recipe for the sherry nutmeg cake you enjoyed so much at our house.”

  Enjoyed so much that she had devoured three large pieces. Faith had a sneaking suspicion that Millicent, bearer of the local WÇTU torch, had a weakness for any potent potable confections.

  She'd also tossed back several helpings of a soufflé Grand Marnier at a Sunday dinner once.

  “Of course, I'd love to have the recipe. So handy for the holidays." Millicent appeared to be weighing the question. She knew this wasn't a case of altruism but your basic tit for tat. Faith had politely but firmly told her the recipe was a closely guarded family secret when she had asked for it. This was partially true. It had been a family secret until one of Faith's cousins had submitted it to a contest in Family Circle magazine and, as third runner-up (twenty-five dollars), had it printed in the December issue a few years before. But with Millicent it always paid to have something in the arsenal, and Faith knew a good weapon when she saw it. Now the time had come to use it.

  She brought out the Howitzer. "I'll be baking several later this week, and if you're pressed for time as we all are about now, I could make an extra one for you and tuck the recipe in with it.”

  Millicent fell. "That would be lovely, dear. So thoughtful of you. Now what were you saying about a question?" There wasn't even the suggestion of a quaver in her voice. Millicent was indomitable even in defeat.

  “When we were talking about the Hubbards the other day, you mentioned Donald and Muriel. I wondered if you had known James, the youngest?"

  “Is this in connection with that shocking Eddie Russell business—in which I hear, incidentally, you've been rather intimately involved?" Faith had expected Millicent would make a comment like this. She had no doubt that Millicent blamed her for the whole thing, casting the shadow of scandal on such a noble edifice.

  “It might be, yes. But I merely wanted to know a bit more about James Hubbard. f you know, that is.”

  Millicent knew.

  “It almost broke poor Roland Hubbard's heart when James ran away. He was only sixteen. He'd been a worry to his father for years. Couldn't seem to settle down like the other two. Always skipping school to go fishing or whatever. Maybe if his mother had lived, things would have been different. He was a sweet boy, never rude. But he just wouldn't listen to anyone."

  “Where did he go?"

  “I believe he went south someplace, Florida. The family never talked about him, of course, but every once in a while some friend would get a postcard from him, and then we'd know where he was and what he was doing.”

  Faith could imagine. She knew from Tom that Hattie Johnston, the former postmistress, who had retired the year before Faith had arrived in Aleford, had had her own rules when it came to the U.S. mail. A postcard was public information and people who wrote them knew they would be read; otherwise they'd write a letter, which was sacrosanct.

  “What was he doing? Did he stay in Florida?"

  “I don't think I ever heard for sure what he was doing there—at first something with show business, I think. In later years he managed to get some training, and he worked as an aide in various hospitals. Mostly out west and in the south,but I did hear that he had come back to Massachusetts about two years ago."

  “Anything else you can think of?"

  “I asked Donald how James was when I heard he'd come back, but Donald said they knew nothing about it and that if James wanted to see them, he knew where to find them. I don't think any of them have been in touch since he went away originally. Roland felt it was up to James to make the first move.”

  Millicent apparently thought she had given good value, and the tone of her voice changed slightly. "Would I be able to count on the cake for some friends I'm having for tea on Friday?" She didn't issue an invitation.

  “Absolutely," Faith answered. "And thank you for all your help."

  “Anytime, Faith dear. Now I must be going. Good-bye.”

  Faith said good-bye and replaced the receiver. Anytime, ha. Unless Millicent wanted to start whipping up soufflés, in the future it would be back to groveling on the carpet if Faith wanted any information.

  As she drove into Boston the next morning, Faith had a slight twinge of guilt over not having revealed James Hubbard's whereabouts to John Dunne yesterday. But it disappeared immediately as she turned up the volume on the radio and swiftly flicked through several oldies stations—New Englanders seemed particularly partial to them, and when she drove up from New York, she didn't have to look at the signs to know she had crossed the border. Whatever station she was tuned to immediately began to play "Time in a Bottle." Now she located WGBH, the PBS station, and Robert J. Lurtsema's plummy tones filled the air. He was giving a weather report and it sounded like Shakespeare.

  Miraculously she found a parking space on Cambridge Street, walked up to Anderson, and started climbing the hill. She had no trouble finding the Winthrop Chambers. It was an old hotel that had been converted to a rooming house. There was a wreath on the door. Someone had stuck a Celtics pennant in it. She walked into the lobby. It didn't look like Hubbard House. There were two ancient Naugahyde club chairs and a scarred coffee table heaped with overflowing ash trays, old newspapers, and magazines. The windows were so dirty that it was difficult to see outside. No one appeared to be around, and just when she was wondering if she'd have to go buy a clipboard and knock on doors pretending to be doing a survey on wash-day detergent preferences, a door behind the desk opened and a man came out.

  “Looking for somebody?"

  “Yes. Is James Hubbard here?"

  “You the same person who called yesterday?”

  “
Yes, I am."

  “He said to tell you he'd be in the market.”

  “The market?"

  “Yeah, he's selling Christmas trees down by Faneuil Hall. He said he'd be looking for you.”

  “Thank you very much.""No problem. Merry Christmas.”

  Faith walked over the hill to the Faneuil Hall Marketplace—the old Haymarket. There had been a market in this spot for three hundred years. The long stone warehouses stretching toward the waterfront, once occupied by meat and dairy wholesalers with names like Capone and Sullivan, were now filled with stores like The Sharper Image, Ann Taylor, The Gap, and small boutiques selling things in the shape of hearts, stuffed animals, and every possible kind of earring yet devised. The food vendors offered a vast variety of comestibles—pizza by the slice, fruit kebobs, egg rolls, oysters and clams on the half shell. There were still pushcarts, a quaint reminder of the old days, but instead of the strident cries of "Open 'em up! Open 'em up! Best beans in the market! Best in Boston!" that had echoed in the streets, most of these carts were indoors and sold whimsical rubber stamps and tchotchkies made of dough.

  It wasn't as hard to find James as she had feared. There were only three men selling trees in the square in front of a large glass-enclosed florist's shop. Two of them appeared to be in their nineties and were probably in their sixties. The one who looked like sixty would have to be James, aged thirty. The five-year-old in the sailor suit sitting on the steps at Hubbard House was now wearing two tattered coats one on top of the other, ancient running shoes, unlaced but not, Faith suspected, as a fashion statement, and a wool cap pulled low over his forehead. James had seen a lot of hard times.

  She walked over to him. "James Hubbard? My name is Faith Fairchild. I live in Aleford and I've been doing some volunteer work at Hubbard House. Do you have some time to talk to me?”

  James looked at her blearily. Faith was uncomfortable. The contrast between the two of them was enormous and even obscene—she was wearing a warm, clean, Thinsulate-lined coat. Her boots matched her purse and she had on a bright, spanking-new blue wool hat and muffler. She exuded the smell of Guerlain's Mitsouko, which she'd sprayed on after her shower that morning. He gave off a ripe aroma composed of cigarette smoke, the rancid grease of fast food, rum, and his own unwashed body. She wouldn't be surprised if he asked her with words or a look, "Who the hell do you think you are, lady?”