Major Vices

by Mary Daheim

  Toadie dismissed her husband’s purported response with a wave of her hand. “I told you, Corky was fascinated. He neglected me shamefully at that wedding reception. All he could do was sit there and listen to Reuben talk about his exploits behind the lines. Honestly! Who cares?”

  Judith blinked. “Behind the lines?”

  Toadie made an impatient gesture, rattling her annoying charm bracelets. “Yes, yes. He was one of those spy types. What do you call it? SOS or OOS?”

  “OSS?” Judith suggested.

  “That’s right. So boring. As I said, who cares?”

  THIRTEEN

  AT THAT CRUCIAL moment, the den door opened. Toadie caught sight of the emerging uniformed police officers and scurried away. Judith lingered, waiting for Buck Doerflinger to appear. When he didn’t, she tapped on the door to the den. Buck barked an answer that Judith couldn’t quite make out.

  “It’s only me,” she said meekly as she opened the door. “I hope you won’t mind, but I can’t help asking for your expert opinion.”

  “On what?” he growled.

  Judith quietly closed the door behind her and moved to the desk. “It’s kind of technical,” she said, still wearing her diffident air. “My cousin and I were arguing about how Uncle Boo got killed in a locked room.” She saw the surge of anger rise in Buck’s face and held up a timorous hand. “I mean, I understand your theory about Weed Wakefield and the carton, but what I don’t get is the angle. With that shot through the temple, it looks almost like suicide. Why would Weed get so close? He could have shot Boo from here.” She pointed first to herself, then to Buck, who was seated behind the desk in Boo’s chair.

  The anger dissipated as Buck assumed an avuncular air. “I don’t know why citizens have to sit around and try to figure out how crimes are committed. It’s bad enough that the criminals do that. But for your information, murderers don’t always act in a reasonable way. This Wakefield character’s a doper, right? Who knows how his brain—or what’s left of it—works? Let’s say he just sidles up to the old man, whips out his gun, and—bammo! Blows him away. He takes no chances that he’ll miss or only wound him.”

  “Oh.” Judith gave Buck a wide-eyed stare. “I never thought about it like that. So you don’t think Weed might have wanted to make it look like suicide?”

  Buck pretended to consider Judith’s theory. “Well, now, he might have thought about it, but he should have left the weapon in here. Of course, there you go again with him being a doper. No rational thinking.”

  “No logic,” Judith murmured, sliding down into one of the two side chairs by the desk. “I wonder where he got the gun.”

  Buck snorted. “That’s no problem in this state. Unless he had a record, of course.”

  “Does he?” Judith hoped her mask of naïveté was holding up.

  “No,” Buck answered, sounding disappointed. “At least not in this state. We’re not done checking, though. We’re running him through the national crime data base even as we speak.” He broke into a smile, his big body rocking to and fro in the chair.

  Judith uttered a thrilled little sigh. “This is so…interesting! I mean, I’m sorry Uncle Boo is dead, but watching you bring his murderer to justice is terribly impressive. It makes me realize how well the system works—when it’s in the hands of a master.” Judith felt like choking.

  Buck beamed. “You bet, sweetie. When we’re allowed to do our stuff and not get all hung up in a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo, we can catch our perps. And get a conviction. It’s these damned lawyers and civil liberties lamebrains who make it tough on us cops. You’d be surprised what we have to put up with.”

  Judith, of course, would not. To her sorrow, she’d often heard Joe express the same opinion, though in a more modified tone. It seemed that Buck Doerflinger and Joe Flynn had more in common than just hating each other.

  “Now,” she said, giving the detective a shy glance, “if you could only find the gun. But, of course, you can’t know what kind of gun you’re looking for, can you?”

  The chuckle that came out of Buck’s mouth bounced off the paneled walls. “Oh, we can figure that out eventually. We already dug the slug out of the victim’s skull. It was pretty damned disfigured, but we can tell it was a 9-millimeter hollow point. Hey, what do you care about that ballistics stuff?”

  Judith laughed, a trifle weakly. “Nothing, that’s for sure!”

