Murder to Go Page 8

  Johnson’s request to view the belongings left by Clyde Sweeney roused a demon of perversity in Ray Gallagher. Not without a search warrant, he declared, startled into family solidarity by the charge against his brother-in-law. Mrs. Sweeney tearfully proclaimed that Clyde had nothing to hide. Ellen, as usual, was left trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.

  Half an hour later Johnson was examining the contents of a large cardboard box. He found them rather pathetic. There was the famous television set. There was a trophy from a bowling tournament. There was an intricately worked model ship. All treasures that a man would want to keep, even if he were taking the first plane out of town and planning to lie low for six months. Captain Johnson was very thoughtful as he left the Gallagher home.

  “Clyde was strictly small-time,” said the bartender with finality. He jerked his head toward a corner table. “All of that bunch is, but Clyde most of all.”

  In less derogatory terms, this was the judgment of the table too.

  “Sure, I remember the night he was so excited. He came roaring in here like a house afire. Said he was on to something really good, the chance of a lifetime. But with Clyde, the chance of a lifetime was usually a tip on a horse. Though this time it wasn’t a horse.” The small bald man drew circles with his wet beer glass.

  “How do you know it wasn’t a horse?”

  “Because he stayed up in the air about it. A horse, it would have been over, one way or the other.”

  A large, soft-looking man agreed. “He was excited right up to the end. Even when he didn’t get the price he wanted on his car. Said a couple of hundred bucks didn’t make any difference any more.”

  “He claimed losing his job was the best thing that ever happened to him,” the third man at the table contributed. “I figured that meant he’d found another one. All Clyde’s jobs were going to be great—at first. You know, the first step on the road to the top.”

  The bald man dissented. “The way he talked, it didn’t sound like a job. You weren’t here that first night. After that he didn’t talk about it much.”

  “Well,” Johnson asked patiently, “what did he say when he did talk?”

  “Said he was the right man in the right place at the right time.” Baldie frowned as he tried to remember. “He said all it took was a little luck, and you ended being worth real money to someone. Oh, yes, he said some people got their kicks in the damnedest ways, but what the hell, so long as it didn’t really hurt anybody.”

  “Clyde,” said the large, soft man proudly, “was very broad-minded.”

  “Sure, Captain, sure I bought his car. But this won’t be in the papers, will it?” the thin man asked anxiously.

  “I don’t see why it should. But why the sweat?”

  “You don’t understand women.”

  Captain Johnson, who had several sisters, one wife, three daughters and a two-month-old granddaughter, waited.

  “Look, I got that car for four hundred dollars under the blue-book price. And it’s a real cream puff! But if my wife ever finds out it belonged to a mass poisoner, that’ll be the end. I’ll have to sell it!”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that, Mr. Baumer. Where did you two meet when the car was delivered?”

  “At my bank. Sweeney wanted to be paid in cash.”

  “And that was the last you saw of him?”

  “No. I offered to drive him to the station in Trenton.” Baumer had the grace to blush. “It’s only forty miles, and I wanted to let her out on the expressway.”

  Further inquiries disclosed only that Sweeney had been carrying two suitcases and was bound for New York. It did not take much imagination to realize that in New York Clyde Sweeney had probably changed his name. After that he could have gone anywhere.

  When Mr. Baumer left, Captain Johnson tilted back his chair and stared unseeingly into space. A picture of Sweeney was slowly developing. A man who spent his money on clothes and cars. A careful reader of the racing sheets and the tabloids. A timid, unadventurous kind of man. And, most important of all, a man about whom such disparate people as Sue Akers, Mrs. Menotti, Ray Gallagher and the bartender were in accord. With one voice, they said that Clyde Sweeney would never do anything big, anything startling. He would never really hurt anybody. He was a simple, stupid optimist.

  If they were right, thought Captain Johnson, the conclusion was clear. Clyde Sweeney had fulfilled his manifest destiny—by becoming somebody’s patsy.

  CHAPTER 8

  DISSOLVE THE SUGAR

  IN THE Sloan limousine speeding back to New York, John Thatcher was speculating, less professionally, along the same lines.

  “Has it occurred to you,” he asked Frank Hedstrom, “that this wretched Sweeney may not have realized what he was doing?”

