Authors: Alice Duncan
Sam wasn't as delighted to hear the dirt about Mr. Underhill as I thought he should be. And he was totally unimpressed when I told him I thought Evans was lost in the woods up near Mount Lowe.
"How do you figure that?"
Since I couldn't very well tell him I'd seen swaying trees in my crystal ball, I said, "That's where Mrs. Wright told me he liked to hike. Maybe he fell and broke a leg or an arm or got lost or was eaten by a bear or something."
"All pleasant scenarios," said Sam, as sarcastic as ever.
"Yes, well, I told you where to look. It's up to you to get someone out there to search for him," I said, fairly snarling at him.
"Calm down. I'll notify the Altadena Sheriff's Department and they'll tell the forest rangers. If he's up there, we'll find him. Unless, of course, he's been eaten by a bear."
"Of course." I scowled at him.
"And you say all the Underhills hated Mr. Underhill?"
"Every single one. Plus, the man was a flagrant philanderer."
"How alliterative," said Sam, making me want to smack him. I chalked the urge up to my headache and state of weariness.
"Well, he was. That's according to his children and his wife. Widow, I mean. He also was mean to animals, according to his family and Mrs. Hanratty. He killed his daughters' bunny and broke their puppy's leg by kicking it downstairs."
Sam wrinkled his nose. "Over all, he sounds like a truly bad man."
"Sounds like it to me, too."
"Do you have any idea with whom he was philandering?"
I swear, Sam's grammar had improved tenfold since he'd met me. "Sorry. Not an idea in the world."
"Hmm. Well, thanks for the information. We'll check into it."
"Thank you."
Vi called us to the table then, and we sat down to a meal of cold ham, Boston baked beans, potato salad and pumpernickel bread. Yes. My wonderful Aunt Vi had actually made pumpernickel bread because I'd asked her to. I made myself a sandwich: ham on pumpernickel with brown mustard that was kind of spicy. Tasted really good.
"Thank you so much, Vi," I said, trying not to betray my emotions by bursting into tears. "This is so nice of you. And all because I mentioned that sandwich Sam had at Webster's lunch counter."
"You're more than welcome, Daisy," said Vi. "Anyhow, I figured you needed something to brighten your day. You've been looking like a storm cloud all morning."
That was it for me. I started to cry. "I'm so sorry! I just have
such
a headache, and am
so
tired." I wiped my tears away with a napkin and felt stupid.
But it was all right. My family—and Sam—were used to me, and I think they forgave me. Right after I'd cleaned up the dinner dishes, I downed two aspirin tablets.
Sam found me in the hallway and gave me a big hug. "You're not sick or anything, are you? You don't usually cry at the table."
"Sam Rotondo, if you're—"
"I'm not being sarcastic," he said, interrupting what might have turned into a rant. "I don't want you to feel bad. I hurt when you hurt. I love you, Daisy."
So I cried onto the lapels of his jacket for a minute or two. "Th-thanks, Sam. I'm just so tired and feel so bad."
"You're welcome. Take a good rest, and I'll bet you'll feel better."
I lifted my head and gave him a kiss. It was quite a delicious kiss, and it might have heated up some if my kin weren't in the next room. Then, as Sam moseyed to the living room and he and Pa chatted about whether or not to set up the card table and play gin rummy, I took Spike to our bedroom, removed my church clothes, climbed into bed, and slept for two and a half hours. I felt much better after I awoke from my nap. What was even better, was that I was able to get to sleep that night and slept like the dead until seven o'clock on Monday morning.
In fact, I was downright perky when I joined Pa and Spike in the kitchen for breakfast, which consisted of leftover fried ham, baked beans, and toast.
"I don't think I've ever had baked beans for breakfast before," I commented as I glanced at the part of the newspaper Pa wasn't reading. "They're good."
"The British eat beans on toast all the time," said Pa, who knew all about such things, his family having come from England in the early middle ages. I'm joking about that last part, but not about the England part.
