“There’s a bathroom window.”
“Not very big and high up in the wall. Quite a fall to the ground outside. So Jenny began to shout and scream. She said she was late for swimming practice. Which she was.”
“Jenny never lies.”
“Then Mother began managing things.”
“Good.”
“Not good. There was a weak floorboard.”
“Oh, no.”
“One leg of the piano fell through the floorboard. The piano is stuck against the bathroom door. Jenny inside, crying. Randy and Todd outside, laughing. Mother up and down the cellar stairs, yelling about wires and pipes which might be broken.”
“Winny, how did you get this phone number?”
“It was on the pad next to the phone. I thought I should call you. There has to be a solution, Da. This uproar has been going on for almost an hour.”
“Can’t the boys lift the piano?”
“They say they can’t, Da. They’ve made a big thing of trying although, privately, I think most of their energies have gone into grunting loudly. And laughing.”
“Jenny is missing swimming practice because she’s stuck in the bathroom because a piano is stuck against the bathroom door?”
“What’s the solution, Da?”
“Winny. The solution is perfectly simple.”
“What would it be, Da?”
“While you and Randy and Todd are lifting the front end of the piano…”
“Yes, Da?”
“Have your mother sit at the keyboard.”
“Yes, Da.”
“And play something light. Good-bye, Winny.”
“Good-bye, Da.”
16
“Glad to see you didn’t dress for dinner,” Flynn said to the naked Wendell Oland.
The members of The Rod and Gun Club were having drinks in the Great Hall.
Oland looked at Flynn as does an experienced fish at a purchased fly.
Cocky was nowhere in the room.
Away from the bar table, Ernest Clifford sat alone on one of the leather divans, sipping a beer. He was leafing through the magazine Country Journal.
Flynn sat next to Clifford on the divan and enquired easily, “What is your relationship to Buckingham?”
Clifford looked over at Buckingham standing by the bar table, drink in hand, talking with Wahler. “He’s my uncle.”
“Oh.”
“My mother’s brother.”
“And are you friendly?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Granted, Flynn had seen the incident at some distance, through a window, under artificial light, but Buckingham’s hitting Clifford in the back of the head in the lake less than an hour ago had not seemed friendly. The head-down way Clifford had then walked away from Buckingham had not seemed a friendly reaction either.
Sitting next to Clifford on the divan there was little doubt in Flynn’s mind the young, tall, broad-shouldered Clifford could have made pudding of the older, fatter Buckingham within a count of thirty.
Dunn Roberts brought Flynn a bourbon and water. “That should whet your appetite, Flynn.”
“Thank you, Senator.”
After his early-morning fishing expedition, drinking his breakfast, napping through lunch, Senator Dunn Roberts appeared relaxed and affable.
“We haven’t had a chance to talk yet, Flynn. Anything I can do…”
“One simple question: Where were you last night at eleven?”
“In bed, reading a book. Going fishing early this morning. So went up about nine-thirty. Couldn’t sleep. So read. Heard the bang. Came down. Somebody had shot Huttenbach.”
“What book?”
“Crozier’s De Gaulle.”
“Were you in on the decision to move Huttenbach’s body?”
Dunn Roberts looked around the room. “Yes.”
“Who else was in on the decision to move Huttenbach’s body?”
Still looking down the huge room, Roberts said, “Anyone else who says he was.”
“I see.”
“Anything else?”
“Not right now.”
Dunn Roberts picked up an empty ice bucket and brought it to Taylor, who was just leaving the room.
Flynn turned his head back to Clifford. “You have a sister.”
“We’re a big family, I guess. I have two sisters.”
“And one was attracted to Dwight Huttenbach.”
Country Journal still open on his lap, Clifford looked directly into Flynn’s face. “I guess Jenny was.”
“You guess?”
“Jenny has been seen with him. I have heard they showed up at places together. She volunteered for his last campaign.”
“Were they intimate?”
Clifford wrinkled the bridge of his tanned nose. “Probably.”
