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Authors: Graham Landrum

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BOOK: The Rotary Club Murder Mystery
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“You know,” she said, “Mr. Hollonbrook had the Ducky's restaurants in Maxwell and Eunice and here in Stedbury. And then there's Hollondale. Yes, Holly really knew how to make money; he just didn't want to give any of it to us. I had to beg him for the least thing. He made the biggest fuss over the children's teeth, and he was just stingy as can be about the girls' ballet lessons. And then when Jimmy was having so much trouble in high school—the teachers were so indifferent they wouldn't help him—his father refused to send him to military school. Jimmy would have been so handsome in uniform. Holly said Uncle Sam could be Jimmy's military school.
“And he could spend any amount on Alice,” she continued. “But that's all changed now. They haven't found any will, and that means my children will get their share, after all. But it is going to be a while yet. They are still looking for a will. But they'll never find it.”
Not find a will? She seemed very emphatic. Was it just speculation—a fantasy fulfillment of her dreams? Or did she know whereof she spoke? I didn't have time to wonder about that just then.
I heard a car come up and stop.
“That must be Andy,” I said. Of course it wasn't—because there wasn't any Andy.
Then the screen door opened, and I heard, “Hey, there's an antique car out there!”
He was talking about my DeSoto. I guess it's something when you drive a car until it's an antique.
The young man was the noteworthy Jimmy. He was sallow—hollow-cheeked—stringy blond hair, none too clean-looking—hanging down in a ponytail halfway past his shoulders—earring in his ear—jeans, of course—torn so that there were just threads holding them together over his thighs—not tall—maybe five foot four or five.
Alice was short; Paula Stout was short; Linda was short; and here Jimmy Hollonbrook was short, too. Had Charles Hollonbrook been short? Was that part of his problem?
When I was a girl, I was very popular. Often was the time that I had five young men sitting at my feet on the porch at Catawba Hall. That's how I learned “the art of conversation.” I talked, and I didn't talk about myself or other girls. I talked about the young men who were calling on me. And believe me, I complimented them highly—asked all about them—and thought it was just wonderful, whatever it was.
There's hardly anybody that doesn't need encouragement at some time or other. And it is so easy to give it to them. Why, I bet that Linda and Holly would still be married if she had just built up his self-esteem. You know we used to say, “Trains run on steam, but men run on self-esteem.”
But that's getting away from the point, and it is an important one. Of all the boys that courted me, there wasn't one that was shorter than I was.
I don't know what it is about short men. They can be just as handsome, brainy, thoughtful, fine in every way, but I've noticed that a good many of them are sensitive about their height.
Well, I was tall, and that's not supposed to be a good thing for a woman. Yet it never crossed my mind to regret it.
But to get back to Charles Hollonbrook, it could be that being short had something to do with his drive and his insistence on excelling—specially in the sexual area.
So here was the son. I wondered what he would look like with his hair combed and cut—in a business suit—and without that earring in his ear.
“My, he's good-looking,” I said in an aside to his mother.
That surprised him.
“Come around here and let me get a look at you,” I went on. “Your mother tells me you are interested in television. You must act in plays quite a lot.”
“He's interested in production,” his mother said. “He has a camcorder, and you should just see the excellent videotape he has made—he's just a natural at it.”
“Your mother was telling me your father passed away recently,” I said.
“Yeah.” He said it rather awkwardly, but there was no regret in his voice. I wanted to ask him whether he had been with his dad much recently. But that would have been more than even I could get away with.
I felt I had learned all I could learn at that moment. The boy could easily have gotten hold of his father's gun and all that, and Paula Stout had said that Jimmy knew when his dad would be in Borderville. But could Jimmy work out a way to kill his dad in a locked room? Absolutely not.
I didn't have a very high opinion of the mother's brainpower. But it was no secret that she hated her former husband—no doubt spent her spare time thinking about it. There is no end to the meanness and old-fashioned spite a woman can scheme up if she keeps at it long enough.
