Lenny was saying, “I really thought he was cracking up. So I asked some simple-minded questions, like, when he was flying to Brazil. He said, ‘Soon as she sends me the ticket. She’s nice. We’re gonna have fun. She likes me. I helped her out. Took care of the old guy. Drove her to the airport when I got through work. She told me not to tell anybody. They wouldn’t understand.’… Oh God! What was he saying? That he killed the jeweler?” Lenny stopped to gulp.
“Take it easy,” Qwilleran said. “Did Boze say why she wanted ‘the old guy’ killed?”
“She said he was sick… he was dying… he was in pain… it would be kind to help him die.”
“What did you say, Lenny?”
“What could I say? I felt rotten. Poor Boze! Such an easy make! I just told him I had to go home and get some sleep. I said I have an early class tomorrow. So he drove me back to my truck, and I wished him well in Brazil. I think I told him to send me a postcard. I don’t know what I said, Mr. Q. I. was really shook up.”
“You handled it well under the circumstances,” Qwilleran said.
“What do I do now”
“Tell the story to Allen Barter first thing in the morning. He’ll know the proper action to take. It’ll be a hard bullet to bite, but you’re required to report such information – or be guilty of complicity.”
Lenny groaned, “I told you I’m jinxed.”
“And I told you not to use that word again! You’re like Lois; you always survive setbacks and come out stronger than ever. I’ll call Bart at home – early. Meanwhile, you go up to the guestroom on the second balcony and get some sleep. Would you like a warm drink before you turn in? At the risk of sounding like your mother. I recommend cocoa.”
Eleven
Wednesday, September 16 – ‘A cat once bitten by a snake will fear even a rope.’
AT SEVEN AM, QWILLERAN telephoned G. Allen Barter at home and said in a tone of urgency, “Are you aware that the hero of the Highland Games has been AWOL from his job at the inn? The captain of the desk clerks has a disturbing explanation to relate. It has to do with the Delacamp homicide. You need to hear his tale and take proper action at once.”
“I can be in my office by nine o’clock, Qwill.”
“Forget the formalities, Bart. Jump into a sweatsuit and drive to my barn. The witness is here, and the murderer is at large in the woods.”
Qwilleran knocked on Lenny’s door and told him the attorney was on his way. He was not fond of being everybody’s uncle, and yet the rising generation seemed to have cast him in that role, unloading their confidential problems and expecting advice. It was partly because of his standing in the community, partly because of his sympathetic mien and willingness to listen. There was also a journalist’s need to hear everything – and hear it first. He fed the cats and watched them devour their breakfast with all the slurping and gobbling and crunching of ordinary felines. Yet, one of them had licked three snapshots the night before. Koko’s raspy tongue had ruined shots of Boze tossing the caber, Boze receiving the gold medal, and Boze riding triumphantly on the shoulders of his teammates. Was it some coincidence? Or was he tuned in to the unknowable? It was not the first time such a mystifying “coincidence” had occurred.
When the attorney arrived, he left him with Lenny and went about his errands. He shopped for Polly’s groceries and put the sacks in the trunk of her car in the library parking lot. He killed some time at Eddington’s bookstore and found a secondhand book on How to Trace Your Family Tree. In mid-moming he dropped in the Dimsdale Diner, where Benny, Doug, Sig, and others in the farming community met to solve the world’s problems and drink the world’s worst coffee. Disparaging it was an ongoing under-the-table joke. “Brewed from the finest quality of motor sludge” and “Produced and distributed by Pottle’s Hog Farm” brought roars of laughter, interrupted only by a bulletin on the radio.
“Police are searching for a local suspect in the Delacamp murder case. No further details have been released at this time.”
“Benny did it,” said Calvin.
“Spencer did it,” said Doug.
Sig suggested it was a police ploy to mislead the real suspect Down Below. “What do you think, Qwill?”
“Time will tell,” Qwilleran said.
Next came the weekly luncheon of the Boosters Club in its new venue, the ballroom of the Mackintosh Inn. It was still a soup-and-salad affair served very fast; most members were shopkeepers, managers, and professionals with no time to waste.
Barter was there, and he drew Qwilleran aside to say, “I took the young man to the prosecutor’s office to tell his story, and we both decided he should leave town for a few days for his own protection. He can go to his aunt in Duluth.”
“How will this be explained to his boss?”
“I had him phone Barry and ask for a week’s leave, saying there had been a death in the family and he was needed to help an elderly relative. This whole situation is troubling.”
Qwilleran agreed. “The truth, when it comes out, will be painful. They’ve made Boze such a hero!”
