First Congregational was the oldest church in the area. The sanctuary was built in 1793 and subsequently renovated and enlarged several times. There were presently three buildings: the church proper, the parish hall and the rectory.
At the reception Cummings saw almost everyone he knew in Horeb. This reminded him of how colorful Horeb actually was. By comparison Chicago seemed as unimaginative as corn.
Feenie Malaga greeted him. She was a performance artist named for phenobarbital by her besotted mother because “you know what they say about Maine, mostly drinking villages with small fishing problems.” She had violent violet hair and a contorted chrysanthemum tattoo on her arm. Cummings had originally encountered her in a local supermarket, buying a quart of vodka, a quart of milk and a quart of Drano, which had led him to wonder briefly if this was some kind of local mixed drink.
Her brother Isidore, who rarely said anything but was noted for his paintings of pigeons, was also there. As usual, he was austerely dressed in a black suit, black tie, white shirt, white socks and black shoes. The only burst of color on him was his hair, which was a shade of pumpkin.
Cassandra Parsons, the proprietress of the Horeb Country Store, nodded at Cummings as he passed by. She was a study in brusqueness: tall and thin but more than that, angular. Her face was tanned and worn. Her nails were short, and so was her piebald grey and brown hair. Her facial expression, to the extent that she had one, was a half-frown. Her cheerfully rude teenager daughter, Alice, was with her. Alice gave Cummings the finger and smiled.
He saw his former boss, Birdie Wordsworth, the benefactress of the Panegyricus Foundation, an arts philanthropy that gave money to creative individuals to “promote the ineffable visions of the individual.” At her Florida residence, using only a luncheon fork, she had once saved her gardener from a python.
Norbert and Glenda Auchincloss waved at Cummings from across the room. They owned a nudist sauna but today were dressed in dark summer weight wool. Glenda, a small, bulky creature who looked like an anthropomorphic potato, was deaf and originally from California. There she’d taken up S&M. Highly flexible, if not very affable, she was known by her friends as “the wicked switch of the West.”
Moving on from the parade of individualists, Cummings spoke with Chess’s father, Fletcher, Horeb’s postmaster, who was as devastated by the loss of his son as one would expect. Cummings offered his condolences.
Finally Cummings saw Officer Bernier sitting in a window seat, working on a piece of lace shaped like a moose head. Cummings realized he had never seen Officer Bernier out of uniform.
“How are you, Officer Bernier?”
Bernier, who didn’t remember Cummings, stared for a moment, trying to identify him. When he did, he scowled slightly.
“Mister Wanamaker. I thought you’d moved to the Midwest.”
“I have. I came back for Chess’s funeral. A very sad day.”
“I trust you won’t be interfering with any of my investigations while you’re here?”
“When have I ever interfered, Officer Bernier?” Cummings smiled.
“When have you indeed?” Bernier scowled again.
Apparently, he hadn’t forgiven Cummings for solving several cases that Bernier couldn’t solve himself while he lived in the village.
Cummings returned to Ernestine, who was sipping fruit punch to which she had added brandy from a sterling silver flash hidden in her décolletage.
“Is Smelt here? Or his housekeeper?” Cummings asked, surveying the room.
“I haven’t seen them, dear,” Ernestine said, “but that is not a surprise. I think I told you that Deuty keeps very much to himself. As to Elektra, she works for Deuty, but she’s never really been part of the community.”
“Perhaps I should pay them a visit. Elektra found the body, didn’t she?”
“I’m not sure how effective a visit might be. Deuty can be irascible.”
“Perhaps if you call ahead and grease the wheels for me.”
“Oh, that won’t do any good. Deuty doesn’t use the telephone. He writes postcards.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If he has something to say, he writes it down on a postcard and has Elektra mail it or hand it along to somebody. It’s just his way, dear.”
On the drive back from the church, Cummings convinced Ernestine that giving him an introduction to Deuteronomy Smelt was worth a try. So she wrote a note on Cummings’s behalf, stating he’d be dropping by the following day. They walked to the Smelt house and slipped it under the door. On the walk back she told Cummings what she knew of Deuteronomy and his household.