And don't forget: The whole lot of the Mountain-View-Drive Hollonbrooks were ecstatic over the prospects of spending Holly's supposed wealth. I could believe that murder was not beyond the pale for that family—if they thought they could get away with it. Not at all beyond the pale, with that snarling mother wolf and her ravenous litter.
Since “Andy” would never come, it was time for me to engineer my graceful exit.
“Young man-” I said, then broke off. “What did you say your name was?”
“him.”
“Young men are so good with equipment and machinery and things like that,” I said, holding out my car keys. “Just take these and see if you can't get my car started so I can get away and leave your poor mother in peace.”
And of course he did get it started, because there was nothing wrong with it except a flooded carburetor, and that had adjusted itself.
He was very interested in my car. Lots of interest in
it
and none in
me,
although I am an antique, too.
So I drove away. I don't know what they thought of me, but that doesn't matter.
>>
Harriet Bushrow
<<
 
 
 
 
 
M
aud had a nice lunch waiting for me when I got to the house. She has this lovely breakfast room that looks out to the garden of a neighbor across the street, and it's just as pleasant as can be.
We were sitting there with our iced tea. I had told Maud all about my visit with Linda Hollonbrook. She laughed and said, “Harriet, you are the beatingest thing I ever saw,” which I could take in two ways: But I can tell you a thing or two about Maud. One time at Catawba Hall, she … but I had better not get into that.
Anyhow, Maud was having a good time being “on the fringe,” as you might say, of my “investigations.” And of course it was fun for her. It was her town, and little things would occur to her that I couldn't possibly have thought of. And one of those things was Kimberlin Mayburn. Maud was very interested in her.
“No,” Maud agreed with me. “Kim Mayburn is not very likely as a suspect. But she was that man's mistress, and you can count on it that she knows more about his recent doings than Alice Hollonbrook does. You ought to talk to her.”
“Maybe I should,” I agreed. “Now tell me just who Kimberlin Mayburn is.”
So Maud told me.
If any Yankee happens to read this, I'll have them to know that who a person is in the South has nothing to do with the present. It has to do with “past connections,” which are very important. Connections don't have to be illustrious, but it's mighty bad if you don't have any. We don't know what to make of people who don't have connections. But as soon as we understand a person's connections, it's like fitting an important piece into a jigsaw puzzle. And society is a jigsaw puzzle, isn't it? Everybody has a place somewhere. He just needs to find it and “fit in.”
Now to show how this works: Kimberlin Mayburn's father, who died in a car accident about ten years ago, was for a good many years a state senator from Stedbury's district. Being a state senator doesn't mean that a man is brilliant or honest or anything to brag about. But it puts him in a place. And leaving my own family out of it, Lamar's people were very distinguished. So here I am with just barely enough to scrape by on, but I have a place, and I am very secure in it, thank you.
So, when I got ready to call on Kimberlin Mayburn, all I had to do was call and say, “This is Mrs. L. Q. C. Lamar Bushrow”—and Kimberlin Mayburn would never be able to turn me down with a name like that.
But before I tell about my visit, I'll just state the facts Maud told me about Kimberlin Mayburn. First off, her mother was a Hartley from Raleigh, and the Hartleys were connected with the Millers and Longmeads of Georgia. (I had a cousin who married a Longmead.) Miss Kimberlin has been married twice—once to a naval officer from California, and the second time to a Frenchman with a taste for boys. So she is back in Stedbury using her maiden name again.
Now what kind of person would Kimberlin be? If there ever
was a case where a woman ought to call herself Ms. this was it.
She lives in a condominium. To my mind, that is a comedown, but then I belong to another age. They tell me condos are practical and convenient. And the kind of entertaining people do nowadays doesn't require a big house. So there she is in her condo. And the condo is in—you guessed it—Hollondale.
