I held the screen door for her. “A couple, sure—thanks.”
While she fussed at the counter, ripping off a long sheet of waxed paper, I retrieved my jacket and shrugged into it. She asked, “Can you stay a minute, Brody?”
“Happily.” I sat at the little round dinette table.
She turned to ask over her shoulder, “Inez raised you alone, correct?”
“You bet. She bragged about being a proudly single mother. She was born a Norris, and by God, so was I.”
Glee laughed and came to the table, sitting near me. She plunked down a package of two or three dozen cookies, heavy as a brick. “You two, eat these—they’re good.”
“They’re great.”
“So,” said Glee, “when you were growing up, was it difficult, not having a father?”
With the slightest grin, I reminded her, “I may have my mother’s name, but I also had a father—even though he was never acknowledged. Inez referred to him as ‘the sperm donor.’”
“That’s so Inez,” said Glee, returning my grin. “I meant: Was it difficult not having a father around?”
“The only life I knew was the one I had, so I can’t say whether it was difficult or not. It didn’t seem bad at all—I had a happy childhood.”
Through a wide smile, she said, “That’s wonderful, Brody. So glad to hear that.”
“It’s sweet of you to be so concerned.”
“Guess I can’t help it.”
Her comment struck me as strange, which must have shown on my face.
“Did you ever meet him?” asked Glee. “Your father.”
“Oh, sure. I saw a lot of him. But I didn’t know he was my father. He was sort of an uncle figure.”
“Nosy me.” Glee’s hand drifted to a stray wisp of hair. “May I ask his name?”
“My father? Gordon Harper.”
Glee’s eyelids fluttered, then closed.
I explained, “Gordon died about ten years ago. I didn’t learn he was my dad until later.”
Glee opened her eyes and peered into mine. “I’m sorry you never knew your father—as your father.”
I said, “He was an astronomer.”
She corrected me: “An astrophysicist.”
“Ah, that’s right, of course.” I blinked. “You knew him?”
She rolled her eyes. “You look just like him.”
I asked Glee, “You knew Gordon—back in Madison?”
“That’s right.”
And bang. It all made sense: Glee had told me she’d once found her Prince Charming, but it hadn’t worked out. That was Gordon Harper. And Glee’s best friend, the radical lesbian Inez, stole him on a whim, ran off to California with him, and although they never married, she bore his child. And now, here I was. And here sat Glee—sixty-something, single, and childless.
With a pained sigh, I said, “I’m sorry for what Inez did to you.”
“Oh, sweetie”—Glee shook her head—“don’t be crazy. If she hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t be here. And wouldn’t that be a tragedy?” Glee reached to wrap me in a tight embrace, having recognized in me the long shadow of the guy that got away.
And I understood she loved me, truly loved me, as the son she never had.
I hadn’t talked to Mom in over a week, so I phoned her in California the next day. “By the way,” I mentioned after the usual pleasantries, “a woman here, a Miss Savage, asked me to say hello to you.”
The line went silent for a moment. “Who?”
“Oops,” I said, playing along, “that’s right—she changed her name. You’d have known her as Glee Buttles.”
The line went silent again, longer. “Glee is there? She ended up back in Dumont?”
“She’s worked for the local paper since she got out of college. You didn’t know?”
“I guess we lost track of each other.”
“She said you two were pretty close.”
“We were. But I made the move to California after my junior year.”
“And you never followed up with her?”
“Never.” Mom paused before adding, “She wanted to kill me.”
With an uncertain laugh, I asked, “That’s a figure of speech, right? Hyperbole?”
But Inez Norris changed the subject: “Good news, Brody. That mountain conservancy? We’ve just managed to protect another twenty square miles as bighorn habitat.”
Taken by itself, my mother’s contention that Glee Savage “wanted to kill her” was easily dismissed. In light of what Inez had done, it was understandable that Glee might have wanted to avenge the betrayal by her once best friend; she might have even said it. Clearly, though, Glee had never acted on the threat, buried now by the sands of time.