  Buck started to get up. “Got to check the weather. The fog’s just about gone, so maybe the ice is starting to melt. I want to get out of here before spring.” He chuckled some more.

  Reluctantly, Judith also rose. She put a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes. “It’s so awful when you think about it. That someone could go right up to an elderly man and stick a gun against his head and…” She winced.

  “Hey, I didn’t say that, did I? Look.” Buck stood next to Uncle Boo’s chair. “This won’t mean anything to you, sweetie, but there was no smudging on the victim. There was tattooing, though—from the gunpowder. So that means this Major guy was shot from a distance of not more than three feet and no less than one. I figure Wakefield stood right here”—Buck shifted his bulk to the end of the desk—“and maybe the victim never saw it coming. Wakefield was off to the side, see.”

  Judith’s brain was whirling. There was something not quite right with Buck’s assessment of the case. She visualized Boo Major slumped over the desk, his unseeing eyes staring at the wall. She looked at the window to the left of the open bookcase. If it had not been latched from the inside, the murder would make more sense. But both windows had been shut tight when the body was discovered.

  “What about the casing?” Judith asked as Buck started for the door.

  He stopped, stiffened, and turned to stare. Judith flushed. In her absorption with the murder scene, she had dropped her guileless manner.

  “Casement?” She giggled nervously and pointed to the window. “What do you call them in mansions like this? I was wondering if anybody could have seen Weed through the window.”

  To Judith’s relief, Buck seemed appeased. “It was getting foggy. Besides, nobody goes out at night around here. They all stay home and count their money.” With a final, quizzical look, he exited the den.

  Judith felt an urgent need to talk to Renie. Buck’s revelations about the autopsy results must provide evidence as to how the murder was committed. Unless, Judith thought with a wince, he was right. The Butler-in-a-Box theory was beginning to look more plausible by the minute.

  Peeking out into the entry hall, Judith saw only the Hispanic police offer, whose name she now knew was Gallardo. He was standing at attention by the double front doors. Judith wondered if Buck and Company were about to make their exit. If so, she realized she would miss her chance to speak with Weed Wakefield. Giving Officer Gallardo a friendly smile, she headed, not for the kitchen entrance to the servants’ quarters, but upstairs. She didn’t want to take a chance on running into Buck Doerflinger again.

  The second floor seemed empty. Judith hurried down the hallway, then used the back stairs. She came out in the kitchen, where Renie was talking to Mrs. Wakefield. The housekeeper’s back was turned to her. Judith signaled for Renie to be quiet, then slipped through the door to the basement. Passing the coatrack, she noticed that the reek of marijuana wasn’t as strong. In fact, the downstairs area smelled very odd, no doubt a combination of pot, beets, and whatever else Weed Wakefield might have introduced into the servants’ quarters.

  Officer Foster was on duty in the basement. Weed was nowhere to be seen. Judith already had her story on the tip of her tongue.

  She smiled diffidently at Foster. “Could I see Mr. Wakefield, please? I lost my Miraculous Medal and I’m afraid it might have gone into the trash.” She patted her chest where the medal rested safely under her navy-and-maroon Rugby shirt.

  Foster’s round face clouded over. “The accused is in the galley. He shouldn’t really be talking to anybody, unless you’re his attorney.”

&
nbsp; “But he hasn’t been charged yet,” Judith pointed out, figuring that guile would be lost on Foster. “Anyway, I just want to find out where he put the garbage.”

  Foster’s expression was ironic. “How about the garbage can?”

  Judith gave an impatient shake of her head. “It’s not that simple. Mrs. Wakefield has some complicated method of separating everything. All this recycling, you see. I doubt if they even use those old recessed cans by the porch. You know how it is these days—everything has to be wheeled up to the curb or it doesn’t get collected.”

  Foster relented. He pointed down the hall. “The galley is that kitchen right there, off the big rec room.”

  Amazingly, Weed Wakefield was actually working. He had the stove pulled out from the wall and appeared to be rewiring it. He heard Judith before he saw her.

