The Nighttime is the Right Time

by Bill Crider

  Dolly looked up. "Before the shots?"

  "Yes," Janice said. "Did you hear anything? The door knocker? Anything at all?"

  "Mr. Franklin asked me that," Dolly said. "I told him no. I didn't hear a thing."

  "Think hard," Janice said, and Bo wondered what she was getting at. "Close your eyes and try to imagine that you're back in your room. You're sewing, and the house is quiet. Can you hear anything at all?"

  For a full minute Dolly said nothing. Then she said, "Maybe I can hear voices. But not loud. It's hard to hear things up there on the second floor."

  "What kind of voices?" Janice asked.

  "Angry maybe," Dolly said. "I'm just not sure."

  Bo was sure. And he was elated. It was just exactly as he'd thought. An argument. Could he plot, or could he plot?

  Dolly left the kitchen and Jimmy came in. Though he had just completed his law degree, he looked more like a mechanic than an attorney. He was wearing overalls with black grease stains on them and a blue work shirt that looked even worse than the overalls. There was even a smear of grease on his face.

  Jimmy told them even less than Dolly had. From the garage he could hear nothing at all.

  "Were the garage doors open?" Janice asked.

  Jimmy told her that they weren't. "Too windy," he explained.

  Bo didn't know the point of that, exchange, either. What difference did it make whether the garage doors were open? But he didn't worry about it. He had everything figured now. He pictured the killer climbing carefully down the drainpipe, then slipping quietly away through the dripping pecan trees in back of the house.

  Jimmy couldn't tell them anything else. "I wish I'd heard someone," he said. "Maybe I could have done something."

  Bo didn't think he really seemed all that concerned.

  "Or maybe you would have been shot, too," Janice said.

  "Maybe," Jimmy said, and then he left the room.

  Jeffery Walton was next. He came in with his hand out and a smile like a used car salesman. He was wearing a light gray wool suit that Bo figured had set him back about three Sam Fernando royalty statements. There was a dark stain on one knee of the suit.

  "I'm Ray's business manager," Walton said. "He often told me about you two. I'm sorry we have to meet under these circumstances."

  Bo shook Walton's hand. "It's not your fault."

  "How long have you been associated with Ray?" Janice asked.

  Walton thought for a moment. "Fifteen years, give or take a few months. We did a lot of business together."

  "But things haven't gone so well lately, have they?" Janice asked.

  Walton lost his smile. "That's correct. The market hasn't behaved as a lot of us thought it would."

  Bo didn't know a thing about that, and he didn't think Janice did, either. Neither of them had any money in the market, though the Gentleman Sleuth books were beginning to pay off. Bo had a fairly sizeable savings account, and it was time he started thinking of other kinds of investments.

  "I don't suppose Ray was happy about that," Janice said.

  "Neither was I," Walton told her.

  "Is that your camel's hair coat in the hall closet?" Janice asked. "It's very nice."

  "Yes," Walton said. "It's mine. I'm glad you like it."

  "Can you think of anyone who might have wanted Ray dead?" Bo asked. He was tired of all the irrelevant questions Janice was asking everyone.

  "Several people," Walton said. He looked over his shoulder toward the other part of the house. "I don't want to talk about anyone, but--"

  "Never mind," Janice said. "We know that Ray wasn't on the best of terms with his children."

  "I meant anyone outside the family," Bo said.

  "I really can't think of anyone," Walton admitted. "Ray was on pretty good terms with everyone."

  He gave it some more thought at Bo's urging, but he still couldn't come up with any names, so Janice asked if there were any cars in the street when he drove up.

  "I didn't see any."

  Bo didn't see the point of that one. He started to say so, but Janice was already asking Walton to send in Hank Rollins.

  Rollins was tall and slender, with a weathered face and hands. He was wearing a flannel shirt, a denim jacket, and faded jeans. Janice asked him to tell what had happened earlier.