“After Huttenbach married?”
“I’d say so.”
“Is your sister married?”
“No.”
“So how do you feel about your sister’s probable intimacy with a married man who happens to be a friend of yours?”
“Like I should blow Huttenbach’s head off with a shotgun.” More color came to Clifford’s face. He shook his head. “Jenny’s a grown-up, Flynn. What she does is her business.”
“Which do you really feel?”
“Oh, come on.”
“Huttenbach had an easy time with women?”
“Not more so than others.”
“You mean, not more than you.”
“These are easy days, Flynn.”
“You’re not married?”
“No.”
“Do you consider yourself a special friend of Huttenbach’s?”
“Not special. We were friends. I liked him—especially when he left his trumpet home. He was really awful on the trumpet. And he thought he was good. I’ve always known him. Jenny’s always known him. If Huttenbach and my sister enjoyed each other, that was their business, not mine.”
“What if they didn’t enjoy each other?”
“If things worked out badly? I don’t know that they did. I’ve been assigned to the Middle East the last six months, Flynn. I don’t know all that much about what’s been going on in Jenny’s life. I called her last night to tell her that Dwight is dead.”
“What was her reaction?”
“She cried. But Jenny always cried when her toys broke.”
Flynn sniffed his drink and put it on a side table.
“I have a daughter named Jenny,” said Flynn. “Momentarily indisposed.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Nothing a little uplifting music won’t solve.”
Lauderdale carried two martini glasses over and handed the full one to Flynn. “The man who found my music box.”
Tonight, Lauderdale’s wig was raspberry in color, but similiarly tilted as the one he’d worn to lunch. His gown was a seedy pink. The material was strained across his chest. The breasts of his gown looked punched in. One strap hung off his right shoulder. The stockings on his thin legs were baggy. His high-heeled shoes looked enormous.
“I see you did dress for dinner,” Flynn said. “Almost.”
He took the martini and put it on the side table next to the bourbon.
“I recovered the music box,” said Lauderdale. “Thanks to you. I’ll play it for everyone at dinner. Who do you suppose hid it in the storage room?”
“I understand you have a noted composer-conductor among your membership.”
“‘A noted composer-conductor,’ “Lauderdale quoted. “That’s pretty good. You’d better watch this man, Clifford. With his brains, it won’t take him much longer to figure out you shot Huttenbach.”
Lauderdale wobbled away on his high heels.
Across the room, D’Esopo was drinking beer from a can.
“You want a clue?” Clifford asked.
“You going to incriminate yourself?”
“You’ve heard of Ashley-Comfort, Incorporated?”
“They make guns, I think.”
Clifford nodded his beer glass toward the member in the hounds-tooth jacket. “That’s Ashley. You’ve heard of the Huttenbach Foundation?”
“Not really.”
“It’s a humanitarian foundation set up by the Huttenbach family. Gives away millions a year. Of course Dwight sat on its board of directors. The foundation was heavily invested in Ashley-Comfort.”
“A humanitarian foundation was heavily invested in a company that makes guns?”
“Right. A couple of weeks ago, the Huttenbach Foundation dumped its Ashley-Comfort stock. It really drilled the final hole in Ashley’s sinking ship. And Dwight didn’t warn Ashley it was going to happen.”
“Are you sure he knew?”
“Of course he knew.”
“Why didn’t he tell Ashley?”
“Didn’t care. Didn’t think it mattered. Thought Ashley couldn’t do anything about it anyway. Wanted to screw Ashley. Take your pick of the above reasons. The net result is the same: Ashley swamped. Or, is swamping.” Clifford finished his beer. “Not nice. Not quite in the spirit of The Rod and Gun Club.”
“And what about you?” Flynn asked. “Is Ernest Clifford heavily invested in Ashley-Comfort?”
Clifford shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. You might ask Uncle Buck.”
In a blue blazer Rutledge crossed the room, bringing Flynn a Scotch and soda. “Anyone taking care of you, Flynn?”
