Friends till the End Read online

  This had the desired effect. Bernard looked surlier than ever, doodled furiously on a scrap of paper, closed his notebook, then moved his chair an inch or two toward Snooky and waited.

  “Thanks so much. Here is my problem. It concerns Isabel.”

  At the sound of her name Bernard gave a short ugly laugh.

  “I suppose that it hasn’t escaped you that she’s a suspect for murder,” said Snooky.

  “It doesn’t surprise me, if that’s what you mean. Most of your girlfriends have had criminal records.”

  “I’m worried about her, Bernard. I really am. The way she talks about her father and her brother, it’s— it’s not right. There’s something weird about it. She’s very close to her brother, and—oh, I don’t know. She’s ten years older than Richard and she talks like she’s his mother. It’s strange. And yet her own life is a total mess. She can’t make plans from one day to the next.”

  “Thank you for sharing all this with me.”

  “I’m in love with her, but I don’t know how she feels about me. She’s always been that way … hard to understand. I never know what she’s thinking. The woman’s a complete mystery.”

  He paused.

  “I was hoping you’d give me some man-to-man advice. I feel we don’t have enough of these talks, Bernard—manly talks, you know. Man-to-man stuff. Maya wouldn’t understand. I felt I could come to you.”

  “Yes,” said Bernard. “Thank you. I think you should dump her. I hope we can have a talk like this again sometime soon.”

  Later Snooky wandered into the kitchen, where he found Maya with her head in the fridge. She was rooting frantically for some mushrooms.

  “I know they’re in here somewhere,” she said in a frustrated tone. “I just know—ah!—no, that’s not them— how about down here—oh my God, what’s that?—ugh. I’ll let Bernard get rid of that, I don’t want to go near it. And what’s over here?—God, that’s disgusting—now where were those stupid—”

  “Do you know what you’re like, Maya? You’re just like one of those pigs they keep for rooting out truffles. You really are. You could make money that way.”

  Maya found the mushrooms and as punishment Snooky was set to chopping them. As he worked he said disconsolately, “My?”

  “Mmmmm?”

  “Do you think there’s any chance Isabel could have committed those crimes?”

  “You mean, do I think your girlfriend is a cold-blooded murderer?” Maya was busy trying to unscrew the top of a jar of tomato sauce.

  “That’s right.”

  “With your taste in women, Snooky, I’d say it’s perfectly possible.”

  Detective Voelker was unhappy. He was more than unhappy; he was miserable. They had searched three houses top to bottom and there was no trace of the missing insecticide.

  Two corpses, one near-corpse and no evidence at all! Nothing! He chewed on a fingernail and felt ill-tempered; decidedly ill-tempered. Connors and the others were staying out of his way. Damn this investigation!

  They had run up against a wall. They had done everything right, questioned everyone concerned, followed every step, yet this case was not unraveling. Rather the opposite. Before his eyes he seemed to see the various threads of it winding tighter and tighter together. False clues; false leads; false hopes. Damn it!

  He east an evil glance at his subordinate when Connors came up to talk to him.

  “Don’t say anything,” he snapped. “Don’t talk to the others, don’t say a word. And above all, don’t tell West the state this investigation is in.”

  Connors said respectfully, but with a not unreasonable amount of glee (he had had his eye on Voelker’s position for a while),

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Oh, good,” said Maya. “He’s grunting.”

  “He’s what?”

  “He’s grunting.”

  Snooky listened. From inside Bernard’s study came a series of happy grunts.

  “That’s Bernard?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “He always grunts like that when his work is going well. It’s a good sign.”

  “I worry about you, you know that, Maya?”

  Inside the study, Bernard was sitting in the dark. His brain was working furiously. Snooky, in one of their recent conversations, had inadvertently said something interesting … something that had given him an idea … an idea that made all his other thoughts settle finally and irrevocably into place.

  He switched on the light, took out his notebook and wrote,

  $$$$ ?

