Friends till the End

by Gloria Dank

  “I think,” Snooky said one day, seated on the porch of yet another of his rented homes, “I think Mother would have wanted me to be happy. Don’t you agree, Maya?”

  There was no doubt that whatever his mother might have wanted, Snooky was content with his life. He had plenty of money, he moved from place to place, he met all kinds of people and went everywhere. It suited him down to the ground.

  William would make a sad mooing sound whenever the subject of Snooky came up.

  “Tramp,” he would say with a kind of grisly pleasure. “Tramp. That’s what he is. I predicted it, Maya. I predicted it.”

  His wife went even further.

  “Good-for-nothing,” she would say tartly. “Jack of all trades and master of none. A roamer, a wastrel, a flibbertigibbet.”

  Having relieved herself of these platitudes, she would nod firmly and turn away before Maya had a chance to say anything in her brother’s defense.

  “That’s not true at all,” Snooky would say when he heard of this. “I’m not a jack of any trade.”

  Now this object of loathing and scorn scanned the newspaper and finally put it down with a sigh.

  “If you ask me,” he said, “this paper doesn’t have enough cartoons. Not nearly enough.”

  “I just got thirty-one across, Maya,” said Bernard.

  “Really?” She craned her neck to see. “What was it?”

  “ ‘Evoke.’ ”

  “Oh, okay. ‘Evoke.’ That means fifteen down must start with a K. Damn. I thought it was ‘anti.’ ”

  “Fascinating though this is,” Snooky said, folding the paper into a large lopsided hat, “I have to go. Remember, Isabel’s coming over for dinner.”

  “That’s right. Your girlfriend.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend. She was never my girlfriend. We were just friends in college. I tried my best to improve on the relationship, but she wasn’t interested. She’s a couple of years older than me. I was a sophomore when she was a senior.” Snooky cheerfully unfolded and refolded the hat.

  “The unbridgeable social abyss,” said Maya.

  “That’s right.”

  A few days after Snooky’s arrival Maya had sent him out to a fashionable little grocery store called, quaintly, the European Common Market. There were many stores of this kind in Ridgewood; specialty stores where brie was sold strictly by the wheel, five different kinds of water-decaffeinated coffee beans were readily available, and suburban matrons in black leather pants could be seen leaning over the cheese counter and crying, “What do you mean the Cambozolla is overripe?” Snooky loved to shop there. He was holding a cranshaw melon and watching two women get into a heated argument with the store manager, apparently over a lost charge card (money, actual money, was never in evidence at the European Common Market; instead, customers wielded their own pink charge cards), when someone had called out his name. It was Isabel. It turned out she lived nearby. They hadn’t seen each other since college but she was unchanged; as beautiful as ever.

  “You’ll see, you’ll like her,” Snooky said. “Both of you. Even Bernard, who hates everyone. You don’t know her parents, do you? No? You’ll see, Maya. You’ll get a chance to tell her what a terrible person I am. You can get out William’s letters and read from them for evidence. You and Bernard will tell her everything about me, and she’ll tell you all about herself, and you’ll end up the best of friends while I sit there silently, saying nothing.”

  “Remember the lamb chops, while you’re out,” Maya said absently. Her mind was on the crossword puzzle.

  Bernard said, “I have to go, too, Maya. I have some work to finish up.”

  “Don’t go, Bernard. Don’t leave me here alone with all these blank spaces left.”

  He wavered visibly. “But I have a chapter due.”

  Bernard was also a writer. He wrote children’s books about rats, mice and talking sheep. His sheep books were the most popular; Mrs. Woolly, a maternal ewe with wire-rimmed spectacles and a careworn but kindly face, was well-known in households with children aged seven and under.

  “And I have an article due,” said Maya. “It doesn’t matter. Stay just a little.”

  The telephone rang. Snooky paused by the hallway mirror to adjust his paper hat, then went upstairs and picked up the phone.

  “What? Slow down, Isabel … what? What? Oh my God … all right. Yes. I’ll be right over. Of course. Anything I can bring or do? Okay. Ten minutes.”

