The Rotary Club Murder Mystery (11 page)

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Authors: Graham Landrum

BOOK: The Rotary Club Murder Mystery
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Harriet Bushrow
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G
ossip has a bad reputation. But as a means of clearing the mind and stimulating thought, I find it most effective. The trouble with gossip is that most people consider it an end in itself: But when it is taken as a means of forming the opinion and rising above ignorance, it has great usefulness in society. What is journalism but a kind of gossip—not as good or as useful as the back-fence variety—because there is no give-and-take except maybe in the letters from the readers. And even when we watch the evening discussion of the news on TV, we don't gain the full benefit of gossip because we don't get to put in our two cents worth.
What I am getting around to is that Maud and I have been girlfriends for over seventy years, and there is nobody with whom I would rather gossip. Why, gossip is about the only intellectual activity left for old ladies like me, and without it our poor old brains would dry up and blow away. When a woman gives up gossip, she might as well be dead.
So as soon as I got to the house, Maud said, “Now lunch is ready, and I'm dying to hear.”
That darling girl had made a delicious salmon salad—served
it on crisp, fresh lettuce—and with rolls and ice tea, it made just a perfect lunch.
Maud was as interested as could be in what I had to tell her.
“Well,” she said when I got to the end of my story, “I guess that lets the widow out. A half million dollars sounds like a pretty good alibi to me.”
“Yes,” I agreed, looking out the window at Maud's mock orange. Across the street, a little dog ran out and barked at a passing car. “That,” I went on, “and the fact that now she is—don't you know—actually encouraging me to find out who did it.”
The little dog kept on barking—proud of itself, I suppose. It made me think of Alice Hollonbrook's little cocker and the fact that Miss Stout had a key to the house so she could feed the dog.
“Now Maud, I want your opinion on Miss Paula Stout. She goes to your church, so you are bound to know her,” I said.
“Know her?” Maud replied. “That poor child! She's so good, she makes a pest of herself.”
Now you see what I mean about gossip. It's very illuminating. It cuts right through to the meat of the matter.
“So good that she is a pest.” Surely you have known somebody on that order. A meek little thing that is all the things the Bible says you ought to be—so good! And knows it, too! The thing I like best about Our Lord is the way he saw through people like that.
Maud said she thought the trouble with Paula was that she was plain, while her sister was beautiful.
“Yes,” she said, “Roberta, the older sister, entered beauty contests, though I don't remember if she won any of them—you'd think I'd remember. But she attracted men like flies to molasses. And that left poor Paula with nothing but good works to fall back on.”
I don't have much to say for psychiatrists and analysts and people who tell you all your troubles stem from your mother's
shutting you in a closet for ten minutes when you were four years old. But I do know that lots of girls with beautiful sisters will do anything to get equal attention. And, of course, if the sisters hadn't been so pretty, the ugly ones wouldn't have known how much attention one girl can get.
Maud told me about a friend who had flu last winter. This Paula found out about it and brought chicken broth—kept bringing it. Well, a person gets tired of chicken broth after a certain time. And it seems this do-gooder is always volunteering to be coordinator or chairman of some project—like dressing the dolls at Christmas for the Salvation Army. Then she just keeps urging more and more dolls on everybody and specifies in great detail how the doll clothes are to be made. I recognized the type. Yes indeed!
So after our conversation, I was very interested in Miss Paula Stout. That's when Maud said we'd see her in church and no doubt Paula would put on her act for us.
“Oh, she's very popular,” Maud declared with a drop or two of vinegar in her voice, “with little old ladies.”
 
Maud's church is about as old as I am—which is just the way a church building ought to be. Outside, it is red brick with white columns and steps leading up to the door. Inside, somebody has painted the walls pale green, which was the wrong thing to do. There is a large stained-glass window on the right—the woman at the well—and on the left another big window of Christ at Gethsemane. Behind the choir is the baptistry with the Jordan River in stained glass and a light behind it.
Whatever else you may say about the Baptists, they are true to themselves; I have to hand it to them.
The woodwork is dark oak. The pews are curved so as to surround the podium, which projects out into the room. That was just fine for me because it makes it possible to look over and see part of the congregation on the other side.
