Brewing Up a Storm

by Deaver Brown

  “Then Sean’s right,” Iona declared. “It’s a bigger mystery than ever.”

  “It was until Charlie straightened us out. Mrs. Underwood was such a menace when she was on the warpath that we all focused on her aggressive behavior. But Charlie pointed out she was behaving abnormally before she came roaring into NOBBY on Tuesday morning. He said that earlier she had been up when she should have been down. He was the only one of us who kept his eyes firmly fixed on the kind of woman she was.”

  Peggy Roche, sharing a sofa with Trinkam, allowed her gaze to drift sideways for a long, measuring look.

  “I’m not surprised,” she announced.

  Charlie, choosing to interpret this ambivalent remark as a compliment, beamed at her.

  “Yes, yes,” Thatcher said hastily. “And the place where this anomaly was most apparent was in Harry Hull’s room. Roger Vandermeer had unceremoniously excluded Madeleine from a strategy session about the anti-Quax campaign. By all rights she should have been seething.”

  “But she was planning to come back and pump Harry Hull,” Peggy explained. “She thought she’d outwitted Vandermeer by leaving her briefcase behind.”

  Inexorably Thatcher corrected her. “If that had been her plan, it failed. Vandermeer’s contemptuous dismissal was followed by a brush-off from Hull. Yet instead of being resentful, she was, according to both Hull and a nearby chambermaid, as chipper as hell. What could possibly have made her so cheerful except the knowledge that she really had outwitted them?”

  He then came to a full stop, regarding his visitors with kindly anticipation. As the seconds ticked by, Peggy Roche’s bewilderment increased, but Iona and Sean began exchanging glances of dawning comprehension.

  “Oh, Lord,” Iona moaned, “you don’t think she had the nerve to—”

  “It would have been just like her,” Sean interrupted on a rising tide of certainty. “And don’t you see? It explains the break-in.”

  Peggy, viewing them both in exasperation, seemed almost afraid to ask what Madeleine had had the nerve to do. But at last the suspense was too much for her.

  “What are you two talking about?”

  Too triumphant to be coherent, Sean blurted, “Those damn pocket recorders she carried around.”

  Thatcher was more explicit. “Mrs. Underwood left her open briefcase in an inconspicuous corner with a tape recorder running. In her eyes two subordinates were having a conversation she was entitled to know about.”

  With every new insight into Madeleine Underwood’s methods Peggy became more appalled. “I had no idea she was so . . . so highhanded. When she asked me to have the governors make tapes for her I explained that our discussions were private. I suppose I should be grateful she didn’t bug us.”

  “Maybe she did,” suggested Sean, grinning broadly.

  “Oh, my God, I wonder what we said.”

  Predictably Iona was the one who refused to be diverted. “That doesn’t matter anymore. But I’m beginning to understand why Madeleine went ballistic. When I was in Washington, Roger Vandermeer didn’t make any bones about his next moves but he was reasonably polite about it. Talking to Harry Hull, particularly after Madeleine’s show at the hearings, he would have been a lot more unbuttoned.”

  “Indeed he was,” Thatcher assured her. “The first fifteen minutes on the tape consist of some blunt remarks about Mrs. Underwood’s incompetence, together with his plans for the future. Either NOBBY acquired a new director or he’d launch a rival consumer group. As far as he was concerned, Mrs. Underwood was history.”

  “Madeleine must have been devastated,” Iona murmured soberly.

  “No doubt. But if the beginning of the tape was a body blow, the last five minutes gave her a powerful weapon. In the event that a new organization was necessary, Vandermeer was offering to increase his under-the-table payments to Harry Hull. They even bargained about the amount Hull needed for his reelection campaign. That information was a godsend to Madeleine.”

  Frowning in thought, Iona said, “That explains the press conference. But why the riot?”

  Thatcher, refusing to pretend that he understood every twist of Mrs. Underwood’s overheated imagination, could only speculate. “I think that, like you, she knew the value of an army already in the field. This time she was not trying to recruit new members, she was proving that she had a viable organization ready to do her bidding. Of course the riot was intended as the first half of a one-two punch. The next day she would go public at the hearings.”