  Robichaux snorted. “Then what did he think he was doing?” he demanded, turning from an uninspiring view of the Jersey flats. “Did he think he was getting a thousand bucks for fun?”

  “No,” said Thatcher, with a sidelong glance at the immobile Frank Hedstrom, “that’s not what I mean, Tom. Sweeney knew he was adding something to the Mexicali mix. But he might not have known it was poison. Perhaps he thought it was something that simply altered the taste. After all, a good dose of quinine would be enough to put people off Chicken Tonight for quite a while.”

  “I should think so!” said Robichaux, who had been known to blacklist restaurants for a misplaced lettuce leaf.

  Thatcher continued to muse aloud. “If Sweeney was only a dupe, then he must be terrified right now. First a wholesale poisoning, then that death in Elmira, and now a nationwide manhunt!”

  Hedstrom roused himself. “Maybe you’re right. But what difference does it make? Whoever hired Sweeney knew all this was going to happen. Hell, that’s why he didn’t do the job himself.”

  “Still can’t get over what a thousand dollars will buy these days!” Robichaux marveled to no one in particular.

  Thatcher ignored him and replied to Hedstrom. “But whoever did plan this must have taken precautions to keep Sweeney under wraps during the police hunt. Unless—” He broke off to examine a new thought, then went on. “Do you think it’s possible that Sweeney does not know who hired him?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Robichaux expostulated. “You don’t do business that way.”

  “You do, Tom, if your business is mass poisoning. Put yourself in Clyde Sweeney’s place,” Thatcher said sternly.

  Robichaux looked affronted.

  “You wake up to find yourself a murderer. You don’t know who hired you, and you’re too scared to go to the police.”

  If there was one thing Tom Robichaux knew about, it was money. “It doesn’t make any difference how scared he is. They’ll get him. If he’s only got one thousand dollars, he can’t go far.”

  Hedstrom objected. “Chances are, Sweeney does know who hired him. He’s probably sitting pretty.”

  “You don’t sound very interested,” Thatcher said dryly.

  For the first time, Hedstrom stopped staring out the window and gave his companions his full attention. “I’m not,” he said. “I’m interested in Chicken Tonight. Let the police take care of Sweeney. I’ve got my own problems.”

  “That’s the line to take,” said Robichaux with approval.

  As the conversation proceeded to business matters, Thatcher found himself only half listening. He was wondering if Frank Hedstrom really believed that Clyde Sweeney was not one of his most serious problems.

  “Levelheaded boy,” Robichaux observed after the limousine had dropped Frank Hedstrom at the Hotel Montrose.

  “Possibly,” said John Thatcher, “possibly a little too levelheaded.”

  Frank Hedstrom, meanwhile, was taking off his raincoat and delivering an unemotional account of the morning’s discoveries in Trenton and Willoughby. But Ted Young was given no opportunity to react. Hedstrom immediately swept on to future plans.

  “I want to reopen Chicken Tonight right away,” he said briskly, settling
himself at his desk.

  “Right away?” Young repeated. “Listen, Frank. I think we should take a few days until this uproar about Sweeney dies down. People are asking too many questions. Opening too soon could be a mistake.”

  There was an interval. “No,” Hedstrom said. “No, Ted, we’re opening all the Chicken Tonights as soon as we can. We can get permission from all the health authorities now, and, by God, that’s what we’re going to do! Tell the lawyers to get on the stick. We’ve got to come on strong. I want you to get Phil and tell him to go all out on the newspaper and radio promotion and—”

  Ted Young slumped farther down in his chair. He sounded morose. “It’s suicide, Frank,” he said. “You’re going to regret it. Give it a week, at least!”

  Hedstrom twirled a pencil. “It’s the only thing to do. Every day we’re shut is costing money. We’ve got to get back into business.”

  “If we can!”

  “If we can,” Hedstrom agreed. “But now—well, we’ve got the Sloan loan, which should help us over the rough spots. If we can just get things going we’ve got a chance. Otherwise, those contracts with Pelham Browne will eat us up alive. You know that!”

  Young looked at him somberly. “What do you think of the chances for the Southeastern merger, Frank?”

