Who's Sorry Now? (7 page)

In spite of what Mr. Prinney, Lily, and Robert had discovered in the library, nobody demurred about being paid.

“I for one have enjoyed having you here," Lily said. "You discovered such interesting things. We seldom have guests as knowledgeable as you are.”

On that note, Dr. Toller put the moccasins aside and began his dinner as the others finished theirs.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Thursday, April 27

DR. TOLLER
had asked the Harbinger boys to make him a sturdy crate to ship the girl's bones, beads, and moccasins to the pathologist and then to a museum. He called a freighting company he was familiar with in these cases. "Do you mind if I leave her in your garage next to your car, Mr. Brewster?"

“Not at all. But let me know when they're coming so I can move the Duesie out of their way." What he really meant, of course, was that he didn't want anybody bashing his precious automobile with a rough wooden crate.

While Dr. Toller and Robert were working this out, Howard Walker sat at his desk at the jail, his feet up on the desk, eating a jelly doughnut he'd bought at Mabel's Cafe. He was thinking about the skeleton of the young Indian girl. He wondered if she, like him, was all or partly of the Munsee subtribe of the Delaware tribe, from which he, too, was descended—in a sense. His great-grandfather, a full-blood Munsee Indian, had married into a Dutch family, needless to say, to the Dutch family's disgrace. Walker was a name many of the tribe shared.

The old tribes had all had their fill of the Dutch settlers infringing on their land and way of life. They'd packed up and gone West, taking everything they owned in a wagon or on their backs. Only a few families remained. Those families who emigrated wrote letters home saying they'd changed their names to Walker because they'd walked hundreds of miles to find other tribes to join up with.

When Howard was about eight years old, his grandmother, as Dutch-looking as anyone could be, told him that when she was born, the third of six children, all of them fair-haired and with pale complexions, her own mother, when eventually widowed, decided they'd change their name from whatever their Indian name had been to Walker. Howard's grandmother told him he was her favorite grandchild because he looked so much like her own father—dark-haired with a proud handsome face, though his coloring was paler than her father's.

He'd hated his looks in grade school. The other kids called him names, making fun of him for having Indian features. The boys made jokes about where he hid his tomahawk. And was he a good shot with a bow and an arrow? As he grew older, however, he realized that girls liked him better than the other boys. He was taller, darker-haired than most of the Dutch boys, and more handsome.

That was when he came to terms with himself. He was only one-eighth Indian but had overridden those powerful Dutch genes the whole rest of his family had acquired from his tough, practical great-grandmother.

Still, he felt oddly sad about the poor little Indian girl, buried under what would eventually become huge dead bushes. What kind of life had she had? Lily had told him about Dr. Toller's theory that she'd possibly lived in a cave. At least her family had buried her properly laid out in her best clothing with all the beading on her clothes and shoes. They made sure her feet didn't get cold and wet in the winter.

As he took a bite of the doughnut, his phone rang. It was the fingerprint expert.

“Have you identified it?" Howard asked.

“No record of anything like it in the records. It's distinct, though I didn't notice it until I used the magnifying glass. It's a thumbprint, of course. But it also has a long-healed cut right up through the middle of it. Quite distinct if you look closely."

“If I happen to figure out who painted the swastika on the tailor's shop, we'll know he's the perp from his thumbprint then? Which thumb?"

“The left. He was probably right-handed and handled the can with his left hand and rested it at some point on the window."

“It was stupid of him not to notice and clean it up," Howard commented.

“Not necessarily. Maybe he didn't have cleaning rags handy and didn't want to wipe it off on his clothes—if he even realized he'd left a fingerprint."

“Thanks for letting me know," Howard said.

The moment he'd hung up the phone, it rang again. It was Harry Harbinger. "Chief, Edwin McBride has been murdered in that shed we set up for him. Come quickly. We haven't touched him. We knew better.”

Edwin was indeed dead. Dr. Polhemus was already there before Chief Walker arrived. Howard would have been happier with almost any other doctor to sign the death certificate. Howard wouldn't have even recognized Edwin except for his brown hair and plaid shirt and brown trousers, both much patched. His face was reddish-blue, his blue eyes were wide open, and his mouth was open with his purple tongue protruding as if he were still gasping for breath.

