Major Vices (14 page)

Jill darted her grandmother a curious look. The younger woman's face hardened, but she said nothing and stepped back, as if temporarily withdrawing from the fray.

At the desk, Mrs. Wakefield was glowering in frustration. “You'd think he would have written the combination down someplace,” she muttered. “He didn't go out there but once or twice a year. How could he have remembered it?”

“Out where?” Judith inquired, leaning on the opposite side of the desk.

In defeat, Mrs. Wakefield slammed the middle drawer shut. “The garage. The safe's behind that old calendar.”

“Ah,” said Judith, then fingered her chin thoughtfully. “I don't mean to be pushy, but sometimes I can figure out combinations.” Seeing the surprised expression on everybody's face but Renie's, Judith assumed a self-deprecating stance. “When my first husband and I owned a restaurant years ago, he had a safe there. He was always changing the combination and he'd forget to tell me, so when he wasn't around and I had to get at the ready cash, I'd…uh…fiddle…with…the…lock.”

Renie, who knew that Judith had been forced to crack the safe simply to get enough money to pay for a week's worth of groceries, turned away. She also knew that on more than one occasion her cousin had found not cash, but tote tickets from the racetrack. Judith had learned a lot of ways to fix tuna fish.

Aunt Vivvie and Mrs. Wakefield exchanged questioning glances. “Well?” said the housekeeper in her husky voice.

Slowly, Vivvie turned to Judith. “It's a great deal to ask, dear,” she said, feigning reluctance. “But it wouldn't hurt to try.”

Jill led the way, first stepping aside for Weed Wakefield, who was ambling into the den with a pair of pinking shears. As Judith passed him, he was attempting to cut away one of the cardboard flaps. Buck Doerflinger's voice roared through the entry hall and bounced off the walls of the den:

“Stop! Don't touch that box!” Buck hurtled into the room, pouncing on Weed Wakefield. The detective's white suit was tarnished and rumpled; his pink face was turning plum. “You're destroying evidence, you idiot! I've solved this case and that carton is the biggest clue of all!”

J
UDITH WAS FAR
more interested in hearing Buck Doerflinger's solution to the homicide case than she was in working her magic on Uncle Boo's safe. But the detective shooed everyone out of the den—except Weed Wakefield. He not only insisted that Weed remain, but ordered Officer Foster to keep an eye on him. As an afterthought, Buck also insisted that Mrs. Wakefield stay behind.

“Are you nuts?” the housekeeper growled. “Weed isn't exactly the type who plans ahead. What do you want to nail him for?”

Buck glared at Mrs. Wakefield. “Let's start with possession of an illegal substance. We can run right up the scale until we hit Murder One, okay?”

Mrs. Wakefield's horrified gasp followed the cousins out of the den.

“Goodness,” moaned Vivvie, “that policeman seems awfully excited! Do you really think he knows who the killer is?”

Unable to believe in Buck Doerflinger, Judith shrugged. “He may,” she allowed. “At least he could be on the right track.”

Vivvie Rush led the way into the garage. Judith and Renie dutifully followed, with Jill bringing up the rear.

“There,” said Vivvie, pointing a stubby finger at the old calendar. “The safe's under that.”

Briefly, Judith wished she hadn't offered her safecracking services. It had been quite different to open Dan's safe at the restaurant. She'd known his so-called lucky numbers and had rightly figured he would use them as a combination. The only trick had been to determine the order. That, and a lot of patience. She approached Uncle Boo's safe with considerable trepidation.

“You know,” she said in an apologetic tone, “I shouldn't make promises. This might be harder than you'd think. We could start with Uncle Boo's birthday, since we know the date.”

“Yes, yes,” enthused Vivvie. “What a good idea!”

Judith didn't agree, but was honor-bound to give it a try. Resignedly, she removed the calendar from the rusty nail that held it in place. With her ear to the safe, she touched the dial. The steel door swung free.

The safe was already open, and the Major jewels were gone.

 

Holly bent over her mother-in-law's inert form and pulled the stopper from a bottle of smelling salts. Vivvie twitched, shuddered, and choked.

“Oh! That's nasty!” she cried, waving away the offending restorative.

“You fainted!” Holly exclaimed, her own hands now shaking and her legs unsteady. “What happened? Jill ran to tell me you passed out from shock!”

Judith and Renie were struggling to get Vivvie on her feet. The older woman had collapsed between the wall and the running board of the Rolls-Royce. Lifting her was like coping with a lead-filled Kewpie doll, but the cousins managed to prop her up against the car. Judith explained what had caused Vivvie to keel over.

A flush crossed Holly's delicate features. “Oh, no! A jewel thief! And a murderer! It's impossible!”

Jill had returned to the garage, too, with her father and Buck Doerflinger in tow. Jill was white around the lips; Buck was trying to disguise his dismay.

Derek Rush, however, showed concern only for his mother. “Are you all right? Should we call a doctor?”

