We All Killed Grandma Read online

  “What little things?”

  “For instance, you said I sent my books to a storage company. Do you know which one?” I knew which one; I’d found a receipt among papers in my apartment, but it seemed a good question to ask, a legitimate one.

  She answered it, and it bridged a gap, somehow, that I could ask and she could answer so simple a question. And I didn’t push any further about seeing her again or even calling her. I’d give her a few days of thinking I wasn’t going to call, and then I’d think of other little questions and the first time I called to ask one, if she sounded friendly enough and in the mood, that would be time enough to suggest another dinner. Right now the ice was thin, very thin. I walked carefully.

  I didn’t even try to talk her into another drink, just then. I called for the check and paid it and we went out into the warm night, bright with stars and a moon that looked low enough to toss pebbles at.

  An attendant brought the Linc. He glanced back at it as he got out. “Mister, are you sure you got an engine in that? I couldn’t hear it.” I gave him a dollar bill. We got in the car and Robin sat away from me, over on her side of the wide seat.

  I ran down the window on my side of the car as I drove and the rush of air felt cool and good. I drove straight to Robin’s. I got out my side of the car and went around to open the door for Robin, but she was already out of the car and walking toward the door of the building, her heels clicking sharply on the sidewalk in the quiet evening.

  I followed and at the door she turned, her hand on the knob. I was a few steps away, still walking toward her. I stopped as though I’d run into a wall for the street light shone on her face and there was fear there, almost terror.

  And she was looking at me, not at anything behind or beyond me.

  I found my voice and said, “Robin, what on earth—”

  Then her face was composed again. Could I possibly have imagined what I’d seen there a second ago? Could it have been a momentary hallucination, a trick my vision had played on me?

  “Good night, Rod.” Her voice was cool and firm, her face impassive. “Thank you for the dinner.”

  She opened the door and went inside. I stood there.

  After a while I got into the car again.

  I didn’t head for home; I didn’t want to go there. I just drove, trying to think, trying to tell myself that what I’d seen had been my imagination, only my imagination.

  Or had a mask slipped? Was Robin afraid? of me?

  In God’s name, what had I been during our marriage?

  I drove for a long time through the moonlight, so bright I could have driven with parking lights. I don’t know what time I got home. I set the alarm for eight so I could make my nine-thirty appointment with Arch to see Hennig, but I must have set the hand of the alarm dial without noticing the time hands.

  Nor do I know how long I lay awake, but it must have been a long time for the windows were faintly visible gray rectangles the last time I saw them in my twistings and turnings.

  CHAPTER 5

  ARCH was waiting in a booth in the drugstore when I got there, a cup of coffee already in front of him. He was wearing sport clothes and looked more like a high school sophomore than ever. It was hard to believe that he was older than I, five years older.

  He waved at me and grinned as I came across the aisle and slid into a seat across from him. Then his grin faded. He said, “You don’t look so good.”

  “I am not so good,” I told him. “I feel like hell.”

  “What’s wrong, Rod?”

  “Nothing, I guess. I couldn’t sleep, that’s all. So I’m tired.”

  “Sorry I asked you to come down here then. It’s not really necessary for you to be here; I just thought it would be better if you were, in case.”

  A waitress came over and I ordered coffee and doughnuts and then turned back to Arch. “What’s it about? Your appointment, I mean.”

  “Just want to get an advance against the estate. Some money to live on until we get the bulk of it. And—I don’t know—Hennig might want your agreement on that.”

  “It’s okay by me, Arch,” I said. “How much are you asking for?”

  “A couple of thousand. I can get by on that for six months or so and if the estate isn’t settled by then, it’ll be nearly enough stabilized that I can get another advance. Listen, why don’t you get one? The amount involved is big enough so that old Hennig oughtn’t to quibble on giving each of us a couple of grand.”

  “What the hell would I do with a couple of grand?”

  “Take a trip, a vacation, a sea change. See South America or Africa or—Paris. What’s wrong with Paris?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “What is wrong with Paris?”

