The Odd Job (17 page)

“Would an ice pack help?”

“I don’t know. Do we have one?”

“There’s a package of frozen peas in the fridge that will work just as well and cost less. And you can eat them afterward.”

“I’ll think about it. How are you at getting bloodstains out of wool, by the way? I hate to send my new skirt to the cleaner when I’ve only worn it once.”

“No problem. I’ve played enough valets in my time to know the drill. Sponging with cold water, plus judicious use of a pressing cloth and a warm iron should do the trick easily enough. Where did you leave the skirt?”

“Over the foot of our bed.” The “our,” of course, referred to Sarah’s absent spouse. “Since I really don’t have anything else that’s right for this weather, I’d be grateful if you could have it ready for me to wear tomorrow.”

“Your wish is my command. I’d better call the cops first. No, by Jove, I’ll get you the mahster’s telephone first.”

Having made sure that the hassock under Sarah’s afflicted limb was in the optimum position and Max’s cordless phone ready to her hand, Charles went to fetch the bloodstained skirt. Sarah managed all by herself to dial Lieutenant Harris’s number, only to find that he was even then on his way to deal with some malefaction heinous enough to warrant his personal attention. Having a phone in the car and an assistant to do the driving, however, he was quite ready to hear what Mrs. Bittersohn had to say. Her report was impressive enough to warrant his full attention.

“I’ll make sure the incident goes on Drummond’s record, he’s about due for a promotion. But you’re okay, Mrs. Bittersohn?”

“Thanks to Officer Drummond, yes, barring a banged-up knee and a certain amount of shock. I cannot for the life of me understand how Mrs. Tawne had become possessed of those stickpins, unless she’d inherited them from a rich uncle or was keeping them for somebody else, which would have been more like her.”

“Any idea who the somebody might be?”

“Only the one whom you put in jail, and that’s rather unlikely considering what the judge said at the sentencing. You may be interested to know that Officer Drummond and I found a second safe deposit key in Mrs. Tawne’s bottom dresser drawer, which turned out to fit a box that had been rented under a different name and paid for but never opened since 1967. What fascinates me is that there were six of those old-fashioned jet-trimmed hatpins in the box, and not much else. Would you by any chance happen to remember a showgirl from the sixties named LaVonne LaVerne?”

“Not me, lady. I’ve only been on the force for nineteen years and I never ran around with showgirls. First my mother wouldn’t let me and now my wife won’t. What I could do is have a search made in the police records in case—” Whatever he said next was drowned out by what sounded to Sarah like a burst of machine-gun fire, “Oops, I’ve got to go. ’Bye, Mrs. Bittersohn.”

Sarah laid Max’s cordless phone on the table beside her empty whiskey glass and shut her eyes.

S
ARAH COULD HAVE SWORN
she hadn’t been dozing for more than a few minutes, but it was three and a half minutes after five when the telephone woke her. She knew by instinct who was on the other end; she could picture Cousin Anne doing a countdown until five o’clock had struck and the cheap rate was on. Anne would have given herself an extra couple of minutes’ waiting time just in case her own clock happened to be running a trifle fast. Not that it ever had, but one never knew when it might, and an ounce of prevention was greatly to be recommended. Sarah picked up the phone and braced herself for a half hour of horticulture.

“Hello, Anne.”

“Sarah, how clever of you to know it was me. I hope this isn’t a bad time to call, but Percy isn’t home yet and I thought you’d like to know that Mr. Lomax and I have the terraced beds for the chrysanthemums dug up and he’s going to bring a load of fish tummies from the packing plant tomorrow morning.”

Anne allowed herself the frivolity of a giggle. “That’s not what Mr. Lomax calls them. He really is funny, isn’t he. Anyway, we’re going to fork them in along with the peat moss while we’re fresh and rested, then have a bite of lunch and drive over to the nursery in his truck. I’ve alerted Mr. Greengage to set aside plenty of the right colors but of course it will take time to check them over one by one to be sure they’re in top condition and just the right blending of shades. I know he hates to see me come because I’m such a pest about insisting on the best, but it does save fuss and money in the long run.”

“I’m sure Mr. Greengage wishes he had more customers like you,” Sarah lied politely, trying not to yawn as she spoke. “You’re a dear to go to all this trouble.”

