Who's Sorry Now? Read online

  It was too late today to make the trip clear to south Yonkers. He'd leave early tomorrow to hunt through the birth and death records for McBrides. If he didn't go tomorrow, he'd have to waste the weekend.

  Since he had a few minutes to spare, he called the chief of police in Beacon. Chief Simpson had a deputy hedidn't like because the deputy was shy. But Howard had recently worked with the chief 's deputy on a previous case and thought Deputy Ron Parker had potential. A lot more than Ralph.

  “Hello, Ed," Howard said to Chief Simpson. "How's the gout?”

  Almost gone. I can get around pretty much during the day, if I wear slippers in the evening. How are things with you, Howard?"

  “Not so good. My deputy is in love and will probably marry soon and move away. I'm wondering how you're getting along with your deputy?"

  “Not well. And I received a letter today from an officer in Buffalo who sent his list of accomplishments and education in police work. He's so desperate to get farther south that he'd take a slight cut in pay. You want Parker? I'd really like to hire this guy from Buffalo."

  “I certainly do want Deputy Parker," Walker said. "I got along with him just fine."

  “I can't imagine how. The boy is bone-deep shy. When do you need him?”

  As soon as you get your new deputy. When will he start?"

  “We can get this done in a day or two, I imagine. How 'bout if I tell Deputy Parker today that you want him to start next Tuesday. What's that? The second of May, I think. And I'll call my new man and tell him to be ready to start here the same day?"

  “Suits me. Thanks, Ed.”

  Howard sat back in his chair. He'd have to fIre Ralph, but he was apparently marrying into a family that might take in the newlyweds anyway. Especially if there were a baby on the way already.

  As it turned out, he didn't have to fIre Ralph. His deputy burst into the office moments later.

  “Chief, I've got bad news for you. Jeanette and me are getting married Monday. Her father says so."

  “Jeanette is pregnant, right?”

  Ralph didn't even blush. "Yep. And it's not a church wedding. Just a judge and two witnesses. Her own folks. So I can't invite you."

  “That's okay."

  “Sorry to leave you in a lurch."

  “I'll get by," Howard said with a smile.

  “I've got to go pack all my stuff. Like I said, I'm really sorry.

  The moment the office door closed, Howard called his former landlady. "Have you rented both my old rooms yet?"

  “Not even one of them," she said in a surly voice. "Then I can help you out with one of them. The one with the phone connection. I'm getting a new deputy next Tuesday. Will you arrange to have the phone reconnected by then?”

  On Friday when he drove to Yonkers, there were a great number of McBrides listed in the birth certificate files, but only one Edwin. Born in 1899, mother Sharon McBride. No father listed. So he was probably born out of wedlock. Not that it mattered. At least they knew his age. Walker checked for a death certificate for Sharon McBride and came up with nothing. He then searched in the city rosters in Yonkers and found her address given five years earlier. He found the house but Sharon McBride no longer lived there. A friendly neighbor told him where she'd moved.

  Much as he hated giving anyone such bad news, he felt obligated. Sharon McBride turned out to be much older and more shop-worn than he'd imagined. Her gray hair straggled out of a red-and-white handkerchief tied around her head. She smelled of lemon oil.

  She took the news badly.

  “Poor little Edwin. He was such a nice little boy. Very popular in school. Why would anyone murder him?”

  Walker had felt obligated to tell her the truth. If she saw her son's body, she'd know it wasn't a natural death. "That's what we don't know. When was the last time you heard from him?"

  “Oh, dear. Several weeks. But I've had so much cleaning up to do in this place I hadn't got around to giving him my new address yet."

  “Do you have a cemetery plot for him?"

  “Yes, I bought two. One for myself and one for him.”

  “Is your husband there already?"

  “There was no husband. He bolted when he learned I was pregnant. That's why Edwin has my maiden name."

  “We'll see to sending his body for burial when the pathologist is done. I'm really sorry to be the bearer of such bad news."

