It had to be You

son’s name and keeping the proceeds. How the son had moved his own family away and forbidden any of them ever to have contact with the senior Connors.
    The story sounded distinctly secondhand and well rehearsed to Howard. Was any of it true? In his experience even the most accomplished liars or gossips included at least one element of the truth. Sometimes in spite of not meaning to do so.
    He’d call Chief Simpson later and ask if he’d heard this story. The Connors lived in Simpson’s patch. He’d know. Before Walker left the two old ladies, he asked if they could make him a list of all their friends who’d visited here while Mr. Connor was a patient.
    He frankly didn’t think this was going to be of any help, but it was his duty to gather as much information as he could find out and sift through it repeatedly. In two previous cases, one of the most trivial facts he’d gleaned had turned out to be the key to solving the crime. His first superior had told him that at least ninety percent of what the police discovered wasn’t useful, but to keep everything written down, so as not to lose the ten percent that counted.
    When he finally got away from Miss Smith and Miss Jones, the Harbinger boys had just come into the living room. Harry was telling Miss Twibell that all their duplicate measurements so far had matched the first ones and they had their list of what they needed from Poughkeepsie. Would she be able to advance them that part of the payment so they could purchase it?
    Miss Twibell went to get her checkbook. The account was in a Poughkeepsie bank and they wouldn’t have trouble cashing it. Unless it was one of the banks that couldn’t operate now. What would she do if that was true? She didn’t have that much cash on hand.
    When she’d left, Harry turned around to take the last measurement of the storeroom and stopped in his tracks. “Where did all the stuff on the wall go?“
    “Everybody pitched in and put it in another room,“ Walker said. “Robert and I took down the glass cabinet doors and the main door. We would have taken down the counter and empty cabinets if we’d known how to.“
    “Thanks for taking care of this. It was the part of the job we were dreading,“ Harry admitted. “Since the two of you are still here, could you help us take down the upper cabinet? It’s too heavy for just two of us to manage.”
    Walker and Robert served as “holder-uppers“ while Harry and his brother pulled the nails out. When the cabinet started to wobble, Harry said, “Pull the bottom out slightly so it doesn’t fall on you.”
    Suddenly the last two nails near the top came out and both Robert and Howard groaned at the shock of how heavy the cabinet was, even empty and with the glass doors removed. After the four of them carried it out into the hall, Robert said, “I have to take the laundry down.”
    Howard said, “And I have to go back to my office to make some telephone calls and make notes.”
    Lily, who’d stayed to observe, whispered to Betty, “Those are just excuses. Both of them are red in the face and gasping.”
    They smiled at each other smugly.

Chapter 12

    Chief Walker helped Robert haul the big laundry bin down to the first floor. “Aren’t you going to help me take it down to the basement?“ Robert asked.
    “You don’t need me. You just put yourself in this position to escape helping with that heavy counter.“
    “So did you.“
    “No, I really do need to make a phone call from my office,“ Howard said. As he went out the front door and closed it behind him, he turned back and tested whether it had locked behind him, and was pleased with the result. Maybe the staff wasn’t as sloppy about their safety and that of their patients as he had feared.
    As he went toward the police car, he spotted Mr. Farleigh coming around the corner of the house pushing a wheelbarrow. Howard would have liked to talk to him but knew it would frighten the man. So he just smiled and waved. Farleigh nodded and continued wherever he was headed.
    Howard realized he’d noticed cooking smells on the first floor wafting up from the kitchen below and was now suddenly hungry. The woman who ran the boardinghouse always served lumpy, sticky porridge with burnt toast on Friday mornings. He’d learned to avoid eating breakfast on Fridays.
    He stopped by Mabel’s cafe and asked for a sandwich to take to work. As he waited, one of the Communists who thought no one knew they met in Mabel’s back