“Strangled with a fine wire," Polhemus proclaimed. "Must have died hours ago. The flesh has swollen, concealing it, all but at the back of his neck. A thin piano wire, probably.”

Or
some other kind of wire,
Howard thought, but said nothing.

Both Harry and Jim Harbinger were seriously upset. "He was a nice, hardworking man," Harry said. "Who would do such a horrible thing to him?"

“He had no enemies?" Chief Walker asked.

“Not a chance," Harry said firmly.

“We'll have to get him to a pathologist. I know several of them," Chief Walker said. "It's clearly a murder, not an accident. First, I'm calling the funeral home in Beacon to pick him up until I can fInd someone to do a thorough examination."

“Be careful stepping outside," Harry said. "Jim found him and upchucked near the shed door. I'll wash it away soon.”

Howard asked for permission to call the Beacon funeral home from the Harbinger house and had an ambulance around in record time. By then Chief Walker had contacted the pathologist who'd been at Grace and Favor when the skeleton was discovered.

Dr. Meredith gave Walker the address of the morgue in New York City.

The ambulance was still present, so Walker gave them the address to deliver the corpse. The guy driving the ambulance said, "I can't go that far. We don't have the budget for using that much gasoline. But there's a good pathologist in Newburgh. Could we deliver the body there?"

“What is the pathologist's name?”

The driver told him.

Walker called Dr. Meredith back to explain and ask if the other pathologist was known to him, and if he was reliable. Meredith said he knew the man and he'd do a good job.

“You'll
see
that I'm right about the piano wire," Dr. Polhemus said in a cranky voice. "It's obvious.”

Walker ignored him and gave Harry a handful of change to pay for the calls. "Be sure to let me know if I owe you more when the bill comes." Then he asked Harry again, Are you sure that Mr. McBride had no enemies?"

“I can't imagine him having a single one. He was such a shy man, and worked so hard at the train station. Golly!" Harry said. "Edwin was about to make a little more money there with the post office boxes. Who's going to do the sorting now?"

“Robert Brewster, I assume," Howard said. "It was, after all, his idea.”

Howard was thinking furiously about where to go from here. A nice man. No enemies whatsoever. Howard's experience told him this was seldom true. Everybody had said or done something wrong to somebody else at one time or another. Mostly it was harmless and was forgotten or forgiven. But there were also people who were of a mind to take offense when none was meant. Even a well-meaning compliment could set them off.

“Did Edwin tell you anything about his past?" Walker asked Harry.

“Mostly he talked about how grateful he was to Jack Summer, who told him about Voorburg at the Bonus March. You know he came here because of Jack's description of the town?"

“That's what I'd heard," Walker said. Anything else? Like where he grew up, or if he had family elsewhere?”

Harry thought for a few minutes. "I think he mentioned growing up somewhere in south Yonkers."

“Nothing about family?"

“Only that his mother is a really good cook.”

“Did he suggest that she was still living?”

Harry shrugged. "I assumed she was because he said 'she is' not ‘she was.' "

“Do you have any idea of his age?"

“No. But he met Jack at the Bonus March, so he must have served in the Great War. That would make him at least in his mid-thirties or older. I think he might have been in his early forties.”

Chief Walker went back to his office and put in calls to the county records people in Yonkers. He was told they probably had the information he needed, but he'd have to hunt for it himself. Someone would help him, but not do it for him, he was told.

This would have been the perfect thing to tell a deputy to do. If he had a good deputy. What he had was only Ralph Summer, the cousin of Jack Summer, the local newspaper editor. How could cousins be so very different? Jack was sharp as a tack, and never printed anything in the
Voorburg Times
that couldn't be verified by at least two other sources. Ralph, on the other hand, was stupid and lazy. And what's more, he was currently engaged to the only daughter of a successful (so Ralph said) jeweler in Albany. Howard wondered how that had happened. Would a successful man turn over his only daughter to a lump like Ralph? Unless there was already a bun in the oven. Ralph was spending all his free time, and more, driving to Albany and was there now.

