The Odd Job (29 page)

“T
ELEPHONE, SARAH
.”

“Thank you, Ira.”

Sarah would far rather have stayed down by the lake and watched a heron catch its supper, but this must be Percy calling collect. She turned Davy over to his uncle and ran back to the cottage.

“Hello, Percy, how good of you to call. Yes, we had a lovely time together, I had no idea what an accomplished landscaper Anne is. No, I quite agree, Max would feel the same. I don’t know when he’ll be back, Percy, but I hope it will be soon. What a lovely idea, we’ll make a real celebration of it.”

Since Percy wasn’t paying for the call, he was quite willing to wax loquacious. Sarah had a bit of a struggle getting him around to the one thing she needed to know.

“Percy, can you tell me if the Turbots’ two cowboys drive a gray Toyota, and if so, do you know the year and the registration number? It’s important, or I wouldn’t be asking.”

Percy knew, and he told. Sarah couldn’t remember afterward whether she’d thanked him. Percy need not be sworn to secrecy; far would it be from him to squeal on an important client’s illegitimate sons, or whatever they were, unless he had to. However, Sarah lost no time putting in a call to the Boston police, who promised to call the Foxford police, who in turn telephoned the cottage to let its temporary residents know that they were scooping up the twins on a charge of attempted vehicular homicide. They sounded happy to do so; they’d been trying for some time to pin those unprintable persons on a major offense, and were pressing for a denial of bail, which they would get on the strength of the malefactors’ previous records.

Sarah went to bed a good deal easier in her mind than she’d felt since Sunday morning. With her would-be murderers safely locked up, she would not have to go through that distasteful dressing-up performance again tomorrow morning. She could even take Davy back to Ireson’s Landing and resume their normal life, though she hated to separate him from his new friends the minnows and the herons.

But there was still the problem of the Wicked Widows and Dolores Tawne’s death by hatpin, not to mention all those hypothetical stickpins in Dolores’s safe deposit box. As executrix, Sarah had a responsibility to see this enigma through to a resolution. Now there was also Joseph Melanson to be considered; she’d phone the hospital in the morning and find out whether he was sufficiently recovered to be allowed a visitor.

Sarah had always been an early bird, Davy must take after her side of the family. He was up with the sun, tugging at her to come and see the pretty bird with the funny hat on. Sarah recognized a kingfisher, nattily dressed in its white clerical collar and russet-banded white waistcoat, its touseled crest and back exactly the right shade of blue. As she and Davy watched, the kingfisher swooped down over the water and came up with a minnow. Sarah hoped its prey hadn’t been one of her son’s special pals.

“Come on, Davy. Let’s find ourselves a bite to eat.”

Sarah got milk and bread out of the camp-sized refrigerator, fixed herself a cup of tea and a piece of toast and her son a mug of milk and a bread-and-butter sandwich. They took their snack down to the beach. Davy offered a bite of his sandwich to the kingfisher but it wasn’t interested. Sarah had to explain that not all birds were like those ducks in the Public Gardens who chased after all comers, demanding largesse with ear-piercing squawks.

Miriam and Ira came wandering down to the lake about half past seven. They all watched the kingfisher awhile, then Miriam scooted them back to the cottage for a proper breakfast. After that, they sat around doing nothing in particular until Ira guessed he’d better phone the garage.

As soon as Ira had been reassured that nobody had walked off with his livelihood, Sarah put in her call to the hospital. Mr. Melanson had been upgraded from acute to merely critical, which she supposed ought to be taken as good news. The police officer who was guarding him had stipulated that nobody except another guard or a Mrs. Sarah Bittersohn was to be admitted. Was this Mrs. Bittersohn speaking? Sarah assured the voice on the other end that she was indeed Mrs. Bittersohn, that she was glad to hear Mr. Melanson was being properly guarded, and that she would come to the hospital between half past ten and eleven o’clock, if the time was acceptable.

Pleasantly surprised to learn that it was, Sarah went to do something about her hair now that she didn’t have to wear Noah’s beard any longer. The blouse she’d worn back from Ireson’s Landing yesterday would do for today with a little touch-up. The gray one that she’d bought with the flannel suit and hardly got to wear was still hanging in the downstairs bedroom closet at Tulip Street; it would come in handy if she couldn’t get back from Boston tonight. She pressed out the white blouse and the overworked skirt with an aged electric iron and a damp linen dish towel and was ready to travel.

