The Odd Job (8 page)

There had been hatpins, but none that would suit Theonia’s purpose. Most of the big ones had been cut down; neither husbands nor policemen liked the idea of a dangerous weapon kicking around the boudoir. The few hatpins that were long enough had failed to come up to specifications otherwise. Once-jeweled ornaments had lost their stones, gilt gewgaws that had twinkled like stars a century ago were by now dull and unsightly, not worth restoring.

Evidently Lydia had found a hatpin that she thought would do, and had got somebody or other to drop it off as a surprise for when Theonia returned. That would account for the bungled address; Lydia could barely speak English, much less spell it. Sarah slid the pin out of the envelope to get a better look at the head.

Theonia was going to be disappointed. The head had been nothing special to begin with, just a small knob covered with tiny black beads, perhaps intended to anchor a widow’s long mourning veil. Too many of the beads were gone, the steel retained its sharp point but showed some rust and discoloration along the shank. Sarah got the impression that it might have been used to unclog a bottle of ketchup.

Whatever had Lydia been thinking of? There must be other hatpins less ugly than this and in no worse shape. Perhaps she’d seen this one lying somewhere and taken it as a good omen. “Find a pin and pick it up and all the day you’ll have good luck” was a charm in which many people still believed; a pin this size ought to convey a whole week’s worth of good fortune.

But Sarah didn’t think it would. Lydia took superstition seriously, she must know that luck wasn’t transferable. Furthermore, luck or no luck, Lydia would hardly have sent this ugly thing along without at least scouring the wire with a steel-wool pad and doing something about the head, if only to dip it in gold paint and pretend it was a nugget. Why hadn’t she bothered?

Because, obviously, it was not Lydia Ouspenska who’d sent the hatpin. Sarah tried to think who else might have heard about the hatpin hunt and either tried to help Theonia out or tried to be funny. There must have been some of Great-Aunt Matilda’s hatpins among the welter of stuff that Cousin Dolph had inherited from Great-Uncle Frederick, but everything that wasn’t nailed down had been auctioned off some time ago on behalf of the Senior Citizens’ Recycling Center.

Aunt Appollonia in Cambridge was a likelier prospect. Her house was almost as big as Dolph’s and even more cluttered. She’d have been only too delighted to hunt out a hatpin for dear Cousin Theonia; it was unthinkable that she wouldn’t have one somewhere. It was even more unthinkable, however, that Appie would remember what she was supposed to be looking for, much less send it all the way here by special messenger at ruinous expense while the ghost of Uncle Samuel growled in her ear, “Waste not, want not.”

Three of Appie’s grandchildren, Jesse’s dreadful brothers Woodson, James, and sweet little Frank, would no doubt love to stage a hatpin hunt for reasons of their own. At this time, however, they were safely penned up in an expensive boarding school that combined the better features of an institution of learning with those of a high-class reformatory. They wouldn’t be let out until Thanksgiving, the thanks, no doubt, being given by their beleaguered teachers. With sincere regret, Sarah crossed the boys off and racked her brain for likelier suspects.

It was a waste of time. She wasn’t getting anywhere, the sky was even more ominous, the wind beginning to howl around the windows. Or was that the wind? No, it wasn’t. The noise was coming not from outside but from the supposedly empty office next door. Some workman must be in there using an electric drill.

But why? Brooks had told Sarah before he went away that renovations were not scheduled to begin for another month. Even if the schedule had been moved up, three o’clock in the afternoon seemed an odd time to begin work. Almost of its own accord, her hand reached out to the, telephone and punched the number for the reception desk.

“Hello, this is Sarah Bittersohn. I’m sorry to bother you, but it was my understanding that there wouldn’t be any work going on next door. It’s been quiet all day, but now there’s somebody in there using an electric drill. It almost sounds as if they’re trying to drill through to our office.”

The receptionist was interested. “How long have you been hearing this noise, Mrs. Bittersohn?”

“Just these past few minutes. I thought at first it was the wind, but it’s the wrong kind of noise. Do you suppose some workman may have got in there by mistake?”

“I don’t see how, he’d have to be pretty dumb. Nobody told me about any work on your floor. I’d better check with maintenance. In the meantime, stay where you are and lock your own door.”

“It’s already locked, thank goodness. I hope I’m not making something out of nothing.”

