Something the Cat Dragged In (18 page)

“We were trying to get at the facts about Mrs. Smuth’s relationship to Bertram Claude,” Shandy told him.

“Yeah?” Smuth yawned again. “If you mean was she screwing around with him, I’ve got two pieces of information for you. I don’t know, and I don’t give a damn. Wake me up when we get to the house.”

“SHEESH!”

Ottermole gunned the cruiser, spraying gravel from the Smuths’ well-raked drive all over their expensive landscaping. “Am I glad to unload that bird! You know something, though? In a way, I kind of feel sorry for him. At least when I get home, if I ever do, I’ll know who my missus has been keeping the bed warm for. Want me to drop you off at the Crescent?”

“Yea, but nay,” Shandy told him. “I’m afraid our night’s work isn’t over quite yet. Would you happen to know where Bertram Claude lives? I have a hunch it’s not far from here.”

“Professor, you’re not planning to go and wake up a congressman?”

“Why not? I’d like to wake up a few more of them, if it comes to that. We have a responsibility to let Claude know his campaign manager’s been murdered, haven’t we?”

“No, but I guess we could use that as an excuse. Okay, I think I know the house. It’s just a few streets over, with an eagle on the mailbox. Why didn’t I think to swallow another cup of coffee back at the station?”

“Perhaps Claude will offer us some. It would be good politics and he’s supposed to be a smart politician. Roll down your window if you’re getting sleepy. The fresh air will pep you up.”

“The hell it will.”

Nevertheless, Ottermole let in a frosty blast. They drove on a little farther, turned down another of the well-paved roads in what the snobby folk of Hoddersville considered to be Balaclava County’s most exclusive residential section, and found the house with the eagle on the mailbox. Shandy climbed out of the cruiser, stretched to limber up his muscles, and thumped at the second eagle, this one of brass, that served the Claudes for a door knocker.

“You know, Ottermole,” he murmured while they were waiting for somebody to respond, “I just happened to think. You don’t really have any jurisdiction over here, do you?”

“Nope,” the chief admitted, “but we don’t have to tell him that, do we? Anyway, us chiefs in the Association have kind of a—oh, oh. Here comes somebody.”

The somebody turned out to be a smallish, blondish woman who looked enough like the late Ruth Smuth to give Shandy a jolt. She was clutching an over-elaborate negligee around her thin body as she opened the door on its chain and peered nervously out at them through the narrowest possible crack.

“Who is it?”

“We’re police officers,” said Ottermole, projecting a combination of toughness and reassurance, and keeping his hands off his zippers for the moment. “Are you Mrs. Bertram Claude?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

“Is your husband home?”

“He’s asleep. What do you want him for?”

“We’d like to talk to him a minute, that’s all. Would you mind getting him down here?”

“He doesn’t like being waked up.”

“Neither do I, Mrs. Claude, but things are tough all over. Could you hurry it up, please?”

Ottenhole’s left hand began to creep ominously toward his topmost pocket zipper. She went, trying to shut the door behind her but prevented by the chief’s fast footwork. The two outside heard the click-click of her high-heeled slippers, then some dialogue that indicated Claude didn’t waste his charm in places where it wouldn’t enhance his public image.

“They said they were police officers.” Mrs. Claude’s voice was pitched even higher and whinier now.

“Anybody can say that, stupid. For all you know, they may be political assassins.”

“Who’d bother assassinating you?” Mrs. Claude retorted with discernible regret. “They only go after important people.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. I’ll remember that.”

“You try any more funny business and I’ll file for divorce. Right before the election. How’d you like that, Bertie dear?”

“Shut up, they might hear you. Did you have sense enough to shut the door?”

“I couldn’t. He stuck his boot in the crack.”

“Jesus, now you tell me! Look, go on back to bed. Let me handle this.”

“With pleasure.”

The two men on the doorstep heard a door slam. Some moments later, Claude’s mellifluous locution floated through the crack.

“Would you identify yourselves, please?”

“Ottermole. Chief of police, Balaclava Junction. And—uh—Detective Shandy.”

“Could I see your credentials?”

“Sure.” Ottermole held his badge and his Balaclava, County Police Chiefs’ Association membership card up to the crack. “Okay?”

Shandy had got out his faculty dining room pass in lieu of anything more official, but Claude didn’t ask him to show it. He was revving up to bluster.

