Who's Sorry Now? (9 page)

He's the one who rushed that typewriter to be fingerprinted a month ago."

“Where were you all day Sunday?" Robert asked. "I tried to call you."

“What about?"

“I don't remember," Robert said with a laugh.

“I'm the one who's supposed to question people," Howard said with mock seriousness. As a matter of fact, I was in Yonkers questioning Edwin McBride's old boyhood friends."

“Do you think one of them had a grievance against him that bubbled up suddenly decades later?" Lily asked. "That would be a good trick for a mystery writer to use."

“In a way," Howard said. "His mother told me that there was a boy in the group that hadn't been invited and didn't fit in. She knew where the others lived, but not where he was. So when I interviewed the others I was curious to see if any of them could lead me to him.”

And did they?" Lily asked.

“You're still plotting, aren't you?" Howard asked.

“Just curious." Lily almost blushed at his perception.

“Okay, I'll give you the story." He didn't think it would be right to give their surnames. "I started with the 'second-in-command,' a man named Dennis, who looked as if he, his wife, and three kids were all from Scandinavia. Tall, blond, and healthy. He praised Edwin to the skies.

Said he was both funny and honorable. He told me that Edwin wouldn't let them do things they shouldn't. He found interesting things to do. Circuses. Block parties, even if it wasn't their own block. He even forced them to go to a couple of museums. When Edwin was unavailable, Dennis took over. But he didn't know where the `hanger-on' was.

“The second was a Patrick. A musician. Currently playing trombone for dance marathons. He hated them. They put people through hell for the chance of winning very little money. Men and women both fainted from exhaustion. Of course, the bands changed. Each of them did only six hours a day. He didn't even remember that there was an extra person in the old gang."

“This sounds as if they were all nice people," Lily said. "Not good suspects."

“The fourth one wasn't quite as nice, if that makes you feel better," Howard said.

“Oh, good. Tell us about him."

“Fat, sour, unhappy, sloppy, and cranky. Jake, he was called. He'd been married three times and all of his wives had left him. Still, he was loyal to Edwin, Dennis, and Patrick. They'd been good friends and if they'd all stayed together he wouldn't be in this mess."

“Please tell us that he knew the 'hanger-on,' " Robert begged.

“He did. I found him in a seedy office a few blocks away. His name was Mario. He probably has no home and sleeps in the back room of his office. I suspect he has grown-up gang ties and keeps a very low profile. His desk was magnificent, but the chair he offered me was in tatters. When he heard that Edwin McBride was murdered, he laughed. Said he deserved it. He was a Goody Two-shoes. Claimed he hadn't seen or heard from him in many years."

“You got a fingerprint, didn't you?" Robert asked. "I'd like him to be the perpetrator."

“Why would
he be,
except that he didn't like Edwin? But I did get a fingerprint anyway."

“How?" Lily asked.

Howard looked a bit embarrassed. "I bought a big white cup that was spotlessly clean. And I'd only touched the handle. As I was leaving, I asked if
he
could fill it. There was a pot of coffee brewing on a table. He told me to help myself, but I faked a sudden cramp in my calf and shoved it near him."

“Brilliant," Robert exclaimed.

“Not brilliant at all. Sheer good luck. He picked the cup up in both hands and filled it. I sent it off for fingerprints this morning.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Tuesday, May 2

IN SPITE OF
Robert's thinking getting a fingerprint on a coffee cup was brilliant, Howard knew that the most he could find out was whether Mario, the last man he interviewed, had a criminal record. He was unlikely to have anything to do with Edwin McBride's murder. Not after all those years had passed.

It was remotely possible that Mario knew Edwin lived in Voorburg. Jake had been in touch with Mrs. McBride and she knew where her son was. Jake could have told Mario. Jake must have been occasionally in touch with Mario to know his office address.

But the fingerprints wouldn't be useful as a key to the swastika painted on Mr. Kurtz's window. That was a completely unrelated crime.

Meanwhile, Howard was looking forward to the arrival of his new deputy, Ron Parker. Walker had made Ralph leave his uniform behind. Ralph was hard on clothing. The Voorburg police budget had had to cough up a new uniform a mere three months earlier. Ralph's old uniform would be too long in the trousers, and too fat around the middle for Parker, but Mr. Kurtz could get it to fit properly. Ralph hadn't had time to get stains and snags on it.