Fortunately Davy was not the whining kind, a child so young would never have been allowed in the intensive-care unit. She’d have had to park him with Egbert and Uncle Jem, who’d probably have sung him naughty songs and offered him a martini; he was much better off here with the heron. Davy bore his mother’s departure with equanimity and presented her with a pure white gull’s feather as a going-away present. She stuck it in her lapel and set off for Boston.

The traffic was more incoming than outgoing at this time of day. Sarah entered the sprawling great hospital on the dot of ten-thirty, found the cardiac unit after a few false twists and turns, and saw to her relief that the policeman guarding Melanson was her good friend Officer Drummond.

“Good morning, Officer Drummond, what a nice surprise to find you here. How’s the patient doing?”

“He hasn’t said. Maybe you can get him to talk.”

“I’ll try.”

Sarah stepped to the patient’s bedside, trying not to startle him or trip over any of the paraphernalia that surrounded his bed. He was lying very still but didn’t look any worse than he had two nights before. “Hello, Mr. Melanson. I’m glad you wanted to see me, and sorry that I forgot to bring you another chicken sandwich. You don’t mind if I pull this chair closer to your bed? Be sure to let me know if I’m tiring you. Or boring you.”

“Never. Good to come.” Those few words left the patient gasping for breath, but he seemed relieved to have uttered them.

“Not at all,” Sarah replied as enthusiastically as she could manage in the presence of so many tubes and bottles and mysterious machines. “What was it you wanted to see me about?”

He took a while remembering. “Oh. Presents.”

She didn’t quite catch the word, was it presence or presents? She tried the latter. “Do you mean birthday presents, that sort of thing?”

“Christmas presents. Dolores’s bag.”

“Dolores was doing the Christmas shopping early and had bought a bagful of presents, is that right?”

“Yes, all wrapped. Pretty paper, red ribbons. All the same. Whole bagful.”

“Was it a big bag or a small one?”

“Medium. Full of presents.”

“They couldn’t have been very big presents, then.”

“No. Not big. Like medal boxes. I got a medal once. For spelling.”

“Good for you. When was it that you saw Dolores with the presents, Mr. Melanson? Can you recall the date?”

“August thirty-first. My birthday. No present for me.” The wraith in the bed managed somehow to dredge up a wry attempt at a smile. How long had it been since anybody had remembered this bashful old ditherer’s birthday?

Sarah smiled back. “Then we’ll have to give you a belated party when you get out of the hospital. You can be thinking about what you’d like for a present. As for Dolores, some people do like to get their Christmas shopping done in the summertime. Did she mention whom her presents were for?”

“Not hers. Keeping them for a friend.”

This was interesting. “She didn’t happen to mention the friend’s name?”

“Ages on the deep. Out of touch. It happens.” Melanson fell silent, Sarah waited. He drew a long breath. “Made her happy. Trusted.”

“The friend was trusting her to guard the presents but not to open them, was that it? Do you know where Dolores took them?”

“Home? Took them to lunch, came back without them.” Melanson was talking less painfully now. “Never mentioned it again. All those pretty presents. Water, please?”

“Let me pour it for you, here’s a straw to suck through. No, don’t try to raise your head, you might joggle some of those tubes loose. That’s a good patient.”

He drank, paused, drank again. Sarah gave him a short rest before she asked her next question. “Did Dolores happen to mention her friend’s name?”

“Silly name.
V
for victory.”

“It wouldn’t happen to be LaVonne LaVerne, by any chance?”

“Stupid name.
V
for vulgar.”

“Yes, isn’t it? Dolores must have been itching to open those presents, don’t you think? But she wouldn’t have broken her trust, would she?”

“Not poke my nose into other people’s business.”

Melanson was perking up, attempting to burlesque Dolores Tawne’s booming voice. He didn’t do it well, but the fact that he’d tried at all was heartening. Sarah laughed, as needs she must. Melanson shrugged as well as he could under his freight of tubes and wires. She could see that he was beginning to wane; she’d better leave.

“I’m so glad we’ve had this talk, Mr. Melanson, but I think I’d better go now and let you get some rest. I don’t want to tire you out.”

“Come again?”

“Oh yes, if your nurses will let me. I’ll ask on the way out.”