  He rushed downstairs past Maya and Bernard, who had their heads together over the puzzle.

  He shouted something and the front door slammed.

  Maya and Bernard looked at each other.

  “That’s your brother,” said Bernard. “Honestly. Always rushing in and out.”

  “He’s crazy,” Maya said. “I love him, but he’s a crazy person. Bernard, what’s an eight-letter word for ‘May fly’?”

  Freda Simms put down the phone. Isabel had called her after the long night at the hospital. Of course it was natural that she would call her; she was Laura’s best friend. And as much as she hated Walter Sloane, she had always liked his two kids.

  Freda sat staring at the wall for a long time. She felt calm; very calm. How could this have happened to Laura? Poison, the doctors had said. Poison. Who would want to poison darling Laura?

  She lowered her head into her hands. She suddenly felt very tired. So tired … Her head drooped and her face looked very old. Her artificially bright hair hung over her forehead and she brushed it away with an impatient gesture.

  Something to drink … She got up, went into the kitchen and poured herself a drink. Some whiskey would be nice. Yes. She went back and sat down again, staring at the wall.

  There was a crash and she looked around in bewilderment. It was her drink … the glass had shattered against the wall. She must have thrown it. She didn’t remember. She didn’t remember …!

  Oh, God! Now there would be all that glass to clean up. And the dark stain of whiskey all over her nice new Persian rug.

  Who … who would want to kill darling Laura?

  “An organophosphate poison,” said the doctor, reading from the chart. He was young and had kind, tired eyes. “Some form of anticholinesterase. In plain language?”

  “Yes,” said Detective Jim Voelker.

  “Insecticide. A strong solution. In something she drank last night. The first symptoms should appear an hour, maybe an hour and a half after ingestion.”

  “Anything you could do?”

  The doctor shook his head. “She didn’t get here until two o’clock. By the time we began the treatment it was already too late. We did all we could, but—”

  “Yes,” said Voelker. “Thank you. I may need to talk to you again later.”

  The doctor nodded and moved off. He looked like he could use some sleep, Voelker thought.

  Jim Voelker was a quiet, morose-looking man in his early forties with short graying hair and a solemn expression. He shook his head and consulted his notes. Seemed pretty straightforward. Woman was poisoned last night at a party in her home. Her husband found her in convulsions when he went upstairs; he rushed her to the hospital, where she died shortly afterwards. The only thing unusual about it was the husband’s story. Usually the husband claimed to know nothing about it. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t. Voelker looked at his notes with interest. This time the husband insisted that the poisoned drink was meant for him. Was quite definite about it, according to these notes, hastily put together for him by one of his subordinates.

  Voelker’s habitually morose face grew longer and sadder. Inside, however, what he felt was a spark of anticipation.

  He would have to talk to this husband, what’s his name, Sloane—yes. He would have to talk to everybody on this list. Everyone who was at that party last night, everyone they knew, everyone who knew the Sloanes. He wondered if they had been happy. Perhaps they were. His mind lingered with a moment’s passing regret on that circumstance, hypothetical though it
might be; then he shrugged it off. Voelker was not the kind to dwell on hypothetical circumstances and regrets. He wanted to meet these people and hear what they had to say.

  And what they didn’t have to say. Yes. After so many years as a detective, he could hear that almost as well. He nodded to himself in satisfaction. He wanted to find out all about these people!

  2

  “Bernard,” said Maya, “did you hear what Snooky just told me?”

  “What is it?”

  “The hostess of that party he went to last night—well, she died. They say she was poisoned.”

  Bernard looked up from his desk. “You’re kidding.”

  “No.”

  “That’s horrible.” Bernard felt strangely offended. Murders, he felt, should not happen in his vicinity.

  “Well, he’s pretty upset.”

  “Mmm-hmmm. Do you think he did it?”

  “Bernard, please.”

  “I suppose this means the police will be here to question him.”

