Come Hell or Highball

by Maia Chance

  “Mrs. Woodby,” Berta whispered, “there is no need to behave in such a prickly fashion to the young man. He is only trying to help.”

  “You’ve been utterly taken in!” I whispered back. “Why do you keep forgetting that he’s investigating me on someone else’s dime?” I glanced over at Ralph. I kept forgetting that, too. He exuded such a strong air of masculine competence. Seductive, sure, but also exceedingly irritating. Then there were the thoughts that bubbled in my head whenever I looked his way. Thoughts about those big, warm hands.

  He grinned at me.

  My upper lip felt sweaty. I prayed he wasn’t one of those mind-readers I’d heard about.

  “I’m not going to steal the reel,” he said. “Just helping out, okay? Scout’s honor.” He pulled open the door. “See you at the Foghorn.”

  21

  It was almost nine o’clock in the evening by the time Berta and I reached Hare’s Hollow. I had to park the Duesy a block away from the Foghorn, since all the spaces in front of the inn were taken.

  “Looks like the reporters are back in town,” I said.

  “They probably wish to photograph poor Mr. Arbuckle’s funeral in the morning.”

  “If I know my reporters, they’re more interested in angling for photographs of the people up here filming Jane Eyre.”

  We mounted the Foghorn’s wooden porch. A rattling motor made us turn our heads. An angular Ford Model T (which was maybe eight years old, but sounded like it was about eighty) double-parked in front of the inn. The engine wheezed off and the headlamps faded to black. Ralph hopped out and slammed the door with surprising violence. He kicked one of the spindly wheels.

  “Hi,” I called down to him over the inn’s porch railing.

  He glowered up. “Evening, ladies.”

  “Nice struggle-buggy,” I said.

  “Hnh.” He stomped up the steps. “Hungry?”

  “Famished,” Berta said. “From terror.”

  “Mrs. Woodby’s driving that bad?”

  Berta shuddered. “Worse.”

  “You were sleeping the whole way, Berta!” I said.

  The three of us had booked the last two rooms. Berta and I would have to bunk together. We took our suitcases upstairs, and then went to get dinner in the Foghorn’s restaurant.

  “Might I bring my dog?” I said to the lady stationed at the front of the restaurant.

  Cedric cocked his head. Who could say no to that?

  “Long as he stays on the floor,” the lady said.

  The restaurant was dim and old-fashioned. It catered to holidaymakers on motorcar tours along the coast, but at this late hour, only a sprinkling of shabby-suited men—reporters, I guessed—hunkered over tables. We chose a corner table.

  “Any contact with the Arbuckle household yet?” Ralph asked. He draped his jacket over a chair back.

  I’d never seen him in shirtsleeves. His shirt was worn but clean, and I noted the bulging muscles of his benders. Tonight, there was no gun in sight. Maybe he’d left it in his motorcar.

  “No,” I said. “I thought I’d telephone again right after we had a bite to eat.”

  “You probably shouldn’t telephone,” he said. “Operators are always listening in.”

  “This is Hare’s Hollow,” I said. “Not Chicago.”

  “Do you suggest that we should go in person to locate Miss Potter at Dune House?” Berta said.

  “Maybe you should let me go,” Ralph said. “Alone.”

  “This is my investigation!” I said.

  “Our investigation,” Berta said.

  “Right,” I said, “our investigation. What’re you doing, Mr. Oliver, elbowing in like this? We’re not going to split the reward with you, if that’s what you’re aiming for.”

  Ralph’s brow lifted. “Reward?”

  Rats. He’d made me blurt things again. I buried my face in a food-stained bill of fare. “Where’s the waitress, anyway?”

  “I’ll go find her.” Ralph stalked off around the corner, to the front of the restaurant.

  As soon as he’d disappeared, I extracted the notebook from his jacket. “I can’t believe he left this unguarded.”

  “Mrs. Woodby!” Berta whispered. “Put that back this instant!”

  “No.” I opened the notebook. Its pages brimmed with pencil scribbles.

  “Mr. Oliver is our friend.”

  “Friend? Really, Berta. Do you think Thad Parker would be so gullible?”

