The Odd Job (23 page)

Sarah cleared her throat and spoke in her own voice. “Oh yes, I remember you well, Anne. Don’t you know me?”

“You’re not Aunt Calpurnia?”

“No, just me.”

“Sarah! I can’t believe it. You fooled me completely. Wait till I tell Aunt Bodie.”

“You mustn’t! Sorry to be so abrupt, but—” Sarah couldn’t remember one word of her carefully worked-out speech. “Let’s go in and sit down, we need to talk. But first I have to tell you what a positively breathtaking job you’re doing here. I wouldn’t have believed our scrubby old hillside could look like this. Come on, you must be ready for a cup of tea. You did recognize Charles, surely?”

“No, I didn’t, not a bit. My goodness, Charles, what have you done to yourself?”

“Merely added a red wig and a pair of sideburns. If you ladies want to talk, would you mind my strolling down on the beach for a little while?”

“Not at all,” said Sarah. “Just don’t go too far from the house, we’ll need to get on the road again fairly soon.”

They watched him down the long flight of wooden steps that led from the top of the cliff to the rocky strand far below.

“Should we have offered him some tea first?”

Anne was stripping off her gardening gloves and canvas apron, looking wistfully at the plants that she’d been about to dig in among the fishheads, then eagerly back to this intriguing chameleon of a cousin.

“No,” said Sarah. “Charles ate a huge breakfast. He’ll be fine until we get to the Rivkins’, you know how Miriam is about food. They’re keeping Davy for me, which is what I have to talk about. Part of it, anyway. Is the house unlocked?”

“Yes, I always open a few windows when I come, you know how a place gets when it isn’t aired regularly.”

“Really, Anne, you are a marvel. I gather Mrs. Blufert’s still under the weather.”

“Apparently so. Mr. Lomax says it’s malaria that Mrs. Blufert picked up when she was stationed in the Philippines as a navy nurse. She comes down with a bout of it regularly once a year.”

“My goodness,” said Sarah, “you know more about this place than I do. I’m glad to have found you alone, Anne, because I’m in some rather serious trouble. Charles put this getup together for me because I had to see you and didn’t dare show myself as I really am. The thing of it is, you see, that I’m supposed to be dead.”

“Sarah, you can’t mean it!”

“I know, it sounds crazy, but there it is. Fill the kettle, will you? I’ll see what there is to eat, if anything.”

“Please don’t fuss for me, Sarah. I’ve brought my lunch, it’s in the fridge. We could split an egg sandwich.”

“Thanks, Anne. I had eggs for breakfast, but I wouldn’t mind snitching a piece of your stuffed celery. You don’t take milk in your tea, I hope; there doesn’t seem to be any.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I drink it plain more often than not.”

Poor Anne, Sarah could see that her cousin-in-law was having a hard time bracing herself for a life-and-death secret. If this were a case of white fly or black spot or even cabbage worm, Anne would have faced the crisis without batting an eyelid, but the prospect of drinking tea with a dead relative was something else again. One could hardly blame her for clinging to inconsequentials.

“I’m sorry I startled you, Anne,” Sarah apologized. “Here, try some of this havarti cheese, I just bought it Saturday morning. The crackers should be fresh enough. One has to keep them in a tin, you know, living so close to the water.”

The kettle began to sing, the cups were set out, the teapot filled. Sarah decided it was safe to get down to business.

“I didn’t dare just leave you hanging, Anne. Aunt Bodie’s already seen an obituary notice that somebody put in the
Globe
and is champing at the bit to get on with the funeral. Luckily Uncle Jem was at Tulip Street when she phoned, and rose to the occasion beautifully. He rambled on about how nothing could be done until Max came home and made her so furious that she hung up on him. You know Uncle Jem, one has to laugh when he puts on one of his performances. I do have to admit it was a trifle unnerving to look in the paper and read that I’d been jaywalking and got run over. Fortunately, whoever put it in spelled my name wrong and put Ireson Town instead of Ireson’s Landing, so I don’t suppose anybody except Aunt Bodie made the connection.”

Anne was outraged. “What a detestable thing to do! I do hate practical jokes, they’re neither practical nor funny. Who do you think it was?”

“Whoever is trying to kill me. Not to spoil your lunch, but just look at this.”