“Deuteronomy had an aunt, Cornelia Smelt Paddington. She died many years ago and left him money and his house. I believe he lives off of those funds plus whatever he may have saved from his glory days. His books don’t sell well — at least, not anymore. He wrote a lot of spy novels under the name of Nash Hammer. Did I tell you that?”
“Yes, I think you did.”
“I don’t believe he’s written a new book in, oh, it must be years and years now. The end of the Cold War took the wind out of him. He enjoyed the Cold War more than most folks. I don’t believe he much likes anything that has happened since, but that sort of attitude isn’t uncommon here. My grandfather used to say that nothing of consequence had happened in Maine since the Civil War.”
“What about the housekeeper?”
“Oh, Elektra’s lived in his house for decades. They say she came to Boston from Greece to marry a Greek immigrant she met through a lonely hearts advertisement. I hear the marriage turned out more House of Atreus than House and Garden, if you know what I mean. The husband died of a heart attack many years ago, and she moved to Maine to work in a hotel. Then she met Deuty and his wife, Edwina, and Elektra went to work for them. Edwina passed on a year ago, but Elektra’s still there, just as always.”
“Do you think there’s something between them?”
“Deuty and Elektra? You know we don’t ask that sort of question northwards of Boston,” Ernestine said playfully, “but I suspect the answer would be no. They don’t seem suited to each other in that way.”
Elektra answered the door after Cummings knocked several times. Apparently the doorbell was not working, an element of disrepair that seemed consistent with the house’s faded and peeling exterior paint.
“Hello. I’m Cummings Flynn Wanamaker.”
“I am the Elektra Philemon, the lady that finds the body. Animals eat on this body. Also this body freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw. Looks like the head of the doll made from the dried apple but with the fruit missing,” Elektra explained. “What else you want to know?”
“Would it be possible to speak to Mister Smelt?”
“Mister Deuty, he not like people to talk to him. Also Mister Deuty in bad mood. He been arrested.”
“For what?”
“Mister Deuty, he try to go someplace that is not good to go.”
“I believe Ernestine Cutter wrote a note of introduction to Mister Smelt on my behalf.”
“Oh! I am knowing of this note. Mister Deuty he say he like to talk to you. You come in and on the sofa in the parlor I put you.”
Cummings walked into the front hallway. It reminded him somewhat of Otto’s home: wooden, dark and oppressive. However, someone with taste had built this home. Although the interior was worn and faded — the wallpaper looked like it had been put up more than a hundred years earlier — all surfaces were spotlessly clean. Evidently Elektra took her duties very seriously.
Elektra escorted Cummings to the parlor where he sank into an overstuffed, threadbare settee. She then walked down the hall and stopped in front of a heavy maple door. “Mister Deuty, the visitor to you is now on the sofa,” she said, knocking gently. There was no response. She knocked again. “Mister Deuty?” Again there was no response.
Elektra sighed with mild irritation and picked up a postcard from the random assortment piled on a table by the door. The car
d was from the 1950s and read, “Greetings from Rehoboth Beach.” She took a pen from her pocket, wrote a brief note in her fractured English, explaining that a guest had arrived, and slipped it under the door. She waited. A few moments later, to her great surprise, the door opened.
“Is he in the parlor?”
“Yes, Mister Deuty,” she said.
Deuteronomy entered the room with his hand extended. His voice conveyed something like friendliness. “Hello, young man.”
“Thank you for seeing me. I’m Cummings Flynn Wanamaker. I believe you know that I’m a friend of Ernestine’s. I used to live in Horeb. Honestly, I’m surprised we didn’t meet while I lived in the village. It’s such a small place.”
“You’ve undoubtedly heard that I’m a recluse. Truth be told, most people aren’t worth one’s time. That said, Ernestine speaks very highly of you, and I have my concerns about the competence of the local constabulary.”
“A concern Ernestine and I share,” Cummings said, reflecting on the incompetence of Officer Bernier, who had failed to solve his late partner Terry’s murder.
