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  Cocky lifted himself from his chair and limped over to the chessboard.

  “Ashley seems our most likely candidate,” Flynn continued. “Clifford says Huttenbach, without warning, dumped Ashley-Comfort stock at the worst possible moment for Ashley: reason for murder. In the reorganization of Ashley-Comfort being worked out in the back rooms of this den of equity, Lauderdale was trying, successfully, I suspect, to do Ashley out of the new company altogether: reason for murder.”

  “Wahler isn’t one of them,” Cocky said. “Not a member of the club.”

  “Who knows a great deal about everything, I suspect, the ins and outs of every relationship. He’s one of the executors of Rutledge’s considerable estate—a business empire, I gather. Who knows what game he could be playing?”

  Cocky had moved something on the chessboard.

  Coming back to face his breakfast again, he said, “D’Esopo isn’t one of them, either. Not a member.”

  “Wouldn’t that be something,” Flynn said, having drained his first cup of tea. “Discover the Boston Police Commissioner a multiple murderer. Arrange Lauderdale’s death in cahoots with Taylor, let’s say. Another outsider. That would get you back on full pay quick enough, I don’t think! Reminds me. Must see if Grover has checked into the kennel yet.”

  “Good morning, Grover. Glad to catch you in on a Monday morning.”

  Before putting through the phone call, Flynn had seen Cocky had moved his Queen to King.

  Grover’s response was a whirring noise.

  “How goes the affaire Hiram Goldberg?”

  “Took me hours.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Never got to bowl.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Well, it means I won’t get my league shirt.”

  “Don’t you have a shirt?”

  “Not a league shirt, Inspector.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “You know how the Commissioner is.”

  “Last seen sweaty and trembly.”

  “What?”

  “Tell me how the Commissioner is.”

  “I mean, Commissioner D’Esopo.”

  “Oh, that Commissioner.”

  “I know you don’t know him very well, Frank.”

  “Not well enough apparently.”

  “He avoids you the way every other real cop does. Professional police officer. He thinks you’re as crazy as everyone else does. He’s said so. He said so at that Labor Day picnic.”

  “I didn’t attend.”

  “Course you didn’t. We probably didn’t even let you know there was a Labor Day picnic.”

  “Probably not.”

  “You’re not one of us, Frank.”

  “Thank the Powers That Be.”

  “No one ever understands what you’re saying. No one evem hears you, you talk so soft. When we do hear you, we don’t understand you. Always making some kind of private jokes.”

  “Grover—”

  “See what I mean? Always calling me Grover. My name is Richard Thomas Whelan. My friends call me Dick.”

  “That’s rich.”

  “You didn’t come up through the ranks, like the rest of us. The Commissioner wouldn’t have anything to do with you.”

  “I wish he’d had less.”

  Grover paused. “Who’s Les?”

  “Grover, you’re a very discouraging item to talk to on Monday morning.”

  “Anyhow, if you knew the Commissioner a little better, you’d know that nothing is more important to him than the fraternity of us police officers.”

  “Something is more important to him. At the moment.”

  “What? You just tell me what.”

  “Extricating himself from quicksand.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Grover sounded truly angry. “That’s it, Inspector. Always saying things no one understands. Was that supposed to be funny?”

  “You tell me about the Commissioner. Did you say your name is Dick?”

  “He encourages things like the Police Bowling League. Says it helps build a sense of fraternity among us. He’s even come out and bowled with us. You never have.”

  “The noise, Grover. Being in a bowling alley is like volunteering to conduct an orchestra of thunder storms.”

  “What! What are you talking about, Inspector? Conduct thunder storms!”

  “You’re right, Grover. One doesn’t conduct thunder. One conducts lightning.”

  “Stop talking that way! God damn it! You’re driving us all nuts, Inspector. I’m talking about the Commissioner, and you’re talking about thunder and lightning storms!”

  “They both exist in depressions.”

  “What?”

  “Lows, Grover.”

  “Good-bye, Inspector.”

  “Wait, Grover. You need to tell me who knocked Hiram Goldberg off his two-wheeler.”

  Grover’s sigh came from his toes. “I proceeded to 212 Fairview.”

  “Did you get there?”

  “The home of Willard Matson, the man who owns the car reported stolen Saturday night, discovered within walking distance of his own apartment Sunday.”

  Grover awaited a rejoinder. Flynn said: “Yes?”

  “Had to wait hours. The Matsons did not return to their apartment until after nine. About nine twenty. They were with their child in the hospital.”

  “What’s wrong with their child?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t ask?”

  “Inspector, what the hell has their child—”

  “Find out.”

  Another heavy sigh. “I inspected the Matson car.”

  “Did Matson seem nervous?”

  “Damage to the front right bumper and fender. Front right headlight was smashed.”

  “Goon.”

  “Matson said the damage must have occurred while the car was stolen.”

  “He admitted it was recent damage.”

  “He had to. We could ask neighbors—”

  “Right. So did you have the car impounded?”

  “It took me until one fifteen this morning, Inspector.”

  “Did you stay with the car all that while?”

  “I stayed with the car or with Matson. I had to go inside, use their phone.”

  “I see.”