But there was more. Other considerations were piling up that made me question my initial assumption that Glee was merely a long shot as a suspect in the FlabberGas calamity. There was the cold-case mystery of Gillian Reece, shoved to her death from a balcony. There was Glee’s unabashed claim that her pen name, Savage, had made her more aggressive. There was even her fascination with deadly castor beans—what was that all about? But most important, there was the hypothetical scenario she had laid out for me, detailing credible motives for sinking Dr. Frumpkin’s business plans.
Combine all of this with heavy new emotional baggage—knowing that Glee did not simply think of me as a friend, but loved me like a son—and I found myself in a serious quandary.
How would I report these findings to Sheriff Simms?
Chapter 7
On Wednesday, after visiting Glee, I had decided to postpone reporting to Sheriff Simms until I’d had a chance to talk to my mother.
On Thursday, after phoning my mother, I again decided to postpone my report, needing more time to mull what I’d learned.
On Friday morning, though, Simms phoned me at the office, so dithering was no longer an option. He got down to business: “Just checking in, Brody. Have you been able to spend some time with Glee or Berta yet?”
The last of Glee’s cookies, just one, sat on a plate on my desk. Marson and I had been passing them around the office, and they didn’t last long. I fingered a crumb and lifted it to my tongue.
“As a matter of fact,” I told Simms, “I’m scheduled to meet with Berta later this morning. I checked with Mary Questman first, since Berta works for her, and asked if I could drop by during her shift. Mary was thrilled to ‘donate’ some of her housekeeping time toward my effort to clear Berta.”
Simms said, “But you’ll be able to remain objective—right, Brody?”
“Sure, Thomas. Absolutely.” But I wondered if I’d already allowed my instincts to cloud my objectivity.
“Great. Glad to hear that’s moving forward. And how about Glee Savage?”
I hesitated. “I’ve already met with Glee. We had a good conversation—very direct, even heartfelt at times. But it did seem to ramble, and I’m still trying to resolve some details. Can I ask you something?”
“Of course, Brody. Shoot.”
“About the gas closet. On Sunday, after Jason died, we all went outside to the closet door, and you found it unlocked. As I see it, that presents two possibilities. First, someone with a legitimate reason to be inside the gas closet might have left it unlocked by mistake, and then the killer chanced on the opportunity to do some deadly mischief. The other possibility is that the killer himself—or herself—deliberately left the closet unlocked in order to spread suspicion beyond the keyholders who had access. This has an important bearing on how seriously we should consider Glee as a possible suspect. In fact, same goes for Berta.”
“Yeah,” said Simms, “I get it. So what’s your question?”
“I have several, all related: Can we find out the last time the surgery center’s gas supplier made deliveries? Does the supplier have a key? And who at the surgery center has a key—or access to one?”
“Regarding the supplier,” said Simms, “sure, we can look into that. As for those with access to the key
within the surgery center, we already know the answer. Dr. Frumpkin owns the facility, so he has all the keys. And the core members of his staff also had access to the keys: Dr. Jason Ward, Sarah Frumpkin Ward, and Dahr Ahmadi.”
I said, “That’s helpful, Thomas. Thanks.”
“Isn’t there something else you want to ask me about?” He paused, chuckled. “Fingerprints?”
I thumped my head. “Sorry. I’m new at this. What about fingerprints?”
“Inside the gas closet, it gets complicated—we’re still analyzing all that. But the door? Specifically the outside handle? We secured that whole area immediately after finding the door unlocked, and the knob was dusted that same afternoon. Result? No prints at all, other than my own on the back of the knob. It had been wiped clean.”
“That’s huge,” I said.
“It doesn’t prove anything, but it points to intent. It’s an added bit of circumstantial evidence that what happened was not an accident. Keep me posted, okay?”
I assured him, “I’ll do that, Thomas.”
But I never did tell him that my quirky interview with Glee had raised unexpected suspicions that I was struggling to reconcile with my feelings for the woman who now thought of me as a surrogate son.
Nor did I tell him that I’d made plans to meet that weekend with Dahr Ahmadi, whom Simms had already extensively interviewed.
Instead, I hung up the phone and ate the last of Glee’s cookies. Then I moseyed into the office kitchen to see if we had any milk. Alas, we did not.