  “No. Don't be sorry. I needed to know this. Otherwise I'd have never known what became of my son.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  MRS. MCBRIDE seemed to be hanging on to her emotions by a fine thread. She'd removed the kerchief from her head and made an effort to fluff her hair up a bit. Her face had gone pale. It was all Walker could do to keep himself from hugging the old woman to show his sympathy.

  But when she'd pulled herself together and insisted that they have coffee and cookies, he agreed.

  He was glad that there would be somewhere for McBride to be buried. But he wasn't any closer to knowing who had killed him and why. Before he left Sharon McBride's house, he asked about Edwin's friends when he was a youngster. In his own experience, bunches of boys were always led by either a good-natured boy or by a bully. Edwin was obviously the former. But there was almost always a "hanger-on" who was a younger brother or just somebody who attached himself to the group without invitation.

  Girls, he was told, were different. The prettiest was always the leader. And she always had a "best friend" who was homely, to show up how pretty the leader was. He'd always wondered if the homely girl had a crush on her mentor, or disliked her but didn't want to lose her place in the group.

  He'd asked Sharon McBride if she still knew the boys Edwin went around with.

  “Oh yes. Most of them are still in the old neighborhood."

  “Could you give me their names and last-known addresses?"

  “I can. Most of them still drop in and visit me from time to time, to talk about the old days, and they send me Christmas cards.”

  This shift in the conversation seemed to bring the color back to her face. "I have their addresses." She rose and opened a drawer in a buffet table. But as she fingered the pages, her hands shook. She handed the book to Howard. She gave him the names to look up, and he wrote them down.

  “Was there a 'hanger-on' as there always seems to be?”

  “Of course. His name was Mario Scalia. I don't hear from him.”

  “Do you think he's still in the old neighborhood?"

  “I have no idea. The other boys might know, though.”

  The last thing Walker had to tell Sharon McBride was that the coffin should be closed because Edwin didn't look good and she wouldn't want to see him that way.

  She thanked him for telling her.

  He thanked her for the addresses and said, "If you need me I'm on the telephone exchange in Voorburg.”

  She hadn't cried until then. "Oh, my poor baby," she sobbed. Howard put his arm around her shoulders and said, "Everybody in Voorburg liked your son. We'll miss him. Let me know when the funeral is taking place and I'll be there.”

  He'd have to interview all of Edwin's old friends. But it could wait for a day or two. Sharon McBride said she wanted to tell his friends that Edwin had died, before Chief Walker did.

  When he returned to Voorburg, he also heard from the pathologist in Newburg that Dr. Polhemus was wrong—as usual. It wasn't piano wire, it was a long section of wire that jewelers used to saw through rings that had to be cut off fingers when knuckles had swollen too much to remove them. Howard's first thought, which he was ashamed of, was that Ralph Summer was about to marry the daughter of a jeweler. That wasn't fair to Ralph, probably just coincidence.

  Lily, meanwhile, knowing nothing about the death of McBride yet, was thinking about archaeology. Unearthing that skeleton, while tedious, was very interesting. Knowing about rickets and living in a cave were revelations she'd have never guessed. The beading and beeswaxed moccasins were also fascinating.

  She knew she w
as good at bookkeeping from her experience working with Mr. Prinney on estate matters. Maybe she could also be good at something else. There was no way she could attend college, however, to learn more. Great-uncle Horatio's will clearly stated that neither of his heirs could be away from Voorburg for more than two months a year, and they must make their own living in Voorburg. Obviously there wasn't a college in Voorburg. They were lucky to have a grade school. She'd have had to move into a dormitory somewhere else, which wasn't an option.

  She wondered if there was a way to take classes by mail and only go in for tests a couple times a semester. How could she find out about that? Oh, she thought, almost slapping her forehead. At the town library.

  Miss Exley was an expert in researching almost anything. She would certainly have reference books, however outdated, about colleges.

  Lily gave Miss Exley a warning call about what she needed.

