by Lionel White
When Kitteridge had been transferred to the States some years back, he had accepted the assignment gratuitously, but with a certain deep skepticism. The
first two years, spent in a small apartment hotel in Manhattan, had done lit-* tie to alleviate the skepticism. And then, when he had finally reached the conclusion that this American assignment would probably be permanent as well as final, they had decided to take a house. Martha had done the shopping;
it was she who had discovered Fairlawn.
The price, which was certainly reasonable enough in view of the inflated value of money at the time, had been a little steep for the Kitteridges, who were limited by the still austere standards of their native land and salary, but Martha had a small inheritance of her own which she had never touched. She didn't hesitate to cash it in and use the money to buy the Fairlawn house.
A small-boned, delicate woman with fine tender white skin which never seemed to burn even in the hottest sun, she was to be seen, from the day she moved into the place, at almost any hour of the day, pottering around her tiny garden, her hands invariably encased in white canvas garden gloves and a wide-brimmed “African Veldt” hat shading her very alert, pale-blue eyes. Beyond doubt, Martha Kitteridge had a green thumb; there is no question but that her great passion in life was the nurturing and cultivation of flora and fauna. Of the hundreds of homes in Fairlawn, hers was outstanding as a result of the shrubs and flowers, the perennials and annuals with which she had landscaped the plot surrounding the house.
In spite of her rather strange and foreign British accent and a certain inherent shyness, she took almost as much interest in her new neighbors as she did in the garden upon which she devoted so much of her energy and her time. Martha Kitteridge loved people.
It is worth commenting that people in turn seemed to love and to trust her. She was probably the only woman in the whole of Fairlawn for whom everyone had a kind word. The MacSweeneys may have disliked the Piazzas, considering them little better than immigrants; McNally may have hated Neilsen because he thought him a snob; the Olsens could have looked down upon (and envied) the Cathcarts, because Mrs. Cathcart was obviously a drunkard and her husband came home with strange women, but no one, no one at all, disliked Mrs. Kitnitridge. She was so very obviously exactly what she appeared to be—a simple, sweet, little old lady who loved her garden and was very polite and very kind to everyone who passed her house. She was sweet to the dirty-faced children who ran across her newly planted flower beds; she went so far as to pet and surreptitiously feed the dogs who had excavated her recently planted bulbs.
Mrs. Kitteridge would, of course, run out and wave her apron at the dogs when she saw them doing it, usually with a bone in her hand to reward the treacherous animal for his trespass. In fact, that is precisely what she was doing on that Saturday morning at exactly ten o’clock when Len Neilsen, her
neighbor from two doors up the street, drove by. She stopped waving at the dog just long enough to wave at Mr. Neilsen.
She was just a little surprised, and possibly a little hurt, when Mr. Neilsen passed hurriedly by, ignoring her completely. She could have sworn that he saw her, too. His car passed within less than a dozen yards.
The fact is, however, that Len Neilsen was completely unaware of the little white-haired woman with the large ham bone in one hand and an apron in her other. Len Neilsen was on his way to the police station.
The decision which had been so difficult to reach a few hours before, as Len and Allie had sat in the cold predawn, staring white-faced at each other, had seemed simplicity itself in the warm light of the morning. They hadn't discussed it at all, as, sleepy-eyed they had once more sat at the breakfast table with little Billy babbling away between them. Nothing had been said until the child had finished his own hearty breakfast of soft-boiled eggs and orange juice, toast and milk, and gone back to his room to play.
The moment the door closed behind young Bill, Len got up from his chair and walked around the table. He leaned over Allie, looking down into her upraised face.
“I’m getting dressed now,” he said. “I’m going to the police station.”
Allie’s expression didn’t change.
“I knew you would,” she said.
There had been no need for further words. At nine fifty-five, Len went out to the garage, looking neither right nor left. He raised the overhead door, backed out the Ford, and stopped in the driveway long enough to get out and reclose the door. He finished backing into the street, swinging the car around so it faced north. And then he drove surely and quickly off.
The nearest police station, a branch of the Nassau County Police in whose jurisdiction Fairlawn lay, was some three miles off, at the edge of the next town. Len had looked up the address in the telephone book.
Allie watched him leave, standing in the front room and looking out of the window. For some reason, she instinctively stayed well off to one side, so that no one would observe her from the street. The moment the car was out of sight, she went back to Billy’s room, where the youngster sat on the floor playing with a new collection of toy soldiers.
“Wanna get dressed and go out an’ play,” Billy said, looking up at his mother.
“I think you’d better stay in this morning, honey,” Allie said. “I think you had...”
“I wanna go out an’ play.”
“This afternoon,” Allie said. “Wait until Daddy comes home and then maybe we’ll all go out.”
“Can we go to the movies, Mommy?”
I “When Daddy comes home,” Allie said. “Yes, we can all go to the movies.
Now you stay in and be a good boy and play with your soldiers. Mommy wants to get her work done. ”
Allie went back to the kitchen. She was tired, but she wasn’t sleepy. She’d completely forgotten about Len’s good news. Completely forgotten about the promotion down at the office, the additional salary. She just hoped...