  Hedstrom shrugged. “I wouldn’t give ten cents for them. But Robichaux will try to find out,” he said.

  “Robichaux,” said Young wearily. “He won’t put up a fight for us.”

  Frank Hedstrom had never heard Ted Young sound so defeated. Instinctively, his own voice became more cheerful.

  “Well, that’s it. We open up Chicken Tonight and we pray. And then we get the hell away from business next weekend. Part of the trouble is that we’re all clutched up.”

  Ted Young grinned tiredly at him. “I’m all clutched up, you mean. No one’s ever going to make that complaint about you, Frank.”

  Hedstrom nodded. “No, the complaints about me are different, aren’t they?”

  Young gave his rare, short bark of laughter.

  “That’s better,” Hedstrom said. Just then the door opened and his secretary showed in his wife and Iris Young.

  Iris Young was visibly surprised by the laughter.

  “Well, you two seem to be shucking your problems,” she said. “Did you find out anything new, Frank?”

  Hedstrom bent over to give his wife a careful kiss. “Now, Iris. I’m not going to bore the two prettiest girls in town with a lot of business.”

  Joan Hedstrom responded simply and directly. “Then why don’t you two take us out for drinks? It would do both of you good to relax a little.”

  “Tempting,” said Ted Young, “very tempting!” He stepped forward to scoop up a woman on either arm.

  “Watch him,” said Hedstrom indulgently. “He’s turning dangerous, Ted is!”

  Joan Hedstrom sparkled flirtatiously. She looked up at Ted Young provocatively.

  “So Ted’s dangerous, is he? And you’ve been hiding it from me, Iris. Not that I blame you. But fair’s fair. Everybody has to take her chance.”

  Iris tried hard to get into the spirit of things.

  “Not me. I saw this coming and I immunized Ted against you a long time ago, Joan.”

  “Ha! Wait until I get him alone this weekend.” Joan was conscious of no restraint. She was smiling happily as she turned to her husband. “Iris still isn’t happy about the house. We’re not elegant enough for her.”

  Hedstrom’s shrug was barely perceptible. “Oh, Iris,” he said almost indifferently.

  It was then that Iris Young’s good intentions collapsed. The unfairness of everything swept over her. There was Ted, strained, tired and taut. And there was Frank, despite days of crisis, looking calm and unruffled. She yearned to puncture that self-possession.

  “Come on out with us,” she said. “We’ll be as gay and unconcerned as we can manage. After all, Frank, you’re front-page news. Everyone is going to be watching us. Looking for the first crack in the Hedstrom façade.”

  She knew she was being malicious, and ineffectively so. Ted Young lost his ebullience and became truculent.

  “Goddam ghouls,” he growled.

  Frank, the target of her shaft, was unshadowed.

  “Don’t let it get you down again, Ted,” he advised.

  It was at moments like this, Iris realized, that she came perilously close to hating Frank Hedstrom.

  CHAPTER 9

  OMIT HORSERADISH

  TWO DAYS later Tom Robichaux made an announcement.

  “Chicken Tonight has reopened.”

  “I would have to be deaf, dumb and blind to have missed it,” John Thatcher replied with some asperity.

  Six hours after a green light from the Public Health, Chicken Tonight flung open its doors—with as much hoopla as possible. From Maine to California, Chicken Tonight could once again dispatch a gold-and-orange truck to any doorstep, delivering succulent chicken Kabob with tempting side orders of cranberry wriggle and brandied onion rings. Full-page ads were urging Americans to have Chicken Tonight from St. Paul to St. Petersburg. High-priced singers interlarded the top ten hits on dozens of radio stations with a catchy jingle:

  To-oo Make Life Bright

  Have Chi-i-cken To-oo-nite!

  But during the same twenty-four hours, the front pages from Atlantic to Pacific hammered another refrain: “POLICE HUNT CLYDE SWEENEY. NO MOTIVE, SAYS HEDSTROM. FBI ENTERS CASE.”

  Irrational or not, Americans were boycotting Chicken Tonight. And not only Chicken Tonight. The best efforts of the American Poultry Institute were unavailing; broiler sales still ran seventy to eighty percent below normal.

  As for home deliveries . . .

