“And do you figure this has something to do with Mrs. Crossthwait's death, the silly treasure story, or Uncle Joe's birth circumstances as well?"
“You're verging on sarcasm, aren't you?" Jane said.
“Not verging. Wading right in," Mel said.
Jane was tired and cranky. But she knew better than to say anything she'd later regret. "We're just telling you what we know and think that the local police might not have come across. If you want to pass it along, fine. If you don't, that's okay, too.”
Mel was more chastised by this approach than he would have been if she'd been nasty. "Okay. I see your point. I'll go hunt down Officer Smith and pass this along while I try to find out what else he might know. Sure you don't want to come along?"
“No, I like prissy chicken salad. The prissier the better," Jane said.
Thirteen
Mel ended up having dinner with officer John · Smith at an old roadhouse that didn't even have a sign in front. It was strictly a neighborhood male hangout and specialized in excellent chicken fried steak and mediocre beer.
“I'd be glad for the company," Smith said when Mel offered to treat him to dinner. "My wife's visiting her mother with the kids and I'm a lousy cook. Listen, if you'd like, let me invite somebody else along, too."
“Sure," Mel had said.
Smith made a phone call and they set out for the roadhouse. "I've asked Gus Ambler to meet us. He's a good man who was county sheriff for a dog's age. If there's any background on the lodge that would help us, Ambler'll know all about it.”
Gus Ambler looked like a tough, fat little fighting cock. What little hair he still had was short and white, but he had the coloring of a once-redhead. Mel knew from what Smith had said that Ambler had to be in his seventies, maybe early eighties, but he looked like a "rode-hardand-put-away-wet" fifty. He couldn't have been more than five feet tall and walked with the belligerent, rolling gait of an old sailor.
Ambler was already at the roadhouse and halfway through his first beer when Mel and Smith arrived. Smith performed the introductions and Mel said, "If you'd ever arrested me, I'd have been scared spitless.”
Ambler preened. "And you'da been right, boy! I had 'em shaking in their boots in my day. So what are you boys up to that you need to talk to an old geezer like me?"
“You heard about the death at the Thatchers' lodge?" Smith asked.
“I hear about everything, boy. Got a perp yet?"
“Nope," Smith said. "But we're pretty sure it was someone in the house. Thought you might tell us a bit about the lodge and the Thatchers.”
Ambler glared at Mel. "And what's your place in this?"
“I'm just a guest. A friend of mine is in charge of planning the wedding that's going on tomorrow and I'm watching out for her interests. Besides, I'm curious."
“And he's a good cop, too," Smith put in. He reeled off a list of some of the difficult cases Mel had been responsible for solving.
“How'd you know that?" Mel asked.
Smith looked surprised. "I checked you out. Just like I did everybody. Anybody can create a fake ID these days. Wouldn't you have done the same?”
Mel grinned. "Exactly the same."
“So you're one of us," Ambler said. While they were studying the menus, a waste of time since they were all going to have the famous chicken fried steak anyway, Ambler ran through a few of the cases he'd been involved in. They went clear back to Prohibition days when he was just a kid, hanging out with his uncle, who'd been a deputy.
Mel loved nothing better than to sit around with a tough old cop telling stories of the good old days, but Smith had apparently heard the stories before and gently guided the elderly man back to what he knew of the lodge.
“It was a monastery to start with. I guess you knew that. Bunch of sissy boys from back East came out here in long brown dresses with a rich guy who musta thought they could pray his way into heaven," Ambler said.
A tired-looking waitress came by and slammed three beers on the table and took their orders.
“Anyhow," Ambler went on, "the rich guy died after they'd been here a couple o' years and the money ran out. I guess he figured he didn't need the prayers after he was dead so he didn't leave them any money to get along on. The monks tried growing vegetables and keeping bees and weaving stuff and whatnot, even turned a hand at making soap for a while, but they gave up and sold the place to O. W. Thatcher. That musta been in about 1932 or '33. Bad times, those were. But O. W didn't seem to be hurting for money like the rest of us. He was a young man then, but ran his dad's company selling little junky stuff like folding rulers and toothpick holders and such. Can't imagine how he made a dime on toothpick holders, being as most of us then couldn't even afford toothpicks…”
Mel had the feeling this story might not ever really get off the ground. Smith apparently did, too. "So did O. W. spend a lot of time here?"
“Not at first. Only hunting season. He'd come down here with a bunch of his Chicago cronies and man, were they ever a terror! Drinking like fish, driving around the countryside like maniacs, picking off people's cats and dogs with their rifles."
“Not very welcome in the neighborhood, then?" Mel asked.
“Not welcome a'tall. No, sirree. But it got better after a bit. O. W. got married, had a couple kids, started bringing friends' families down instead of his drinking buddies. By that time, the money situation had eased up and there was less resentment of him on that account, too."
“Was the guy they call 'Uncle Joe' part of the family?" Mel asked.
“Lordy, no! He was O. W.'s bastard kid. The wife probably wouldn't have heard of having him around underfoot. Wasn't until she died when the other kids were in their teens that O. W. dragged Joe into the family. And he was a wild one. In all kinds of trouble when he got here, but then the war came and he went off. And he came back different."
“Different in what way?"
“Not wild, for one thing. Quiet-like and always sort of cranky. People said he had some kind of injury, but nobody seemed to know just what. Nothing showed. He didn't limp or have a deaf ear or anything like that. Rumor was that he had some shrapnel in his head, but I don't know that it was true. People'll make up what they need to think.”
The waitress brought their food, which was wonderful, and they ate in silence for a while. Eventually Ambler burped heartily and went on. "Anyhow, O. W. kept Joe on at the lodge. Guess he felt he owed the boy something, being as he wasn't quite fit to go out in the world. And I gotta give Joe credit. When O. W. got old and pretty dotty, Joe was the one who took care of him. O. W. spent a lot of his later years at the lodge."
“So they got along well?" Mel asked.
“Hell, no! Neither one of them was fit company for a polecat, but they rubbed along okay. Joe took him back and forth to Chicago to doctors. Bitched the whole time about it, but did it. O. W. was always complaining that Joe was starving him to death, but he kept gaining weight until the last stroke when Joe couldn't handle him anymore and was forced to put him in a nursing home."
“Did O. W. leave Joe anything?"
“Not so's you'd notice. But Joe's kind of a nut about his privacy. He never said. And it was one of those trust things that don't go through probate and become public record, so nobody could check. Joe might have got a fortune, but you'd never know. He's as tight and stingy as O. W. was. Even in the old days, when the hard drinkers were down here, word was they had to bring their own booze. O. W. liked the company, but wouldn't pay for their guzzling."
“Did Jack and his sisters visit much?" Mel asked.
“It went in spells. The girls would get hard-up or want a trip to Europe and they'd make up to the old man. Jack came down a lot, but it was always about business," Ambler said. "The old man insisted on keeping his finger in the pie."