Up in Honey's Room

Twenty-three

Vera came in the kitchen to see Bo hunched over the morning paper spread open on the table.

“Did you hear what he said?”

“I wasn’t listening. He’s a peasant.”

“He knows about Dr. Taylor.”

“It’s not in the paper.”

“He doesn’t need the paper.”

Vera’s tone got Bo to look up at her.

“He knows policemen, federal agents. He asked if I was worried about the doctor informing on me. I said he’s not a concern, and he said, ‘You mean now that he’s dead?’”

Bo said, “He knows already?” sounding surprised.

“You call him a peasant,” Vera said, “with your prissy way. You serve him cold coffee. The man is the most famous law officer in America. They write stories about him in magazines. A book was written about him with photographs, you think he’s of no concern.”

“I thought his behavior crude.” Bo shrugged in his new smoking jacket. “What did you say to him?”

“I said, ‘The doctor, he was in an accident with his car, and was killed?’ I must’ve sounded stupid.”

“I’m sure you were convincing.”

Bo’s gaze dropped to the newspaper and Vera said, “Look at me, I’m talking to you,” and swept the paper from the table. “The police know another person was killed.”

“Rosemary.”

“I don’t know how you could shoot that poor woman.”

“I had no choice, she knows me.”

“I’m talking about Aubrey, in the loo. They found traces of blood someone tried to clean from the wall, blood and brains, Carl said, and did a poor job.”

“Since it was the powder room,” Bo said, “he should have said I did a piss-poor job.”

“I said to Carl, ‘Who could it be?’ astonished, eyes wide with innocence. Do you know who he said it was? Not who he thought it might be? Aubrey.”

Bo frowned. He’d used soapy guest towels to clean up the mess, knew enough to take the towels with him, stuffed into Mr. Aubrey’s pants once he got them pulled up. Then had to wrap Mr. Aubrey’s head in a bath towel he got from upstairs when he went up to look around, found some jewelry he liked and the doctor’s smoking jacket in green. Then he had to look for the Lugers and the machine pistol locked in a cabinet and had to pry it open but thought he did a rather professional job. He borrowed a blanket from Rosemary’s warm bed he used to drag Mr. Aubrey across the tiled floor to the front entrance where, Bo decided to let Mr. Obnoxious wait while he cleaned the powder room and thought about driving all the way out to a cornfield near Walter’s place at four in the morning when he was already in Palmer Woods, not a forest but there were patches of woods here and there.

“They’re sure the third one’s Joe Aubrey,” Vera said. “Joe’s the only one missing who was here last night.”

“It couldn’t be someone else?”

“I know it’s Aubrey and Carl knows it’s Aubrey you shot in the back of the head to make a mess. Did you think about where you should shoot him?”

“There was his head only a few feet away,” Bo said, “while he’s taking a whiz. Have you heard that one, for pissing? Mr. Aubrey was whizzing all over the floor.”

“You must have touched Rosemary.”

“I moved her hair aside.”

“With the Walther?”

“No, the tips of my fingers. I was gentle with her. But she saw me, so I had no choice.”

“You’re very good at what you have to do,” Vera said, laying her hand on his shoulder. She had been harsh with him and didn’t want Bo to sulk, waste her time acting hurt. She stroked his hair saying, “To make you feel better, we have Joe Aubrey’s check for fifty thousand dollars. If I can put it in an account and make withdrawals within a few days, we’ll have our going-away money.”

“And we can amscray out of De-twah,” Bo said. “Can I lay my tired head against your tummy-tum?”

Vera took his face in her hands and brought his cheek against her body. “What we don’t want to happen, they find Aubrey before we amscray. Can you imagine the interrogations we’d have to survive? Two of my alleged aides found shot to death?” She said, “That won’t happen, will it, Bo?”

“That’s not the problem,” Bo said and waited for Vera.

She said, “There is always a problem, isn’t there?”

“Walter could tell them I was to drive Mr. Aubrey out to the farm but we never arrived. Or as Kevin Dean would say, ‘We never showed.’ That girl Honey Deal will say, ‘Oh, that’s right, Mr. Aubrey. Didn’t he go home with Bohdan?’ That fucking marshal, you know what he called me? Bohunk.”

“I wondered what he said to you. Honey thinks you’re cute.”

“She does? Well, Jurgen’s with her now.”

“Having him for breakfast,” Vera said. “The girl’s a man-eater.”

“The FBI will ask him, ‘Was Aubrey in the car with you?’ Jurgen will say, ‘No, he vasn’t.’”

“Jurgen doesn’t speak that way. But they left with Walter before you put Aubrey in my car. They can’t be certain you took him any where.”

“Do you want to leave it to chance?” Bo said. “Maybe the police will find out I took Aubrey to see the doctor and maybe they won’t. Meanwhile, Vera wets her panties every time the doorbell rings.”

Vera said, “God,” weary of this war business, “all the dead we’ve seen.”

“Don’t give up on me now,” Bo said. “What’s a few more?”

At least three. Four, with any luck.

“All right,” Vera said, “when the police say to you, these other people told us you drove Aubrey to Walter’s. If you didn’t go there, where did you take Mr. Aubrey? What will you say to that?”

“I’ll say, ‘Where in the world did they get that idea? I didn’t take Mr. Aubrey anywhere. By the time he left the party I was in bed.’”

“So how did he get to Dr. Taylor’s?”

“How should I know?”

“But you were here with everyone. What kind of arrangement was made if Walter didn’t take him?”

“Give them my theory?”

“If it makes sense.”

“Well, the way I see it, Dr. Taylor and Mr. Aubrey had a thing going and made plans to meet somewhere after the party was over. Say, at a bar on Woodward or maybe in front of the cathedral, only a block away. Dr. Taylor picked up Aubrey and took him home so they could monkey around in peace, tease each other, and the doctor’s wife Rosemary-I always thought of as a very sweet woman-heard them giggling, crept downstairs, caught the two old dears kissing and shot them with her husband’s Walther. Then, so ferociously distraught by what she did, pressed the pistol against her temple and kapow, took her own life.” Bo, still looking at Vera, said, “Her breasts were so-so.”

Vera said, “‘Ferociously distraught?’”

“Enormously depressed to learn her husband the respected doctor is a sissy.”

“Where did she get the pistol?”

“She knew her husband was a scaredy-cat and kept it in his smoking jacket when he was downstairs alone at night.”

“How do you know that?”

“Rosemary told me one time. Or, she brought the pistol from upstairs.”

“You’re wearing the smoking jacket he had on?”

“This is a different one.”

“So they say to you, ‘If Mr. Aubrey wasn’t there this morning, what happened to him?’”

“I say, ‘How should I know, I’m not a detective.’”