I believe he was a trifle uneasy for a few days when Staff Sergeant Jud Peters finally returned home, but his uneasiness stemmed solely from fear that the bereaved father might create an embarrassing public scene the first time they met, and not because he felt any further responsibility to the man. He was not without animal courage, however, and made no attempt to avoid contact with Jud Peters, a feat which would have been difficult anyway, since Peters’ farm was only five miles from Tom’s lodge. In that country five miles makes you neighbors.
I vaguely recall him mentioning the first time they finally met, a casual encounter in one of Catskill’s taverns. I remember there was a note of relief in Tom’s voice when he described the meeting, for apparently the young father harbored no active resentment. I gathered he had been cool to Tom, but not uncivil, and left Tom with the impression that his sole wish was to forget everything connected with his son’s death.
I myself had entirely forgotten the Peters affair, for in the six years since the accident Tom had been in many intervening scrapes requiring my attention. I was only reminded of it when I had to make an unexpected trip to Catskill.
It came about when Mathewson phoned me from the hunting lodge and asked me up for a weekend. I would not have gone had it been only a social invitation, for I must confess I detested the man even though he was one of my best clients. But he wanted to see me on a legal matter—not a jam this time, something concerning the transfer of certain securities he owned.
Catskill, as you may know, is not on the New York Central line—you have to change to a bus at Hudson. Since the trip by car from Mathewson’s lodge to Hudson takes only a quarter-hour more than a trip to Catskill, you would think my host would have met me at Hudson. But Thomas Mathewson III could never be described as a considerate host. He paid well for my services and felt he owed me nothing beyond that payment.
Consequently, my instructions were to meet him in the bar at a small hotel near the Catskill bus depot. And as was his habit in keeping appointments, he was about fifteen minutes late. I had a beer while I waited.
I was sipping my beer and recalling without pleasure the sole previous occasion I had visited Catskill when the bartender broke in on my thoughts.
“Ain’t you the lawyer who was down here from New York a few years back about the Peters boy?” he inquired.
Startled, I glanced up and admitted I was.
“Pretty slick way he got out of that,” the bartender commented. “Mathewson, I mean.”
“He didn’t exactly ‘get out of it,’ as you put it,” I said coldly. “He was convicted of manslaughter.”
“Yeah. On paper. Never served a day, did he? Not that I care, Mister. I was brand-new here when it happened and didn’t know any of the parties concerned. Still don’t, for that matter.”
Then occurred one of those odd coincidences which make life so unpredictable. The only other occupant of the bar at the moment, a man of about thirty-five clad in quarter-boots and a hunting jacket, turned an intelligent but moody face in our direction.
He said, “Just happens I’m Jud Peters, it that means anything to you.”
The bartender was as startled as I was and immediately withdrew from the conversation to start polishing glasses. But after my first surprise, I examined the man with friendly curiosity. His tone had been neither bitter nor belligerent. On the contrary, it had seemed faintly apologetic, as though he disclosed his identity merely to prevent the bartender and myself from creating an embarrassing situation.
Moving along the bar toward him, I offered my hand and introduced myself.
“I needn’t tell you how much I sympathized with your loss at the time, and still do, Mr. Peters,” I said. “It was a terrible tragedy, and Mr. Mathewson did everything in his legal power to atone for it.”
“He did?” he asked in a mildly surprised tone. “Oh, you mean the money.”
“Naturally no amount of money could make up for the loss of your son,” I said. “But in fairness to my client you should know I advised him that a settlement of $10,000 would probably be accepted by your wife, and Mr. Mathewson insisted on offering $50,000.”
He looked at me curiously for a long time, then finally said in a puzzled voice. “I didn’t know that. He was exceedingly generous, wasn’t he?”
“Well, he recognized his responsibility. There was no question about the accident being his fault, and I suppose he realized the only way he could begin to make restitution was with money. Some hard things have been said about Mr. Mathewson, but he does have the virtue of being scrupulously fair in money matters.”
A voice behind me said, “Who’s been saying hard things about me, Counselor?” and I turned to find Tom had come in unnoticed by either of us.
While his tone was bantering, there was a barely concealed edge to it, and I could tell he was not happy to find me talking to Jud Peters about him.
Tom Mathewson had changed physically in the six years since the accident. He was now just past forty, and masseurs were no longer able to erase the effects of long dissipation. While still appearing in good physical shape, a weal of fat encased his middle, his jowls were beginning to sag, and a sun-lamp tan could not entirely hide the tiny criss-cross of veins gradually forming in his cheeks.