  “It appeared to me that you had rather hit it off with Mr. Oliver. You must not judge persons by their line of work, anyway.”

  “Well, I guess you certainly don’t, considering the way you’ve hit it off with Jimmy the Ant. You know, the gangster?”

  “I rebuffed him.”

  “Looked like a complicated kind of flirting to me.”

  Berta pressed her lips together.

  What had gotten into me? I wasn’t usually so testy. But I didn’t have time to make nice with Berta just yet; Ralph would be back any second.

  I thumbed through the notebook to the most recent entry. It said Actress/Nurserymaid: Vera Potter. October. I backed up a page.

  My own initials caught my eye: L.W. kiss in cinema check.

  “Kiss in cinema, check?” I yelped. As though I were an item on a to-do list? He’d planned that kiss!

  “Here he comes,” Berta whispered. Then, to Ralph, she said, “I do apologize, Mr. Oliver. I told her she should not go snooping through your things.”

  I slid the notebook into his jacket. Too late. He’d seen.

  “You know, Mrs. Woodby,” Ralph said in a dangerous tone, “Mrs. Lundgren’s right. You shouldn’t go snooping through people’s things. You might see something you don’t like.” He sat.

  “You must be joking,” I said, my voice hot. “You make a living snooping through people’s things!”

  “Ah, but not my friends’ things.”

  “Oh? Then I suppose that means that we are not friends, since I now have solid proof that you’ve been investigating me, not Alfie.”

  “You don’t have any proof.”

  “I have!”

  “I was hired to investigate your late husband.”

  “By whom?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “How dare you lie to me?”

  “Listen,” Ralph said, “I’m here with you on this harebrained escapade because this thing’s threatening to get way more risky than you realize. There’s been a murder, and you’ve gone and stirred up a snake’s nest of gangsters like it’s some kinda game. Do you know how gangsters get rid of meddlers?”

  “You’re trying to scare me.” Now I was breathless with fury and, deeper down, humiliation. I’d thought he’d been interested in me as a woman. Not as a mark. L.W. kiss in cinema check! I got to my feet. “Come on, Berta. We’re going.”

  “No, thank you,” Berta said. “I came here to eat supper, and I mean to do it. If you wish to stomp off like a schoolgirl because your pride has been wounded, you are welcome to do so.”

  “Fine! Cedric, peanut. Come.”

  Cedric, under the table, was busy gobbling up fallen scraps.

  “Come,” I repeated.

  Cedric ignored me.

  Traitors. Both of them.

  I tried to sashay out of the restaurant; it felt more like a limp.

  Upstairs in my room, I rummaged through my handbag and dug out the ends of the three chocolate bars Ralph had purchased for me at Wright’s. I slumped on the edge of the sagging bed and devoured the lot.

  By the last morsel, I’d come to a decision: I couldn’t trust Ralph enough to involve him in my confrontation of Vera Potter. And at this point, I couldn’t trust Berta not to go blabbing to Ralph about our plans. He’d reeled her in, hook, line, and sinker.

  I balled up the chocolate foil and threw it into the rubbish bin.

  No, I’d have to confront Vera Potter on my own.

  * * *

  I thought about going to Dune House and finding
Vera Potter, but decided against it. I didn’t wish to drag in Olive, for starters, and I also figured there were lots of motion picture people cluttering up the place, not to mention whichever members of the Arbuckle clan were there for the funeral in the morning.

  I went downstairs and peeked through the doors into the restaurant. Ralph and Berta were still there, eating slices of pie and laughing. Laughing! Pie. Cedric sat on the floor, gazing up at their forks. Ralph bent to give Cedric a chunk of pie. Cedric wolfed it down, and his feather duster of a tail swept back and forth.

  I felt quite like the Little Match Girl in the story, staring in from the cold.

  I went to the call box in the lobby. It was in a little room built under the stairs, with a wooden bench, a bare lightbulb, and a rickety door that folded open and shut. I closed myself in and asked the operator to put me through to Dune House.

  Hibbers answered.

  “Would you fetch Vera Potter for me?” I asked.

  “Certainly, madam. I believe she has just finished putting the young Masters Arbuckle to bed.”