  Then:

  JEALOUSY

  POWER

  and

  TH CNTR SHFTS

  “The center shifts,” he said, and grunted cheerfully.

  He pondered for a while, then wrote out a small equation. It said simply:

  2 + 1 ≠ 3

  He tapped his pen on the paper. Yes …

  He leaned back in his chair and shifted his feet. The dog let out a sleepy snarl.

  Two plus one does not equal three …

  “Yes,” said Bernard.

  “Sam?”

  “Yes, Ruth?”

  Sam Abrams turned to find his wife clutching a piece of pale blue paper.

  “Sam, where is Kuala Lumpur?”

  “Kuala Lumpur?” He thought for a minute. “I think it’s in Malaysia. Yes, I’m sure it is. Why?”

  Ruth’s lips trembled and he saw to his shock that she was having difficulty holding back tears.

  “Because that’s where Marcia is right now.”

  “What?” He tore the paper out of her hand. It was a letter in his daughter’s characteristic slanted script.

  “Dear Mom and Dad,” it said. “Please believe me, I know what I’m doing. I’ve met a wonderful man and Melvin and I are going to Kuala Lumpur with him. He says the mountains there are wonderful and there are places where you can go and see the stars …”

  Sam scanned it rapidly.

  “… so really don’t worry, it’s going to be terrific. Melvin is all excited about it, too.” And with Marcia’s typical second sight, she had scrawled at the end, “… I’m sure right now Mom is crying and Dad is furious, but by the time you get this we’ll be out of the country, so believe me, there’s nothing you can do. Don’t alert the authorities, okay? Call you as soon as we get back—love, Marcia and Melvin.”

  Typically, there was no mention of when that might be. Marcia had also neglected to mention the name of the wonderful man who was accompanying them.

  “Kuala Lumpur,” Ruth said tearfully, and threw herself on the couch.

  * * *

  That night Sam and Ruth were at dinner, both of them pecking dispiritedly at Ruth’s latest culinary disappointment, when the phone rang. Sam rose thankfully and went into the kitchen to answer it.

  “Hello?”

  “Sam? This is Walter.”

  “Walter? How—how are you?”

  “Getting better. Recovering. How’s the business?”

  “Fine. It’s fine. Couldn’t be better.”

  “Does everyone there miss me?”

  At Sam’s silence Walter Sloane gave a short bark of laughter.

  “No, I’m sure they don’t. Sam, I’m calling to tell you that I’ll be back soon. A couple of days at the most. The doctor checked me out and says I’m fine.”

  “Oh, good … good.” Sam hoped he sounded more enthusiastic than he felt. “So we can expect you back by the end of the week?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But, Walter—do you really think that’s wise?”

  “Why not, Sam?” Walter sounded amused. “None of my friends work where I do—none except for you, of course—and you wouldn’t try to kill me, would you?”

  He laughed at Sam’s discomfiture.

  They talked for a little while longer, then Sam hung up the phone and came back into the dining room. Ruth looked up.

  “What is it?”

  He told her, and
they sat silently around the table, lost in their thoughts. Finally Ruth speared the chicken leg on her plate and banged it up and down. She said angrily,

  “It’s not fair—that’s all—it’s not fair!”

  Meanwhile, Heather had her own hands full.

  Linus had been sent home from school in a considerable state of disarray after being beaten up by one of his classmates: a girl. He did not seem particularly mortified by this, although Heather knew that once Harry heard about it there would be strong words on the subject. Linus’s explanation was brief and to the point.

  “She likes me.”

  Heather sat down on the couch and stared at her son.

  “If she likes you,” she asked reasonably, “why would she beat you up?”

  Linus shrugged. “She wanted to play with me and Timmie, and I told her we didn’t want to play with her, so she beat me up.”

  He seemed resigned to this.

  “Everybody saw it,” he said proudly.

  Heather reflected that she would never understand the workings of the five-year-old mind.

  “I hope you hit her,” she said, lowering her voice in case Harry came in.

