Working Murder (11 page)

Sadd said: “Damn it, woman, you've shamed me!” He followed, singing, “I'm getting buried
in the morning, ding dong the bells are gonna chime—and they can shove me right in with
Uncle Jim!”

We arrived beside Martin gasping for breath, clung to the bars of the grille, and peered
in.

The interior of the place was bathed in gloom, the only light a reddish ray from a high,
begrimed, stained glass window. The concrete floor, between patches of drifting snow,
was cracked and dirty. Facing us, in almost alarming proximity—not ten feet away—the
rows of crypts piled up to an arch, not unlike drawers in a file cabinet, their slab
fronts ungraven except one. Dead center, a dim inscription read james cavanaugh, beloved
something-or-other, and some dates.

Martin had sunk to his knees and was pushing snow from the bottom of the gate. Now he
shook it as if imprisoned on the other side.

“It's padlocked! The bastard's padlocked it!”

A sound made us turn. A blue car rounded Lazarus and pulled up behind ours. Frank Cassidy
got out. Martin galloped back across the snow yelling something. I began to giggle. When
you giggle at the same time your teeth are chattering it produces an effect akin to a
seizure.

Sadd said: “Better get hold of yourself, we are called on the carpet—oh, God, if only
there was one!” And we floundered back to the road.

Mr. Cassidy, smiling steadily, even helping me brush snow from my coat, said: “I thought
I might find you here. I'm sorry Marty had to disgrace himself in front of you nice
folks.”

The fact that you nice folks had disgraced yourselves in front of Marty was implicit.
Martin stood silent and cowed. Whatever Frank had said to him, he was again the dim
little mute who had sat in the rectory parlor.

Sadd said: “Mr. Cassidy, this was entirely our idea. At lunch we got to discussing the
mausoleum, and since we were so near, we asked Martin—”

“Why, sure.” Mr. Cassidy's smile was still firmly in place. “Mrs. Gamadge told me she was
anxious to see it. I only wish you could be here in the spring. Holy Martyrs is a park—a
real park, isn't it, Marty? Mr. Saddlier, I'm going to have to ask you to move your
car—you were probably just about to leave anyway—there's a funeral procession coming any
minute.”

“A burial in this weather?” I said.

“Aboveground burials in any weather.” Mr. Cassidy maneuvered around his smile, which
hadn't budged. “Marty, why don't you hop in my car? It'll save these folks a trip back
to the rectory.”

Martin stood still, scowling at dawson. Did Cassidy sense a rebellious outburst? He
added:

“I thought we might stop for a drink.”

Foul! Foul! Martin scurried to the blue car, and Sadd, who afterward said he was silently
reciting, “He who fights and runs away...” moved to ours. I stood my ground, hoping the
funeral procession was an invention. I said:

“Martin was telling us a fascinating tale of skullduggery. Something about other people
being buried in the mausoleum. How do you suppose such a story ever got started?”

“It got started when Marty got hooked on Jim Cavanaugh's bad booze.” The smile didn't
quite die, but it sickened a bit. “It began as Marty's pet joke and turned into a
nightmare he believes in. Years ago, Marty used to help out in the office. That's how he
got that key—which goes home with me today.” The smiled expired. “Sorry, Mrs. Gamadge,
but here's the procession.”

A hearse was indeed approaching from across St. Joachim.

I said: “I'd love to hear more about all this someday. Perhaps you could—”

“Just follow me.” Mr. Cassidy hurried to his car.

It was the one favor he did us. We'd have been wandering the labyrinthian ways of Holy
Martyrs forever had Mr. Cassidy not led us to a gate, but not the one we had entered by,
for we were soon lost again in the back streets of Hollis. When we stopped for gas and
directions, we were reduced to gibbering exasperation.

Waiting for Sadd to return from the men's room, I slid determinedly over to the driver's
seat. To my relief, when he appeared, bearing two cups of steaming coffee, he did not
object and took up the conversation exactly where we'd left it.

“I just hope he doesn't beat up too hard on poor Marty.”

“I just hope he buys him the drink he promised. Hold my coffee and give me the gloves.” I
drove the car around to the rear of the station and pulled up behind a tow truck.