“And what do you want of me at this hour? I warn you, Ottermole, it had better be important.”

“Don’t sweat it, Claude, it’s important. We thought maybe you’d want to know your campaign manager’s been murdered.”

“What?” That stopped Claude cold. At last he choked out, “You—ah—did say murdered?”

“Strangled,” Ottermole amplified. “With her own scarf.”

“Her scarf? Who did you say this was?”

“Your campaign manager. Ruth Smuth.”

That was when Claude released the chain and swung open the door, revealing himself in the effulgence of a Sulka lounging robe, silk pajamas, and a full set of dimples.

“Ruth Smuth? Now, who could—oh yes, Mrs. Smuth. I’m afraid there’s been some mistake, Chief Ottermole. Mrs. Smuth was one of our willing workers on a, so to speak, local basis. We have a large and zealous group of volunteers helping with our campaign; you know. It’s sometimes difficult to recall precisely what responsibilities we’ve given each and every individual, but,” he laughed lightly, “I’m quite sure I’d remember having named someone my campaign manager.”

“Shove it, Claude.”

That was Shandy butting in, borrowing tone and cadence from Ottermole and wishing he had a more appropriately situated zipper to yank. “Ruth Smuth was nobody’s willing worker. If she hadn’t been running the show, she wouldn’t have been in it. Okay, we understand it’s rotten PR for you, her getting bumped off right after she’d bitched up that phony demonstration at the college yesterday afternoon, but it’s what happened and there’s not much you can do about it now so never mind trying to give us the baloney. Where were you between about seven o’clock last night and two this morning?”

Bertram Claude flared his Grecian nostrils and bared his superbly capped teeth. “I don’t have to stand for this. Do you realize to whom you’re talking?”

“Yeah,” said Ottermole. “That’s why we’re here instead of someplace else. How about answering Shandy’s question?”

He whipped out his gold-plated ball-point pen to prove Claude wasn’t dealing with a couple of country bumpkins, and poised it over his notebook. Either the pen or the realization that his dimples weren’t going to get him anywhere with this pair prompted Claude to utter.

“Certainly. I have nothing to hide. For the record, then, I attended a reception given in my honor by some of my loyal constituents. It was held at the home of Mr. Lot Lutt in Lumpkin Upper Mills. Mr. Lutt is chairman of the board at the—”

“Former chairman,” Ottermole corrected. “At the soap-works. His sister-in-law that keeps house for him is an aunt of Ruth Smuth. Was Lutt himself there?”

“For a time.”

“How long a time?”

Claude essayed another genteel snicker. “I’m afraid I didn’t have my stopwatch with me. You know how it is at these affairs. People come and go.”

“Yeah. They come because they feel sorry for the neighbor that got sucked into giving the shindig, and go when they can’t stand it any longer. Get much of a crowd?”

“We had a lively meeting,” the politician sidestepped. “The guests asked a number of stimulating questions.”

“I’ll bet they did, both of ’em. I’m surprised anybody at all bothered to come. That’s pretty solid Peters country around there. So when did you get to Lutt’s place and when did you leave? And you can skip the stopwatch routine this time. I’ll double-check with Edna Jean later on.”

“Edna Jean?”

“Sure. That’s your loyal constituent’s name, in case you didn’t know. Edna Jean Bugleford. She’s my wife’s aunt, too, but only by marriage. My wife’s mother was a Bugleford, but I never held it against her. Okay, the time.”

Ottermole waggled his gold-plated pen impatiently. Claude sighed and managed to dredge up the more-or-less straight facts.

“I arrived at approximately seven forty, and left a little before nine.”

“Stuck it out for a whole hour, did they? Not bad, Claude. Then what did you do?”

“I went on to another meeting.”

“Where?”

“It was an informal gathering at a club called, I believe, the Bursting Bubble.”

“Beer joint over behind the soap factory,” Ottermole explained to Shandy. “Figured he might catch a few of the night shift when they snuck out for a brew. Any luck, Claude?”

You had to hand it to Ol’ Dimplepuss, Shandy thought. Bertram Claude must have the hide of a walrus. He actually managed to answer Ottermole’s rude interrogation with another of those rippling laughs and another deft evasion.

“I thought you were the one who knew all the answers, Chief Ottermole. As for myself, I’m afraid I’ll just have to wait till election day and find out.”

