It was Miss Ball that came up with the solution. Without a word she darted upstairs to the suitcases. She came back almost immediately, seated herself as before and dropped a blood-stained wallet on the table. Gingerly — because the plastic wallet was still sticky with the gentleman’s blood — Miss Ball picked through it. Out tumbled membership cards, wedding pictures, snapshots of little kids with beach pails, and finally the prize: a picture of the man himself and a woman — obviously his wife; she looked grim and stood apart from him — who was leaning on the very same umbrella that was now resting against the wall upstairs in Miss Ball’s attic. On the back of the photograph was printed: “Benny’s Fotoshop — Close to You in the Lobby of the Barracuda Beach Hotel,” and under that in ballpoint: “Baracuta Beach, 1962.” There was also an identification card which read:
Harold Potts, Jr.
1217 Palm Drive
Mount Holly
In case of accident please notify a priest and
Mrs. Ethel Potts
(address as above)
Harold’s blood type, a little ragged card with a picture of Jesus on the front and a prayer on the back, and a relic of a tiny piece of cloth that had “touched a piece of the True Cross” sealed in plastic, were also among the valuables. Mr. Gibbon searched in vain for a party card. He came up with a few suspicious-looking documents, but remarked, “He’d be a fool if he carried the thing around with him.”
Miss Ball paid no attention to Mr. Gibbon’s investigation. She had found what she wanted.
Dear Ethel (Miss Ball wrote),
I wonder if you remember me? We spent those lovely days together at the Barracuda Beach Hotel back in ’62. We met briefly during a bridge game. (I can’t remember if we were playing, watching, or just passing by the bridge tables — goodness how the memory starts playing tricks as the years go by!)
To make a long story short I met dear old Harold just yesterday at the Mount Holly Trust Company — well, I tell you Harold just couldn’t stop talking! We came to my house for tea and just talked and talked and talked of the wonderful days we spent at the Barracuda Beach Hotel back in ’62. Harold said he had a touch of gastritis and wanted to go straight to bed, couldn’t walk so he said. Well, here it is 10 in the am and he’s still sleeping like a baby! I called the bank and told them he wouldn’t be in this morning. I think his tummy needs a rest, frankly Ethel, and I just hate the thought of waking him up, so peaceful he looks. I think he should be improving in the next few days and I’ll be sure to have him call you when he wakes up.
I just wanted to let you know that he’s safe in the hands of an old friend and that there’s no need to get all flustered and call the Missing Persons Bureau! Ha-ha! And that I look forward to more happy days like the ones we spent at the Barracuda Beach Hotel back in ’62.
Your old friend,
Nettie
“Perfect,” was all Mr. Gibbon said.
“I feel as if I know her,” Miss Ball said.
The letter was sent special delivery (“What’s thirty cents,” Mrs. Gneiss said), without a return address, in a plain envelope. Mr. Gibbon estimated that it would be in Ethel Potts’s hands before noon.
“What about Warren’s nearest of kin,” Mrs. Gneiss asked.
“His nearest of kin? Well, that’s me, I guess, and I know where he is!” Miss Ball said. She did not say it with regret; but there was no joy in her voice either. Miss Ball did not quite know what to think about Juan’s death. He had been very pleasant — if a bit jumpy — at first. Only lately had he been asking for more pin-money. He had also recently demanded to move in with Miss Ball, but she had discouraged that. He had a good heart. He had bought things for Miss Ball. He was constantly surprising her with little mementos like the framed picture of Clark Gable or the doilies — he adored doilies for a reason Miss Ball could not even guess at. He had “been with” Miss Ball for about ten months and had never once shown the sort of jealous rage that had prompted him to stab Harold Potts to death.
Juan would have died violently sooner or later. It’s in the blood. Better he died in the privacy of Miss Ball’s own home than in the gutter. And then maybe Mr. Gibbon was right: maybe Juan was a communist. He was certainly dark, a Puerto Rican, there was no denying that! Mr. Gibbon was more familiar with the You-Know-Whos than Miss Ball. She knew that. He knew what he was doing. So goodbye, Juan, hasta luego and sleep well, Miss Ball thought.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gibbon was getting impatient. “An itchy trigger-finger,” he said. Sooner or later Ethel Potts would start wondering who in Sam Hill was Nettie and might turn the letter over to the police. This would ruin Mr. Gibbon’s timing. Floor plan or no floor plan, they would have to rob the bank quickly — at least in the next week or so. Here Herbie was out of boot camp, on his way to the front lines — probably he had nailed a few dozen commies already. A greenhorn! And here was Mr. Gibbon with only these two rather unimportant fellow travellers to his credit.
Mrs. Gneiss agreed. She said she was getting edgy. She didn’t enjoy getting edgy. If the robbery was to be done, it should be done as speedily as possible, so that they could all relax and enjoy the rewards and fame the robbery would bring them. She for one didn’t want Ethel Potts going haywire and accusing them of killing her husband. But as usual she said nothing more. Charlie knew best. She would wait until he gave the word. The whole thing was his idea, he was the brains and should make the decisions.
“I’d just like to have a look around the bank tomorrow before we go ahead with it,” Mr. Gibbon said. Miss Ball should not come along. They didn’t want to arouse any suspicions. He and Mrs. Gneiss would just sort of mosey around the bank, seeing what they could see and getting the general layout of the place and, in short, “casing the joint.”
Miss Ball said that suited her fine. They sat around the house reading and puttering around for the rest of the afternoon. Mr. Gibbon attended to his long-neglected paper bags; Mrs. Gneiss watched TV. But Miss Ball sat and scowled. Her brow grew more and more furrowed as the afternoon wore on. By five o’clock she was genuinely distressed. Something had just occurred to her. No one took any notice of her, not even when she scribbled a little reminder on the notepad, which she always carried in her apron.
12
Miss Ball kept looking into store windows. Before each one she paused, touched at her hair, pressed her lips together and, reasonably satisfied with the reflection that stared out at her from the foundation garments or baked goods, she walked on toward the doctor’s office.
She had begun to worry. She had read of a man who woke up one morning with the beginnings of a sixth finger; she had heard of a lung ballooning to twice its normal size when it had to do the work of two. And there were tonsils, adenoids, and the appendix, which often grew back if they were not watched properly and nipped, so to speak, in the bud. It was her operation that was making her jittery. How could she be sure that her insides wouldn’t grow back when so many other things grew back?
Nature was hard to understand. You clip grass and trim bushes and pluck hairs and what do you get? More grass, stray branches and bushy eyebrows. Miss Ball found that she could not cope with nature. Nature was always ahead of her, ahead of everyone she knew.