A Midsummer Night's Scream (16 page)

His only suspect was Professor Imry. And Mel couldn't convince himself that Imry was guilty. He was sly, ambitious, and tactless. Not a likeable person. But that didn't mean he was a killer who could go haywire over someone correcting his grammar.

Mel wouldn't have minded suspecting John Bunting, even though there was no reason to. He was a drunk and a lech. He'd also based his lifelong career on the skills of his wife. Without her, he'd have been nothing.

A man of his age who ignored his only daughter and his grandchildren was slime. It would be a joy to put him away for good. And probably a relief to his wife. Ms. Bunting had been chained to him her whole adult life, having to support him by her own talent and hard work, he suspected.

He sat up straighter. Why not give his interviews with Bunting's old friends a quick review?

The men he'd spoken to about Bunting's alibi really had very little to say about him. They were clearly more in touch with each other and only saw him infrequently, on the rare occasions when he visited Chicago. None of them had much in common with him except the schools they'd gone to so many decades ago. Perhaps they merely put up with him when he wanted to get together with them.

He riffled through his paperwork on the telephone interviews he'd had with each of them. He was right. They talked about each other. Nobody had much to say about Bunting himself, except that they'd played golf with him one day, with a lunch afterward, and had a dinner with him as well.

It was Mel's own fault that he hadn't asked the right questions. The old boys were interesting and he'd let them off too easily. Because they were so old? No. None of them, however feeble in body, had seemed to have lost their wits and ambitions.

He'd interview them again, focusing on what they really thought about the actor. It might be useless. Or it might not be. Bunting wasn't a good man. Maybe he was a worse man than Mel knew. Or maybe not.

Of all the old friends of Bunting's he'd inter-

viewed before, the canniest was the attorney who was still going into the office, meddling. He'd succinctly answered the questions Mel asked and hadn't volunteered a single extra word.

Mel would make an appointment in the morning to see him in the office he still maintained.

The lawyer, Irving Walsh, welcomed him to his office Wednesday morning and asked a secretary to bring along coffee. "Do you mind if I smoke a cigar while we talk? I'll open a window if you wish."

"I like the smell of a good cigar, but have never smoked one. Please go ahead," Mel replied. He really hated the smell of cigars but wanted Walsh to be relaxed and content to talk.

When the secretary had left the coffee, a brand as expensive as the cigar, Mr. Walsh said, "We've spoken before, but on the phone. What more do you want to know?"

"There was a question I asked everyone else and neglected to ask you. After the dinner with your old friends and John Bunting, did you all leave the establishment together?"

Walsh picked up a silver-plated pen knife to cut the end off his cigar. When it was lighted and he had politely opened a window and turned on a small fan blowing toward the window, he said, "As a matter of fact, we didn't. John Bunting left early. He said his wife was waiting up for himand made a feeble joke about what a tight rein she kept on him."

"Did you happen to notice the time he left?"

"About an hour or forty-five minutes before the rest of us called it a night. Maybe about ten or a little earlier. I'd told my driver to pick me up at eleven."

"Are you certain of this?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because I asked the rest of the group you were with, and every one of them said you'd all left together and chatted on the sidewalk as your drivers arrived."

"They all had far more to drink than I did," Walsh said, fiddling with the growing ash on his cigar. I haven't had a single glass of anything alcoholic for years. Maybe they really thought he was still with us."

"Perhaps," Mel said. "Do you like John Bunting?"

"Why do you ask?"

"It's my job to ask nosy questions."

Walsh smiled. "So was it my job at one time. I'm still in the habit. No, I don't like him. The rest of us had the benefit of a good education and, I admit, family ties that helped us out. John has ridden on his wife's coattails, so to speak, for his entire adult life. If it weren't for her charm, talent, and hard work, he'd be out of work and broke. Or even dead by now. And unlike the rest of us, he

never talks about his daughter or grandchildren. He seems to have no interest in them."

"That's my impression as well, and the opinion of a friend of mine who knows them slightly," Mel admitted. "Do the rest of your old friends feel the same way about him?"

"Most of them. Except for Ed Kolwalski. He and Bunting were always in touch. Even in college, they stuck together. I suspected, but won't go on the record, that Ed was supplying Bunting with drugs from his dad's pharmacy. It might have just been vitamins, but they were so furtive about it that it made me wonder if it was something stronger."

"Do you think Kowalski still does this?"

Walsh nodded. "I'll deny I said this if this comes to court, but Ed passed a bottle of something to Bunting the night we got together. They were sitting next to each other, but I was on the other side of Ed and saw it changing hands."

"Thank you," Mel said. "And I'll try to use this, if I need to, without using your name."

"That will be tricky."

"It will. But I might not be required to use the information. Or you might like to testify if we need you to."

Walsh simply raised his eyebrows and took another puff of his cigar.

* * *When Mel returned to his office to make more detailed notes of his discussion with Irving Walsh, he had a message to call Hilda Turner at his convenience. He did so when he'd completed his notes.

"This is, I admit, rather silly, Detective Van-Dyne," she said. "I've thought and thought about Sven saying 'rabbit' and I think I might know why."

"Could you explain?"

Miss Turner sighed. "It's probably not going to help the least bit. Are you a father?"

"Not yet. Probably not ever," Mel said with a smile in his voice.

"Me too, not a mother," she replied, laughing. "Well, here is what I've remembered and it most likely means nothing. In the old days, mothers who had babies as winter approached used to make or buy these little pillowcase sort of bags. They were to keep the baby warm in a cold winter wind. There were a couple of buttons on each side and a sort of hood to put lightly over the baby's head to keep him or her warm."

