Major Vices (18 page)

The smile on Toadie's face was replaced by a grimace of disapproval. “Oh, yes, I met Rube Major. He's the one who gave Boo his nickname. ‘Tass a Boo,' he'd say, instead of ‘That is Bruno.' Personally, I never used baby talk with our children. That's why they're all so articulate. Trixie could read before she was three.”

Recalling that at twelve, Trixie had trouble making out any word that wasn't “Pow!” “Yikes!” or “Whammo!” in a
Wonder Woman
comic book, Judith dismissed Toadie's little conceit. She preferred to keep to the subject at hand. “But what about Rube Major? What was he like?”

Toadie stopped looking smug and seemed to consider the question. “Corky was fascinated by him. You know how your uncle likes to bore everybody with his adventures in the war.” She let her eyes roll up toward the ceiling of the entry hall. “Just because he was in North Africa and at Anzio and Salerno and Monte Cassino and the Battle of the Bulge and all those places, and got shot twice and taken prisoner once, he thinks people ought to fall all over themselves. My goodness, talk about anxiety and suffering! There I was, with a little baby and my worthless first husband and all those ration books—do you know
how many coupons you had to save to get a five-pound bag of sugar? And gas! We tried every angle to get an ‘A' sticker for our car, but it was impossible. We could hardly go
anywhere
until 1946. Is it any wonder my first marriage fell apart?”

Judith was at a loss for words. She didn't know how to respond to Toadie's callous attitude, nor was she sure if the spate of self-pity was a deliberate diversion from the original topic.

She gave the older woman a bland smile. “So Rube got bored with Uncle Corky?”

“Rube?” Toadie gave a start. “Oh—
Rube!
Well, why wouldn't he? Corky
does
go on.”

“And Ramona,” Judith said quickly before Toadie could get wound up again. “You met his wife?”

Toadie stared down at her gold-tone flats with their spattering of rhinestone studs. She was again wearing her black cashmere sweater and slacks. “Ramona…Ramona…Ramona…? Oh! Rube's wife. Homely woman, very dull, a poet. She looked like she'd come right off the farm. No makeup, no style, no social graces. I can't think why Rube married her. He was quite nice-looking.”

Silently, Judith compared images of Ramona Major. Vivvie had called her plain, yet attractive and lively. Toadie's description was harsher. Perhaps Ramona had responded more warmly to Vivvie than to Toadie. Or maybe Toadie never had anything good to say about anybody.

“And their daughter?” Judith coaxed.

Toadie gave a shake of her head. “She was a teenager at Boo and Rosie's wedding. I'm not sure I met her. About sixteen, I think, and you know how adolescents hate to be around their parents at social gatherings. I suppose she was off in a corner, smoking secretly and cadging glasses of punch. It was very strong, and it would have served her right if she'd passed out. I never let my children drink until they were twenty-one.”

Since it was well known among the Grover cousins that Trixie had guzzled down everything but Drano before she was fourteen, Judith averted her gaze. “I wonder what happened to—what
was
the daughter's name?”

Toadie was toying with the rivets that decorated her sweater. “It began with an ‘R'—like Ramona.” She squinted at the entry hall's chandelier. “Rose? Rita? Ruth—I think it was Ruth. Oh, I suppose she married and had a family. Of course, if she kept drinking, she might be dead of some liver disease by now.”

Judith also let this farfetched conclusion pass. “The Majors—the
other
Majors—lived in Arizona, didn't they?”

“They were killed down there. I suppose that's where they lived. I don't really know. Rosie and Boo didn't keep in touch. Boo's father didn't approve of Reuben at all.” Toadie's prim expression indicated she agreed with Mr. Major. “I don't imagine old Dunlop was very pleased when Rube and Ramona showed up for the wedding.”

Judith took a deep breath and a wild guess. “Was that because of what Rube did in the war?”

Toadie put a hand to her throat. Uncle Corky's pear shaped engagement ring glittered in the light. “Only in part. Reuben was irresponsible in so many ways. He thought nothing of family. Rosie told me that Rube didn't have a loyal bone in his body.”

“He was loyal to something, though,” Judith remarked with an edge to her voice. She waited for Toadie's reaction.

“Such as what?” Toadie seemed genuinely perplexed.

“Such as Germany. Uncle Corky must have had a fit when he talked to Rube at the wedding and found out what he'd done.”