Vivvie shook her head. “It's…all so…upsetting! First poor Boo! Now the jewels! What next?” With her plump shoulders resting on the Rolls's gleaming exterior, she cast a blue-eyed challenge at Buck. “How could you let a robbery occur while you were in this very house? Someone should write a letter to the Mayor!”

Moving gingerly so as to avoid further blemishes on his white suit, Buck Doerflinger went to examine the safe. A hush fell over the garage as he took his time.

“Picked clean. Anybody touch this?” he asked, jerking a thumb in the direction of the open safe.

Weakly, Judith lifted a hand. “I did. Barely.”

Buck faced Judith, feet splayed, fists on hips. His white eyebrows quivered; the barrel chest seemed to vibrate under the now-limp dress shirt. “Why?” The single word echoed off the garage walls.

She offered him her most innocent expression. “I was trying to open it, at Aunt Vivvie's request.”

He continued to try to stare her down. “You answer a lot of requests, lady. What are you, a troubleshooter—or just plain trouble?”

Judith's innocence was replaced by impatience. “Look, I had three other people with me. They'll all tell you that the safe was already open. I probably wouldn't have managed it on my own, but I felt an obligation to give it a try.”

Buck's sneer wasn't reassuring. He stepped to the inside door of the garage and called to Officer Rigby for reinforcements. “Get out of here,” he ordered the onlookers, waving his arms to shoo them away. “We've got work to do. We may have apprehended the murderer, but that doesn't make him a thief, too.”

Derek and Holly supported Vivvie between them; an unusually somber Jill followed her family out of the garage. Renie followed Jill, but Judith trailed. She couldn't resist asking Buck Doerflinger a pointed question:

“On what evidence are you arresting Weed Wakefield?”

Buck bristled. “How do you know we're arresting
him?
”

Judith tried not to gnash her teeth. “That's what it sounds like, from what you said in the den a few minutes ago. You also said that the TV carton was evidence. How can that be?”

From deep in his throat, Buck chuckled richly. “Police work is pretty complicated, Mrs. McMonigle. You probably watch a lot of movies and television where detectives go around matching lipstick on cigarette butts and finding pads of paper with impressions of telephone numbers written on a sheet of paper that's been torn off. Let me tell you, in real life it doesn't work that way. We homicide detectives have to take those bits and pieces for what they are, and then use our God-given ingenuity. That's what makes for an airtight conviction and gets cops like me commendations from City Hall.”

Judith appeared to be mesmerized by Buck's little speech. “Gosh, that's fascinating!” She stepped aside as Officer Rigby appeared. “You solved this case with a cardboard box! I'm…amazed!”

Briefly, Buck looked as though he doubted Judith's sincerity. But his oversized ego finally conquered his common sense, and he bestowed a patronizing smile on her. “It wasn't that hard. You got a locked room, you got a dead body, you got a big box. How did the killer do it? Easy. You ask a lot of questions. You find out who was where when. Which of the suspects was the only one
not
to show up at the door to the den? That Wakefield clown, that's who. So what happened? He locks himself inside the den with the victim, shoots him, and hides in the carton. Nobody thinks to look, and he scoots out while everybody's waiting in the living room for the police to show up. Clever, huh? But not clever enough for Buck Doerflinger!”

The detective seemed to swell before Judith's eyes. He savored the moment of triumph, then scowled. “Now run along, lady. You've had your lesson in detection today from the master!”

With a murmur of appreciation, Judith wandered into the entry hall, looking for Renie, who had disappeared with the others. The door to the den was still closed. Pre
sumably Officer Foster was keeping Weed Wakefield under lock and key. Judith heard voices in the living room, but a quick glance told her Renie had not joined the others.

A hissing sound emanated from the opposite direction. Through the dining room, Judith saw her cousin's head poke around the kitchen door.

“Pssst!” Renie gestured with a finger.

Judith hurried to join her. “What's up?”

“Me, officially.” Renie pointed to the teapot-shaped clock above the sink. “It's ten o'clock. I came out to get more coffee.”

Judith gave her cousin a sickly smile. Renie hated rising early, and usually her brain didn't function very well before ten. But this morning, at Major Manor, she had come alive as soon as her feet hit the floor. Renie claimed that if the weather was fogged in, her brain was not.

“Ordinarily,” she further elucidated, pouring coffee for Judith and herself, “I love fog. It obliterates everything else, and gets my creative juices going. Bill says it's because fog is like an eraser—it wipes the canvas clean, visually and psychologically. He says there are no distractions; thus I'm able to—” Noting Judith's glum expression, Renie broke off. “Hey, what's wrong, coz? You look crappy.”

“It's Buck,” Judith said flatly. She explained the detective's solution of the case.

Renie gaped. “That's crazy,” she said.