  Iona was reliving the last few moments at the committee. “She must have been wild when the adjournment was announced.”

  “I’ll bet she blamed that on Harry Hull. That would be why she decided to wipe the smile off his face by telling him her intentions,” Scan reasoned.

  Charlie Trinkam nodded. “That would do it, all right.”

  “And so he killed her.” Iona’s slight frame was convulsed by a shudder. “He seemed like the last man in the world to suspect.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Thatcher disagreed. “First and foremost we had all those references to betrayal, which eliminated Kichsel and Elmer Rugby. It’s not your enemies who betray you, it’s your friends. In the absence of embezzlement and with Mrs. Underwood on the verge of dismissal, there wasn’t any motive at NOBBY. That left Vandermeer and Hull. Of the two there was no doubt who was the more imperiled. Vandermeer wouldn’t enjoy being part of a bribery scandal but he would survive. Hull wouldn’t.”

  Peggy had an objection. “Until you found the tape, you couldn’t be sure there was any bribery.”

  “No, but there were ominous indications. Every time Hull appeared with Madeleine he had to protect his own position, yet he went out of his way to give her exposure. He suggested her for the hearings even though she had already demonstrated her incapacity on a radio show for which he’d sponsored her.”

  “I wondered about that myself,” Sean admitted. “That’s why, when we were all upstate, I asked Hull how she did in Philadelphia. I couldn’t understand him proposing her as a witness unless she’d done a bang-up job. He probably didn’t like that question.”

  Once again Thatcher was startled at the selective nature of Cushing’s memory. The young man had a gift for coming close to essential points, then stopping. “Maybe not. But it was another statement by you that almost gave him a heart attack. You told him that Madeleine’s last tape had shown up at NOBBY and been confiscated by the police.”

  “Christ!” Sean exploded after a moment’s blankness. “That was when he had a coughing fit.”

  “You’d just kicked him in the groin,” Charlie explained succinctly. “It took him a second to realize you were talking about a tape she’d dictated. But you should have smelled something fishy in the fact that he was having lunch with you at all. At that stage both Vandermeer and Hull should have been staying as far away from NOBBY as they could get.”

  “That’s certainly what they indicated in Washington,” Iona confirmed. “I was surprised when they continued to take an interest, but I put it down to curiosity.”

  Thatcher’s voice was grim. “A very specialized form of curiosity. They’d organized a break-in to steal the incriminating tape and failed. If it surfaced, they wanted early warning. That’s why two busy men both made unscheduled stays in New York after their trip to Mohawk Crossing.”

  “Say what you will, this is still just guesswork,” complained a discontented Peggy. “I’m surprised it was enough to make the police act.”

  “I was merely asking them to search the house in New Jersey. The trap wasn’t arranged until after the tape had been found. Besides, Inspector Reardon had always favored Hull as the murderer, but he was stumped for a motive. Like any American citizen, the inspector could easily postulate chicanery in Washington. But he couldn’t imagine how an ignorant outsider like Mrs. Underwood could obtain specific information, let alone hard evidence.”

  All references to the trap made Iona stiffly resistant. “Why in the world w
ould he single out Congressman Hull?”

  “Just think a moment. What was the reason for putting Madeleine’s body in the closet?”

  “That’s self-evident,” Peggy said promptly. “To gain time.”

  For once she received some support from NOBBY’s staff.

  “The last thing the killer wanted was a hue and cry while he was still in the elevator or the lobby,” Sean reasoned.

  Thatcher shook his head. “Being in the elevator or lobby might be bad but being caught manhandling the corpse would be far worse. Bear in mind the killer was supposed to know where to find Madeleine because her appointment with Hull was made in public. By the same token the killer should have expected Hull to appear at any moment. Furthermore, anybody unfamiliar with the committee’s housekeeping arrangements couldn’t know the staff was gone for good. It was two o’clock and they might have been out to lunch. For everybody else, safety meant fleeing instantly. Only Hull could have been certain enough of privacy to risk lingering. And, as he had to admit being at the scene, he had the most to gain from a stage set allowing him to claim he’d noticed nothing unusual. That’s why the body was moved.”

