Friends till the End (11 page)

Voelker thought about Freda Simms. He pictured her in his mind, her blazing red hair, her world-weary expression. A jealous woman, perhaps. A possessive woman. Jealous of the things and people that belonged to her.

Could she hate Walter Sloane enough to want to kill him?

Voelker thought it was possible. He reflected also that he did not yet know enough about this case. It was interesting. He would have to talk to everyone again, everyone who had been at that party. Of course they were hiding things from him. People always did. He would just have to find out what those things were.

His final thought on the subject was that he was hungry and it was time for lunch. His list of suspects could wait. There was a little diner around the corner that served a terrific roast beef sandwich on rye with brown mustard, the good kind. He hurried out of the hospital.

Freda Simms was at another party. Her hair was blonde now—she had stripped the dark color and redyed it.
So
bad for the hair, but what could you do? She was wearing a tight shiny dress with sequins which looked very good on her. She was dancing with a friend of a friend of the brother of the hostess. None of these people knew anything
about Walter or Laura or their friends, and she was glad of that.

She had not been upset to hear about Walter’s near brush with the Great Beyond. Not at all. Why should she? Her only regret was that whoever had tried to kill him had managed to get to Laura first …

Of course she felt sorry for the kids. Nice kids, both of them. Still, if old Wally kicked the bucket, they would get all his money, which wouldn’t be too bad.

Old Wally! She wondered how he felt after his close encounter with death. Frightened, probably. Scared shitless. She would be.

The man she was with smiled and swung her around in time to the beat. He was good-looking; better-looking than Eddie, and he was a terrific dancer. So was she. She smiled back and laughed; her familiar loud cackle. It pierced through even the dance music and the people around them turned and smiled.

She was having a good time—a very good time. Why the hell shouldn’t she, after all? Life was short!

Life was short …

Old Wally should know that by now!

Bernard was grilling Snooky about the Crandalls’ party. “So as far as you could tell, no one handed Sloane a drink except for Heather Crandall?”

“That’s right. And maybe Isabel. She always tries to help out that way. I try to discourage her, but it’s no good. She says everyone expects it.”

“Who was standing next to Sloane at the party?”

“Freda Simms, for most of the time,” said Snooky promptly. “Then Ruth and Sam Abrams came over. Professor Crandall tried to talk, but everyone ignored him. And of course his wife was in and out, filling everyone’s glasses and trying to get them to eat that disgusting food.”

“But you didn’t see anything suspicious?”

“No. Nothing at all.”

Bernard regarded his brother-in-law coldly. “I thought you were the observant type—the type who just ‘notices things’?”

“I don’t have radar, Bernard. I couldn’t keep my eyes on everyone in the room the entire time.”

Whoever was doing this was clever, Bernard thought. He or she hid their actions in a noisy, crowded roomful of people. Who in the world would be paying attention at a party?

They went over it again and again, but it was always the same. Basically, anyone could have done it. Anyone at the party. Snooky hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. He had left, with Isabel and Richard, before Sloane had come down with the first symptoms.

“I see,” said Bernard. He lapsed into a disapproving silence.

“I’m sorry. I wish I
had
seen something. But—”

Maya came into the room and looked fiercely at her brother. “This is ridiculous. Two parties, two murders. Starting to get the picture yet, Snooky?”

“Oh, stop fretting, My.”

“I don’t understand it. Why do you have to go to all these stupid parties? Why can’t you and your friend go out on real dates like normal people?”

Snooky looked thoughtful. “I don’t know, My. I guess it’s because I haven’t asked her. It’s not a bad idea. Maybe going to a movie would get her mind off of things.” He slouched out of the room.

“My God,” said Maya, watching him go, “it’s just like having a teenage son. Isn’t it, Bernard?”

“Maya, let’s never have children.”

“All right, darling,” she said absently.

“Listen, a movie isn’t such a bad idea for us, either. Why don’t we go out tonight, just the two of us? It would be fun, and we could get away from your brother and his weird problems.”

“That’s a great idea. Where’s the paper? Where’s the movie page? Is there anything playing around here? You know, we haven’t had an evening out for a while now.”

“Away from Snooky.”

“Exactly.”

They had their heads together over the paper and had almost chosen a movie,
Flight of the Zombie Bats
, when Snooky slouched back into the room. He looked dispirited.

“Isabel won’t go,” he announced mournfully. “She says she can’t, she’s too busy, what with visits to the hospital and taking care of her brother and all. I guess I understand.”

He looked around the room. “Hey,” he said brightly, “how about a movie, just the three of us?”

“I’m a
mess
,” wailed Ruth Abrams over the phone. “A mess. I’m so upset over this latest thing with Walter, I can’t tell you. Sam has been working twice as hard since Walter’s been gone, and it’s nearly killing him. And worst of all, the children are coming for the weekend.”

“Marcia?” said Heather with interest.

“And Jonathan. And Melvin, of course.”

“Poor Ruth. Everything happening all at once.”

Ruth grew confidential. “It’s getting sort of exciting, though, isn’t it, Heather? I mean—I mean,
who
do you think is doing it?”

“I don’t have the faintest idea. And I don’t think it’s exciting. Not at all. I think it’s absolutely horrible.”

