The Grub-And-Stakers Move a Mountain

by Charlotte MacLeod

  She selected a tasteful assortment of mops and dusters, loaded them into the hamper, and dragged her collection to what she gathered must be the reception area, a typically McNasterish assemblage of imitation wood paneling, monstrous plastic philodendrons in Styrofoam pots, vivid green wall-to-wall carpeting, and a truly revolting abstract painting that looked like an explosion in a pickle factory hanging behind a salmon-pink metal desk that held a green phone, a white phone, a red phone, a box of pale mauve tissues, and a digital clock with a picture of Spider Man on the dial. There she picked up one of the dusters and began flapping it around with an air of great industry in case the watchman hadn’t really gone.

  She did manage to sneak a look at the contents of the wastebasket as she dumped it into the hamper, but learned only that the receptionist chewed sugarless gum, drank diet cola, and needed a new bottle of Sexy Siren nail polish, or so she deduced from the empty one that showed up in the trash. It must have been a dull day at the front office.

  Trailing the tools of her adopted trade, Dittany worked her way through the ill-planned one-story building. McNaster employed more desk workers than she’d realized, but aside from the facts that some of them smoked too much and they were one and all incapable of hitting a wastebasket at close range with a wad of paper, she learned nothing of interest. Even when she became emboldened to search their desk drawers she found only what people’s desks might logically be expected to contain: pictures of wives and babies, tangles of rubber bands and paper clips, half-eaten candy bars, cough drops, empty aspirin bottles, mechanical pencils with no lead in them, felt-tipped pens that had run dry, ballpoints that had probably never worked at all, stationery, graph paper, blueprints, contract forms, and in one drawer a cache of the sort of magazines that led her to suspect this particular employee didn’t keep his mind fully occupied with the construction business.

  By now her canvas hamper was almost full, her mop trailing an impressive agglomeration of fuzz, her dusters thoroughly begrimed and her face no doubt the same. She was tired, fed up, and also puzzled. There were all those cars in the parking lot, but so far she hadn’t run into one living person except the watchman. The logical inference was that they must all be together somewhere, but where? Not in the conference room. She’d already cleaned that, or tried to. It appeared to be used mainly as a catchall for oddments like billheads, lumber, plastic moldings, the handles for about three hundred kitchen cabinets, half a sundial, two lobster buoys, the remains of a salami sandwich, somebody’s golf umbrella, and a plastic flamingo on a long green rod that was presumably meant to be planted in the lawn of somebody who didn’t know any better.

  There was one closed door at the far end of the corridor. Unless they were all down cellar inspecting the boiler, they must be behind that. So what should she do? Tiptoe past? Knock boldly? Or simply barge in and start mopping?

  Why not knock and then barge? That was what she was ostensibly here for, wasn’t it? Clutching her mop as a Roman legionary might have elevated his eagle, Dittany approached the fateful orifice. Somehow or other her feet showed a tendency to drag, though certainly not from the weight of her sneakers as there wasn’t all that much left of them. Her knuckles also showed a surprising reluctance to rise to the occasion.

  In plain fact, now that the moment of truth, if such a commodity existed at McNaster Construction, was at hand, Dittany was scared stiff. She stood there like Lot’s wife after that regrettable incident at Sodom, gritting her teeth and cursing herself inwardly for a poltroon, a caitiff knave, and a scurvy varlet. As she lingered, however, she gradually became aware that the door, like everything else McNaster built, was of shoddy quality and poorly hung. By straining her ears only a little, she could hear pretty much everything of the discussion that was taking place inside the room.

  “What do you think I’m paying you for?” somebody was demanding angrily.

  “Now, Andy,” somebody else replied in a tone that could best be described as unctuous, “we all know what you pay me for, and I’m sure everybody here would agree that I’ve always come through for you. But what you want now is simply too hot for me to handle. I could wind up being run out of Scottsbeck and disbarred for life. And if I was put in a position where I faced criminal prosecution, I’m sure you realize it wouldn’t be in my best interest to keep quiet. These people here in Lobelia Falls can’t possibly be quite such idiots as you seem to think they are.”

