Murder Old and New

by Chet Williamson

  However, unlike every other morning, Ted wasn’t sitting at his desk, his eyes glued to the computer monitor. Instead he was standing at the glass door, looking out at the dingy gray street. I said not a word, but went straight to my work, as Clement Clarke Moore might have put it, sitting down at my desk with the coffee I’d brought from my kitchen and turning on my own computer. I would not, not, not, I decided, discuss any of what had just transpired with Ted. It really was none of his business. Except for the being thrown on my kitchen floor and sat-on part.

  But after a while, as I tried to do my work and Ted continued to stare out the window, I figured as his employer I had to say something. I considered my words for a long time, then finally asked, “You okay?”

  It wasn’t eloquent, but it provoked a response. He finally turned and looked at me, gave a soft little smile, took a deep breath, and said, “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  Then, still smiling, he returned to his desk and began working like nothing had ever happened, that he really was as okay as he said he was. As the morning wore on, he seemed more normal than he ever had before, not constantly deferring to me, but just being nice and polite, asking me if I wanted coffee when he got himself a cup, but not serving it to me, just setting it on my desk with a “There ya go…”

  It was what I had been wishing our relationship would be like all along, and I should have been happy, but instead it kind of creeped me out. The transition from devoted slave to chirpy colleague was too fast for comfort, and I wondered if Ted was planning to butcher me and Dave in the post-coital sleep of our next assignation. I could only assume he had gone crazy since he just wasn’t heartbroken enough.

  Finally, I got up and walked the few steps to his desk, then looked down at him with pursed lips. “Should we talk?” I asked.

  When he looked up at me, I still thought he looked like a puppy, but not a sad, begging one. No, now he looked like a happy puppy. “Sure, whatever. About what?”

  About the elephant in the room, I thought, the one with her boob hanging out of her robe. But instead I said, “About…upstairs?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, as though he’d forgotten about it, though I knew he hadn’t any more than I had.

  “Well,” I said, “I just don’t want us to be…uncomfortable with it, you know?”

  “Gotcha. Yeah. No, I’m okay with it. I mean, he didn’t know who I was, that’s cool. I coulda been a burglar, like he said.”

  “Oh. Okay. Good.” I took a deep breath. “But you’re not…upset about finding Dave and me…together…like that?”

  “You mean sleeping together?” He gave a cockeyed grin and shrugged. “Well, duh, no. It’s not like you’re my mom…”

  His mom?

  “I mean, you can sleep with whoever you want to, it’s not my business. I’m cool with it, Livy, really. I mean, like, good for you, y’know?”

  “Oh…” I nodded. “Okay. That’s good. I’ll just, uh…get back to work then. Um…thanks.”

  “Sure,” Ted said, and turned back to his keyboard. I went and sat down, feeling like a big fat idiot.

  Okay, what was really going on here? Was Ted being straight with me? Had he, in his long gaze out the window, achieved a Livy satori in which he, having basically found me in the carnal embrace of another man, suddenly renounced his long-standing passion for me?

  Or, horrors of horrors, had that passion never been there to begin with?

  Had I been fooling myself all along?

  Had all those buddy dates been…pity dates? Pity for an older woman (like Ted’s mom?!?) from a nice younger guy who just wanted to make sure that his older, older, older boss had at least some social life?

  When I thought back over our dates, I realized with a chill that Ted had never once made a clumsy attempt to kiss me, or hug me, or even hold my hand. A few times, in bad weather, he had taken my arm when we crossed a puddle or a patch of ice, just the thing, I thought with self-loathing, he might have done for his mom.

  Then my ego took over again, and I told myself that maybe his indifference was feigned, that during his long gaze out the window he had realized that a relationship between the two of us could never be, and that he had decided, realistically and maturely, to once and for all put me out of his mind as a possible mate.

  Sure, that was it. It had to be.

  Or at least I could pretend it was. And the fact that a sexy cop was even now sitting in my kitchen in his skivvies drinking my coffee was as soothing a balm to my bruised ego as I could hope for.

