The Rotary Club Murder Mystery

by Graham Landrum

  Well, those little rooms are all the homes the inmates have, and it would be a real work of charity for Paula to provide a little social life for Rose Moody.

  There’s no porch on the modern rest home. The inside of such places is all shut up and has just the right amount of light and the right amount of heat. The only nature other than human nature in the place is potted plants, and they are plastic.

  The interior was bland. There was a reception desk to one side of the hall, but there was nobody there. I could see through to a large room where the television was honking away. Old people were lined up in rows. Wrinkled face after wrinkled face watching what? Geraldo, maybe.

  In a little while, a woman in a gray uniform with white stockings and shoes, passing through the room where the old people were, looked over and saw me. She came right away with that kind of rapid, determined step I always associate with nurses. “Care-giver” is probably what they call this woman nowadays. She had a pleasant-enough voice, but I could tell that she was very busy, and I was an interruption.

  “Good morning, dear,” I said. “I am Ms. Gardner,” using my maiden name again just in case—in case of what, I do not know, but it seemed a good thing to do.

  “I am visiting here in town and heard that Rose Moody was staying in your lovely rest home. Rose and I were schoolgirls together. I just couldn’t leave town without seeing her.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” the woman said. She had me sign a register they have for visitors. “I believe Mrs. Moody is here in the television lounge.” We were walking toward the big room I had seen. The woman looked around.

  “I don’t see her,” she said somewhat surprised, “perhaps she’s in her room. Come with me.”

  I followed just a bit behind the quick, efficient steps of my conductress. Very professional, obviously—professionally alert, professionally cheerful. I wondered what she really felt about her job. Compassion? Probably, but compassion meted out in prescribed doses. A godsend for her charges, no doubt. But for myself, I am resolved to paddle my own canoe as long as the strength is in me.

  We went down a long hall, just like a hospital hall, with doors standing partly open. At the end of the hall, my guide stuck her head into a room at the right. “Rose,” she said, apparently getting some reaction from the woman within, “we have a visitor.”

  I went into the room. I would say it was of a very reasonable size. There was a modern metal-frame bed in it and two comfortable-looking chairs, also modern. Then there was this funnylooking old dresser dating back to about 1925—just the wrong time. But, of course, we can’t all have beautiful antiques. And I suppose the dresser meant something to Rose Moody, who, I forgot to say, was sitting in one of the chairs. It looked like a church newspaper was in her lap.

  “This lady says she knows you.” The voice was bright, and I noticed that the matron was speaking just a bit louder. “I’ll leave you girls to talk about old times.” Then the woman trotted off, her steps as insistent as ever.

  “Darling,” I said, “it’s Hattie Gardner.”

  Rose Moody peered at me as much as to say, I never saw you in my life. But I was going to convince her that she had.

  “It’s so good to see your sweet face again,” I said as I drew the other chair closer to her and sat in it. “How is your hearing?”

  “Why, it’s pretty good.” And it was a good thing my hearing is good, because there wasn’t much power behind her voice.

  “I notice you are wearing a hearing aid,” I said. “How do you like it?”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “It makes a lot of difference.”

  “Do you like it here at this rest home?” I asked. If we talked long enough and I was positive enough, Rose Moody would begin to think she ought to remember me.

  “Pretty well,” she said.

  My eye fell on her wedding ring and it gave me an idea.

  “Maybe you don’t know that Lamar passed away,” I said.

  “Oh, that is so sad,” she said in a tone that indicated she had no idea what I was talking about, but there was a sympathetic tone—politeness, of course—and I had to build on that.

  “When we are left alone, friends mean so much to us, don’t they?” I said.

  “Oh my yes,” came the answer—just an automatic response.

  “I’m visiting here in town, dear,” I said, “and I heard you were here. So I thought, I’ll go out and see if Rose is still the bright, cheerful little thing I used to have so much fun with.”

  “It’s so good of you to come.”

  “I understand you had a birthday recently.”

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “You didn’t have a birthday?”

  “Oh yes, I had a birthday, but it wasn’t recent. It was last month.”

  “Well, honey,” I explained, “when folks are as old as we are, a month ago is recent. What did you do to celebrate your birthday?”

  At this, Rose Moody brightened. “Oh, a young woman from the church came and got me. Took me to her home and gave me a very nice dinner and then we watched the television until nine o’clock.”

  “Wasn’t that lovely,” I said. “And then you came back here?”

  “Oh no, I spent the night at her house.”

  “Whose house?”

  “This lady from the church. Oh why can’t I remember her name?”

  “Does she come to see you often?”

  “Just now and then. She is very sweet.”

  “And you spent the night at her house?”

  “Yes. I had a very nice room, with the bathroom so convenient.”

  “I bet you slept well after such a delightful evening.”

  “Never slept better. Didn’t wake up the next morning until nine-thirty.”

  Well, there I had it. The old fool could be convinced of anything. And with that hearing aid out of her ear, she wouldn’t know a thing till the next morning. Paula Stout had undoubtedly entertained this poor woman, but that didn’t mean that Paula had an alibi.

