A Dismal Thing To Do Read online

  “That would mean they used the house for other purposes than keeping you out of the way.”

  “Oh yeah. I seen fresh footprints, an’ sometimes there’d be a fire in the stove that’d been burnin’ a good while.”

  “Did you ever drink from the bottle?”

  Bain shrugged. “I ain’t much for drinkin’. ’Course the bottle was just settin’ there an’ I’d be cold from all that drivin.’ Badger never told me not to.”

  “Did you ever ask him?”

  “Hell no. Why should I?”

  “Was it good liquor?”

  “It was free.”

  “These men who unloaded the truck, they never came in and had a drink with you?”

  “Nope. Never laid eyes on ’em. Might o’ been women, for all I know. They was always too far away to get a look at. I couldn’t see into the barn ’cause the house was up on top of a rise an’ set ’way back from the road. The barn was down underneath the hill a ways an’ opened right up to the road. They never showed up till I was inside the house, an’ like I said, I wasn’t s’posed to set foot outside the door till they’d druv off.”

  “Weren’t you curious as to who they were?”

  “Not for that kind o’ money I wasn’t.”

  “You’re a beauty, Mr. Bain,” said Madoc. “Now what about this last trip you made on Saturday night? Did it go off just like the others?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “The house wasn’t there.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “Burnt right down to the ground. An’ the barn was all busted in. I didn’t know what to do. Drivin’ all that way—”

  “So what did you do?” Madoc prompted.

  “Set an’ cussed, if you want to know. Then a van come up.”

  “What kind of van?”

  “How the hell do I know? It was pitch dark. So anyways, the van stopped a little ways in front o’ me, an’ somebody come out with a flashlight an’ opened up the back. Then he waved the light like he was motionin’ me inside, so I went.”

  “Did you get a look at this man?”

  “Nope. He had one o’ them knitted masks over ’is face, like they wear snowmobilin’. Anyways, he shined the light right in my eyes so I was dazzled, like. Then he slammed the door on me.”

  “Were you frightened?”

  “Hell no. I was tired. I laid myself down on the floor an’ went to sleep. After a while, they opened the door an’ honked the horn, so I got up an’ walked back to my truck. By the time I got there, the van was gone. So I come home an’ found I didn’t have no home to come to, an’ then you come along an’ arrested me. An’ just as I was gettin’ myself halfway comfortable back there, you come threatenin’ me an’ roustin’ me out. Though I s’pose once they’ve carted Badger off, I might’s well move back in an’ take my punishment. At least till after breakfast.”

  “Nothin’ doin’,” said Fred Olson. “If you think I’m turnin’ my lockup into a goddamn hotel, you can think again. You want this ol’ coot any longer, eh, Inspector?”

  “You’re in charge here, Marshal, not I,” Madoc reminded him. “We know from his own statement that Mr. Bain is guilty of having aided and abetted a known criminal. We deduce that since the drop Badger had been using was destroyed by fire, he’d decided to work out a different method of moving his goods. That meant he didn’t want Bain in the picture any more, so he sent him on one last trip to get rid of whatever cargo was left in the privies. Then he blew up the house and yard to destroy any evidence of what had been going on, and to give Bain a broad hint as to what would happen if he talked. Naturally Badger wasn’t expecting to be caught. Even as it was, we saw how mortally afraid Bain was to be put in a position where Badger could get at him. You’d hardly have been so forthcoming just now if there hadn’t been all those good, strong iron bars between you and Badger, would you, Mr. Bain?”

  The old man growled something they couldn’t make out, which was probably just as well.

  “However,” Madoc went on, “the fact remains that Bain has made a full confession, most of which is probably true, and that he’s already had a pretty severe punishment dealt to him. He’ll have to testify against Badger sooner or later, I suppose, but in the meantime I don’t see why you and your wife should be put to the bother of looking after him, Marshal.”

  “Me neither,” said Fred. “All right, Jase, git.”

  “At this hour?” yowled Bain. “Where’m I s’posed to go?”

  “That’s no skin off my nose.”

  “But you can’t just shove an old man out in the cold an’ dark. That’s police brutality. I’ll complain to the authorities.”

