Рита Браун - The Tail Of The Tip-Off

"Did you have a noisemaker?"

"No."

"What about a pennant or one of those foam rubber fingers that says Number One?"

"No. The less I have to carry, the better."

"Little Mim?"

"Well, I confess, I do have a noisemaker." She reached into her purse, pulling out one of the New Year's type. She handed it to Cooper.

"This seems a bit sturdier than the party variety."

"I bought it down at Mincer's." She mentioned a university institution on the corner across from the University of Virginia. "As you can see, blue and orange. Lasts about a season before it finally dies."

Cooper handed it back, glancing at Tazio.

"Like Dr. Langston, I'm just sitting in."

"Unlike Dr. Langston, you knew H.H. Can you think of any reason why anyone would want to kill him?"

"Anyone in the world or anyone in this group?" This response from Tazio made everyone sit up straight.

"Keep it small. This group."

"No."

Cooper called up to Fred. "Any ideas?"

"No," he called back.

"You can come closer, Fred."

"No, I want to sit where I sat. Where I was the night of the murder."

"All right then." Cooper stepped down the tiers back to Rick. "You all knew H.H. Would it be possible for him to be involved in a theft ring here at U-Hall, at the Clam?"

This also got their attention.

"What do you mean?" Matthew kept putting his index finger over the mouth of the kazoo.

"We are investigating a theft ring." She held up her hand as though quieting them even though they were quiet. "It hasn't been made public. Is it possible that H.H. was part of this?"

"Stealing what?" Aunt Tally sensibly asked.

"Sports equipment," Cooper answered.

"H.H. died for sports equipment?" Matthew was incredulous.

"You think he could have been part of it?" Cooper homed in.

"I didn't say that," Matthew, red-faced, instantly replied. "No. H.H. wasn't that kind of man."

"Wasn't that kind of man or believed, 'Never steal anything small'?" Tracy called out from the middle of the basketball floor.

"Not that kind of man." Matthew spoke with conviction.

"Of course, you were watching the players, Tracy, but what about after the game as people filed out? Where were you?"

"In front of the timekeeper's desk. Both Josef and I. Then we went back to our lockers."

"Did you happen to notice H.H. at all?"

"No, I didn't."

"Does anyone here think H.H. could have been part of something dishonest?"

No one said anything.

"Is there anything anyone wants to say?"

An embarrassed silence followed, at last punctured by Aunt Tally who figured at her age she could say anything she wanted to, but then she always had, even when she was twenty. "The affair."

"Yes."

"H.H. strayed off the reservation." Aunt Tally used the old expression for a wandering husband or wife.

"If he was that careful about hiding an affair, don't you think he could hide criminal activity?" Cooper persisted.

"It's not the same thing." Matthew chose his words with deliberation. After all, he was sitting next to his wife and two sons. "Many men put sex in a category. You know what I mean."

"Compartmentalize," Tazio called down to him.

"Thanks. That's the word I'm looking for. They compartmentalize, so sexual behavior isn't a reflection of how they might behave in a business context."

"Do you believe that?"

"Believe it? I see it every day," Matthew said.

"He's right." Fair agreed since he himself had thought like that and it cost him his marriage.

"And women don't?" Cooper prodded.

"We can but usually we don't." BoomBoom's voice, a mellow alto, seemed to fill the vast space.

"So the woman or women with whom he was having the affair did not compartmentalize."

"Well, Cooper, how would we know?" Harry innocently asked.

"Would you boys like to leave?"

"No!" both Matt and Ted shouted.

Cooper looked apologetically at Matthew and Sandy. "I forgot about their ages."

"Oh hell, Coop, this stuff is on television every night." Matthew shrugged.

"Yes, but they don't know the people on television," Sandy perceptively added.

"Sandy, do you want to go outside with the boys?"

"We've gone this far. I mean, as long as we don't get into physical detail."

Cooper shook her head. "No. Would the affair be reason enough in your minds? You've all said you can't think of another reason why H.H. would be killed. You can't think of anyone with a motive."

"I'm surprised there are as many men alive as there are." Aunt Tally, as usual, scored a bull's-eye.

Another uncomfortable silence followed since no one wanted to state the connection between Anne and the possible motive.

"You all are awfully quiet."

Little Mim said what everyone was thinking. "We all adore Anne."

"I can understand," Cooper responded.

"So that girl killed here. She was the one, wasn't she?" Aunt Tally put it on the table.

"She was."

"I don't believe it." Fred finally came down to BoomBoom's row.

"Fred, we have proof. I'm afraid it's true," Cooper declared.

He sat down. Visibly upset, he put his head in his hands.

"Well, you've all been a great help to us. Thank you for your time. Rick, anything else?"

"No. Go on home, folks. We appreciate your help."

Fred stepped down another row and spoke over the boys and Sandy. "Matthew, come up here with me a minute."

The larger man slipped the kazoo into his coat pocket and reluctantly followed Fred back up over the seats. Fred led him to the hairline crack in the wall where it joined the roof near the stairs.

"See this?"

Matthew put his face close to the crack, then felt the dampness. "Uh-huh."

"You fix it."

"Fred, this building is thirty years old. Shifting is natural. Besides, I worked on it but I wasn't the general contractor back then."

"I don't give a good goddamn. You fix it."

"What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing's the matter with me. You fix it before I find more shit to throw on your plate."

"Don't talk to me like that."

"Fix it!" Fred was losing control.

"Aren't you laying it on a little thick?"

Fred, without warning, pushed Matthew hard and he fell backwards, entangled in his own feet. Like most large men, he wasn't agile. He rolled down the stairs toward the basketball floor to the horror of the others.

Little Mim, acting quickly, and closer than the others since she was the last person in the row, stepped into the stairs to break his downward progress. He was so big, though, that he knocked her down as he rolled. Blair grabbed Little Mim as Bill Langston stopped Matthew, his face banged up, cut from the hard surface.

Tracy Raz, still quick as a cat, bounded up the other side of the group, reaching the top. He put his strong hand on Fred's shoulder. Miranda, fearing a fight, stood up from her seat on the opposite side of the court.

"I'm not going anywhere, Tracy." Fred, calm now, walked down the steps, Tracy right behind him.

"Oh, honey, are you all right?" Sandy ran over to her husband, now on his feet with Bill's and Fair's help.

"The padding helped." He patted his stomach.

Cooper reached Matthew as Rick came up alongside Fred.

"Fred." Rick simply said the man's name.

"Do you want to press charges?" Cooper asked Matthew, while Sandy dabbed his face with a linen handkerchief.

"No."

"You're being noble," Fred sneered.

Matthew, face crimson, controlled himself. "Fred, you need help."

Before anyone else could explode, Cooper and Fair escorted Fred out of the basketball arena.

The others all talked at once. Bill Langston proved very helpful. Ned, smart about these things, introduced him formally to Tazio Chappars.

Fair reminded Harry and BoomBoom he owed them drinks and that they could collect at the Mountain View Grille in Crozet proper. They both agreed to meet him there but Harry warned them she'd be about ten minutes late.