  Telling myself that several times, I tried to concentrate on my work, and spent the morning in a schizophrenic state of self-doubt, humiliation, and fading sexual afterglow. After my stripped-to-the-bone lunch (someone was seeing me naked now, after all), I got my father’s photos and the old yearbook from upstairs, and walked over to the police station where, after a short wait, Dave joined me and invited me into his office.

  When the door was closed, he gave me a brief kiss of greeting that could have lasted longer, as far as I was concerned. “Nice to see you again,” he said, and gestured to the chair. I sat down, and he sat behind his desk and positioned his hands on his computer keyboard. “First, let’s get that statement. Tell me everything you told me last night.”

  “Everything?” I asked, trying to sound like Lauren Bacall.

  “Everything about the case,” he said, with a look that suggested he wanted to discuss business and nothing more.

  I told him everything I had earlier, and he entered all the information, printed out my statement, and then took the photos and yearbook. “Do you want these back?” he asked. “I can make copies if you do.”

  “No, keep them. I’m sick of having those pictures around, and I don’t care about the yearbook. Now, what did you find out about Tom Drummond?”

  “Something pretty damned interesting. He was arrested once and once only, as far as the records go.” Dave picked up a fresh white sheet of paper and glanced at it as he spoke. “Back in April of 1946, right after he got out of the Navy.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Dave smiled. “Here’s the good part—suspicion of murder. In the slaying of a young woman named Bertha Martin. It seems Bertha’s body was found in a woods outside of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and guess under what circumstances?”

  My mouth was a little dry, but I got out the words. “Hanging from a tree?”

  “Bingo. According to the testimony of a Mister Michael Flanagan, Bertha Martin was last seen in a nearby roadhouse, and one of the people she had been talking to was a traveling Bible salesman. Flanagan claims that the two whispered together, and then the salesman left, and a minute later so did Bertha Martin. Her body was found two weeks later. Flanagan didn’t know Drummond’s name, but the police fished around and learned his identity through the owner of a boarding house he stayed at. They contacted his employer and brought him in for questioning in Ohio. Turned out he didn’t have any alibi for that night, and they extradited him back to Pennsylvania. Flanagan ID’d him, and they locked him up.

  “They didn’t have any other evidence, at least none that’s in the case file, but it was probably one of those cases where they thought they could eventually break him down. Only problem was, before they could do it, they found another victim up near Scranton, a fresh one. Actually been killed when Drummond was in custody. So…”

  I saw my carefully laid out plot going down the drain. “They let him go?”

  “They had no choice.”

  “But couldn’t it have been a copycat killing or something?”

  “There were certain…idiosyncrasies…that were the same in all the previous cases, including Bertha Martin—the way the knot was tied around the victims’ necks, the method of strangulation, the…sexual aspects. All those details were like fingerprints. If Drummond had committed both murders, he’d had to have been able to be in two places at once. So yeah, they let him go.”

  I sat there, stunned and confused. This couldn’t be right. It didn
’t make any sense. Tom Drummond had to be the Hangman Killer. “Look, Dave,” I said, trying to piece it back together, “I admit, all my evidence, the back story that I’ve worked up for Tom Drummond—it’s circumstantial, yeah. But the fact is that he was interrupted while he was trying to murder somebody—trying to smother them!”

  “And that means he was probably crazy. He certainly had the potential to kill. But it doesn’t mean he was a killer before. And it doesn’t mean he was the Hangman Killer.” Dave came around the side of his desk and sat on the edge of it, looking down at me. “There’s no reason to disbelieve Harold Newbury’s story. It seems likely that Drummond did try to kill Mary Hamilton last night. And it’s certainly possible that he might have been responsible for the deaths of the other two women who died recently. In fact, the D.A.’s considering exhuming those bodies for a complete autopsy. If they were smothered, we can find out.”

  I nodded. “That’s something, I suppose.”

  “Damned right it is.”