"Huh." Although the
Pasadena Star News
's classified ads section didn't generally capture my attention, it was what Pa had left for me, so I glanced through the postings. By golly, that morning I noticed something of interest. Darned if the Underhill Chemical Company wasn't advertising for help on their production lines. I read the notice closely, and learned that they were asking for young, healthy women to work their lines, packaging their chemicals. Which contained poison, I had no doubt. I wondered if their employees who worked the lines ever dropped dead of insidious poisoning, but wasn't sure whom to ask.
Hmm. Maybe I should toddle down to the Underhill Chemical Plant, which sat quite far south on Fair Oaks Avenue, and apply for a position as a line girl. Maybe I could nose around and discover something of use in solving the murder of the dastardly Mr. Underhill.
The chances of that might be remote, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, as the saying goes.
Therefore, after seeing my aunt and my mother off to work, going for a walk around the neighborhood with Pa and Spike, and attiring myself in a plain day dress appropriate for a young woman aspiring to stand next to a conveyor belt all day long and fill bags or bottles or boxes with poisonous chemicals, I drove the family Chevrolet south on Fair Oaks, way past Glenarm, until I reached the Underhill Chemical Plant. It was a sprawling place, with a dirt lot in which several automobiles were parked, although I also noticed a bus stop right in front of the plant. I suspected that's how most of Underhill's employees got to work, since I doubted the line girls got paid much. In those days, women didn't get paid as much as men, even if they performed the exact same job. Sometimes I wonder if that will ever change. Probably not. Not that I mean to be negative or anything.
Oh, never mind.
I left the Chevrolet in the dirt lot and walked to the front door of the plant. The big double glass doors led into a neat lobby, womanned by a person whom I didn't recognize sitting behind a desk. Not that I know everyone in Pasadena, mind you, but I had lots of friends with whom I'd gone to school. Not this girl.
"Good morning," I said, smiling at her.
"Good morning," she said, smiling back at me.
I'd thought to bring the newspaper with me, so I showed it to the girl. I'd circled the Underhill advertisement. I looked on the girl's desk, but saw no name plate. "I came to speak to someone about this job I saw advertised in the newspaper today." I tapped said ad with a nicely manicured forefinger.
"The line-girl position?" she asked, eyeing me up and down and making me feel as though I'd overdressed for this occasion.
"That's the one, all right," I said, trying to sound perky, although I'm not sure why.
"Let me call for Mr. Browning. He's the one who's interviewing applicants. In the meantime, will you please fill out this form?"
"Thank you," I said and held out my hand.
She stuck a form printed in bluish ink into it, and I wondered if the form was an example of a mimeograph. I'd have asked, but the girl was speaking into a tube-like device, presumably to someone at the other end of some kind of telephonic wire. Interesting technologies were in use in those days, and I knew nothing about any of them. Goodness gracious, but my education was limited! I'd have to visit the library again on my way home from the Underhill factory and search out information on new technologies. Perhaps the periodical section would have the most up-to-date articles. I'd ask Miss Petrie.
But that's nothing to the point. I filled out the form, which would have got blue ink all over my clean gloves had I not thought to remove them first. Therefore, I only got ink on my hands. Maybe this wasn't such a grand idea if even the forms the company used left evil residue behind. The form asked for my name, address, telephone number (if any—evidently not everyone living in the community had a telephone installed in his or her home), closest kin, and former employment history. That last question stumped me, since I had no employment history other than my spiritualist work, and I didn't think that would count for much, as it related not at all to production lines. Therefore, I left that part blank and trusted my ingenuity to come up with an answer should whoever this Mr. Browning was ask me about it. I signed my name on the bottom of the form where it was asked for and slid the paper onto the desk, since the girl was still speaking into the tube. Was that how this company communicated with its employees? Where were the telephones? They
must
have telephones. In fact, I saw one sitting on the girl's desk.
