The Odd Job (24 page)

An hour or two of being browbeaten, threatened, and accused of crimes that would never have entered the wretched Melanson’s head would have left him in such a state that he’d have confessed to anything rather than endure any more of Turbot’s hectoring. If this was the way Turbot intended to run the Wilkins, then the Wilkins was in even worse trouble than it had been before that roaring windbag assumed the trusteeship.

Back at Ireson’s Landing, Sarah had had all she could do not to come straight out and tell Anne what she thought of Percy’s important client. But that would only have made Anne unhappy and Percy annoyed at Sarah’s presuming to pass a judgment which might be prejudicial to whatever devious, though no doubt strictly lawful, game Percy himself was playing. She decided to think about something else.

Such as what? Had Uncle Jem dredged up any further revelations about the Wicked Widows? Was the manager at the Fenway Studio Building clamoring for the inexperienced executrix to get the late Mrs. Tawne’s meager effects out of the studio she’d occupied for so many all-too-fruitful years so that a new tenant could be installed? Had some long-lost Agnew or Tawne shown up in quest of dear Dolores’s hypothetical jewels and stock certificates? Had Max telephoned, or sent a carrier pigeon, or, please God, got on an airplane headed for Boston with his Watteaus tucked underneath his arm?

Not Max’s Watteaus, of course, but the Wilkins’s. It was downright frightening to realize what a vast amount of wealth remained in the Madam’s pink palazzo despite the pillage that had gone on for so many years, despite the fact that too many of the alleged Old Masters were still Tawnes, despite the tenuous network of threads by which so solid-looking an edifice was now being held together. Turbot didn’t have the ghost of a notion as to what he ought to be doing. Dolores Tawne was not alive to tell him. Vieuxchamp was too slender a reed to lean on for any responsibility. None of the newer guards was worth a pinch of salt because Dolores had not wanted anybody around who might challenge her authority. And that nonsensical charge about poor old Milky Melanson was absolutely the outside limit.

Her mind wasn’t helping a bit, it always came back to the Wilkins. Sarah was so glad when they got to the Rivkins’ rented cottage that she might have knelt and kissed the sandy soil if it weren’t for her sore knee and her suspicion that Charles would consider the gesture uncouth. Besides, Kellings didn’t do such things. What would Davy think? Would he recognize his mother in this getup? Would he be frightened? Bored? Amused? Would he run away howling?

Sarah was winding up to panic when Miriam rushed out of the cottage in sawed-off jeans and one of Ira’s old work shirts. Ira himself scrambled up from the lake in bathing trunks and a yellow T-shirt with a camel silk-screened on the front. Beside him was a small boy in another of Ira’s T-shirts that came down almost to his ankles and had a platypus on it. At least Sarah thought the creature must be a platypus because she couldn’t think what else it might be.

When Ira caught sight of the aged crone in the impossible hat, he stopped short and began to grin. Davy had eyes only for his friend Charles. It was not until he’d told Charles all about the big blue bird with the long beak that went wading in the lake with him that Davy happened to notice the woman who was talking with Aunt Mimi. He gave her a thorough going-over without uttering a word, took one hesitant step forward, then hurled himself into his mother’s arms.

“Mummy got a dirty face.”

The grown-ups began to laugh, Sarah most joyfully of all.

“Yes, dear, I have. Don’t I look silly? How did you know me?”

“Because you’re Mummy. Come on, I wash your face. My turn this time.”

“Yes, dear, it’s your turn.” Sarah had her face buried in the wavy blond hair that her son had inherited from his father; Miriam said it would turn dark brown when he got into his twenties, as Max’s had. “Wasn’t I naughty to get my face so dirty?”

“Mummies don’t be naughty, just boys. And girls,” Davy added quickly, knowing that Aunt Mimi had strong views on chauvinism. It was merely that mothers came in a special category. “Come on, Mummy, it won’t hurt.”

“Sorry to spoil your handiwork, Charles, but you know how it is.”

Sarah let her son tug her along to the cottage’s one reasonably adequate bathroom and submitted to as vigorous a scrubbing as a child not yet three could reasonably manage. Then she shed the hideous silk blouse, which had got thoroughly drenched in the scrubbing, took off the improvised wig because her own hair wasn’t dirty and she didn’t want Davy’s idea of a shampoo, and put on one of Ira’s clean T-shirts that she happened to find on the chest in Davy’s room. It was blue with a design of two lovebirds wearing Uncle Sam hats, acrimoniously engaged in a feather-pulling political argument.