  “What authorities, for instance? I tell you what, Jase, why don’t you hike yourself on over to Maw Fewter’s? She’s got a spare room I daresay she’d be willin’ to put you up in now that Dot’s gone.”

  “Goddamn hogpen. Besides, she’d want me to pay board.”

  “Look here, Jase Bain,” Fred exploded, “if you’re hangin’ around here tryin’ to get pinched again for loiterin’, you better forget it. Next time I arrest you, you’ll go straight into that cell with Badger an’ if you’re still alive when the wagon gets here, you’ll be sent along to the county jail as an accomplice. Now you make up your mind which you’re goin’ to do, an’ you make it up fast.”

  Bain said something quite spectacularly obscene, picked up the filthy old bearskin coat he’d brought with him from the lockup, and vanished into what was left of the night. A few seconds later one of Fred’s sons, a beefy lad of nineteen or so, charged into the garage with a down jacket tossed over flannel pajamas and his feet thrust into unlaced hiking boots.

  “Hey Dad, what’s going on? I just met Old Man Bain stomping out of here, cussing his head off. What’d you release him at this hour for?”

  “We brought in another customer an’ Jase begun makin’ a pest of himself. Inspector, you know my son George?”

  Madoc shook hands with the good-looking youngster. “I believe we met at the Wadman’s party last month. My sister-in-law tells me you’re in line for a hockey scholarship.”

  “An’ I tell him he can play if he wants to, but his studyin’ comes first,” said Fred. “None o’ this not bein’ able to read the diploma when he graduates.”

  “Aw, Pop, I can already read three-letter words if the print’s big enough.” George grinned and put an affectionate armlock on his father. “No kidding, did you really bag somebody?”

  “Yep. That man Badger who bought the old Fewter place.”

  “Badger the hockey stick salesman? What for?”

  “Just about everything, accordin’ to the inspector.”

  Madoc nodded. “He’s on a number of most-wanted lists. The latest is for a jail break in Alberta, where he was serving life for arson and murder.”

  “Him? That’s unreal. The kids call him Doughface. How’d you ever get on to Badger, Inspector?”

  “Actually, it was your father who put us on the trail. It was also your father who put the collar on him, you’ll be proud to know.”

  “Aw hell, Inspector,” Fred protested. “All I done was knock the bugger down an’ sit on him till Sam found the rope to hobble his feet.”

  “You sat on a murderer?” Fred’s son groped for words, and finally came up with “Awesome! My old man’s a hero.”

  “Hero be damned,” Fred snorted. “I’m too tired to be a hero.”

  “Then why don’t you go grab some sleep? Hey, Inspector, I’ll be glad to stay with you and guard the prisoner.”

  “Sam Neddick has that situation under control, thank you. Come to think of it, though, you might be able to help. I don’t know that I’ve had a chance to tell you, Marshal, but Janet’s fingered Jellicoe Grouse as one of the men she heard talking before they set fire to the house Bain had been using as his waiting room. Sam thinks he’ll keep till after the funeral, but I’m not so sure. Once the news of Badger’s arrest gets around, as it�
�s bound to do once Mrs. Fewter finds Bain on her doorstep, Grouse may be over the hills and far away. Besides, if we take him now, it will save the wagon an extra trip. George, could you ride out to Bigears with me and point out where Grouse is most apt to be staying? Or wouldn’t you know?”

  “Sure I know. He’s shacking up with Nella McLumber.”

  “What kind o’ talk is that?” his father rebuked. “Couldn’t you of said he’s her roomer?”

  “Okay, Pop. He rents the room Nella sleeps in. That make you feel any better? Would you mind waiting a second till I get my pants on, Inspector? Come on, Pop, I’ll carry you upstairs.”

  Chapter 21

  “HOW WELL DID YOU know Buddy McLumber, George?”

  Madoc and the marshal’s son were riding in Fred’s tow truck to create the illusion they were on an errand of mercy in case Mrs. Fewter happened to be peeking from behind her curtains. George was at the wheel. Madoc was slouched in the seat beside him, trying to look like Fred and possibly succeeding, as dawn had not yet broken.