It rang, and the girl answered it. "Mr. Browning?" she said in a businesslike voice. A pause ensued, and then she said, "Yes," picked up the form I'd slid across her desk, and added, "Mrs...." She squinted at the form, although I'd printed my name legibly on the line asking for it. Perhaps she considered the name unusual, which it was, but that was no reason to squint. "Mrs. Majesty," she said at last. I got the feeling she wasn't the sharpest needle in the pincushion.
Then she jumped when I heard a voice come, loud and clear, "
Daisy
?" through the telephone.
The girl blinked at me and said, "Yes. Daisy Majesty."
I then got the feeling whoever this Mr. Browning character was to whom she was speaking knew me. I considered the few Brownings I'd ever met in my life and landed, plunk, on Robert Browning—no relation to the late poet and dramatist—with whom I'd gone to high school. He was a couple of years my senior and had graduated in the same class as my Billy. I hoped it was he, because we'd always had a friendly relationship.
It was Robert Browning! He opened the door behind the receptionist's desk a moment or two later and came at me, hands extended. "Daisy! How good to see you again."
"Thank you, Robert. It's good to see you, too." And I wasn't even lying.
"Come back here to my room. I'll have to ask you a few questions."
"Certainly."
I followed him meekly to a room a couple of doors down a long, ugly hallway, and he pushed the door open and gestured for me to enter.
"Take a seat. I have to interview you, although I'm not sure why because I've known you forever." He sobered as he took the chair behind his desk. "I was awfully sorry to hear about Billy's passing. I guess I was one of the lucky ones. I never even got off of American soil, much less made it to France or Belgium, after I enlisted."
He shook his head, and I, idiot that I am, teared up. I swear. However, the dismal truth is that I get weepy at any mention of my late, beloved Billy.
Robert noted my tears but tactfully glanced away. I'd hastened to grab a hanky from my handbag and dabbed the moisture away. "Um... I imagine that's the reason you're applying for a position here at Underhill. You need to earn a living."
Boy, you can bet I grabbed that rope and clung to it for dear life. "Yes," I said with a pathetic sniffle. "Without Billy, even though I live with my parents, I need to work. My father has heart trouble and can no longer do the job he used to do." I saw no need to tell him my mother and my aunt both had good-paying jobs, or that I made more money than both of them put together as a phony spiritualist-medium.
Robert shook his head sadly. "I'm so sorry." He glanced around his office as if he suspected spies might be lurking nearby. Lowering his voice, he said, "I doubt the Underhill production line is a good match for you. You're too smart to work on a line like that."
That was nice, and it allowed me to do a little snooping. "Oh? Why is that? Is the work tedious or difficult or something?"
"No. That is to say, the work isn't difficult, although you'd be on your feet all day, but I'm sure it's tedious." He lowered his voice still further and added, "But the truth is that Underhill, the chemical company, has been going through a lot of trouble lately."
"I know Mr. Underhill died. I was there in church when it happened," I told Robert.
I almost didn't hear his next words, he spoke so softly. "That's probably the only good thing that's happened to the company in more than a year, to tell the truth. Mr. Underhill was driving it into the ground, and he was driving all of his employees crazy in the process."
"Oh, dear. I didn't know that." Okay, so I'd just lied again. Chalk it up to snoopery. "Do you think there might be layoffs?" I'd read all about layoffs in the newspaper. Sometimes layoffs sparked riots, although it was difficult for me to imagine so staid a populace as the one living in Pasadena rioting over anything at all.
"I hope not," Robert said, although I could tell he was worried, because he had frown lines on his forehead. "Barrett Underhill, the late Mr. Underhill's son, is doing his best to clean up the mess his father left."
"Goodness. I'm sorry to hear about the problems. How many people does this plant employ?"
"Twelve hundred. Of those, over a thousand either work on the lines or in the warehouse. It's a busy place, and most of us want to keep it open for business. A lot of jobs are at stake. Plus, the chemicals we provide for fertilizer would have to be imported from other states if Underhill went under." He frowned some more. "So to speak."