Hole in One (10 page)

“Just a minute, Carlton. He did go so far as to tell me that his client in this matter was not Mrs. Post. He said he assumed that I thought that to be the case, but it was not. He knew that many people in the area had come to the same conclusion because of what he called ‘totally unfounded rumours,' but he said he could give me his personal assurance, as a gentleman . . .”

“Hah!” exclaimed Hanna.

“. . . and as a solicitor, that he had not acted for Mrs. Post in this matter.”

“Well, that's a crock, for starters,” I began, but stopped when I received another shrewd kick on the ankle and switched what I was going to say. “Because if it wasn't Mrs. Post, who the hell could it have been?”

“That's what we want you to find out, Carlton.”

“Me? How am I going to find out?”

“Tell them about the deadline,” said Conrad, who had gone back to fooling about with the poker.

“It is our belief,” Robinson continued, “that time is of the essence in this matter. As you know, developers tend to bring in the bulldozers first and argue the legal niceties later.”

“Well, they can't this time. The cops won't let them,” I pointed out.

“That is correct. The murder, regrettable though it may be, has given us at least some respite.”

“Although Hanna tells me they're still going ahead with the Martini Classic tomorrow,” I said.

“Tommy says they've roped off the third green, that's all,” said Hanna.

“What we want you to do,” Robinson rolled on, “is to find out for us, within the next forty-eight hours, which is when we are told the police will have finished their investigations, who is the actual purchaser. We know that, with your reporting skills and local contacts, Carlton, you will be able to do this for us. You will find the task,” he gave me a significant look, “well worth your while.”

I said, “There are a couple of things here I don't understand.”

Jowett glowered. He is of the just-do-what-I'm-telling-you persuasion. Robinson merely smiled, “And they are?”

“You said earlier that there were a number of grounds for you to become concerned, but you only mentioned two: the need to preserve Sir John's bequest and the possible Indian burial site. What else is there?”

Robinson looked at old man Jowett. Jowett looked at the fireplace.

“There is another reason,” Robinson began. “A matter of some . . . uh . . . delicacy . . .”

“None of your damn business,” growled Jowett, and then, switching from tough old tycoon to hearty charmer once more, he added, “You will learn about it in due course, Carlton, I promise you. In fact, it may give you something of what you newspaper people call a scoop.” He smiled in turn.

“And it's this other thing, whatever it is,” Hanna put in, “that makes you want to work through Carlton rather than a lawyer.”

“Precisely,” said Robinson. “I was sure you would understand.”

I understood, all right. They wanted me to rat on the boss. She would not be amused if she found out. Maybe I should just blurt it out now, and get it over with. Would I still get paid?

I was starting in to ask the key question when my ankle, which was beginning to register fierce resentment over the treatment, got another shrewd buffet.

“We'll be happy to take it on,” said Hanna. “Carlton knows everybody. Consider the task done.” And she started to get up.

I finally got in my question, “What will you do when you know?”

“Whatever is necessary,” growled Conrad Jowett.

“Make them an offer they can't refuse,” said Robinson. “I'll see you out.”

We had just begun to cross the yard to where Hanna's car was parked, when she started in. “We've got time to get to the Land Titles Office before lunch.”

“Why are we going to the Land Titles Office?”

“To check on that file, silly.”

“Robinson had the file, or a copy of it. What's to check?”

“Boy, Carlton, you really are a sap.”

“You mean you don't trust Robinson? You think he could have whipped the file himself?”

“I mean I don't trust anybody in this setup.”

“Is that why you kicked me on the ankle when I was about to tell them that the mystery developer is Mrs. Post, no matter what Parker Whitney said?”

“Yes.”

“Why? What difference does it make? They're bound to find out, sooner or later.”

“I don't know why; I just know there is something about this whole deal that I don't like. Including,” Hanna added, “I don't like being summoned to the big house on the hill and bullied.”

“You weren't bullied.”

“The attempt was made. Besides, you were. The big galoot would have had you jumping through hoops in about two minutes.”

“Boy,” I stopped dead in the driveway. “You really are something. Here is a man trying to do his best to help his community, and you think he's up to something.”

“Of course he's up to something, nitwit. The thing is, what is he up to?”

“Consider the possibility that he—they—were telling the exact truth, and want nothing more than to block the golf-course development and restore the Indian burial site, if there is one.”

“Yeah. On behalf of Amelia ‘Big Boobs' Jowett, the friend and student of oppressed peoples everywhere. Oh, hello there.”

