Something the Cat Dragged In (10 page)

“If you dent that woodwork, you’ll catch a double dose of hell from the Lomaxes.”

“Huh,” said Ottermole, but he used his knuckles in stead.

Immediately the snoring stopped, a voice called out, “Just a second,” and they heard sounds as of scuffling for slippers and bathrobe. Almost within the appointed second, the door was opened by a shortish, thinnish man with his sparse gray hair neatly combed and his bathrobe cord neatly tied.

“Sorry I didn’t hear the doorbell,” he apologized. “Evelyn must have gone on to her meeting. Say, you’re Fred Ottermole. What’s up? Do they need me over at Security?”

“No, I need you right here.”

“Then I’m at your disposal. Come right in.”

Bulfinch backed away from the door. “Sorry the bed isn’t made, but I was on the night shift and I helped Evelyn around the place a little when I got off. Figured I’d grab my sack time after the house quieted down. Oh, sorry, didn’t realize you had company, Fred. It’s Professor Shandy, isn’t it? This is an unexpected honor, sir. Maybe we’d better go down to the parlor. Evelyn won’t mind.”

“This is fine.” Shandy seated himself on the unmade bed. “We’re sorry to get you up, but the fact is, we’ve had a murder.”

“On campus?”

“No, downtown. Behind the museum. It was Professor Ungley.”

“Ungley?” For some reason, Bulfinch sounded more excited than dismayed. “You don’t mean to tell me you’ve got Ungleys right here in Balaclava Junction?”

“Come on, Bulfinch,” said Ottermole, “don’t try to play cute with us.”

“I don’t understand, Fred.” Bulfinch looked as if he really didn’t. “What is there to play cute about?”

“We know he was related to you.”

“No kidding? I knew I had some Ungley connections around these parts and I meant to look them up once I got settled, but what with breaking in on a new job and trying to find a place to live, I hadn’t got around to it. You sure we were connected, Fred?”

“He’s got you down in his will. Alonzo Bulfinch. That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Says so on my birth certificate. But how come he mentioned me in his will when he didn’t even know me?”

“He knew about you. Claimed you were his only surviving relative.”

Bulfinch rubbed his open left palm across his sleek gray head. “I don’t know but what I might be, come to think of it. Seems to me my mother said the Ungleys had pretty much died out. She was an Ungley herself, and glad enough to swap a name like that for Bulfinch, though she didn’t get to keep it long, poor soul. Mother died when I was nine. I’ve always been closer to the Bulfinch side, naturally. She did have a brother, but I thought he must have gone long ago. He was a lot older than my mother, if I’m not mistaken.”

Ottermole’s eyes narrowed. “How come you’re giving us all this family stuff? Don’t you want to know how much he had you down for?”

Bulfinch shrugged. “Stands to reason it wouldn’t be much, seeing as how he never so much as passed the time of day with me in his life. Some relics he didn’t want to go outside the family, I suppose. I’ve never been one to go looking for handouts anyway. It just galls me to think I could have got to meet him any time this past week, and now I’ll never have the chance. Did he know I was in town, I wonder?”

If Hodger knew, it was quite possible Ungley did, too, but Shandy was kind enough not to say so. “How should he? He was, as you say, an old man and—er—somewhat reclusive in his habits.” He tried to visualize Ungley in the role of long-lost uncle, and failed. “How did you happen to come here, Mr. Bulfinch?”

“Silvester invited me, is the long and short of it. He and I were in the service together, as you may have heard, and we always kept in touch after the war. I’d been living in Detroit—my wife was from there—but you know what it’s like in the automotive industry these days. When jobs got tight, they asked some of us old-timers to take early retirement and make way for the young guys with families to support. I wasn’t ready to hang up my hat by a long shot, but I had to say I would. So I mentioned getting laid off in my next letter to Silvester, naturally, and he wrote back saying he and Clarence had an opening and how’d I like to come back East? I had nothing to keep me in Detroit—wife’s gone and all the kids married and moved away—so I said sure and here I am.”

“You never mentioned your Ungley connection to the Lomaxes?”

“If I had, they’d have told me there was a Professor Ungley at the college, wouldn’t they? Look, you did say my uncle was murdered? I was still kind of half asleep when you came, and I’m not sure I took it all in. How did it happen?”

“He was struck over the head with the handle of his own cane.”

“That’s one for the book. You wouldn’t think a cane could kill a man.”