  “I might be able to find something. I'll start with Vassar," Miss Exley said. "Just because it's the closest to you. But I doubt they care about educating women to be anthropologists."

  “Probably not. Certainly some school in New York City would know. And I think I can find the telephone number of an anthropologist who might know where they have a course by mail, so I'd only have to go to the city to take tests."

  “Why are you suddenly interested in this, if I may ask?"

  “Haven't you heard about the skeleton we found at Grace and Favor?"

  “No. Who was it?”

  A young Indian girl."

  “Oh, how sad to die young. I'm afraid I've been too busy still working on getting all the old newspapers in order to read recent ones."

  “I don't think Jack Summer has reported it yet," Lily said.

  Miss Exley said, "I will watch for his next issue. I'm beginning to fear it's going to take me the rest of my life to get the old newspapers in order. And I've decided that anyone who wants to see a newspaper has to read what they find in front of me, so I can stop them if they try to cut out an article. You have no idea how many of the newspapers look like grubby lace.”

  She went on, "If you can wait until tomorrow, I'll be glad to see if we have any books here on the subject that are less than fifty years old. But I can see why you're interested. Meanwhile, if you give me the town where your source of information is, I can look him up in the most recent New York City telephone book."

  “I think we have a fairly recent one somewhere at home," Lily said. "Let me try that first. I hate to put you to that much trouble and expense."

  “Do you really want to be an anthropologist?" Miss Exley asked.

  “Not exactly. For another reason, I couldn't go out in the field and investigate finds for another eight years anyway. Our great-uncle's will demands that we make our living for ten years without being out of Voorburg more than two months of any year.”

  Miss Exley said, "I'd heard two women checking out romances talking about that, but I chalked it up to plain old gossip. It's really true?"

  “It is. But I'd just like to get more information." When she got back to Grace and Favor, she called Dr.

  Toller's office but was told by a receptionist at the college in New York City that he was out of the office for the day. But she'd give him the message to call Miss Brewster back. He'd mentioned to her when he'd returned from Voorburg how interested and useful Miss Brewster had been by helping with the successful excavation of the skeleton.

  Chief Howard Walker assumed that Mrs. McBride would call on Friday or Saturday the other "boys" who'd been pals with Edwin. Howard would try to find as many of them as he could on Sunday, when they were most likely to be home. It was a shame he wasn't getting Deputy Parker until the next Tuesday. It would have been good for the young officer to sit in on the interviews. He managed to find all of them at home, and one of them even knew where the "hanger-on" currently lived.

  He couldn't help being surprised that all of the "boys" were older than he. But to Mrs. McBride they were still nice children who'd happened to grow up.

  CHAPTER TEN

  MONDAY, MAY FIRST WAS LILY'S BIRTHDAY.

  Robert had gone early in the day to fetch the books he'd left with Mrs. Smithson.

  “I assumed that a man who doesn't know how to make coffee also doesn't know how to wrap packages either," she said with a smile. "I had some extra birthday paper and the books are all wrapped and ready and back in your box.”

  Robert grinned. "Your guess was right. I was going to ask our maid or Mrs. Prinney to wrap them for me. It was kind of you to save me from more embarrassment.”

  Not only had she wrapped each book individually, but the paper was lovely and each package had a ribbon tied in a fancy bow.

  Howard Walker had come home early and asked Mrs.

  Prinney for a small vase of water, which he carried out to the woods behind the mansion, picking a big handful of the prettiest wildflowers he could find.

  Phoebe Twinkle had made a pink felt hat with a very stylish brim and embroidered flowers around the crown.

  Mrs. Tarkington had wrapped up a small bracelet another teacher had given her years earlier and that Lily had admired. She'd told Lily at the time, that while it was pretty, it wasn't really her style.

