Flynn's In Page 11

  “The murderer didn’t hesitate. I mean, he did it quickly, then. No need for him to take a second breath.” Flynn got down on his hands and knees on the floor just inside the veranda door.

  “Nothing of interest on the veranda visible in this light.”

  Flynn’s head was as nearly at eye-level with the floor as possible. “Where shoes and boots might not leave a mark on a bare floor, sweaty bare feet do.”

  “Oland?”

  Standing, Flynn gauged the distance from the door’s threshold to the faded oriental carpet. “But sure, anyone could make that leap. It’s hardly more than a step.”

  “Or the murderer, thinking he might be caught in the room with Lauderdale, could simply have opened the door, to make us think someone had come in and gone out that way. Or just gone out.”

  “Rutledge was here when we arrived,” said Flynn. “And we were just next door.”

  “You didn’t hear anything, Frank?”

  “I did. I heard the old boy croaking. At first I thought it was part of his after-dinner act. It wasn’t until I heard the distinctly male voice that I realized it was no act.”

  Cocky said, “I put the apples in your room. And moved my Pawn to Queen Four.”

  “Pawn to Queen Four, eh? Now, that’s interesting.” Flynn turned the lock in the door to the veranda. “Does that door to the corridor lock?”

  “No.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Flynn. “Let’s get them all in the great hall anyway. I have a few choice words to utter. Don’t I just!”

  21

  “Coffee, Flynn? Or would you prefer a drink?” Rutledge stood by the bar table ready to be helpful.

  “A cup of hot water, please.” Flynn pulled a tea bag out of his jacket pocket. “And a spoon.”

  For the number of people in the great hall, the room was uncommonly quiet. The crackling fire seemed a strange postlude to Lauderdale’s singing.

  D’Esopo sat farthest from the fire, in a deep leather chair against the outside wall. What looked like a stiff drink was balanced on his chair arm. Lighting a cigarette, his hand trembled.

  Clifford sat on a divan, knees separated, head down, fingers playing with a paper napkin in his lap. He looked like an athlete worried about exams. Buckingham sat a cushion away from him on the divan, looking away, stroking his chin.

  Arlington sat alone at the poker table, hands folded before him: a chief accountant awaiting the final tally. Oland sat, skinny bare legs crossed, in his usual chair, gazing into the fire.

  Hands behind his back, his back to the room, Wahler stood in the dark far end of the room, studying the mounted head of a moose.

  Dunn Roberts stood at the other side of the fireplace, near the arched service door, hands in his jacket pockets. Ashley, at the short side of the bar table, was making himself a drink.

  “Thank you.” Flynn dropped his tea bag into the cup of hot water Rutledge handed him and drowned it with a spoon. “Would someone please summon Taylor?”

  “Coffee?” Rutledge asked Concannon. “Drink?”

  “Coffee. Black.”

  Dunn Roberts pushed an ivory button in the wall.

  “Seeing Taylor conspired with you, last time, to destroy evidence…” Flynn added.

  When Rutledge handed Cocky the cup and saucer, Cocky took only the cup. Rutledge put the saucer back on the table.

  Flynn wrung his tea bag out on the spoon and put the spoon with the tea bag in it into Cocky’s saucer on the bar table.

  Taylor came into the room through the little door behind Dunn Roberts. He was dressed in black trousers, his white serving jacket, white shirt and black tie. Flynn noticed that Taylor’s eyes sought out Clifford’s, but that Clifford did not look up.

  Rutledge had made himself a weak drink.

  Flynn took a chair some distance from the fire but facing it, at an angle.

  Arlington said, “I suppose you want to know where we all were.”

  “I have no questions,” said Flynn. “I’ve never been too keen at parlor games. Some people are better at them than others. Two men are dead. Murdered. You gentlemen are guilty of concealing a capital crime, destroying evidence, whatever. Most likely at least one of you is guilty of murder. This is not a civil situation. It’s criminal.”

  Standing by the bar table, drink in hand, Rutledge simply gazed at Flynn.

  Flynn placed his empty tea cup on the table beside him. “I have orders to give.”