Sarah pulled up her rumpled skirt and rolled her gray stocking down to the ankle. “I don’t want to take the bandage off my knee because it’s trying to scab over, but you can see from the state of my shin that this was no joke. I was deliberately run down in Kenmore Square yesterday about one o’clock by a couple of fellows who’d already tried to harass me Sunday afternoon, when I was on my way from your house, in the same car with the same number plate. A Boston policeman grabbed me just in time or I’d have been under the wheels. There were other witnesses, I can get you a signed affidavit if you don’t believe me.”

“Of course I believe you, Sarah. It’s just that one doesn’t expect—”

“I know, I wasn’t expecting it either.”

“But what was the point? You said you were harassed after you’d left our house. Surely you don’t think it was anybody we know?”

“I doubt that very much. It’s more likely that we’d been followed back from the Turbots’ because of something related to Mr. Turbot’s being made the new head of trustees. Anyway, I’m quite sure I ditched the car that had been tailing me. But when I got to Tulip Street, Charles told me that Mrs. Tawne had called to say she was coming to tea at five o’clock. You’ve met Dolores Tawne.”

“Oh yes, the one who used to be so good with the peacocks and so bossy with people. I’d wondered how she and Elwyn were going to get along. Of course, now that she’s dead it doesn’t matter. You never did tell me exactly
how
she died.”

“Well, you can stop worrying. Dolores never showed up for tea, which bothered Charles and me very much because she’d always been punctual to the dot. Then, about half past five, one of the security guards called from the museum to say that Dolores was lying dead in the courtyard.”

“Were the flowers badly mashed?”

Who but Anne could have thought of that? Dire as the situation was, Sarah had to fight with herself not to laugh.

“I don’t know, Anne. The guards who found her body were in such a state that they hadn’t even thought to call the police. I explained what they ought to do and they did it; at the time it appeared that she must have had a heart attack or something of that sort. So they carted her off, poor thing. The police got her keys out of her handbag and went to her studio in the Fenway building. Her will was there and, would you believe, she’d appointed me as her executrix.”

“You mean she hadn’t asked you first?”

“No, she had not.” And Sarah was still none too happy about it. “But what can one do? Dolores was more an old acquaintance than a real friend; still, she was a human being and there doesn’t seem to be anyone else. I suppose I’d brought it on myself, actually. After her brother died a few years ago, she’d asked me where she could find a lawyer who’d draw up a will for her. I mentioned Mr. Redfern mainly because he was handy.”

“And honest,” Anne added. “Percy says Redfern’s an old stick, but at least he can be trusted. So what did you do, Sarah?”

Sarah told her tale yet once again. As she’d expected, Anne focused on the hatpin.

“Oh, my! I hadn’t thought of those hatpins in years, they were like skewers. Cousin Phoebe and I used to swipe Grannie Ba’s. Not her best ones, of course. There was one with a little celadon mouse on top that I just loved. I think it went to Cousin Harriet, I must ask Aunt Bodie; she’ll know. Anyway, Phoebe and I would sneak one out of the bandbox where Grannie Ba kept her rainy-day hat and her spare switch, and poke marshmallows onto it and toast them over a lighted candle. I don’t quite know why, they got all sooty and sticky and tasted of candle smoke, but we thought it was fun.”

Sarah wasn’t in the mood for childhood reminiscences; she’d better get out of here and leave Anne to her landscaping. “I’m so glad I’ve had the chance to see what marvelous things you’re doing here,” she said, “but I do have to go on to the lake so that Charles can get back to Boston in time to fix dinner for Jem and Egbert.”

“I hate to see you in such a predicament, Sarah. I wish there were some way I could help.”

“Anne dear, you’re already helping. It’s been such a relief, having this quiet chat with you in my own house and seeing you taking such wonderful care of the place. I do want to emphasize again, though I’m sure you understand, that I’m not talking through this awful hat. I’m just trying to lie low and not get killed until Max gets home. Naturally you’ll want to tell Percy. That’s fine with me, he’s the soul of discretion. I strongly suggest that neither of you say anything about me to anybody; particularly the Turbots. Don’t even mention my name if you can help it. Mr. Turbot has troubles enough already, though he may not know it yet.”

