Something the Cat Dragged In (22 page)

Well, he’d brought it on himself, Shandy reflected as Sill continued to assure him, according to the late James Michael Curley’s formula for successful public speaking. First, Sill told him what he was going to tell him. Then he told him. Then he told him what he’d already told him. All told, it took quite a while. Sorted out, it boiled down to the conclusion that Sill in fact had nothing of importance to tell.

Knowing he’d hate himself for doing it, Shandy risked another question. “Could you tell me what was the last time you saw Mrs. Smuth after that demonstration at the college broke up?”

“Let me pause a moment to refresh my memory.” Sill refreshed his drink while he was about it. “Ready for a refill?”

“I’m still working on this, thanks.” Shandy decided he’d better give the rubber plant another nip in the interest of lucidity. How in thunder did the old soak manage to keep it up like this? Practice, no doubt.

“Now, you asked me when I last saw Mrs. Smuth.”

Still resettled himself in an armchair that had bobbles the size of Ping-Pong balls depending from its skirt. “First let me say Mrs. Smuth was a woman of impeccable character, highly respected throughout Balaclava County, and dedicated to the lofty principles for which we all stand.”

Having so recently been given a sample of the principles Lot Lutt stood for, Shandy thought of asking Sill to explain what he’d meant by lofty. Then he thought of not asking, which was surely the wiser course. He merely nodded and made an attempt to nudge the interview along. “Was that why she managed to get you involved in the Claude campaign?”

“Perhaps we might explore precisely what we mean here by involvement.”

Great Caesar, was there no stopping this old windbag? Shandy found himself drifting off on the whiskey fumes, back to the time his Uncle Charlie had taken him to the County Fair. He’d been six going on seven then. Uncle Charlie had bought him a red balloon fastened to a thin stick of whippy rattan.

Later on, Uncle Charlie had bought him a great, globby cone of pink cotton candy. While trying to deal with the candy, Peter had let go of the stick and the balloon had got away. Instead of sailing off to infinity, though, the toy had bounced along the midway, staying just out of his reach while he ran after it making sticky, futile grabs. At last, outside the India-rubber Man’s tent, he’d managed to get a sticky hand on the rattan and yank down the balloon. Was there any stick to yank Sill by, and how in Sam Hill did one get hold of it?

“So what you’re saying basically is that you yourself were more interested in the principle of freedom of speech than in getting Bertram Claude elected to the House,” he interrupted, when he’d run out of patience.

What Sill was actually saying, as far as Shandy could make out, was that any chance to get up and spout off in public was better than no chance at all, but he’d have a fat chance of making the old blowhard admit that. Balked in the midst of a subordinate clause, Sill blinked and paused to reflect. Before he could get launched again, Shandy pressed his advantage.

“Mrs. Smuth, however, was already actively involved as Bertram Claude’s campaign manager. You knew what her position was before you agreed to participate in the demonstration, didn’t you?”

“I—hm—that is, Mrs. Smuth gave me to understand she’d been pressed into service, so to speak, as a neighbor of Congressman Claude. We stand by our own out here, sir.”

“But if you stand by your own, why wasn’t Mrs. Smuth working for Sam Peters instead of Bertram Claude?” Shandy had the floor now, and he intended to keep it.

“Peters was born and bred right here in Balaclava County and has supported this district faithfully and efficiently at both state and federal levels for a good many years. Claude rolled in from God knows where about five years ago, managed to get himself elected to a vacant seat on a platform of dimples and snake oil, and has already piled up the second-worst voting record in the history of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. According to a poll taken by the League of Women Voters,” Shandy hastened to add.

He should have remembered sooner that it was Sam Peters who’d once booted Sill out of the seat now held by Bertram Claude, and that Sill himself still held the never-disputed record of first worst. While the ex-congressman was seeking inspiration in the bottom of his glass, Shandy tried a quick change of subject.

“Getting away from Mrs. Smuth for a moment, what’s your opinion on the murder of Professor Ungley? You belong to the Balaclavian Society, according to my information. Could you say something about that last meeting? Would you say Ungley was in good spirits, or did he act worried about something?”

“I’d say Ungley was in his usual spirits,” Sill replied cautiously. “Of course, he may have been worried. I couldn’t say. As a gentleman and a scholar, he naturally maintained a certain reserve of manner.”