“Don't turn the engine off”—Sadd handed back my coffee—"that heater is all that stands
between us and death. Well, one thing is certain: Cassidy knows what Marty knows. And
Tully was right. You don't have to get in there to realize those crypt fronts weigh a
ton. Nobody could get them off without help. God, it's tantalizing! What's in there
besides Jim?”

I said to myself ... Ellen? But Sadd had told Henry the thought was grotesque, and he
wouldn't discuss it; in truth, it did seem beyond endurance. So I said lightly:

“Maybe it's gold bullion. Maybe it's—”

“Maybe it's time to get going. The kids will be sending out a search party. I think I'll
call Father Dever in the morning and ask him more about it. What a nice guy—and no
visible hang-ups.”

But in the morning, it was Father Dever who called us. Martin had been found dead in bed.

I WAS GRATEFUL TINA WAS THERE.

Sadd literally had to be helped back to his chair at the kitchen table. I was pinned
beneath Hen, who lay on my lap, listless with a cold. I doubt if I would have been able
to move anyway, so stiff with horror was I when Sadd told me about Martin.

We'd been very merry at breakfast before Henry left, and then with Tina, relating the
particulars of our mortifying rout from Holy Martyrs. Father Dever's call came at nine
o'clock.

Tina poured a glass of sherry for Sadd and said: “How?”

“It seems he choked on his own vomit. Cassidy found him. There's to be a short service—a
Mass—at Holy Martyrs chapel tomorrow and would we like to come. Martin will be
stashed—you know where.” Sadd gulped his sherry.

I heard myself say: “Cassidy killed him.”

Tina stared. “You don't mean literally?”

“Sure she does.” Sadd looked around dazedly. “Sure she does, and sure he did.”

Tina moved impatiently. “Now, look you two—
quit it!
It's our fault. Henry and I
have fed you with so many horrors, you're seeing spooks everywhere.”

Hen wheezed, and she took him from my lap and then looked from me to Sadd. “Damn it, much
as I'd hate to lose you, I feel like putting the pair of you on a plane this
morning—back to Florida and back to normal.”

I vaguely heard her. Sadd was sitting motionless. Tina set Hen on his feet, sat down, and
said pleadingly:

“Look: A poor drunk upchucks and chokes and dies; it happens all the time. Can't we go
back to before May called us and forget she ever did? Forget Ellen. Forget Jim
Cavanaugh. Be happy for Martin—he's gone to that big package store in the sky.” She
stood up. “I'm going to make more coffee.”

Poor Tina. She didn't need this. I said:

“Thank you, dear, yes, I'd love another cup. And you're right—we should clear out. But
not till tomorrow. We owe that to Martin. Can you stand us one more day? And we won't
tie up your car again. We'll rent one and go straight from Holy Martyrs to the airport.”

“Don't be an idiot.” Tina made a great clatter at the sink. “Of course you'll take my
car. Or rather, I'll take you in it.” She turned. “Do you think I'd miss a chance to be
at the opening of the Dawson mausoleum?”

Sadd grabbed her hand and kissed it. We all began to laugh and cry a little.

Mercifully, the weather turned warm next day, and the Long Island Expressway was merely a
damp stretch. Even more mercifully, Tina was driving.

Sadd said: “I think I was on this expressway once before in my life. Now I've been on it
three times in three days. Am I crazy?”

“Of course you are, we all are.” I turned to look at him. “But think how nice it is to be
wearing a dashing new cap and your very own pair of gloves.”

I'd gone out shopping the afternoon before, partly to clear my head, partly to get away
from Sadd, who was all for turning Frank Cassidy over to the police at once. I'd taken a
cab across the bridge and lost myself in Macy's for a few hours. It was lovely to wander
about alone enjoying the bustle. I sat in the coffee shop and thought about poor Martin.
No, Cassidy hadn't intentionally killed him, unless, of course, he'd deliberately
engineered the binge that had done Martin in. Perhaps he hadn't even realized....
Perhaps just taking the key away was the last straw. Perhaps...

I returned to Willow Street, resplendent in a black, fake fur hat that Henry said made me
look like Anna Karenina.

I said: “Thank you, dear. Well, maybe as Anna might have looked in forty years if she
hadn't taken that dive.”

We were at supper and I'd presented Sadd with a plaid cap and a pair of fur-lined gloves.
He tried them on at once, pleased.