Toadie dismissed her husband's purported response with a wave of her hand. “I
told
you, Corky was fascinated. He neglected me shamefully at that wedding reception. All he could do was sit there and listen to Reuben talk about his exploits behind the lines. Honestly! Who cares?”

Judith blinked. “Behind the lines?”

Toadie made an impatient gesture, rattling her annoying charm bracelets. “Yes, yes. He was one of those spy types. What do you call it? SOS or OOS?”

“OSS?” Judith suggested.

“That's right. So boring. As I said,
who cares?
”

A
T THAT CRUCIAL
moment, the den door opened. Toadie caught sight of the emerging uniformed police officers and scurried away. Judith lingered, waiting for Buck Doerflinger to appear. When he didn't, she tapped on the door to the den. Buck barked an answer that Judith couldn't quite make out.

“It's only me,” she said meekly as she opened the door. “I hope you won't mind, but I can't help asking for your expert opinion.”

“On what?” he growled.

Judith quietly closed the door behind her and moved to the desk. “It's kind of technical,” she said, still wearing her diffident air. “My cousin and I were arguing about how Uncle Boo got killed in a locked room.” She saw the surge of anger rise in Buck's face and held up a timorous hand. “I mean, I understand your theory about Weed Wakefield and the carton, but what I don't get is the angle. With that shot through the temple, it looks almost like suicide. Why would Weed get so close? He could have shot Boo from here.” She pointed first to herself, then to Buck, who was seated behind the desk in Boo's chair.

The anger dissipated as Buck assumed an avuncular air. “I don't know why citizens have to sit around and
try to figure out how crimes are committed. It's bad enough that the criminals do that. But for your information, murderers don't always act in a reasonable way. This Wakefield character's a doper, right? Who knows how his brain—or what's left of it—works? Let's say he just sidles up to the old man, whips out his gun, and—bammo! Blows him away. He takes no chances that he'll miss or only wound him.”

“Oh.” Judith gave Buck a wide-eyed stare. “I never thought about it like
that
. So you don't think Weed might have wanted to make it look like suicide?”

Buck pretended to consider Judith's theory. “Well, now, he might have thought about it, but he should have left the weapon in here. Of course, there you go again with him being a doper. No rational thinking.”

“No logic,” Judith murmured, sliding down into one of the two side chairs by the desk. “I wonder where he got the gun.”

Buck snorted. “That's no problem in this state. Unless he had a record, of course.”

“Does he?” Judith hoped her mask of naïveté was holding up.

“No,” Buck answered, sounding disappointed. “At least not in this state. We're not done checking, though. We're running him through the national crime data base even as we speak.” He broke into a smile, his big body rocking to and fro in the chair.

Judith uttered a thrilled little sigh. “This is so…interesting! I mean, I'm sorry Uncle Boo is dead, but watching you bring his murderer to justice is terribly impressive. It makes me realize how well the system works—when it's in the hands of a master.” Judith felt like choking.

Buck beamed. “You bet, sweetie. When we're allowed to do our stuff and not get all hung up in a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo, we can catch our perps. And get a conviction. It's these damned lawyers and civil liberties lamebrains who make it tough on us cops. You'd be surprised what we have to put up with.”

Judith, of course, would not. To her sorrow, she'd often heard Joe express the same opinion, though in a more
modified tone. It seemed that Buck Doerflinger and Joe Flynn had more in common than just hating each other.

“Now,” she said, giving the detective a shy glance, “if you could only find the gun. But, of course, you can't know what kind of gun you're looking for, can you?”

The chuckle that came out of Buck's mouth bounced off the paneled walls. “Oh, we can figure that out eventually. We already dug the slug out of the victim's skull. It was pretty damned disfigured, but we can tell it was a 9-millimeter hollow point. Hey, what do you care about that ballistics stuff?”

Judith laughed, a trifle weakly. “Nothing, that's for sure!”

Buck started to get up. “Got to check the weather. The fog's just about gone, so maybe the ice is starting to melt. I want to get out of here before spring.” He chuckled some more.

Reluctantly, Judith also rose. She put a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes. “It's so awful when you think about it. That someone could go right up to an elderly man and stick a gun against his head and…” She winced.