“This one could. The handle was in the shape of a running fox, made of silver and filled with lead. Traces of blood matching your uncle’s type have been found on it by our college Chemistry Department.”

“How come you didn’t use the police labs? Sorry, Fred, I keep forgetting I’m not in the big city any more. But how could a thing like that happen? I wouldn’t have thought you’d get muggings in a quiet little village like this.”

“We don’t,” said Ottermole. “Put your clothes on, Bulfinch. I’m taking you down to the station.”

Alonzo Bulfinch shook his head. “Sorry, Fred. I’d sure like to help you out, but I promised Evelyn I’d stick around and let in the man to fix the washing machine, if he ever shows up. She’s been waiting since Monday.”

“You trying to resist an officer in the performance of his duty?”

Ottermole started to reach for his handcuffs, but Shandy intervened. “I believe Mr. Bulfinch means he’d prefer to make his statement here rather than inconvenience his hostess. If you’d care to borrow my pen—”

Shandy didn’t know it, but he’d said the magic word. Ottermole pulled out his new gold ball point and flourished it for the others to see and envy.

“I’ve got my own. Now let’s start from the beginning. You’re Alonzo Bulfinch, right?”

“Sure, Fred, you know that. You met me night before last at the party Evelyn and Silvester gave. Alonzo Persifer Bulfinch, if you want the whole of it.”

“Address?”

“Right here, till I find a place of my own. You wouldn’t happen to know of an empty flat anywhere?”

“There’s Professor Ungley’s,” Shandy couldn’t resist suggesting.

“You mean my uncle’s?”

“Why not? You’ve probably inherited the furniture anyway.”

“Look, would you let me get on with the questioning?” snapped Ottermole, waving his gold pen some more in case they hadn’t noticed. “You’ve been a security guard at the college for how long?”

“One week today. Unpacked a clean shirt and went to work as soon as I’d parked my suitcase. Silvester and Clarence were shorthanded.”

“And you’ve been house hunting in your spare time, you say? So you know your way around the village pretty much by now.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, Fred. I know the campus like the palm of my hand because it’s my business to, but I’m none too sure about the rest of the country around here. See, I gave my car to my son before I came on here. He needed one, and I didn’t care to drive all that way by my lonesome. I figured Silvester would know where I’d be able to pick up a pretty good one secondhand, but that’s another thing I haven’t got around to yet. Haven’t needed it so far. The other guards have been great about picking me up and bringing me home, and Evelyn and Maude drive me around some when I’m off duty.”

“Taken you downtown, haven’t they?”

“Oh yes, I was down with Maude just yesterday. She had some errands and so did I. Went into the bank and cashed some travelers’ checks, bought stamps at the post office so I could let the folks back in Detroit know I got here all right—”

“If you went to the post office, you were right next door to the clubhouse.”

“Was I? I can’t say I noticed.”

“Tell that to the Marines. You couldn’t have helped noticing.”

“I think he could, Ottermole,” Shandy objected. “That clubhouse isn’t much to look at, you know.”

“Say, you’re not talking about that dinky little old clapboard building with the weeds growing up around it?” Bulfinch exclaimed. “I was meaning to ask Evelyn why they didn’t either fix it up or tear it down. When you said clubhouse, I thought of—oh, something kind of classy, I guess. Don’t tell me that’s where my uncle got killed? How did he get in?”

“He was a member and he had a key,” snarled Ottermole. “Don’t try to kid me you didn’t know anything about him. Anyway, he wasn’t killed inside, as you also know.”

“Excuse me, Ottermole,” Shandy murmured, “but we don’t know that ourselves. Perhaps we ought to reserve judgment until we’ve checked the interior.”

“Yeah, and don’t think we won’t. I’m going over that place with a fine-tooth comb.”

Ottermole unzipped his leather jacket in the tough-guy manner he’d been practicing. It was getting pretty warm with the three of them crammed into that one small bedroom. “Okay, Bulfinch, I want you to account for every second of your time last night.”

“Let’s see. I had supper here with the folks about half-past six when Silvester came off duty. Then we sat around swapping yarns and watching television till it was time for me to leave. Purvis Mink was on with me last night, so he and Clarence picked me up. We drove to the office together, signed in at Security, then Purve and I got our keys to the time clocks and our routes for the night. See, we don’t stick to any single routine. We cover the campus in a different pattern every night. That’s so if anybody happened to get the bright notion of following the guards around one night to find out where they’d be the next, he’d be letting himself in for a surprise. Silvester says Clarence thought up the system; Clarence says it was Silvester. Anyway, what we do is pick a number when we get there. We don’t even know ourselves what route we’ll be on till just before we start out.”