  The waitress brought my doughnuts and coffee and refilled Arch’s cup. When she’d gone he said, “I mean it, Rod. Seriously, it’s just exactly what you ought to do. You can’t kid me—I know this thing, the burglary and murder and your amnesia, has got you rocking on your heels. You’re all mixed up—and God knows why you don’t want a psychiatrist to straighten you out. But the next best thing is to take yourself a nice long vacation. So all right, you want to go back and write advertising, but what’s the hurry about it? Travel awhile.”

  “And get away from it all? There’s only one catch, Arch, I don’t want to.”

  He looked disgusted, and maybe I was being disgusting. I couldn’t explain, certainly, why I didn’t want to do what he suggested. Not that I’m allergic to travel, although covering North America in the Linc would appeal to me more than foreign travel. But not now, not under these circumstances. I’d be running away from things and trying to run away from myself. And that doesn’t work. The best place to find something is where you lost it.

  Arch was shaking his head, “How you’re even a half brother of mine escapes me. I couldn’t even put you in a play; nobody would believe me. Here you are suddenly rich, and hell-bent to get back to a two-hundred-a-week job.”

  I hadn’t known, or thought to ask anybody, how much I’d been earning, but two hundred a week sounded reasonable to me.

  I asked, “Do you intend to travel, Arch?”

  “Next summer, not this one, Too late this season for what I want to do, now that I can. Spend my summers in New England where there’s a lot of summer theater so I can get a play or two of mine on the boards. Lots of producers from New York see summer theater plays up there.”

  I wondered, just out of curiosity, whether Arch really had anything on the ball as a playwright. It’s a tough racket to crash, much tougher than writing books for instance. I don’t know whether a play’s harder to write than a book or not, but there are hundreds of books published to every play that actually reaches the stage. Well, if that was what Arch wanted to do, that was his business, not mine.

  My mind went back to last night, to that look on Robin’s face.

  “Arch,” I said, “I’ve asked you before how much you know about what went wrong between Robin and me.”

  “And I told you that I don’t know very much about it. Neither of you cried on my shoulder or confided in me. All I know is, Rod, she wasn’t good for you. You tried not to show it, but you were pretty damned unhappy for quite a while. Whatever was wrong with your marriage, you’re better off out of it.”

  “You told me that,” I said. “Here’s what I want to ask now. Do you think I might ever have given Robin cause to fear me, physically? Hit her or been cruel to her in any way? Or threatened her?”

  For seconds he looked at me blankly. Then, suddenly, he put his head back and howled with laughter. He laughed so hard that people sitting at the soda counter turned and looked at us.

  It was real laughter, genuine amusement.

  “You, Rod?” he said, when he’d managed to quit laughing. “The boy who wouldn’t go fishing because you hated to hurt a fish with a hook. And who grew up into a guy who’s more careful about hurting the feelings of a shoeshine boy than most people are about hurting the feelings of thei
r bosses. And now you ask me if you might have beaten your wife! Listen, if anything, the trouble was the other way around.”

  I wasn’t feeling funny but I couldn’t resist asking, “You mean she beat me?”

  Arch grinned. “That wasn’t quite what I meant. Listen, it’s ten o’clock. We’d better go upstairs. Don’t want to keep Hennig waiting since I’m going to make a touch.”

  Hennig was waiting for us. Lucian H. Hennig, the sign on his office door said. Short and plump, bald as a door-knob, pince-nez glasses on a black cord, age anywhere from forty to fifty. I remembered seeing him at the funeral, although we hadn’t spoken then.

  He shook hands with Arch first, standing and reaching across the desk, then held out his hand to me and I shook it too. He said, “Do you remember me, Rod? Is your amnesia better?”

  “Not yet, Mr. Hennig. No, I’m afraid I don’t remember you. Did I know you very well? And vice versa?”

  “Not as well as I would have liked to know you, Rod. I fear we have been only acquaintances.” He turned back to Arch as we sat down. “You intimated over the telephone, Archer, that you wished to get an advance against the estate. Is that correct?”

  Arch nodded. “A couple of thousand, if possible.”

