Friends till the End

by Gloria Dank

  “You’re such a nice person, Ruthie,” Heather said, sitting down at the kitchen table with a cup of murky brown liquid. “Some twig tea?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “You should have thrown them all out days ago.”

  “Oh, Heather. I can’t. I can’t do that. They’re my children.”

  Heather could do that, Ruth thought, almost enviously. She looked at her friend—so tall, so slender, so capable—she knew how to handle her family. She had Harry twisted around her little finger, and the boys did whatever she said.

  Ruth had never been that way. Her kids had run rampant over her from the time they learned to walk and talk. She was just a big mushy pushover, that’s what she was. Even Sam bossed her around sometimes.

  Thinking of Sam reminded her. She said, “You know, Heather, Sam found the strangest thing the other day.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, he was in the basement, in his workshop,” Ruth said, her face going all pink, “and even though he was looking for something else he realized—well, he realized all at once that the insect killer was gone. You know. We bought this new kind to try this summer—our lawn is such a mess, we’re really embarrassed in front of the neighbors—just a little box of it, and now we can’t find it. He called me down and we both looked for it, but it simply isn’t there. Unless, of course, the cat could have gotten hold of it.…”

  “That’s odd,” Heather said. She put down her cup and looked gravely at her friend. “That’s very odd. Insecticide, you say?”

  Ruth nodded hopelessly. “And it worries me, you know, because of all these terrible things that keep happening … we wondered whether it had something to do with it.”

  “I think the police were looking for a certain kind of insecticide. Yes, I’m sure they were.”

  “Oh!” said Ruth nervously. “Maybe—maybe I should go tell them?”

  “On the other hand, maybe your cat has it.”

  “He does get into everything,” Ruth said vaguely. “The cat, I mean. You can’t trust him anywhere. I don’t know. I could go to the police, Heather, and it could turn out to be nothing, nothing at all—I’d be so embarrassed. What if they turned the basement upside down, and it turned out the cat had taken it somewhere and hidden it to play with?”

  “Was it in a box?”

  “A bag. A little bag, about this big.” She gestured. “Perfect for the cat to get his claws into.”

  “Maybe the cat buried it somewhere.”

  Ruth looked doubtful. “Ye-e-es,” she said. “I suppose so.”

  “Ruth, who’s been in your basement in the past few months?”

  “Oh, my goodness, I don’t know. Really! I don’t know if I could say—”

  “Think, Ruth. It might be important.”

  Ruth thought. She thought very hard. It was a novel experience for her, and not unenjoyable. She drank her twig tea and thought it over while Heather drummed her fingers softly on the table.

  “This is fun. It’s sort of like sleuthing, isn’t it?”

  “Ruth, this isn’t fun at all. It’s serious. Now, who’s been down in Sam’s workshop?”

  “Well—well, of course, the kids have been in and out. And Melvin’s down there whenever Sam will let him.”

  “The kids don’t count. Think, Ruth. Who among our circle of friends?”

  Ruth thought. She cogitated deeply. A worried frown appeared on her face. Her forehead wrinkled even more than usual. Finally she looked up with a sigh.

  “Nobody,” she said.

  “That’s impossible.”

  “It’s not. I mean—nobody! No one’s been down in that basement except for Sam. Why would they, after all? There’s nothing down there but junk. Well, not junk, exactly. Sam’s projects.”

  “Who’s been over at your house, then? Who knew about the new insecticide you had?”

  “Oh, goodness, Heather, everybody knew! Sam told everybody about it. He was all excited, you see—it was supposed to get rid of mealybugs in five days—we’ve had such problems with—”

  “He didn’t tell me,” Heather said.

  Ruth looked at her doubtfully. “Are you sure? Really? I could have sworn that at the tennis party—”

  “I’m sure. I never heard about it.”

  “I thought everyone knew,” Ruth said miserably. “Who thought it was important, anyway? I can’t remember things like that.”

