Kimberlin Mayburn’s costume made a strong contrast to that of Alice Hollonbrook—oh, her clothes were expensive enough and would have been stunning enough if they had been pressed. But she gave the impression of having slept in just what she had on.
Kim selected a table on the far side of the room and slumped into her chair. She took out a cigarette and was vainly trying to get a flame from her lighter when the waitress approached her. Kim glanced at the menu as the lighter at last functioned. She lighted the cigarette, inhaled, and blew out a cloud of smoke.
“I’ll have the salmon croquettes.” Her voice was quite loud.
Harriet sighed.
“And I’ll have another daiquiri,” Kim added.
“You just wonder how many she’s had,” I said.
“Is there somebody,” Harriet asked, “that can take over if she goes on with the daiquiris?”
“Well her brother could be summoned—he’s a lawyer—lives in the old family place out on the Feganville Road—big old colonial-type house. He’s a very decent person—carrying on in the family tradition—well—thought—of—will probably become a judge someday—somewhat uncomfortable in the Democratic party—but loyal to it in the hope that lightning will strike at last.”
Harriet and I discussed the present and future prospects of Lawrence Mayburn, Jr., while his sister’s daiquiri was brought and consumed.
In the process, there was some conversation between the waitress and Kim—always loud and querulous on the part of Kim.
Meanwhile, Alice Hollonbrook carefully kept her eyes away from Kim.
Knowing what I did about the two women from Harriet’s account of her interviews with each of them, it was fascinating to watch Kim, the daughter of one of our oldest families, well on the way to intoxication and not yet aware of Alice’s presence. And Alice, the girl from “away,” carefully ignorant of the presence of her late husband’s mistress. No matter what might have been going through her mind, she was the picture of a perfect lady. The dead Charles Hollonbrook was the link between them—a link that divided.
Suddenly, Kim became aware of Alice. She turned her chair slightly so that she was directly facing the other woman. “Hey!” she exclaimed in that loud, husky voice.
Occasionally, I had been at events where Kim Mayburn was also present, and I recalled that on those occasions her voice had been very attractive—as indeed she herself had been.
“I’m sure poor Alice is in for it now,” Harriet said, once more reaching for her compact.
“Hey!” Kim repeated, “I’m talking to you, Mrs. Charles Hollonbrook.” Kim got unsteadily to her feet and walked toward Alice’s table, with care avoiding the tables and chairs that were in her way.
Every time I see a young woman, pretty and of good family—and Kim Mayburn was both—when I see such a young person drunk and making a display of herself, I think it was better when ladies did not drink as they do now, certainly not alone. But then I am such a back number that I may as well be put into a museum.
“Hey!” Kim said again. “We got something to talk about.”
“I don’t think so,” Alice said.
“When I say we got somethin’ to talk about, believe me, lady, we got something to talk about.”
“The lawyer for the estate is Dan Blake. He is in the Piedmont Building. He can tell you anything you need to know.” Alice was very calm about it. She seemed to be altogether unruffled.
“Well, listen to the little wife!” Kim said.
I dreaded the scene that was developing, although it was very interesting.
“Don’t think for a minute that Holly didn’t tell me all about you and Clifford Avery,” Kim continued.
Apparently, this stung Alice Hollonbrook. Her face was a mask, but a fierce mask, as she said, “Don’t think that you were the first woman I had to put up with. And don’t think that you would have been the last. Now go back to your table and leave me alone.”
Kim swayed slightly as she screwed her face into—well, it was just a leer.
“You thought you could break it up between us,” she said.
“Did I?” Alice replied. “It sounds as if you were not sure of him.”
“He would have been mine! He would have been mine!” Kim shouted and burst into tears.
Alice called the waitress and told her to get the manager. Once more, Alice was the soul of poise.
Whether Holly loved Alice or not, she was the perfect wife for him. Why would he want Kimberlin Mayburn? For her old family with its past political glory—whatever that amounted to? And there would be a certain amount of money, too. Certainly, he needed that.
