Friends till the End (22 page)

“Hello,” she said cheerfully. “I’ve just come by to drop off some cookies. Where’s your father?”

“In his study. But Heather, you can’t, he’ll—”

“Nonsense. He won’t refuse to see me. Come on, Linus.”

The two of them brushed past Isabel. Heather marched determinedly down the hall and flung open the door.

“Hello, Walter.”

He glanced up from his desk in surprise.

“I’ve brought you some cookies,” said Heather, still grimly cheerful, “and Linus wants to say hello.”

She pushed Linus forward.

“Hi, Uncle Wally.”

“I’ll leave him here with you for a while. I’m going to visit with Isabel. These cookies will be in the kitchen if you want more, Walter. Here. Take a couple now.”

She put a handful down on his desk.

“Can I have some?” asked Linus eagerly.

Heather looked disapproving. “No, you can’t, sweetheart. You’ve already had too many at home.”

“I didn’t have
any
at home!”

“Yes, you did, Linus. You’re going to spoil your appetite for dinner. So long, Walter. Nice seeing you. Remember to have those cookies.”

She was gone before Walter had time to say a word.

“They’ll keep each other company,” Heather said, bustling back into the kitchen. “Can I trouble you for some herbal tea, dear?”

Isabel, filling the kettle with water, noticed how sharply the other woman was watching her.
She’s intelligent,
Isabel thought with a twinge of surprise … 
she knows what she’s doing, barging in here like this
.…

She had always written Heather off as a bit of a crank, but it came to her all at once that, for all her various affectations, Heather knew precisely the kind of effect she was making on people. Other people were taken in, but she wasn’t.…

“Have a cookie,” Heather was saying, holding one out toward her. “They’re delicious. Linus had three before coming over here. Peanut butter and oatmeal. Very high in protein and fiber. Here, have one.”

“Thanks,” said Isabel. She bit into the cookie. “Why, it’s great. Richard will love these.”

“Boys,” said Heather with a sigh. “Don’t I know it! I can’t bake enough for my three. Nothing stays in the house for long. I have to apologize, by the way, dear. I know your father doesn’t want to see me, and I’m sure you have better things to do with your time. But I heard he’s going back to work in a few days, and I did want to come over here and break the ice.”

“Well, now, that’s really nice,” Isabel said cautiously. “It’s certainly been bothering me, the way Daddy’s been avoiding everyone. I think it’s great if he gets back into circulation.”

“Ruth Abrams would have come with me, except—well, you know Ruth. She felt she wouldn’t have been welcome. Here, have another cookie.”

“Oh, that’s silly. You’ll have to tell her to come by sometime.”

“These tragedies,” Heather said, spreading her hands expressively. “It’s so hard to know what to do or say afterward, isn’t it? Plus I feel what happened to your father is partly my fault—oh yes, I do—since it happened in my house. Tell me, how is Richard handling everything?”

Her gaze on Isabel seemed uncomfortably sharp.…

“He’s fine. Just fine.”

“Oh, that’s good, because sometimes shocks like that can upset boys his age so much that they never let it out. Charlie is like that. He won’t talk about what’s bothering him. I sit with him and try to get him to talk, but he won’t. He’s very good at getting around me. That’s something
that kids get good at as they grow up—wouldn’t you agree?—getting around their parents, I mean.”

“Yes, well. I guess so.”
Has she heard about Richard’s running around and fighting with Dad?
Isabel was wondering.
Gossipy bitch! What else does she know?

“Ruth tells me all kinds of things about her kids,” Heather was saying. “Terrible problems she has, really terrible. Now her daughter has just left for Malaysia on the spur of the moment. Can you imagine? And of course she told me all about the missing insecticide. Whoever used it
would
steal it from Ruth, because she’s so fuddle-headed that it’s unlikely she’d ever notice. And Sam’s workshop is really a mess. Did they search your house, too?”

The question was sharp.

“Of course,” Isabel said without thinking.

Heather nodded as if satisfied. “They searched ours from top to bottom. Linus thought it was all a big game. He followed the policemen around and asked them questions. What are you doing? What are you looking for? He wanted to look, too. That’s the way children are—so curious. Of course they didn’t find anything in any of our houses. I could have told them that from the start. Whoever stole that stuff must have gotten rid of it as soon as possible. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes … well … I guess so. I don’t really know.”