  “You’ll have to wait to haul me off until I get this freaking thing hooked up again. It’d be easier if the wires went into an outer wall, not inside like this one, next to the saloon. I got all the damned insulation in the way. I ought to call the electrician, he’ll charge—” He poked his head around the side of the stove. “Oh, you’re not the fuzz.” For once, his eyes were in focus, but apparently his memory was cloudy. “Who are you?”

  “Half of the catering team,” Judith replied. “The birthday party? Uncle Boo? Last night?”

  Wakefield unfolded his gangling frame and stood up, brushing off cobwebs and dust. “Oh, right, murder and mayhem and all that stuff. Exploding beets, too.” He gestured at the stove. “That’s why this thing got all screwed up. When Zoe tried to clean up the mess, she moved the stove and yanked out some of the wires. What can I do for you?”

  Anxiously, Judith glanced over her shoulder. She was sure that Officer Foster was lurking outside the open entrance to the galley. Swiftly she explained about the allegedly lost medal. Weed informed her which of the outdoor bins would be the most likely receptacle for anything that had gotten swept up by mistake.

  “I’ll go look,” Judith fibbed. “By the way, Mr. Wakefield, did you hear the shot last night?”

  A strange smile spread over Weed’s face. “Are you kidding? I fired the shot, remember?” Noting Judith’s startled expression, the smile became a grin. “You don’t think I did it? Want to be a character witness, or whatever they call them?”

  Judith’s response was uncertain. If Buck was right, she was face-to-face with a cold-blooded killer. “I think it’s a farfetched hypothesis. But if you didn’t shoot Boo Major, you were the only one present in another part of the house. Whatever you heard might sound different from your vantage point. I’m curious, that’s all.”

  But Weed wasn’t much help, either to Judith or to himself. “I heard the freaking pressure cooker blow up, all right,” he said, gingerly touching one of the Band-Aids that still clung to his face. “There could’ve been some other noises, but I was kind of out of it. In pain, you know,” he added quickly, lest Judith get the wrong idea—which, in Weed’s case, was also the right idea.

  Disappointed, Judith gave a slight nod. “Of course. Some of us remembered a couple of other odd noises. I thought maybe you heard something that nobody else did. But you probably spent the rest of the time in your room at the rear of the house.”

  Weed considered. Off his marijuana high, he revealed a certain native intelligence in his brown eyes. For the first time, Judith noticed that there was a serious, even earnest cast to his features.

  “I’d like to remember,” he declared. “I’m no great believer that justice is always served. When I think of all the protest marches and sit-ins…” His voice trailed off; then he gave Judith a proud, almost radiant look. “You know, I was at Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech in D.C. in 1963. Man, was that powerful!” He pounded his fist into his palm.

  “Wow!” Judith replied in sincere appreciation. Around the corner, she heard Officer Foster’s shoes squeak. She imagined it was the African-American policeman’s seal of approval. Maybe Weed had inadvertently bought her a few minutes of grace. “You were active in the civil rights movement?”

  “From the start,” Weed replied with verve. “I got in on some of the anti-Vietnam action, too, but by the time that heated up, I was married and had a kid. Making a living can screw up your ideals. Then you start to feel like a failure. Things get to you, the world comes down around your ears, and…” Weed stared at the floor, which was strewn with various tools. “Thirty years later, you wonder if any of it mattered. Everything’s changed, but it’s still a mess.”

  “It matters,” Judith said firmly. “If nothing else, it matters to you. If you really believe in something, you have to act on it.”

  Weed didn’t look convinced. “So I spend over twenty years working in this big old barn for a freaking capitalist who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anything—and what have I got to show for it? Or him, either. He gets himself shot, and I get the blame. Whatever happened to truth? And justice? See what I mean?”

  “Boo was a victim in more ways than one,” Judith said quietly. “His father’s success made him a prisoner. He didn’t have to work, so he just sat. It’s really very sad.”

  “A leech,” Weed declared fervently. “He never gave anything back, either. Not even money. Talk about a crime!” The servingman was beginning to work himself into a self-righteous frenzy.

  Judith didn’t want to hear Weed Wakefield deliver a polemic about the injustices of capitalism. Indeed, it occurred to her for the first time that perhaps Weed had a motive after all. Perhaps his personal failures and his rage at the system had driven him to kill Boo Major. Buck Doerflinger’s theory was growing more and more believable. Judith hated the idea, but its credibility made her eager to get away from Weed Wakefield.