I had to admire Alice for the way she was handling this situation. Her behavior seemed always to be so deft. Even in her affair with the man from Baltimore, she had been circumspect. I had not even heard of it until Harriet told me. Of course I don’t approve. I don’t approve at all. But I am afraid I was on Alice’s side.
The waitress scurried around and found the manager very quickly. By the time he had arrived, Kim was hysterical and incoherent.
“Mine, mine! He would have been mine,” she kept saying, “in spite of all you could do! You bitch! You jealous bitch!”
The manager was very efficient, very quiet. I suppose he has had experience in these things. He put his arm over her shoulder and moved her slowly but purposefully out of the room.
The last thing Kim shot back was, “He was mine. You would never have gotten him back.”
I looked at Harriet as much as to say, What do you think of that?
She looked at me as much as to say, Very interesting!
We had finished our pie and our coffee and were just sitting there—listening, of course—but my check had not been brought.
I looked up. Alice had stood up and was coming toward us.
“I am so sorry you had to be here when all of that went on.”
Harriet turned to her. “Darling, you handled it just right. I’m proud of you. Do you know my friend Mrs. Bradfield?”
We acknowledged each other. My check came just then and I signed it. We got up. Harriet patted Alice’s shoulder and we walked out. We got into my car and started home, but our thoughts remained at the club as we reviewed the scene we had just witnessed.
Well, we didn’t know just what to think about it. It was clear that Kim was on the ragged edge. Such a pity with so much life ahead of her. And what exactly did she mean when she said, “He would have been mine”?
“It could mean anything or nothing,” Harriet said. “It merely bears out my hunch. Charles bought that insurance policy in February. That’s when he decided to divorce Alice and marry into the Mayburn family for whatever good it would do him. Kim was glamorous—ex of a naval officer—ex of a Frenchman, no matter what kind of rat he may have been—and she had political and family connections.
“So there is enough time between February and May—a little more than three months—for Charles to discover that his new beloved and designated bride is close to the brink. One thing he doesn’t want is a crazy wife. That wouldn’t suit his idea at all.
“And it wouldn’t be any surprise if little Kim’s dear Holly backed off from his plans to divorce Alice. As we have just seen, Alice is the preferable wife—a fashion plate, impressive, tolerant of Holly’s frequent and not entirely private peccadilloes, while at the same time she is very discreet in her own little affairs.”
“Then you’re saying that Holly more or less jilted Kim?” I said.
“I’m just about sure of it.”
“And you think maybe she killed him?”
“I have not said that,” Harriet replied, “but it could be. Whoever did it would have to be clever. The verdict was suicide. It takes a very cleverly contrived murder to call itself suicide.
“Still, an unbalanced mind can think of things that would never occur to you and me. Think of the meanness and spitefulness and ugly feeling in that little scene the child put on just now. Imagine all of that build
ing up and building up and you needn’t be surprised at anything.”
I could see Harriet’s point. But what a clever person it would take to plan such a murder! Just think of working out an intricate plot and putting it into effect in a distant city, and then think of poor Kim as we had just seen her! Of course, she was drunk, and sober she might be clever. But clever enough to do all that?
“Has Kim got an alibi?” I asked.
Harriet didn’t answer. She just looked out the window of the car as I drove along. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “I failed to ask her. And now I don’t see how I am going to.”
“It just seems like the authorities ought to be doing this,” I said.
Harriet said, “They called it suicide, and sometimes I think that would be the best way to settle the matter. It would have been just fine if I had left it alone. But now I know that either Alice or Kim or both have been done out of five hundred thousand dollars. One or both of them had a right to that money. Besides, there is an unpunished murderer out there.”
