Pick Up Sticks

by Deaver Brown

“He could never have gotten to first base,” Finley blustered.

  “That wasn’t the way you reacted then,” Prohack reminded him sharply. “Sure, you were high and mighty with him at first. Just like you were with me. But you changed your tune damned fast when you saw what you were tangled with.”

  Finley made a last despairing effort to salvage the situation. “I’ve admitted I was annoyed with him.”

  “Who do you think you’re kidding? You were seeing red!”

  “My God!” Finley howled. “The man was out to destroy me. For no reason at all!”

  “So tell that to the cops and see how they like it!”

  But James Joel Finley, white-faced and shaken, refused the challenge. “You can’t tell them that,” he protested.

  “I don’t have to. You’re telling the whole world.”

  For the first time, Finley became aware of his audience. Swiveling, he stared at the car and its passengers. Then, without another word, he shambled off.

  Henry’s whistle was the first sound to break the silence. It occurred to Thatcher that the sight of Henry, chin on hand and agog with curiosity, must have been the final blow for Finley.

  “Well, now,” Henry chirped, “that sounded interesting.”

  “That smug bastard has had it coming to him for a long time,” Alec Prohack stated roundly.

  Henry showed no disposition to quarrel with this assessment. “What was wrong with the roof?”

  Prohack was relieving his feelings by savagely jabbing tobacco into a stumpy pipe. “It was one of those flat roofs that are the big thing in California. You know, Finley has done most of his work out on the Coast. I didn’t like it when they handed out the specifications, and I told him so. I kept telling him so after I got the job, too.”

  “Why?” asked Thatcher, entering the spirit of forthright question and answer. “Your only responsibility is to build according to the specifications, isn’t it? If they’re wrong, that’s not your fault.”

  Prohack replied that it didn’t do a builder any good to become identified with roofs that fell in, accompanied by extensive property damage and personal injury.

  “Yes, yes, I can see that,” Thatcher agreed. “But was Finley’s roof that bad?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. I haven’t had a lot of experience with these flat roofs. He was using steel beams, and he said that would be good enough. I still wasn’t crazy about the idea. Of course, his big pitch was that the money for the lodge had been allocated. So Quinlan and Valenti weren’t going to be sweet about spending more than they’d bargained for.” Prohack puffed vigorously to induce a kindle before continuing in an aside, “If you ask me, they weren’t in any shape to ante up more for the lodge. They didn’t leave enough room in their budgets for last-minute changes.”

  “You’re dreaming of another world, Alec,” Henry replied to this piece of Yankee conservatism. “Everybody builds before they’ve got enough money these days.”

  Thatcher regarded his companions without favor. They were both making substantial livings out of modern America’s haste to acquire possessions. How much would either of them relish a world in which young couples did not buy a home until they had the entire cost in their savings account? Or, for that matter, a world where you did not open The Pepper Mill until you were above the need to finance?

  “Let’s agree that nobody is financially prudent these days,” he said sternly, “and get back to this roof. Did Lester know any more than you did? Or was he making idle accusations?”

  “That’s the whole point.” Prohack removed his pipe to underline the seriousness of his observations. “You know they had a big winter two years ago down around Boston. A lot of the fancy buildings in the new shopping centers couldn’t stand up. When this guy Lester went to build himself a home last year, he wanted a flat roof like he had in California. He made such a pest of himself, his architect gave him a short course in roof framing. Explained to him why those flat roofs had collapsed under the snow load, even with steel beams. And finally, of course, made him see reason. The beams would have to be centered so much closer than in California that it would push the price way up. So, Lester had all the facts at his fingertips. He knew that Finley was planning exactly the same kind of framing that hadn’t stood up two years ago.”

  “Finley must have loved that,” Henry remarked ironically.

  Surprisingly, Prohack dissented. Possibly he was now sorry that he had goaded Finley. “You may have gotten the wrong idea about Finley, seeing him go to pieces just now. He wasn’t bad with Lester at the beginning. Of course, he pulled the great man stunt. That’s his style. But he was listening, I’ll say that for him. In fact, I was kind of pleased. I thought maybe Lester was going to manage what I hadn’t. But then Lester pulled that business about making the whole thing public.”