  “We’ll do whatever you say, Flynn,” Rutledge said.

  “Yes, you will. In this country, I hardly need to remind you, no one is above the law. I know there are others of you here, and among your membership, who represent law in its various aspects, but you summoned me here because I am not one of you. Detached.” Sitting in the soft leather chair at midnight, warmth coming to him from the fire, Flynn remembered he had had very little sleep the night before. “Disinterested is the word. And as a disinterested representative of the law, I must not only tell you that what you did last night was wrong, it was criminal, imprudent for your own sake, and that tonight I must enforce upon you what is right.”

  Cocky was blinking in slow motion.

  “Tell us what to do,” Rutledge said.

  Flynn hitched himself up in his chair. “We’re calling the local police, your Chief Jensen, as a matter of courtesy. We are also immediately going over his head and calling in the Homicide Squad of the State Police.” Even to his own ears, Flynn was sounding detached, disinterested. “We are reporting the murder of Judge Robert Lauderdale. Until authorities arrive, everyone is staying in this room.” Cocky was so relaxed, so near sleep, his empty coffee cup was tilting in his lap. “When Jensen gets here, I shall show him the murder room, making sure he disturbs nothing.” Flynn’s voice was becoming more and more distant to him, like a donkey engine he had started somewhere, and from which he had walked away. “When Jensen gets here…” The light in the room seemed to be lowering. The crackle from the fireplace was becoming louder. “When the State Police arrive…”

  From the dark room, big white faces emerged.

  Rutledge’s was smiling.

  With difficulty, Flynn turned his head to look at Cocky. Asleep. Cocky was asleep in his chair.

  “Wahler…” Flynn said.

  At the other end of the room, Wahler turned. Hands still behind his back, he, too was watching Flynn.

  “Bastards,” said Flynn. “You’ve all just been waiting….”

  22

  The fire was still going in the grate, but it seemed smaller, less bright, less important in the room. Grey daylight came through the small windows.

  Cocky was still asleep in the chair. The coffee cup had been picked from his lap. Flynn’s teacup and saucer were gone from the little table beside him.

  All the glasses and cups which had been around the room the night before were gone.

  Flynn looked at his watch. A quarter past nine. In the morning. Monday morning. The Rod and Gun Club. Lauderdale.

  Standing up rapidly caused nausea to leap from Flynn’s stomach to his head. He closed his eyes.

  “Ach. It must have been a strong drug to put me to sleep, right in the middle of what I was saying!”

  He took some deep breaths. Rubbed his temples with his finger tips. Waited a moment.

  With heavy feet, muscles doing only a percentage of their job, he left the great hall, crossed the foyer, went down the corridor.

  The door to the music room was open.

  The daylight in the room, however gray and subdued, seemed unnatural to Flynn.

  The room seemed natural enough. There was no corpse slumped over the piano. The piano bench was placed properly, invitingly empty. On the piano was Lauderdale’s little music box.

  Through the glass door Flynn saw the stretch of cold, yellow lawn, the flat gray lake.

  He could not remember if, the night before when they found Lauderdale, the music box had been on the piano.

  Back in the great hall he pressed
the small ivory button in the wall. The clubhouse was deathly still.

  He shook Cocky’s left shoulder. Then, remembering, he shook Cocky’s right shoulder.

  Cocky’s eyes opened, unfocused.

  “Misery loves company,” Flynn said. “Wake up.”

  Cocky looked around the room as if he’d never seen it before.

  Flynn said, “They’ve absconded with what was Lauderdale.”

  Cocky pulled himself up in the chair somewhat sideways. He blinked.

  “We’ve been had, my man,” Flynn said. “Never mind. After you’re awake a few minutes, you’ll feel worse.”

  Taylor stepped through the small service door.

  “Good morning,” Flynn said.

  “Good morning,” Taylor mumbled.

  “Were you part of the conspiracy to drug us?”

  Taylor looked at his strong, uncalloused hand. “If they say I was.”

  “That’s the way of it, is it?” Flynn’s voice echoed inside his own head. His legs did not want to remain standing.

  “Don’t know what you mean.”

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Gone hunting.”