This was not addressed to me, but to Amelia herself, who had materialized, on cue, and was strolling towards us with a couple of croquet mallets in her hand. She was wearing one of those halter-top arrangements that seem to have been designed in defiance of the laws of gravity, and a very short white skirt.

“Carlton, honey,” she said, “I was hoping to catch you before you got away. Come and play some croquet.”

“Oh, hi, Amelia. Gee, thanks, but not right now. I've got to . . .”

“Now, don't you say that to me, you hear? I've got the croquet course all set up, just for a nice little game for two?” She ambled over and hooked her arm through mine, tugging gently. Hanna immediately grabbed the other arm and tugged, not so gently. Amelia unleashed a smile.

“Unless, of course, your friend . . . Hester, is it? . . . wants to play?”

“Hanna. And no,” said Hanna. “Come on, Carlton, we've got work to do.” She tugged again.

Amelia tugged back. I was beginning to feel like the rope in a tug-of-war. “Well, of course, honey, if Hazel wants you to go,” Amelia purred, “I guess you have to go?”

“No I don't. Of course not.”

“Carlton!” Hanna rapped out my name, and I wasn't so darn sure I liked it. She is a trifle imperious, and it wouldn't do her any harm to learn that I am not at her beck and call.

“Come to think of it,” I said, “I could do with a little break. I'll tell you what, Hanna. You drive over to my place, and I'll catch up to you in about half an hour.”

“Carlton!” She was rolling her eyes and jerking her head to tell me—the message was fully conveyed in a couple of jerks—that I could get in the car, forthwith, or face the consequences.

“Read a magazine, if you like.” I handed her the one she had just pressed on me. “I know you're always checking into other people's magazines.”

“I—will—see—you—later.” Through her clenched teeth, five friendly words sounded like a death threat. She snatched the magazine from me, marched off to her car, and roared out of the driveway as if pursued by wolves.

I turned to Amelia. “Hand me a mallet, Miss Jowett,” I said. I played croquet as a kid, but it is not my idea of sport. Not much of a game, really, unless you have about six couples, wearing boating hats, Olde Tyme costumes, and a lining of liquor. For two people, it's just a lot of boinking around the lawn.

However, I was prepared to put up with it if it would teach Klovack a lesson, even if it was immediately obvious that Amelia hadn't the foggiest notion of how to play. She insisted that I show her how to hold the club, with both arms around her to guide the stroke. We got through the first hoop, and my ball kissed hers, entitling me to put one foot on mine and whack it against hers. I did this, with some vigour, and Amelia's ball disappeared into the shrubbery beside the lawn.

“Carlton, you meanie,” she trilled. “Come help me find it?” And she skipped off behind a large clump of lilac. I ducked my head to go through the bushes, and when I came out the other side, Amelia was standing there looking broody. Then, without another word, she suddenly hurled herself into my arms and burst into tears.

“Oh, Carlton,” she whimpered, “I'm so desperately unhappy.”

Hard to frame a reply. “Gosh,” I said, patting her gently on the back and aware that I was not carrying this off very well. “That's too bad. What seems to be the trouble?”

“It's Uncle Conrad. He's so mean to me. You saw the way he talked to me, like a servant.”

I gave the back another pat. “Hell, Amelia, he talks that way to everybody.” Except Hanna, of course.

“I think he wants me to go away, back to Baltimore.” Amelia looked up at me, slantwise, out of those wondrous eyes, and added, “Just when we were getting to be friends.”

I wondered if I should bring up the fact that I was starting to get a cramp in my left leg. I used to do this sort of thing better when I was a teenager. I glanced down, in what was meant to be a reassuring way, and found what seemed to be the entire horizon filled with the forefront of Amelia Jowett. I glanced hastily away. There was a giant hornet's nest attached to a pine branch in the woods behind Amelia. Interesting.

“I'm sure you're imagining things,” I said, keeping my gaze fixed firmly on the hornet's nest. “Why would your great-uncle want you to go back to Baltimore?”

“It's this golf-course thing. I know you're doing some research for him, Carlton, 'cause I stood outside the French doors and listened. Wasn't that naughty of me?” She snuggled in, if possible, even closer. My left leg was definitely cramping. In a minute, it would start to twitch.

“Uncle Conrad is really worried about what's going on. I've heard him talking to Robinson.”

“I don't see why that would make him want you to go back to Baltimore.”