  “But you said yourself the trust could be broken,” McNaster argued. “Look, Charlie, I want that land and I mean to have it. You’re making a big song and dance out of a simple little deal. All you have to do is draw up the papers. Then as soon as Sam here gets elected to the Development Commission, he strong-arms those other dodoes into passing an emergency ordinance and it’s in the bag.”

  “And suppose for the sake of argument Sam doesn’t get elected? Then I’d be left holding that bag you so casually mention.”

  “How the hell can Sam not get elected? Nobody’s running against him, and it’s too late now to file nomination papers. The election’s next Tuesday, for the cat’s sake! Sam’s a shoo-in. Right, Sam?”

  “Right,” said a voice Dittany knew all too well and would never have dreamed of hearing in these surroundings. “I’m in like Flynn. The only way anybody could vote against me now would be on a write-in ballot, and who’s going to bother? You know who turns out for these local elections, about six old diehards and the candidate’s relatives. Anyway, I’m a popular man. Everybody knows who’s the public-spirited citizen who kicks in the eggnog for the Old Folks’ Christmas party and the keg of beer for the Policemen’s Picnic and all those other benevolent gestures.”

  “Which he takes off his income tax as charitable deductions,” mocked a voice Dittany couldn’t identify.

  Her fear had turned to rage. The public-spirited citizen was Sam Wallaby, proprietor of Lobelia Falls’s one and only liquor store. Sam had even donated the sauterne and Seven-Up for the mock champagne punch at the Grub-and-Stakers’ Spring Flower Festival year before last and she herself, as then corresponding Secretary, had been delegated to write him a nice little thank-you note. She’d even spent two dollars of her own money for a box of pretty flowered stationery to write it on. To think she’d been an unwitting tool of his perfidy!

  “See, Charlie,” McNaster went on in a coaxing tone, “you don’t have a thing to worry about. This deal will go smooth as a kitten’s wrist. Before anybody knows what’s happening, I’ll have me a swell big house right smack-dab on top of that Enchanted Mountain. And you guys can live around the edges.”

  “Catch me living in any house you’d build,” chortled the unidentified voice.

  Charlie was not convinced. “I don’t care, Andy. I’m not going to risk having my name linked with the kind of mud you’re bound to stir up. And I particularly don’t like the business of old Architrave’s getting shot with a black arrow up there this morning. If that’s the way you’re going to play it—”

  “Hey, wait a minute!” yelped McNaster. “You don’t think I had anything to do with that?”

  “Andy, as a lawyer I know better than to make any direct accusation. I’m simply saying it happened at a strangely opportune time. Architrave might have been stupid, but I don’t recall ever having heard he was dishonest, beyond reasonable limits. You might have got him to rush those leaching tests through, but I doubt if you could have persuaded him to falsify the results.”

  “Charlie, you’re crazy. It was a hunter from the States. Everybody knows that.”

  “I don’t know it, do I?”

  “Look, I was right here in my office all day. Anyway, I’m not the world’s best shot, as any of these boys here can tell you. Hell, I don’t mind being kidded about it, but if you think I—”

  “I’m only going by the evidence, Andy. I have no doubt that you have an alibi tighter than a drum. But you do have a fairly large staff, Andy. And among them maybe some good shots and some talented liars. Mind you, I’m not
making any accusations. I’m just stating what might be termed an academic hypothesis. And you needn’t start yelling because you wouldn’t dare fire me and we both know it.”

  “The hell I wouldn’t! If you think—”

  “That’s just it, Andy. I do think. And it will pay you to think. Regardless of how Architrave was killed, the fact remains that his death is going to focus attention on this Hunneker Land Grant. People are already asking questions about why he had that new chap up there doing perk tests. Who was that woman from the Conservation Committee?”

  McNaster said an extremely bad word. “I wish I knew. What the hell, this town doesn’t even have a Conservation Committee. Some old bag with a bee in her bonnet about the pretty pussy willows, maybe. For all I know, she was the one who plugged him.”