“I hope you don’t mind my swiping your shirt, Ira,” she said. “It seemed the thing to do.”

“Be my guest. Everybody wears my shirts but me, I have to steal Mike’s. Where the hell did you get hold of that outfit you were wearing in the car?”

“We have our methods. It’s rather a long story. Charles has to get back to Boston and he hasn’t had lunch.”

“What about you?”

“I had a bite of Cousin Anne’s stuffed celery. You must see what she’s doing with our front slope. It’s a burning shame that Percy’s such a prune about woman’s place being in the home, Anne would be a flaming success as a landscape gardener. Mr. Lomax is teaching her the mystique of fertilizing with fishheads and she’s happy as a clam at high water. Be sure to drop by Ireson’s Landing when you get home from the lake.”

“We may not go home at all,” Miriam put in. “We like it here, don’t we, Davy.”

“Mummy stay?”

“I hope so, dear,” said Sarah. “For a while, anyway. You must show me how to catch a minnow.”

“Okay. Then we put it back and it goes home to its mummy and daddy. Right, Uncle Ira?”

“Couldn’t be righter, big fella. Want to show your mother how you help Aunt Mimi set the table?”

“Allow me,” said Charles, “I’m trained for the job. Come along, Dave, show me where they hide the forks and spoons.”

The cottage that Miriam and Ira had rented was nothing special except for a good-sized screened porch that overlooked the lake and was equipped with a redwood picnic table and benches. There could hardly have been a pleasanter place to sit and eat the good food that Miriam loved to provide. A big salad, a platter of sliced turkey and roast beef left over from the weekend, a heaped cheese board, and real, non-squishy rye bread to build sandwiches with were paradise now. There was lemonade made with real lemons to drink, unless anybody preferred milk, iced tea, hot coffee, or something in a can with a diplodocus on the label that Mike had bought in a spirit of gastronomical research. Nobody felt inclined to venture on the diplodocus juice just then, which was probably a good thing.

“Now what’s all this about, the Ashcan Annie getup and you needing a car?” Ira wanted to know after they’d finished their meal and got Charles on the road with warm good-byes from the Rivkins and a sleepy wave from Davy, who was still having afternoon naps. Fortunately the child had dropped off quickly, wearing his mother’s ugly hat and clinging to the stuffed llama that he’d named for Uncle Dolph Kelling. Sarah seized the moment and got down to business.

“I’ve told this story to Anne and I’m telling it to you two because Max isn’t here and I have Davy to think of. The gist of it is that somebody apparently wants to kill me.”

“For God’s sake,” barked Ira. “What for?”

“Good question. All I can tell you is that it started Sunday afternoon. Cousin Anne had called me up quite unexpectedly on Sunday morning and asked me to lunch with her and Percy at the Turbots’. They’re clients of Percy’s; the reason I was invited is that Elwyn Fleesom Turbot—that’s his real name—has just been elected chairman of trustees at the Wilkins Museum. As you of course know, Max and I have been involved with the Wilkins ever since before we were married. In fact, he’s evidently nailed down those two Watteaus he was after; I spoke to him early on Sunday, but the line went dead in the midst of our conversation and I haven’t heard a yip from him since. Anyway, I was there by myself feeling bereft when Anne called. I’ll admit I was curious to meet the new chairman, so I got dressed and went.”

“Do you think Turbot’s going to be any good?” asked Miriam.

“Yes, no, and maybe. Take your pick. He doesn’t know beans about art, but Percy seems to think he’s pretty sound on the fiscal side, which is more than can be said for the museum’s finances right now. Anyway, we got through the meal, which was fairly depressing, but that’s beside the point. Then, all of a sudden, Turbot lit into me about Max’s being in breach of contract with the Wilkins. That was nonsense, because we’ve never had a contract. I told him so and he went up in flames. He’s the sort of chest-beating he-man who doesn’t take kindly to being lectured by females who know more than he does; which wouldn’t have to be much, I can tell you. And I must say I don’t like being called a dumb little cutie-pants.”

“So that’s why Turbot tried to kill you?”

