The Odd Job (20 page)

I
F THIS WASN’T TYPICAL
of Dolores! Sarah didn’t know whether to burst into hysterical laughter or cram one of Theonia’s silken pillows over her mouth and scream into it for all she was worth. So what if the Wicked Widows had turned out to be murderers? They had at least been civil enough to recognize Dolores Agnew Tawne as an artist of incomparable talent, to wear her superbly executed masks before an admiring public—admiring, anyway, until the hatpins came out—and finally, when the show had come to a bloodcurdling end, to grant her the custody of their hatpins.

Sarah did not suppose that Dolores had ever once thought of going to the police with what little information they might have found helpful, not even after the cold-blooded slaughter of those four policemen. In fairness, though, what could she have told them? All her contact with the Wicked Widows had been one or perhaps two calls—Dolores had not been clear about that—from a voice on the telephone that might have been disguised, and three deliveries of cash in exchange for masks by a messenger who presumably had not paused to chat. Dolores must have realized that she’d have been in serious trouble with those seven harpies if she’d ever broken so much as a syllable of her promise not to talk.

What had become of the Wicked Widows after they’d carried their act too far? Why had Dolores, despite that terrible denouement, chosen to affiliate herself with a gang of murderers by dubbing herself yet another LaVonne LaVerne? Could the bellicose manner that Dolores had displayed around the museum when things didn’t go her way have been a means of working off hostilities that must be kept under control? Could she herself have nursed a secret hankering to drive one of those demonstrably lethal hatpins through the base of somebody’s brain? Was that the real reason why she’d kept them locked up for so many years, never once opening the safe deposit box but knowing where to get a deadly weapon should the urge become too strong?

Sarah thought it more likely that Dolores had kept the hatpins not for the weak-kneed reason she’d adduced in her written statement but because having them in her sole custody had given her a sense of importance. Whichever of the seven LaVonnes had made that first telephone call must have known in advance the artist’s insatiable thirst for accolades and been careful to slather on plenty of the best butter before opening negotiations. That statement Dolores had left in the box indicated that she’d been both paid well and praised well.

Being also made privy to a secret that must be kept forever dark would have given Dolores’s ever-hungry ego more food to feast on in dutiful silence long after the Wicked Widows’ enormities had been dragged into the newspapers and across the television screens. The artist’s own hands had been clean. She had done what was asked of her in good faith and with consummate skill. She had held steadfast to her vow of secrecy. Angels could have done no more.

The statement that Sarah had just finished reading and was by now wondering what, if anything, she ought to do about, reeked of self-satisfaction. All those first-person singular pronouns marching across the pages were like drumsticks thumping “Look at me! Look at me!” But they gave no clue as to who had stabbed Dolores to death with the last of the seven hatpins on Sunday afternoon.

Sarah would have liked to talk with some of the older guards such as Vieuxchamp and Melanson, but her own position was too precarious just now. Anyway, Vieuxchamp didn’t much care for either her or Max because they made him feel inferior, as in fact he was, insofar as his work at the Wilkins was concerned. Sarah knew nothing of his private life and didn’t want to. As for Melanson, he’d be too busy worrying to engage in anything like rational conversation.

She could probably get more out of the scrapbook that Dolores had kept in her bottom drawer. It was filled with letters, photographs, and clippings related to persons whose portraits Dolores had painted, most of them chief executive officers of companies that produced things like blow-molded plastic bubble-bath bottles shaped like penguins and crocodiles. Whether the clippings were from big urban newspapers, small-town giveaways, or merely company newsletters, they invariably contained a photograph of the distinguished artist, Dolores Agnew Tawne, shaking hands with her subject, assuming he or she was still alive, or else with the heirs and assigns of the deceased. Sometimes the artist and the model were shown by themselves, sometimes with a retinue of vice presidents and perhaps a few lesser dignitaries. Quite often the executive’s wife and perhaps a dear old mother, a son fated to follow in the paternal footsteps, or a daughter checking out the junior executives as potential escorts completed the ensemble.

