Old Tin Sorrows

5

That fountain in the great hall was a good hub from which to launch exploratory forays. I perched on the surround, digesting Cook's remarks. I had a premonition. I would get intimate with dishwater before I exhausted that vein of stubborn silence.

I had that creepy feeling you get when you sense somebody watching you. I looked around casually.

There she was. The blonde again, drifting in the shadows, bold enough now to be on the same floor with me. I pretended not to notice. I gave it a minute, got up, stretched. She ducked out of sight. I moved her way pretending I had no idea she was there.

She lit out like a scared pheasant. I bolted after her. "Jennifer!"

I ducked between pillars... Where did she go? I didn't see anywhere she could run. But she wasn't there.

Spooky!

‘"Hey! Mike. What are you doing?"

I jumped about five feet. "Peters. Don't sneak up like that. This place has got me believing in spooks already. Where the hell is everybody?"

Peters looked puzzled. "Everybody? Working."

That made sense. You could lose a lot more than eighteen people in that barn and on those grounds. "You'd think I'd run into somebody once in a while."

"It does get lonely at times." He smiled. That made two times in two days. A record. "Thought you might want a tour."

"I can find my way. I was a scout in the Marines, you know."

His smile vanished. He looked at me like the old Black Pete. Like I wasn't bright enough to tie my own shoes. He jerked his head toward the back of the hall, the north end, which was a wall of leaded glass with fifty furious combats going. There was a door back there.

Hey. Mom Garrett didn't raise many idiots. I got it. "I could use a look at the grounds, though, and somebody to tell me what I'm seeing."

He relaxed some, did a slick about-face and marched. I hup-two-threed behind him. I didn't feel a bit of nostalgia for the bad old days.

Peters didn't say anything till we were out of earshot of the house, clear of the formal garden behind it, away from cover where eavesdroppers might lurk. "You saw the old man. What do you think?"

"He's in bad shape."

"You know any poisons that could do that to him?"

I gave it an honest think. "No. But I'm no expert. I know a guy who is. But he'd have to see the General." Morley Dotes knows whatever there is to know about doing in your fellow man. Or elf, him being a breed with more dark-elfin than human blood.

"I don't think I could swing that. One outsider here has the place in an uproar already."

"Yeah. It's a regular busted-up beehive." Our walk to isolation hadn't shown me a single body in motion. "It was just a suggestion. You want to know something, you get the answer from somebody who knows."

"I'll give it a shot."

"The business about the thefts. Is it real? The cook thinks it's all in the General's imagination."

"It's not. She'd think that. Back when we first came here he did have a spell when he imagined things. She doesn't get out of the kitchen much and she has a few loose threads herself. Most of the time she doesn't know what year it is."

"She tried to draft me as kitchen help."

"She would. Gods! I remember your cooking."

"I remember what I had to work with. Muskrats and cattail roots. And bugs for garnish."

He grunted, almost smiled again.

"Don't tell me. You can't have fond memories of those days."

"No, Garrett. Even lifers aren't that crazy. I don't miss that part." He shuddered.

"Eh? What?"

"Bad rumor. They may call up the veterans to run Glory Mooncalled down."

I laughed.

"What's so damned funny?"

"Best joke I've heard in weeks. You know how many people that takes in? Every human male in the population over twenty-five. You think any of them would go without a fuss? A call-up like that would start a revolution."

"Maybe. You think it could be poison?"

"I suppose. Assume it is. Speculate."

"I don't know anything about poisons. How could it be given to him?"

I'm not an expert, but I have a professional interest and keep my ears open when such things are discussed. "It could be in his food or drink. It could be dusted into his bed so it would seep through his skin. It could even be in the air he breathes. Looking for ‘how' can be a dead end unless you know ‘what.' Better to look at the people. Who has access?"

"Everybody, one way or another."

"Take it a step farther. Who'd profit? If somebody's killing him, that somebody has to have a reason. Right?"

He grunted. "Obviously whoever's doing it believes he has. I've been trying to figure that out from the beginning. And I can't come up with one."

I didn't have any trouble. "What's the estate worth? Who does it go to?"

"Doesn't make sense. Jennifer gets half. The other half gets divided amongst the rest of us."

"Give me a value in gold marks. Just a guess. Then ask yourself what some people might do for a share of that."

"Three million for the house?" He shrugged. "A million for the contents. Two or three million for the real estate. He was offered three for the two north sections last year. He was tempted because he's strapped for cash and he wants to set Jennifer up so she's fixed for life, no matter what she does."

"Three million for just part of the property?"