  “Buddy?” George shrugged. “Oh, you know how it is, eh. In a place like Pitcherville, everybody knows everybody more or less. He was about seven years older than I, you know. We never hung out together or anything, but he’d offer me a lift if he saw me walking home from hockey practice, stuff like that. Bud was always out driving around.”

  “In his own car?”

  “In whatever came handy. That was the one big thing about Bud. I doubt if he knew one end of a crankshaft from the other, but he could drive anything that had a motor in it better than anybody I ever saw. That’s what he used to do, mostly. He’d drive a snowplow in the winter, tractors in the summer, delivery trucks, bulldozers, you name it. They were always temporary jobs, though. Bud couldn’t stick to any one thing for long, and I guess people would get sick of having him around. He wasn’t a bad guy, but he was one of those know-it-alls, and he’d never shut up long enough to let you get a word in edgewise. But he’d always get hired because they knew he was good.”

  “And I suppose when he was off driving, they didn’t have to listen,” said Madoc. “Buddy wasn’t the type to have accidents, then?”

  “No, never. Sometimes there’d be a breakdown, but that wasn’t his fault.”

  “What would he do then?”

  “Panic, mostly. Bud could change a flat and pump his own gas if he had to, but if it was anything more complicated than that, he’d hitch a ride to the nearest phone and yell for my father to come and bail him out.”

  “What if he couldn’t hitch a ride?”

  “Then he’d walk, I suppose, but no farther than he could help. Bud without a car was like a goldfish without a bowl. Vehicles were his natural habitat, you might say.”

  “Then if he couldn’t get one any other way, might he have been tempted to steal a car?”

  George was silent a moment, then nodded. “He used to when he was a kid. Before he was old enough to get a license, he’d swipe his uncles’ cars and go joyriding. I know that for a fact because he was hanging around my sister Margie for a while, and he bragged to her about it. They used to get sore, but they wouldn’t do anything except maybe give him a clout on the ear because he always got their cars back without a scratch. Why did you ask that, Inspector? Do you think Bud might have stolen Badger’s car or something?”

  “Not Badger’s. You wouldn’t happen to know whether Buddy was working at the store this past Thursday afternoon?”

  “I couldn’t say offhand. Bud was in and out of the place a lot because he drove the delivery truck for his uncle. He’d been doing that for quite a while. He only started clerking when Henry, the regular helper, got killed.”

  “Oh? What happened to Henry?”

  “He shot himself. He was cleaning his rifle and it went—say, that’s pretty strange when you come to think of it.”

  “Was he alone when it happened?”

  “Far as anybody knew. His wife was off to her sister’s or somewhere. She came home and found him dead in the kitchen. He’d been out shooting rabbits. There were a couple of them lying on the kitchen table, each with one clean shot through the head. Henry was a fantastic sharpshooter. He had a lot of medals for marksmanship.”

  “Yet he killed himself cleaning his own gun. Didn’t anybody find that a bit strange?”

  “Well, sure. But Henry’d been kind of moody lately, according to his wife. He’d done some queer things, too, like staying out all night and flying off the handle when she asked him where the heck he’d been, and picking a big fight with Mr. McLumber the day before.”

  “What about?”

  “Nothing in particular. Mr. McLumber said they were down cellar shifting some stock around and he just got sore and started raving. A customer came in and heard Henry yelling, but couldn’t tell what he was saying. So then Henry grabbed his coat and stormed out and went shooting rabbits, and then he came home and shot himself. I guess he figured he was going to get fired.”

  “How long had he been with McLumber?”

  “All his life, pretty much. He’d gone to work there Saturdays while he was still in school and started full-time as soon as he got out. Mr. McLumber says he wouldn’t have fired him, no matter what. He thought the world of Henry. He even paid for the funeral. So the relatives kind of leaned on Dad to never mind asking embarrassing questions but just let them get it over with. Dad didn’t like that much, but Henry was an Owl and his father’s a Past Grand Supreme Regent, and nobody’s too keen on the idea of a suicide in the family. You can understand that, Inspector.”