  "I heard the shots," Rollins said, his voice quivering slightly. "Two of 'em. I got to the house quick as I could, but I was cuttin' some dead limbs out of those pecan trees in back, and it took me a second or two to get movin'. I looked in through those funny doors, and I could see Mr. Ray was lyin' right there in the floor."

  "And there was no one else in the room?" Janice said.

  "Not a single, solitary soul. I broke out one of them little glass panes and opened the doors. I seen right off there wasn't a thing I could do."

  "And there was someone knocking at the front door?" Janice asked.

  "Yep. It was that Mr. Walton. I let him in, and by that time Miss Dolly was in the library. She seen her daddy lyin' there and busted out screamin'. Mr. Walton took her in the den to try calmin' her down, and I called the cops."

  "Did you see any cars on the street when you opened the door?" Janice asked.

  "Nope. Just that big Lincoln that Mr. Walton drives."

  Bo finally figured out why Janice had asked Jimmy about the garage doors. She wanted to know if he could see the street. But he still didn't see why she wanted to know. By the time he'd thought about it for a few seconds, Janice was asking Rollins what exactly what Walton did when he went into the library.

  "Well, that's hard to say. Miss Dolly was standin' there, and Walton got down on his knees to see if Mr. Ray was dead."

  The dark stain on the knee of the suit was blood, Bo thought.

  "I hope he didn't get any blood on that expensive top coat," Janice said.

  "Oh, he wasn't wearin' any coat," Rollins told her.

  Bo wondered about the man who'd gone up the chimney. He ought to be easy to spot. His coat and pants would have soot all over them. He hoped the police were doing a search of the neighborhood.

  Janice was through with Rollins. He left the room, his shoulders slumped as if he were carrying something heavy. He looked as if he were the only one who was really sad about Ray Thompson's death.

  "Are you finished talking to them?" Bo asked.

  "I think so. Are you ready to play Sam Fernando?"

  "Huh? What are you talking about?"

  "I'm talking about calling all the suspects together in the den and pulling the killer out of a hat."

  "That's a mixed metaphor," Bo said. "At least I think it is. I figured you for a better writer than that."

  "You know what I mean. Are you ready?"

  "You mean you're not kidding? Do have any idea what you're talking about?"

  Janice smiled. "Of course I do. Don't you?"

  "The chimney," Bo said. "It has to be the chimney."

  "Don't be silly. All that soot? The police must've caused that when the searched it. You don't think they'd miss somethin' that obvious, do you?"

  "Rats," Bo said. "Probably not."

  "And if the killer kicked out the soot, wouldn't Mr. Rollins or Mr. Walton or Dolly have noticed it fallin' out of the chimney? Wouldn't they have heard him scrabblin' around in there?"

  "I guess so," Bo said. He was quite disappointed. It had all seemed so logical.

  "You get it now, though, don't you?" Janice asked.

  Bo had to admit that he didn't, so Janice told him.

  V

  Jimmy Thompson sat uncomfortably in an overstuffed leather-covered chair that looked as if it belonged in a lawyer's office instead of a den. Jeffery Walton and Dolly sat on a long floral-covered couch. Hank Rollins sat in a wingback chair. Franklin, Bo, and Janice stood near the center of the room. Detective Simmons was standing at one end of the couch. It was time for the big moment.

  Franklin had everyone's attention as he began speaking. "As you all know, Miss Langtry and M
r. Wagner are more or less experts in unusual murder cases like this, and they were also friends of the victim. I asked them to come over and give us the benefit of their expertise, and they tell me know who killed Mr. Thompson."

  Everyone looked a little shocked at that bit of news, and Jimmy Thompson leaned forward. "Are you joking? They're just writers, not trained investigators. They don't know anything about real life."

  Bo had never particularly disliked Jimmy before, but now he saw that, given the opportunity, he could develop quite an antipathy to the young man.

  "They may be writers, but they do know something about locked rooms. Mr. Wagner?"

  Bo straightened and tried to look dignified in the Sam Fernando manner, but it wasn't easy while wearing a green shirt and a red jacket with jeans that had a hole in the knee. Sam Fernando wouldn't have been caught dead in any such get-up. Bo thought Janice would have been much more impressive in the role, but she wanted him to do it.

