Jean Backus - Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

Mr. Hector said, “Are you saying that these are not valid signatures?”

“Of course they’re valid. Who says they’re not? Are you implying that there’s been a detent to infraud?”

“This is ridiculous,” said Dooney. “Stop it, Moorman — we’re busy men.”

“Yeah. It’s almost noon. You’re probably hungry... Want some salami?”

“No.”

“Bet Stoop does. He looks like he could use a good meal.”

He went into the kitchen. They heard him whistling.

Mr. Hector muttered, “I’ve got a headache. This guy is crazy.”

Dooney nodded glumly.

Moorman called, “How do you want your salami?”

“We don’t. We’re going, but we’ll be back. With the sheriff.”

Moorman came in. He bore in his right hand a four-foot salami. “Stick around, there’s plenty. Stoop really looks hungry. Look at his eyes bug out at the sight of this!” He beamed at Mr. Hector. “Really go for salami, eh. Stoop? You want to wait for a knife, or you just want to start chewing?”

Mr. Hector was tucking the contract in his briefcase. Moorman tossed the salami gently so that it landed across Mr. Hector’s knees. The lawyer stared at it in wonderment.

“You want one, Rooney? I got a couple more... If you don’t want to eat it now. Stoop, shove it in your briefcase.”

Dooney was on his feet. Mr. Hector stood up too, the salami rolling off his lap to the rug.

Dooney said, “Enjoy your joke. It’ll be a lot of fun when Mrs. Moorman comes home and you tell her that all the furniture and the color TV and the beds and the washing machine are gone.”

Moorman was quiet. His face looked suddenly strange and still.

He murmured, “I wish I could.”

He had turned and was gazing out the wide sliding window at the back lawn.

At the far end, near the redwood fence, was a patch of raw earth, recently spaded.

Dooney said, “What did you say?”

Moorman gazed out the window. The two men stared at him.

Dooney said sharply, “Are you all right, Moorman?”

“What?” Moorman turned quickly. “Of course, of course! Why shouldn’t I be?” He shook his head and laughed, a low forced note. “Thinking of something, that’s all... just thinking of something.”

Mr. Hector and Dooney looked at each other. Dooney said, “What’s going on, Moorman?”

“Nothing.” Moorman’s smile looked set; he rapidly blinked his eyes. “Look, uh... all right, I did make some jokes. It was because I — well, all right, I wanted to take my mind off... listen, we all got problems, is that right? They’re not all money problems. There’s other things, too. I–I’m sorry if anything I said sounded insulting. It wasn’t meant to be, it was just for fun — you seemed like good guys. There’s nothing, nothing.” He shook his head quickly and his stiff smile widened. “It was all just fooling around. Look, how much was that? Seventy-what?”

Dooney said, “$71.88.”

“Okay. I got it right here, in my pocket. $71.88, eh? I was going to give it to you...” He pulled out bills, and counted them off: “Twenty, forty, fifty, sixty, sixty-five, seventy, seventy-one... I got no change. Call it $72.00.”

Dooney took the money. He said, “Do you have twelve cents, Morris?”

“I’ve got nine cents. That’s all I have.” The lawyer was going through his pockets.

Moorman said, “That’s okay. That’s fine.” He pocketed the coins Mr. Hector held out. “That takes care of it, huh?”

“I’ll write you a receipt for $71.91.” Dooney had sat down again and taken a receipt book and pen from his pocket.

Mr. Hector was watching Moorman. He said quietly, “I suppose your wife will be pleased when you tell her the bill is paid.”

“Yeah. She will.” His quick responding smile was only a stretching of his lips. It did not touch his shadowed eyes.

“Is she away on a little trip?”

“What? Yeah. Right. She’s visiting some relatives.” He glanced out the window, across the lawn, then his glance shot back. “Yeah, she’ll be pleased. Look, I’m sorry if I said some silly things, but that’s the way the mind works sometimes.” He walked them to the door. “Everything okay now?”

Dooney said, “All right, Mr. Moorman. Another payment is due in a couple of weeks.”

“I know. It’ll be there. You can count on it.”

They walked down the drive. He watched them.

Mr. Hector looked back, as he got in the car. He saw Moorman watching, his face set, his eyes still.

He said, as Dooney started the car, “Drive to the police station.”

“What?”

“He’s crazy. That was plain from the beginning... That patch of earth was almost raw.”

Dooney stared ahead, as he drove through the tract.

“You saw what happened right after he first glanced out there. How he changed.”

Dooney nodded.

“And right after that, so anxious to get things straightened out with us. To know that everything was all right — and that we weren’t going to the sheriff.”

Dooney said, “We got the payment.”

“Yes, but... the way he changed, what he said, his craziness, his wife not being there... and the look of that spaded earth. This was no joke, Ron. Not that look in his eyes. There was a look of... I don’t know — something horrible, something recent.”

His thin lips tightened into a hint of a smile, and his large eyes glittered behind the thick glasses.

He said softly, “The next joke for Mr. Moorman may be a long time coming.”

Moorman cut off a chunk of salami, which he ate as he finished the bottle of wine. Then he lay down on the couch.

The phone rang.

He picked it up, gave a deep vocal yawn, and sighed wearily, “Cannonball Express.”

“Honey, how are you doing?”

“Good. Fine.”

“How’s the day off?”

“Terrific. How’s your Aunt Letitia?”

“You mean Aunt Charlotte. She’s fine. I’ll stay a couple more days, I think.”

“Okay.”

“Good weather here... Love you, honey. Say, did you get hold of Affiliated Finance?”

“They got hold of me. Mr. Dooney called.”

“You told him I just plain forgot to send the check, what with hurrying to catch the plane and all?”

“Well, not quite. But he got his money. He came out here with a lawyer. They were going to hijack the furniture.”

“Good Lord! Is everything okay?”

“Oh, it’s great. They think I’ve murdered you and buried you in the back yard.”

“What! What did you tell them?”

“Nothing. I just looked out at the place I’d dug up Saturday to put in some tomato plants. And they got this weird notion.”

“I wonder why.”

“Well, you know... I have a few days off, and don’t want to hang around the bars. I’m drinking a little white wine and missing you, and just hatching up a few things to pass the time... I expect the cops here shortly.”

“Oh, Jack!” He could picture her shaking her head, and her eyes warm and loving and bewildered and at the same time not unhappy, and accepting the fact that he wasn’t quite the standard suburban husband. “So you’ve been playing your games! When are you going to grow up?”

“Never, I hope. Sounds like no fun at all.”

“You’re almost forty!”

“That’s a canard. I’m just sexually precocious. I’m really fourteen.”

“Six, more likely.”

“You could be right. Six is a good age for games.”

“What are the cops going to do?”

“Belabor me with cacklebladders and boil me in midnight oil. Then they’ll dig up the tomato plot again.”

“You could be in trouble.”

“Yeah, if you should get clumsy up there and fall into some bottomless pit. So don’t disappear. Come home radiant and rambunctious, and we’ll have a lot of fun.”