When Maud and I came up from attending her class, which
was in the basement of the Sunday-school annex, the organist, in her light gray robe, was just entering, clutching her music. Pretty soon, she had it all spread out on the organ and began to play.
People were coming in from all directions, exchanging greetings. Baptists do a lot more of that sort of thing than I am accustomed to. After all, we Presbyterians have to keep up our reputation as God's frozen people.
Well, we were sitting there in all that hubbub when Maud leaned over to me and said, “There she is now—standing just where nobody can get around her.”
I looked kitty-cornered across the auditorium and saw this little thing in a little straight black-and-white checked skirt and a black jacket with some kind of red pin on the lapel. Mousecolored hair—straight, bobbed, and combed behind her ears. She had this round face and not too bad a figure—a tiny bit on the plump side—“pneumatic,” Lamar used to call it. She was talking to a lady apparently in her fifties and was holding up all the people who were trying to get by. Finally, somebody pushed her. She turned to him with an obvious, radiant smile.
“Turning the other cheek,” Maud whispered.
“You don't like her, do you?”
“Lord, no!” she replied.
Maud tries to be a good Baptist, and if she doesn't make it, it really isn't her fault. She is pure gold—I wouldn't want you to think anything else—but she never did quite fit the mold. When we were in school, Maud played cards, and that was long before Baptist ladies had anything to do with cards.
“Look at her now,” Maud said.
Paula had progressed about twenty feet into the room and was leaning over the front pew, talking past the heads of people in the second pew to a ghostly little lady on the third row.
“That's Pearl Travis she is talking to,” Maud explained. “Pearl lost her sister recently.”
I have to admit that the Baptist religion is enjoyable. The
service is always fun. Baptist ministers tell stories that make the congregation laugh—and other stories that are pitiful and plead with you to respond in a sympathetic way. If there ever was any starch in those Baptists, it's all gone by the time the service is over and the congregation has had a complete emotional workout.
When the last hymn was sung and the benediction had been pronounced, Maud said, “Come on. I'll introduce you.”
We pushed through the crowd slowly because everyone spoke to Maud and she had to introduce me. Finally, we reached the quarry. Paula turned as Maud called her name. She had her Bible and Sunday-school book in one hand and her purse in the other. There was a certain amount of juggling of these three objects before her right hand was stretched out to me.
“Mrs. Bushrow!” the child said. She was no more than five foot two or three. “I am so glad to see you. I want to tell you what a comfort your visit has been to poor Mrs. Hollonbrook. Alice, Mrs. Hollonbrook, spoke to me yesterday and explained that she was not satisfied to think that Mr. Hollonbrook took his own life—such a sad thing—and said you were being so helpful. I do appreciate anything you can do for her.”
I had not expected little Miss Goody Two-Shoes to be so socially effective.
“Of course, I would do anything in the world to help her,” she continued.
I didn't know how much Alice Hollonbrook had told this woman about me, but this was one of those times when it might be just as well if she thought I was a batty old thing. I suppose some people might say I wouldn't find it hard to give that impression.
I held Paula's hand and said, “Darling, she told me how thoughtful you have been—and so sweet. Oh, I know at a time like this how important it is to have thoughtful friends.”
“Were you acquainted with either Mr. Hollonbrook or Mrs.
Hollonbrook before this tragedy?” she inquired. And it sounded a bit as though she was asking me for my credentials.
“Oh, no,” I said. “But, don't you see, it happened right there in my own town—Borderville—and my late husband was such a prominent Rotarian—why, I just couldn't be here in town—I'm visiting my friend here—old school chum—and I felt it was just a duty to visit that poor woman.”
Was I laying it on too thick? I must have been, for Paula Stout countered with: “I understood you are the one who wanted to know where I was on the night of May 26, and a list of all who knew where Mr. Hollonbrook was at that time.” She said it rather coldly. When she did not put on her sanctified smile, her face was like a mask.
“I have typed it all out,” Paula continued. “It's here in my purse. I was going to drop it off to Alice on the way home from church. I'll just give it to you now.”