  “Hunting?”

  “Deer hunting. Left almost an hour ago.”

  Flynn’s mind’s eye saw the straggly line of well-dressed hunters, each carrying a rifle, walking into the woods together.

  He shook his head. That hurt.

  “They said they were going hunting this morning,” Taylor said. “They went.”

  Leaning over in his chair, Cocky asked, “We were drugged?”

  Flynn looked at the carpet. Its pattern was in sworls. Sickening sworls. “Where’s Lauderdale?”

  “He’s been removed, sir.”

  “I know he’s been removed! To where, damn it?” Flynn pressed his hand against his forehead. No answer was forthcoming. “I know. You just work here. And a bloody good job you do, too. Body removals in the midnight!”

  “Mister Rutledge said you’d have questions this morning, sir.”

  “Bright man, that Rutledge.”

  “He said I shouldn’t try to answer them. That if you knew anything, you’d just try to contact the local police—”

  “Brilliant man, that Rutledge.”

  “…and just confuse things.”

  “Frank,” Cocky said from his chair. “I don’t feel well.”

  “Just don’t think of pickles and creamed corn.”

  “He said you should hold your questions until you see him or some other member.”

  “Go get them,” said Flynn.

  “Can’t. Don’t know where they are.”

  “Bang the damned gong!”

  “Wouldn’t do any good,” Taylor said. “It’s not time for a gong. They’d just know it’s you.”

  The thought of hearing the gong go off just now had less appeal to Flynn than pickles and creamed corn.

  “They’ll all be at Rumble de Dump at about twelve, shortly after.”

  “Rumble de Dump! That’s a place?”

  “It’s a cabin, one of the cabins, up in the mountains. I’m bringing a hot lunch up to them. I’ll be leaving in the Land Rover about eleven thirty. Why don’t you come with me?”

  Flynn’s watch read nine-twenty-six. The last eleven minutes had passed like a full evening of Schonberg—interesting, but grating.

  He had two hours to reglue his head and body for a ride doubtlessly over bumpy mountain roads in a Land Rover.

  “Get us some breakfast,” Flynn said.

  “Oh, Frank.”

  “Breakfast has been cleared away,” Taylor said. “When members miss breakfast—”

  “We’re not members!” Flynn exclaimed in the quietest shout he could manage. “We don’t care spit for your rules! If the kitchen staff are gone, you get us breakfast yourself. Scrambled eggs. Toast. Tea.”

  “Oh, Frank.”

  “Chicken soup.”

  “Chicken soup?”

  “Chicken soup. If you have to lasso the chicken and pluck the feathers yourself.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Bring both breakfasts to my room in fifteen minutes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Frank….”

  “And bring me some walking boots. Size ten. A warm parka.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Flynn swayed, just slightly. “And if you don’t, Taylor, I personally will see to it that The Wedding March is played everywhere you go for the rest of your life, night and day.”

  23

  After Flynn shaved, showered, hot, cold, hot, and dressed in fresh clothes, he felt confident enough to move his Bishop to King Knight Five.

  At ten minutes to ten, Taylor was laying out breakfast for two in Flynn’s room. There was a full serving bowl of chicken soup, as well as the eggs, toast and tea.

  Cocky dragged through the open door. He, too, had shaved. His hair was wet. His eyes seemed somewhat brighter. His lips were still more slack than usual.

  “At least,” Flynn said, “I see little reason to interview Governor Caxton Wheeler and Walter March at this point.” Shaking his head felt better this time. “Although I’m not even sure of that.”

  Cocky looked at the chessboard.

  “Ah.” Flynn rubbed his hands together. “What’s better than chicken soup for breakfast?”

  “Having no need for it.”

  Before closing the door, Taylor said, “I’ll come get you, Inspector Flynn, about eleven thirty.”

  “You do that.” Flynn drew a chair up to his breakfast. “Don’t forget the coat and boots.”

  Cocky approached his breakfast as a kitten does a damp spot.

  “We’ve been managed, Cocky. We’ve been outmanaged. I guess the characteristic of the managerial class is… that they can manage. That they must manage. Just as the working class must work.”