  Mrs. Prinney had prepared a good-sized pork roast (most of which would serve as leftovers and sandwiches for Phoebe and Mrs. Tarkington for lunches), mashed potatoes with thick, tasty gravy, sliced tomatoes she'd put up in jars last summer, and a fabulous three-tiered chocolate cake with one candle on it.

  Everybody sang "Happy Birthday" as Lily blew out the candle. Robert disappeared for a moment to fetch the books that he'd hidden in Mr. Prinney's office, and he set them at the corner of the table. Lily eyed them while she opened Phoebe's box and put on the hat. It fit perfectly. She thanked Howard for the flowers. She was already wearing Mrs. Tarkington's bracelet and thanked her again, then asked, "What are those other four packages?"

  “They're from me," Robert said.

  And you wrapped them yourself?"

  “Of course."Lily raised an eyebrow.

  “Okay," Robert admitted, "Mrs. Smithson wrapped them. She's been hiding them at her house.”

  Lily smiled. Opening all four in a row, she gushed, "Oh, Robert. My favorite four authors. How did you know?"

  “I pay attention to what you read." Then realizing he couldn't get away with this either, added, "Miss Exley made the choices. All I did was go to the city and buy them.”

  Lily was almost choked up by the gifts. "Thank you, everybody. Mrs. Prinney, that was a wonderful meal. Phoebe, this is a gorgeous hat, and the flowers are lovely, Howard. Mrs. Tarkington, how nice of you to remember how much I like this bracelet. This has been the best birthday I've had for years."

  “Don't get weepy about this, Lily," Robert pleaded. "I hate it when you cry.”

  She dabbed at her eyes with the table napkin and said, "I'm sorry to be sappy.”

  Mrs. Prinney and Mimi started clearing the table. Mr. Prinney went back to his office, claiming he had letters he needed to get out on tomorrow morning's train.

  “Speaking of the mail train," Robert said to Lily, Phoebe, Mrs. Tarkington, and Howard, "I hear that our very own chief of police is telling people I should run this post office thing in the station.”

  Howard nodded. "It was your idea. It's pretty much up to you to pursue it, don't you think?"

  “I've thought about it and you're right. But I don't want to do it forever."

  “Do you have someone else in mind?" Lily asked.

  “Not yet. But I'll keep an eye out for someone else to take over. If it happens, of course. I need to get back to getting people to sign the petition and present it to the town council for approval. Lily and Mr. Prinney need to give me some guidance on what the costs will be, and how much should be charged for a box, and how much of the money should go back to the city for funding it."

  “That should be easy to compute," Lily said. "We could work it out tomorrow, so you can get starte
d with the petition.”

  Phoebe had to excuse herself. "I have two hats that aren't quite finished and both ladies want them tomorrow.”

  And I have lesson plans to work on. I have a teacher out tomorrow going to the dentist and I have to fill in," Mrs. Tarkington said, likewise excusing herself.

  When the two lady boarders had departed, Lily said, "I'm expecting more books to arrive soon. I spoke to Dr. Toller. I explained that I'd like to know more about anthropology but couldn't leave Voorburg to study at a college."

  “Why can't you?" Chief Walker asked.

  “I thought you already knew. Almost everyone in town does," Lily said. According to our Great-uncle Ho-ratio's will, we have to earn our living for ten years here in Voorburg. We're only allowed to be somewhere else for two months a year."

  “But if you wanted to go to college and could get a grant or something, wouldn't that count as the 'right' thing to be doing?" Howard asked.

  “It should be," Robert said. "But it would go against the conditions of the will and Grace and Favor would never be ours. Or at least not Lily's if she was gone for months at a time.”

  And Mr. Prinney enforces this, I assume?" Howard queried.

  “He has to. It's his responsibility to make sure we fulfill the conditions," Lily explained.

  “So that's why he and his wife live here?" Howard was still trying to get a complete understanding of this weird inheritance.

  “It's one reason," Robert said with a laugh. Another is because Mrs. Prinney loves to cook for all of us."

  “I still don't see how it's fair," Howard said. "Getting a good education is important."