Whatever the setting, Dolores Agnew Tawne’s expression of smug self-satisfaction could never have been missed by anybody with eyes to see. Suppose, Sarah thought, that during one of those presentation ceremonies a wife or daughter—more likely a wife—had realized how completely self-absorbed the artist was. Suppose she’d had enough art courses at her expensive finishing school to recognize Dolores’s work as being highly competent if not at all creative, and had made a note for future reference.

Captains of industry do not always make exciting husbands. A bored wife, particularly one of those youngish wives who had supplanted an older and dowdier spouse at the time of some tycoon’s midlife crisis, might, as Charles had suggested, have engaged in amateur theatricals for one worthy cause or other, got bitten by the acting bug, decided it might be more fun to cut higher jinks for baser reasons, and persuaded a few of her equally bored friends to join her.

Just how an investigator might be able to winnow out a possible starter from among Dolores’s outdated assemblage of minor titans and their families, employees, golfing buddies, friends, enemies, and casual droppers-in was more than Sarah cared to hypothesize after the kind of day she’d had. Her knee was giving her fits, now that she had leisure to think about it. She ought to get up and take something for the pain.

If Max were here, he’d give her some aspirin, with a little tender loving care on the side. Gradually, through the pain, she was watching a vague recollection form of a newspaper that some man had been reading at the coffee shop. At the time, she’d been too distraught to pay it any attention but now her hyperactive subconscious was bringing up words like “Argentine pampas” and “bloodless coup.” Charles had been buying newspapers to see if there was anything in them about Dolores. Sarah had noticed a neatly folded late-afternoon edition lying unread on the coffee table when she’d tried to relax after her horrendous day. Why hadn’t she thought to bring it upstairs with her?

Thus ensued one of those arguments between self and self that never get anywhere. She couldn’t keep on popping in and out of bed or she’d never get any sleep. Argentina was a big country, stretching all the way down from Bolivia to Tierra del Fuego. Why shouldn’t Max be in some part of it that wasn’t having a coup? But if the area wasn’t in political straits, why weren’t its telephones working? Surely Max must know that she’d be worrying, after the way they’d got cut off on Sunday.

Her knee was throbbing, she ought to stay off it. Nevertheless, Sarah flung off the blanket, fumbled around with her toes until she’d managed to get her slippers on the proper feet, struggled back into her housecoat, limped to the bathroom, took two aspirin, and hobbled to the top of the stairs.

Women of good breeding did not shout down the stairwell at their butlers. Sarah shouted anyway. “Charles, would you bring me up the evening paper?”

Normally Charles loved to fetch and carry, this time he waffled. “Er—um—it’s not available, moddom.”

“Why not? It was still on the coffee table when I came upstairs.”

Sudden muttering at the other end meant that a colloquy was being held. After too long a pause, Charles called up the stairs, “Mr. Jem spilled his drink on it.”

“Nonsense! Uncle Jem never spilled a drink in his life, except down his own throat. Bring me that paper, Charles.”

“Yes’m.”

A person might have thought from the misery in his voice and the obvious reluctance with which he dragged one foot after the other up the stairs that Charles was only marking time until the tumbrel rattled up to carry him off to the guillotine. He presented the still rolled-up paper on a silver tray as stage protocol demanded and made a fast break for the door.

Sarah wasn’t having any of that. “Charles, come back here! What is it that you two are so desperate not to let me see?”

The butler cleared his throat. “It’s a bit—ah—upsetting.”

“What is?”

Before he could answer, the telephone that Brooks had installed beside the bed started to peal. This was one too many; Sarah boiled over.

“See who that is, Charles. I’m not at home to anybody unless it’s Max or one of the Rivkins.”

“As you wish, moddom.”

Conscious that the show must go on but looking as though he’d begun to wonder why, Charles picked up the phone and informed the mouthpiece that the caller had been connected with the Kelling residence. The caller was not taking the information in good heart. Charles was being given a hard time.

“I cannot say, moddom,” he managed to get in at last.

The caller found his reply unsatisfactory. Sarah mouthed the words “Uncle Jem” and pointed downward. Charles fell gratefully upon her suggestion.

“Mr. Jeremy Kelling is available. If you would care to hold the line a moment, I will apprise him of your desire to communicate.”