  Yes, Madoc could understand. He’d run into the same kind of thing himself often enough. The family wouldn’t have gone much for the idea of murder, either. Probably it had never crossed their minds, and why should it have? People didn’t go around shooting hardware clerks in their own kitchens.

  “It looks to me,” he said, “as if Mr. McLumber may have some trouble finding himself another hardware clerk.”

  George chuckled a bit. “I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t suppose he will, though. There aren’t that many jobs going begging around here, and I guess Mr. McLumber pays fairly well.”

  “Does he, now? I shouldn’t think a store like his would do that much business.”

  “It’s not just the store. They do some warehousing, too. That’s where Bud would be mostly, making deliveries to other stores.”

  “What would he be delivering?”

  “I suppose the sort of thing you’d find in a general store. Tools such as hammers and screwdrivers and ax heads. Flashlight batteries, weather stripping, stuff like that. The big distributors aren’t much interested in filling small orders, so that’s where Mr. McLumber came in.”

  “But is there any real money in that?” Madoc asked.

  “Why should he bother if there wasn’t. I’d say Mr. McLumber does darn well for himself. He drives a big Lincoln, goes on trips, bought his wife a mink coat for Christmas. My mother told her it was beautiful, though she wouldn’t want one for herself because mink makes a woman look so much fatter than she already is.”

  Madoc laughed, as George clearly expected him to. “George, if you’d like to try some detective work, you might find out—discreetly, of course—where Buddy was on Thursday. On Wednesday, too,” he added, recalling Eyeball Grouse and the masked driver of the van at Point C who’d intercepted the army truck on its way from Point A to Point B.

  “Sure. I’ll ask some of the guys. Discreetly, of course. Say, Inspector, what sort of courses would a guy on a hockey scholarship have to take to get into the RCMP?”

  “Why don’t you come up to Fredericton sometime soon and discuss the matter with our personnel officer? My wife would be glad to offer you a bed.”

  George could sleep in the guest room beside his father’s washstand wearing its coat of the Loyalist Blue paint Buddy McLumber had been so voluble about. At least Madoc knew where Buddy had been on Saturday.

  It was as well George was doing the driving this time. Mad
oc dropped off to sleep and managed a refreshing nap before they got to Bigears. He snapped wide awake, though, the moment George stopped the truck.

  “Is this the place?”

  “Not quite. I thought I’d better make sure what we’re supposed to do. Were you planning to surround the house or anything?”

  “What I had in mind was walking up and ringing the doorbell, if there is one.”

  “Then what?”

  “That depends on which of them answers. If it’s Mrs. McLumber, you might greet her politely and apologize for getting her out of bed. You might then say we’d like to talk with Mr. Grouse. Or Jelly, if that’s how you normally refer to him. Then I say don’t bother calling him, I’ll go on up. You stay down here and engage her in light conversation so she doesn’t interfere. If Grouse himself comes to the door, you step aside and let me handle him. I mean that, George. Don’t do a thing unless he breaks away and tries to make a run for it. Then, if you can do it conveniently and safely, tackle him from behind. If he’s armed, stay clear and let him go. He won’t get far.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Trust me.”

  Madoc couldn’t think offhand why George should place any reliance on such an unsupportable assurance, except that Grouse probably wouldn’t be wearing anything to speak of and charging off half-naked in the predawn chill might dampen his enthusiasm for escape rather quickly. Furthermore, if he’d been enjoying his landlady’s charms as George hypothesized, he might be too tired to run anyway. They walked up to the house and rang the bell.

  Nothing happened. Madoc rang it again. Then it occurred to him the bell probably hadn’t worked in years and the door probably wasn’t locked. He eased it open and murmured to George, “Stick your head in and holler for Grouse.”

  George was good at hollering. “Jelly? Hey, Jelly Grouse. You here?”

  Grouse’s answering bellow was thick and indistinct. “Huh? Wha’ the hell you want?”

  “Come down here quick. I need you.”

  There was some growling and thrashing, a woman’s voice raised in sleepy complaint, then scuffling footsteps on the stairway. “What’s the matter? That you, Cyril?”