  “Listen, Ruth. You have to go to the police about this. Yes, you do,” Heather said firmly, seeing the look of dismay on her friend’s face.

  “But, Heather, nobody could have taken it—it’s probably just somewhere on the floor, you know, where the cat’s been playing with it …” Her voice died away as she saw Heather’s expression. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. Neither do you. You’re not as dim as you make yourself out to be, are you, Ruth darling? You have to go to the police.”

  “I can’t,” Ruth wailed. “They found my fingerprints on that glass. I’m a suspect!”

  “All the more reason for you to go to them with what you know.”

  “Murder and mayhem,” Ruth said tearfully, staring into her teacup. “ ‘Murder and mayhem.”

  “You don’t want to end up like Freda, now do you? Go to the police.”

  “Oh, all right,” Ruth said miserably.

  Heather was that way: when she said something, you did it. She had her family twisted around her little finger; and, Ruth thought resentfully, now she was being bullied by her too!

  Voelker’s men went over the basement inch by inch. The packet of insecticide was gone. Sam Abrams stood by unhelpfully, saying things like:

  “Please don’t move that—that’s my new project—oh no, you can’t move that, that’s fragile—this is an old TV I’m going to fix one of these days—be careful with those cabinets, the drawers are about to break—I’ll fix that too, I’ve been planning to for a long time now—it’s so difficult to find the time, isn’t it?—oh, please, be careful—!”

  Voelker did not say a word until the search was finished. Then he went upstairs and said to Connors, “Not much help.”

  Connors nodded. “It’s gone, all right.”

  “It was the right kind, too. I checked it out with the medical examiner. Who’s been down in this basement?”

  On this point, Ruth was equally as unhelpful as her husband had been. She didn’t know who could have been in the basement. Nobody, really. Or anyone. I mean, how could you tell? They had had their friends over in the past few months, any number of times. Anyone could have slipped downstairs for a minute. There was that tennis party they had given about a month ago … of course they didn’t have a tennis court, but their neighbors owned one and let them use it sometimes … it was really very kind of them, wasn’t it? No, none of their visitors had asked to see the basement. Why would they? That would be odd, wouldn’t it?

  She asked the last question sharply, her dull brown eyes going back and forth between the two policemen. That would certainly be odd, wouldn’t it?

  Yes, yes, it would be odd, said Voelker. Whom had the Abramses had over since they bought the insecticide?

  Ruth got terribly muddled. She thought that they had asked Heather and Harry over—for bridge, you know, they enjoyed the game so much, and when Walter wasn’t around there was none of that awful yelling. Then after that Laura and Freda had come over for coffee one afternoon, and the three of them had had such a good talk … wait a minute. Her brow creased. Was that before or after Sam had gotten the insecticide? Goodness, it was all so difficult.…

  Finally, after much rumination and hesitation, the answer boiled down to one simple fact.

  All of the Abramses’ friends had been over either before or after the arrival of the insecticide.

  It was impossible to pin down exactly when they had visited. Pondering this, Ruth grew confused and her answers became even more muddled and self-contradictory.

  “Perhaps we had th
e Crandalls over before,” she would say with disarming frankness, then later add, “or perhaps it was afterward, and Isabel and Richard dropped by with Laura before that. Yes, yes, it’s all so confusing, isn’t it?”

  During these visits, any or all of the guests apparently had unlimited opportunity to slip downstairs and seize the packet. The basement stairs were in the laundry room off the kitchen. All one had to do was excuse oneself for a glass of water, then go quickly downstairs and back up again. The basement door was always left open.

  “Well, of course it is.” Ruth hastened to explain. “Sam goes up and down all the time, and the cat sleeps down there. I don’t know exactly where he sleeps, poor thing. Probably on a pile of Sam’s old machinery. We made a bed for him out of blankets, but he never seems to use it. Isn’t that just like a cat?”

  Voelker gave her a long hard stare. Was she really this dim-witted, or was she hiding something?