There are ten or twelve condos in that—I think they call it a complex. Anyhow, the apartments are built together, but they are separate and face in different ways, with lots of skylights and balconies and privacy walls and little dabs of lawn no bigger than a bed sheet. It's a real question whether you are ever going to find the right house number.
But I found it and rang the bell.
The door opened, to reveal a petite figure—there was that matter of height again—in a white silk blouse and a gray skirt. Violet eyes, blond hair, beautifully coiffured, and white jade earrings. This girl may have been around the track two times, but there had been thoroughbreds in the race.
Her voice was low in pitch, which I have always found attractive. And she had no accent that I could identify. She invited me in very graciously to a high-ceilinged room with exposed beams.
The first thing I noticed was a Philadelphia reproduction Chippendale chair. There was a grand piano in the room also and a very good portrait of a woman in an evening dress like the ones we used to wear in the twenties.
“That's your grandmother,” I said.
“Yes.”
“She was a Longmead?”
“Yes.”
“Georgia family?”
“Yes.”
“My cousin Lida Jeffers married a Longmead from Chattahoochee County.”
You see how it works. I had demonstrated that I knew where she belonged, and in doing so I had demonstrated where I belonged, although I have no notion in the world that Lida had married into the same family of Longmeads.
And Kimberlin Mayburn, for all her modern sophistication, had me pegged for an old lady very much like her grandma.
“I'm going to be very frank with you,” I said after we were seated. “I know about you and Charles Hollonbrook, and I want you to know that I understand and offer you my sympathy.”
A look of surprise came into her face and then changed into something that I didn't quite understand. I doubt whether she minded my knowing that she had been in a “relationship” with Charles Hollonbrook, but such a thing really ought not to be admitted publicly in a town like Stedbury. It wouldn't have been good for the district governor. And it must have been a wellkept secret, because Alice Hollonbrook hadn't known it was going on until they opened Chuck's bank box. No matter how liberated we may be nowadays, I doubt if an etiquette has been developed that decides whether the wife or the mistress stands by the casket in the funeral home during the viewing. Thus whatever feeling Kimberlin Mayburn may have had was a feeling that dared not speak its own name.
“How did you know?” Kim asked.
“It was the insurance policy,” I said.
“He was going to leave Alice and marry me,” Kim said—said it very simply.
I was cautious in accepting that at face value. Perhaps my doubt showed in my face.
“It would have happened if it hadn't been for this district governor thing.”
Well, I could see that. There were duties connected with the office that were inconsistent with a process for divorce, a society wedding, a honeymoon, and all that goes with it. Besides, it was now apparent that he had not had the money for such as that—unless he had intended to use her money.
“And since that would put our marriage off for more than a year”—she was speaking rapidly, no doubt trying to convince herself—“Holly said that the insurance policy would be his pledge. He said …” The tears were now welling silently from eyes that once looked at Charles Hollonbrook with adoration.
“I mustn't talk like this,” Kim told herself. She got up and took a tissue from a box on a writing table near the window. She blew her nose quietly, tossed the tissue into the wastebasket beside the table, and returned to her chair.
“It's the policy I came to talk to you about,” I said, “because it looks to me like you are being cheated out of half a million dollars.”
There is hardly anybody, no matter how wretched she feels, who isn't ready to talk about half a million dollars.
Kim looked at me in a blank way. “Dan Blake—that's the attorney for the estate—called and told me that the policy does not pay in the case of suicide.”
“Exactly right,” I said, “but can you tell me any reason why Charles Hollonbrook would want to kill himself?” Other than to get shut of those children, I might have added, but that would have been ugly.
“You and he were happy,” I suggested. “He was district governor, beloved by Rotarians throughout the district, or at least they act that way. There may have been some little financial setbacks, but that wouldn't amount to anything for a man as energetic and resourceful as Mr. Hollonbrook. Now there hasn't been a close relation between him and his wife for several years, as I understand it. But in recent months, he seems to have found a deep and satisfying relationship with you. Surely you could tell me if there was any cause for suicide.”