It was too late today to make the trip clear to south Yonkers. He'd leave early tomorrow to hunt through the birth and death records for McBrides. If he didn't go tomorrow, he'd have to waste the weekend.

Since he had a few minutes to spare, he called the chief of police in Beacon. Chief Simpson had a deputy hedidn't like because the deputy was shy. But Howard had recently worked with the chief 's deputy on a previous case and thought Deputy Ron Parker had potential. A lot more than Ralph.

“Hello, Ed," Howard said to Chief Simpson. "How's the gout?”

Almost gone. I can get around pretty much during the day, if I wear slippers in the evening. How are things with you, Howard?"

“Not so good. My deputy is in love and will probably marry soon and move away. I'm wondering how you're getting along with your deputy?"

“Not well. And I received a letter today from an officer in Buffalo who sent his list of accomplishments and education in police work. He's so desperate to get farther south that he'd take a slight cut in pay. You want Parker? I'd really like to hire this guy from Buffalo."

“I certainly do want Deputy Parker," Walker said. "I got along with him just fine."

“I can't imagine how. The boy is bone-deep shy. When do you need him?”

As soon as you get your new deputy. When will he start?"

“We can get this done in a day or two, I imagine. How 'bout if I tell Deputy Parker today that you want him to start next Tuesday. What's that? The second of May, I think. And I'll call my new man and tell him to be ready to start here the same day?"

“Suits me. Thanks, Ed.”

Howard sat back in his chair. He'd have to fIre Ralph, but he was apparently marrying into a family that might take in the newlyweds anyway. Especially if there were a baby on the way already.

As it turned out, he didn't have to fIre Ralph. His deputy burst into the office moments later.

“Chief, I've got bad news for you. Jeanette and me are getting married Monday. Her father says so."

“Jeanette is pregnant, right?”

Ralph didn't even blush. "Yep. And it's not a church wedding. Just a judge and two witnesses. Her own folks. So I can't invite you."

“That's okay."

“Sorry to leave you in a lurch."

“I'll get by," Howard said with a smile.

“I've got to go pack all my stuff. Like I said, I'm really sorry.

The moment the office door closed, Howard called his former landlady. "Have you rented both my old rooms yet?"

“Not even one of them," she said in a surly voice. "Then I can help you out with one of them. The one with the phone connection. I'm getting a new deputy next Tuesday. Will you arrange to have the phone reconnected by then?”

On Friday when he drove to Yonkers, there were a great number of McBrides listed in the birth certificate files, but only one Edwin. Born in 1899, mother Sharon McBride. No father listed. So he was probably born out of wedlock. Not that it mattered. At least they knew his age. Walker checked for a death certificate for Sharon McBride and came up with nothing. He then searched in the city rosters in Yonkers and found her address given five years earlier. He found the house but Sharon McBride no longer lived there. A friendly neighbor told him where she'd moved.

Much as he hated giving anyone such bad news, he felt obligated. Sharon McBride turned out to be much older and more shop-worn than he'd imagined. Her gray hair straggled out of a red-and-white handkerchief tied around her head. She smelled of lemon oil.

She took the news badly.

“Poor little Edwin. He was such a nice little boy. Very popular in school. Why would anyone murder him?”

Walker had felt obligated to tell her the truth. If she saw her son's body, she'd know it wasn't a natural death. "That's what we don't know. When was the last time you heard from him?"

“Oh, dear. Several weeks. But I've had so much cleaning up to do in this place I hadn't got around to giving him my new address yet."

“Do you have a cemetery plot for him?"

“Yes, I bought two. One for myself and one for him.”

“Is your husband there already?"

“There was no husband. He bolted when he learned I was pregnant. That's why Edwin has my maiden name."

“We'll see to sending his body for burial when the pathologist is done. I'm really sorry to be the bearer of such bad news."

“No. Don't be sorry. I needed to know this. Otherwise I'd have never known what became of my son.”

CHAPTER NINE

MRS. MCBRIDE
seemed to be hanging on to her emotions by a fine thread. She'd removed the kerchief from her head and made an effort to fluff her hair up a bit. Her face had gone pale. It was all Walker could do to keep himself from hugging the old woman to show his sympathy.