  “It’s a bit irregular, since the will has not yet been probated. But it can be done, I believe, if Rod is willing to sign a stipulation agreeing not to contest the will. Are you willing to do that?”

  “Sure,” I said. “On one minor condition. But I couldn’t contest it anyway, could I?”

  “To be frank, not successfully. But you might decide you had grounds for trying—and you are the only person who could even think so.”

  “What grounds? I have no intention of contesting it. Mr. Hennig, but you have me curious.”

  “Pauline Tuttle was your mother’s mother, your grandmother. Archer is the son of your father’s first wife and was only a ward of Mrs. Tuttle’s—although, of course, she raised both of you after your father’s death. But there was no legal or formal adoption and he is related to her only by marriage—her daughter’s marriage. He is not, as you are, her grandson.” He paused to light a big cigar that looked incongruous in his round face. “If Pauline Tuttle had died intestate—without having left a will—the court might decide that you were entitled to all of her estate or to a larger share of it than Archer, because of the direct relationship. Or, again, they might decide that since she raised both of you and treated you equally, she would have wanted her property equally divided.”

  I said, “But she did leave a will, so that’s irrelevant, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I drew the will myself, so I have no doubt of its validity or of its being admitted for probate. I didn’t—and do not—anticipate that you will contest it, or that you would succeed if you try. But, as executor of the estate, I’d have to protect myself by having you sign a stipulation not to contest it before I could advance money to Archer.”

  “The will simply divides her estate between Arch and me?”

  “Exactly. No other bequests. Ah—you said you’d sign the stipulation on one minor condition, Rod. What is the condition?”

  I said, “I think there should have been one other bequest, whether Grandma made it or not. There’s a housekeeper, May Trent, who worked for her for ten years. I think she should have received a bequest—a thousand dollars, let’s say. The years she worked there are a good chunk out of her life and now, with the house to be sold, she’ll be out of a job. I think she’s entitled to that much. So I’ll sign the stipulation if Arch will agree that she gets a thousand, each of us to stand half of it.”

  Arch glared at me. “I told you no, and I mean it, Rod. If Grandma had wanted Mrs. Trent to have anything, she’d have put it in the will. And maybe your share of the estate doesn’t mean anything to you, but mine does to me. My career depends on it. I’m not going to give up five hundred dollars of it, just because you’ve got a generous impulse. I’ll—I’ll borrow what money I need until the estate is settled from a bank or a loan company rather than agree to that. The interest will cost me less.”

  He stood up.

  I said, “Sit down, Arch. I’ll sign the stipulation. And I’ll see that Mrs. Trent gets the thousand out of my share, since yours means that much to you. It just looked like a good chance to try to make you kick in.”

  I looked across the desk at Mr. Hennig. “You can work it, can’t you, so she’ll get the money and think it’s coming from the estate, and not from me?”

  “Of course. Here is the stipulation for you to sign, Rod. I have two of them made out. It will be necessary for Arch to sign one to enable me to advance you money, should you wish any, before final settlement of the estate.”

  “I don’t think I’ll need any of it sooner.”

  “Perhaps not, but it might be well to provide for the contingency now, while you are signing one yourself. Quid pro quo. There is always a possibility of illness or accident putting you in need of an advance. And another reason—final settlement cannot be made until the end of a year’s time, and if any complications arise it might take longer. So if you wish Mrs. Trent to receive her ‘bequest’ without waiting that long, it will have to be in the form of an advance to you against the estate. That is a thousand dollar advance you’ll want in any case.”

  “Of course,” I said. “You’ll sign one, Arch, if I will?”

  “Sure,” Arch said.

  Hennig handed him a paper similar to the one I was holding. He said, “Ah—gentlemen, you will please notice Clause Three. It is necessary for me to insert that for my own protection, as executor, in case—ah—You each agree not to hold the estate, or me personally, liable for any sums advanced to the other if, for any reason, the will is set aside by the court.”

  Arch asked, “Is there any possibility of that? Any reasonable possibility, I mean.”

  “Only one that I can think of—and that a very remote contingency. Extremely remote, I might say, in this case.” He looked embarrassed. “The law provides that no one may benefit financially by a crime which he commits. A will is therefore declared invalid in so far as it applies to a beneficiary who may be convicted of killing his benefactor.”

