Even the Butler Was Poor by Ron Goulart Page A

acquired a few new wrinkles. "He's not a friend of mine, if that's what you man," he answered. "More like somebody I maybe met once—or saw on television years ago."
    "He seems to be at least seventy." H.J. glanced hopefully at Sankowitz.
    He gave a negative shake of his head. "I can't dredge up a name as yet. Could be it's only that he somewhat resembles my Uncle Herschell."
    H.J. rubbed her fingers across the back of Ben's neck. "Do you realize what we've got pictures of?"
    "A safe guess would be that this is the windup of a murder."
    "That's not necessarily so," said Sankowitz from the sofa.
    "What else," asked H.J. scornfully, "would it possibly be?"
    "The man might simply have had a heart attack."
    "If your Uncle Herschell dropped dead in your parlor," said H.J. impatiently, "would you haul him off to dump in a culvert? What I mean is, if you didn't have anything to do with his kicking off, you'd phone the police or the paramedics. And you'd sure as heck leave him lying where he fell."
    "I would, sure," agreed Sankowitz. "Thing is, Helen, I'm not the spokesman for a multimedia, multimillion dollar food account. Nor, last time I checked, am I an important exec with a prestigious advertising agency. These people don't want any scandal."
    "That part is right, they sure don't." She recrossed her legs, rubbing at her bare knee. "It's dead certain one of them killed this poor old duffer. To avoid any legal trouble or any scandal that would hurt the Chumley account, they decided to get rid of the body. Then they could pretend that none of them had a thing to do with sending him on to glory."
    Ben tapped one of the small photos. "This, by the way, is Kathkart's place," he said. "We went to a party there one time years ago."
    "You and me?" asked H.J.
    "I don't remember," he said. "But if this is Kathkart's house, he's likely the one who committed the murder."
    "That doesn't necessarily follow."
    "Sure, it does. Beaujack didn't drop over to Kathkart's to kill off one of his guests. It has to be Chumley who killed. . . Damn, I wish we knew the victim's name."
    "I may come up with the name eventually." Sankowitz studied his share of the photos again. "There are other ways to find it out, though."
    "Obituaries," suggested Ben.
    "If he was well-known, yeah. We can assume that Helen's late chum took these pictures within the past couple of weeks, so we—"
    "They are recent, because Trinity has her current hair style," said Ben.
    "Okay, then you can definitely check recent obits."
    "Suppose they dumped the body in the Sound in a gunnysack full of scrap metal?" H.J. left the chair arm to start pacing in a wide, lopsided circle. "There won't be any obituary in that case."
    "But there still might be a missing persons notice of some sort."
    "Be more likely that they'd dump the body a safe distance from Kathkart's place in Westport," suggested Ben. "And try to make it look as though the guy had met with an accident or been mugged."
    H.J. halted and eyed her former husband. "Hey, how do you know about the present state of Trinity Winters's hair?"
    He leaned back in his chair, letting the photos rest on his knee. "I hate to mention all this," he said. "But it occurred to me a few minutes ago that I didn't get my latest My Man Chumley role solely because of my impressive talent."
    Snapping her fingers, H.J. said, "Beaujack wanted to get you out of the house, so he could have somebody come here and search it."
    He nodded, tapping another photo. "This is probably the same Mercedes that tried to flatten us the other night," he said. "And it's probably Les Beaujack's car."
    "So he saw you with me, figured you must be involved in all this mess."
    "Or at least that I might know something about what Rick Dell was up to," said Ben. "Beaujack was very cordial to me today, but he did make a few remarks that seemed odd even at the time. Yep, I have to admit that he had ulterior motives for casting me as an English muffin."
    "Was Trinity at the