Going Out in Style (14 page)

“These murders,” she said dryly.

“Yes. These murders.” He paused and leaned forward. “You don’t have any idea, do you, Gretch—I mean, who might be behind all of it?”

“No. No, of course not.”

“Neither do I. It seems as though if I could just
think
about it … just think about it the right way, the answer must be obvious, you know. Obvious. But I can’t seem to see it that way at all—”

“A June wedding,” Gretchen said.

“Oh. Yes. A June wedding. What do you say?”

“Yes, Albert. I say yes.”

He was so gratified he knocked over his wine glass. After they had finished dinner, they went out to The Painted Man to celebrate.

“You mean it, Gretch? Really? You and Albert are getting married?” Jessie’s face was flushed a mottled pink color.

“Yes, Jessie. He asked me tonight at dinner. Can you believe it? After all these years!”

“Oh—oh, Gretch … I’m
so
happy for both of you, I really am. This is what I’ve wanted for years … for years, Gretch. Oh, I’m so excited—and a June wedding! Oh, it’s wonderful—
wonderful
!”

And she burst into tears.

“It’s nothing,” she said, struggling to smile as Gretchen
leaned over her worriedly. “It’s just that I never … I never realized—oh, I’ll miss you so
much
, Gretchen!”

Gretchen, very sensibly, poured her out some brandy. After a few sips Jessie perked up again and began to plan.

“You’ll get married on the Whitaker estate, of course. They have the most
beautiful
back yard there, and in June it’ll be all roses and those bunchy things, what are they called, not chrysanthemums … oh, well. I think the color of the wedding should be pink, don’t you? I’ll wear a deep pink, sort of a rose color, and your other bridesmaids can wear pale pink, like rosebuds. It’ll be
so
romantic, Gretchen! You’ll be all in white with a bouquet of sweetheart roses, I know just the place to order them from, they do it up right with lace and everything. And Albert will wear a tuxedo, of course, and the table linens can be all pastels, pink and blue and pale yellow, I think that would be
so
pretty, don’t you? Let me see, I saw an illustration in a magazine the other day that would be just what I’m talking about.…”

And she bustled off happily to root, swinelike, in the pile of newspapers and magazines under the coffee table in the living room.

Gretchen, watching her go, smiled to herself. Dear Jessie!

The next evening, Saturday, a cheerful group bundled into George’s car for the trip to the concert in Hartford.

Susan had asked Albert to come along (“Honestly, Albert, you know Georgie, he’d be so hurt if you didn’t come”), and Albert in turn had corralled Gretchen and Jessie. Susan sat in the front, next to George, and the three others were crammed together in the back of the old rickety Ford. George drove a faded red Ford that, like so
many things about George, had seen better days. It ricocheted and backfired and made strange clackety sounds as they drove along. Jessie, in the back seat, was convinced she was about to die.

“Oh, be careful!” she sang out as George swung into the left-hand lane. “Be careful! George, be
careful
! Look over there—oh! Oh,
no
!”

“Just keep your eyes closed,” Susan advised. “It’s best when George drives. The man is a maniac.”

They sat through the concert, in a rented hall in Hartford, in a state somewhere between boredom and stupor. Jessie fell asleep quite peacefully on Gretchen’s shoulder. The string quartet which George had composed was an hour long and included, perhaps not surprisingly, five viola solos. George had a nervous habit of humming as he played; humming that could be heard very clearly in the audience. Susan rolled her eyes at Albert and whispered, “I’ve told him, but he never listens.”

“The middle section was very nice,” her brother whispered back.

“Thank you, Albert. Thank you for being kind.”

Afterwards they went out for a late dinner, where they all drank to Gretchen and Albert’s engagement. Jessie showed Albert some pictures she had of different styles of tuxedos. Albert said to his sister, “Perhaps we’ll have a double wedding.” Susan smiled nervously. A short while later she stood up and said, “It’s time for me to get back, if you don’t mind. Dora says there’ll be hell to pay if she’s not home by twelve to watch
Star Trek
with Phil.”