Parker took the train and arrived just after noon. He was wearing his old uniform, which really didn't fit him well either. And the patch on the sleeve identifying him as an officer in the Beacon Police Department could be replaced with Ralph's old one.

Walker asked, "Have you had lunch yet?”

Parker hadn't, so Walker took him to Mabel's. Somehow she'd found good hamburger somewhere and they both stuffed themselves on sandwiches, fried potatoes, and green beans. There was also a pudding. But it had been made with dried milk instead of the real thing and was bland and lumpy.

Parker, thin and fair-haired, kept his eyes on Walker while they ate. Ron Parker was still astonished that Chief Walker, his idol, had actually wanted to hire him.

After lunch, he took Parker to Mr. Kurtz to refit Ralph's uniform to Parker's slighter stance and replace the patch on the sleeve when the jacket was done. Walker then took his new deputy to his office in town and told him what little he knew about Edwin McBride's death. He explained that he'd already interviewed McBride's old gang of friends and his one enemy. He invited Parker to go over the notes he'd taken.

“I don't like the sound of this Mario guy," Parker said. "Couldn't Jake have told him where McBride lived?"

“He could have. But I doubt it. Jake must have known that Mario held a deep dislike of McBride. I doubt that the dislike was enough to send him up here after so many years.”

They left it at that for a while, and Walker told Parker about the swastika on Mr. Kurtz's shop window.

“Whoever it was had stolen a can of red paint and a brush from Harry Harbinger's backyard," he told Parker. And then stupidly returned the can of paint but not the brush. I managed to find an expert to lift the fingerprint he made with his left thumb. It was very distinct because of an old cut in his thumb."

“He or she? Sounds more like what a discontented old woman would do," Parker speculated. A woman who's been abandoned by a husband or cut off from her children and turns nasty to everyone.”

Howard was quiet for a moment. "That could be true. I just assumed it was a man." Ralph would never have thought about that. And frankly, neither had Howard himself.

“Why would anyone paint a swastika on a newcomer's place of business? He didn't sound German to me when we were in his shop," Parker asked.

“He speaks English well because he was born in St. Louis to a brewer and his wife. They spoke German in their bar, since most of their patrons spoke German. But spoke English at home. In fact, Robert Brewster says that Kurtz's granddaughter got him out of Germany in the nick of time. A day or two before the German police started forbidding foreigners from leaving Germany."

“Who is Robert Brewster?" Parker asked.

“Darn it, Ron. I'm explaining this too fast. Of course you don't know him. Or rather, remember him. It was his sister Lily who got that typewriter a month or two ago. You were along and rushed it to Newburg."

“Oh, yes. At least I remember Miss Brewster. A really pretty woman. I'm not sure I'd recognize her brother."

“I'm now a boarder at their mansion," Walker told Parker. "It's called Grace and Favor Cottage. Soon I'll invite you to a dinner there so you can get to know the people who live there. I'll also introduce you to other people in town. As far as I'm concerned, you'll be here for a good long time and need to know about the people who live here.”

Ron Parker almost blushed with pleasure at this complimentary comment.

Howard went on. "Speaking of boarders, I've arranged for you to live for the time being where I used to live. There's a phone line I had activated. You won't like it anymore than I did. The whole place reeks of cabbage. But when you get to know the town better, you can probably find something nicer. Mrs. Smithson, Mr. Kurtz's granddaughter, owns lots of property in town. Most of it vac
an
t. But you'd have to cook for yourself. Do you know how to cook?"

“I sort of know how to make a sandwich. I never lived in a place that had a stove after I left home."

“You'll have to learn to cook," Walker said. "Or spend your whole income on eating at Mabel's. My housing and yours come out of the police budget, paid weekly by
me.
I'll take you and your suitcase to the boardinghouse now. There are three girls who handle the telephone exchange. You'll soon recognize their voices. Two don't listen in. One does. You can wait for the sound of a click of the operator hanging up when you're connected. If you don't hear it, tell the operator it's police business
an
d
to hang up.”