  It was Thatcher’s private opinion that the appearance of the famous gold-and-orange truck on many a quiet suburban street could incite to riot.

  “It’s like a newspaper strike,” Robichaux said.

  “What is, Tom?” asked Thatcher, happy to have a respite from the clamors of the Trinkam Anniversary Committee.

  “This chicken crisis. You know, every time there’s a newspaper strike, people get out of the habit of reading papers. Then, when the strike is settled, they’re surprised that a lot of readers have gone away forever. I tell you, some of my wives had more brains than these unions and publishers.”

  “Oh, I scarcely think Americans have given up chicken for good,” Thatcher remarked.

  But the real reason for Robichaux’s pessimism turned out not to be chicken consumption. “I might have to go down to Philadelphia myself,” he announced, making it sound like Hanoi.

  “To see if you can salvage the merger?” Thatcher asked. “Isn’t that visionary, Tom? After all, the board of Southeastern Insurance reads the papers, too. They know what’s been happening to Chicken Tonight—and it scarcely makes it a desirable partner for a corporate marriage, does it?”

  This earned him a stately lecture on the subject of looking on the bright side of things.

  “All right, Tom,” said Thatcher, repressing the temptation to ask where it was. “You may be right.”

  “You think so?” Robichaux was touchingly eager for reassurance. But, in good conscience, Thatcher could not offer more.

  His own research department had surveyed the Chicken Tonight debacle with its customary bleak eye. The upshot was a warning to any trust officers who had been out of the country during the preceding weeks to eschew Chicken Tonight in any way, shape or form. This excellent advice, of course, was too late for Commercial Credit. Maitland had scarcely returned from Bates Residence for Freshmen Women before he was hospitalized with what was officially described as extreme fatigue.

  Despite this overwhelmingly negative picture, Thatcher suspected that Frank Hedstrom might pull through. This was guesswork on his part. Thatcher’s trip to Trenton had raised the possibility that the motives of Frank Hedstrom were as mystifying as those of Clyde Sweeney. But one thing was certain: Hedstrom was not a born loser. He might sti
ll make this a horse race, for Thatcher’s money.

  Since this approach was not really respectable for an eminent Wall Street banker, Thatcher wished Robichaux well and tried to put Chicken Tonight from his mind.

  Both events and Robichaux conspired against him. Before the day was out, Miss Corsa announced yet another call from Robichaux & Devane.

  “Yes, Tom,” said Thatcher, a shade wearily.

  Resolute cheeriness was gone. Indignation had replaced it.

  “Philadelphia!” said Robichaux in tones of pure loathing. “John, you wouldn’t believe it!”

  This did not prevent him from providing considerable detail.

  The call from Robichaux requesting an appointment had arrived at the staid offices of Southeastern Insurance Company at a most inconvenient moment. Morgan Ogilvie had been planning an early departure. Very early.

  Hat in hand, he had been caught leaving by his venerable uncle.

  “Want to talk to you about this Chicken Tonight fiasco, Morgan.”

  “Yes, of course, Uncle Buell,” said Ogilvie with a quick glance at his watch. “I’ve promised Margo . . .”

  But Buell Ogilvie, president of Southeastern, had not reached his figurehead eminence by undue concern for the promises of others.

  “Where do we stand on the merger?” he demanded abruptly.

  “Of course, the board—”

  “Oh, damn the board. What I want to know, Morgan, is what the situation is! And what you propose doing about it!”

  His nephew resigned himself to delay. He tossed his hat on a chair.

  “Well, as you know, we have a commitment—”

  “Commitment be damned!” Uncle Buell sputtered. “Yes, we sent out proxies to our stockholders! But we can go to the SEC and send out other proxies. What kind of commitment is this, anyway, Morgan? We voted to merge with a going concern, not one headed for bankruptcy!”

  “We don’t want to act hastily.”

  “What do you mean, hastily? Do you want to merge with Chicken Tonight now? Just give me a plain yes or no!”

  Morgan Ogilvie tried to hold on to an ebbing temper. Although he was the man who actually ran Southeastern Insurance, he was always meticulously correct with his uncle. Still, he did not enjoy having to account to this aged and querulous man for his business decisions.