A few days later, George was driving Susan home from work. It had been a long day at the
Ridgewood Star
and Susan was in a bad mood. She usually worked at home,
not in the office, but she had come in to do some last-minute corrections on one of her “What’s New in Ridgewood” columns. “The problem is,” she was saying furiously to George, “that nothing is new in Ridgewood. Nothing ever is new in Ridgewood. My mother’s death and Mrs. MacGregor’s death were the biggest things to happen around here in years. I refused to write about them—well, at least the idiots in the editorial office can understand that—so what’s left? How many people were at the skating rink last weekend? That’s not news. It’s not
news
, Georgie.”

George nodded sympathetically, cut off another car with a squealing of brakes and mutual insults, and careened along in the left-hand lane.

“And then when I went out to lunch,” Susan continued hotly, “I ran into that self-righteous prig Lizzie Feldencraft, who told me she had read my last child-care column and thought it was the stupidest thing she had ever heard. She said all her children had been allowed to cry themselves to sleep alone at night, and look how they turned out. I agreed with her. I said, ‘That’s right, look how they turned out.’ Well, she didn’t like that at all, George. I told her it was just plain cruel to let a child cry itself to sleep all alone, no matter what the so-called experts say, and that my Harold had never been allowed to do that. Even when he’s upset, I’m there for him. So then, naturally, you can
imagine
what she said …”

After an exchange of mutual insults concerning their offspring, the two mothers had retreated to opposite sides of the Golden Eagle lunchroom and glared at each other throughout the meal. “Self-righteous prig,” Susan said now. “Bitch! Conceited bitch! Why, if I
told
you the things she said to me—”

George nodded again, cut back into the middle lane, passed a car on the right and stopped at a traffic light with
a loud protesting squeal of brakes. Susan lurched forward. Something bright and shiny rolled out from under her seat.

“George?” She picked it up. “What … what’s this?”

In her palm was a diamond-and-sapphire earring in the graceful shape of a flower.

George’s mouth formed a comical “O” of surprise as he stared, astonished, at the earring. “What—?” he spluttered. “
Where
—?”

The car behind them honked, and George put his foot on the accelerator. He turned off onto a side street and parked. Then he said feebly, “Where did it come from?”

“Here, Georgie. Under the seat.”

They stared at each other in silence.

“Is it—?”

“Yes. It’s my mother’s earring.”

George had gone very pale. “It’s—it’s horrible.… Somebody’s trying to frame me!”

“Who’s been in this car, Georgie?”

“Nobody. Nobody—just you and Albert and Gretchen and Jessie …” His hands were shaking. “That concert the other night,” he whispered.

“That’s right.” Susan thought back. The three of them had been in the back seat. “What are we going to do?”

George stared at her, wide-eyed. “What do you mean? What do you mean? We have to take it to the police. What else can we do?”

“We could throw it away, or hide it somewhere else.”

“Susan!”

“I don’t want Albert implicated,” she said fiercely. “You understand me, George? I don’t want Albert implicated in this.”

“
Albert?
” George shrieked. He bounced up and his head hit the ceiling. “Albert? How about
me
? Can you
spare a thought for me, Susan? I’ll be the first person the police will think of! It was in
my car
, for God’s sake!”

“That’s true, George. That’s true. It does look bad for you.”

He rested his head miserably on the steering wheel. “I’m not an idiot, Susie, no matter what anybody thinks. I wouldn’t plant the damned earring on myself and leave it for somebody to find. I swear to you, I’ve never seen the damned thing before. I’ve never seen it before!”

“Yes … I know, Georgie. I know. But who …?”

They stared at each other.

George said in a whisper, “
One of the three people who were in the back seat that night
 …”

Detective Janovy said, “Are you sure this is the earring that your mother was wearing, Miss Whitaker?”

“Yes, Detective. I’m sure.”

“You have the match to it?”

“Yes. It’s in a safe-deposit box at our bank. I’ll ask Albert to get it tomorrow, if you like.”

“Thank you.”