  “That’s it then?”

  “Unless you have anything else to add? If not, you just want to sign your statement—there at the bottom?” I did, and he took the paper back. “Okay, Livy,” he said, “thanks for coming in. Sorry we couldn’t put this all together.”

  He didn’t do anything, so I stood up and slipped my coat back on. He helped me, and when I turned around, I twisted my head as if for a goodbye kiss, and he obliged, though not with the passion I’d hoped for. Couldn’t blame him, though, for not wanting to be caught in a liplock by a colleague. I’ve seen those TV shows, so I know how they ride each other.

  “See you,” I said as I opened the door.

  “I’ll call you,” he replied, so that was good.

  Chapter 18

  After I left Dave, I headed over to the Gates Home. It was nearly three when I arrived, and Mother was watching TV as usual. I talked to her about the night before, but gingerly, wanting to see how much she was aware of. As it turned out, not much.

  “Yes,” she said, “I heard there was something that happened last night…someone died?”

  “Yes, Mother. Tom Drummond.”

  “Did I know him?”

  “I don’t think you did, no…”

  And that was about the extent of our conversation concerning a murder averted and the killer hoisted by his own petard, with a little help from Harold Newbury. When Mother and I were through chatting about the weather and her TV shows and the food, which she liked less and less every day, I kissed her goodbye and went down the hall to visit the person I was most concerned about, Harold.

  I knocked on his door, which was open a few inches, and called his name. “Come in, Livy,” he replied, in a far weaker voice than I’d been accustomed to hearing him use.

  He was sitting in his easy chair, a little worse for wear. White stubble spotted his usually clean-shaven face, he wore a bathrobe over pajamas instead of the usual blazer, shirt and tie he usually sported, and his smile was as thin as his gaunt neck. “Forgive my appearance,” he said, and his tone sounded rough, as though he hadn’t had anything to drink all day. “Last night really took it out of me, I’m afraid.”

  I noticed a paperback in his lap. “What are you reading?” I asked. He held it up—Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. “I thought that was the only one you remembered the ending of.”

  He nodded. “Sometimes predictability can be comforting. It’s nice to be able to slip into a world in which you already know who the bad guy is.” He shook his head. “Tom Drummond…he was far from a prince, but I had no idea he was…such a monster.”

  I sat on the bed next to him and patted his hand. “I know,” I said. “he didn’t seem…the type. I mean, to do something like that. I guess you never know.”

  “No. I guess not.” I saw tears in his eyes, and I handed him a tissue. “Sorry,” he said as he took it. “I’m just not used to…to things like that. God…”

  “I know, Harold, I know. I’m so sorry.” I got him a drink of water and sat with him until he finished it. Then I made him promise that he would get dressed and go to the dining hall for dinner, rather than just pick at the crackers and candy he had in the room.

  I didn’t go into the story about Tom Drummond being arrested for the Hangman Murders. Though it might have eased Harold’s mind a little, I thought that maybe the best thing for him would be to just forget about it if he could, so I told him what jazz records I was thinking of playing at the next session. “I’ve got one of old New Orleans stuff—Kid Ory on trombone, you hear of him?”

  “Oh sure,” Harold said, but his usual enthusiasm was tempered with sadness. He smiled, but there was no real smile there.

  We talked a little more—I tried to keep it light and inconsequential—and then I stood up. “Well, I’d better get going. Almost time to help Ted close up the shop.”

  “Thanks for coming, Livy,” Harold said, pushing himself to his feet despite my gestures that he stay seated. “No, no, there’s something I want to give you…”

  He crossed the small room to his closet, and I followed him in case he should stumble. He opened the closet door, and took from it a small wooden box, about ten inches wide and half again as deep and high. Then he handed it to me.

  The surface of the top and sides was crudely carved, as though with an old woodburning tool, into a façade of grape vines. The grapes were colored a faded purple, the branches brown, and the green leaves had been lightened by the decades to a thin teal. The back and bottom were smooth but scratched. It was a box that had been around for a long time and had received a lot of use.