  I waited for several minutes. I drummed my fingernails on the bench.

  Then, I heard a rustle and a timid “Hello?”

  I bolted upright. “Miss Potter?”

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “Hibbers didn’t tell you?”

  “No. He only said it was urgent. Is this some sort of prank? Because if—”

  “No, no, it’s not a prank.” I took a deep breath. “Miss Potter, I know about the film reel. All about it.” I said a quick prayer to the gods of bluffing.

  Silence. Then Vera said, her voice muffled as though she’d cupped a hand around the telephone’s mouthpiece, “How do you know about that?”

  “Um.” My feet danced a jig. “Never mind. Do you … do you have it?”

  More silence.

  “It won’t do you any good to pretend that you don’t,” I said.

  A slow intake of breath. “Meet me. I’ll tell you exactly where you can find it.”

  “Really? I mean, okay, yes, wonderful.”

  “The sand dunes to the left of the wooden walkway at the Arbuckles’ beach. Tonight. Midnight.”

  The line went dead.

  I stepped out of the call box, and nearly bumped into Miss Ida Shanks.

  “The things you see when you haven’t got a gun,” she said.

  “Were you eavesdropping?”

  “Now, why would I wish to do a thing like that?” Ida made a show of smoothing the sleeve of her tweed dress. It was an unbecoming shade of green, with orangey-red trim at the cuffs. The colors called to mind a pimento olive.

  Have I mentioned I despise pimento olives?

  “You know, Duffy,” Ida said, “there are more interesting people than you. Which you’ve probably realized, since—” Her eyes, behind her glasses, flicked up and down my black dress. “—you’ve finally got yourself into some proper widow’s weeds. Or have you taken up cat-burgling to make some spare change?”

  “Oh, buzz off, Miss Shanks,” I said, and pushed past her.

  * * *

  I went upstairs again. It wasn’t quite ten thirty. I didn’t need to leave for another hour or so. On the other hand, I had no wish to clue in Berta or Ralph on my plans. I decided to change, and then wait out the time elsewhere.

  I hulled my torso, at long last, from the rubber girdle. My internal organs lolled in relief. I put on a jersey skirt and a thick woolen pullover—both black. Who would’ve thought that being a detective and being a widow were so compatible? I pulled on black wool stockings and low-heeled spectator shoes. Normally, I wouldn’t be caught dead in flat shoes. But no one would see me except Miss Potter. I strapped on my wristwatch and left the Foghorn through the back.

  Main Street was for the most part abandoned. The five-and-dime, the drugstore, the dry-goods emporium, the stationer’s, and the tobacconist’s were all closed up. Maple trees with tender, new leaves made a shadowy umbrella over the sidewalk. I went through iron gates into the park, and sat on a bench. But in the dim light, the creaking swings were unnerving, so I went back out onto Main Street. At last, it was time to set off for my meeting with Vera Potter.

  I’d walk along the beach. Walking in sand is, of course, murder on the calf muscles. But I couldn’t exactly motor furtively onto the Arbuckles’ gated estate. Even the Duesy’s engine didn’t purr that smoothly, and besides, there was always a guard in the gatehouse. In addition, I’d have a good view all around me on the beach. And considering that I couldn’t shake the tingly feeling that someone was watching me from the shadows, visibility was a definite attraction.

  22

  I accessed the shore from a path behind Hansen’s Bait Shop.

  The Arbuckles’ stretch of beach was about half a mile east. I trudged along, hugging my pullover close. The moon was a bright crescent, lighting up a streak of wet sand before me all the way. Out on the black water, whitecaps glowed, and the gush of the breakers drowned the thud of my heart.

  I passed several large houses cushioned in black foliage. Some of them were glorified shingled “cottages,” others unabashed mansions. Lights glowed from the windows of a few, but many of them were deserted, their owners off cavorting at other, distant playgrounds.

  Presently, the chimneys of Dune House came into view from behind a swell of trees.

  I slowed. Cold wind whipped off the water. I squinted at my wristwatch. Three minutes till midnight. I scanned the beach and stared into the shadows of the grass-tufted dunes. I didn’t see a soul, but I saw boards laid through the dunes.