Janovy, Susan, and George were sitting on the two shabby sofas in George’s ramshackle apartment. Susan and George had driven straight there after their discovery and called the police.

“So it was underneath the seat of the car?”

“Yes.”

Janovy regarded George Drexler thoughtfully.
Why?
he thought. Why had someone placed it there? Why, in fact, had the killer kept it in the first place?

George was looking very much the worse for wear. He looked downtrodden and depressed. He had his viola out and was plucking at the string dispiritedly, a soft pizzicato
emphasis to his words. “Somebody hates me,” he said sadly. “Somebody hates me.”

“Oh,
Georgie
.”

“It’s true, Susan. Somebody hates me. Is it something about me? What have I ever done to deserve this? Someone needed a stooge, and they picked me. It’s so
unfair
.”

“Cheer up, George. Would you like something hot to drink? Wouldn’t that be soothing?”

George perked up a little bit. “Yes, thanks, that would be great. Hold on a sec, I’ll make it. Yes, you stay right here. Anything for you, Detective?”

“No, thanks.”

“What would you like, Susie? Tea or coffee?”

“Tea, please.”

“Caffeinated or decaffeinated or herbal?”

“Caffeinated is fine.”

“Good. I have Twinings Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Assam, Queen Mary—that’s really special—Darjeeling, Irish Breakfast, and Prince of Wales.”

“It doesn’t really matter, George. Whatever.”

He vanished into the kitchen. Susan turned to Detective Janovy. “I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to get George out of the room for a minute. I’d like to know what you’re thinking, Detective.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well …” She glanced at him a trifle uncomfortably. “I hope you don’t suspect my brother. I know Albert. I’m telling you, nobody in our family is a murderer.”

A strange echo of one of the first things Albert had ever said to him, thought Janovy.
We’re not murderers
, Albert had said.
You don’t know us, that’s all. You’ll see when you meet my sister. It’s not the way it looks
.

At the time Janovy had thought,
I’ll be the judge of that
, and he still felt that way. Nobody told him how to
think, especially not during a murder investigation. He said, “I understand how you feel, Miss Whitaker, but I haven’t ruled anyone out yet. It’s my job to keep an open mind.”

“Yes, of course. It’s just that … well, it does seem awfully
odd
that the earring would be found in George’s car, doesn’t it? I mean, why would somebody do that?”

There are lots of reasons, thought Janovy. He was puzzled and suspicious. Surely this was an odd tack for her to take?

“I don’t know,” he replied stiffly. “But I intend to find out.”

At that point George bustled back into the room with a black lacquered Japanese tray in his hands. On it were two large steaming mugs. They were of different designs—one
had a picture of a house on it, while the other said
La Vache
and sported a picture of a solemn-looking cow. They were both chipped around the edges, but George did not seem to notice. He handed Susan her cup and said, “Prince of Wales tea, plenty of milk, no sugar, madam.”

“Thank you, George.”

Janovy got to his feet. “I’ll be on my way,” he said. “May I use your phone, Mr. Drexler? I’d like to call ahead and see if Dr. Schneider and Miss Lowell are at home.”

“I’ve never seen it before in my life,” Gretchen said firmly. “How about you, Jessie?”

“Oh, no … no, certainly not—”

“Neither of us has ever seen it before, Detective. Does that answer your question? May I ask where you found it?”

“In George Drexler’s car.”

Jessie let out a little yip of surprise. Gretchen merely raised an eyebrow. “I see,” she said. “So anyone who’s been in that car since the murder—”

“—may have planted it there. That’s right.”

Jessie was looking very flustered, he thought. She cast nervous glances at her friend. Gretchen was calm and composed, as always. She sat with her hands folded in her lap. There was a short silence, then she said, “I agree that it looks bad, Detective, since we were in that car only a few days ago, and now the earring is found. I can only assure you that neither Jessie nor I had anything to do with it. Albert had described what it looked like to me, of course, but I’ve certainly never seen it before. Although it’s not hard to recognize it as one of Mrs. Whitaker’s things. Showy, as usual.”