  “One fifteen.”

  “And forensic are examining it now?”

  “Yes.”

  “No report yet?”

  “What do you want, Frank? It’s only eleven fifteen Monday morning. Where the hell are you, anyway?”

  “Never mind. It’s only eleven fifteen Monday morning. Did you find out if there was any way Matson and Goldberg could have known each other?”

  “I did find out that Matson is a school teacher. Teaches seventh grade at the local public school.”

  “Some discovery. You asked him what he does for a living.”

  “He’s black.”

  “A black school teacher. A Jewish jeweler. I suppose they could have met at a meeting of The Daughters of the American Rebellion.”

  “I don’t think they knew each other.”

  “When will forensics have its report ready?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “I have a question for you.”

  “Ach,” said Flynn. “Finally a spark of interest in your work.”

  “I need to know the answer.”

  “Finally conducting an investigation, are you?”

  “I’m doing a survey. How do you feel about creamwitches?”

  “What?”

  “Creamwitches. You know, those thin, little ice cream sandwiches. The machines which dispense them are very expensive, but if enough officers—”

  “Good-bye, Grover.”

  “Inspector, Commissioner D’Esopo thinks the work the Eats Committee is doing is damned important, and if you won’t cooperate—”

  “Call you later, Grover.” Flynn hung up.

  He chose an ap
ple from the bag Cocky had brought him the night before and went over to the chessboard. “What-what,” he muttered. “Grover says ‘what’ and I say ‘what.’ Grover and I talking to each other is almost as bad as an Englishman talking to himself. What?”

  He moved his Queen to Knight Three.

  Immediately, Cocky moved his Queen Knight to Queen Two.

  “I see you’ve been thinking about this.”

  Taylor knocked on the door and entered. Over his arm he had a lined hunting jacket and in his hand a pair of thick boots.

  “Ready, sir?”

  “Am I ready to ride over the mountain and confront a band of miscreants, at least one of whom is a murderer, all of whom are armed?” He moved his Queen Knight to Queen Two. “Yes, I’m ready.”

  24

  “Did you sleep well?” Rutledge sat on a rock over a fire outside the small, square log cabin called the Rumble de Dump.

  “I’ve slept better, thanks,” Flynn said, strolling to him. “And with less encouragement.”

  “I bet you want some coffee.” A steaming mug was in Rutledge’s hand. A coffee pot was on a stone at the edge of the fire.

  “Not from your hands, I don’t.”

  Rutledge laughed. “No hard feeling, I hope?”

  “Why not?”

  Clearly Rutledge disdained someone who did not accept apology. “Sit down, Flynn. Trust me that much.”

  Flynn sat on a rock lower than Rutledge’s, but still away from the fire’s smoke.

  His head and stomach had taken better than expected the long jouncy ride over the hills to the Rumble de Dump. Still, he felt somewhat unfocused and wobbly in the knees.

  On the long ride, Taylor had spoken only twice. After a stretch of washboard road, he said: “Driving this thing always makes me want to pee.” As they approached the cabin, he said, “Near the Rumble de Dump, up on a little bluff, there’s a great view.” Flynn had not answered.

  As soon as they arrived, Taylor opened the back of the Land Rover. Individual, covered metal dishes were being kept warm in an electric oven at the back of the Land Rover.

  Then Taylor had gone into the woods.

  No one else was in the clearing at the front of the cabin. Obviously, Rutledge had been expecting Flynn, was waiting for him.

  One rifle was propped against the cabin’s outer wall, near the stone step to the front door.

  “I trust you understand the spirit in which we did what we did,” Rutledge said.

  “Oh, aye,” said Flynn. “A bunch of overaged schoolboys scurrying around a big old place at midnight, playing another trick on authority, removing a corpse, destroying evidence. A marvelous lark.”

  “You had seen the body. You had seen what evidence there was.”

  “Have you ever heard of forensics?”

  “Enough to know it doesn’t count for as much in a capital trial as people like to believe.”

  Flynn sighed. The man had an answer for everything. “What did you do with Lauderdale? Try to make it seem he strangled himself in all those telephone wires at Timberbreak Lodge?”

  “One of our members has a horse farm about a hundred kilometers from here. Lauderdale was visiting him this weekend, you see. He went out yesterday on a horse by himself and didn’t come back. The horse returned last night. His body was discovered this morning.”

  “In an evening gown?”

  “That’s the point, Flynn. You think we’re going to permit the police and press in to see Judge Robert Lauderdale strangled to death while wearing an evening gown? The man deserves better than that. He was a distinguished justice.”

  “Justice.”

  “He remarried last month.”

  “He did?”

  “In fact, he married Ernest Clifford’s mother.”

  “He did?”

  “Sort of an elopement. All very romantic.”

  “Is that why Clifford came back to this country?”

  “Not for the wedding. I said it was a kind of middle-aged elopement. They honeymooned in Palm Desert.”

  Against the dark bark of the trees ringing the cabin, Flynn could see a few snow flakes falling.

  “Lauderdale, despite his proclivity to dress in drag and make us all laugh, was a normal male in every other respect. He has three children by a previous marriage.”

  “I didn’t see that he made you all laugh.”