“What is there to be afraid of? It’s not as if you were going to be faced with having to pull up stakes and leave this nice, comfortable house for some high-priced dump in Washington.” Ottermole was really quite a card when you got to know him. “What time did you get to the Bubble, and when did you leave? Bearing in mind that I also know the bartender.”

“I’m sure you do.” Chalk one up for Claude. “I went there directly from the Lutt house, so I suppose it must have been about five minutes past nine when I arrived. I stayed until closing time. According to local regulations which you must also know, that would have been midnight. Naturally your friend the bartender wouldn’t flout the law by staying open a moment longer.”

Ottermole could take needling, too. “Then what?” was his only response.

“Having received considerable encouragement from the factory workers I’d met at the Bubble, as you call it, I decided it mightn’t be a bad idea to drop by the factory and shake a few hands there. Mr. Lutt’s name gave me an entree. The night watchman can no doubt tell you the exact times of my arrival and departure, but I do know it was exactly two o’clock when I got home because we have a grandfather clock that strikes the hours. For corroboration on that point, you’ll have to rely on my wife and any neighbors who might have been looking out their windows.”

“Yeah, there’s always somebody, isn’t there? Even in a ritzy neighborhood like this. How’d you come?”

“In my car, Chief Ottermole.”

“I mean, what road did you take?”

“I came through Lumpkinton Center and picked up the highway as far as the Hoddersville exit.”

“At that hour of the night you’d have made better time cutting across through Balaclava Junction.”

“Perhaps, but as it happens, I didn’t. Come to think of it, I do have an alibi of sorts, for what it may be worth to you. My car started making strange noises, so I stopped at that turnout just before you go on to the highway, and put up the hood. A Lumpkinton police cruiser came along and the men in it very kindly stopped and asked if I needed help. Not being all that clever about engines, I said yes. So they got out and found the cause of the trouble, which happened to be a twig that had somehow worked its way through the grille and was hitting against the fanbelt. I never thought to ask their names, but I did shake hands and give them each one of my pamphlets. They’ll remember me, no doubt.”

“No doubt,” said Ottermole. “If you spent all that time at the Bubble, I’m surprised they didn’t make you take a breathalyzer test.”

“Perhaps because I didn’t drink anything but ginger ale,” Claude replied urbanely. “I never do when I’m campaigning. Unlike my worthy opponent, they tell me.”

It was well-known around his district that Sam Peters never left for Washington without a jug of home-squeezed and home-hardened cider. His loyal constituents considered this yet one more proof of Sam’s Yankee thrift and sound common sense. Shandy’s hackles rose.

“Did they tell you your worthy opponent doesn’t hang around beer joints buying drinks for barflies, as you must have been doing or you’d have been laughed out of the Bubble before your second ginger ale? Right, Chief?”

“Right,” said Ottermole. “Okay, Claude, go on back upstairs and finish your beauty sleep. And don’t get any notions about taking a quick trip out of state.”

“Should I take that as a threat, Chief Ottermole? It can’t be an official warning, since you have no authority in Hoddersville.”

“No, I don’t, but your chief of police is a lodge buddy of mine. How about if we call it a friendly hint?”

Ottermole had sense enough not to spoil a good exit line by hanging around any longer. Besides, as he explained to Shandy when they were back in the cruiser, he’d run out of things to say.

“Any more bright ideas, Professor? That was one fat waste of time, I guess.”

“On the contrary, Ottermole. You’ve performed a masterful stroke of investigative work.”

“I have?”

“Masterful,” Shandy replied firmly. “You made Claude admit he had a beautiful alibi all lined up for the entire evening.”

“Yeah, well, what could you expect? Everybody else has one.”

“That’s precisely what I mean. I might grant you Bulfinch, since his alibi depends largely on the Lomaxes and we both know there’s no way anybody alive could get one of them to deviate a hair’s-breadth from the truth. I suppose I more or less have to grant you Smuth because his tale of woe was based on a string of calamities he’d have had one hell of a time trying to arrange in advance. But three in a row is stretching things pretty far, don’t you think?”

“Well, yeah. That’s why I kept pounding at him,” Ottermole replied with understandable mendacity. “What do you make of his so-called alibi, Professor? Comparing notes, as you might say.”