“But you can't soft soap me out of my killer.” He tipped the cap at various angles.
“Cassidy put a pillow on Martin's face or I'm not eating pie in gloves.”

Henry said: “Be hard to prove, Sadd.”

“No it wouldn't. What the hell was Cassidy doing at Martin's so early this morning? In
fact, did he ever leave when he took Martin home? My guess is he got him loaded, stuck
his finger down his throat, and sat on his head.”

Tina gagged and said: “Might somebody have seen Cassidy come in with Martin—or seen him
leave? Where does—did Martin live?”

“Who knows?” I stood up. “Evidently someplace too unlovely for us to see.” I poured milk
for Hen and tipped some into Loki's bowl.

Henry said: “Well, I'm jealous. You guys get to walk into that mausoleum tomorrow, and
I'm stuck in court on a boring libel suit. By the way, I wonder which crypt will receive
the remains of Martin. Who decides?”

Sadd said: “The family, usually. But who's left?”

Tina said: “Then probably Cassidy—Mr. Holy Martyrs himself.”

A thought occurred to me. “I hope Father Dever has let Helen Cavanaugh know.”

“I'm sure he has.” Sadd raised his new cap aloft. “Here's to our third funeral in as many
days. We're getting to be professional mourners.”

Dear God, it was a chilling fact. Mortality was rushing us. Even Loki seemed to me more
feeble than usual as he sniffed his milk and decided wearily against it.

Sadd said: “By the way, has anyone heard from Jon?”

“I called him yesterday to tell him his good news, but he wasn't home.” Henry balanced
Tina's apple pie on his palm. “So I left a message on his answering machine to get back
to me. Anybody want another piece of this?”

“I do.” Sadd held out his plate.

Tina said, almost dreamily: “Will Ellen's ghost cry out to us from one of the crypts?”

No one answered her; we seemed in silent agreement to treat the question as rhetorical.
But it hung in my mind now as Tina, looking charming in a matching red wool cap and
scarf, drove us along the expressway.

I said, looking at the clock on the dash: “Is it really only nine-fifteen? I feel as if
I've been awake for ten hours.”

“We're in quite a pattern, aren't we?” said Sadd. “Up at dawn to attend the day's
obsequies.”

But his tone was weary as well as bantering. Was the whole thing too much for Sadd? The
man was seventy-four. I was six years younger and already feeling rather punchy.

I said: “What time is our flight, Tina?”

“The best Henry could do was ten-twenty tomorrow morning. Sorry about this afternoon, but
there just wasn't a thing.”

A horn sounded behind us as Tina took a turn off the expressway. Sadd turned and said:
“It's Helen Cavanaugh.”

We all waved out our windows, and she waved back. I said:

“I'm so relieved! How much farther, Tina?”

“Almost there.”

The chapel at Holy Martyrs was a small, bestatued edifice across the road from the office
at the main gate. The snow was melting fast in the sunlight, and their white vestments
were sliding from the shoulders of the monuments. On the chapel steps stood a short,
heavy woman holding a little boy by the hand. The hearse was there, and Frank Cassidy
was beside it. He signaled to us to pull ahead of it. We got out and waited for Helen
Cavanaugh to join us.

She came up, shaking her head. “This is ghastly. You must think we do nothing here but
die.”

I said: “This is no picnic for you, Helen. Have you met Tina, Henry's wife?”

She had not, and we stood chatting, Sadd's eyes wandering to Cassidy, who was studiously
avoiding us. The woman with the little boy came down the steps and walked toward us.
Helen said quickly:

“This must be Mrs. Horan from Martin's housing project. I think she used to keep an eye
on him. Mrs. Horan?”

The woman said yes and immediately started to talk.

“You'll be his folks. Father Dever said to be sure and speak to you. This is my grandson.
His mother works.”

“Mrs. Horan”—Sadd took her hand—"we're so grateful you came. Can you tell us what
happened?”

“But tell us inside,” I said, looking at the child's pink nose. We walked past the hearse
with its shadowy burden and up the chapel steps, as Cassidy hurried across the road
toward the office.

Sadd said: “Oh, no you don't!” and went after him. I thought, good for you, Sadd. He'd
promised he wouldn't say anything wildly accusatory, but Frank Cassidy was not to be
allowed to look through us. The rest of us entered the chapel. It was only slightly
warm, empty, and not yet lighted. We groped our way into the back pew.