  “He did. We were all pretty used to his antics. But he was funny.”

  The Rumble de Dump was about halfway up a small mountain. The ring of trees immediately outside its clearing sheltered it and deprived it of a view.

  “How does one get strangled falling off a horse?” Flynn asked. “Tell me that one.”

  “His neck was broken. We took advantage of that. Thanks to you, we didn’t make the mistake we made with Huttenbach the night before. As Wahler said, we should have shot him again, from closer up, to make the suggestion of suicide more real.”

  “Glad to have been of such help,” Flynn said sourly. “You damaged Lauderdale’s neck enough so that no one could see he had been strangled?”

  “The horse stomped on it. Other parts of his body as well. Sure you won’t have some coffee?”

  “You had the horse stomp Lauderdale until a hoof happened to land on Lauderdale’s neck?”

  “That’s about it.”

  “And you had changed him from an evening gown to some riding clothes.”

  “That’s it.” Rutledge poured himself more coffee.

  “You’re a cold-blooded bunch.”

  “We did what we could do for Lauderdale.”

  “And for yourselves. Preserving the flamin’ privacy of your club. Continue to conceal who-knows-who through The Rod and Gun Club.”

  “We have a right to protect our privacy, Flynn.”

  “You’re a clique.”

  “Right,” said Rutledge. “Just like your local Parent-Teachers Organization, P-2, or the Russian Politburo. The decisions we make are apt to be in our own best interests. Does anyone think differently?”

  “You’re making decisions for the world at large without any input from the world at large.”

  “We’re making decisions for ourselves, and implementing them in the most efficient way possible. Tell me who doesn’t.”

  “I wasn’t so drugged, Rutledge, that when I entered the music room last night, having come from just next door, that I forget that I found you standing over Lauderdale’s corpse.”

  “I was in the corridor, coming from the communications room, when I heard Lauderdale’s strange noises. I heard the groan, in his own voice. I looked in. He was slumped over the piano.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were managing this whole thing. Huttenbach’s murder, getting me here, Lauderdale’s murder…”

  “I expect to be under suspicion. I expect all of us to be under suspicion. Except Arlington.”

  “Why not Arlington?”

  “In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never known Arlington to kill a fish or shoot an animal, not even a bird. He just comes out with us on a day like this and prowls around the woods by himself. I’m sure if he ever saw a deer close up, he’d try to pet it.”

  It was a light, fine snow. Flynn heard the flakes landing on the dry leaves.

  “Rutledge, why do you want me here?”

  Rutledge drank from his cup. “To investigate. D’Esopo says you’re a genius. To find out who killed Huttenbach, and now Lauderdale. We want to know.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a true answer.”

  “Why else?”

  “Maybe you just want a headmaster figure to play with, someone to enjoy getting around. So you can have someone to put asleep in his chair while you tiptoe around playing your midnight tricks.”

  Rutledge stood up and emptied his coffee cup onto the ground. “I drink too much coffee.”

  “I’d hate to see you get all nervous.”

  From down in the woods came the sound of a voice calling.

  “Ag
ain, I assure you, Flynn, we did nothing last night, after knocking you and your friend out, without consultation with some of the most respected names in this country.”

  “Preserve us…”

  In the woods below them a man was shouting loudly.

  “Preserve us our institutions,” said Rutledge.

  “Hey, someone!” the voice in the woods shouted. “Anyone! Come here! Quick!”

  Flynn stood up.

  There was a quick volley of six rifle shots from down the mountainside.

  Flynn and Rutledge ran in the direction of the shots.

  25

  “I fired the shots,” Clifford said. “I wasn’t sure anyone could hear me yelling.”

  Face down on the dead leaves, feet separated, arms flung out, was someone who’d had the back of his head bloodied by a hard blow. Snow was jeweling his rough jacket. His orange hat was a half meter from his head, upside down near the base of a big tree. Near it, at a curious angle, was a hunting rifle.

  And not far from the body was a stout, solid tree branch about the size of a baseball bat: a perfect weapon.

  “Who is it?” Flynn asked.

  “Ashley,” Rutledge said at his shoulder.

  “He’s dead,” Clifford said. “I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

  Flynn crouched over Ashley and felt for a pulse. There was none.

  When he looked up he saw Buckingham tearing through the woods toward them. Arlington was picking his way downhill more precisely. Taylor was running straight downhill from a different angle. Dunn Roberts puffed up behind Flynn.

  “Ashley, Ashley, Ashley…” They sounded like choirboys whispering the name of the next hymn to be sung.

  In his steady pace, Hewitt came straight uphill and stopped just outside the group. There was no expression in his brown eyes as he saw the corpse. The hunting guide was used to seeing bloodied creatures fallen on dead leaves.

  D’Esopo, dull-eyed, lumbered in from around the big tree. He, too, was used to seeing bloodied, fallen creatures.

  Wahler stayed on a path as he came through the woods. His trousers were a red corduroy; his coat calfskin. He wore a scarf.

  A man Flynn did not recognize immediately joined the peering faces. Wendell Oland, dressed. His hunting clothes looked too big for him. He looked different in clothes: older, and yet more childish somehow.