“That’s what
I
would have done,” Heather said firmly.

Richard entered the room and Isabel greeted him with relief. “Hi, Richard, Heather brought us some delicious cookies. Want one?”

“Mmmm,” said Richard after biting into one. “Great!” He scooped up three more and pocketed them, leaving the room.

Heather and Isabel burst into laughter.

“Boys!” said Heather.

In the study, peace and quiet reigned. Linus had settled down with a pad of paper and a crayon and was busily drawing what looked like a herd of elephants. Walter was at his desk, working.

Occasionally they exchanged a comment or two, nothing more. Walter was absorbed in his work and Linus was content to be drawing. Between the two of them was an instinctive rapport. Linus studied his elephants with a critical eye and, crossing them out, began to draw stars, a skyful of stars.

Out in the hallway the door bell rang and they could hear Isabel answering it.

“Oh,
hello,”
she said. “Come on in … Heather’s here too, of course …”

Her voice drifted away into silence. The breeze from the open window ruffled Walter’s iron-gray hair.

Linus happily colored in the spaces between the stars to look like the night sky. Finally he rolled over with a little sigh. He lay on his back, hands crossed on his stomach, watching Walter.

Finally he said, “Uncle Wally?”

“Mmmhmmm?”

“What was that stuff you drank after everybody left Mommy’s party?”

“What?”

“That stuff. That stuff. You put it in a glass and went to the punchbowl and put some punch in and drank it.”

Walter Sloane looked up.

“I didn’t put anything in any glass.”

“Oh, yes you did. I saw you. I was under the table. I like being under the table,” Linus said in a meditative voice. “You can see people and they can’t see you. It’s fun.”

There was a long silence.

“You must be mistaken, Linus.”

Linus looked puzzled. He rolled over onto his stomach.

“I don’t think so. Don’t you remember, Uncle Wally? You weren’t feeling good. Mommy and Daddy ran out of the room, and it was just you and me. Except you didn’t know I was there.”

There was another pause.

“Well, yes, now that you mention it, I think I do remember what you’re talking about. It was when I was alone in the room, wasn’t it, after I had come in from outside?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, well. It’s nothing to worry about, Linus. It was just some medicine I always carry with me. I was feeling sick, so I took it and it helped me.”

“Did it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good.”

Linus, losing interest, picked up his crayon and began to draw goldfish swimming in a pond. The goldfish were so large that two of them filled up the whole page. He chewed his lip, disappointed, and started over again.

The man at the desk spoke.

“You haven’t told anyone else about this, have you, Linus?”

“Unh-unh.”

“Okay. That’s good. I wouldn’t want anyone to worry, you see.”

Suddenly a rather flustered voice spoke from the study door.

“Oh!” it said nervously.

Walter Sloane spun around in his chair. “Who’s there? Who is it?”

Ruth Abrams edged sideways into the room, like a crab.

“It’s me. Just me. Ruth. How … how are you, Walter?”

“Ruth? What are you doing here?”

“Linus,” she said falteringly, “Linus, your mother wants you. It’s time for you to go. She’s waiting for you outside.”

“Oh. Okay.” Linus gathered up his crayons. “Bye, Uncle Wally.”

Walter Sloane gave him a grim smile. “Good-bye, Linus.”

“Bye, Aunt Ruth.”

Ruth shut the door firmly behind him and gave Walter Sloane a nervous little glance. “Boys!
So
imaginative, aren’t they? Such—such tales they love to tell.” Her face was all pink and her gray curls bobbed helplessly. “Boys … yes … oh, yes … such little tales they love to tell.”

She came over and sat down in front of the desk. “Why, I remember my Jonathan at that age.
Such
an imagination! Why, the things he used to tell me … you would never have believed it.”

“Yes. Well. Listen, Ruth. I’ve got a lot of work to do before I go back to the office next week—”

Ruth gave a strange little gasp. “Of course, I happen to know that what Linus told you is true—isn’t it?”

There was a silence.

