“Not at first. Only hunting season. He'd come down here with a bunch of his Chicago cronies and man, were they ever a terror! Drinking like fish, driving around the countryside like maniacs, picking off people's cats and dogs with their rifles.'
“Not very welcome in the neighborhood, then?' Mel asked.
“Not welcome a'tall. No, sirree. But it got better after a bit. O. W. got married, had a couple kids, started bringing friends' families down instead of his drinking buddies. By that time, the money situation had eased up and there was less resentment of him on that account, too.'
“Was the guy they call 'Uncle Joe' part of the family?' Mel asked.
“Lordy, no! He was O. W.'s bastard kid. The wife probably wouldn't have heard of having him around underfoot. Wasn't until she died when the other kids were in their teens that O. W. dragged Joe into the family. And he was a wild one. In all kinds of trouble when he got here, but then the war came and he went off. And he came back different.'
“Different in what way?'
“Not wild, for one thing. Quiet-like and always sort of cranky. People said he had some kind of injury, but nobody seemed to know just what. Nothing showed. He didn't limp or have a deaf ear or anything like that. Rumor was that he had some shrapnel in his head, but I don't know that it was true. People'll make up what they need to think.”
The waitress brought their food, which was wonderful, and they ate in silence for a while. Eventually Ambler burped heartily and went on. 'Anyhow, O. W. kept Joe on at the lodge. Guess he felt he owed the boy something, being as he wasn't quite fit to go out in the world. And I gotta give Joe credit. When O. W. got old and pretty dotty, Joe was the one who took care of him. O. W. spent a lot of his later years at the lodge.'
“So they got along well?' Mel asked.
“Hell, no! Neither one of them was fit company for a polecat, but they rubbed along okay. Joe took him back and forth to Chicago to doctors. Bitched the whole time about it, but did it. O. W. was always complaining that Joe was starving him to death, but he kept gaining weight until the last stroke when Joe couldn't handle him anymore and was forced to put him in a nursing home.'
“Did O. W. leave Joe anything?'
“Not so's you'd notice. But Joe's kind of a nut about his privacy. He never said. And it was one of those trust things that don't go through probate and become public record, so nobody could check. Joe might have got a fortune, but you'd never know. He's as tight and stingy as O. W. was. Even in the old days, when the hard drinkers were down here, word was they had to bring their own booze. O. W. liked the company, but wouldn't pay for their guzzling.'
“Did Jack and his sisters visit much?' Mel asked.
“It went in spells. The girls would get hard-up or want a trip to Europe and they'd make up to the old man. Jack came down a lot, but it was always about business,' Ambler said. 'The old man insisted on keeping his finger in the pie.'
“How do you know this?' Mel asked mildly.
Gus Ambler laughed. 'Good detectin'. Actually, my late wife sometimes helped at the lodge. Mucked out the place for spring cleaning. Did a little darning and ironing and such. Every time she did canning or baking, she made extra for O. W. and Joe. Said she felt sorry for both of them with no women to look after them.”
The waitress came back for their plates, all three of which looked like they'd been licked clean. 'Got any of that rhubarb pie?' Gus Ambler asked.
“You don't need no pie, Gus,' she said.
“Just a sociable piece to eat with my friends. Three of 'em,' he said, ignoring her assessment of his figure.
Mel didn't want to make a fool of himself asking about the treasure, but he had to at least make a stab at the subject. He'd blame it on Jane. 'My friend Mrs. Jeffry,' he said, 'the one who's managing the wedding, says a couple people there have mentioned a treasure.”
He expected the tough old sheriff to laugh himself silly and was astonished when Gus said mildly, 'Yeah, everybody knows about that.'
“You mean there is one?' Mel asked.
Ambler made an expansive 'I dunno' gesture. 'I meant everybody's heard the story. Don't know if it's true. It wouldn't have been so strange if O. W. had left his money and property to the three legitimate kids and left something else to Joe.'
“But if Joe had secretly inherited a lot, why would he go on living in the lodge?' Officer Smith asked. He'd been quiet all through dinner, probably because he was busy eating the only decent meal he'd had since his wife left town.
“I reckon it's because it's the only place he knows,' Gus Ambler said. 'He's got his television and radio, his hunting magazines and no ambition or interest in much of anything. And where could he go where he'd have the same privacy?'
“What will he do when the lodge is torn down this summer?' Mel asked.
“I asked him that when I ran into him at Wanda's a week or two ago,' John said. 'It was a mistake. He told me to mind my own business and he'd go wherever he damn well pleased.”
Ambler nodded. 'Pretty much the same reaction I got when I tried to talk to him about it.'
“So it's possible he does have the means of setting himself up someplace else?' Mel asked.
“So he says,' Ambler said, looking around for the waitress. 'Where's that pie, honey?' he yelled across the room when he caught her eye.
“I think he does have something hidden,' John Smith volunteered. 'We get a lot of calls from him. Prowlers, peeping Toms, trespassers. Could be his imagination, since we never find anyone. Or it could be that he's protecting something valuable.'
“Or something he reckons is valuable,' Ambler added.
“What do you mean?' Mel asked.
“Well, toward the end of O. W.'s days, he got real ambitious. Had some builders in. Out-of-town builders, mind you. So they couldn't gossip about what they were doing. Had a couple rooms painted and fixed up. A wall torn out and another put up. Changed the locks. Sent out a couple of those moth-eaten old animal heads to a taxidermist. Replaced the doorknobs so they were all the same, had some kind of work done on the old well. Again, by outsiders. Patched up the roof and I don't know what all…'
“Your wife reported this?' Mel said with a grin.
'She watched like a hawk. Thought it was out
of character. Anyway, the work was almost done
when O. W. had the first stroke. It was a pretty
bad one. Twisted up his face, made him lame, and got him pretty nutsy. He'd wander off at night. Only thing that saved him was that he made such a racket with his walker that Joe always heard him. Anyhow, the thing I've always wondered was this: if he was having this work done to hide something, and he had the first stroke before he could tell Joe what he was up to, he might have forgotten it. He forgot that he needed to go in a bathroom to pee indoors and even forgot his own name half the time.”
The pie finally arrived and was every bit as good as the chicken fried steak. Gus Ambler ate with relish for a few minutes, then asked Mel, 'So how do you figure this has anything to do with that woman being murdered?'
“I doubt that it does,' Mel said honestly. He turned to John Smith and asked, 'How are you getting along on finding out about the rest of the people who were there?'
“Finding out a lot,' Smith said. 'But none of it seems especially relevant. That Dwayne guy that Livvy's marrying has a teenage shoplifting record. It should have been expunged years ago, but was still on the books by accident. His mother is clean as a whistle and the brother had a speeding ticket two years ago.'
“Where's he work? Dwayne, I mean?' Mel asked.
“He's the junior-most vice president in a little branch of a big mortgage company. Paid with a title instead of money like those outfits do people,' Smith said.
“No financial hanky-panky?' Gus Ambler asked.
“Can't be sure exactly. His boss didn't have much to say about him,' Smith replied. 'I got the impression he