We went home and took our naps. I don’t know about Harriet, but by two o‘clock in the afternoon, specially in warm weather, I just get so sleepy, I can’t stay awake. Maybe Harriet pondered her problem all afternoon—but not me. My eyes just closed so softly, I hardly knew it; and when they opened again, it was a little past four o’clock.
We bathed and dressed and got to Tink’s house a little before six.
Jeff has built a lovely redwood deck on the west side of their house, and there is a big old tulip poplar tree that shades it in the afternoon. It’s just the pleasantest place you can imagine.
Tink has garden furniture out there—table and chairs and potted plants all around. She already had the table set. Then, on the lawn she had set up another table and four chairs. The twins were having two of their friends over—a boy and a girl.
Tink explained that there was nothing serious—the boy was Bob’s friend and the girl was Ruth’s friend, and they happened to be going together. And that arrangement was just fine with Tink.
The young people were on the lawn, throwing their Frisbees and having a wonderful time. Long-legged young people, barefooted, in shorts, brown from a week at the beach; it is just wonderful for my old ears to hear their shouts. And then I thought it might be sad for Harriet because she is all alone. But she smiled and complimented me on my grandchildren. You know, I have six other grandchildren, but I have always been partial to the twins.
We could smell something good cooking in the kitchen, and just then Jeff drove in from the store with a bag of charcoal. He got the grill going. Finally, everything was ready and Tink called the children in to meet Harriet, and we got down to dinner.
Tink had made cheese grits*—she has this marvelous recipe for it—and green beans and tossed salad, with the steaks done to a turn by Jeff. And then Tink brought out apple pie with homemade vanilla ice cream. We were all pretty full, I can tell you, by the time we finished that meal. The twins’ guests went off to see something called The Horror of New Rochelle at the “Passion Pit,” as the young people call the drive-in movie here. The twins had already seen it and stayed at home. Bob came up and sat on the edge of the deck while Ruth played with the dog.
Harriet got up and dragged her chair over beside Bob.
“Your friends seem very attractive,” she said.
I’m sorry to have to report that Bob’s “yeah” sounded more like a grunt than anything else.
“Are they in your class at high school?”
“No, we just graduated.”
“Have you selected your college?”
“Auburn,” he said.
“Will your sister go to Auburn, too?”
“No.” it
“Where will she go?”
“Salem.”
“That’s a wonderful school. Both of them are wonderful schools. Are you planning to have lots of fun this summer?”
“Yeah.”
“I always think the summer between high school and college is the best summer of all.”
*Cheese Grits Casserole: Bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Stir in 1 cup quick grits, and cook until real thick. Add 1 stick margarine, 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Cheddar cheese and 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder. Stir well until the margarine and cheese are melted. In a small bowl beat 2 eggs, and add enough milk to the eggs to make one cup. Stir into grits. Pour into a large greased casserole. Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes to an hour.
Robert seemed to be puzzled by the idea.
“Because,” Harriet continued, “you have lots of time to be with your old friends, but you have the fall to look forward to with new experiences, new surroundings, new friends.”
Robert seemed to let this soak in.
“I suppose you have lots of friends here in town—I mean from your high school.”
“Yeah.” Robert’s conversation with adults is mostly monosyllables.
“I wonder if you know Jimmy Hollonbrook?” she asked.
“Yeah, I know him.”
“I would think he is probably a year or so older than you.”
“Yeah, he graduated last year.”
“But he’s been in town all spring, I think. You wouldn’t know where he was on the night of May twenty-sixth, would you?”
“May twenty-sixth?”
There was a pause before the boy went on. “I bet he was still in jail—yeah. See, May twenty-third was our class night. Old Jimmy got polluted at Kelley’s and thought the bartender was ripping him off, see. So he started taking the place apart. And that’s how he got arrested. Yeah, he was still in jail.”
“Bob, I hope you never go into a place like that awful Kelley’s,” I said. After all, grannies have to preach their sermons.
“Course not,” he said, “that place is really rough.”
“And you say that was on the weekend?” Harriet asked.