  When I got back to the house, Maud’s little granddaughter had called. They had let Jimmy Hollonbrook out of jail on Monday. That would be the twenty-sixth of May, and he could have killed his father that night—if he was smart enough to figure out how to do it. Which, I might add, I hadn’t figured out as yet myself.

  So there were a couple more suspects with alibis that weren’t alibis at all. After two weeks in Stedbury, I had excavated a ton of dirt, but I hadn’t found “who done it” by a long shot.

  A VERY UNEXPECTED EVENT

  >> Harriet Bushrow <<

  Dogs! It’s funny about dogs. Papa always had a collie or two. In the summers they would lie on the porch beside his old rocking chair. Dear old Papa! He was fifty-five, and I thought he was old, old, old.

  But dogs! There are three dogs in this story. There was Alice Hollonbrook’s cocker, the one that had to be fed—and that was why Paula Stout had the house key and was a suspect. Then there was the mutt that belongs to Maud’s grandchildren. It doesn’t have anything to do with the story; it was just a dog. But the other dog was important, and I am going to tell about it now.

  The fact is, this little dog allowed me to see something that I would not have seen otherwise. When you are raised Presbyterian the way I was, you just have to believe that everything works out the way it is supposed to. And I feel sure this little dog was part of the plan.

  But let me explain.

  You see, Maud’s house is right on the corner—neat little lawn and great big trees along the front but hardly any side lawn at all and no trees there—so that the room where I was staying was practically on the cross street. On the other side of that cross street, there was a house where the lady had a little Chihuahua.

  She was just crazy about that Chihuahua—would sit on her patio in back of her house and hold that little dog under her chin, and you’d think she was going to kiss it any minute.

  And I admit it was cute the way that little thing would run around the yard
with its little rear end wiggling until it almost shimmered.

  And of course it just went yap, yap, yap.

  Well this woman’s house has a back porch that is screened in, and the little dog has his bed out there. Every time something would wake it up, it would just bark and bark—and if I was sleeping, that would wake me up. Fortunately, Maud lives in a neighborhood where there is very little to disturb a dog.

  Well, Maud’s garage is so close to the side street that there is scarcely any driveway to it at all. I had to park my old DeSoto on the street, which meant that at night my car was pretty close to the porch where the little dog was sleeping. So I really didn’t have to worry about the car with that little dog right there. He was better than a burglar alarm.

  Well, as I was coming back to Maud’s house after I had my visit with Rose Moody, it was so hot and humid, I could hardly breathe. Maud said surely it would rain. And about 7:30, it did.

  Thunder and lightning! Gracious! It was a regular mountain storm. Just buckets of rain! And then it was over and so pleasant and cool that we turned off the air conditioning and opened all the windows.

  Maud and I sat there in her living room and reminisced until 9:30 about the girls we used to know at Catawba. And then I retired to my “couch of repose,” expecting to enjoy my rest.

  It was a fairly bright moon the night after my latest “escapade,” and my slumbers were getting along just fine when that little Chihuahua began to yap and woke me up. That scamp was so excited, I couldn’t believe he was just barking at an old tomcat. So I reached for my specs on the night table and got up and looked out the window. Parked about ten feet in front of my DeSoto was a big old square-looking van with the motor running. Of course I couldn’t tell the color of it, but it must have been a light color because it looked gray in the moonlight.

  And there in the light from the street lamp was a hefty man squatting by the side of the DeSoto, pushing something under it. He was there a second, and then as fast as he could he kind of hobbled to his van and jumped in. His motor raced up, and off he took, cutting the corner at the next street so short that his rear wheel went right over the curb.

  Then!

  All of a sudden there was this brilliant flash under my car and lots of smoke. My ears were deafened with an explosion that shook Maud’s house till the teacups rattled. There was another brilliant flash when the gas tank exploded.

  “Call nine-one-one,” I yelled.

  I think Maud was already halfway to the phone.

  I threw on my robe, got my dentures in my mouth, and stuck my feet into my slippers. By the time I got out of the house, my poor old car was just a torch.

  The woman across the street was having hysterics—thought something had happened to the little dog, I suppose. Other neighbors began to come out.

  Then we heard the fire engine whining away and hooting, and the police car, and the little dog yapping as much as ever. We had quite a symphony.

  It was so exciting, I hardly had time to think that I had lost my dear old car.

  Maud joined me on the sidewalk.

  “Oh, Hattie, what happened?” she asked.

  “Somebody blew up my car,” I said. And that made me think: He blew up my car to tell me to quit nosing around Stedbury, North Carolina.

  But it also told me that we were absolutely right about Charles Hollonbrook’s death. Because, you see, there would have been no cause to bomb my car if somebody hadn’t wanted to frighten me away; and that person must have been the one who killed Charles Hollonbrook.

  Now who was the man that blew up my car?

  He had looked to be normally tall—maybe five foot ten or eleven, and he was stocky and ran with a sort of limp. I had the impression that he might have been in coveralls. A working man—painter? plumber? electrician? Some line of work where a man could do his job without being what you might call nimble.