  Thatcher had phrased his last sentence as delicately as possible. Nonetheless the unspoken vision of Madeleine Underwood stuffed into a closet like a discarded doll provoked a murmur of distress from Peggy Roche.

  “Poor Madeleine! She probably needled Hull into a homicidal rage and never even noticed until he swung on her.”

  Sean Cushing was seeing the same image. “Maybe she didn’t have time to notice anything,” he said.

  But Iona’s thoughts were elsewhere. “And all this—about the bribe, I mean—will become public?”

  “Almost immediately, I would expect,” Thatcher agreed on a note of inquiry.

  She was nodding to herself. “Then Roger Vandermeer will get fired. I’d better approach SDI directly about their funding.”

  Peggy gasped in outrage. “Look what happened the last time we had dealings with them.”

  Nobody could complain that Iona Perez was blind to other people’s reactions. Her normally pale features were suffused with pink as she quite deliberately misread Peggy’s objection. “They thought they could yank our chain because they were our only big institutional donor. This time I’ll see to it that SDI is lost in a crowd. After all, we agreed to get back to them as soon as the audit and settlement were behind us. And nothing has changed,” the quiet voice continued with absolute conviction, “except for the better. I think I should make an appointment as soon as possible to . . .”

  Claudia Fentiman and Theo Benda did not share the instant detachment achieved by their colleagues at Kichsel. However, they took the precaution of scooping Paul Jackson into their net before descending on the Sloan.

  “I’ve been talking to the boys in the prosecutor’s office,” Jackson explained as soon as he was seated, “so I’ve got all the inside info.”

  But Paul, too, believed in the principle of quid pro quo. This was his chance to recount his feats in the manner of Ludlum versus Kichsel. His captive audience listened restively to the superb skill with which he had timed one damning revelation after another. The Ludlums had wired money to their son on Cape Cod the night of his arrest for drunken driving. And, while the Ludlum household was indeed completely dry, it was because the father was in AA.

  “Daddy was a drunk until his son was fifteen.”

  “All right, all right, Paul. The whole thing was brilliant,” Charlie said perfunctorily. “And you got your verdict. Now on to what’s really important.”

  Mentally Jackson reviewed his fund of information. “Let’s see. Did you know that the cops picked up Vandermeer the minute he left the settlement party?”

  “I can’t see Vandermeer protecting anybody at the expense of his own skin,” Thatcher ventured.

  “Hell, no,” Jackson agreed cordially. “And in a sense you can’t blame him. He didn’t know a thing until Mrs. Perez came to Washington and announced to Hull that she was about to prune Madeleine Underwood’s files. Then Hull, in a panic, told Vandermeer and admitted killing Underwood because she had a tape of them talking about the bribe. So there Vandermeer was, mixed up in a murder whether he liked it or not. That’s why he set up a meeting between Hull and the punk who broke into NOBBY.”

  “Vandermeer must have loved it when the break-in went sour,” Charlie suggested. “They ended up without the tape and with all the cops in New York City looking for one.”

  “Yeah, he admits getting edgy. All he could do was cozy up to Cushing, asking to be kept abreast. And the minute the cops put the arm on him, Vandermeer gave them the name of the punk in D.C.”

  “So even before Hull got to that house in New Jersey Inspector Reardon had Vandermeer’s testimony,” Theo Benda said appreciatively.

  “More than that. He had the punk too.”

  Claudia had been listening to this exchange with mounting impatience. “Wait a minute. You’re leaving out the most interesting part,” she objected. “They said on the news that Harry Hull was caught breaking into Underwood’s house. Were the police waiting for him? Was it a trap?”