  The walkway Miss Potter had mentioned.

  I headed toward it.

  I was twenty yards off. Then fifteen.

  Then—bang! A gunshot.

  I froze.

  Behind the feathery dune grass, a black shape sprinted away toward the trees and the Arbuckles’ house.

  My feet felt like they were trapped in wet cement.

  Should I run away down the beach? I wanted to. Had that person aimed for me? I wasn’t hurt, was I? I did a quick mental scan. No searing pain. Okay. I should run. Turn tail and forget this whole thing and go straight to the luncheonette in Columbus Circle in the morning and sign up—

  Wait.

  I glimpsed another dark shape, over in the dunes.

  Oh dear, dear sweet bejeezus.

  It took all of my willpower, but I forced myself into the dunes, floundering through the soft-heaped sand, grass slicing at my calves, and I then saw … a large bundle.

  No. Not a bundle. A person. A person, on its side, curled up, one arm flung askew.

  I dashed over and knelt beside it. I rolled the body gently over.

  It was Vera Potter. Eyes wide, a small hole in her forehead, black blood trickling down her neck.

  I stared at her in uncomprehending horror for what felt like a month. She wore a cardigan and a blouse, and some kind of long skirt, which was tangled around her ankles. Her canvas tennis shoes jutted at unnatural angles.

  My eyes fell on her hand. At the gun in her hand. I blinked.

  Had Vera shot herself?

  No. I was certain I’d seen that other figure, running back through the dunes toward the house.

  I started shaking and I felt like I might vomit. The black night all around seemed to pulsate with menace, to flicker with spying eyes and furtive movements. I needed to get out of there, before somebody shot me—

  A golden shine caught my eye. On the sand, about two yards from Vera’s body. I crawled over, picked it up, and held it up in the moonlight.

  A lipstick tube. Odd. I pocketed it unthinkingly, and got to my feet.

  I staggered toward the inky, glistening sea. I would run back down the beach, the way I came. That way, I would see if anybody came at me with a gun.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, I stumbled up the stone steps of the Hare’s Hollow police station. I burst through the door.

  A policeman lounged with his feet propped on a
desk, frozen in the act of biting into a Danish pastry.

  “Murder,” I wheezed, and then bent over my knees. “There’s been another murder at Dune House.”

  * * *

  “Humor me, Mrs. Woodby, and explain to me one more time how you found yourself on the Arbuckles’ beach at midnight?” Inspector Digton tipped his chair back on two legs and watched me. Cigarette smoke drifted in the light of a hanging lamp.

  Digton had shown up about an hour after I arrived at the police station. Roused from a deep slumber, judging by the crushed appearance of his mustache. He was in a surly humor.

  “I was out for a stroll on the beach,” I told him for the third time. “Fresh air, stretch of the legs, that sort of thing. All the reasons one goes for strolls on the beach.”

  “At midnight? Sure. Listen, Mrs. Woodby, there aren’t too many people who go for healthful strolls at that hour. Something tells me you’re not the type. And you just happened to hear a gunshot, and just happened to see someone running away from the scene of the crime, huh?”

  “I won’t say anything else until I’ve got a lawyer present.”

  “Funny. That’s what you said the last time I asked you a couple of questions. Seems to me your lawyer’s kind of a deadbeat.”

  “Think whatever you wish.”

  I was tempted to tell Digton about the film reel. It would explain everything. Sort of. On the other hand, maybe he’d fall off his chair if I told him I’d been trying to steal a film reel from one of the murder victims. For a chorus girl at the Frivolities. For a fee, no less.

  “You wanna know what I think, Mrs. Woodby? I think that Vera Potter knew all about how you murdered Arbuckle—”

  I made an unladylike grunt.

  “—and since you were afraid she was going to spill the beans about that, you bumped her off, too.”

  “The paper-thin logic of your theory, Mr. Digton, makes my head positively ache. Why wouldn’t I have killed Miss Potter at an earlier date? Why would I come straight to the police station after finding her body?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I can’t, because I’m not the criminal mastermind you take me for.” I remembered the lipstick tube I’d picked up in the sand dunes. I pulled it out of my skirt pocket and placed it on the table.