“And you’re a sweetheart to let me,” Anne bubbled. “I haven’t had so much fun in ages. I can’t wait to get at all that lovely free fertilizer. I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d ever have a whole virgin hillside to landscape. Perhaps ‘virgin’ isn’t quite the proper word, because there’s not much virginity around these days, but you know what I mean.”

Anne was in a merry mood, all right. “Honestly, Sarah, I can feel myself just spreading my petals and opening out like a night-blooming cereus. A gardener does need a new challenge every so often, but you know Percy. Every time I suggest making a truly meaningful alteration at home, he gives me his old soft-soap routine about how proud he is of what we’ve created together. Which is a lot of fish tummies because Percy never lifts a finger if he can help it. I’m learning a lot from Mr. Lomax, I can tell you that.”

This was pretty wild talk from Anne Kelling; it prompted Sarah to bring up a topic that was even more organic. “Anne, there’s something I’m longing to ask your advice about, though I’m not sure how to put it.” She paused to swallow the watery lees of her whiskey. “The thing of it is, Dolores Tawne’s death has put me in a most peculiar dilemma. I learned only this morning that Dolores had stipulated in her will that she wanted to be cremated and have her ashes scattered over the courtyard garden at the Wilkins Museum.”

“I see nothing difficult about that, Sarah. Bone meal not only aids in improving soil quality, it also can be used to repel ants and keep them from spreading aphids, which I should think would be highly desirable in a public place like that. Furthermore, bone meal keeps leaf rollers away from strawberry plants, though I don’t suppose leaf rollers are much of a factor at the Wilkins.”

“But I’m not talking about the kind of bone meal one buys in bags from the garden shop,” Sarah protested. “Hasn’t Cousin Mabel ever shown you that urn on her mantelpiece that she keeps her parents’ ashes in? It’s all gritty little bits and pieces with chunks of bone big enough to be recognized as such. The Wilkins’s garden is the one place visitors always want most to see; what would they think if they were strolling among the flowers and all of a sudden up came the remains of a leg bone or an eye socket?”

For some reason, Anne thought Sarah was being funny. “Sounds to me as though Mabel had patronized a cut-rate crematorium, which I wouldn’t put past her for one minute. Anyway, I don’t see the problem. All you need to do is run the ashes through your blender till they’re all ground down into tiny bits, put them in a box or something until it’s time for the gardeners to take up the fall flowers and prepare the beds for spring, and just dig in the ashes when nobody’s looking. It’s not as if you’ll get any great heaps of bone meal, you know. What I’d do would be just to pick a favorite spot of hers in one of the beds and scatter her there. I’d be willing to help if you’d like me to.”

Sarah could feel the wooziness coming back. Anne saw the blender as a sensible, practical solution with no qualms attached. Dolores herself would no doubt have been willing to grind up any number of calcined bones without turning a hair if she’d thought the museum’s garden needed a pick-me-up. Whether the board of trustees could be induced to go along with such a plan was quite another matter.

Then why tell them? Those who had shared with Dolores Tawne the actual day-to-day work of the museum would have to know, of course. And what was wrong with that? Couldn’t they organize a simple, private ceremony on a Monday when no visitors were admitted, and get the interment over in a seemly but expeditious way?

Dolores would have liked a tasteful bronze plaque commemorating her many years of dedicated service to the museum. Perhaps the trustees might be amenable if they didn’t know that Dolores’s pulverized remains were resting underneath it, and more particularly if by some miracle the fortune in stickpins that she’d left lurking in the strongbox should turn out to have been legitimately hers and therefore, by the terms of the original will that Sarah must deliver to Mr. Redfern tomorrow morning, a welcome addition to the Wilkins Museum’s depleted coffers. Sarah wished she could believe in so happy an ending.

Never mind. Whatever final mess Dolores Tawne’s unbounded zeal and lack of forethought had got her into, she had earned the right to rest whatever might be left of her bones in the spot where she’d wanted to lie. Perhaps the undertaker would attend to pulverizing the ashes, Sarah thought. They must get odder requests. Anyway, something had to be done about Dolores’s remains; she couldn’t be left lying in a refrigerator. And right now, Sarah Kelling Bittersohn was the only person authorized to order the body cremated. She’d call up Wasserman’s in the morning; she could do it right now, if only Anne would get off the line.