  Well, the firemen got there with the hook and ladder truck and I don’t know what all. But my old car was already done for. They put out the flames that were burning inside—used chemicals. The poor old thing just looked pitiful. Then the police stood around and watched the firemen.

  One of the policemen came over to where we were standing. I must say we looked a fright. My hair was in every direction, but Maud had hers in a net.

  “Ma’am,” the officer said, “do you know whose car this was?”

  Well, he certainly had the right tense of the verb. “It was mine,” I said.

  “I’ll have to take down the particulars,” he said. “Is there someplace where we can have light?”

  Maud had the kitchen light on already. So we just stepped in, and he began asking me about everything—my name and the year and make of the car. That really surprised him. And when I told him it only had forty thousand miles on it, he could hardly believe it.

  I told him about the little dog and how it woke me up—and about seeing the man, but I didn’t describe him very well because if it sounded like I had recognized him, it was perfectly obvious that next time he blew up anything it would be me. And, of course, I didn’t at all see plainly enough to be able to identify the man in a way that would satisfy the police. But I had an idea about his height and build. And then there was the lumbering way he walked. If I saw somebody like that, I made up my mind I’d look at him very closely just on the chance it was the same man.

  Maud brewed coffee—sort of an extra-early cup, don’t you know. The young policeman was very pleasant and nice. After he had asked me all kinds of things and written down my answers, I said, “And now what is your name?”

  He was Joe Bell and just as nice as he could be—married and has three little boys—has been on the force for five years—wife comes from Florida.

  While he was having the second cup of coffee, Maud said, “After all these years of reading about car bombs—in Northern Ireland and London and all those places—I never would have thought we would have one right here in Stedbury.”

  “Oh, this wasn’t what you would call a ‘car bomb,’” the young man said. “Whoever set this one off didn’t use anything as fancy as that.”

  When he looked into our faces and saw how curious we were, he went on: “Monday, we’ll have an expert look at the wreckage and determine exactly what explosive was used. But if you ask me, it was blasting gelatin—the same stuff any farmer might use to blow a stump out of his field.

  “For this job, I’d say,” he went on, “he had about four sticks of that stuff with a cap and a fuse. The fuse sets off the cap, and the cap sets off the gelatin. Then the gelatin sets off the gasoline, and that is it.”

  After that nice Officer Bell left, Maud and I sat around talking about it quite awhile before we went back to bed. It was just so clear that the explosion and all was a message for me.

  Now you might ask how the man knew to blow up the right car. A DeSoto is a landmark in this day and age. I couldn’t have been much more obvious if I had rolled into town in a Detroit Electric. Any DeSoto in Stedbury was bound to be my car, and it wouldn’t be too hard to find out that I was staying with Maud Bradfield.

  I thought about Jimmy Hollonbrook and how interested he had been in my car that day when I pretended it had stalled on me. Could that boy have had something to do with the man that blew up my car? Jimmy thought he was going to have money—lots of it—from his father’s estate. All those big houses in Hollondale—if you didn’t know that Charles Hollonbrook was just about insolvent, you would think he was big rich. The boy could have offered this man no telling what to come out and dynamite my car. And I had a feeling that Jimmy Hollonbrook would know the kind of folks who would do things like that.

  But then, all the other likely suspects had undoubtedly seen my car. So that didn’t get me any closer to who the culprit was: Jimmy Hollonbrook, Linda Hollonbrook, Kimberlin Mayburn, Paula Stout—maybe even Alice Hollonbrook—and I couldn’t even rule out Ben Rawlings. I had no idea who did it, but all of those people knew about me.

  SECOND MEETI
NG OF THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS

  >> Henry Delaporte <<

  On Sunday afternoon, I went to the office to work on a brief for a couple of hours. When I returned home, Helen had received a call from Harriet Bushrow in Stedbury, detailing the bombing of her DeSoto. Helen reported that Mrs. Bushrow was cheerful in spite of the loss of her car and her failure to find the thread that would unravel our mystery. If anything, she seemed not only undeterred but more determined than before in her efforts to find the murderer of Charles Hollonbrook.

  Helen reported further that Mrs. Bushrow was planning to return to Borderville on Tuesday to tend to some domestic matters, put in a claim for her insurance, and negotiate the purchase of another car.

  It is an understatement to say that I was conscience-stricken over the danger to which the Baker Street Irregulars had subjected an eighty-eight-year-old woman by encouraging or even allowing her to investigate a murder. I was, in fact, horrified.

  Helen, on the other hand, pointed out that her friend Harriet Bushrow was a free and vigorous spirit who would go her own way and do her own thing, regardless of the Baker Street Irregulars.

  “Harriet never fails,” Helen assured me. “She will come through.”

  Nevertheless, at the very least, Rotary had an obligation to Mrs. Bushrow in the loss of her car.

  The reader, never having seen the car, may not appreciate its significance. Originally of a blue color, over a period of thirty years it had faded, and a copperish tinge had invaded the blue until the surface was somewhat iridescent in bright sunshine. Mrs. B. kept the vehicle in perfect condition; and why should that not be so? I understand from my wife that Mrs. B. drives only to church, market, and club meetings.