  Henry was the keen-eyed detective. “You mean they struck sparks off each other? Natural incompatibles?”

  “No,” Prohack insisted, “that isn’t what I mean. This Lester wasn’t mad. He just said it as a matter of duty. The public had a right to be informed about incompetence that was creating safety hazards. He made a little speech, sort of congratulating himself. You know what I mean. He said the main trouble with our society was the let-George-do-it attitude. If more people acted like him, then we’d have a better society. No incompetence, no indifference, no crime in the streets. Doesn’t seem to have worked out that way, does it?” Prohack concluded, looking around his own particular street.

  “It’s astonishing Lester survived as long as he did,” Thatcher observed.

  “You remember what Eunice said about him,” Henry said darkly.

  “I don’t know about this Eunice, but Finley was ready to split a gut. You can’t really blame the old geezer either. One minute he’s condescending to some stranger. Hell, Lester hadn’t even bought a lot. The next thing Finley knows, he’s going to be flayed alive in public.”

  “How did this exchange end?” Thatcher inquired. “We heard you say Finley saw red.”

  “If you ask me, he was looking for a way to back down. He was sure-as-hell willing to go over Lester’s numbers. But Lester just strolled away, as if he couldn’t wait to get to a typewriter and start telling the world. That’s when Finley exploded. I don’t know what happened next. I was the nearest target and I decided to make myself scarce.” Prohack nodded to himself, as if only his sagacity had saved his life.

  “But when did this happen?” Thatcher asked sharply. “You said Lester hadn’t bought a lot yet. So it wasn’t Saturday afternoon.”

  “That’s right. All this happened during the morning tour. The rest of the crowd was over on the hillside looking at where the ski tow is going to be.” Alec Prohack brightened into his first display of enthusiasm. “Over there. The trails are supposed to start right at the crest. And, of course, the lake is on the other side. Makes a tidy amount of work for us.”

  Henry refused to be diverted into construction details. “But Alec,” he said, disappointed, “then Lester wasn’t murdered for seven or eight hours.”

  Prohack did his best. “The police are thinking that maybe Lester and Finley met at the site before dinner and Finley made an effort to get Lester to see reason. From what I saw, that could easily lead to Finley’s picking up a hammer and letting fly out of sheer . . . sheer . . .”

  “Exasperation,” Henry supplied. “Eunice really had a point, didn’t she?”

  Thatcher was not so swift to draw obvious conclusions. “Whether she did depends on what Finley was doing before he showed up for cocktails at the motel. Does anybody know? Or does he simply say he was alone somewhere?”

  A grim smile appeared on Alec Prohack’s rough-hewn features. “It’s neater than that. The police asked him just that question on Wednesday afternoon. He told them he was with Ralph Valenti. Then, when the police were through with him, he went down to Boston to have a talk with the developers and attend that big dinner of theirs. That night somebody takes a knife and shuts Valenti
’s mouth for good.”

  Chapter 19

  TRIMMING THE TREE

  OTHERS MIGHT marvel at the tragic vulnerability of a renowned architect and the macabre annihilation of his alibi. But not John Putnam Thatcher.

  A long and observant life had all but destroyed Thatcher’s capacity for surprise. This, he knew, tended to set him apart from his fellowmen. On Wall Street, for instance, he was surrounded by colleagues who were stunned and shocked with monotonous regularity by a sag in IBM, by a rise in the interest rate, by a presidential address, or even by antitrust suits launched with elephantine secrecy by the Department of Justice. In many ways, the telephone in his office on the sixth floor of the Sloan Guaranty Trust was a conduit for pained yelps:

  “My God, John! Have you seen the latest?”

  “You won’t believe it, but—”

  “I tell you, I thought I was seeing things!”

  Wall Street is, at bottom, a collection of endearingly childlike innocents, always expecting the good, the beautiful, the true, and the profitable. The shrewd eyes, manly handshakes, and expensive tailoring that deluded the public (and a goodly portion of the financial press) did not fool Thatcher for one moment; he was one of the few men on the Street not constantly surprised by the turn of events—any turn of events.