  “I tried to, Mommy, but she’s too big. Her arms are longer than mine.”

  “I’m going to have a little talk with her mother,” Heather said grimly. She knew the girl in question. Her name was Angela Elwood and she was taller than all her classmates, something that (Heather thought vengefully) no doubt contributed to her social maladjustment.

  She cleaned up Linus and changed his clothes and he went off happily to play for the rest of the afternoon. To his mind, the crucial point about the whole affair was that he got to come home early from school.

  Heather studied his blond head lovingly as he bent over his toys. He was such an odd child—so quiet, so self-contained—surely there was something wrong about that? She remembered herself as a youngster—tantrums, petty rebellions—her life had been one long vale of tears from age three to age twenty-one. And here she had spawned these three serene, well-adjusted youngsters. How was it possible? What were they hiding? Surely Linus must be angry …

  But he didn’t seem angry. He seemed perfectly content as he played with his toys. He lay on his stomach and ran a plastic truck back and forth on the carpet.

  “Vroom … vrooooommmmmm …”

  The telephone rang and Heather, shaking off dark thoughts, went to pick it up.

  Ruth’s voice was loud and anxious and she seemed upset. Of course, that was Ruth; always another crisis.

  “What?” Heather said, her mind on her troubles with Linus. “What did you say?”

  What was it that Ruth was talking about? Something about koala bears—Australia—

  “Kuala Lumpur? You’re kidding! How long?”

  Ruth didn’t know. Ruth was miserable. Sam was upstairs banging his head against the wall.

  And there was the news about Walter finally returning to work …

  Heather was very interested in this.

  “I’ve been planning to go over there and visit him for a while now,” she said. “Want to come along?”

  Ruth sounded shocked.

  “Oh, no, no, no, you can’t, Heather! He’s not seeing anyone. Why, he won’t even let you in.”

  Heather’s gaze wandered through the door to where Linus lay on the floor.

  “Oh, yes he will. I’ve been meaning to go by and say hello and drop off some cookies. It’s ridiculous, the way none of us dares to visit him. And he’s coming out in a few days anyway, isn’t he?”

  “Well—” Ruth sounded doubtful.

  “You don’t have to come, Ruth. Think it over. Listen, I have to go now. Talk to you later.”

  As she hung up Heather thought,

  That new recipe … those peanut butter oatmeal cookies would be perfect … I’ll mix some up tonight.…

  Bernard was squinting worriedly at his notebook, which lay open in front of him on the desk.

  He had an interesting idea. There was no proof, of course—nothing definite. The person he was thinking of was too clever for that. No, there was no proof and never would be. Not unless …

  Bernard felt a troubling moment of self-doubt. Who was he, after all, to think he might have solved the puzzle of these crimes? No one—nobody at all!—just the writer of the Mrs. Woolly books. Why, he didn’t even know the people involved.

  But even as he thought that, he realized what a tremendous advantage not knowing them was in this case. No one else could see the truth. To enter that circle of friends was to feel the center shift.…

  He knew that his customary reserve and distrust of his own species had helped him think clearly. He trusted no one and believed no one. It was his most marked trait and, in this case, his greatest advantage.

  He drummed his fingers on the desktop. At his feet Misty got up, tail thumping, expecting dinner.

  Bernard pondered for a while. Misty, measuring his attitude with a practiced eye, lay down again with a long whistle of regret.

  Bernard was worried; even alarmed. The more he thought everything over, the more worried he became. There was a certain ruthlessness about these crimes that bothered him. The murderer had struck three times and would not hesitate to strike again.…

  Eventually he did what he always did when upset or worried. He went to find Maya.

  He found her in the living room, sitting on the window seat with Snooky. Bernard looked lovingly at his wife. The moonlight streamed into the room and lit up her angular face, making her look very beautiful. Seeing the two of them, so similar in appearance, so close together, Bernard felt a curious pang of love and jealousy. Maya and Snooky were like twins, in spite of the five-year age difference; they were so close and had shared things together that he could never share.