  “I guess so. I don’t know. It’s not like he knew any of those people, really. He just met them last night.” Maya perched miserably on the edge of the chair and her husband put his arm around her.

  “This is awful,” she said. “I mean, Snooky is always getting into some kind of trouble, but he never actually ran afoul of the law before. I’m worried about him.”

  “Sweetheart, your brother did not murder his hostess last night. The police must know that. All the same—”

  “What?”

  “All the same, I wonder who did,” said Bernard.

  * * *

  “Honestly,” said Ruth Abrams, shutting the door on Detective Voelker’s departing back, “he might just as well have come out and accused us of doing it, Sam!”

  “It’s his manner,” said her husband mildly. “The man has an unfortunate manner.”

  Voelker had sat looking very mournful and considerate and asking all sorts of prying questions. How long had they known Walter and Laura Sloane? What, in their opinion, was the Sloanes’ relationship like? How did Walter and Laura get along with his two children? About the party the night before: did they have anything to drink? Did they see Laura taking a drink? How about Walter? And most importantly, did they see Laura taking a drink out of her husband’s hand?

  Ruth had sat straight upright and answered the questions as factually as she could. All the while she had felt a growing sense of alarm. How could the police be sitting here, right in her living room, asking all these questions? How could this thing have happened?

  Sam had not liked it much, either. Yes, he said matter-of-factly, he worked for Walter Sloane. Yes, he was his second-in-command. It was a consulting firm. Small business analyses, computer work, some accounting and survey work. He and Ruth had known Walter for years; twenty, perhaps thirty years. They had known Laura only three years, since Walter married her. How did Walter and Laura get along? Great, as far as he could tell. And Walter’s two kids liked his new wife, too. There were none of the usual stepmother problems. Of course Isabel was already an adult when her father remarried.

  The party last night? It was like any other party. Yes, there was some drinking; there always was. No, they hadn’t seen Laura taking a drink from Walter, although she sometimes did that when he had had too much. Did he often drink too much? Sometimes … not often. He wasn’t an alcoholic, if that’s what the detective meant.

  Voelker looked more mournful than ever. No, he wasn’t implying that anyone was an alcoholic. He just wanted the facts. He had spoken to Walter Sloane and his children already, and after this interview he would go on to the Crandalls’ house. They must understand, it was his job to talk to everyone who was at that party last night. They did understand?

  Sam had said well, of course, naturally.

  Good, said Voelker. Now, about your consulting business, Mr. Abrams …

  When he went on his way, he had two new facts to think about. One was that the Abramses had not actually seen Laura Sloane take a drink from her husband’s hand. That was Sloane’s story: that the insecticide was meant for him, but Laura must have taken the glass from his hand and drunk it instead. Pretty weak story, in Voelker’s opinion. The second fact was that Sam Abrams was in a very interesting position relative to Walter Sloane. He was vice-president of their small business. That meant that if Sloane died or was disabled, Sam Abrams would take over.

  Voelker sat in his car and flipped through his notes. He recalled his visit to the Sloane house. Mansion, rather. Walter and Laura Sloane lived in a semi-regal style, in a white mansion at the top of a hill, at the end of a long tree-lined drive. The house was built in a U around an open courtyard where a single cherry tree bloomed. Inside, the rooms were furnished in pale creams and grays; Laura Sloane’s taste must have been modern, tending toward chairs that looked like plastic globes and tables made of steel and glass. Voelker shook his head. You couldn’t even see the house from the road, for Christ’s sake. It sat grandly on top of its own hill, surrounded by trees, like a castle. Voelker had lived and worked in Ridgewood for a long time, and certainly not all of it was that wealthy, but there were some areas, bastions of old money, that still amazed him. Somebody was certainly loaded. It turned out it had been Laura; she was the (he consulted his notes) Wuff-Wuff Dog Chow heiress. Voelker chewed his lip thoughtfully. He had raised his own dog, Angles, on Wuff-Wuff Dog Chow. Good stuff. Angles had certainly been crazy about it. So that was Laura Sloane’s father, was it? Lots of money there. And her first husband had been loaded, too.