"I think I grasp the concept. But where does a rabbit come into it?"

"Sven was a really little baby. Hardly more than five pounds, and he came home from the hospital with a cold. So my mother made him a rabbit-skin sack, lined with wool. He never had

another cold and grew fast. Pretty soon he was too big to fit in it, and it was summer. But he wouldn't part with it. Wouldn't go to sleep without it in his crib. When he was almost six and had rubbed off all the fur by then, he gave it up. So it's simply a comforting memory. He must have been dreaming about one of his favorite things in childhood."

"He certainly didn't sound comfortable when he said it," Mel replied.

"That's because he was trying so hard to say it right. Don't you think that's why?"

"It's possible, I suppose. Well, this probably isn't relevant to the case, but it is interesting. I don't think I've ever seen or heard of such a thing. But thank you for letting me know."

Mel hung up the phone, still smiling, and tidied up the rest of his files. Half an hour later, he felt he had everything sorted properly and dialed Jane.

When she answered, he said, "I've learned one thing about Sven and his saying 'rabbit' so forcefully"

Jane said, "It must be important. You sound so cheerful."

"No, I'm cheerful because it's completely irrelevant but kind of a funny story" He parroted what Miss Turner had explained.

"Oh, I know what those are. My grandmother used to make one for every single baby due to beborn close to winter. But not with rabbit fur, that I remember. She made them of soft flannel in several layers, the best color on the outside. Pretty soon, women from neighboring towns started asking her to make them for their own upcoming babies. She eventually made good money on them, and finally found a catalog that sold a pretty plaid flannel in shades of light blue, light green, light pink, and light yellow."

Jane thought for a second and said, "I think I still have one of them stashed away somewhere that she hadn't quite finished when she died. I'll try to find it to show you."

"Is this the grandmother who grew the bing cherries?"

"It is. She called the flannel bags baby buntings." She was silent for a moment and repeated, "Buntings."

"Bunting," Mel said. He was no longer cheerful.

Jane said, "Don't get carried away, Mel. It's sheer coincidence."

"Maybe not. The theater had lots of those brochures showing pictures and bios of the actors all over the place. They'd probably been printed well ahead of time. It's possible Sven couldn't quite remember the name and substituted something close to it. Something hauled up in his subconscious from his childhood."

"I know you probably dislike John Bunting as

much as most of the cast does, but that doesn't matter."

"Whether I like him or not isn't the point. I have to consider this as a possibility, though."

Twenty

Mel
turned up at the
rehearsal
that
evening.
It was a technical walk-through, he was told. He didn't ask what that meant. It was quite obvious. It mostly involved final lighting decisions. The actors walked through, saying their lines. Not with much feeling, apparently, and certain lights shifted with the action as they moved around the set.

One scene seemed to be causing trouble. "That dress is an unattractive color," the lighting expert from the college called down to the stage. "I've tried all my filters and nothing helps. Tazz, do you have a different dress we could use for this scene? Blue or green would be better than the violent red."

Everything came to a halt while the lighting expert, Tazz, Imry, and Joani consulted.

Mel slipped around the back, searching for John Bunting. He found him outside the stage door, smoking a cigarette.

"You a smoker?" Bunting asked, fishing in his jacket pocket.

"I used to be," Mel replied. "Go ahead with yours. I hear you lost a valuable golf club."

Bunting must have inhaled too fast and had a fit of coughing. "How did you hear that?" he finally managed to ask.

"I'm friends with Mrs. Jeffry, and your wife mentioned it at the needlepoint meeting."

"Friends, huh? She's a tasty-looking woman. Doesn't her husband mind?"

Mel wanted to punch him, but said mildly, "She's a widow. Her husband died in a car accident many years ago. What kind of golf club was this?"

"Why do you ask? Are you a golfer?"

"Yes, but not a good one," Mel said with a disarming smile.

"It was my best driver. Inherited the whole set from my father. Nice heft. Just the right length. He bought the set in Scotland in 1912."

"Would you like me to ask around to see if I can find out what became of it?" Mel offered, as if speaking offhandly.

"Why would you care?"

Mel shrugged. "I'm a detective. I have lots of connections. How do you think you lost it?"

Bunting was still a bit suspicious of this interest, but said, "All my boarding school pals and I played at our favorite course early in our visit.

Then we went to lunch. We left all our golf bags in the storage area. Apparently somebody ran into them and they all fell over. I assumed, when I first missed it, that whoever did it put mine back in the wrong bag. I've called all the men I was with to see if my driver was accidentally put into their bags, but they all checked, and it wasn't."

"I can see how that could happen, especially if it was someone who didn't know much about sets of clubs."

"Those minor employees at places like this are all foreigners these days," Bunting complained. "None of them have a brain in their heads."

Mel had to paste a fake smile on his face. "If you could describe it, I could ask around. It's probably in a secondhand store by now."

"No, thanks. I'll hunt for it myself."

"Suit yourself. Listen, I think I hear someone calling you," Mel lied.

Bunting went back inside. Mel walked away from the door and down the alley behind the theater and took out his cell phone. He called his office assistant, giving what the assistant probably thought were very odd instructions to do searches. And what to do with the evidence if it was located.

He went back into the theater, looking for Jane. He found her sitting in the front row of seats, needlepointing. She had something weird on her

head, like glasses with little flashlights at each side.

"That's cute," he said.

"It isn't cute at all," she said with a laugh. "But it lets me see what I'm doing. Why are you here tonight?"

"Just snooping around again. Have the caterers come yet?"

"They should be here any moment. Shelley just went to look for them in the alley. Good ones are getting thin on the ground. She's still hoping to find at least two that are really good, and is only pleased with one so far."