“Hey, I didn't say that, did I? Look.” Buck stood next to Uncle Boo's chair. “This won't mean anything to you, sweetie, but there was no smudging on the victim. There was tattooing, though—from the gunpowder. So that means this Major guy was shot from a distance of not more than three feet and no less than one. I figure Wakefield stood right here”—Buck shifted his bulk to the end of the desk—“and maybe the victim never saw it coming. Wakefield was off to the side, see.”

Judith's brain was whirling. There was something not quite right with Buck's assessment of the case. She visualized Boo Major slumped over the desk, his unseeing eyes staring at the wall. She looked at the window to the left of the open bookcase. If it had not been latched from the inside, the murder would make more sense. But both windows had been shut tight when the body was discovered.

“What about the casing?” Judith asked as Buck started for the door.

He stopped, stiffened, and turned to stare. Judith
flushed. In her absorption with the murder scene, she had dropped her guileless manner.

“Casement?” She giggled nervously and pointed to the window. “What do you call them in mansions like this? I was wondering if anybody could have seen Weed through the window.”

To Judith's relief, Buck seemed appeased. “It was getting foggy. Besides, nobody goes out at night around here. They all stay home and count their money.” With a final, quizzical look, he exited the den.

Judith felt an urgent need to talk to Renie. Buck's revelations about the autopsy results must provide evidence as to how the murder was committed. Unless, Judith thought with a wince, he was right. The Butler-in-a-Box theory was beginning to look more plausible by the minute.

Peeking out into the entry hall, Judith saw only the Hispanic police offer, whose name she now knew was Gallardo. He was standing at attention by the double front doors. Judith wondered if Buck and Company were about to make their exit. If so, she realized she would miss her chance to speak with Weed Wakefield. Giving Officer Gallardo a friendly smile, she headed, not for the kitchen entrance to the servants' quarters, but upstairs. She didn't want to take a chance on running into Buck Doerflinger again.

The second floor seemed empty. Judith hurried down the hallway, then used the back stairs. She came out in the kitchen, where Renie was talking to Mrs. Wakefield. The housekeeper's back was turned to her. Judith signaled for Renie to be quiet, then slipped through the door to the basement. Passing the coatrack, she noticed that the reek of marijuana wasn't as strong. In fact, the downstairs area smelled very odd, no doubt a combination of pot, beets, and whatever else Weed Wakefield might have introduced into the servants' quarters.

Officer Foster was on duty in the basement. Weed was nowhere to be seen. Judith already had her story on the tip of her tongue.

She smiled diffidently at Foster. “Could I see Mr. Wakefield, please? I lost my Miraculous Medal and I'm
afraid it might have gone into the trash.” She patted her chest where the medal rested safely under her navy-and-maroon Rugby shirt.

Foster's round face clouded over. “The accused is in the galley. He shouldn't really be talking to anybody, unless you're his attorney.”

“But he hasn't been charged yet,” Judith pointed out, figuring that guile would be lost on Foster. “Anyway, I just want to find out where he put the garbage.”

Foster's expression was ironic. “How about the garbage can?”

Judith gave an impatient shake of her head. “It's not that simple. Mrs. Wakefield has some complicated method of separating everything. All this recycling, you see. I doubt if they even use those old recessed cans by the porch. You know how it is these days—everything has to be wheeled up to the curb or it doesn't get collected.”

Foster relented. He pointed down the hall. “The galley is that kitchen right there, off the big rec room.”

Amazingly, Weed Wakefield was actually working. He had the stove pulled out from the wall and appeared to be rewiring it. He heard Judith before he saw her.

“You'll have to wait to haul me off until I get this freaking thing hooked up again. It'd be easier if the wires went into an outer wall, not inside like this one, next to the saloon. I got all the damned insulation in the way. I ought to call the electrician, he'll charge—” He poked his head around the side of the stove. “Oh, you're not the fuzz.” For once, his eyes were in focus, but apparently his memory was cloudy. “Who are you?”

“Half of the catering team,” Judith replied. “The birthday party? Uncle Boo? Last night?”

Wakefield unfolded his gangling frame and stood up, brushing off cobwebs and dust. “Oh, right, murder and mayhem and all that stuff. Exploding beets, too.” He gestured at the stove. “That's why this thing got all screwed up. When Zoe tried to clean up the mess, she moved the stove and yanked out some of the wires. What can I do for you?”