Sill liked the sound of this. He said it again, rolling it around his tongue and washing down the savory taste with another belt of whiskey. “Yes, that was it, a certain reserve of manner.”

Shandy wasn’t letting him get away on another flight of rhetoric. “You were the last to see Ungley alive, right? You stayed to talk with him after the rest were gone, didn’t you?”

“No, I did not.” For once in his life, Congressman Sill managed to give a simple, direct answer. “We all left together. I didn’t know Ungley had stayed behind. I can’t tell you why he did.”

“You never once looked back to see whether he’d started walking home?”

“Why should I?” Sill was weaving an uncertain course between truculence and his usual bland pomposity. “Advanced in years though he indubitably was, Professor Ungley prided himself on his vigor and cherished his independence. We all respected his dislike of being, as he himself would have put it, fussed over.”

Shandy thought of the times he’d seen Ungley at the faculty dining room, brandishing his cane and snapping at the student waiters for extra service. Was all that pestering due to the former professor’s dislike of being fussed over? He wasn’t about to ask. What he really wanted to find out from Sill, though he didn’t quite know why, was, “Did you yourself walk to the meeting, or did you drive?”

“Living so close to the clubhouse”—Sill’s ornate barracks was in fact only the second house down from Harry Goulson’s—“I walked to the meeting. Our distinguished industrialist, Mr. Lutt, dropped me off on his way home. At least I think he did. He often does. Now that I mention it, I honestly can’t recall whether he did or not. He might have and he might not. And that, young man, is the best I can do. Ah, me.
Anno domini
is catching up with me, I fear.”

“Happens to all of us sooner or later,” said Shandy. “Was Mr. Lutt the only member who brought a car?”

“No, the Pommells had theirs, I believe. They always drive. I’m inclined to believe Mr. Twerks drove, too, though I can’t say for sure.”

Sill’s speech was slurred by now. Considering how much he’d drunk in the space of this meeting, aside from whatever amount he might have had before, Shandy marveled that he was able to talk at all. Any more questions had better be asked fast, or Sill wouldn’t be conscious to answer them.

“Which of the cars drove away first?”

Sill belched, then put a hand genteelly to his mouth. “Par’n me. I don’t remember. What difference does it make?”

None, most likely, but why couldn’t a single one of this bunch give him a straight answer to such a simple question? Were they all blind drunk by the time they left the meeting? Recalling what the inside of that so-called clubhouse looked like, Shandy wondered if maybe they smoked peyote or something. You could probably grow hallucinogenic mushrooms easily enough in those dusty corners.

“Could you tell me what refreshments were served at the meeting, Congressman Sill?” he asked, just for the heck of it.

“Hah! Got you there. None. We never have refreshmentah. Ushed to, but not any more. Too busy. Important business. Excuse me, young man. I have important business. Be sure to shend me the clippingsh.”

Sill took hold of the arms of his chair and managed to pull himself more or less upright. He then essayed a step forward, swaying in a seventy-degree arc. Shandy decided it might not be a bad idea to clear out before the crash.

T
HE AFTERNOON WAS JUST
about gone now. It would be dark soon and Shandy was more than ready to quit. While he was down here in the village, though, he supposed he might as well pay a short call on Mrs. Pommell. She was the only one of the Balaclavians he hadn’t spoken to yet. Ottermole had given him a report on what she’d said and done the morning Ungley’s body was discovered, and he ought to be concentrating on Ruth Smuth instead of the old professor, but what the hell? The Pommell house wasn’t far away and he couldn’t think what to do about Mrs. Smuth anyway.

He might as well have obeyed his inclinations instead of his by now no doubt addled brain. Mrs. Pommell was not at home. At least that was what the maid told him when she came to the door. Shandy supposed she must be the maid because the uniform she had on was much too classy for a mere hired girl. He’d never noticed her around the village before and decided she must be a recent import from some exotic foreign clime. She didn’t seem to know any English except, “Nobody here.”

And why in Sam Hill wasn’t somebody here? This was a strange time for a Balaclava Junction housewife not to be in her own kitchen. It was odd Pommell himself wasn’t around, for that matter, since the bank closed at half-past three.