Detective Lieutenant Clifford Giddeon was a man who looked forward to his week ends. One of the big advantages in working for a county organization, as opposed to a large metropolitan police force, lay in the fact that the hours—in the former—were comparatively civilized. He could, under normal circumstances, count on long week ends; week ends which usually stretched from sometime late Friday until Monday mornings.
This arrangement made it possible for Lieutenant Giddeon to pursue his favorite pastime and hobby, a diversion which in a good many ways made up for the normal domestic life so many of his contemporaries enjoyed. Lieutenant Giddeon had never married and had no family, that is, with the exception of his widowed mother with whom he lived and who kept house for him. Instead the lieutenant had a hobby which he pursued with a passionate and absorbing devotion. He was a yachtsman.
The word yachtsman, would, of course, have been slightly ludicrous had anyone used it in front of the Lieutenant. However, the fact remained that he did own a forty-foot ketch and he spent almost every waking hour thinking about it and certainly every free hour either sailing the small vessel or working on her.
During the long summers, when he took his usual two week vacation, Lieutenant Giddeon kept the ketch berthed on the North Shore and he spent every free hour sailing her up and down the Sound. In the cold winter months when it was no longer possible to use the boat, he'd have her hauled up in a yard not too far from his home in Hempstead and, because the owner of the yard was a long-time friend, he was allowed to do his own work on her. As a result he saw very little of his mother during his week ends off duty. (She didn’t mind as she happened to have her own hobby which consisted of attending the funerals of her friends, who were rapidly dying off—and when there were no funerals of friends, she’d go to funerals of strangers). Giddeon spent these week ends assiduously working over his vessel, sanding down her smooth mahogany sides, repainting the hull, cleaning up his tackle and in general preparing for the summer months to come.
On this particular Saturday morning, however, the lieutenant was not working d
own in the yard on his sailboat. As the result of a particularly busy Friday night, during which two teenaged gangs had clashed (one fifteen-year-
old boy was shot and not expected to live), a couple of estates had been burglarized, and half a dozen other assorted criminal activities had taken place, the department was shorthanded and Lieutenant Giddeon had been asked to hold down the desk for a fellow officer who was busy working on a case.
The knowledge that he would be given full credit for the extra time did little to erase the lieutenant’s annoyance. He’d been planning a varnish job on this particular day, a chore he was particularly anxious to finish while the weather remained fairly dry. Once the first real cold spell came, it would no longer be possible to accomplish this task and he’d been anxious to get it out of the way. As a result, Lieutenant Giddeon was in an extremely bad mood when the desk sergeant directed Len Neilsen to his office, a tiny cubicle on the second floor of the precinct station house.
But irritated or not, Lieutenant Giddeon was an excellent cop. Even before Len opened his mouth to speak, the police officer, who’d looked up the moment the other man opened the door and entered the room, made two quick observations.
Nice-looking young fellow, he at once reflected; probably from one of the new developments around here. The second observation was slightly less complimentary. He’s got a hangover; a bad one. Although Lieutenant Giddeon himself had never in his life suffered a hangover, he knew the signs only too well. He was a hard man to fool.
“What’s your problem, young fellow?” he asked, consciously making an attempt to sound pleasant as he realized his own foul mood only too well and didn’t want it to interfere with his business relationships with the public, who were, after all, his employers.
Len looked over at the straight-backed oak chair at the side of the desk at which the lieutenant sat. The other man nodded toward the chair and Len moved to it and sat down. He sat on the edge of the seat and for a moment j ust looked embarrassed. And then he spoke.
“I’m afraid, sir,” he said, “I’m afraid this is going to sound crazy.”
“I hear a lot of crazy things.”
‘ ‘ I should imagine, ’ ’ Len said. He began to feel a little more at ease. This cop, sitting there in his civilian clothes and looking like anything but a police officer, seemed an understanding and intelligent sort. He couldn’t be more than thirty-six or thirty-eight himself, but there was something very solid and very sure about him.
“Well, I hardly know where to begin. Itseems...”
“Just begin at the beginning,” the lieutenant said. “You can start with your name.”
“Len Neilsen,” Len said. “I live over in Fairlawn. And last night I saw a murder. Or at least I saw a man who had just been murdered.
Lieutenant Giddeon’s expression didn’t change. "That isn’t the beginning, ’ ’ f he said. ‘ ‘Where were you last night? ”
“I was home.”
“Is that where you saw the murder?”
Len shook his head quickly. "No—of course not. You see, I was a little drunk last night and...”
Giddeon waved his hand, shaking his head slightly. “Listen,” he said. "Let’s try it again. Start all over. Start, let’s say, about the time you took the first drink. When and where was that?”
It took a long time, but the officer was extremely patient. He let Len tell it in his own way and rarely interrupted. This capacity of his for intelligent understanding and patience was probably one of the reasons he was a lieutenant of detectives instead of pounding a beat.