There was quite a little pause while Kim Mayburn looked me over in an anguished manner. She collected herself and said politely, although coolly, “Would you please tell me just where you come into this.”
“I am merely interested in seeing that justice is done,” I said.
“Well, you are right,” she said. “Holly had business problems. He mentioned them to me. But he was absolutely confident. He was the strongest man I have ever known … and yet he needed something. I know what they said about him—that he was a stud, but to me he was very tender. He had been disappointed in that first marriage—and as for Alice, she was as cold and hard as a stone. I was ready to give him what he needed and no one had ever given.”
I suppose she thought that was all true. But frankly, I thought that would have been a waste of generosity—which, of course, was neither here nor there.
“So you know of no motive for his suicide,” I said. “Now think real hard. Is there someone who might have wanted Charles Hollonbrook out of the way or somebody who might have hated him?”
Frowning, Kim studied the carpet. After a minute, she said, “I don't know of anybody who hated
him,
but I'm pretty sure there was one who hated
me
.”
That didn't seem to be what I was looking for. But I asked who it was.
“It's that woman in his office.”
That honey-sweet doer of golden deeds? That perfect keeper of the office who was so helpful to Alice Hollonbrook? And what could Paula Stout have done to cause Kimberlin Mayburn to speak with such venom?
Kim saw the surprise on my face. “Oh yes, she does,” she said. “That insipid little judgmental hypocrite has hated me from the beginning. She with her little snub nose in the air! What right has she to be so pious?” I could hardly believe what I saw in Kim's face—anger, hatred, a mishmash of every ugly feeling you would care to think of.
I began to wonder about the girl who sat before me. She had seemed so self-possessed one moment, and the next moment was ready to fly off the handle before I could say Jack Robinson.
“Now, darling, just be calm and tell Mrs. B. all about it.”
Maybe it was the slangy way I referred to myself as Mrs. B. that surprised the child. Whatever it was, her mood modified somewhat, and she began.
“It started soon after I took this condominium. I had been through so much, and now I was at home again among my own people, although the people here are not my own people—really. They don't accept me. My life has been so different, and they can't understand someone like me.
“After all I had been through, I needed rest. And this condo was just big enough for me to have my most precious things. But then this and that went wrong.” She paused and looked sadly into depths of vacancy.
“What went wrong?” I asked.
“The water heater.”
“The water heater?” Now a water heater can be aggravating, as I well know; but that a hot-water heater could be more than a mere irritation made me wonder if the girl was sane.
“Yes, the water heater. In the shower, sometimes the water would run cold as ice and then suddenly it was scalding. Then when I would adjust the handle, it would happen again. I called the office the very first time that happened, and Miss Stout said she would send the plumber right away. But she did not. The plumber did not come for four whole days, although I called the office every day and informed little Miss Stout of the matter in a firm but polite way.
“On the fourth day, Holly came and tested the hot water. That was the first time that …”
I don't know what happened that “first time.” The poor girl's voice had just died on her.
“There, there, dear,” I said soothingly. I think I got the picture. This sprout from an aristocratic family had made a pest of herself about little things that went wrong in her condominium. If it hadn't been the hot water, it would have been the garage door or the light switch in the kitchen. And her constant complaints were enough to rile a saint—Paula Stout, that is.
And I dare say that this young woman before me, when she wanted to summon her lover, had to call him at the office, for she certainly couldn't call him at the house. That kind of thing can interfere with office routine. I could imagine that Paula Stout would get just as irritated by Kim Mayburn's incessant calls as Kim was irritated by her hot-water heater.
Then, too, I could see it from Holly's point of view. All I had to do was look around that room. There was good taste everywhere—and family items—not the decorator-bought stuff that Alice had. As for Kim herself, no matter what else she might be, she was exquisite. All in all, I would say there was a trap here for a man like Charles Hollonbrook.
BOOK: The Rotary Club Murder Mystery
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