“So I understand,” Deuteronomy continued. “Also, frankly, I had a minor scrape with the law last week which reminded me that I am too old to do what I once did. Thus, for all of these reasons, I thought we might work together.”
“Work together?”
“Of course. You don’t think I’d wish to speak to you just for conversation? I believe that Chess Biederman’s death needs to be investigated.”
“As do I,” Cummings concurred.
“Very well. I’m going to provide you with the information I have, which is not much, I’m afraid. Then I hope you will proceed from there and let me know, from time to time, how things are progressing.”
“Do you have a special interest in this?”
“I knew Chess, of course, but the truth is, I’m just intrigued. This case breaks my routine to which, I fear, I have succumbed over the years. Now then, let me tell you what I know.”
Deuteronomy repeated what he’d told Officer Bernier about Chess, adding more minor details, such as an expanded discussion of his conversation with Chess about his Cold War book. He then sent Cummings on his way.
Cummings waited until dark and then strode with a flashlight across Ernestine’s property. He found the boat which, along with the surrounding area, had been neatly taped off as a crime scene. Cummings climbed under the tape and focused his flashlight on the boat. The shrink-wrap was gone. He saw several large scratches on one side of the vessel. Their cause was unclear.
Cummings climbed onto the boat and moved slowly across the deck, perusing it carefully. In the small front cabin there were curious dried, brownish discolorations; presumably, this is where Chess’s body lay through the winter, and the discolorations were from bodily fluids.
Next Cummings walked to the small section of the village on the shore of the Carlisle River. He cautiously approached his destination, an old brick warehouse, making sure he wasn’t observed.
As a sign indicated, the building was the current home of BEIDERMAN ORGONE BOXES, LLC. As he anticipated, the main door was locked. However, Cummings was pleased to discover that several side windows had not been. He pried one open and hoisted himself inside. This process was assisted on the descent by a large oak worktable that had been pushed against a wall directly under the window.
He moved the beam of his flashlight around the space and saw that it wouldn’t be difficult to explore. It was oblong and open, measuring perhaps three thousand square feet. It had been set up as a woodworking shop with a variety of machines and tools neatly organized in various workstations around the periphery. At one end there were several doors. Exploring further, he found that these were restrooms and a lunchroom, all unlocked. He easily jimmied open the one locked door he discovered with a credit card. This turned out to be an office. Presumably, as the owner of the business, it belonged to Chess.
Inside there was a desk, a desk chair, a small conference table with chairs and several filing cabinets. The room was in a disjointed state, part order and part chaos.
The orderly section centered on the desk onto which documents and files had been neatly piled. Upon closer inspection Cummings determined that these were materials relating to the business, such as invoices, shipping receipts and personnel records.
The remaining items, which appeared to be personal, had been dumped with little thought onto the conference table. Apparently someone was running the business in Chess’s absence and had simply pushed the nonessential materials aside.
The personal items included holiday and birthday cards inscribed to Chess, a hand-knitted ski cap and matching scarf, a half-eaten box of chocolates, a large holiday gift basket from which many items had been removed, and personal papers, some in files and some scattered haphazardly. These personal papers included a newspaper account of a presentation by Chess to the Sagadahoc County Chamber of Commerce, insurance paperwork, photocopies of articles about Wilhelm Reich, two seed catalogs and an unanswered wedding invitation. Cummings looked at this and didn’t recognize the name of the bride or the groom.
Eventually Cummings found a file that contained Chess’s notes on the Cold War book, including the handwritten notes Chess had made on a legal pad when he and Deuteronomy met to discuss the project. Reading through them, he observed that the notes seemed to reflect the conversation between Deuteronomy and Chess as Deuteronomy had described it to Cummings. There was also a two-page handwritten list of the cases Chess planned to write about. Cummings scanned this, but as he had no knowledge of Cold War espionage, it had no meaning to him. He tucked it under his arm to show to Deuteronomy along with the Chamber of Commerce article.