“Oh, he knows it,” Anne assured her. “Elwyn phoned Percy at the office late yesterday afternoon, he was raving mad over some big fiscal mess he’s discovered at the museum. He seemed to think it was Percy’s fault, somehow. Percy made it plain from the start that he’d never been in any way involved with the Wilkins until Elwyn dragged him into it, but Elwyn went right on shouting. Percy claims Elwyn was just blowing off steam. Percy does tell me things in confidence, you know. We’re like you and Max.”

Sarah let that one pass. Anne was still holding the floor. “Elwyn does have a pretty wild temper when he gets going. I can picture him charging around among the statues and the bibelots like a buffalo in a china shop. Or do I mean bison? Not that it matters, I don’t suppose. But anyway, Elwyn certainly gave Percy an earful. He doesn’t yet know what’s been going on, but he’s bound and determined to get to the bottom of it, and heaven help those poor old trustees. Elwyn says he’s going to sweep the whole bunch of them straight out the door, he claims they’re all in cahoots with one of the guards. Melanson, I believe Percy said. You must know who he is.”

“Yes, I do, but it can’t be Melanson. Nobody with half a brain would pick on poor old Milky. That’s what the other guards call him; he wouldn’t say boo to a mouse, much less a goose.”

Anne shook her head. “I don’t know, Sarah. Percy always says it’s the mousy ones you have to watch. And Percy does have this perfectly maddening habit of being right.”

K
NOWING THAT CHARLES WAS
a city boy born and bred, Sarah didn’t waste any time looking for him clambering joyously among the rocks down below the cliff or even out in front of the house admiring Anne’s miraculous landscaping. He was just where she’d expected, stretched out in a comfortable lounge chair on the ocean side of the deck that ran all around the house, watching a seagull try to open a clam but not offering it any help. Sarah refreshed the sickly lavender-colored lipstick that made her look like Dracula’s mother adjusted her awful hat to an even more unbecoming angle, and pronounced herself ready to travel. Charles was more than willing to get back on the road.

The Kellings were not a huggy and kissy family, but Sarah hugged Anne anyway. Anne took it quite well, considering.

“I do hate to see you go, Sarah.”

“I hate to leave, but I am anxious about Davy. I’ll be in touch with you, Anne. If it should become necessary to reach me for any reason, all you need do is telephone the Tulip Street house. You have the number and somebody will be there to take a message. Tell Percy the phone line has been bug-proofed, if it makes him feel any better. Good-bye for now, and thanks for everything.”

Charles assisted his passenger into the car with a little extra panache, no doubt regretting inwardly that he didn’t have a buffalo robe to spread over the moddom’s afflicted limb and show Mrs. Percy how classy a chauffeur could be. Then they were off. Once safely down the steep drive, he glanced back over his shoulder.

“How are we for time?”

“Slightly pressed. I hope you’re not too hungry. You needn’t spare the horses, as I believe Great-Aunt Matilda used to say before Great-Uncle Frederick sold the team to an iceman and bought the Hupmobile, but I’d rather we didn’t get caught for speeding.”

“You and I both, moddom. The chap I borrowed this hack from tends to wax a trifle sniffy if anybody lands him with a summons when he wasn’t even in the car.”

“Surely you’d never do a thing like that, Charles.”

“Not I. Such presumption would bespeak a lack of couth, which is something to which I do not stoop.”

This was pretty much the end of their conversation. Charles concentrated on his driving. Sarah couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything for long, there were too many different bits and pieces demanding her attention all at once. That Elwyn Turbot was chewing nails and spitting tacks over the sad state of the Wilkins’s finances was only to be expected, but why hadn’t the silly oaf asked to see the books before he took on the trusteeship?

As for Melanson’s having been an undercover knave all these years, that was just plain ridiculous. Granted that worms did turn on occasion, why should meek old Milky finally have got around to doing what he might have done years ago if he’d been so inclined? Particularly just after a fire-eating new head of trustees had replaced the sweet but ineffectual nonagenarian who, until his not-so-recent death, had occupied a position on the board that he’d never wanted and had known himself to be incapable of filling.

All those years of standing watch over Madam Wilkins’s more blatant mistakes might have taught a guard to sleep on his feet without getting caught, and probably had. That would have been the extent of Melanson’s derelictions, though, if such they could have been called. Turbot had been looking for a scapegoat because he was that sort of man, as Sarah herself had reason to know. His attempt to bully her had fizzled; this time he’d been careful to pick a victim who was obviously not going to fight back.