“Thank you. Worried. Friends not getting presents. Stupid of me. Dolores didn’t want friends. Only slaves.”

The sick man shut his eyes and slipped at once into what Sarah hoped was peaceful sleep. She went out to the front desk, where Officer Drummond was having a cozy cup of coffee with the attendant on duty.

“All set, Mrs. Bittersohn?” he asked her. “How did it go?”

“Quite well, I think.” She turned to the white-uniformed woman behind the desk. “I’m leaving now. Mr. Melanson asked me to come back. Is that all right?”

“I’d suggest you wait till tomorrow. The patient’s in a fragile condition, we don’t want to wear him out. Are you his daughter?”

“No, just a friend. Mr. Melanson has no relatives that I know of, but my husband and I have been acquainted with him for quite some time. Is he going to pull through?”

“We hope so.” The attendant had her eyes on the monitors and no time to waste on visitors. “Tomorrow, okay?”

It must be getting on for lunchtime. Sarah could hear the rattling of trays on serving carts. She asked Drummond if he had someone to relieve him at mealtimes.

“Yes, ma’am,” he assured her. “As soon as Officer Maule shows up, which should be any minute now, I’m through for the day. Seeing as how I’ve been on duty here since midnight, I don’t mind leaving.”

“Then perhaps you’ll let me buy you a lunch, with a string attached. Mr. Melanson’s just told me something about Dolores Tawne that should be looked into.”

“Hey, how about that? What’s a twelve-hour shift if I get to play cops and robbers afterward? Where were you planning to eat, Mrs. Bittersohn?”

“Wherever you say. I did think we might go back to that café in Kenmore Square, then drop in on Mrs. Fortune. By the way, have you heard that those two young fiends who tried to run me over are now in the county prison without the option of bail because they have such awful previous records? I’ll tell you about it over lunch; would you mind if we went in my car? It’s not mine, actually, but that’s part of the story.”

“No I wouldn’t mind a bit,” Drummond assured her. “One of the cruisers dropped me off here last night and I was planning to go home on the T. I live in Watertown, so Kenmore Square’s on my way. Ah, here’s my relief.”

Officer Maule was a woman in her middle years. She looked smart and purposeful in her uniform, good nature and common sense showed in her face; Melanson would be in good hands. Sarah nodded to Drummond and they went to get the car.

“There’s no special reason why we have to let Lieutenant Harris know in advance what we’re planning to do, is there? You’re off duty and I’m the executrix.”

Sarah knew she was babbling as they neared the car, having somehow found a parking space quite near the right entrance. She had to keep telling herself that nothing bad was going to happen this time and nothing did; except that after a day or two of Miriam’s cooking, the food at the café tasted rather flat. Since Drummond hadn’t had anything but a hospital breakfast, he thought it was just the ticket. Sarah urged him to order a second helping, he settled for a banana split on account of the potassium in the banana and ate every bite like a good cop while she dawdled over a cup of coffee and wondered whether she should have phoned Mrs. Fortune for an appointment. Too late now; she paid the check and stood up to go.

“I
S MRS. FORTUNE AVAILABLE
? Please tell her Mrs. Bittersohn and Officer Drummond would like to speak with her for just a few minutes.”

Luckily Mrs. Fortune was indeed available, and in a somewhat better humor today. “Well, we meet again. Don’t tell me you’ve found the key to another box, Mrs. Bittersohn.”

“No, two are quite enough, thank you. I suppose the inventory ought to be next on the agenda, but today I only want to ask you a question. Could you tell me, please, when Mrs. Tawne last visited her box? I believe it would have been August 31 of this year, but I need to have it verified. Were you working that day?”

“Let’s see, that was on a Wednesday. Yes, I must have been.” She flipped through the back pages of her desk calendar. “Right, she came in just about noontime. I remember because I was planning to meet a friend for lunch at half past twelve and I knew Mrs. Tawne would make a big production out of whatever she’d come for; she always did. This time she had a shopping bag, one of those fancy ones you get at stationery stores. It had a big Santa Claus with a lot of holly and stuff on the sides and was full of Christmas presents. At least I assumed they were, she had them all wrapped up in Christmas paper and tied with narrow red ribbons, the real satin kind with picot edging. It looked to me as though she was rushing the season, but naturally I didn’t say anything.”