“Yeah.”
“On Saturday night?”
“No, on Friday night. See, after he came back from being kicked out of college, the guys he hung out with were mostly high school kids. So Friday night after the dance, a bunch of fellows went to Kelley’s.”
“How long was he in jail?”
“I don’t know. A week.”
“No, silly!” Ruth broke in. “They didn’t keep him in jail for a week. Just over the weekend.”
“I’ll bet you a dollar.”
“Children, stop it,” Tink said. “Act your age.”
Harriet then addressed herself to Ruth.
“Do you know exactly when he got out?” she asked.
“No,” Ruth replied, “not exactly. But I could ask.”
“Ask him?” There was a note of surprise in Harriet’s voice.
“Not him. I’ll ask his girlfriend. She can probably tell what hour he got out.”
So Ruth was going to call the girlfriend and let us know the following day.
I VISIT ROSE MOODY
>> Harriet Bushrow <<
I had not seen Tink for twenty years. She always was as pretty as can be, but now that her hair is almost white, she is elegant. I’m so glad she doesn’t tint it. And Jeff has put on weight, but not too much. He was skinny when Tink married him. Now he has filled out, and it looks good on him. Poor boy, he’s losing his hair. I’ll always think of Tink as a child, though she is only thirty-one years younger than I am: That makes Tink fifty-seven.
And those twins—I had never seen them before, you know—just natural, normal young people. They will be in college now for four years, and then suddenly they’ll be out in the world, working, contributing, building their own families.
Maud is so fortunate! She has eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. When I look at Tink and Jeff, I can’t help thinking that Lamar Junior would have been only a little older than they are now if he had lived.
But here I am—alone—not a relative anywhere except for some way-off cousins. So, having no family to be a kind of center to my life, I have to do the crazy t
hings I do. Old folks have to have an interest, something to keep us alive and provide a little zest.
The way I’m going on here, you would think I was rambling. But this is going to get somewhere directly.
Do you remember that Paula Stout said she had gone out to the nursing home and fetched this poor old woman, Rose Moody, home to spend the night with her because it was Moody’s birthday?
If you stop to think about it, Paula Stout would be the perfect suspect. She’s Hollonbrook’s right-hand man, so to speak; and she knew he was going out to make his visits to the different Rotary Clubs and knew where he would be each night. I haven’t a doubt but what she made the reservations herself.
She had the key to the Hollonbrook house because she was going to feed the dog and keep an eye on the place—not the kind of thing an office girl would agree to do in this day and time—but it is the kind of thing Paula Stout with her good works and deeds and all of that would do.
And with the key to the house and a shrewd guess, she could find the key to the drawer where Charles Hollonbrook kept his pistols and ammunition and silencer and all that. Then there was the note—so easy for her to find down there in the cellar, where it was left for the gun club. Paula would be the perfect suspect if she didn’t have that alibi.
That being the case, I thought I would check up on Miss Paula’s whereabouts on May 26.
By this time, the reader should be fully aware that Maud Bradfield was just my tower of strength through this whole adventure. It was wonderful that she belonged to the country club and that she is a Baptist, because in a small town down where we live, a Baptist who belongs to the country club knows everybody worth knowing in the whole town. So Maud knew where I could find this Rose Moody. She was at McMenamee’s Rest Home.
When people began living so long, there got to be so many of us that taking care of old folks turned into an industry like raising chickens in cages.
McMenamee’s Rest Home is right new, and I suppose it is attractive—but not to me. It is situated on a hill on the outskirts of town. It is a beige brick building—only one story so the wheelchairs can roll every which way and the poor old people with their walkers won’t be bothered with stairs. There is a large parking lot at the front, and the building is landscaped with pyrocantha and junipers that may do well enough when they get their growth. And there is just window, window, window, one right after the other, each representing a room—like so many post-office boxes.
The Rotary Club Murder Mystery Page 14