Again there was a rearrangement of the Bible, Sunday-school quarterly, and her purse, and in due time she pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“Oh, that is so good of you,” I gushed. “Of course there is no reason to suspect you at all. But they always collect alibis, don't they? In detective stories, you know. And so I said to that sweet Alice Hollonbrook, ‘Dear, you must collect all the alibis—just from everyone, you see.”
I took the paper.
“So sweet of you to do this!” I said. “But then a little bird tells me that this is the kind of person you are.”
We were hardly out of the church before Maud told me what a hypocrite I am. Said I was getting worse as the years go by. I expect she's right. But she was almost laughing as she said it. Meanwhile, I was dying to see what was written on that paper.
As soon as I got to the car, I unfolded the missive and read:
On Monday, May 26, I worked in the office arranging for the plumber to fix a leak at the Ducky's
in Eunice. I made out checks, paid the bills for all three Ducky's locations, and posted same in the account book. I showed two houses, made out the ad to be included in Wednesday's Gazette, and sent flowers in Mr. Hollonbrook's name to the opening of the new Stedbury Children's Clinic, which is in one of our properties. At 5:30, I picked up Mrs. Rose Moody from McMenamee's Rest Home (her seventy-sixth birthday)—took her to my house for dinner. She stayed with me through the night, and I took her back to the rest home after breakfast on the 27th.
People who knew where Mr. Hollonbrook was on May 26: Jeff Sandifer, president of Stedbury Rotary Club. Everett Greenwood, secretary-treasurer, Stedbury Rotary Club. Francis Duff, rector of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. Gene Spencer, president, Borderville Rotary Club. Jody Russell, secretary-treasurer, Borderville Rotary Club. Frank Nicholson. Jimmy Hollonbrook.
Well, that was interesting. I wondered whether there might not be one or two others who knew of Chuck Hollonbrook's whereabouts on that night.
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Harriet Bushrow
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I
am tired of the Rotary Club Mystery. Oh, I adored the detective part of it. That's just fun and exciting, and for an old lady it is better than a shot of gin. It gets me out of the house and in this case even out of town; and if it doesn't exactly revive the flesh, it revives the mind, so that I feel fifteen years younger.
Ha! Even at that, I would be seventy-three.
The part I don't like is all this writing. When they insisted I must write up my part of the Famous DAR Mystery, I should have said no! And now I have this plagued business about the Hollonbrook murder to write up. Oh well, maybe I'll be dead by the time the next mystery comes along.
But to get on with it, Maud and I chewed over the names on Paula Stout's list.
The name of Frank Nicholson was new to me. But when I asked Maud about it, she laughed and said, “There's nothing there,” and I asked why.
“Because he's a jeweler. I've known him for years. He didn't deal in antique stuff: But when I had my silver collection, he was always asking if I had added anything to it. He really knows
quite a lot about old silver, and he helped me sell the collection after Jay died.”
“But why would he want to know the whereabouts of Charles Hollonbrook?” I wanted to know.
“I'll ask him.” Maud picked up the phone and called the man.
There had been something about the lease on his shop that he wanted to talk about with Hollonbrook personally.
So I crossed Nicholson off the list as harmless, along with the Episcopal rector.
And those Rotarians—I just hadn't thought about it, but every last Rotarian in Borderville had known when Charles Hollonbrook would be in town. They would have been notified and reminded—reminded for a month at least—so that there would be a good attendance for the glorious district governor.
Now I wouldn't like to think of Rotarians committing murder, but all the same—I know Lamar Bushrow, that old darling—of course it never would have happened, but Lamar would have come mighty close to killing any man who made improper advances to me.
So with all those Rotarians in Borderville, if there was one who had some connection with Stedbury, North Carolina—well, there might be something. Or again, there is the annual weekend at the Greenbriar when the Rotarians get together. And there could be more than one of the Borderville Rotarians up there with pretty young wives. And if Chuck Hollonbrook went off to the Greenbriar, that would be such an opportunity for Alice Hollonbrook to go off with her sweetie from Baltimore. And suppose that good old Chuck Hollonbrook started something last year at the Greenbriar and wanted to continue it at the Borderville Inn!