Judith arched her eyebrows at Renie. “Is it?” She heaved a gusty sigh. “Sure, it
sounds
crazy. But it is possible. There's even a certain logic to it. The problem is that I can't figure out a better solution. I'm afraid Buck Doerflinger may be right. Damn! Joe will pitch a fit!”

 

Slowly, inexorably, the fog was beginning to lift. From the third-floor gabled window, the cousins could see patches of sky through the wispy gray morning. They could not, however, see anything of interest in the unfinished attic. Helga Major's sewing equipment, including an old Singer treadle machine, a dressmaker's dummy, and
three cabinets of thread, fabric, and patterns, filled up most of the space.

“Boo's mother must have been quite a seamstress,” Judith remarked, still sounding disheartened. “I suppose it was her hobby.”

“The old girl had to do something,” Renie replied, more interested in the emerging view than the attic's contents. “You know, if they finished the attic off, they could see all over the place, just like when the house was built. Look, there's the bay! We may get out of here in an hour or two.”

Judith glanced halfheartedly through the mullioned window, then resumed leaning against the tongue-and-groove hemlock paneling. “Maybe. Just because the fog lifts doesn't mean the ice will melt. The outside thermometer still registered under thirty degrees just before we sneaked up here.”

“The sun's burning the fog off,” Renie countered. “It'll warm up everything. Hey, coz,” she went on in a coaxing voice, “cheer up. It's not your fault Buck Doerflinger did his job. Joe can't blame you for being here, either. The murderer is caught, everybody's safe, and we can go home. Relax!”

The attic smelled of camphor and, more faintly, of decay. Treading quietly as well as cautiously, Judith started down the narrow stairs. “Yeah, right, sure,” she answered somewhat testily. “But I don't feel right about any of this. Maybe I'm mad at Joe because he didn't take the trouble to fix breakfast for my guests. Maybe I'm mad at Buck because he's more brilliant than I thought. Maybe I'm mad at
me
because I missed…the obvious.”

The cousins had come out at the far end of the second floor, across the hall from the door to the kitchen back stairs and next to the bedroom that had been occupied by Holly and Derek Rush. Pausing, Judith gently pushed the door open. As she had guessed, the room was empty.

“Isn't Buck famous for taking the obvious route?” Renie inquired as the cousins gazed around the bedroom with its maple-wood furniture and jonquil wallpaper. There was virtually no sign of the Rushes. Apparently the dutiful
Holly had made the bed and done whatever tidying up had been required.

Judith nodded. “That's right. And sometimes it backfires on him. He's lucky, though. Joe says Buck often blunders his way to success. I'm afraid this may be one of those times.”

Quietly, Judith closed the door. On a whim, she peeked into the opposite room, where Jill Rush had slept. “That's odd,” she remarked.

Craning her neck around Judith's shoulder, Renie also peered into the bedroom. The furniture was pine; the walls sported lacy green leaves. “Jill didn't make her bed,” Renie noted. “But isn't that Zoe's job?”

“That's not what I mean,” Judith responded, moving aside so Renie could get a better look. “Clothes. Didn't you notice that Jill had changed this morning? Oh, Aunt Toadie had brought along her party dress for last night, but none of the rest of us had extra outfits. So why was Jill prepared to spend the night?”

Sure enough, Renie saw Jill's outfit of the previous evening hanging in the closet. So were two pairs of slacks, three blouses, a couple of tailored shirts, a slim wool skirt, and a terry-cloth robe. Judith pointed to the empty box by the side of the bed.

“Isn't that the box Holly carried in last night?”

Renie stared. “Could be. Seen one box, seen 'em all. Unless,” she added swiftly, “there's a murderer hiding inside.”

Judith gave her cousin a dirty look. “Very funny.” Stifling her annoyance, she went to the bed and looked inside the box. Two pairs of shoes lay there, along with a long gold chain. “No wonder that box was so heavy,” Judith mused. “Jill brought along enough stuff for a week's stay. I wonder why.”

“She's really a meteorologist and knew we'd get stuck?” Seeing Judith's annoyance resurface, Renie put up her hands. “Okay, okay—I don't know. Let me guess. One, Jill intended to stay, for reasons we can't fathom. Two, Jill was planning to spend the night somewhere else. Or three, Jill expected Trixie to steal the clothes off her back.”

Judith shook her head. “Not just the night. She brought enough clothes for several days.”

Renie shrugged. “So what? The case is closed. Maybe Jill was going to move in on Uncle Boo and suck up. You know, to keep him from leaving everything to Toadie and Trixie. An end run, as it were.”

“That's more like it,” Judith replied, her spirits perking up. “Come on, let's talk to Jill.”

Renie hurried along behind Judith, outdistanced as usual by her cousin's longer strides. “Hey, wait, coz! I just said this case is closed. Didn't you hear me?”

At the top of the main staircase, Judith turned, a smug expression on her oval face. “I heard you—twice. I also heard Buck Doerflinger. You're both wrong. This case is still wide open.”