At ten o’clock, I drove over to Prairie Street, to Mary Questman’s house, for the purpose of interviewing her housekeeper, Berta. Two days earlier, when I arrived in front of Glee Savage’s bungalow, I’d expected to make easy work of clearing my reporter friend of any suspicion in the FlabberGas matter, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Now, arriving in front of the Questman mansion, I was more than prepared to shift that suspicion to Berta, who had always struck me as odd at best.
Marson had never bothered to conceal from me his distaste for the woman. He’d known her far longer than I had, so perhaps his opinions had played an outsized role in shaping my own thinking. While walking from the car to the front door, I reminded myself that I had promised Simms that I would remain objective.
When Berta answered the door, she said quietly, “Morning, Mr. Norris. Mary said you were coming.” Berta’s voice had always sounded unpleasant to me—nasal and harsh—but today there was a softness to it that I hadn’t heard before. Was it muted by apprehension?
Stepping inside, I asked, “Is Mary here?”
“No, she went to run some errands, but I think she just wanted to leave us alone.” Mister Puss traipsed down the wide staircase and paused on the landing to see who had arrived. “Except,” Berta added, “no one’s ever really ‘alone’ here anymore.”
“Awww,” I said, “your little helper.”
Berta gave me a starched smile. Then, indicating a side parlor off the main hall, she said, “We can talk in here.”
I followed her into the room. Mister Puss followed me and settled near my chair as Berta and I seated ourselves. It was a small, intimate space, intended for conversation, but its large swagged window on the front wall of the house, combined with the high ceiling and elaborate cornice, lent a note of cultured formality—a stiffness—that was not conducive to a friendly chat.
I said, “Thanks for making time for me, Berta.”
With a listless shrug, she noted, “It’s Mary’s nickel.”
During the uncomfortable lull that followed, I took some time to really look at Berta. She had always been in the background, slipping into and out of the scene, which was never focused on her, but on Mary. Today, though, she had my singular attention. I didn’t know her age, but guessed she had passed her fifties. She was a tall woman, lean, even bony, but strong-looking—probably a hard worker. Many people, not just Marson, described her as stern, but there was something in her plain face, behind her creased features, suggesting a life that had known a measure of pain. Her hair was neat but drab. She wore a gray uniform and sturdy service shoes.
She asked, “Can I get you anything? Something to drink?”
“No, thanks.” But then I reconsidered. “I don’t suppose you have any … milk?”
Stifling a laugh, she said, “Since His Majesty moved in, you bet. It’s whole milk, homogenized—that okay?”
“That’s all I drank as a kid. Anything else—skim milk, God forbid—it tastes so watered-down.”
Berta made a hideous face. “Awful, ain’t it?” She brightened, stood. “Be right back.”
“Don’t bother,” I said, standing. “I’ll go with you.”
“Suit yourself.”
So I followed her to the kitchen. As before, Mister Puss followed me.
I’d always liked Mary’s kitchen. Bright and inviting, the room did not convey the hushed elegance of the rest of the house; rather, it extolled the primal spirit of food and warmth and nurturing. What’s more, it put Berta in a setting more natural to her. The moment we entered the room, I sensed that our conversation would be less strained.
An elegant old fixture of hobnail glass hung low over a big center table of pale oak. I pulled out a chair and sat. Mister Puss hopped up to the chair next to mine. Berta clanged around in the refrigerator, asking over her shoulder, “Mind if I join you?”
“I’d be embarrassed if you didn’t.”
She brought me a tall glass of milk and set another across the table for herself. Stepping back to the counter, she said, “Can’t have milk without cookies,” and then returned to the table with a plateful, which she set between us with a couple of paper napkins.
I said, “Thank you, Berta. This is nice.” Eyeing the cookies, I thought they looked just like the ones Glee Savage had sent home with me. A few giant cashews mingled with the chocolate chips. I asked, “Did you make these?”
“No,” she said, sitting, “these are from Glee. We trade back and forth. She’s a pretty good cook, considering.”
I had to ask, “Considering what?”