“I think he's worried about me.” She shuddered, daintily, causing indescribable sensations to shiver through me. Yes, my left leg was definitely beginning to twitch. “I think he regards me as just a hopeless, helpless little thing.”

Then he is a fathead, I said, but not out loud, of course.

“Say, Carlton,” Amelia was now running her right forefinger up and down the front of my shirt, raising goosebumps. “Since you're a reporter, you can find things out, right?”

“Some things.” I had a feeling we were now getting to the nub of this conversation.

Once again, there was a sly, upwards, slanting smile. “Then I think you should find out about somebody named . . . Now, what was that name? I remember it came up between Uncle Conrad and Robinson. Watson, I think that was it. Charles Watson. Or, it may have been Cecil.”

“Charles Watson? Are you sure of the name?”

“Pretty sure. Sure of the last name, anyway. I don't know about the first.” She shrugged lightly. “Carlton,” she said, “shouldn't we be getting on with the game?”

“I don't think this is such a good idea, Amelia,” I said.

“Why not? Just because of that Hazel?”

“No, not because of Hanna. Because I think we're standing in poison ivy.”

Which we were. Okay for me, I was wearing shoes, socks, and long pants. Below Amelia's skirt were bare legs and open-toed sandals. Not so good.

“Sunlight soap!” I shouted after her swiftly retreating form. “Scrub yourself thoroughly with Sunlight soap!”

And then I sighed, and limped away. I hope somebody found that croquet ball.

Hanna was sitting in the middle of my living room, stiffly upright on a wooden chair she must have hauled out from the kitchen.

“Well, if it isn't Carlton Withers, the sometime journalist and well-known croquet player. Have a nice game? I don't care,” she added, before I could say a word in reply. “We've got to get to the Land Titles Office.”

“Never mind the dudgeon, Klovack. I have a tale to unfold.” And I unfolded it, or, at least, a slightly edited version of the events of the past few minutes. “What do you think of them apples?” I finished.

“Big Boobs is siccing you onto somebody named Charles Watson? What for? Does the name mean anything to you? Where did she get it from, anyway?”

“Taking your questions in order, yes, I don't know, no, and she said she overheard Conrad Jowett and Robinson talking about Charles—or perhaps Cecil—Watson in some context that was obviously clear to her, but not to me. What do we do now?”

“I guess we do what the little lady requests, and find out something about Charles-or-Cecil Watson. I'll start looking into that while you're searching the title. And Carlton,” she added, as she jumped up and headed for the door, “I don't believe for a second that you've told me everything that happened between yourself and Big Boobs, and I don't care.”

We drove into Silver Falls in silence, and were soon outside the County Building, just down the highway from the Bide-a-Wee.

“Out you get,” said Hanna.

“What am I looking for?”

“How would I know? Seek, and ye shall find. Out.”

“What about lunch? It's lunch time.”

“We'll go back out to Bosky Dell afterwards, for lunch. No, not your place. I'll call Emma Golden and beg us a sandwich. Now, beat it, and call me at the office when you've got something.”

I got out and stood on the sidewalk, feeling sorry for myself. Hanna drove off, and I went into the Land Titles Office.

I walked around the end of the counter at which the public is supposed to line up for help, and went and sat on the edge of the desk occupied by Thelma Finster—one of the Bosky Dell Finsters—who was busily engaged in her usual pursuit: doing her nails on county time. She looked up after no more than thirty seconds.

“Not bad,” she said, admiring her nails.

“Terrific, I would say. And I don't mean the nails.”

“Oh, Carlton, get out.” But she looked pleased.

“I need to look at a file,” I said, “for the
Lancer
.” This magic phrase meant, “without paying the customary $2.50 for a public search.”

“Sure. What's the number?”

“I don't know the number. It's the file covering the golf course out at Bosky Dell.”

“No problem.” She got up and went over to a computer station, where she began tapping out a series of numbers.

“See?” She pointed at the screen. “It's right here. It's one of the older files, so we keep them in climate-controlled conditions. Most of the others are out back, in the warehouse.”

“Could I have a look at it? And could you look at it with me, you know, in case I need help?”

“Sure. Why not? I can do the other hand later.”

She walked over to a filing cabinet, hauled open the drawer, began to flip through files, and let out a shout. “Larry!” she shouted.

A man looked around from a desk on our side of the public counter. “Yeah?”

“There's a file missing here. What did you do with it?”