  “You mean,” I asked, “that if I were convicted of killing Grandma Tuttle, I couldn’t inherit from her? And that Arch would get all of the estate?”

  “You would not inherit. As for Archer getting all of the estate, it is highly probable that the court would so rule, since he is the only other survivor. And vice versa, of course.”

  Mentally I thanked him for the “vice versa” after-thought. Arch had been in Chicago at the time Grandma Tuttle had died.

  Arch looked at me and I looked back. Then he leaned forward on the desk and signed his stipulation. I signed mine; I didn’t have to wonder what he was wondering.

  Hennig took the papers from us and blotted them carefully. He pushed a button on his desk and a secretary came in. He said, “Miss Burdock, please make out two checks for me to sign. One to Mr. Archer Britten for two thousand dollars, one to Mr. Roderick Britten for one thousand. Both charged against the Tuttle estate.”

  He said to me, as the secretary was leaving, “If you’ll just endorse your check back to me, Rod, I’ll see that Mrs. Trent gets the money, and that she thinks it a bequest.”

  “Thanks,” I told him. “How is the estate shaping up?”

  “Fine. There’s not time for all the bills to be in yet, and I haven’t figured the exact amount of the inheritance taxes, but I think that the amount I originally estimated may have been conservative. From here it looks as though each of you should have at least twenty thousand coming, possibly several thousand more than that. It depends, in part, on how much the house will bring.” He laced his fingers together across his chest and leaned back in his swivel chair. “You understand, Mrs. Tuttle didn’t own the house outright; only an equity, the rest was mortgaged. She kept it that way purposely in order to have as much investment capital as possible. We may get anywher
e from twenty to thirty thousand dollars for the house. It is mortgaged for fifteen, so you can see it makes quite a difference—ten thousand dollars difference—one way or the other to the estate how much it is sold for.”

  “Hope you get thirty then,” Arch said.

  “There is an excellent chance of it. Incidentally, I’m hiring Wilcox and Benton—they’re the best certified public accountants in the city—to handle the estate. I’ll only supervise their work and handle the legal end. You can trust them implicitly—so you won’t have to worry about trusting me. And, I should tell you, either of you is entitled to have his own attorney or accountant, or both, check on our work at any time. I’ll be glad to give him access to everything and help him in every way.”

  I said, “As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Hennig, I trust you to handle it.”

  The secretary came back with the checks. Hennig signed them and I endorsed mine back to him; Arch pocketed his.

  On the way down in the elevator Arch said, “Another cup of coffee?”

  “Sure,” I told him. We went back into the drugstore from the inside entrance and took our booth back.

  “This Hennig, Arch. Is he a lawyer or a banker? I thought you said a banker, but he’s got law offices.”

  “He’s both. He’s a lawyer, but he’s on the board of directors of the Second National—that’s where Grandma banked—and owns quite a chunk of the bank stock. Incidentally, you don’t need to worry about him.”

  “I wasn’t,” I said.

  “He’s one of the biggest men in town. He could buy and sell the Britten family a dozen times. Grandma trusted him implicitly—and she trusted damn few people.”

  “I wasn’t worrying,” I told him. “How come Grandma didn’t have Mr. Henderson handle her will and make him executor, though, since he was her best friend and they lived next door to one another and all that?”

  “Oh, he handled work for her—but just routine stuff, making out deeds and options and things like that. She was sold on Hennig when it came to handling her money, and on anything big. Don’t ask me why—she had her own ideas about how to run her business. She was one strong-minded old lady, Rod. You couldn’t talk her into anything. You get your stubbornness from her side of the family. But back to Hennig versus Henderson—I think she used both of them because they hate one another’s guts. Politically, anyway. They’re both in politics off and on, and on opposite sides of the fence. Grandma played one against the other, sometimes had them both work on the same thing just for a double check. Neither one of them could have pulled anything on her—would have dared to. The other would have caught him at it.” He chuckled. “Yes, Grandma was quite a gal.”