Cummings carefully climbed back out through the window and closed it. Then he walked back to Ernestine’s house, dropped the papers by his bed and went back out for some additional nighttime snooping.
As he approached Chess’s house, which was only a quarter-mile or so from Ernestine’s, Cummings saw that it was a white paper plate of a place, a typical 1950s ranch house. To the left of the house Cummings observed a straight driveway plodding from the street to an attached garage. An old MG convertible, dented and discolored, rested like a beaten prizefighter on the asphalt.
Seeing no one, Cummings moved closer to the front of the house. There were two doors: a metal and glass outer door with a wooden door inside. Small bay windows framed the doors on either side. A low hedge of closely planted euonymus in need of a trim framed the facade. Between the hedge and the street there was lawn.
Cummings opened the outer door and looked at the hinges, the glass pane and the metal casing. Nothing seemed noteworthy. He tried the handle of the inner door. It was locked.
He went to the back door. To Cummings’s surprise, it was unlocked. Inside, he found himself in a mudroom, the transitional space in New England houses between winter and warmth. The accumulation of dust suggested that no one had been in the house in months. As is typically the case, the mudroom was little more than a place to take off one’s snow boots and heavy coat. On the far wall there was a door to the rest of the house. To the right there was a wall of coat hooks and beneath them, a low bench. To the left there was a wall adorned with photographs and a door, presumably to the garage.
Cummings looked at the photos. They seemed to be family pictures: ball games, dance recitals, lobster bakes. He recognized Chess and his father in many of them. He recognized much younger versions of Deuteronomy and Ernestine in the background of several.
Hanging beside the photographs was a hand-calligraphed Biederman genealogical chart with information going back to the 1600s. An inscription informed Cummings that this was a gift to a woman, perhaps Chess’s mother, on her sixtieth birthday. Cummings studied the photographs and the genealogical chart but saw nothing illuminating.
Cummings went into the garage. There he found a small desk, benches, saw horses, hand tools, power tools, lumber and hardware, all organized neatly on shelve
s and pegboard.
Cummings noticed plans for an orgone accumulator tacked onto the garage wall above the desk.
He glanced down to the surface of the desk. It was cluttered with loose papers. One caught his attention: a “to do” list. Cummings picked it up. It noted errands, phone calls, bills that were due. One item struck Cummings as being of possible interest. It read “consolidation loan?”Was this a routine financial transaction, or was Chess in financial trouble, and could that have had something to do with his death? Cummings looked for financial statements but found none.
Returning to the mudroom, Cummings entered the living room and then went up the stairs. He sneezed and coughed. He was disturbing settled dust by moving through the house, and it was beginning to irritate his respiratory tract. He wished he’d thought to bring a protective mask.
Upstairs he found three bedrooms and a bathroom. Two bedrooms were empty. In the third he found a bed, a dresser, a nightstand with an alarm clock, a lamp and a closet full of men’s clothes, presumably Chess’s. Cummings looked quickly through the closet and in the dresser and nightstand drawers, but he found nothing of interest.
The bathroom was similarly uninteresting: soap, shaving cream, a razor, a toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant and an expired bottle of acetaminophen.
He went downstairs to the kitchen. This was a small room that, like so many American kitchens of a certain age, had a tone of enforced cheerfulness: It was painted a shade of yellow so overweening that the dark half of the day seemed to be no more than an astronomical faux pas.
There was a breakfast nook with a small wooden table and two rattan chairs, each bursting with a sunflower seat cushion. On the wall above was a portrait of a man standing beside what appeared to be a giant Flash Gordon ray gun. Looking closer, Cummings read a caption identifying the man as Wilhelm Reich and the contraption’s purpose as the accumulation of orgone energy to attract rain.
Cummings moved his gaze to the appliances. They were old but so brightly white they might have had cosmetic dentistry. There were few appliances on the counters and no decorative objects. A small bookshelf hung on one wall. It contained works on cooking and nutrition, notably a number of volumes by Adele Davis, whom Cummings vaguely recalled as an early health food enthusiast.
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