Pick Up Sticks

by Deaver Brown

  Ruth was thoughtful. “If he stormed out, they were probably quarreling. Maybe that’s why he forgot to tell her.”

  “It’s more likely they were quarreling just because he did tell her.” Thatcher paused to organize his arguments.

  “After all, the whole question of a vacation house had become entwined with the custody fight. If the Lesters won custody of Eunice’s son, then the worst thing in the world that could happen would be to find themselves cheek by jowl with Eunice and her new husband in a private housing colony.”

  Ruth’s maternal instincts were roused. “It wouldn’t be so much fun for the little boy, either. He’d turn into a football.”

  “Precisely. Under the circumstances it seems incredible that Lester would have forgotten to mention the purchase to Amanda.”

  “And what does she say to all this?”

  “I gather she doesn’t say much,” said Thatcher, recalling Valenti’s account. “She simply insists that Lester never would have chatted casually with Eunice. Hence, Eunice is simply trying to conceal the real reason for their encounter in the parking lot.”

  “And what does Eunice say?”

  Thatcher sighed. “What do you expect? Eunice says Amanda seized what looked like a glorious opportunity to be spiteful and throw suspicion.”

  For a moment Ruth was silent, pouring more coffee and wordlessly offering a plate of hot rolls. At last, she spoke.

  “You know what strikes me as odd?” she asked. “It’s Eunice. Oh, I don’t mean her story of what happened on the day of the murder. I mean her general attitude. For instance, why is she so hostile to Amanda? Why does she assume that Amanda is being spiteful? After all, when Amanda first told her story, she must have been in shock and she’s only a young thing.”

  Thatcher stared across the table with frank disbelief. “What do you mean, why is she hostile? You’ve seen plenty of divorces, Ruth. It’s not uncommon for the first wife to be antagonistic to the second.”

  Ruth shook her head gently. “But there’s usually a reason. Very often the second wife is the ‘woman who stole my husband.’ That doesn’t apply here. Or, there’s just plain jealousy. If the first wife is reduced to loneliness, she’s likely to see red at the sight of the second wife enjoying the comforts of marriage. But Henry said that the Lesters first approached Eunice when she was already engaged. Now that’s usually a time when a woman is feeling very pleased with herself. She’s not likely to be jealous of an ex-husband. If she has grounds for detesting him, she’s far more likely to pity his second wife. You know, the thank-God-he’s-her-problem attitude.”

  “I may have been overhasty,” Thatcher acknowledged. “I simply accepted Eunice’s dislike as natural. Of course, there’s always that custody battle. The Lesters, after all, were threatening Eunice’s coming marriage and trying to steal her child. That’s enough to promote dislike.”

  “Perhaps. But I bet Eunice blamed most of that on Steve. Amanda wouldn’t be much more than his follower in all this. But there’s another thing that bothers me about Eunice. That’s this marriage of hers.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Thatcher demanded impatiently.

  “Well, they’re not exactly rushing to the altar, are they?” Ruth asked reasonably. “Eighteen months ago Eunice was getting engaged. It’s not as if they were youngsters waiting to finish college. Not that they do, these days,” she reflected.

  Thatcher tried to remember what Henry had told him. “There’s no question of divorce,” he reflected aloud. “The man’s a widower with grown-up children. The wedding is planned for next month, I believe. This vacation house is to be a wedding present for Eunice.”

  “And he drives a Porsche,” Ruth said significantly.

  “What makes you think that?” Thatcher was confused.

  “It was Eunice’s fiancé who was originally on the list for Fiord Haven’s weekend. Because of his car.” Ruth suddenly metamorphized into a shrewd retailer. “That’s not a bad way of narrowing down a field for a mailing list. People with money and sports car instincts.”

  Henry had been busy to some purpose, Thatcher thought grimly. How many police suspicions had he stirred while getting this information?

  “I suppose you’re trying to tell me that the man in Eunice’s life has money,” he remarked.

  “Well, he’s a catch for a divorcée working to support a child. And she seems to be having trouble landing him.”

  Not for the first time Thatcher had cause to reflect on the ruthless realism of women. How much of this quality did Amanda’s candy-box fragility conceal? His ruminations were interrupted by Henry’s return. The man of the house plumped himself down, accepted coffee and plunged into his news without preliminaries.

  “I was talking to Calvin. Our local state trooper,” he explained for Thatcher’s benefit. “He doesn’t seem to know much that we don’t. The police have crossed off all the prospects at the motel except the wives. It seems that everybody was in their room dressing or showering and they cancel each other out. The only ones who were alone, besides the Fiord Haven management running around setting things up, were the wives. The salesmen were in a huddle. So that narrows it down to Eunice, Amanda, Quinlan, Valenti, and that architect. That’s if you forget the Davidsons.”

  “And if you forget passers-by like Thatcher and Morland,” his guest contributed.

  Henry regally waved this aside. “Why should I rush up to somebody I barely know and bash his head in?”

  Absently, Thatcher reached for a turnover. “Is that just one of your flights of fancy? Or do the police assume this was a crime of impulse, no matter who the murderer?”