“Don’t you worry about that, Mrs. Bittersohn. Just sit tight, we’ll send somebody to check it out.”

The receptionist rang off, there was nothing for Sarah to do but wait and hope she wouldn’t have occasion to use that hatpin. She wasn’t really worried; anybody trying to bore a way through the connecting wall would run into a bigger job than he’d bargained for. The agency’s steel filing cabinets were stacked five feet high the whole length of the wall and every drawer was padded at the back with old telephone directories.

The phone books had been Brooks’s idea. He’d learned sometime or other that outdated directories had been used to line railroad cars in certain potentially explosive countries, as insulation against guerrilla attacks. Brooks had never exactly envisioned a shootout from next door but, being a Kelling, he’d thought it wouldn’t hurt to get some practical use out of bulky tomes that, at the time, not even trash collectors had wanted to lug away.

It was impossible to concentrate on anything but the noise next door. The drilling went on, where was that security guard? Startled as she’d been by the sudden noise, she felt even jumpier when it stopped. After a brief silence, she heard a knock on the door and a male voice calling, not loudly, “Anybody in here?”

Sarah didn’t recognize the voice, she hesitated a moment, then reached for the phone and called reception again, speaking as softly as she could.

“Hello, Sarah Bittersohn again. The noise just stopped and there’s somebody at the door asking if anybody’s here. I haven’t answered and I don’t think I’m going to until I’m positive it’s somebody I know.”

“I can’t say I blame you, Mrs. Bittersohn. The trouble is, I can’t leave the desk. I did check with maintenance and they say nobody’s supposed to be working on your floor until the plans for renovation have been finalized, which won’t be for another couple of weeks. They said they’d send one of the crew up in a while, but—”

“All right, I understand. What I’m going to do is not answer the door until I’ve sent for our man Charles to escort me home. You know him, he’s been in and out of the building at various times. He’s fairly tall, dresses well, and has curly blond hair. Just to make sure of his identity, he’ll be carrying a group photograph in which he appears along with myself, my husband, Mr. and Mrs. Brooks, and our new trainee, Jesse Kelling. He’ll show you the photograph and ask to be accompanied upstairs by some member of the building’s staff. I shan’t open the door until the two of them arrive together. I’m not an hysterical woman, if that’s what you’re thinking, but I’m not taking any unnecessary chances.”

“How long do you suppose it’ll take your man to get here?”

“Ten or fifteen minutes, if he’s at home now. He’d only have to cross the Common from Tulip Street. I’ll call him as soon as you and I hang up.”

“What if he isn’t there?”

“Then I’ll call the police.”

She wouldn’t have to. Charles was on the qui vive and only too eager to dash to the rescue. He’d bring not only the photograph but also the Kelling umbrella, a relic of another era with a formidable steel shaft and a heavy blackthorn handle. Sarah’s father had carried it, and his father before him, and his father’s father. After Walter Kelling’s death, the ancestral bumbershoot had come down to his favorite cousin, Alexander, who’d also inherited Walter’s unfinished history of the Kelling family, his collection of pressed mushrooms, and a pair of ornate gold cuff links inherited from the great-uncle for whom Walter had been named, which he’d never worn because they were too pretentious. Alexander had never worn them either, for the same reason. Sarah still had the cuff links but didn’t suppose Davy would ever want to break with precedent. More or less as an afterthought, Walter had also bequeathed to Alexander the guardianship of his young daughter, Sarah; but that was hardly germane to the issue at hand.

There had been times in its long history when the Kelling umbrella had proven its worth as a weapon. Charles was right to bring it now, it might serve again in a pinch, although that hideous old hatpin would be handier and perhaps even more effective.

Sarah wished she could forget the hatpin, she was developing what Jesse would call an attitude about the thing. It must mean something to somebody, though; she shouldn’t have ripped the envelope so carelessly. Not that it mattered, the fingerprints would be hers and some anonymous messenger’s. Maybe scads of unknowns’. How could she know where the ugly thing had come from and how many hands it had gone through before it wound up here?

Nevertheless, Sarah tucked the pin back into the torn envelope, closed the envelope inside one of the zip-top plastic bags that Brooks kept in various sizes for sometimes unfathomable reasons, and stuffed the
tout ensemble
into a tote bag that Theonia had left hanging on one of the pegs. Perhaps it was foolish, but she didn’t like the idea of having such a potential weapon in her handbag.