  "When you have a murder like this," Bo said, "you have to consider the usual things: motive, means, and opportunity. The problem with this particular case is that there doesn't seem to have been an opportunity." He paused dramatically, just as Sam Fernando often did. "But there was."

  "Baloney," Jimmy said. "There was no one in the room when Rollins came in, and my father was dead."

  "But there was someone in the room," Bo said. "Or there had been."

  Jimmy was still belligerent. "So how did he get in? Dolly didn't ever hear the knocker. Neither did I."

  "You tell 'em, Janice," Bo said. He wanted her to get some of the glory. After all, it was her idea. Besides, she could take some of the blame if it all turned out to be wrong.

  "No one heard the knocker because no one used it," Janice said. "We didn't use it when we came. Lt. Franklin was waiting at the door for us, and he saw us coming through the glass panes on either side. Ray was waiting for someone he badly wanted to see. When that person arrived, Ray was at the door and opened it for him."

  "And who was that person?" Walton asked.

  "You should know," Bo said. "It was you."

  Walton half rose from the couch. "That's ridiculous."

  "No it isn't," Bo said. "Ray let you in. I think he suspected that you'd been jiggling his accounts. He told me and Janice that he was thinking about letting Jimmy and Dolly have a little more money, and I figure that when he discussed that with you, you told him that it wasn't available. He wanted to know why. Maybe you stalled him for a while, but you couldn't put him off forever. He demanded a face-to-face meeting. There was an argument. Maybe you threatened him. He went for the pistol he kept in his desk. You took it away from him, and then you shot him."

  Walton was breathing hard. "Utterly ridiculous. You can't prove a word of it."

  "There were no other cars on the street," Bo went on. "Therefore the killer either walked here--unlikely in this weather--or drove. Only one person drove."

  "He could have been here already," Walton pointed out. He was getting his breathing back under control. "What about Dolly and Jimmy? What about Rollins?"

  "I guess it could be one of them," Bo said. "But it wasn't. Tell him what gave him away, Janice."

  "That topcoat you said was yours," she told Walton. "It's hanging in the closet. You took it off when you came in the first time, and you didn't have time to put it back on. Maybe you didn't even think about it, but you were mighty calm if you ask me. Calm enough to know that if you hurried, you could get back outside before anybody got here to investigate the shots. Then you could bang on the door and pretend you were just arrivin'. But Mr. Rollins will swear that you didn't have the coat on when he let you in. Won't you, Mr. Rollins?"

  "I sure as to God will," Rollins said. He looked as if he would like to come out of the wingback chair and throttle Walton right there in the library.

  "You still can't prove I killed him," Walton said. "There's no weapon."

  "Not right now," Bo said. "But it couldn't be far. In fact, I'd bet it's jammed up the drain spout right out there by the front door."

  That was when Walton jumped for him.

  Bo squared off and raised his fists, much as he imagined Mike Hammer would have done in a similar situation, but he didn't get to test his talent for violence. Detective Simmons put a big and on Walton's collar and jerked him back down on the couch.

  "There, there," Simmons said. "None of that."

  Walton snorted and tried to twist out of Simmons' grip, but he couldn't. He sat and stared balefully at Bo and Janice.

  Dolly was looking at Walton strangely. "I don't understand," she said. "Why didn't he just get in his car and leave?"

  "He was probably afraid someone would see him," Bo said, though he wasn't sure about that part. Janice hadn't told him what she thought.

  Now, however, she did. "It was probably because he was afraid someone here would know that he had an appointment with Dad today. I don't think anyone did, but what if Ray had written it on his calendar? Walton could have justified being late, but he might not have been able to explain things if he didn't show up at all."

  Franklin called the two policemen who had been in the library earlier and told one of them to check the drain pipe. The man was back in less than a minute.

  "It's in there, all right. I didn't want to touch it."