  “Yes, and it was laid at Elmer’s party,” Thatcher told her. “In fact, the first part of the bait was planted right in front of you when Peggy Roche called you and Moore over to apologize. It gave her a chance to fabricate that tale about calling Mrs. Underwood so Hull would know Madeleine had gone home. Then, because Reardon didn’t want to allow enough time to hire another professional, Elmer Rugby and Cushing announced that the house would be stripped of all NOBBY material the next day. If Hull wanted a crack at the tape, he had to act that night.”

  Paul Jackson was indicating sage approval. “The cops know the value of arresting somebody in the act of committing a felony and doing it late enough so lawyers and judges are hard to come by.”

  “Well, it worked,” Charlie acknowledged. “They got him red-handed.”

  “Red-handed enough so he’s trying to cop a plea,” Jackson said brightly. “His lawyer is pulling the irresistible-urge defense. According to him, Hull never intended to murder anybody. He was happy as a clam when he arrived for his meeting with Underwood. Then she sprang her big surprise and things happened fast. He’d just taken in the fact that she was going to destroy him at an open press conference when she reached for the phone to tell NOBBY’s board what she was planning. Everything went black and, without knowing what he was doing, he grabbed the bookend and swatted her. By the time the cloud cleared he had a body at his feet.”

  It sounded all too possible to Thatcher. “The use of the bookend and the cleaning of the phone are both confirmation of sorts,” he remarked.

  “Hull claims what really drove him insane was the way she didn’t recognize what she was doing to him,” Jackson continued. “He didn’t go over the edge because she was prepared to sacrifice him but because she didn’t acknowledge his position at all.”

  Theo Benda was moved to disapproval. “It sounds to me as if Mrs. Underwood and Roger Vandermeer were two of a kind. She started to run amok when he decided to eliminate her from the movement and treat her as a nonperson. Then she turns around and pulls the same stunt on Hull. The difference, of course, is that his idea of running amok was to kill her.”

  Emboldened by Benda’s venture into theorizing, Claudia had an addition of her own. “Status was another difference. Hull had gotten himself onto the fast track, heading for the big time. Then this nonentity of a woman was ready to wipe him out as casually as if she was stepping on a bug. It was just too unnatural to tolerate.”

  “Lèse-majesté,” Charlie supplied kindly.

  Paul Jackson was almost twitching with annoyance at these amateurish divagations. With a tremendous clearing of the throat he returned them to essentials.

  “The lawyer is skating over the whole business of the tape to avoid any suggestion of premeditation,” he said when he had reduced everyone else to silence. “If Hull went into shock when Madeleine told
him what she had on him, he really flaked afterward. With her explaining jubilantly that she always carried her recorder in her briefcase, he assumed that’s where the tape was. When he discovered it wasn’t, all he could do was sit tight. The first twenty-four hours he must have been expecting the cops on his doorstep every minute. From then on it was a roller-coaster. Every time he relaxed, another threat came along. First Mrs. Perez intends to comb through the NOBBY files, so he tries the break-in. After the dust has settled from that one, he’s told the tape is sitting out in New Jersey. The guy’s blood pressure must have been going through the roof.”

  “He did a good job of hiding it, at least compared to Alec. We had two men collapsing all over the place and I only noticed one.” Claudia ended her self-criticism with an expectant gaze at Paul Jackson. “I still don’t know what Alec was in such a sweat about.”

  Jackson liked nothing better than being the repository of confidential information. “And you aren’t going to find out,” he said smugly.

  He had preened himself too soon.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Benda said gently.

  Suspecting a bluff, Jackson decided to stand pat. “Moore said he didn’t tell anyone.”

  Instead of replying directly to this challenge, Benda addressed himself to Thatcher and Charlie. “You wouldn’t know this, but back home we have a rich lady called Eileen Tyler. When her husband took off she decided to sow her wild oats far and wide. She’s been working her way through the country-club crowd for about two years.”

  “Eileen’s a byword,” Claudia agreed with a puzzled frown. “She even had Alec in tow last fall. Eileen makes sure the ladies’ locker room is current with her tally of scalps. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “You’ve been spending too much time in San Antonio and New York,” Benda told her. “It pays to keep up with the local gossip. About a month ago Eileen tested HIV positive and the word went out to everyone who might be affected.”