I have something to say to you. John didn't commit suicide. Lewis Benedikt, you listen too. He didn't. He wouldn't have. John was murdered.'
'Milly,' Ricky began.
'Do you think I'm deaf? Do you think I don't know what's going on? John was killed, and do you know who killed him? Well, I do.' Footsteps, this time Stella's, came hurrying down the stairs. 'I know who killed him. It was you. You-you Chowder Society. You killed him with your terrible stories. You made him sick-you and your Fenny Bates!' Her face twisted; Stella rushed in too late to stop Milly's final words. 'They ought to call you the Murder Society! They ought to call you Murder Incorporated!'
7
So there they stood, Murder Incorporated, beneath a bright sky in late October. They felt grief, anger, despair, guilt-they had been talking of graves and corpses compulsively for a year, and now they were burying one of their own. The unexpected findings of the autopsy had puzzled and distressed them all; Sears had blown up, choosing to disbelieve. Ricky too had not at first believed that John could have been a dope addict. 'Evidence of massive, habitual and longstanding introduction of narcotic substance…' then a lot of fancy medical language, but the point was that the coroner had publicly defamed John Jaffrey. Sears's ranting had been of no use-the man would not change his story. Sears would not alter his opinion that in the course of one autopsy the man had changed from a skillful professional to an incompetent and dangerous fool. The coroner's findings had circulated through Milburn, and some citizens said they sided with Sears and some accepted the autopsy's conclusions, but none came to the funeral. Even the Reverend Neil Wilkinson seemed embarrassed. The funeral of a suicide and drug addict-well!
The new girl, Anna, had been wonderful: she'd helped deal with Sears's rage, cushioning Mrs. Quast from the worst effects of it, she'd been as marvelous with Milly Sheehan as Stella had, and she'd transformed the office. She had forced Ricky to realize that Hawthorne, James had plenty of work if Hawthorne and James wanted to do it. Even during the terrible period of arranging John's funeral, even on the day he took a suit from John's closet and bought a coffin, he and Sears found themselves responding to more letters and answering more phone calls than they had for weeks. They had been drifting toward retirement, sending clients elsewhere as if automatically, and Anna Mostyn seemed to have brought them back to life. She had mentioned her aunt only once, and in the most harmless way: she had asked them what she was like. Sears had come close to blushing and muttered, 'Almost as pretty as you, but not as fierce.' And she had been staunchly on Sears's side in the matter of the autopsy. Even coroners make mistakes, she had pointed out with placid, undeniable common sense.
Ricky was not so sure; he was not even sure it mattered. John had functioned perfectly well as a doctor; his own body had weakened but he had remained competent at curing other bodies. Surely a 'massive, habitual, etc.' drug habit would account for the physical decline John had exhibited. A daily insulin injection would have got John used to needles. He found that if John Jaffrey had been an addict, it did not much affect what he thought of him.
And this: it made his suicide explicable. No empty-eyed barefooted Fenny Bate, no Murder Incorporated, no mere stories had killed him-the drug had eaten into his brain as it had eaten into his body. Or he could not take it anymore, the 'shame' of addiction. Or something.
Sometimes it was convincing.
In the meantime his nose ran and his chest tickled. He wanted to sit down; he wanted to be warm. Milly Sheehan was gripping Stella as if the two of them were battered by a hurricane, now and then using one hand to pluck another tissue from the box, wipe her eyes, and drop the tissue on the ground.
Ricky took a damp tissue from his own coat pocket, discreetly wiped his nose, and returned it to his pocket.
All of them heard the car coming up the hill to the cemetery.
From the journals of Don Wanderley
8
It seems I am an honorary member of the Chowder Society. It's all very odd-in fact, just the peculiarity of it all is a shade unsettling. Maybe the oddest part of my being here is that my uncle's friends almost seem to fear that they are caught in some kind of real-life horror story, a story like
They want me to be able to write, too-they're very firm about that. Sears James said, 'We didn't ask you here so that we could interrupt your career!' So they want me to give about half of my day to Dr. Rabbitfoot, and the other half to them. There's the feeling, definitely, that part of what they want is just someone to talk to. They've been talking to themselves for too long.
Not long after the secretary, Anna Mostyn, left, the dead man's housekeeper said that she wanted to lie down, and Stella Hawthorne took her upstairs. When she came back down, Mrs. Hawthorne gave us all large glasses of whiskey. In Milburn high society, which I guess this is, you drink whiskey English style, neat.
We had a painful, halting conversation. Stella Hawthorne said, 'I hope you knock some sense into these characters' heads,' which mystified me. They hadn't yet explained the real reason why they asked me to come. I nodded, and Lewis said, 'We have to talk about it.' That silenced them again. 'We want to talk about your book, too,' Lewis said. 'Fine,' I said. More silence.
'I might as well feed you three owls,' Stella Hawthorne said. 'Mr. Wanderley, will you please give me a hand?'
I followed her into the kitchen, expecting to be handed plates or cutlery. What I did not expect was for the elegant Mrs. Hawthorne to whirl around, slam the door behind her and say, 'Didn't those three old idiots in there say why they wanted you to come here?'
'I guess they fudged a little,' I said.
'Well, you better be good, Mr. Wanderley,' she said, 'because you're going to have to be Freud to deal with those three. I want you to know that I don't approve of your being here at all. I think people should solve their problems by themselves.'
'They implied they just wanted to talk to me about my uncle,' I said. Even with her gray hair, I thought she could be no older than about forty-six or seven, and she looked as beautiful and stern as a ship's figurehead.
'Your uncle! Well, maybe they do. They'd never deign to tell me,' and I understood part of the reason for her fury. 'How well did you know your uncle, Mr. Wanderley?'
I asked her to use my first name. 'Not very well. After I went to college and moved to California, I didn't see him more than once every couple of years. I hadn't seen him at all for several years before his death.'
'But he left you his house. Doesn't it strike you a little bit funny that those three characters out there didn't suggest you stay there?'
Before I could reply she went on. 'Well, even if it doesn't, it does me. And not only funny, but pathetic. They're afraid to go into Edward's house. They just all came to a kind of-a kind of silent agreement. They've never entered that house. They're superstitious, that's why.'
'I thought I felt-well, when I came to the funeral I thought I saw-' I stammered, not sure of how far I could go with her.
'Bully for you,' she said. 'Maybe you're not as big a blockhead as they are. But I tell you this, Don Wanderley, if you make them any worse than they are already, you'll have me to answer to.' She put her hands on her hips, her eyes sizzling, and then she exhaled. Her eyes changed; she gave me a tight pained smile and said, 'We'd better get busy or I suppose they'll start to gossip about you.'