“Oh, no. What I think is that somebody’s out to get Turbot because there’s still some kind of racket going on at the Wilkins and whoever’s running it doesn’t want a real, live go-get-it executive heading the board. As for myself, I’d say it’s most likely a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m guessing that ever since Turbot was formally elected to the board last Thursday, there’s been a stakeout at his cattle farm. He raises incredibly pedigreed polled Herefords but they don’t taste all that good, at least not the way his cook, if they have one, hacked up the meat into what they seemed to think was boeuf bourguignon.”

Miriam was horrified. “What a dreadful waste, unless they were just using up some odds and ends. Stewing in wine, which is essentially what the bourguignon comes to, is simply a way of tenderizing tough beef. If I had a lovely big, expensive cut from a pedigreed steer, I’d just cut off any excess fat, shove it in the roasting pan with a pinch of this and a dollop of that, and let nature take its course. Or I could lather it with chopped liver and make a beef Wellington if I wanted to be fancy and knew how to make a decent pastry to wrap it in. Or just cut some steaks and grill them. She must be nuts.”

“She who?” said Ira.

“Good question. Mrs. Turbot, I suppose, if there is one.”

“Oh, there is,” Sarah assured her sister-in-law. “They call her Lala and she comes gift-wrapped in gold. Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, bangle bracelets all the way up to her armpits and a designer-model pantsuit creation that made me want to cry with envy because it matched her toenails so beautifully.”

“Is the color of Lala Turbot’s toenails germane to the issue at hand, Sarah?” Ira put in. “I ask because we’ve only got the cottage for another two weeks and I’d like to get to the point of this discussion before we go home.”

“Ira, that’s not funny,” Miriam expostulated. “Sarah has come to us for help. The least we can do is let her tell her story at her own pace.”

“I’ll try not to be too tedious, but thank you both for your interest,” Sarah replied. “At this point I have no idea whether Lala Turbot’s toenails are germane to the issue or not. All I know is that two people I assume to be young men, though I can’t be sure, tried to run me down on the way to Boston. I’d left my car in Anne and Percy’s driveway and ridden to the Turbots’ with them. It wasn’t until I’d picked up my own car and got out on the Boston road that these two fellows showed up and started pulling their tricks. I ditched them easily enough because I’ve been over that road ever since Alexander taught me to drive in the old Studebaker.”

“So you got to Boston all right,” said Miriam. “You didn’t go into that underground garage by yourself, I hope.”

“Oh no,” Sarah reassured her. “By some miracle, there was an open parking space on Tulip Street, almost in front of the house. Charles must have been waiting for me at the window, he galloped out to open the door and told me that Dolores Tawne had invited herself to tea at five o’clock. She’d do that every once in a while. He had everything ready but Dolores never showed up, which was not at all like her. About half past five, one of the Wilkins’s security guards called up in a dreadful tizzy, howling for Brooks. He and the only other guard left in the place had found Dolores lying dead in the courtyard, contrary to museum protocol, and didn’t know what to do with her. They really are a pack of idiots over there.”

Sarah went on, describing in more detail than she’d done with Anne how she’d become personally involved in the situation by learning that Dolores had taken the far greater liberty of naming Sarah her executrix; and that an old-fashioned steel hatpin had turned Dolores’s apparently natural death into a case of murder. She described her own hairbreadth escape from a hit-and-run death in busy Kenmore Square, the staggering surprise that had turned up in one of Dolores’s safe deposit boxes, and the weird imbroglio of the second box and the Wicked Widows.

“So you see what a mess I’ve been landed in. I’m far more concerned for Max than I am for myself; but there’s nothing I can do for him here except try to keep the ship afloat and trust that you’ll take care of Davy if anything happens to me before he gets back. Please understand that I’m doing all I can to stay alive, even if it means wearing that outfit Charles dug out of the thrift shop. You had to know what’s going on, but I don’t want to drag you in any farther than I can help. I’ll disappear right now if you feel uncomfortable about my being here.”

Miriam’s answer was brusque. “Don’t be silly. Stick your leg up on the bench, I want to look at that knee.”

“I put a fresh bandage on it this morning.”

“Sure you did. Get me a basin of warm water, Ira. And the peroxide. And the first-aid kit.”

“And a stretcher and an ambulance and a snifter of brandy in case she faints on us?”

“If she faints, how can she drink the brandy, nudnick?”

“The brandy’s for me, in case
I
faint.” Ira stooped and planted a kiss on the top of his wife’s head. “Gesund auf deine käppele, I’ll be right back.”