“I taught her. We weren’t really palsy till a few years ago, after Snook died.”
“Snook?” I took a sip of milk. Mister Puss was watching. I dipped a finger in the glass and let him lick it.
Berta explained, “Snook was my husband. His last name was Snook—well, mine too, of course.”
I never knew that.
She continued, “He hated Fred—that was his first name—so everyone just called him Snook. So did I. We both worked for the Questmans, long time. I did the cleaning, most of the cooking, still do. Snook was the handyman, did the gardening, some fussing with the cars. But something sorta snapped. He got—what’s the word? Senile. Demented. Started doing crazy stuff. One day, your friend Marson was here having lunch with Mary, and he saw Snook outside digging in the yard—eating worms.”
I cringed, grabbed a napkin, and wiped my mouth, gone suddenly dry.
“He got to be an awful handful, poor thing. No family, no kids to help take care of him. It was hard to remember the way he was, and then to watch, every day, what happened to him. Awful hard. It makes you scared. I mean, we’re all getting older.”
“I’m sorry you went through that,” I said. “Were you around when Mary’s husband died?”
“Quincy died a few years before Snook. He never lost his marbles, like Snook. No, Quincy just got real old—way older than Mary. Mean, too. Don’t get me wrong. He loved Mary, and Mary loved him. But God forgive me, she’s better off without him.”
While Marson would have judged Berta’s last comment as another sign of her impertinence, I thought she was probably right. In fact, Mary herself sometimes openly marveled at the turn her life had taken—for the better—after learning to embrace the independence of widowhood. That said, she happened to be the richest woman in the county, which made it relatively easy for her to forge ahead. I assumed Berta, on the other hand, was struggling with issues more p
ragmatic than weepy memories.
And those pragmatic issues—finances—had previously prompted Marson to speculate that Berta was up to no good, scheming to set herself up for a fat inheritance from her longtime employer, the kindly and unsuspecting Mary Questman. Consistent with Marson’s theory, as recently as Friday, one week earlier at Frumpkin’s pitch session right there in Mary’s home, Berta had confided to me, with a measure of bitterness, that she had eaten the cat’s “leftovers,” his rejected ground sirloin.
I asked Berta, “On Sunday, when you came with Mary to the FlabberGas demo, did you know she had decided not to be Dr. Frumpkin’s guinea pig?”
“Oh, sure. Mary told me that the day before.”
I thought, okay, if that’s true, it rules out Berta as having a motive for what happened at the clinic, at least if an inheritance scheme was contemplated.
I asked her, “Did Mary tell you why she was backing out?”
“Uh-huh.” She eyed the cat. “His Majesty warned her not to go through with it.”
I patted my knees. Mister Puss jumped over from his chair to my lap. I asked Berta, “When Mary told you that, what did you think?”
“I thought, good idea. But I also thought, I hope to God she isn’t losing it—losing her mind, like Snook did.”
Purring, the cat pawed my chest and worked his chin up the side of my face. The soft fur of his chin tickled my ear. I twiddled his cheeks and tugged him down, asking Berta, “Have you ever heard a conversation between Mary and Mister Puss?”
“Sure”—Berta laughed—“lots of times, but Mary does all the talking.”
And yet, I thought, Mary has often—and lucidly—maintained that the cat communicates with her.
I slipped the notepad out of my jacket, set it on the table, and helped myself to a cookie, holding it with my left hand. With my right hand, I clicked a ballpoint and began jotting some notes. Mister Puss swatted at the wiggling pen as I asked Berta, “Can you tell me more about Glee Savage? You taught her to cook?”
“Right. She’s been to lots of Mary’s parties, and now and then she’d wander through the kitchen and compliment the food. And she’d say, ‘One of these days, Bert, you’ll have to teach me how to cook’—sorta joking. Well, after Snook was gone, I had some time and wanted to get my mind off things, so I asked if she was still interested. I didn’t really think she’d take me up on it. I mean, she’s an office gal—nice clothes and such—but she really took to it. Now she’s got this big garden. She bakes. She’s even taught me a few things. She does ‘research.’ I just cook what I know.”
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