“I’ve already had two.” Flynn nodded at the two full glasses on the table beside him.
Standing in front of Flynn, Rutledge asked, “Everything all right at home?”
Glass in hand, Flynn asked, “Are you having my calls monitored?”
“Do you think your sons will be able to lift the piano by themselves?”
Clifford looked from one man to the other.
“Can’t be too cautious,” Rutledge said.
The gong sounded again.
“Ach,” said Flynn. “I wish someone would warn me when that damned thing is to go off.”
“You’ve been warned, Flynn.” Rutledge turned toward the door into the hallway. “Dinner time.”
17
Rumble de dump!
Rumble de dump!
Our lake is bottomless!
Our forests wide!
We hunt the hippopotamus!
And skin his hide!
Flynn skidded his chair back from the table and muttered: “Ye gods and small fishes!”
At the end of each line the members of The Rod and Gun Club chanted, they banged their empty beer tankards on the heavy, scarred dining table.
Rumble de dump!
Rumble de dump!
Our friends are many
And our voices loud!
Wives? Haven’t any!
We live without cloud!
The members sat at the round table in the same order as they had at lunch: Oland to Flynn’s left, Wahler to his right. Dunn Roberts sat between Oland and Rutledge.
And Cocky was missing.
D’Esopo did not join in the noise, of course, nor did Flynn. Wahler smiled and tapped his tankard lightly against the table.
Rumble de dump!
Rumble de dump!
We kill all the deer!
And drink all the beer!
Live without fear!
Sure no one can hear!
Sitting back, hands folded in his lap, Flynn survived another two stanzas of this noisy drivel which had attained neither the puerile nor the doggerel, as well as the loud beating of the tankards against the table.
Across the table, only Ernest Clifford and Edward Buckingham were laughing as they chanted and banged. Philip Arlington performed the ritual with precision and high seriousness. Thomas Ashley seemed to be doing his duty. To Flynn’s right, Robert Lauderdale was chanting in falsetto and getting an extra noise out of his bracelets as he banged his mug. To Flynn’s left, Wendell Oland used big gestures, as if he were leading hundreds. Dunn Roberts was hitting the table hardest, and with the edge of his tankard, doing maximum damage to both table and tankard. Charles Rutledge sang and banged with a choirmaster’s formality.
Flynn supposed, if this or something like it, was a nightly ritual, then the previous night Dwight Huttenbach had sat among them, in either Flynn’s chair or Cocky’s, and chanted and banged with them. Each man’s characteristics would have been the same; what characteristics would have been Huttenbach’s?
There was no reflection, in this evening’s ritual of bravado, that, in the interim, one of their members had had his brain pierced by shotgun pellets.
Traditions continue relentlessly, regardless of facts.
Rumble de dump!
Rumble de dump!
When he was certain relative silence would ensue, Flynn pulled his chair into the table.
All were looking at him for reaction.
Mildly, he asked, “Are those beer vessels called tankards?”
“Yes,” said Arlington.
“Ever called cans?”
In annoyance, Rutledge said, “I suppose so.”
Flynn was silent.
“Why?” asked Roberts.
“Just wondering,” Flynn said, “about the origin of the word, cantankerous.”
Roberts whooped with laughter.
D’Esopo put his right hand over his eyes.
Taylor and the Vietnamese helper served the dinner of boiled fish and broccoli. If there was anything Flynn disliked more than broccoli, it was boiled fish. Served together, they were Flynn’s best idea of missing supper altogether.
He immediately supposed dessert would be tapioca pudding.
Flynn had decided as a boy that if life were only boiled fish, broccoli and tapioca pudding, there would be no culinary reason for living.
Lauderdale started his music box. “You’re right, Flynn. Fis missing.”
“Pity the whole thing isn’t still missing,” said Ashley.
Lauderdale put the music box on the table.
Rutledge asked, “Where’s Concannon?”
Flynn said, “He must have detected what is on the menu.”
D’Esopo had both hands over his eyes.
“Does anyone know where Concannon is?” asked Rutledge.