“Oh, yes, well, yes, of course it is. Yes, of course. Naturally. Well, what I
meant
was …”

Of course it was horrible, Ruth reflected as she hung up the phone a little while later. First Laura, now Walter. Poisoned, both of them! And that young man who had come around—not Detective Voelker with his mournful face, another one, younger (there seemed to be hordes of detectives snooping around now)—with his polite questions about her and Sam and the business. Well, naturally she hadn’t told him the whole truth. Why should she? Why should she incriminate her own husband? He had asked whether there were any problems between Walter and Sam and of course she had said no. She had given him a nasty look, too, to discourage him. She had said that Walter and Sam were the best of friends, and had been for years. They always went to each other’s parties. No, she hadn’t seen anyone tamper with Walter’s drink. Why should she? She was minding her own business. It was so hard to believe that it could happen, anyway. Yes. It was certainly hard to believe.

And now with the children coming home for the weekend,
she hardly knew what to do. She didn’t exactly feel like entertaining, with all this going on … but children were children, no matter what their age, and you couldn’t say no …

Sighing, she got out a recipe book and began to look up holiday meals.

“So we were wrong,” Philip West said. “Somebody was trying to kill Sloane after all.”

“Yes,” said Voelker.

“He could have poisoned his wife,” West said judiciously, “and then someone else could have used the same method to poison him.”

“It’s possible.”

“But you don’t think so, eh?”

“No,” said Voelker. “I don’t. I think that both these poisonings were done by the same person. The same unusual kind of insecticide was used, for one thing. I think we’re looking for one person, perhaps two working together.”

“Looks like it. And the motive?”

“Money is the obvious one. The Sloane children will inherit a lot of money if their father dies. In that case they must have deliberately murdered their stepmother, and then tried to kill Sloane at the party. But if the attempt that killed Laura Sloane was an accident—was really meant for her husband all along—”

“Then it’s not for the money, presumably.”

“No. It means that someone in Sloane’s group of friends is out to get him.”

“The motive there?”

“Well, everyone seems pretty much agreed that he can be a real tyrant. And Sam Abrams works with him. I’m going to have to check out their business arrangement more closely. I know that if Sloane dies, Abrams takes over.”

“How about the others?”

Voelker shrugged. “Freda Simms—Heather and Harry Crandall—this young fellow that the girl is seeing—I don’t know. I’ll have to find out more about them.”

“So let’s see,” said West, leaning back in his chair. “There are several possibilities. Either someone murdered Laura Sloane deliberately and then someone else tried to capitalize on the situation by poisoning her husband. Or the same person deliberately poisoned both of them. Or the murder of Laura Sloane was an accident and someone has been after Walter Sloane all along. Which is what he’s been trying to tell you.”

“Yes.”

“In any case, the murderer may try again. He or she seems fairly determined.”

“Yes.”

“Motives,” said West. “Motives. You have to find out more about these people.”

“I intend to,” replied Voelker.

Heather Crandall was not in the best of moods when Detective Voelker knocked on her door that evening. She and her husband had just returned from the Woodcrest Elementary School, where Linus was in kindergarten. They had been to see Linus’s class play. It was Linus’s theatrical debut and he was tremendously excited about it.

“Mommy, you
have
to come,” he had said for weeks beforehand.

“Well, of course we’re going to come. Your father and I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Linus.”

“You’ll be there, won’t you?” he would ask anxiously a few days later.

“Of course, sweetheart. Don’t worry.”

But when the time came, Heather had barely been able to drag herself there. It was only a week after their ill-fated party, and she was so depressed! To think that that terrible thing had happened in
her
house, at
her
party …!

She and Harry had gotten dressed up, however, and had driven with Linus and the other two boys to Woodcrest School. They had sat in the center, near the front, like good parents, quarreling with the Thompkinsons over the seats (“I believe
we
were here first,” Heather said in icy tones), and applauding vigorously for all the skits. Charlie
had been bored, but Little Harry was fascinated. Little Harry had not inherited his father’s brains, Heather thought, watching him anxiously. He loved the skits and watched “Leaves at Play” and “Mushrooms Dancing” with an intense absorption.

They had waited eagerly for Linus’s class to perform its skit, but when the time came it was a big disappointment. His class had decided to enact an invasion from outer space. Linus was one of the Earth people and had been practicing his screams around the house for days. The aliens were fitted out in old Halloween outfits, pointed ears, football helmets and the like. One of the girls, determined to be fashionable even as an alien, had convinced her mother to let her borrow her mink coat. As the aliens rushed onstage the mink coat caught on a nail on the floor. There was a loud ripping sound, followed by an even louder shriek from the center of the audience.

The aliens became confused and milled about. Several of them began to cry. Linus decided it was probably time to scream. The teacher decided the skit was over. Heather had applauded vigorously as the curtain came down, but her heart was heavy.

To her surprise, however, Linus was cheerful.

“Our play stunk, didn’t it?” he said.

He had gotten a chance to scream, which was apparently all he had wanted. Heather cast him a nervous look. He was such a
quiet
boy … was he repressed in some way? Did he have unconscious hostility? Was he lonely? She had to admit that in spite of everything he looked the picture of emotional and physical health. He sat crammed in between his two brothers and discussed the events of the night with an unruffled calm.

Little Harry announced that he had enjoyed himself. Charlie looked disgusted. Linus spoke at length about the other two kindergarten skits and the general reaction to them. It seemed that his class’s performance had been the most popular because it had been a total failure.

Heather sat back and wished that real life could only be that way!

They had barely gotten home and put Linus to bed when Voelker knocked on their door. He was terribly
sorry to disturb them, but if he could just ask a few more questions …

“I thought we had already answered all your questions,” Heather said impatiently. She was usually so beautifully mannered, but tonight had been difficult and she was tired of going over the same ground again and again.

Detective Voelker’s face lengthened with remorse.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s difficult, isn’t it? Going over the same thing so many times. Still, there are a few things we thought we ought to check—routine, you understand …”