  "We'll get it later," Franklin said. "It's not going anywhere, and those fingerprints won't wash off so easily. Take Mr. Walton to the station, boys."

  "With pleasure," Simmons said, jerking Walton up off the couch.

  Walton tried to say something, but his voice was too choked by Simmons' grip on his collar to be intelligible. Bo figured that was just as well.

  VI

  While they were driving back to the house to finish work on their book, Bo sulked behind the wheel.

  After they had gone a few blocks, Janice said, "You don't seem too happy that we cracked the case."

  Bo stared out moodily through the windshield. It was no longer raining, but the sky was still heavy with clouds. The radio was playing "Walking Along" by the Diamonds, a number that would normally have cheered him up. But not this time.

  "I didn't crack anything. You did."

  “What difference does that make? We made sure that Ray's killer didn't get away with it."

  Bo turned his head to look at her. "I didn't make sure. I thought all the time that it was the chimney." He faced front again.

  "That doesn't matter. You were looking at it like a story. I was looking at it like real life. Besides, we're a team. Partners. I learned everything I know about figuring out plots from reading your outlines. Even if the spelling is atrocious."

  "Really? You mean that?"

  "Sure I do. I couldn't have figured it out without knowing the way you think about things."

  "Maybe you don't need me anymore, then."

  "Now you know better than that. Didn't I say we were a team? Just like Crosby and Hope."

  "Right! Ruth and Gehrig."

  "Martin and Lewis."

  "They broke up."

  "Well, we won't. Just like Burns and Allen."

  Bo laughed. "Abbott and Costello."

  "Frick and Frack," Janice said, joining in his laughter.

  "Damon and Pythias."

  "Aeneas and Achates."

  "Sodom and Gomorrah," Bo added, hopefully.

  "Forget it, bub!"

  But Bo thought about it all the way home.

  The Santa Claus Caper

  I’ve always enjoyed writing about English teacher Carl Burns and his friendly adversary “Boss” Napier. They’ve appeared in three books and two Christmas stories.

  "Pum-pum-pum-pum-puuum-pum---pum-pum-pum-pum-pum."

  R. M. "Boss" Napier, chief of the Pecan City, Texas, police, puffed his cheeks and pummed the words to the theme from his favorite TV show, Hawaii Five-O. Still available every evening, thanks to cable. He accompanied himself by patting his hands on the edge of his battered wooden desk.

  Thinking of whi
te sand beaches, blue skies and bluer waves, he resolutely resisted turning to look out the window at his back. Had he done so, he would have seen that the dark sky in the north was getting darker still, turning a deep blue that was almost black as the norther that was sweeping down on Pecan City got closer and closer.

  It wasn't so much that Napier disliked the wind and the cold that he knew were coming. After all, you expected that kind of weather in West Texas in December.

  What he disliked was that it was almost Christmas, a time of year which did not generally make him a more kindly and benevolent person.

  As far as he was concerned, it didn't make anybody more kindly and benevolent. What it did was bring out the shoplifters and the burglars, increase the number of assaults and accidents involving drunken drivers, and generally wreak havoc with the community.

  And worse even than those things, Napier had somehow let himself be talked into taking part in a community activity. He didn't like community activities, but he'd let himself be persuaded by Carl Burns, that wimp English teacher out at the college, to be part of something Burns called a "readers' theater" version of "A Christmas Carol."

  "You'll love it," Burns told him. "And even if you don't, think of all the people who'll come and bring their kids. Think of all those potential voters."

  It was something to think about, all right. In Pecan City, the office of Chief was elective rather than appointed.

  "Besides," Burns said, "the Mayor will be reading a part. So will I. It's sort of like your civic duty."

  Napier thought he was doing his civic duty by serving as police chief. He didn't see why he had to be in some ridiculous play.

  "It's not ridiculous," Burns said. "Just think of it as a favor to me. I've helped you out a time or two."

  Napier didn't like to admit it, but Burns had a point. The English teacher wasn't really such a wimp, and he'd been in on two murder cases that might not have gotten solved without him, or at least not solved as quickly as they had been.