It had to be You

was hiking near her house back in December and saw the body go in the lake. He ran down the hill to ask if she could call the police, which she did. Then he disappeared. The dotty old woman said he was a Communist, coming to grab her and take her to Russia. He had a stick, long greasy hair, and wore a red beret.“
    “He was probably just a hiker, don’t you think?“ Robert asked.
    “If he existed at all,“ Lily replied. “There is that bear story she told.“
    “Don’t you think it’s interesting that the Connors are from Beacon and so is this mysterious body?”
    Lily pondered this. “I can’t see a connection.”
    “Neither can I. But it is odd.”
    Lily’s thoughts strayed. “I wonder if Kelly Connor knows his grandfather is dead.“
    “Maybe,“ Robert said. “He might be the killer himself.“
    “I simply can’t believe that. You didn’t meet him. I did. He was such a cheerful young man. And he seemed honest. When he was showing us his products, he even mentioned that he thought one was overpriced.“
    “What product?“
    “I don’t remember. But I still don’t think he’d hurt anyone. I fancy that I have an instinct about who’s nice and who isn’t.“
    “Most people think that, too. I mean, about themselves. The fact is, if the will says what Mrs. Connor says it does, your nice young man with the trinkets inherits half of his grandfather’s farm, and there’s been no sign of him at the nursing home since his grandfather’s death.“
    “Maybe he’s just been in other towns,“ Lily argued. “It’s not that he visited every week. Just when he was in Voorburg. He will be back. Mrs. Prinney wanted galoshes that he had to order specially by color and size.“
    “What about the other brother?“ Robert asked. His eyelids were getting heavy, and when Mimi brought in a dessert for him, he turned it down.
    When Mimi had gone, Lily said, “Nobody seems to know anything about where he is. He had a job in New York City working on one of those skyscrapers.“
    “Can’t the New York City police ask around for him?“
    “I think they probably have too many other things to deal with,“ Lily answered. “But I’ll ask Howard about it the next time I see him. I’m sure that’s something he’s thought of. Go take a bath and go to bed, Robert.”

Chapter 19

    On Tuesday, the Harbinger boys started assembling the working parts of the dumbwaiter. Robert had his hopes up that this was the day the food might come up and the dirty dishes go down without anyone having to carry them. The kitchen skivvy hoped so, too. But Robert was most concerned about the laundry. He was sick and tired of hauling it up and down two flights of stairs.
    But it wasn’t to be. When the trial run with just the ropes was being done, the platform stuck at the first-floor level. Apparently it had swung a mere quarter inch to one side and got caught under what used to be the extra bathroom on the first floor. It took the Harbinger boys a half hour to make a slightly bigger cut in the shaft, and while they were doing so, they decided the platform needed to go up and down on a track of some sort so that it couldn’t sway in the vertical column and get trapped between floors.
    Harry Harbinger was furious with himself when he realized that his one experience with the workings of an elevator years ago had been missing one important element. They had to take new measurements and go back to Poughkeepsie. They didn’t have much confidence that an ordinary hardware store would have elevator tracks. What’s more, if they had to order them, the expense would be horrendous, and a lot of time would be lost. Worst of all, they had no way to carry a three-story set of metal tracks and it would be impossible to bend them to run them up the chute.
    For once in his life, Robert accidentally made a genuinely good suggestion. “Why don’t you use wood instead of metal?“
    “Because it would rub against the wood projecting from the platform,“ Harry said.
    “Not if you greased the uprights and the projecting pieces that are on the platform that fit between the pieces of wood,“ Robert said.
    The Harbinger boys started discussing what sort of grease it would take. Motor oil was too thin. Butter was too expensive and would soak in and go rancid and stink in the summer. They finally settled on a hard varnish, another expense, but not as impossible as metal. Then almost anything sufficiently oily could be poured sparsely down the