  In the end, when his questions began to repeat themselves with no noticeable improvement in the replies, he gave up.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Abrams,” he said grimly. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you will, Officer,” Ruth said almost gaily. “I’m sure you will.”

  She closed the door behind him and leaned against it with a heartfelt sigh of relief.

  “Isabel and I are going out to dinner,” said Snooky. “Don’t cook for me tonight, okay, Maya?”

  Maya was proofreading one of her magazine articles. “Okay,” she said. “That’ll cut our food bills in half.”

  “And I have more news for Bernard.”

  Bernard sipped his coffee thoughtfully as Snooky told him about the missing insecticide. When he was done, Bernard said:

  “I see.”

  “Does that fit into your theories, Bernard?”

  “Maybe.”

  Snooky waited, but that seemed to be all Bernard had to say. Snooky turned to Maya. “Has he always been this garrulous, or is it just me?”

  “It’s just you”

  “Oh, Okay”

  Maya adjusted her reading glasses. “Bernard doesn’t go around blabbing about everything to everyone. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I don’t go around blabbing, either,” said Snooky, offended.

  “To Bernard, murder isn’t a laughing matter. He has a highly developed moral sense. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I don’t get it. Why do we talk about him as if he’s not here? Have aliens stolen his brain?”

  “By the way, what time will you be home tonight?”

  Snooky regarded her in amazement. “What are you, my mother?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “I’ll be home by eight-thirty. I’ll get into my jammies and we can have milk and cookies, okay?”

  “Okay.” Maya went back to her article. Bernard was staring off into space.

  “I wonder—” he murmured.

  He became aware of their expectant gazes. He looked down at his coffee cup and said with dignity,

  “Yes. I wonder if there’s any coffee left?”

  Having secured the car through an exercise in quick talking, Snooky took Isabel out for a meal at an extremely expensive French restaurant.

  They sat at a candlelit table in a dark corner and held hands. Isabel was looking very beautiful. Her shining blonde hair was pulled back from her face and fastened with a jeweled clip. She wore gold earrings and deep red lipstick.

  “Have some more fish,” Snooky was saying.

  “Thanks.” She looked at him approvingly. The candlelight suffused his pale face with a reddish glow. He wore a jacket and tie and looked very well in it.

  She told him so.

  “Thanks,” said Snooky. “Have some more fish.”

  “I’ve had enough.”

  “This is the most delicious fish I’ve ever had in my life. I feel I’ve never truly lived until this moment.”

  “You eat more than anybody I ever knew. I’d forgotten about that.”

  They talked about many things: about college; about their experiences since then, Snooky roving all over, Isabel staying at home; about their siblings. They did not discuss anything remotely connected with murder. It was a fine evening and there was no need to spoil it.

  “I wish I had traveled the way you have,” she said with a sigh. “Lately—I don’t know—for a while now I’ve been thinking how much fun it must be to go places. I’ve never been anywhere.”

  “Oh, you have to travel. See the world. It’s wonderful. There’s nothing like it.”

  “You’re really lucky, you know that?”

  “It’s not luck. It’s a matter of choice. I decided a long time ago that’s what I wanted to do. And remember, it makes me a moving target for William.”

  Later she said, “That jacket looks very good on you, Snooky. You should dress up more often.”

  “What, this little thing?” he said carelessly. “It’s okay. It was the best Bernard had.”

  “Oh. I see. And the tie is Bernard’s, too?”

  “Yes. Can you believe he only owns two ties, and they’re identical?”

  “Why not? Apparently you don’t own any.”

  “No, but if I did, they’d be nicer than this.”

  The waiter materialized at Snooky’s elbow and paused expectantly.

  “Ah, yes. Dessert. What would you like, Isabel?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just some coffee.”

  “Coffee for the lady,” said Snooky in his lordliest manner, “and for me, the largest dessert you have.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You heard me. Coffee for the lady, and for me, your biggest dessert.”