He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s Mrs. Boadicea Kelling.”

Aunt Bodie was absolutely the last straw. Sarah groaned. “Charles, I’m going underground. Tell Uncle Jem to say that no information can be given out about anything until Max can be reached, and that he’s now in Argentina with the lines down.”

“I’ll be delighted.”

Hanging up on Aunt Bodie was infinitely preferable to listening to Aunt Bodie. Nevertheless, Sarah felt a qualm of conscience. Boadicea Kelling was never one to chat on the phone for no worthwhile purpose, and particularly not after the hour of eight in the evening. It being by now almost a quarter to ten, all Sarah could think of was that some Kelling or other must have died. She laid the receiver on the bedside table so that she could hear when Uncle Jem came on the line, picked up the
Globe,
trying not to rustle the pages, and found the obituaries.

Here it was, close to the top of the list and very short. “Mrs. Sara Biterman of Ireson Town died early today of injuries sustained when she stepped in front of an oncoming vehicle. No funeral plans have yet been announced.”

Sarah did not hang up. Bodie was on the telephone now, demanding that Jem explain to her why she hadn’t been notified at once. So this was why Charles had tried to keep Jem’s niece from seeing the paper. How had the notice got into the paper so fast? Was this some bizarre practical joke, or had the driver of the gray Toyota been so sure of killing the woman he’d come after that he’d put in the notice beforehand to save himself the bother of doing it later?

Boadicea Kelling sounded genuinely upset. This was the oddest part of all, Bodie was almost never upset. Sarah couldn’t make out whether her aunt’s perturbation was due to the fact that the obituary notice had not been written in accordance with family protocol or because the paper had spelled Sarah’s name wrong. Bodie seemed to have been the only relative who’d decoded the misspelling and taken the trouble to make sure there was in fact no Mrs. Sara Biterman in Ireson Town.

The misspelling must have been inadvertent, it matched the envelope that had come to the office with the deadly hatpin inside. That the sender had had to use the office address and that the obituary gave Ireson Town instead of Ireson’s Landing as a home address indicated that the would-be murderer or murderers didn’t really know much about her and were too lazy, too stupid, or too self-assured to bother finding out.

Either they’d had Sarah Bittersohn pointed out to them in the flesh or else they’d had a clear photograph to go by. Either the hit-and-run driver was a stranger to her or was disguised as one. Either he truly believed he’d killed her or knew for a fact that he’d missed. If this had been the pair who’d harassed her on Sunday, the one who wasn’t driving could have acted as lookout to make sure the job was done and had instead seen the intended victim being dragged up on the sidewalk and assisted into the coffee shop by a uniformed policeman.

There were too many alternative possibilities here; all Sarah knew was that she had a husband and a child to live for, not to mention her multifarious connections. She’d been half asleep and not really thinking when she’d told Charles she was going underground, but why shouldn’t she do just that? Truly, what alternative did she have?

She’d need some backup, but that wouldn’t be hard with two ingenious rogues like Charles and Uncle Jem in the house. She’d have to let Lieutenant Harris know so that he wouldn’t waste time chasing down false clues. She’d have to get in touch with Ira Rivkin and persuade him to lend her a car. She couldn’t risk using her own and having the number plate traced. How she was going to manage with a banged-up knee would have to be worked out in the morning.

Uncle Jem would think of something. Right now he was playing Boadicea like a ukulele, pretending to be a good deal more squiffed than he was, spinning a tangled web of non sequiturs that Bodie’s logic-oriented tunnel vision couldn’t begin to cope with. When he suggested that Bodie phone loopy old Aunt Appollonia to get the facts straight, she gave up in disgust, having learned nothing except that it was high time Jem Kelling got packed off to a sanatorium.

Sarah hung up the extension phone feeling as though she’d got her head caught in Cousin Anne’s blender. It had been far from pleasant to see her own name in print on the obituary pages even though, as Mark Twain had cogently remarked in a similar circumstance, the report of her death was greatly exaggerated. And misspelled, to boot. The aspirin she’d taken was making her feel woozy. She turned out the bedside light and let her subconscious carry her wherever it chose to go.