  “That’s the official version,” Henry replied, quaffing his coffee with gusto. “I’m not so sure I go along with that theory myself. I may have to look into it more.”

  For once Thatcher disregarded the need to suppress Henry. “I think they’re right. That would explain the location of the body, which has always puzzled me.”

  “What’s wrong with the location of the body? A nice secluded spot, no workmen due until Monday, ease of egress. If I hadn’t happened to stumble across Lester when I did, the police probably couldn’t even have pinpointed the time of death. A first-class choice, if you ask me,” Henry concluded.

  “You could do better,” Thatcher said. “What about Valenti’s idea?”

  Henry disliked having his expertise questioned. “That bag of wind?” he said. Here was something Ruth had not heard about. “What was Valenti’s idea?” she asked.

  Thatcher told her. “Valenti thought suspicion of murder could have been avoided entirely. Why not tumble the body down a hillside? With a little stage management, say a rock in the right place, Lester would just be another unfortunate mountain fatality.”

  Henry did his best to spot flaws.

  “It would have to be a clever stage set to fool a real investigation.”

  “And what chance would there have been of a serious investigation? Lester wouldn’t have appeared for dinner. People would remember he had gone off on his own, but it would already be too dark to mount a search. The next morning he would be found in a natural setting. I doubt if the police would have cordoned off the area, searched it rigorously, demanded a postmortem. No, the murderer just wasn’t thinking. There was probably an argument, a sudden fight, and then a panic-stricken flight. The murderer is probably having second thoughts just about now.” Thatcher could see the whole scene.

  “Possibly.” Henry was becoming more professorial by the minute. “But remember, the group only had one free hour between tour and cocktail party. Maybe the murderer had to rush back to the motel to be on time.”

  “Aren’t you boys forgetting something?” Ruth asked blandly.

  “I doubt it,” said her husband.

  “The murderer may not have been strong enough to cart bodies around the countryside.” Ruth leaned back, an enigmatic smile on her lips.

  She didn’t have to say anything else and she knew it, Thatcher real
ized. All three of them were suddenly visualizing Stephen Lester’s wives.

  Chapter 10

  MIXED HARDWOODS

  HENRY WAS not the man to sit enthralled by someone else’s imaginings. Pushing aside his cup and saucer, he announced that he couldn’t sit here wasting the day. He had things to do.

  “By the way, Ruth,” he said, elaborately casual, “if you’ve got a list, I could do the marketing for you. I’ve got to go to the lumberyard anyway.”

  His wife did not point out that the shopping center was ten miles from the lumberyard. Instead she produced her list and eyed her husband thoughtfully.

  “With that schedule, I don’t suppose you and John will be home for lunch,” she offered.

  Henry was much struck with this observation. “Now that you mention it, I guess we won’t. But, then, you weren’t expecting us to be here today so, really, it’s a help to you.”

  All wives are familiar with husbands hell-bent on doing what they want and, at the same time, determined to be regarded as benefactors. Sensible women do not fight nature.

  “That will be a great help,” said Ruth kindly. She did not speak again until the two men were in the car, ready to leave.

  “Oh, Henry!” she called from the back door. “If I were you, I’d start at the bank. That’s where the real gossip will be.”

  * * *

  An hour and a half later John Thatcher realized what she meant. They had driven into Gridleigh, the county seat. On the sidewalk in front of the bank, they had met the State Conservation Agent. Henry’s opening question was forestalled.

  “I hear you got mixed up with that bunch of developers at Fiord Haven, Henry. Finding bodies for them, or something,” the agent said disapprovingly. “What are they like?”

  “I was going to ask you,” Henry replied promptly. “We didn’t see much of them. Haven’t they been around your office?”

  “Like hell! Big operators like them don’t use local talent. They brought up some experts of their own to test that lake of theirs. Probably cost them a fortune.”

  Henry and the conservation agent grinned pleasantly at each other. The same tests would have been performed free of charge by the State of New Hampshire. The agent then admitted he was looking forward to Fiord Haven’s approach to the fish problem.

  “Their advertising is big on hunting and fishing being available. How do you think they’ll find out what streams are stocked with trout? They could get a list just by calling my office. So I suppose they’ll hire a big shot who’ll spend days checking every drop of water for miles.”

  Henry, with every evidence of satisfaction, agreed that this was likely. The agent, who seemed to be keeping abreast of each action and each publication by Fiord Haven in his jurisdiction, then took his leave, saying he was sorry that he couldn’t help Henry.

  “But you might try Guy Villars. They might have contacted him and I just saw him in the bank.”

  Within seconds, John Thatcher was towed indoors and Henry was bearing down on a rumpled, middle-aged man stuffing bills into his wallet.

  “Guy!” called Henry, who opened his interrogations with an artless lack of pretense. “Do you know anything about this Fiord Haven crowd?”

  Except for differences in wording, Guy’s reply was the same as the conservation agent’s. The management of Fiord Haven had not condescended to utilize the services of a local lawyer. Nonetheless, the local lawyer was surprisingly abreast of their movements.