  “Well, you’d better find out what she was up to and how much she knows or guesses if you know what’s good for you. Look, Andy, I’m backing out of this mess as far as I can get. If you want to take the risk of going ahead with your plan, I can put you in touch with a very capable colleague of mine who happens to be on loan, as you might say, from one of the eastern provinces, on account of a little problem he ran into there. He won’t mind handling your legal matter because he’s planning to emigrate to Tasmania in the near future anyway. You can then explain to anybody who’s interested that you went to all the extra expense and bother of calling in an expert from out of town in order to be sure of getting an opinion that would be totally free of any local bias or possible self-interest.”

  Everybody thought that was pretty hilarious. Hearing them in there laughing their heads off made Dittany so furious she could think of nothing but getting in there to see who they were. She tried the knob, found the door locked, but managed to fit in one of the keys Mrs. Poppy had given her. As she turned the latch, she heard somebody yelp, “What the hell?” and make a rush for the door. Before she could get it open more than a crack, it was held fast from inside and one of Andrew McNaster’s beady little eyes glared through the slit.

  “What do you want? Haven’t I told you—”

  “Want me to clean in there?” Dittany interrupted in that hoarse, toneless voice she’d practiced on the night watch man.

  “No,” he roared. “Haven’t I told you never to bother me when I’m in conference? Who the hell are you, anyway? Where’s the woman who usually comes?”

  Dittany had been doing bit parts with the Traveling Thespians since she was five and, since she always forgot _ her lines, she’d developed a ready talent for improvisation. “You’ll have to speak up, mister. My hearin’ aid’s in for repairs. Do I clean in there or don’t I? See, Mrs. Duckes’s bad leg kicked up on ’er again so I said I’d help out but she never told me if I was s’posed to—”

  “Just go away,” yelled McNaster at the top of his lungs. He opened the door just far enough to thrust a bill into her hand, then slammed it in her face.

  Dittany went to put away her mops and dusters. As she did so, she looked at the money McNaster had given her. It was a twenty. How nice. He didn’t know it, but he’d just made the first donation to Sam Wallaby’s rival’s campaign fund. Getting Sam defeated was going to take some doing, though, since they had less than a week to campaign in. And there was the further problem of whom she could get to run.

  Chapter 6

  THIS WAS NO TIME to worry about a candidate. She’d better get out of the parking lot before the meeting broke up and one of that skulduggerous crew recognized her car. Sam Wallaby would, for sure. He’d lugged enough imperial quarts of Seagram’s out to it while Gramp was alive, not that Gramp Henbit had been any great drinker, but how else could an old man keep his creaking joints oiled? Dittany herself had retained the habit of keeping a little antifreeze on hand for emergencies, though she, assuredly wouldn’t be buying any more from Sam Wallaby.

  She did wish Andy McNasty had opened that office door wide enough for her to see who else was inside. On the other hand she was rather glad he hadn’t. Charlie, that shyster lawyer from Scottsbeck, had made it all too clear, in spite of his legalistic evasions, what he thought about Mr. Architrave’s strange and sudden demise. Dittany admitted to herself that she couldn’t swallow any theory about a phantom hunter. Even Hazel Munson, who bent over backward never to think ill of anyone, had come right out and suggested murder. They’d guessed at a motive; now Dittany knew it was more than a guess. She stomped on Old Faithful’s accelerator and headed straight for the neat red brick house with the green trim at the corner of Hickory and Vine.

  The Munsons would have finished supper well before this. They lived by a schedule programmed to the minute by Roger though not always adhered to by Hazel and the younger Munsons, who ranged from almost grown up to turbulent ten. This was Roger’s Be Pals with Your Kids night, so he and they would be off to the skating rink, leaving Hazel to Enjoyment of Uninterrupted Leisure, which for her was apt to mean catching up on the mending or baking a fancy dessert. Tonight her leisure was going to be interrupted in a way Roger would never have dreamed of programming.

  Dittany brought Old Faithful to a screaming halt two inches from the doorstep, rushed up, and pounded like mad on the brass knocker. Hazel appeared promptly, inched the door open on the chain, and said suspiciously, “Yes?”

  “Hazel,” snapped Dittany, “quit playing games and let me in.”