  This immunity was the by-product of other rarities: an observing eye and a long memory. Thatcher was not the oldest financier in New York but, he was willing to bet, he was one of the few who remembered some of the more lunatic moments of the Great Crash. Of course, he did not expect a mass defenestration of fund managers. Far from it. But, if it came, he would not be rendered speechless with shock and wonder.

  Similarly, he had seen great firms go bankrupt and large banks collapse. He had seen excellent lawyers become alcoholics, Secretaries of State, and worse. He had known dowagers who had eloped with youthful chauffeurs.

  So, while he was frequently interested and curious, he rarely found himself overwhelmingly surprised. Yet that was exactly his state of mind in Pepperton, New Hampshire, on the morning after Alec Prohack’s disclosures.

  The source was, of all people, Ruth Morland. They were sitting in the kitchen over an ample breakfast. And, indisputably, Ruth was angry. Not resigned. Not amused. Not even humorously indignant. No, Ruth was mad as hell.

  Considering, Thatcher thought, what he had seen Ruth endure—and this included backpacking in the Rockies with three small children, two summers during which Henry experimented with wild nuts and berries as a source of food, and one winter, many years ago, when Henry had been smitten by the charms of the coach of the U.S. Ladies’ Field Hockey Team—the cause seemed, to a mere man, disproportionate to the effect. Nevertheless, the effect was enough to make him wish himself elsewhere.

  “You said what?” said Ruth, coffeepot ominously suspended in midair.

  Henry, Thatcher regretted to see, did not recognize storm signals when they were flapping in a high wind.

  “I said to come on up. We could put them up for a few days.” Henry, returning from the phone, reseated himself and reached happily for more toast. “Seems there’s some fuss about that Porsche of Steve Lester’s. So Eunice has to clear it up. And I’m glad to say that this Willy of hers—”

  “Peter,” Thatcher supplied, a wary eye on Ruth. “Peter Vernon.”

  “That’s right,” Henry rattled on. “Well, Peter Vernon’s finally decided to lend a hand—”

  “Henry Morland!” said Ruth. She was quiet. But she got through. “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve invited two houseguests, at a time like this?”

  God knew, Henry had never been a pourer of oil on troubled waters. But Thatcher had not realized that he was fool enough to try answering such a question.

  “What do you mean by a time like this, Ruth? After all, everything’s just about wrapped up. I expect the police will be arresting that nut, James Joel Finley, any minute now. We told you what Prohack had to say. No, Ruth, all that trouble is just about over now. And, of course, Eunice doesn’t care to stay at the White Mountains Motel. You can understand that, after what happened. So, I said we’d be delighted to put them up. Probably it will just be overnight.”

  Ruth looked steadily at her husband. Then, without a word, she put down the coffeepot and walked out of the kitchen.

  Despite a brilliantly clear autumn afternoon, the atmosphere was not happy.

  “I don’t understand it,” said Henry crossly when the two men were preparing scratch lunches some hours later. “Ruth’s taken the car and gone someplace. Now, why on earth . . .?”

  Thatcher had no desire to intervene in marital discord. He did, however, suggest that the lady of the house might feel she had a right to warning, if not veto power, over forthcoming houseguests. Particularly when the link with those houseguests remained two as yet unsolved murders.

  Henry waved this aside, recalling his descent with six stranded members of the Dartmouth Outing Club and his unannounced arrival with a visiting delegation of Englishmen. He described Ruth’s splendid and unstinting acceptance of these challenges.

  “Ruth,” said Henry with simple assurance, “loves company.”

  Thatcher had once known a man, a staid investment banker, who felt a periodic need to seek out some deserted location, throw back his head and scream as loudly as possible. He would then wend his way back to civilization and function as impeccably as usual. Nor did this need for catharsis in any way disable him; it grew no more pressing with age or tension. Simply, and to the end, Brooks Sargent had to scream aloud every two or three months.

  Life with Henry, Thatcher reflected, might induce similar needs.

  It was not a train of thought he proposed to discuss with Henry.