But Anne was by no means ready to quit. Percy was out to an accountants’ society dinner meeting and she had the bit between her teeth. She held forth nonstop for another forty minutes, by which time Sarah was too exhausted to think of doing anything at all except to eat whatever Charles set in front of her and totter off to bed.

The barbecued chicken was edible if not palatable. Charles’s salad was excellent. The good bread, the salad, and a nibble or two of this and that from the supply of delicatessen they’d brought home last night made up for what the chicken lacked in flavor and succulence. Sarah and Charles lingered over their picnic supper, not saying much, each of them hoping that somebody—anybody who was amiably disposed toward either one of them—would break the spell of silence. Oddly enough, it was Jeremy Kelling who came through. Charles handed the phone over to Sarah.

The Anatomy of Melancholy was not the anatomy of Jeremy Kelling, but few could beat him at the Choleric. Jem was already in full hullabaloo when Sarah took the phone.

“A fine niece you turned out to be! Why was I not informed that you’re in town?”

“Obviously you were or you wouldn’t be chewing the carpet now,” Sarah riposted. “How did you find out my guilty secret?”

“One of Egbert’s spies saw you riding with a policeman. What did they pinch you for?”

“Consorting with elderly uncles of ill repute. My friend from the force will be around to collect you sooner or later, I expect. Seriously, Uncle Jem, I haven’t been in touch with you because I quite literally haven’t had the time. I’ve only been here since late Sunday afternoon, which was when Dolores Tawne, whom you surely remember because you never forget a female face, was murdered with an old-fashioned hatpin. It turns out that I’m her executrix.”

“Humph. I suppose that’s as good an excuse as any for not coming to the aid of an afflicted relative.”

“What are you afflicted with? Don’t tell me you’ve run out of gin.”

“Nothing quite so dire. What I’m chiefly afflicted with is boredom. Egbert’s off for the night with that female Gargantua who used to be Ed Ashbroom’s gardener.”

“Ashbroom? That’s a familiar name. Wasn’t he one of your Codfish friends?”

“Edward Ashbroom was and remains a member in bad standing of the Comrades of the Convivial Codfish. Ashbrooms have been Codfish since the days of the primordial slime; they haven’t changed much. There’s nothing I can do about Ed except remind myself from time to time that such things are sent to test us, and give way to occasional cries of pain and woe. I’m better at the woe, I think. Would you care to hear me in full lament?”

“No, I would not. I’ve heard too many lamentations already.”

It was then that Sarah had her epiphany. “Uncle Jem, I’ve just had a beautiful thought. How would you like to toddle over here and let me show you a photograph that might interest you? I’m sure Charles wouldn’t mind nipping over up to Pinckney Street and walking back here with you if you feel the urge for a companion. I think the photograph might have something to do with the estate which I’m supposed to be settling, but I don’t know what.”

“Sounds like the start of a glorious evening. What makes you think I’d be interested in an old photograph?”

“My feminine intuition, plus the fact that the photograph shows what looks to me like a line of chorus girls.”

“Oh. Well.” Chorus lines were right up Jeremy Kelling’s alley. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Charles can see me home later if he cares to. I daresay I can find my own way to Tulip Street since I happen to be lamentably sober at the moment. How soon do you want me?”

“As soon as you can get here. I’ll have Charles light a candle in the window to guide your faltering footsteps.”

“Don’t be flip, young woman. You might have brought the photograph to me, you know.”

Sarah showed no mercy. “The walk will do you good. I can’t go to you because I have a banged-up knee as a result of somebody’s trying to run over me in a 1989 Toyota.”

“Great Scott! Couldn’t you have waited for a Cadillac or a Mercedes? We do have the family position to consider, as your Aunt Bodie would be only too pleased to remind you if she happened to be in the vicinity of Tulip Street. Sarah, you have not, by any chance, been ingesting hallucinogenic substances?”

“Neither by chance nor by intention. You come over here and I’ll show you my knee.”

“Must you keep harping on your knee? Are you telling me the unvarnished truth?”

“I always tell the truth, except when it wouldn’t be kind. Which is more than can be said for you, but that’s beside the point. Please come quickly, Uncle Jem. I’ve had an exhausting day and I do want to be able to stay awake until you get here.”