“Okay, so which route were you on last night?”

“Three. That’s mostly the back part of the campus, out around the barns and the power plant.”

“Farthest away from town, in short,” said Shandy.

“That’s right. See, we have to punch the clocks every five hundred yards or so right on the dot. You’ve seen ’em, they’re in those little blue cast-iron boxes all over the place. If we don’t punch in, a buzzer goes off in the security office and whoever’s on duty there tries to raise us on the walkie-talkie. If he can’t, he knows which box we’re supposed to be nearest to, and he comes out to see what’s up. I don’t say I couldn’t have snuck off on a bicycle, if I’d had one, and committed a murder maybe two miles from where I was supposed to be, and got back in time to punch my next clock on time, but it would have taken some pretty fancy footwork.”

Ottermole started to say, “Clarence might have covered—” then stopped. Clarence Lomax wouldn’t do a cover-up for his own brother or his mother or the Angel Gabriel, much less Alonzo Bulfinch.

As the chief was floundering for a way to finish the sentence without getting egg on his face, the front door burst open and confusion filled the hallway. “Ma! Ma, are you home?”

“Excuse me, I’d better go see who that is,” said Bulfinch.

But Ottermole was ahead of him. “Hey, what’s up down there?”

“Oh, Fred!” cried a distraught woman’s voice. “Am I glad to see you! How come you’re here, though? Anything wrong with the folks?”

“No, your mother’s just gone to the church.”

“Where’s Pa?”

“Working, I guess. What’s the matter, Mary Ellen?”

“Fred, you won’t believe it. I don’t, myself. A helicopter from the air base flew over the house and dropped a bolt or something right down our kitchen skylight. I was frying doughnuts. Whatever it was hit the kettle of fat and sent it all over the hot stove. That started a fire, and it went so fast I—” She caught her breath.

“Luckily I happened to be over by the door putting the cat out because he’d got up on the counter and was trying to walk through the dough. The baby was on the porch in her carriage, so I just rushed out and grabbed her and ran over to the neighbors’ and called the fire department. They got the fire out, but the house is such a mess we can’t stay in it. Smoke and water all over everything, and my lovely new kitchen gutted—oh, Fred!”

Mary Ellen sniffed a bit, then tried to pull herself together. “Anyway, I managed to salvage a few things for us to wear and picked up the boys from school and came on here. Ma and Pa will have to bed us down somehow till we can get the house fit to live in again. Would you mind helping me get the stuff out of the car? I’ve got to change the baby, and I’m worn to a frazzle. Jim doesn’t even know yet. He’s on the road with his rig and the dispatcher says he’s not due to call in till five o’clock.”

“Who’s taking care of the cat?” asked Bulfinch.

“The neighbors. I told them to give him a steak and I’d pay for it. Oh, my goodness, Mr. Bulfinch! I completely forgot you were staying here.”

“Don’t fret yourself about putting me out, Mary Ellen. I’ve found a place. In fact, I was just packing my bags. Fred and his friend here were going to give me a lift. I’ll have the room cleared for you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

Fred Ottermole, looking bemused, went to give Mary Ellen a hand. Shandy decided he might as well pitch in, too. He lugged a few armloads of clothes and playthings; all reeking of smoke, and gave a six-year-old a piggyback to stop its crying. By the time they’d emptied the car and quieted the children, Bulfinch was dressed and downstairs with his luggage.

“You want to open the trunk, Fred? I made the bed up fresh, Mary Ellen, and phoned your dad at the security office. He’s sending your cousin Sally to baby-sit and says for you to lie down and take it easy till your mother gets home.”

Ottermole opened the trunk, still looking as if he too had been hit by an unexpected flying object. Bulfinch stowed his gear, then climbed into the back seat of the cruiser. A teenager in a blue down-filled jacket biked frantically into the yard. It was time to go.

“Hope you don’t mind, Fred,” said Bulfinch. “You can pinch me as a suspect and bed me down in the lockup, can’t you? I couldn’t hang around there getting underfoot. That poor young woman’s had just about all she can take, from the look of her. Darn good thing she kept her head and got the baby away.”