  “This Quinlan is a lawyer, himself. Guess he and Valenti figure if they’re sharp enough to take on the opposition in Boston, they can take care of themselves up here.” Villars permitted himself an earthy chuckle. “You think it ever occurs to these sharpies that New Hampshire has had to make a living out of them for the past eighty years?”

  The conservation agent, Thatcher had noticed, was indistinguishable from any young man on Wall Street. Guy Villars, on the other hand, flaunted a slow drawl, rural colloquialisms, and laborious frowns. Thatcher was willing to bet that he had been to Harvard.

  Henry said briskly that sharpies had to learn from experience, just like everybody else, and had Quinlan done all the preliminary legal work himself?

  “Yup,” Villars nodded. “Not that there was much work to it. He waited until the plans for the new highway were finished, then he just scouted around for a big parcel of land that would be convenient for Boston commuting. Didn’t need much except a pond and some hills for skiing. God knows, if there’s anything New Hampshire’s got, it’s ponds and hills. Then he bought a couple of farms and got down to work. Did all the paperwork from his city office. He and that Valenti set up a corporation.” Villars paused to smile blandly. “And good luck to ’em, I say. We could use some big spenders around here.”

  “It might change the character of the place,” Henry warned.

  “Not as long as they’re not registered voters, it won’t.” Villars gave a valedictory grin and moved off.

  “One of your politicians?” Thatcher asked curiously.

  “He’s our state legislator now,” Henry confirmed. “But he’s got his eye on the Congressional seat. Look, it’s one o’clock. Let’s see if we can get hold of Don Cavers for lunch.”

  Don Cavers turned out to be the president of the Gridleigh National Bank. While Henry was rooting him out of his office, Thatcher had leisure to examine his surroundings. It was a long time since he had seen a bank like this. There was dark oak wainscoting halfway up the walls, the single plate-glass window bore the bank’s title in gold script, and behind the elaborately carved grilles, an ancient and gigantic safe stood in the tellers’ quarters.

  The man in charge of this period piece was all of thirty years old.

  “Glad to meet you,” he said warmly. “I guess this doesn’t seem in the same league as the Sloan.”

  Thatcher agreed that there were surface differences.

  “But we’re doing well, very well,” said Cavers, leading the way across the street. “Of course, all this second-home building helps. And the ski resort business is booming. You wouldn’t believe how much we’ve grown in the last five years. We’ll be putting in an electronic data processing system this winter. High time we modernized our systems!”

  Thatcher seated himself in the tavern booth and applauded these signs of prosperity. “I suppose you’ll be modernizing your premises at the same time?”

  Cavers hooted. “Not on your life! You can’t believe what an attraction that turn-of-the-century look is. When people come in to see about a mortgage to buy a vacation place, the bank’s appearance does half the selling job. They think they’re really getting away from it all. Back to small-town America and old-time virtues.”

  Thatcher readjusted his ideas. “That safe I saw in a corner?” he probed experimentally.

  “Great, isn’t it?” Cavers beamed. “I picked it up last year. Of course, we’ve got steel-lined vaults in the basement. But the summer people don’t know that.”

  Henry felt he had allowed decent time for shop talk. “John and I were down at Fiord Haven for their murder,” he said. “Interesting bunch, I’d say.”

  “Really?” Cavers didn’t look as if he believed it. “They didn’t do any of their financing through us, you know.”

  Fiord Haven, it seemed, had not tapped the local conservation agent, the local lawyer, or the local banker.

  “Did they get stung?” Thatcher asked frankly.

  Cavers considered the question. “About average, I’d say,” he concluded. “Of course, in the long run, they’ll do all right. Any developer up here does, if he can sell off his lots. I don’t know about their financial position, but they bought four farms, all abandoned, or semi-abandoned, including Miller’s Pond. And they’ve done their good deed for every other farm in the area. Land that had been a drag on the market started to skyrocket the minute the first bulldozer rolled in. I hear Courtney Blair is selling off his south field in half-acre building lots for A-frames.”

  Henry said the
re were no flies on Courtney Blair.

  “In the long run, you’ll do well out of it, too,” Thatcher observed.

  “And how!” Cavers agreed enthusiastically. “Sooner or later, Fiord Haven’s customers will be coming to us for mortgage money to build. I can wait. I’d just as soon some outfit in Boston took the high risks on the land development and the communal building. Not that Alec Prohack has had any complaints about slow payments. I’ll stick with the individual mortgages. Do you know that we haven’t had more than ten foreclosures during the last fifteen years in the whole state? Funny thing, people seem to hang on to country places even harder than to their regular homes.”

  A discussion of this point carried them through beer and knockwurst. It was agreed that people might overextend themselves financially for a first home because they had to have one. But a vacation place was genuinely optional.

  “By that time, people have picked up a lot of luxuries like second cars and boats that can be sacrificed if the pressure goes on. There’s some slack in their financial position,” Cavers argued cogently. “And they’re the kind we need in New Hampshire. God bless them all.”

  When Thatcher and Henry left him, he was audibly planning the introduction of a Franklin stove into the main area of the bank.

  “A bright young man,” Thatcher observed. “I wonder when he’ll get to wooden Indians.”