Parker almost reeled as they entered the boardinghouse. "What's that awful smell?"

“Old cabbage. It permeates the entire house, all the furniture, all the bedding. You'll have to put up with it until we find you somewhere else to live.”

Howard led him upstairs and opened the door to the room that Walker once used as his bedroom. He'd also had a second room as his office, which was now vacant. "I'm afraid there aren't locks on the doors. If you have anything valuable, I can put it in the safe at my office in town."

“Only my billfold and a few family pictures. I keep my billfold in my pocket and can put the pictures on the nightstand."

“Nobody will steal them.”

Howard was close to gagging. He'd never realized, until he escaped the boardinghouse, how the old cabbage smell seemed to collect upstairs. It was bad enough in the front hall. Upstairs it was worse.

He suddenly felt terribly guilty about doing this to Deputy Parker.

“Let me call Mrs. Smithson. It's only mid-afternoon. You haven't had to eat here yet. Mrs. Smithson owns a lot of property that she inherited. She might have somewhere you could live instead of here.”

Parker grinned with relief.

Mrs. Smithson was at home and free for the rest of the afternoon. "Why don't you pick me up in the police car? I've never ridden in one." She said this in what was nearly a girly giggle.

She directed them to a place a bit out of town first. The house was small and empty. Even on a nice day in May, it smelled musty. There was no stove or icebox. No furniture at all. The only things that remained were dishes, glasses, silverware, and pots and pans.

“The police department is responsible for housing a deputy. But I can't afford to furnish this. And it's quite a way from town," Chief Walker said.

“I see," she said. "Let's go back to town. I have a second-floor set of rooms your deputy might like.”

This was much better. It was the second floor of the greengrocer's shop. Mr. and Mrs. Bradley had lived there for years, and they'd finally decided when their daughter and son-in-law wanted to stay there with them that they'd have to move out and find a house. There wasn't room for more than one guest, and then there was the baby to account for. The Bradleys were going slightly mad with all three of them living on cots in the living room and keeping him and his wife awake half the night. The baby was colicky and cried all night. So they moved to a small house close to town, and helped their daughter and family find another even smaller house.

There was a large bedroom, a kitchen with a stove, icebox, and a nice big table. Also, lots of empty cabinets. But there were no plates, glasses, silverware, or cooking utensils.

Apparently, Mrs. Smithson's late husband had owned the building, Walker assumed, since she appeared to be authorized to rent it.

Mr. Bradley said, "When we moved, I carted out my wife's three sets of dishes, the glasses and silverware, all the clothing, and the pots and pans. I wasn't about to strain myself hauling out the bed, or that big kitchen table and the sofa. We also left the bedding."

“That empty house we looked at first had pots and pans, glasses, dishes, and silverware. Remember?" Mrs. Smithson said. "Apparently the former tenants thought it was all too heavy to go in their car when they started out for California. You might have to get some good scrubbers and soap to clean them up, but you're welcome to them, Deputy Parker. If you drop me at home, I'll give you the key. You can return it when you've collected what you need.”

On the way back to Voorburg after collecting the dishes, glasses, pots and pans, and silverware, Ron Parker asked his boss if the landlady at the boardinghouse was going to be angry if he left without even staying overnight.

“Of course she will. But I've already paid for the first week," Walker said. "So it's not that she didn't make a little money. Remind me to ask the phone exchange to disable that phone line and activate the one in your apartment.”

Walker dropped Parker off to reclaim his suitcase and family pictures and waited in the police car. They delivered everything to the apartment, and Walker went to Mrs. Smithson's home to return the key. "Here, take this to your deputy when you can," she said, handing him a book titled The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer.

“Don't you want it anymore?"

“No. My mother gave me this old copy, and later a friend gave me a newer copy with a lot more recipes. This one is simpler and will be less complicated to understand for someone who's never cooked. He lives right above the greengrocer, after all. It's not too hard to find food there. He even carries bread, sugar, flour, and coffee and tea. He'll have to go to the butcher down the block for meat though. And if there's anything else he desperately needs, he can find it in Newburg.”