Now there was nothing to do except poke through some of the likelier file drawers, trying to see whether the drill had got through the wall. Sarah didn’t make much headway, there were too many drawers at various levels and the phone books had been jammed in too tightly. She was unutterably relieved when she heard two sets of footsteps marching up the hall, heard the right kind of knock at the door, and the right voice calling out, “Are you there, moddom?”

“I
’M SO GLAD YOU’RE
here.” Sarah was already putting on the raincoat that Charles was holding for her, while addressing the woman in overalls who’d come with him. “Are you security or maintenance?”

“Maintenance.” The worker wasn’t wasting any time on amenities. She nipped into the office that was supposed to be empty, took one quick look and came back. “Mind stepping in here for a second, Mrs. Bittersohn? Is this where you heard the drilling?”

“I think so.” Sarah examined the small hole in the plasterboard, then knelt to study a whitish heap not much bigger than an anthill on the floor. “Yes, this is it.”

“You sure? Looks to me like dust from the plasterboard.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple. Charles, would you bring that big magnifying glass off Brooks’s desk?”

“Toot sweet.”

Charles was off and back with the speed of light. Heedless of her nylons, Sarah knelt beside the evidence, took the glass, and satisfied herself that she was in fact seeing what she’d expected to find.

“Take a look.”

The maintenance worker shrugged and obliged. “Just plaster dust. Oops! Metal shavings. And—what the heck? Looks like ground-up newspaper.”

“Right on all counts. The metal shavings are from the back of a filing cabinet that was lined with an old telephone book. I expect the ground-up paper fouled the bit. Yes, here it is on the floor.”

Charles whipped out one of Brooks’s small plastic bags. “You’ll be wanting this, I assume?”

“Thanks.” Sarah picked up the short, spiral-grooved metal bit very carefully by the clogged-up end and slipped it into the bag. “Get me another bag, Charles, and a piece of stiff paper to scoop with.”

“Allow me.”

While Charles swept the telltale debris into a clean bag, Sarah chatted a moment with the maintenance worker. “So you see I wasn’t imagining things, in case your boss wants to know. If I type up a quick note about what we’ve found, would you mind signing it as a witness?”

“Not a bit, I’ll be glad to. You’re a real detective, huh? Are you going to call the cops?”

“No, I think we’ll just drop off what we’ve found at the station. There’s nothing much to be done here now that the phantom driller’s gone,” Sarah answered as they walked back to the Bittersohn office. “Have you any idea how whoever was here managed to get through security? I thought your people were pretty tight about letting anyone upstairs without proper identification.”

“They are, but you know how it is. There’s ways. For instance, if you showed up wearing jeans and carrying a tool box, claiming you’re here to install some piece of equipment for one of the tenants, the receptionist would call up to the tenant. Somebody would say to go ahead and send you up, they were expecting you. Only what the front desk doesn’t know is that it’s your girlfriend on the switchboard giving the okay. So you get a pass and go up. Once you’re inside the building, you’re in, if you get what I mean. Like I say, there’s ways. You just have to remember to turn in your pass when you leave, and to use a false ID when you sign in. Of course that’s kind of a production, you’d have to be darned sure of your connections or you’d be out on your ear.”

“I see. Thanks for the information.” Sarah had been typing as she listened. “Would you sign your name, your job title, the date, and the time? Also your home phone number, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure, glad to.”

The worker, whose name turned out to be Pansy Pottle, signed with a flourish and went back to work. By this time, the anticipated storm had broken. Sarah called police headquarters, explained what had happened, and said not to bother sending anybody over. She and Charles would drop off their evidence on the way home; they were ready to leave and Charles had brought an umbrella.

That was fine with Boston’s Finest. Sarah and Charles performed Brooks’s mantric ritual of the office-door locks without a hitch, went down in the elevator thinking up implausible ways to fox the security guards, and signed out in the most law-abiding way possible after giving the man at the desk a quick rundown on what had happened upstairs and special thanks for having come to Sarah’s rescue. Then Charles raised the Kelling umbrella and they stepped forth into what was already beginning to look like a real soaker.