“We’ll keep a plate warm for him in the kitchen,” Taylor said.
“Maybe he didn’t hear the gong,” Lauderdale giggled.
The music box ran down.
“He says he wants to stay here,” Arlington was saying to Clifford, “in the cabin by the lake, until it’s time for him to go to the terminal ward. Says there’s no place else for him to go. Wife died ten years ago of the same disease. Has a daughter in Vermont somewhere who apparently hates him.”
“Can’t be anything he said,” Buckingham laughed.
“A son serving a long stretch in a prison in Hawaii for some silly thing or other. Some sort of mayhem.”
“But will he be able to go out with us tomorrow?” Rutledge asked. “Is he up to it?”
“He wants to,” Arlington said. “Wants to keep going until he drops. Hewitt’s a tough old bird.”
“I saw Hewitt this afternoon,” said Oland. “Stomping along lakeside with a doe over his shoulders. Looked perfectly fit to me.”
Rutledge said: “We all mean to go deer hunting tomorrow, Flynn. Will you accompany us?”
“Yes,” said Flynn. “If you’re all going.” “Great!” exclaimed Clifford. “There are plenty of rifles in the storage room, as you know, but after dinner, have a look at mine. I’ve got—”
“Won’t be taking a rifle,” said Flynn.
D’Esopo’s look at Flynn had settled into permanent dismay.
“Going deer hunting without a rifle?” asked Oland. “Are you one of these bow-and-arrow fans? Or do you mean to slay the deer with your wit?”
“You breed deer here at The Rod and Gun Club, don’t you?” asked Flynn.
“Yes,” said Buckingham, “And stock the lake.”
“And mo
st of you have wives, I think?”
“Yes,” said Roberts.
Flynn said into his plate of boiled fish and broccoli: “So much for rumble de dump.”
He wondered what the three belles of Bellingham were having for dinner. He thought of his wife’s good soup.
Dinner conversation then became a series of narrative monologues, hunting and fishing stories, each bright enough, most showing the narrator in a good light. Clifford’s story was personally modest; only Robert’s made fun of himself.
As the men at the table made repeated trips to the beer keg with their tankards, the stories became louder, slower, and less credible. Volume fought veracity and won.
Clearly, most of the men at table had heard most of the stories before. Only Oland insisted he had never heard any of them before. Therefore many stories were told despite the obvious boredom of most of the listeners.
When Lauderdale became bored with a story he started the music box again, and again The Wedding March, F-less, tinkled through the dining room.
Dessert was tapioca pudding.
Over coffee Dunn Roberts said in a voice well used to calling meetings to order: “I’m hankering to know what D’Esopo, Flynn and his cohort, Concannon, have discovered so far about the death of Huttenbach.”
“Commissioner D’Esopo and I will be meeting after this slimming exercise you refer to as dinner,” Flynn said. “We have several things to discuss.”
D’Esopo put down his beer tankard.
“Can’t you tell us anything?” asked Roberts.
“Yes, I can tell you something,” answered Flynn. “To a great degree, although not entirely, I have satisfied myself that Huttenbach was not killed by someone outside The Rod and Gun Club. The people in the surrounding area know The Rod and Gun Club exists, or they know there’s something up here. I suppose they resent having to drive around it, and resent not being able to hunt and fish through here, that your two thousand acres of timber isn’t being farmed, that whatever is here provides no jobs for the surrounding communities whatsoever—except, that is, for Carl Morris, who runs an empty lodge, at least five telephone operators well paid, I suspect, for their tight lips, and the odd gratuity handed out when necessary to such pillars of the community as the Chief of Police and Roads, in this case, at least, the County Coroner, as well as whoever else might be tempted to tell the truth. Whether your power is really all that pervasive, whether your perimeter of guards, dogs and fences is all that perfect, I cannot say, but over a very long period of time, you seem to have gotten everyone to believe in these defensive devices.” Flynn banged the cold ashes from his pipe into the brass ashtray.
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