  “One of our pâtisseries, peut-être? Or a cake, a slice of gâteau au chocolat …?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just so long as it’s extremely large.”

  The waiter dematerialized. Isabel lit a cigarette.

  “You shouldn’t smoke, you know,” said Snooky. “Terrible habit.”

  “It relaxes me.”

  “Poisons your lungs.”

  “Please, Snooky. You sound like Heather.”

  Isabel’s coffee arrived, and with it, the largest slice of chocolate cake, piled high with almonds and chocolate shavings, that she had ever seen. Snooky looked pleased.

  “Formidable,” he said. “Précisément ce que je voulais.”

  The waiter fluttered happily, like a giant butterfly. “Merci, monsieur.”

  On the way home (the waiter had accepted Snooky’s extravagant tip with a gratified smirk), the subject of Richard came up.

  “I’m worried about him,” Isabel said. She looked out the window of the car and the streetlights played over her face. “You know I’d do anything for him. We’ve always been close. But recently he’s started—I don’t know— drawing away from me. He won’t talk, won’t answer when I ask him why. He goes out at all hours—sometimes I don’t even know he’s out or where he is—and I don’t know who his friends are.”

  “You’re not his mother, Isabel.”

  “In a way I feel like I am. Our mother died so long ago … and I’m so much older than him. I feel responsible.”

  “When I was a teenager and started getting away from Maya, she was so happy she cried.”

  “Well, I’m not. He’s just—he’s been acting so strangely.”

  When they got to Isabel’s house they walked into the middle of a scene.

  Richard and his father were facing each other across the living room. Both were plainly furious. Richard was pale, and his father’s eyes were nearly bulging out of his head.

  “You lazy good-for-nothing!” he was shouting as they came in the door. “Don’t do your homework, run around all day and night with God knows who—your lazy friends— can’t take care of me when I need you—”

  “You don’t need me here! You’re such a big baby! You can go into the kitchen and get your dinner yourself! I’m tired of waiting on you hand and foot!”

  “You left me all alone here!�
�� shouted his father. His voice had an uneven, ragged quality to it: the sound of fear. “All alone! Anyone could have come in that door! Anyone!”

  “Oh, Dad, you’re so paranoid. Nobody’s after you,” Richard said in disgust. “I wanted to go out with my friends for a while. Just out to get something to eat—”

  “And left me all alone!”

  “Oh, Dad, honestly—!”

  Both heads turned as Isabel and Snooky came into the room. Both mouths snapped shut.

  “What’s going on here? What’s wrong?” asked Isabel angrily.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing.”

  The three of them looked at Snooky.

  “Yes. I was just leaving,” he said.

  Isabel saw him to the door and gave him a warm kiss good night.

  “Thanks for a lovely evening,” she whispered. “I’m sorry it had to end like this. I left Richard in charge, and of course they had to go and have one of their fights.”

  “It’s okay. Will I see you soon?”

  “Of course.”

  On his way home Snooky tried to listen to the radio, but his thoughts were crowding in on him, demanding attention. He had seen or heard three things tonight that worried him, revolving round and round in his mind.

  One was the raw sound of fear in Sloane’s voice as he said to his son, You left me all alone …

  The second was the look of anger and hatred on Richard’s face tonight …

  The third was Isabel, very composed, very beautiful, saying about Richard, You know I’d do anything for him …

  Anything for him …

  Anything …!

  10

  Snooky came into Bernard’s study the next day and sat down, his long legs sprawled out in front of him. He glanced at the desk, which was littered with papers, paper clips tortured into unrecognizable shapes, rubber bands, pencilless erasers and eraserless pencils, pens of all different colors and sizes and a small silver-framed picture of Maya. He said, “Hi. Are you working?”

  “Yes,” Bernard said sullenly.

  “Am I bothering you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you mind if I talk to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s right,” Snooky said. “Refuse to hold out your hand to a person who’s drowning. Stand on the shore and look the other way. Who am I, anyway? No one. Just your wife’s favorite brother.”