  “Bernard,” she greeted him. “Snooky just bet me a dollar that he can complete the New York Times crossword puzzle in fifteen minutes. Want to join in?”

  “The Sunday Times,” added Snooky. “The Sunday Times, mind you.”

  “No, thanks,” said Bernard. He sat down heavily in his favorite overstuffed armchair. “Maya?”

  “Yes?”

  “The time has come to act. We must act quickly.”

  They gazed at him in mild astonishment.

  “Quickly,” repeated Bernard. “Time is short.”

  “Has he always talked this way?” said Snooky. “Like an oracle?”

  “Snooky, I want you to call that policeman. The one that keeps coming here and interviewing you every three minutes.”

  “Gladly, Bernard.”

  “Plus I need your advice about something—a very delicate matter.…”

  Isabel opened her front door to find Heather and Linus Crandall on the doorstep. Heather was balancing a plate in one hand and grasping Linus firmly with the other.

  “Hello,” she said cheerfully. “I’ve just come by to drop off some cookies. Where’s your father?”

  “In his study. But Heather, you can’t, he’ll—”

  “Nonsense. He won’t refuse to see me. Come on, Linus.”

  The two of them brushed past Isabel. Heather marched determinedly down the hall and flung open the door.

  “Hello, Walter.”

  He glanced up from his desk in surprise.

  “I’ve brought you some cookies,” said Heather, still grimly cheerful, “and Linus wants to say hello.”

  She pushed Linus forward.

  “Hi, Uncle Wally.”

  “I’ll leave him here with you for a while. I’m going to visit with Isabel. These cookies will be in the kitchen if you want more, Walter. Here. Take a couple now.”

  She put a handful down on his desk.

  “Can I have some?” asked Linus eagerly.

  Heather looked disapproving. “No, you can’t, sweetheart. You’ve already had too many at home.”

  “I didn’t have any at home!”

  “Yes, you did, Linus. You’re going to spoil your appetite for dinner. So
long, Walter. Nice seeing you. Remember to have those cookies.”

  She was gone before Walter had time to say a word.

  “They’ll keep each other company,” Heather said, bustling back into the kitchen. “Can I trouble you for some herbal tea, dear?”

  Isabel, filling the kettle with water, noticed how sharply the other woman was watching her. She’s intelligent, Isabel thought with a twinge of surprise … she knows what she’s doing, barging in here like this.…

  She had always written Heather off as a bit of a crank, but it came to her all at once that, for all her various affectations, Heather knew precisely the kind of effect she was making on people. Other people were taken in, but she wasn’t.…

  “Have a cookie,” Heather was saying, holding one out toward her. “They’re delicious. Linus had three before coming over here. Peanut butter and oatmeal. Very high in protein and fiber. Here, have one.”

  “Thanks,” said Isabel. She bit into the cookie. “Why, it’s great. Richard will love these.”

  “Boys,” said Heather with a sigh. “Don’t I know it! I can’t bake enough for my three. Nothing stays in the house for long. I have to apologize, by the way, dear. I know your father doesn’t want to see me, and I’m sure you have better things to do with your time. But I heard he’s going back to work in a few days, and I did want to come over here and break the ice.”

  “Well, now, that’s really nice,” Isabel said cautiously. “It’s certainly been bothering me, the way Daddy’s been avoiding everyone. I think it’s great if he gets back into circulation.”

  “Ruth Abrams would have come with me, except—well, you know Ruth. She felt she wouldn’t have been welcome. Here, have another cookie.”

  “Oh, that’s silly. You’ll have to tell her to come by sometime.”

  “These tragedies,” Heather said, spreading her hands expressively. “It’s so hard to know what to do or say afterward, isn’t it? Plus I feel what happened to your father is partly my fault—oh yes, I do—since it happened in my house. Tell me, how is Richard handling everything?”

  Her gaze on Isabel seemed uncomfortably sharp.…

  “He’s fine. Just fine.”