  “I’d better go look for my medal,” she said with a feeble smile. “Thanks for your help.”

  Weed made a self-deprecating gesture. “What help? Your miracle thing might have fallen off into the sink and gone down the drain. You’ll need a miracle to find it.”

  She was turning around when he spoke again. “When’s a shot not a shot?” he asked abruptly.

  “What?” she swiveled, frowning at him.

  “You asked me about hearing a shot,” he said, his tone reasonable. “I’ve heard plenty of them, like the pigs firing over my head at rallies and stuff. I didn’t hear a shot last night. But now that I think about it, I did hear a couple of weird noises. They were more like pops or thuds. I mentioned the first one to the wife after she came back to tuck me in, but she didn’t pay any attention. She’s always telling me I imagine stuff anyway.” Weed looked wounded, yet a trifle naughty.

  “You’re right,” Judith said thoughtfully. “There were two odd noises after the pressure cooker blew up. And they didn’t sound like shots to me, either. Not exactly. They also didn’t sound the same.”

  Weed shrugged. “I wonder if it’s quiet in the slammer.”

  Judith doubted it, but didn’t say so. She gave Weed another weak smile, nodded politely to a bemused Officer Foster, and went back upstairs.

  In the kitchen, Renie was gleeful. “Look!” she cried, pointing to the thermometer outside the window. “It’s up to thirty-three! The fog’s all gone! The sun’s trying to come out! We may be able to get out of here pretty quick!”

  Judith beamed at her cousin. The housekeeper chuckled. “Isn’t it great? I’ll get rid of all of you, and my old man’ll go to jail! Talk about mixed emotions!” She shook her head as she hauled a load of garbage out through the back door.

  “Garbage!” Judith gasped, suddenly putting her hands to her face.

  Renie stared. “Huh?”

  But Judith shook her head, then spoke rapidly in a whisper. “I’m supposed to be looking for my lost Miraculous Medal. Never mind why, but I just had a brainstorm about where the missing jewels might be. Let’s wait for Mrs. Wakefield to come back inside.”

  A moment later, the housekeeper reappeared, shivering. “It may be getting warmer, but it’s stil
l colder than an Eskimo’s nose out there. The steps have thawed, though, and the walk, too, at least close to the house.”

  Judith grabbed her green jacket from the peg by the back door. “I could do with some fresh air. Renie and I haven’t seen the gardens in daylight.”

  “Not much to see this time of year,” Mrs. Wakefield remarked, but she didn’t try to stop the cousins from leaving.

  “What’s up?” Renie asked as they crossed the frosty grass to the gazebo.

  Judith filled her cousin in on the autopsy report, Weed Wakefield, and the revelation from Aunt Toadie that Rube Major had been in the OSS. Renie was astounded.

  “So Rube was a spy for the Office of Strategic Services,” Renie mused as they poked their heads into the latticed gazebo. Despite the new roof, it had a forlorn air, with tendrils of ivy growing over the wooden seats. “Disguised himself as a German soldier and went behind the lines. That’s really dangerous. He’s lucky he got out alive.”

  “That’s for sure,” Judith agreed as they wandered over to the small orchard, which seemed to have two each of pear, apple, cherry, and plum trees. “But we know he spoke German, probably like a native. We also know that he was an adventurer and no doubt relished taking risks. You’d think Dunlop Major would have been proud of his son.”

  The cousins paused by the huge stone birdbath. The ice was beginning to break up. On a whim, Judith poked her finger into the chilling water.

  Renie regarded Judith curiously. “You thought the jewels were in the birdbath?”

  “Not really. But it doesn’t hurt to check. That thing’s big enough for a buzzard.” In a seemingly aimless manner, Judith meandered under a rose trellis and down a narrow path that led between tall trees and leafy shrubs. The ground was frozen solid, but the footing was decent. “As long as we have the chance, we might as well check out this whole place. I suspect we’ll never come back here.”

  “Ha! What about Trixie’s wedding reception?”