You see, you could imagine all sorts of ways to explain how a Borderville Rotarian would have a motive. I began to think that perhaps I ought to write to Henry Delaporte or Fred or somebody else in Borderville and alert them to see if they could find out something along those lines.
But that was beside the point just at this time. What I needed to do was right there in Stedbury.
There is no way an eighty-eight-year-old woman can get very much out of a boy of nineteen. I couldn't get anything out of my own son when he was that age. And specially if the boy had anything to do with his father's death, there would be no chance to get him to talk in any way that might tell me something. But perhaps the mother would be a different matter. And if the boy was involved, I was pretty sure the mother would be involved, too. Any way I looked at it, I wanted to talk to Charles Hollonbrook's first wife.
So I looked in the phone book and found Linda Hollonbrook at 619 Mountain View Drive. Maud told me how to get there. Just before I left about ten o'clock Monday morning to see what I could do, I said to Maud, “Now, darling, don't be surprised if I sound crazy when I call you in a little bit. Just hold the phone and don't say anything until I hang up.”
Of course, it was a long time ago, but it seemed to me that Lamar junior, when he got his first old car, could make it backfire by turning off the ignition and then turning it back on right quick. I could hear that old thing going bang bang, and I would know that boy was passing in front of his girlfriend's house three blocks away.
I didn't know whether that would work with my DeSoto or not, but I could try. So, sure enough, when I was still about two blocks from 619 Mountain View, I turned the key in the ignition and then turned it back right away; and that dear old car made a very satisfactory bang. I did it again, and again. Then I did it one more time as I was getting close to 619, killed the engine and let the DeSoto coast to a stop about three feet from the curb in front of Mrs. Linda Hollonbrook's house. It was a good thing there was no traffic on that street.
Then I pumped the gas pedal too many times before I turned on the ignition, and, sure enough, I had flooded the carburetor,
so I was able to put on a good show of not being able to get the old thing started.
In case anybody was looking, I pouted a little and said, “Oh dear!” several times. I got out of the car and looked up the street and looked down the street and hesitated before I started tentatively up the walk.
It was a very decent house—not as big as the other Hollonbrook house or as stylish, but the man had given his divorced wife and his children a pleasant and adequate home—possibly the very same house in which they had all lived before the divorce. And if it was debt-free, it was more desirable than the house in which Alice Hollonbrook was living.
I heard the door chimes and waited less than a minute for the door to open.
It could be no other than Linda Hollonbrook, and I am afraid I understood why Holly had discarded her. She was in her early forties—naturally, she would be. She had been pretty once, probably in a healthy, unspoiled way—slightly pug nose, china blue eyes, otherwise-undistinguished features. If the face had been happy, she would still have been attractive. But the corners of her mouth sagged, suggesting a surly discontent. The Little Orphan Annie hairdo would have been wrong on anybody, but it had to be worst on her.
“Darling,” I said—she was just a slip of a thing, no more than five foot two—“my old car seems to have broken down right here in front of your house. Would you be a real dear and let me use your phone?”
She nodded and opened the screen door.
“Oh, you are just an angel,” I said, “allowing a complete stranger into your home this way. But gracious me, I must tell you my name. I am Ms. Hattie Gardner.” That was my maiden name, but I didn't see any need to tell her I was the old lady in the
Famous DAR Murder Mystery.
Besides, lots of married women nowadays go around by their maiden name.
There was nothing else the woman could do but say, “I am Linda Hollonbrook.”
“‘Beg pardon,” I said, just as if I didn't know already.
She said it again, and I echoed, “Hollonbrook.”
“Now if you'll just let me use your phone,” I went on. And she led me to the hall, where the phone was on a little table. “Oh, and here is the directory,” I said. I just kept my chatterbox going so she wouldn't have a chance to ask me a question I could not answer. I pretended to have trouble finding the number and turned one page several times, looking up and down both sides of it like a complete idiot. Then I called Maud's number the way I had planned. Maud picked up the phone on the second ring.
“Hello, is this Andy's?” I said quickly, so that there wouldn't be any chance that Maud would say something that Linda Hollonbrook would hear. It is so easy for another person to overhear a voice on the phone, and Linda was standing not four feet from me. I looked her in the eye with an innocent stare as much as to say, How could you possibly think I am anything other than a poor old stupid woman?
