“The exchange was heated and rather loud,” Queensbury continued, “but it only lasted a few moments before Hugh said he didn’t have any more time for such foolishness. He was in a hurry.”
“Did he say why?”
“Oh, yes. He was rather gleeful about it. He told me with a distinct leer that he had business with a lady.”
Chapter Nineteen - Oscar the Grouch
“A lady?” Lynda repeated later, almost hissing the words. “That was me!” she exclaimed ungrammatically.
“Shhh. I know that - and you don’t have to tell everybody else.” We were standing at the back of the President’s Dining Room. Mac was at the front, saying something about the upcoming Reader’s Theatre. “The point here, Lynda, is that Queensbury might share that little tidbit with the police. And if he does, and if the police find out you were Matheson’s constant companion at the colloquium today, you can expect Oscar to land on you like a ton of bricks.”
“Oscar Hummel is a ton of bricks.”
“He’s a little overweight.” Maybe sixty pounds or so, not closer to a hundred like Mac. “He’s also made his share of high-profile goofs, but don’t underestimate him - especially his tenacity. That would be a big mistake.”
“He has all the subtlety of a suicide bomber.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “and he could be just as destructive.”
We reclaimed our seats as the Reader’s Theatre began. Some local acting talent, including a few students, sat on stools at the front of the room and took parts reading a Sherlock Holmes story, “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton.” They wore only symbolic costumes - Holmes was identified by the ubiquitous deerstalker cap, for example. There were two Dr. Watsons - one the narrator and one the character - and both wore bowlers.
The title character of the story, Milverton, is the Worst Man in London, Holmes tells Watson. He is trying to squeeze blackmail out of a female client of Holmes, who refuses to play ball. Instead, Holmes adopts the identity of a plumber and romances Milverton’s housemaid. Once he wheedles enough information out of her, he cons Watson into helping him burgle Milverton’s house late one night to retrieve a set of embarrassing letters.
Holmes and Watson had just entered the grounds of the Milverton estate when Erin’s Finest came into the President’s Dining Room.
The beer belly alone might have been enough to make me recognize him out of the corner of my eye, but the headgear eliminated all doubt. Who else in Erin, Ohio, would wear a Panama hat? It had to be Oscar Hummel, a man too vain to show his balding head in public and yet too cheap to buy a wig. He always covers his pate with some tasteless hat or cap.
He sidled up to Mac, who was standing at the front of the room in his role as director of the Reader’s Theatre. After a tête-à-tête of no more than thirty seconds, the two left the room together, going past our table on the way out.
“What do you think Oscar wants with Mac?” Lynda asked in a low voice.
“You can bet they aren’t talking baseball,” I said. “Oscar probably found out from the Winfield that Matheson was in Erin for the colloquium. Mac organized the colloquium, so he might know the guy, right? Remember, Oscar has a keen perception of the obvious.”
That’s what had me worried. Of course Oscar would have his men scour the hotel for witnesses, just as any big-city force would do. How long could it be before somebody remembered seeing a man and woman leaving the hotel or maybe even Matheson’s floor around the time of the killing? Hours, not days. I had visions of Oscar throwing Lynda and me in his basement cell and shining lights in our eyes. Suddenly it was hot in the President’s Dining Room.
The actors on the stools in front were winding down their presentation of “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton.” Holmes and Watson, nearly caught in the act of burglary, watch as Milverton meets with one of his blackmail victims, a mysterious woman. She pulls out a gun and plugs Milverton repeatedly. With the rest of the household awakened by gunfire, Holmes and Watson run for it. (I kind of knew how they felt.) The out-of-shape doctor barely makes it over the wall and then-
I felt a tap on my shoulder.
My body twitched and I sucked air.
“Man, Jeff, you got a guilty conscience or what?”
“Oscar!” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“Tell you in the hallway.”
Oscar Hummel is forty-seven years old and looks older, never been married and it shows. Sometimes I worry that he’s what I could become in another few years of bachelorhood, minus the belly, but then I remind myself that I have better clothes sense. He was wearing a plaid sport coat over hound’s tooth pants and a pink shirt, no tie.
I followed him and Lynda followed me. Mac was a few yards outside the door, sitting in a blue plastic chair and making a half-dollar appear and disappear in his oversized hands.
“Cut out the damned parlor tricks,” Oscar growled at him. Turning to say something to me, he finally caught on that Lynda was part of the entourage.
“Oh, joy,” he said. “The press. Just what I need at nine-thirty on a Saturday night when I oughta be popping a beer and watching the Reds in spring training.”
“The game was this afternoon,” Lynda said. “They played the Cubs. I don’t know who won.”
Oscar didn’t seem to be particularly cheered by this information. He sighed. “At least you can give me a cigarette, Teal.” His mother disapproves of him smoking, so Oscar never buys cigarettes. But that doesn’t stop him from smoking them. This time, however, Lynda shook her head. “Sorry, Chief, I quit.”
He favored her with a sour look. “In that case, get the hell out of here.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, just as if I didn’t know.
Lynda, ignoring Oscar’s order to leave, silently offered him a stick of Big Red. He took it without thanks.
“Murder,” he said, putting the gum into his mouth. “Hot-shot lawyer from Cincy. Hugh Matheson. I’ve heard of him - who hasn’t? - and Mac knew him.”
“Indeed,” Mac said, making the coin vanish with the slightest motion of his hand. “The news of Hugh’s passing in this unpleasant manner is most distressing.”
“We weren’t friends,” I told Oscar, “but I met him this weekend.”
“And I sat next to him during some of the lectures and at lunch,” Lynda volunteered. Very smart, pointing that out before somebody else does.
Oscar grimaced and took the gum out of his mouth. “I hate cinnamon. Are you trying to poison me or what, Teal?”
“Don’t talk like that,” I snapped. The murder had me about ready to jump out of my skin, and I certainly was in no mood for attempts at homicidal humor.
“What happened to Matheson?” Lynda asked Oscar, another smart move on her part.
“Shot in the neck. Hit an artery, spouted blood all over the place.”
“Where did it happen?” Lynda persisted in her best journalist voice.
“In his room at the Winfield. Somebody called 911 with an anonymous tip around seven o’clock. Enough with the questions, Teal. We already got enough of that from your man Silverstein. He picked up the dispatch on the scanner and got there even before my people did - made a nuisance out of himself as usual.”
“That’s my Ben.”
“Do you have any ideas about this anonymous caller?” I tried to sound only casually interested.
Oscar shrugged. “The call came from a pay phone not too far from the hotel. I haven’t listened to the recording yet but the dispatcher said it was a man talking in a high-pitched voice, like Minnie Mouse on helium.” Smartass. “I figure it must have been somebody who was almost desperate to not get involved, maybe somebody whose wife didn’t know he was at the hotel.”
Mac caressed his beard. “You are confident it was not the killer?” Thanks a heap, Mac.