  Cocky watched Flynn ladle the chicken soup into Cocky’s bowl. “I don’t think I can stand a Jeep ride this morning, Frank. I had drinks with Hewitt last night, as well as whatever Rutledge slipped into my coffee.”

  “You stay here, Cocky. Try and re-assemble your brain. I’ll go stalk the armed hunters in the woods.” Flynn filled his own soup bowl. “I don’t see what else we can do. We can’t summon the State Police to see a corpse that isn’t. Eat your soup.”

  Once Cocky brought himself to try the soup, he managed to consume a good quantity of it.

  To encourage eating under these circumstances by distracting from it, Flynn kept up a chatter: “Taylor could be our man, you know. He’s not one of this jolly band of preppies. Judge Lauderdale once sentenced him to three years in prison for octopusial bigamy. Then got him this monkish job here, as further punishment for his transgressions. Taunted him with his music box, if you’d believe it. Who’d ever think of a music box as a weapon?”

  “So it was Taylor who hid the Judge’s music box in the storage room?”

  “Ach, your brain engine is turning over already. Eat some toast. I’d say that’s a fair certainty. And, the music box was neatly on the piano this morning. Do you remember if it was last night?”

  “A memorial. A victor’s way of marking the spot of his victory.”

  “Is that what a memorial is? You may be right. Anyway, Taylor had a clear route. Up the cellar stairs from the gymnasium in bare feet, onto the veranda, through the music room door, a short leap to stand behind Lauderdale, those strong hands and arms neatly cutting Lauderdale’s neck in half with a simple piece of clothesline, and quickly and quietly back to the gymnasium right under the music room. Both the bulkhead door and the door to the music room were open.”

  Cocky watched Flynn dispose of his soup bowl and serve himself some eggs. “Why would Taylor want to kill Huttenbach?”

  “Envy, my lad. Envy. Taylor tells me he’s been diagnosed by the prison psychiatrist, female, please note, as oversexed. Lieutenant Concannon, our lad Taylor had contracted himself to nine wives, if you believe it, nine, probably before he’d ever signed up
for Social Security. That’s why he works here: to keep himself from repeating those words more fatal to himself than all the rest of us, ‘I do, I do.’ Now Huttenbach, also an attractive young man, is known to be easy with the ladies, too. He attracts them easily, and conquers them easily. Wise enough to marry only once, though, although I’m not sure he displayed the greatest wisdom in marrying the hateful woman he did. If you were Taylor lying in your cold, celibate servant’s cot under some wet eaves of this rustic edifice, hearing the jolly tales of Huttenbach’s conquests while serving the boiled fish, wouldn’t you be tempted to go blow his head off, too?”

  “Yes,” Cocky answered readily enough.

  Flynn tried not to react to how readily Cocky answered that question.

  “What about Clifford?” Cocky asked. “He’s an attractive young guy, too. Why wouldn’t Taylor envy him just as much?”

  “Clifford’s been away the last six months, in the Middle East. Taylor’s only been here nine months. But the reasoning leads us to warn Clifford, doesn’t it? Aren’t you going to try the eggs?”

  “Not sure I dare.”

  “Do.” Flynn reached over and removed Cocky’s soup bowl and spooned him out some eggs. “Think what some hens gave up for you: their posterity.”

  “It’s my immediate future I’m worried about,” Cocky said.

  “Speaking of Clifford: Among the women the married Huttenbach shared the warmth of his loins with was Clifford’s unmarried sister, Jenny. Insists it doesn’t bother him, but there are brothers, and there are brothers.”

  “What would Clifford have against Lauderdale?”

  “Don’t know. He was a friend of Ashley, I presume, and a probable investor in Ashley-Comfort. By the way, I suspect that somehow Clifford has earned the displeasure of Buckingham. I saw a little incident through a window. Governor Buckingham is Clifford’s uncle.”

  “Phew. This place is like a nest of worms.” Having said that, Cocky averted his gaze from his eggs.

  “Worms have nothing to do with eggs, Cocky. Dispel the thought of worms entirely from your mind. Eat your eggs. Don’t give worms another thought.”