“I don’t know what you heard while you were eaves-dropping at the door, but I can assure you, it was nothing. Just a little game between Linus and me. As you said, lots of boys play games like that. It was nothing.”

“Oh, yes, yes, yes, of course it wasn’t. Yes, Walter, I quite understand. Of course it wasn’t. Of course no one would believe what Linus had to say, would they?—no, no—very convenient for you, isn’t it? But it’s different with me, you see, Walter. It’s different. Because, you see,
I know you did it.
”

She smiled at him brightly.

“Yes. You killed Laura and Freda—oh, poor Freda, just because she happened to see something at one of those awful, awful parties. I had a bad feeling before the first party. Yes, I did. I said, ‘Sam, we shouldn’t go. Something’s wrong. Something terrible is going to happen.’ But of course we had to go. You and Sam have been business partners for so long—well, it wouldn’t have looked
right
if we didn’t.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, no, no, no, of
course
you don’t, Walter, and you don’t have to if you don’t want to, it’s all right with me. But let me tell you my side of it. You see, I’ve been thinking things over for quite a long time now.” She put her head to one side like a little bird and her face went all pink again. “I know that thinking about things isn’t my strong point,” she said humbly. “But ever since that bag of insecticide was missing from our basement, I’ve been thinking things over in my own way, you know. And even though I told that policeman that I couldn’t remember if anyone had been down in the basement before it disappeared—of course I couldn’t at the time, you see, I was so upset and flustered and I just
hate
anything having to do with the police, don’t you?—well, afterward I was thinking it over and it seemed to me that that wasn’t quite true. Because I suddenly remembered that somebody had been
down in the basement. At the tennis party. And it was you, Walter.”

She looked at him expectantly.

“You see, everyone else had been over our house any number of times—Laura and Freda and Isabel and of course Heather and Harry, and Richard never comes over at all if he can help it, and naturally it’s hard to keep things straight when you’re not sure exactly when it was that people were over or when that little bag disappeared. Oh, it’s very hard indeed. But I was thinking it all over in my own way, slowly, but if I may say so myself,
carefully,
and it suddenly came clear to me.”

She paused and looked at him again.

“You see, everyone else had been over any number of times—
but you hadn’t
, had you, Walter? You never come over our house. The only time I could remember your being there was at the tennis party we had, a few weeks before Laura’s party. There was something about that party you didn’t know, Walter—something I didn’t even remember until just a few days ago. You see, I came back to the kitchen at one point—I had to get the watermelon out of the fridge and also we had run completely out of ice, I don’t know why that always happens to us—and I was in the kitchen and I saw you, Walter.”

She nodded emphatically.

“I saw you coming up the basement stairs.”

She nodded again.

“I meant to ask you at the time what you were doing down there, but you went out the back door and I was so worried about the ice—I mean, there’s no way of making ice in a hurry, is there, and everyone’s drinks were warm—that I forgot all about it. It didn’t seem important, you see. But then I started thinking about it and I realized that you must be the one behind all these dreadful murders. Because you were in our basement that day, and you took the poison. And then you used it to kill Laura. And later I suppose you poisoned yourself at Heather’s party, just to throw everyone off the track. Then you killed Freda to keep her from talking. Really, when you think about it, it’s all very clear, isn’t it?”

There was a pause.

At last Sloane said, “Why are you lying like this, Ruth? Have you gone completely crazy?”

“Now, now, Walter. Don’t start in. I’m not lying. You know that perfectly well. Now listen to me. I came here today for a good reason—yes, a very good reason. Heather said she was coming over, and Sam told me you were going back to work soon, and I thought about it and realized that this is the perfect time to ask you for a few little favors.”

She sounded very smug.

“What?”

“A few little favors, Walter,” she said calmly. “I want money—not enough to break you, just enough to help Sam and me get by. And I want you to promise that you won’t go back to work—not tomorrow, not next week, not
ever.
I want Sam to take over the business. You see, Walter, I hate to say this, but I think he deserves it a lot more than you do.”

She looked at him placidly.

“You’re out of your mind.”

“No, no. I don’t think so. I think you’re going to do just what I say. Because if you don’t, I’ll go to the police. I know them by now, you see, I have a personal connection.”