I told “Andy” my probtem—the car just went
bang bang
several times, and then it stopped. Of course I paused now and then to give “Andy” time enough to ask me a question. But no, I assured him, the car hadn't made any funny noises other than the bangs. After a little bit of that, I put my hand over the mouthpiece and said to my blank-faced hostess, “Honey, Andy wants to know your address here.”
She gave it to me, and of course I repeated it with the numbers in the wrong order so that she would have to correct me. By the time I had completed the call, I had her pretty well convinced that it was by accident that I had insinuated myself into her house.
“My dear, I am eighty-eight years old,” I said, apropos of nothing. I saw she wasn't going to invite me to sit down. So I
added, “And it is just so sweet of you to let me sit down here in your lovely home until Andy gets here to start my car.” Then I plopped myself down in the most comfortable chair in her living room.
“Now don't you let me stop you from whatever you're doing. Just go right on. I'll be just fine here,” I said, beaming with a beatific smile.
Of course the poor woman was not going off and leaving me, a complete stranger, alone for a minute. She sat down on the davenport, which was what I wanted her to do.
“I don't believe I caught your name,” I said, taking my hankie out of my purse and patting the perspiration on my forehead and throat.
“Hollonbrook,” she said.
“Do I know that name?” I said, applying the hankie to the back of my neck. “Seems to me I've heard it.”
She looked as if she was taking a dose of Epsom salts as she replied, “You have probably heard of my former husband, the realtor, Charles Hollonbrook.”
I looked surprised. “Oh, I suppose so.” I paused just long enough so that it would seem that I was recollecting some little thing about Charles Hollonbrook—maybe the fact that he had another wife. “And darling, do you have children?” I went on.
“I have three.”
“Oh, my dear, you must enjoy your children. Are they still young?”
She could hardly fail to talk about them after that—unless she had decided to be downright uncivil. Besides, women without husbands are that much more tied up in their children.
“My oldest, Jimmy, is nineteen. His sisters are eighteen and fifteen.”
“I suppose the two oldest are in college.”
“Linda Jean has just graduated from Stedbury High. I am thinking where I'll send her this fall, but I haven't made up my mind yet.”
“Oh, my dear, you should reach a decision. Here it is June, and I believe there is often some difficulty with the colleges—can't get in and so on.”
“Well,” she admitted, “my former husband is recently deceased, and we are waiting for the estate to be worked out before we decide.”
“Oh, yes,” I seemed to remember, “your husband—former husband, that is—didn't he—didn't I read that he was killed?” You can bet I was watching her very closely in spite of the kindly look in my weak old eyes.
“He took his own life,” she said.
I clicked my tongue in sympathy.
“He was not very good to the children,” she broke out. “He wanted Linda Jean to go to the junior college at Estonia. He never seemed to care for any of the children—specially Jimmy. But there'll be plenty of money now. Jimmy has this chance to go to California and get into television.”
Just then a girl in baby-doll pajamas came into the room. I glanced at my wristwatch. It was 11:20. The girl paid no attention to me. She had a regular haystack of dyed hair—had pimples. I couldn't help thinking that at her age I was at Catawba Hall, required to be up, dressed in school uniform, and have my bed made by 6:30. Then it was breakfast and chapel at 7:30. But Mama used to let me stay in bed until seven in the summer. It was a different world.
It turned out this was the youngest, Donna.
“Where are my jeans?” the girl demanded—and there was such a surly tone to her voice.
“They are in the dryer,” her mother said. “I washed them this morning. You can probably take them out now.”
The child flounced off to some other part of the house—utility room, I suppose.
“Your daughter is very attractive,” I said.
Linda Hollonbrook actually smiled. “She is going to be a singer,” she said. “Now that we are going to have money, I am
going to see to it that my children have the things they should have had all along.”
The smile had vanished, and in its place there was a look not of hate but perhaps something like victory. The poor woman was just consumed with the feeling that Charles Hollonbrook had wronged her.
“And is there much money?” I asked. It takes a good deal of nerve to get away with a question like that.
“Oh yes,” she replied, apparently eager to talk about it.

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