“Did the Pommells go out to dinner?” he asked.

All he got was another shake of the head and another, “Nobody here.”

Shandy gave up. He’d started walking away from the house when he happened to glance back. There in the Pommells’ garage sat their big blue Lincoln, looking smug and self-satisfied like the Pommells themselves. The car was getting on in years, but the Pommells wouldn’t dream of doing anything so vulgar as to trade it in for a less opulent and more fuel-efficient model.

They’d gussied it up with a new set of lambswool seat covers, though. Shandy wondered why. The velvet upholstery was still in perfect condition, or had been a couple of days ago when he’d last seen the car down at Charlie Ross’s garage. Charlie’d been vacuuming it when he’d stopped by for his own car, and he’d had to pause to admire because Charlie took pride in his work and liked his customers’ to notice. The Pommells must be expecting another cold winter. Considering the combined breadth of their beams, one might have thought they already had padding enough.

That was unkind, but Shandy was miffed. If the Pommells hadn’t taken their car, they couldn’t be far away. Then where were they? There wasn’t a restaurant around town fit to eat in. Nobody gave dinner parties during the week except Shandy’s own wife, Helen, and she surely wouldn’t have invited them without telling Peter. “Nobody here” must mean simply nobody who cared to speak with Peter Shandy.

The hell with it. Shandy gave up and went home. To his astonishment, he found the house devoid of cooking smells and Helen slouched in a living room chair with her feet up on the fireplace fender and a Balaclava Boomerang in her hand.

“Good gad, woman,” he exclaimed. “What’s the matter?”

“Hello, Peter,” she replied languidly. “I’ll start dinner sooner or later. Just give me time to pull myself together. It’s been the most ghastly day at the library. All hands to the pumps and never a letup since the moment our newspapers started coming in. Can you believe the stuff they’re printing? And we had the radio going in Dr. Porble’s office to get the news, and that was even worse.”

“What are they blethering on the tube?”

Peter went to turn on the television set, but Helen moaned.

“Don’t, please! Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it. The demonstration yesterday was bad enough, but this Ruth Smuth strangling is the absolute end. Poor Sieglinde dropped in just before I left work, and she was actually in tears, Peter. Thorkjeld’s positively beside himself, she says. That makes an awful lot of Thorkjeld even for her to handle. She wants him to call in the state police, but he’s turned balky. He says he started out relying on you and Fred Ottermole, and he’s not about to change horses in midstream. Peter darling, that’s putting a terrible responsibility on your shoulders. Couldn’t you possibly—”

“No, I couldn’t.”

That was the first time Peter had snapped at Helen since their marriage. “Drat it, Helen, this is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to Ottermole. I can’t take it away from him. If Svenson trusts me, why can’t you?”

Her face stiffened. “I’m sorry, Peter.”

“So am I.” He knelt and buried his face in her skirt. “Don’t worry, Helen. Please.”

Why should she, after all? Wasn’t he worried enough for both of them?

After a while, Helen lifted his face to hers and gave it a few therapeutic kisses. “I’m not worried, Peter. I just hate to see you wearing yourself out like this. Why don’t you stretch out on the couch while I throw a few eggs and things into the frying pan? Want me to mix you a Boomerang?”

“Better not, thanks. I had a bucketful of straight Bourbon with Congressman Sill a while back.”

“Getting rather unselective about your drinking buddies, aren’t you? I should have thought Sill would flee at the sight of you, after what you did to him yesterday.”

“He doesn’t know I did it, I don’t suppose, Besides, he mistook me for a newspaperman. My God, that old blow-hard can put it away! Actually, I only had one drink and I poured most of that into a convenient
ficus elastica.
They bounce back pretty quickly. Maybe I could trifle with a smallish, weakish Bourbon and water, at that. And perhaps a morsel of cheese, if you feel up to fetching it?”

“Oh, I think I can stagger as far as the kitchen and back. I ought to have got something to nibble on for myself. Drinking without eating gives me a headache, and goodness knows I’ve had enough of those today already.”

Helen got Peter his drink and snack. When she came back to the living room, he was asleep on the couch. She postponed supper again, put more wood on the fire, and settled back in the easy chair with a handful of crackers and the remains of her Boomerang. Before she’d finished the crackers, she too was asleep.