  “Exactly why is Eunice Lester coming up, did you say?” he asked as Henry peered helplessly into the well-stocked refrigerator.

  “Just have to be sandwiches, I guess. What? Oh, it seems that the police hauled off that Porsche of Lester’s. And, now that this question of Lester’s estate has come up, Eunice decided that it would be wise to get up here and attach it. Her Boston lawyer got in touch with Guy Villars.”

  Thatcher wondered if this attention to relatively minor detail was in fact the result of Boston legal advice.

  Possibly it was the fiancé, until now conspicuous by his absence, who had remembered the expensive car still in New Hampshire.

  Henry was now a man cast adrift by the woman who had vowed to love, cherish and feed him.

  “I can’t find any pickles,” he said plaintively.

  Thatcher silently removed three jars of pickles.

  “Henry, has it occurred to you that this Vernon fellow is something of a dark horse? You know, he may explain some of Eunice Lester’s tension. Granted, she has been in a difficult position . . .”

  “She certainly has,” said Henry stoutly.

  “But not as difficult as . . . say, Finley,” Thatcher continued.

  Henry, who had succeeded in laying as unappetizing a luncheon as possible in Ruth’s kitchen, protested, “But Eunice didn’t murder anybody!”

  Thatcher let that pass, noting however that Henry had weighed the evidence against Finley, and found it sufficient. And was it?

  Henry was still waiting.

  “I agree,” Thatcher said slowly, “but since Mrs. Lester did not murder anybody, she seems to have been unnecessarily . . . er . . . apprehensive.”

  “She was a suspect,” Henry corrected him. “I wish Ruth would remember to stock rye bread.”

  The afternoon seemed interminable. Henry dithered around but showed no inclination for forays into Gridleigh, to Fiord Haven, to Boston, or even to his own office not two miles away. Amused, Thatcher understood. Henry was a gadfly who needed a secure base of operations. And with Ruth gone, Henry was more than helpless. He was rootless. How many miles on the Appalachian Trail had been traversed only because Ruth was securely placed in the Pepperton kitchen?

  She reappeared at four-thirty, serene as usual
. She also had several large paper bags.

  “Well, Henry,” she replied to a fusillade of questions, “if we’re having houseguests, we have to feed them, don’t we?”

  “Oh, good,” said Henry, inspecting the contents of one of the bags he had transported from the car. “I’m glad they had pumpkin ice cream.”

  Did Henry ever suspect that occasional need to scream? Thatcher doubted it.

  By the time a large Cadillac was nosing into the Morland driveway, peace and harmony reigned within. Already, appetizing aromas were beginning to fill the kitchen; upstairs, flowers had been placed in the bedrooms, the bathrooms held full complements of fluffy towels. Henry, spruce in a sports jacket and respectable slacks, was readying an extensive array of bottles.

  Eunice Lester, although she seemed thinner than Thatcher realized, was relaxed and charmingly apologetic to Ruth Morland.

  “I do realize that we’re imposing on you,” she began.

  But Ruth, looking trim in a skirt and blouse, did not let her finish.

  “Not a bit of it,” she said with warmth. “We’re delighted.”

  And, Thatcher saw, Ruth meant it.

  If there were any surprises left in life, it was a sure thing that women would provide them.

  Men, or at least Peter Vernon, most assuredly would not. He proved to be a solid, middle-aged man without much to say. Or so it first seemed. Over cocktails, or the fearsome concoctions Henry regarded as cocktails, he responded readily enough to questions and even joined the general conversation. But he was reserved, almost self-conscious.

  This was not altogether surprising, thought Thatcher. Within minutes, Henry, Ruth and Eunice might have been lifelong friends, so unconstrainedly were they exchanging views on current events. Not everybody has the gift of instant intimacy. Then too, being the houseguest of total strangers is not conducive to ease and relaxation in most adults. Furthermore, only very young men can carry off the role of fiancé with any real aplomb.

  “Wholesale liquor importer,” Vernon replied to one of Henry’s direct questions. “You should drop in on us when you’re in Boston. We have one of the finest cellars on the East Coast.”