Larry, an elderly and very clerkly-looking clerk, came shuffling over. “Oh, that one. It's in the copying room, I guess. A guy was in here first thing this morning and made a copy.”

“Did you sign it out and back in?”

“I signed it out.”

“Who signed it in again?”

“I dunno.” Larry began to pick his nose in a meditative way. Perhaps it aided his thought processes, if any.

“Jeez!” Thelma give him a look.

“I wonder if we could get the file,” I said.

Larry ducked into a small room off the main office and reappeared with a file folder. “Here it is.”

Like the file folder I had seen that morning, it was empty.

“It's empty,” said Thelma.

“Yeah, the guy said that. He was a strange-looking bird,” Larry added, ever anxious to please. “Very pale.”

Thelma swivelled over to the public counter, spun around a notepad she found there, and said, “It just gives one name, Robinson,” she said, “and a phone number.”

“Yeah.” Larry didn't care.

“And there is a note here that says ‘File empty,' in what I presume is Mr. Robinson's handwriting, and your initials are beside it.”

“Oh, yeah.” Through the dark that covered him, black as the night from pole to pole, Larry emitted a small gleam of intelligence. “I remember that,” he said. “Well,” he continued, “time for lunch.”

He reached past Thelma, whipped a sign out from under the counter that said CLOSED, smacked it down on the countertop, and left.

Thelma gazed after him. “He's the local MPP's father-in-law,” she explained. “What can you do?”

“Thelma, this property was sold, quite recently; there will be copies of the deed in the hands of the lawyers for both sides, and you'll have a note, somewhere, telling you who they are.”

“Yeah, I remember that going through. We don't get many sales registered in this office,” she explained.

“I thought this was a property that couldn't be sold. Would you remember anything about that?”

“Naw. We wouldn't have put it through in that case. One of the clerks—not Larry—checks the legal work. Of course, it could have been a trustee property.”

“What in the name of all that's holy is a trustee property?”

“You get them with estates.”

“Well, this was an estate. Go on.”

“The will will say, ‘I bequeath my old house to the Town of Silver Falls,' or whatever, ‘to be used as a library, and held in perpetuity, and I name the following Trustees.' Of course, it's all in legal language.”

“So, the trustees could sell it on behalf of the Town of Silver Falls?”

“Sure. The dough would go to the town, of course, but they could okay the sale. Is that what happened here?”

“I think it might be. In that case, what would be the point, if there was any point, in somebody stealing the original deed. Wouldn't there be a lot of copies around?”

“Sure. It would slow things down, that's all.”

“Could somebody come in here and steal the original deed?”

“Look around,” said Thelma. The office was empty now. “When I go for my lunch,” Thelma explained, “Larry forgets to lock the files half the time.”

“My god, with Larry in charge, you could steal the whole damn filing cabinet. Okay, what can we find out about who was involved in the transaction?”

“Do you have any names at all?”

“Only one. Parker Whitney, the
Lancer
's legal counsel.”

“Well, that shouldn't be too hard. He doesn't do much real-estate work. We can fish him out of the computer.”

Thelma went back to the computer and did a little dance with her fingers. “I'm just pulling up the last month's transactions,” she said, “and I'll do a word search for Whitney's name.”

After about two minutes, a message flashed onto the bottom of the computer screen. “Not found,” it said.

“Damn,” I said.

Thelma give me a sideways smile. “Don't be so impatient,” she said. “We'll go back another month.”

This time, we hit pay dirt almost right away. Five weeks earlier, the computer told us, the title to the golf-course property had been transferred, through the good offices of Wright and Wong, solicitors acting in the name of the trustees of the property, on behalf of the village of Bosky Dell, through Parker Whitney, to his client, the new owner, Ontario Corporation Number 13248994.

“Thelma, I'm going to kiss you.”

“Feel free.”

So I did. It was okay. Thelma is a buddy.

“What's this all about, Carlton?” she wanted to know.

“Newspaper stuff,” I said, and when she kept looking at me, expectantly, I told her it had something to do with the golf course being developed, and maybe, just maybe, something to do with Charlie Tinkelpaugh's murder.

Thelma doubted it. “I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with that bank thing,” she said.

“Bank thing? What bank thing?”

“You know, the bank thing. The robbery.”

“Thelma, I haven't the foggiest notion what you're talking about.”

“Boy, and you call yourself a reporter.”

“Never mind what I call myself. Tell me about the bank thing.”

“It was in the
Sun
.”

“What was in the
Sun
?”