Anxiously, Judith glanced over her shoulder. She was
sure that Officer Foster was lurking outside the open entrance to the galley. Swiftly she explained about the allegedly lost medal. Weed informed her which of the outdoor bins would be the most likely receptacle for anything that had gotten swept up by mistake.

“I'll go look,” Judith fibbed. “By the way, Mr. Wakefield, did you hear the shot last night?”

A strange smile spread over Weed's face. “Are you kidding?
I
fired the shot, remember?” Noting Judith's startled expression, the smile became a grin. “You don't think I did it? Want to be a character witness, or whatever they call them?”

Judith's response was uncertain. If Buck was right, she was face-to-face with a cold-blooded killer. “I think it's a farfetched hypothesis. But if you didn't shoot Boo Major, you were the only one present in another part of the house. Whatever you heard might sound different from your vantage point. I'm curious, that's all.”

But Weed wasn't much help, either to Judith or to himself. “I heard the freaking pressure cooker blow up, all right,” he said, gingerly touching one of the Band-Aids that still clung to his face. “There could've been some other noises, but I was kind of out of it. In pain, you know,” he added quickly, lest Judith get the wrong idea—which, in Weed's case, was also the right idea.

Disappointed, Judith gave a slight nod. “Of course. Some of us remembered a couple of other odd noises. I thought maybe you heard something that nobody else did. But you probably spent the rest of the time in your room at the rear of the house.”

Weed considered. Off his marijuana high, he revealed a certain native intelligence in his brown eyes. For the first time, Judith noticed that there was a serious, even earnest cast to his features.

“I'd
like
to remember,” he declared. “I'm no great believer that justice is always served. When I think of all the protest marches and sit-ins…” His voice trailed off; then he gave Judith a proud, almost radiant look. “You know, I was at Dr. Martin Luther King's speech in D.C. in 1963.
Man, was that powerful!” He pounded his fist into his palm.

“Wow!” Judith replied in sincere appreciation. Around the corner, she heard Officer Foster's shoes squeak. She imagined it was the African-American policeman's seal of approval. Maybe Weed had inadvertently bought her a few minutes of grace. “You were active in the civil rights movement?”

“From the start,” Weed replied with verve. “I got in on some of the anti-Vietnam action, too, but by the time that heated up, I was married and had a kid. Making a living can screw up your ideals. Then you start to feel like a failure. Things get to you, the world comes down around your ears, and…” Weed stared at the floor, which was strewn with various tools. “Thirty years later, you wonder if any of it mattered. Everything's changed, but it's still a mess.”

“It matters,” Judith said firmly. “If nothing else, it matters to
you
. If you really believe in something, you have to act on it.”

Weed didn't look convinced. “So I spend over twenty years working in this big old barn for a freaking capitalist who doesn't give a rat's ass about anything—and what have I got to show for it? Or him, either. He gets himself shot, and I get the blame. Whatever happened to truth? And justice? See what I mean?”

“Boo was a victim in more ways than one,” Judith said quietly. “His father's success made him a prisoner. He didn't have to work, so he just sat. It's really very sad.”

“A leech,” Weed declared fervently. “He never gave anything back, either. Not even money. Talk about a crime!” The servingman was beginning to work himself into a self-righteous frenzy.

Judith didn't want to hear Weed Wakefield deliver a polemic about the injustices of capitalism. Indeed, it occurred to her for the first time that perhaps Weed had a motive after all. Perhaps his personal failures and his rage at the system had driven him to kill Boo Major. Buck Doerflinger's theory was growing more and more believable. Judith hated the idea, but its credibility made her eager to get away from Weed Wakefield.

“I'd better go look for my medal,” she said with a feeble smile. “Thanks for your help.”

Weed made a self-deprecating gesture. “What help? Your miracle thing might have fallen off into the sink and gone down the drain. You'll need a miracle to find it.”

She was turning around when he spoke again. “When's a shot not a shot?” he asked abruptly.

“What?” she swiveled, frowning at him.

“You asked me about hearing a shot,” he said, his tone reasonable. “I've heard plenty of them, like the pigs firing over my head at rallies and stuff. I didn't hear a shot last night. But now that I think about it, I did hear a couple of weird noises. They were more like pops or thuds. I mentioned the first one to the wife after she came back to tuck me in, but she didn't pay any attention. She's always telling me I imagine stuff anyway.” Weed looked wounded, yet a trifle naughty.