Рон Гуларт - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 39, No. 13, Mid-December 1994

“Painting?”

“It hung in the little bedroom at the back of the house. She kept it there so most people never saw it. I liked it because there’s a kitty in it. A French painter. Vooleur? Voolez? Something like that.”

Bunk still had a key to the house. On the way to the Rite Way, he let himself in and went to the small bedroom and stood looking at an empty hook and a blank square on the wall.

“Can you turn M that noise down, Jeff? I can’t think straight.”

“Come on, chief, chill out. This is the Grateful Dead. Loosens you up, helps you think.” Jeff turned the radio off. “What would I do without music? Like a shot in the arm when I’m low. I’ve been thinking of all the women I’ve dated the past two years. Do you know how many that’s been?”

“Can I count that high?”

“Six. And each time I think, hey, this could be it. And then something happens. I’m starting to worry, Bunk. Twenty-five and not getting any younger.”

Bunk patted his assistant on the shoulder. “Hang in there, it’ll happen. It’ll happen when you least expect it. It’ll happen because you least expect it.”

“Come again?” Jeff frowned, but behind the frown was a glint of understanding.

“What’d you think of Sabrina Moffat?”

“A lot of anger in that woman. I got the feeling she thought she should have been a great opera star, and instead here she is in Podunk, Vermont, giving singing lessons. And not many of them until Temple died. She scares away students. My niece messed up a high C her first lesson, and Sabrina groaned. The poor kid was almost in tears. Personally, though, I don’t think it was her. I got my money on Hob Chaney, the jilted lover.”

“He says he was taking singing lessons.”

Corporal Hanley laughed for half a minute. “Come on, Bunk. The guy’s got a voice like Kermit the Frog. He’s been in trouble before, too, assault and battery. Remember when Hank Harrington complained about Hob mowing over some flowers, and Hob lifted him off the ground with one hand like he was a starving cat? Someone’s knocking at the door. That kid again. Have you deputized her yet? Okay, I’ll be nice.”

Tracy walked in with a wad of gum in her cheek. “Hi, Bunk. Hi, Jeff.”

On a hunch, Bunk said, “Do you think Hob and Temple were more than just friends?” Tracy stopped chewing and stared at him. “You mean were they... more than just friends?” She shook her yellow curls. “No way. He wasn’t her type. Matter of fact, I don’t think she’d been real tight with anyone since Chico. And that actor I told you about.”

“St. John, right? You said he wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Bunk was getting the uneasy feeling that maybe he should’ve tried harder to locate St. John. In fact, he hadn’t tried at all. There had been enough more promising suspects to keep him and Jeff busy.

“Mr. La-di-da,” said Tracy. “You know—” She lifted her chin, stretched out a bare, skinny arm, and pretended to flick ashes from a cigarette holder.

Corporal Hanley laughed. “Hey, that’s not bad. The next Julia Roberts.”

“He talked with a phony British accent,” went on Tracy, trying to hide a pleased smile. “And knew everything. Was always quoting Shakespeare, talking about kings, queens, art. He was into painting in a big way.”

Corporal Hanley stared at the twelve-year-old and said nothing. Not even a wisecrack.

“Well, if it ain’t my old friend, Bunk Cummins. And Jeff Hanley. How you fellows doing?” Chief Achille Boudreau of the Ravensburg P.D. kept his feet on his desk, drumming a gold pen on one knee. The desk was strewn with papers, some of which were weighted down with a pair of handcuffs. “Should I take my feet off the desk and try to look busy?”

“Naw, that’s all right,” said Bunk.

“Actually, I am busy. In fact, that’s why I’ve got my feet up on the desk. There’s so much to do I don’t know where to start. So I sit here and tap the gold pen the town gave me for twenty years of service and stare out the window and wonder if life was always this complicated. Was it?”

“Do I look like a philosopher?”

Chief Boudreau’s expression was world-weary but kind. Humanity still burned in his jowly seen-it-all face. “Actually, you do look like a philosopher. I’ve always thought...” His voice trailed off. “This a social call, Bunk?”

“Sprague St. John.”

Boudreau dropped a foot off his desk, along with a stack of papers that planed out over the floor.

“The Temple Buchanon case.”

Boudreau’s other foot came down. He stood up. “You have to be joking. The guy’s an actor. You know—” Achille laid a hand against his chest and declaimed “ ‘—To be or not to be, that there’s the question.’ ”

“I think you make a better cop than actor, Achille.”

“You do?” Boudreau pretended to be crestfallen. Or maybe he wasn’t pretending. “So ole Twinkle Toes is a suspect?”

“He lived for a short while with Ms. Buchanon. But what’s really got us going is a valuable painting she had in her house. We just discovered it’s missing.

Someone whistled behind the two Elizabethville officers, and they turned. A young woman in uniform stood with a Coke in hand. Her hat was off, showing a head of taffy-colored curls. She smiled and stuck out her hand.

“Janet Russo. Achille and I were in St. John’s apartment just a month ago. If you can call it an apartment. What a hole. I don’t think a woodchuck could live there. We arrested him on a charge of check kiting.”

When the man in pajamas and slippers opened the door to the three of them, a blend of unkind smells — dirty socks, moldering bread, Kitty Litter in serious need of attention — wafted past them.

“Three cops this time? I must be moving up in the world; last time it was only two. Look, all I did was cash a phony check for two hundred bucks. Do I get the chair? I’ve already been booked, my hearing date’s set, what else is there?”

“Murder,” said Bunk.

It was like he’d hit Sprague St. John in the stomach. The man’s eyes bulged, his stringy white hair seemed to stiffen, and the blood left his face as if a plug had been pulled. St. John looked at Corporal Russo. “Who are these people?”

“Officers Cummins and Hanley from the Elizabethville Police Department.” Russo showed St. John her search warrant, and the three stepped into the room. “Oh, a kitty.” Russo was looking at a striped orange and white kitten curled on the rumpled bed. The cat gave the three a worried look and like a cricket sprang onto a night table beside the bed and from there to the top of a carved oak wardrobe. A small cloud of dust rose from the wardrobe.

In a low voice, Hanley said, “Let’s make this quick or I’m gonna pass out.”

“Do you mind if I ask what you’re looking for?” said St. John. “Sir!” he yelled at Hanley, who was peering behind a wall hanging. “That’s an extremely fragile Gobelin tapestry. Please do not handle it.”

Hanley held up his hands. “No need for a seizure. Just checking.” He went to a Chippendale bureau across the room. Most of the furniture was old, elegant, and in serious disrepair. The style of the apartment was sublime poverty. “Well, well, what’ve we got here?” Jeff had pulled out the bureau from the wall, a crumpled beret and stack of playbills spilling onto the floor. He drew out something sheathed in newspaper, unwrapped a painting of a girl standing by a window looking out at a river. On the windowsill was sprawled a tabby cat.

St. John’s laugh was rumbly and nervous. “I’m flattered you covet my work.”

“Huh?” said Hanley.

There was a muffled giggle from Russo.

“He says he’s flattered you want something he painted,” said Bunk.