"Somebody wanted the land near the city. But the offer was withdrawn because he dithered. They bought a tract from the Hillmans instead. For less money."

"No bad feelings?"

"Not that I heard."

I did some rough division in my head. I came up with around a hundred thousand marks each for the minority heirs. I knew guys who'd cut a hundred thousand throats for that kind of money. So there was a motive—assuming somebody was in a hurry to get his share.

"Everybody know they're in the will?"

"Sure. The old man used to make a big deal of it. How if you didn't toe the mark you blew your share."

Ha! "Cook mentioned a Candy... "

"Not him. He's long gone. He wouldn't have the balls, either. He wasn't even human. Wasn't in the will, either. Wasn't one of the guys the old man brought home with him. He was one of the crew who managed the place while the General was in the Cantard."

"She mentioned a Harcourt who got in trouble for bringing girlfriends home."

"Harcourt?" He frowned. "I guess he got fed up with what he thought were chickenshit rules. He just took off about six months back. The old man cut him out. He'd know that. So there's nothing for him to gain. Let alone we'd see him around here."

"We may have to back off and go at this from another angle, Sarge."

"Eh?"

"What have I got to go on? Your feelings. But every time I ask you a question you make it sound more like there's nobody who'd want him dead. And nobody who'd profit from it since everybody's getting a cut anyway. We can't hang up a solid motive. And means and opportunity are limited."

"You're sneaking up on something."

"I'm wondering if maybe he isn't just dying of stomach cancer. Wondering if maybe you shouldn't hire a doctor instead of me till you know what's killing him."

He didn't answer for a few minutes. I was talked out. We walked. He brooded and I studied the grounds. Somebody had farmed the fields last summer. There was nobody in them now. I glanced at the sky. They'd thrown on a few more slabs of lead and added icicles to the breeze. Winter was coming back.

"I tried, Garrett. Two months ago. Somebody leaked it to the old man. The doc never got through the front door."

The way he said "somebody" I guessed he knew who. I asked.

He didn't want to say. "Who, Sarge? We can't pick and choose our suspects."

"Jennifer. She was in on the plot but she defected. She's a strange girl. Her big goal in life is to win some gesture of love and approval. And the old man doesn't know how. He's scared of her. She grew up while he was away. It doesn't help that she looks a lot like her mother. Her mother died—"

"Cook told me that story."

"She would. That old hag knows everything and tells anyone who'll listen. You ought to move into the kitchen."

We walked some more, headed south now, circling the house.

Peters said, "Maybe we have a communication problem. The deeper you get in the more you'll think the mess is imaginary. The old man has crazy spells. He does think people are out to get him when they're not. That's what makes this diabolical. Unless somebody sticks a knife in him in front of everybody, nobody's going to believe he's in danger."

I grunted. I had a friend, Pokey Pigotta, in the same line as me. He's dead now. But once he'd had a case that worked that way. A crazy old woman with a lot of money, always down with imaginary illnesses and besieged by imaginary enemies. Pokey discounted her fears. Her son did her in. Pokey was haunted by that one. "I'll keep an open mind."

"That's all I ask. Stick with it. Don't let it get to you."

"Sure. But we could shortcut everything if we could get a few experts in."

"I said I'd try. Don't hold your breath. It was hard enough selling you."

We continued our circuit of the grounds. At one point we passed near a graveyard. "Family plot?" I asked.

"For three hundred years."

I glanced at the house. It brooded down on us from that point. "It doesn't look that old."

"It isn't. There was an earlier house. Check the outbuildings in back. You can still see some of its foundations. They tore it down for materials to build the outbuildings after the new house went up."

I supposed I'd have to give them the once-over. You have to go through all the motions. You have to leave no stone unturned, though already, intuitively, I was inclined to think the answer lay inside the big house—if there was an answer.

Peters read my mind. "If I'm fooling myself and we've just got an old man dying, I want to know that, too. Check?"

"Check."

"I've spent more time with you than I should. I'd better get back to work."

"Where do I find you if I need you?"

He chuckled. "I'm like horse apples. I'm everywhere. Catch as catch can. A problem you'll have with everybody, especially during poacher season. Cook's the only one who stays in one place."

We walked toward the house, passing through a small orchard of unidentifiable fruit trees with a white gazebo at its center, climbed a slope, went up the steps to the front door. Peters went inside. I paused to survey the Stantnor domains. The cold wind gnawed my cheeks. The overcast left the land colorless and doleful, like old tin. I wondered if it was losing life with its master.

But there would be a spring for the land. I doubted there would be for the old man. Unless I found me a poisoner.