  Walter Sloane had said quite frankly that his wife’s money was going to him for his lifetime; then to the two kids. The will had not yet been read, but that was the gist of it. And then, in the same breath, Sloane had denied any intention to murder his wife for her money. Throughout the interview, he had claimed that someone was trying to murder him.

  Voelker thought of him: the grizzled hair, the sharp blue eyes, the gaunt body, aggressive and strong. Sloane had a long thin face and hands that moved rapidly as he talked. He seemed tired and belligerent. He had endured the interview for as long as he could, and then at the end had roused himself and snapped, “That’s enough, damn you,” leaving the room without a backward glance.

  Pugnacious, thought Voelker. That was the word. Pugnacious. Difficult. Not to his wife, though; so far the consensus was clear about that. She could tame him with just a look.

  After him, Voelker had interviewed the two children. Richard was startlingly handsome, with his fair hair and chiseled features, but at the time Voelker saw him he was hollow-eyed from lack of sleep and his mouth was set in a frown. He slumped listlessly in his chair and said he hadn’t seen anything. He had gone to the party because he had nothing else to do and it was in his own home, wasn’t it? He had sat in the corner all evening. He had talked to his sister and his sister’s friend. He hadn’t seen any hocus-pocus with the drinks. He hadn’t seen anything. Could he go now?

  His sister, Isabel, was different. She was subdued, still in shock, but in very good control of herself. She too had been up all the previous night, but her pale face was freshly washed and her hair was pulled back neatly with a blue velvet ribbon. She had sat upright, crossed her legs, lit a cigarette and answered all of Voelker’s questions coolly, almost indifferently.

  Yes, she had helped with the drinks. She always did that. People expected it. She didn’t mind. Yes, she and Richard always got along fine with their stepmother. What did he mean? No, there was no trouble between them. Oh, well, Daddy was another matter.

  Yes, thought Voelker. Walter Sloane was always another matter. Everyone he had seen so far had expressed amazement that Laura would be a victim of murder. Everyone had hinted that they would have been far less amazed had the corpse been that of her husband.

  Isabel had shrugged. Well, Daddy was a difficult person.

  Did he have enemies? Voelker wanted to know.

  Well, yes, she said. He had a tendency to be a little—well, a little
abrasive.

  Yes, thought Voelker. A little abrasive. It was a masterful understatement.

  Isabel didn’t know anything in particular against her father’s friends. She had known them all her life and couldn’t say a bad word against them. She looked at him calmly and lit another cigarette.

  Voelker gazed into those steely blue eyes and thought he could see a faint resemblance between Isabel Sloane and her father. They didn’t look alike, but the ice-blue eyes and the cold angles of the face were the same.

  “How old are you, Miss Sloane?”

  Isabel lifted her eyebrows at this. “I’m twenty-seven.”

  “Do you have an apartment elsewhere, or do you live here?”

  “I live here,” she said flatly.

  “And what kind of work do you do?”

  It turned out that Isabel did not work. She had never worked. She had come home when she graduated from college and had cooked and cleaned for her brother and father—and, for the last few years, his new wife—since then.

  “I don’t mind,” she said. “I’d rather do what I’m doing than work. I’m not cut out for nine-to-five.”

  “I see.”

  Isabel looked at him steadily at that point and said that she had a lot of work to do now, as a matter of fact, and she hadn’t had any sleep last night. So if the interview was over …?

  Yes, said Voelker. The interview was over.

  “Please, Inspector,” said Heather Crandall, pushing the cup toward Detective Voelker. “Have another cup of my blackstrap molasses drink.”

  “No, thank you, ma’am,” said Voelker, casting a frightened look at the oily black liquid. “It was very good, ma’am, thank you. And I’m not an inspector. Just a detective.”

  “Oh yes, that’s English, isn’t it? Please, detective or lieutenant or whatever you are, have another cup. It’s awfully good for you.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Blackstrap molasses,” said Heather reprovingly, “is an excellent source of calcium.”