  “It’s got some of my…treasures, I guess you’d call them. Personal things. Don’t mean much to anybody but me. I haven’t even looked in there for a long time.” He chuckled. “Couldn’t even find the key last time I looked for it, though it’s got to be around here somewhere. I want you to have it.”

  “Oh, Harold…”

  “Now don’t get all worked up—there’s no money in there, just…little things I couldn’t bear to throw away. I just didn’t want them to be tossed out when…if something happens to me. But don’t open it until after I’m gone, Livy. Then break that cheap little lock, and if you want to toss it, toss it.”

  “I won’t toss it, Harold, ever.”

  He smiled again, and this time it was more like the old Harold. “That’s my girl,” he said. Then some of his old zest seemed to return as well. “Now then, on your way to serve the gods of commerce. And I promise that I’ll get myself spiffed up to join my fellow gourmands around the stew pot come dinner time, okay?”

  “Okay, Harold.” I kissed his stubbly cheek, and left his room, the box tucked under my arm.

  By the time I got back to the shop, it was 5:00, and Ted had just finished shutting down his computer. When he saw me coming through the door, he gave me a smile that was broader than usual (and broader than necessary, I thought), and gave a cheery little wave that he had never given before. Something had definitely changed in our relationship, and I wasn’t sure if it was for better or worse.

  Ted told me about a few walk-in sales he’d made that afternoon. Then he slipped his messenger bag over his shoulder and headed to the door, where he paused and turned back.

  “Oh, Livy,” he said, “I just happened to think…I know tonight’s our movie night…” I had forgotten amidst all the chaos of the preceding night, and tensed in expectation of what he might say. “But I made some other plans with some buds…hope you won’t mind if I skip it just this once, huh?”

  “No…that’s okay.” My words came out automatically.

  “We’ll get you next week,” Ted said, and went out the door, leaving me alone.

  I locked the door, turned out the lights, and carried Harold’s box upstairs to my apartment, thinking all the way.

  Okay now, what was that all about? Had Ted just decided that, since I was finally receiving some attention in the male companion area, that it was no longer necessary to ta
ke his sad old employer out? And what was the reason he frequently seemed so glum on our buddy dates? Was it, as I’d thought, that he was down because he knew he’d never get to first base with me? Or had it been because he just didn’t want to be there, but did it out of duty?

  The same way he’d take his mom to church.

  Oh God. What an idiot I am, I thought, as I tucked away Harold’s box on the top shelf of my bedroom closet. I hoped it would be a long time before I had to open it. As I closed the closet door, and Fudge starting winding his way between and around my ankles, begging for food, I considered getting a box of my own that I could fill with all my blunders, mistakes, and misapprehensions. Pandora could just forget it—her box would be no match for mine.

  Then I decided against it. I already had so many screwups scattered over the face of the earth that I could never hope to get them all back into one place again.

  That evening I sort of hoped Dave would call, but he didn’t. So I watched a movie and then the late news.

  They had a big story about Tom Drummond’s death, in which the local D.A. made the announcement that the death was accidental, possibly as the result of an attack upon another resident. They interviewed two people who had relatives in the home, one of whom said that he still had confidence in the management, but the other of whom called for a government investigation of the way the place was run.

  Doris Landover was interviewed, and said that the home’s security met all state and county guidelines, but that it would be increased in light of the recent occurrence, and reiterated that “the safety of our residents is paramount and always has been. We deeply regret that such a thing occurred, and we are taking steps to ensure that nothing like it will ever happen again.” Your lips to God’s ears, I thought.

  Doris looked harassed, and I couldn’t blame her. But the furor would die down now that Tom Drummond was gone, and nothing more would happen, I was sure of it. Despite Drummond’s alibi that saved his ass back in the forties, I felt certain that he was responsible for…whatever had almost happened to Martha Hamilton and what maybe did happen to Enid Shaw and Rachel Gold.