  “Good heavens, Dittany, is that you?” Hazel released the chain. “What on God’s green earth have you done to yourself? Here, give me that.” She picked up the raincoat Dittany dropped and hung it in the closet. As Roger always said, Neatness was Efficiency. “Now what’s this all about?”

  “Hazel, listen. You know Mrs. Poppy?”

  “Of course I know Mrs. Poppy. She’s that woman who’s supposed to come and clean for you but never does.”

  “She does sometimes,” said Dittany defensively. “Anyway, Mrs. Poppy has a friend, Mrs. Duckes, who does the office at McNaster’s every evening after work. I mean after he and his staff—oh, you know what I mean. Anyway, this Mrs. Duckes has a bad leg—I don’t know which or why so don’t bother to ask—and Mrs. Poppy was going to fill in for her but she caught a bad cold. She called me up while I was having my supper to tell me she couldn’t come tomorrow because she was too sick and then she went croaking on about how she’d promised to do the offices for Mrs. Duckes and how awful she felt about letting her down.”

  “Were you planning to get to the point any time in the foreseeable future?”

  “But that is the point, Hazel. I said I’d go to McNaster’s in her place, and I did.”

  “Dittany, you didn’t!”

  “What’s the sense in saying I didn’t when I just got through telling you I did?”

  “The exclamation was purely rhetorical. I only meant, my gosh, how did you ever have the nerve?”

  “Frankly, I’m not sure,” Dittany admitted. “You wouldn’t believe how scary it can be opening a strange broom closet.”

  Hazel took her guest gently by the arm and led her to Roger’s pet reclining chair. “Here, sit down and put your feet up, eh? I’m going to make us a pot of hot tea. You must be in shock. It won’t take a second.”

  Dittany was glad to obey. All of a sudden, like Mrs. Duckes, she was having trouble with her legs. She lay back and shut her eyes until Hazel came back with a tea tray on which, to Dittany’s unalloyed joy, was a slab of her superb carrot-walnut-allspice cake with orange coconut frosting.

  “Eat this with your tea. The sweet will be good for you.”

  Dittany needed no coaxing. Disregarding the fact that she’d been carefully taught never to talk with her mouth full, she wolfed her cake and told her story at the same time.

  “McNaster was having a meeting with some men in his private office. The door was locked, but I listened outside. And I heard him having an argument about the Enchanted Mountain with some crooked lawyer whom he wanted to help him get hold of the land.”

  “You didn’t! I’m sorry. You did. Dittany, why?
”

  “Because he wants to build himself a big house right smack-dab on top. Those were his own words, Hazel, right smack-dab on top. And he talked about building some more houses around the sides and that must be what he’s got Jim Streph working on the plans for. And that’s why that Frankland man was doing the perk tests, and why Mr. Architrave got murdered just as we thought.”

  “Dittany, he—I mean, are you sure?”

  “Well, this lawyer as much as accused McNaster of having one of his henchmen bump Mr. Architrave off because he was too honest to fake the results of the tests even if he was dumb enough to do them in the first place, which is true enough.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Hazel slowly; “And he was pigheaded enough to stick to his guns no matter what. I don’t see myself how that land could be buildable unless they ran sewer pipes because it’s all ledge under the leaf mold. That must be why McNaster wanted the tests done before the frost was out, so he could pretend they were hitting frozen ground instead of rock. He’s got away with so many other things, I suppose he’d be cocky enough to think even a fool stunt like that would work.”

  “Only he didn’t count on having a new man with a few brains in his head join the department just at the wrong time,” Dittany added. “Frankland did say he’d protested to Mr. Architrave about the ground being too hard to give a proper reading. Maybe that finally penetrated the old man’s skull and he got to wondering about it himself and that’s why he went up there today and that’s why McNaster had him killed. And, Hazel, I think they’re putting out a contract on me.”

  “A what?”

  “I think that’s what they call it.” Dittany wasn’t sure, having watched only one television crime show in her life and found it dull stuff in comparison to any average day’s doings around Lobelia Falls. “Anyway, the lawyer—McNaster called him Charlie and I got the impression that he’s from Scottsbeck—said Andy had better find out who that woman from the Conservation Committee was if he knew what was good for him, and what was good for him would automatically have to be bad for me, wouldn’t it?”