“The flashback.”

I took her by the elbows, backed her to a chair, and sat her down. “Thelma,” I said, “begin at the beginning.”

“I can do better than that. I can get you the story.” Thelma got up and went over to her desk, where she pulled open a drawer. “We were just talking about the golf-course killing yesterday, and Larry—he's a nut for crime—remembered that he had read about Charlie Tinkelpaugh about a year ago, in one of those books they bring out at Christmastime, on famous crimes. You know.”

I knew.

“He brought it in this morning, because I told him I knew Charlie from Bosky Dell. Here it is.” She hauled out a paperback book, quite large, in tabloid newspaper format, called,
The Toronto Sun's Famous Crime Flashbacks.
It's an annual publication, and this was last year's edition. There was a bookmark stuck in it, on a page with a head that read: The Far Lake Bank Heist. And, underneath, “Puzzles Abound: Who Did It? How Much Did They Get? What Did They Do with It?”

The story was only a couple of pages long, but fraught with interest.

There was a bank robbery forty years back at Far Lake, a medium-sized town about forty-five miles straight north of Silver Lake, in which the robbers got off with the payroll from a nearby mine. Somehow, they got into the bank early in the morning and waited for the delivery of the payroll, which took place just before opening time. They jumped the Brink's guards at gunpoint, as soon as they entered the bank, and got away clean, leaving the guards, plus a janitor who had been knocked on the head, tied up in the bank manager's office. Someone saw a car rushing off in the direction of the bush country around Apsley—very rugged terrain—but the robbers were never seen again.

Neither was the swag, which came to a handsome $140,000, or, at least, that was what was reported at the time. What the story called “our recent researches” disclosed the fact that, while the police report put the loss at $140,000, the bank had put in a claim for, and collected, $210,000 from the insurance company. The payroll accounted for $140,000, which was all that got into the newspapers at the time, but a subsequent audit revealed that another $70,000 had been on hand in the bank, representing a cash payment for a major real-estate purchase that was closing the very day of the bank robbery. So that was one angle to the story. Another was, how had the robbers got into the bank? The janitor said they were waiting for him inside when he arrived, and he had no idea how they got there.

The flashback story, tiptoeing around the libel laws, strongly suggested that the cops suspected an inside job, although they could never prove anything. This became particularly interesting in view of the names of two of the bank employees involved. The bank manager was one Charles H. Tinkelpaugh, who was moved right after the robbery to a smaller bank, at Coboconk, Ontario, and who “declined to be interviewed for this story.” The janitor's name was given as “Cecil Charles Watson,” and the author of the flashback had been unable to locate him.

“Sweet suffering soupspoons!” I shouted, when I had read it, and Thelma whipped a copy off on the office machine for me. “Thelma, I'm going to kiss you again.”

“Be my guest.”

I thanked Thelma for her help, and she said anytime, on the same terms, and went back to the engrossing task of getting her nails in shape.

I phoned Hanna at the
Lancer
, from the public phone in the lobby of the county building.

“The file was missing from here, all right,” I told her. “But I've got something else to tell you.”

“Yeah, well, I've got something to tell you, too, and you can pass it along to the cops when you tell them about the leather pouch Dr. Rose found, and which has since disappeared.”

“Who said I was going to tell the cops about that?”

“I did. Just phone the Crime Stoppers number, Carlton. Don't be such a coward.”

“I hadn't thought of that.”

“Think of it now. I can't do everything. Now, stop interrupting. I've found out who Cecil Watson is. It's Cecil, by the way, not Charles.”

“Actually, it's both; I was going to tell you about that. The man's name is Cecil Charles Watson.”

“Oh, so you know who he is?”

“He used to be a janitor in a bank at a place called Far Lake. That's all I know.”

“Well, he isn't any more. He's right here, in Silver Falls.”

“He is? You're wonderful. Who told you?”

“Olga.”

“Olga Kratzmyer? The Bratwurst Bombshell?”

“I thought she was the Polish Pumpernickel.”

“She is. It's a matter of mood. How did she come to tell you about Watson, and who the hell is he?”

“I was trying to do a search in the
Globe and Mail
files, using the computer system, but I got it all screwed up, and Olga must have seen I was in trouble, because she came over and asked me what I was doing. When I told her I was trying to get information out of Info Globe on a person named Cecil or Charles Watson, she laughed, and said I could just go out and look in the composing room. She said Cecil Watson was Chuck Wilson. Hello, you still there?”