Len went through the entire thing, starting with the previous evening when he’d first been invited out to dinner by his boss. He told about getting the promotion and calling Allie and the whole thing. While he talked, he noticed that the lieutenant had taken a yellow, lined pad from a desk drawer and occasionally jotted down notes. Once or twice he nodded, in an understanding way and now and then he’d interrupt with a question in order to get things straight. But mostly he just listened. At no time did his expression change in the slightest; an expression of polite, interest and understanding. At no time did he show the faintest degree of skepticism. He didn't show anything.
Even when Len started talking about the dead man, he remained the same. He waited until Len was all through. Then he leaned back in his chair and stared for a full minute at the wall over Len’s head.
“And you say,” he said at last, “you say you had never seen this man before, never seen the room before, haven’t the faintest idea in which house you’d gotten by mistake?”
Len nodded.
“And you’re sure the man was dead?”
“He certainly looked dead.”
Giddeon slowly nodded.
“Just how drunk were you?”
“I’ve told you. Damned drunk. That is, until I came to, turned on the light and saw the dead man. After that, well, after that I’d never been more sober in my life.”
Giddeon tapped the end of his pencil on the table for several seconds. At last he stood up and walked over by the window, turning and looking back at Len.
You get drunk very often?”
Len blushed.
“About as often as I get a promotion,” he said, his voice slightly defensive. “That's about once every five years.”
Giddeon nodded.
“Ever pass out—draw a blank—anything like that, before?”
Len stood up then himself.
“Look, officer,” he said. “I’m not nuts, I haven't been dreaming or seeing things or making this up. I’m telling you exactly what happened. I got in the wrong house by mistake, I saw a man with what certainly looked like a bullet hole through his head. I think the man was murdered. And I think someone knows that I saw him.”
"All right. All right, I believe you. The only thing is, we want to be pretty sure. After all, no one reported any disturbance out that way last night. No one reported hearing a shot or seeing anything-suspicious. That doesn’t mean, of course, that something couldn’t have happened.”
“Well, what do you intend doing about it?”
“We’ll investigate it, naturally. Thing is, though, in a case like this, we have to move a little cautiously. Can’t just go bursting in on every place in the neighborhood. Another thing—say you’re right and you did see this man and he was murdered. We don’t want to tip our hand and alarm whoever did it by screaming up with sirens open. I think the best thing is for you to go on home now. Chances are, your missus will be a Ettle nervous and upset, particularly as you seem to have told her all about it. Be best if you get back and stay with her. I don’t have to tell you not to mention anything about this.”
Len nodded. “Of course,” he said. “And you will...”
“We’ll start looking into it at once,” Giddeon said. “Just you go on back. Stay around the house for the next day or so. We’U have someone nearby. We U be looking into it.”
Len nodded, again, a half-skeptical expression on his face.
My God, he thought, I wonder if he thinks I’m reaUy nuts. I wonder if he thinks I just dreamed the whole damned thing up. Maybe he’s just getting rid of me in a nice way—figures I had too much to drink or something. He turned, hesitantly, toward the door.
“We don’t pass up things Eke this,” Lieutenant Giddeon said quietly, as Len started to open the door. “No matter how crazy they sound, we look into them.”
Len felt better as he walked down the stairs to the street floor. He’d done the right thing after all, he figured.
Passing through the information room on the ground floor on his way to the street, he was vaguely aware that the sergeant on the desk was speaking rapidly into the telephone. It was the same sergeant to whom he had first told his story, less than an hour ago. The sergeant was talking in a tight, urgent voice over the phone, at the same time beckoning to a man in plain clothes sitting tipped back on a chair at the side of the room. He didn’t notice Len at all.
Had Len not been so busy w
ith his own thoughts, the chances are he would have heard something of what the sergeant was saying. He would have recognized the name, perhaps. As it was, he passed by and went out into the street and got into his car and didn’t hear a word of it.
What the sergeant was saying, and what might possibly have attracted Len’s interest, were a few simple words, but words spoken in a quick and urgent fashion.
"... yes, yes, Mrs. Kitteridge. Just don’t worry—don’t let yourself get excited or frightened. We’ll have a man out there in less time than it takes to tell you about it. Just don’t become hysterical...”
Chapter Six
The newspapers, and especially the tabloids, made a big to do about the fact that it was little Mrs. Kitteridge who found the body. But actually they were wrong; it wasn’t really Mrs. Kitteridge at all. Instead, the nameless dog whom Mrs. Kitteridge had rewarded with a bone for trampling across her shrubbery, made the discovery. Completely unappreciative of the little old lady’s kindness, this dog, a multicolored mutt of dubious ancestry, had at once taken his unearned reward from her hand and pranced off to the side yard and lost himself beneath the foliage of a low, spreading juniper bush. He was in the process of looking for a likely soft spot in which to bury his treasure when some atavistic instinct warned him of the sinister presence of death. Penetrating the tangled leafy cavern another foot or so, his yellow eyes took in the prone body lying on its face.
He began the series of dismal howls even as he slowly backed out and into sight once more.