With the physical change he had undergone a psychological change too, becoming even more overbearing in manner and even more prone to treat those he engaged professionally like servants. He was examining me now with an expression which would have been appropriate had he discovered his valet stealing scotch from his cellar.
Since his expression irked me, I said, “Who hasn’t said hard things about you, Tom? But as a matter of fact we were saying nice things for a change. Until now, Mr. Peters here was unaware that the size of the settlement for his boy was your own idea, and otherwise might have been only a fraction of the actual amount.”
Tom’s eyebrows raised. “Fifty thousand, as I remember,” he said indifferently. “But I believe I once mentioned that Mr. Peters prefers to forget the whole matter. I see no reason to rehash it.”
“It came up kind of accidentally from a remark the bartender made,” Jud Peters said, and again his voice impressed me as being almost apologetic. “And the remark you overheard Mr. Chalmers make was prompted by my comment that you were very generous.”
“Thanks aren’t necessary,” Tom said shortly. “Come on, Counselor. I left my motor running.”
“Oh, I wasn’t thanking you,” Jud Peters said. “I imagine you could afford it.”
Tom had started for the door, but now he stopped and turned around slowly. “No one can really ‘afford’ that kind of accident, Mr. Peters. I’ve had that same remark addressed to me on a number of occasions, particularly by my ex-wives. And, as usual, the implication is that a man with money is fair game. For your information that $50,000 settlement was a small part of the total cost of that accident. When lawyer Chalmers here and a few others were through with me, I had spent exactly 5 percent of my total assets. That’s one-twentieth of an estate intended by my father to provide reasonable comfort for a lifetime. One-twentieth, Mr. Peters, for an incident which lasted approximately three seconds.” The man’s tone was so frosty that both Peters and I stared at him in amazement. Peters’ face perceptibly reddened and there was a moment of embarrassed silence.
Then Jud Peters asked in a soft voice. “You think one-twentieth of your fortune was a fair purchase price for my son, Mr. Mathewson?”
Tom blinked at him, opened his mouth, then closed it again. Finally he said. “You’ve twisted my meaning, Peters. Let’s drop the subject.”
But Jud Peters was staring at Mathewson in an entirely new way, as though he had just at that moment begun to understand the man. And his expression told me he realized, as I suddenly realized also, that he had not twisted Mathewson’s meaning. A fair purchase price w
as exactly the way Tom Mathewson looked at it and he felt that he and Jud Peters were quits.
As though terminating an interview, Peters turned to the bartender and said quietly, “I’ll have another beer, please.”
The rest of that weekend was singularly uneventful. By late Saturday afternoon we had finished the legal matter which was the basis for my invitation and were free to enjoy what entertainments were available.
I never quite understood what fascination hunting held for Tom Mathewson, for he was not what you would call an “outdoor man.” I suspect there was a streak of sadism in him, and he took his pleasure more from killing than from enjoyment of the sport. But whatever the attraction, during duck season it was hard to get him out of the sunken-barrel duck blind in the center of his lake. He would have his combination caretaker-and-handyman row him out to the blind, leave him, and return to shore, where the handyman would conceal himself in the weeds with a retriever, within shouting distance of Tom.
There was not room in the blind tor two, even had I cared to shoot duck, and in his typically considerate manner Tom simply left me to shill for myself.
The young lady he was contemplating making his ninth wife was staying at the lodge, but while she was beautiful, I did not find her conversation stimulating. She spent most of her time in the cocktail lounge, playing innumerable records on the radio-phonograph and sipping drinks prepared by Tom’s valet, who donned a white coat and dubbed as bartender when required.
By Sunday afternoon I was so desperately bored that I decided to take a hike.
I did not realize the farmhouse where I stopped for a drink of water was the Peters place until I saw Jud Peters through a basement window. The lane approached the house from one side, and I was just stepping onto the gravel walk which led alongside the house when I glanced at an open basement window at the corner and received the shocking impression I was going to be shot by a rifle.
After my initial leap of panic I saw that the rifle was clamped in a workbench vise, and merely happened to be pointing upward directly at me. Jud Peters seemed to be doing something to the stock.
He looked up in time to see my startled expression, and grinned. “Afternoon. Mr. Chalmers. I’m not aiming this at you. You’re aiming yourself at it.”
And twisting the handle of the vise, he released the rifle and stood the weapon out of sight.
“Be right out,” he told me.
And that’s all there really is to the background. I got my drink of water, had a few minutes chat with Jud Peters, and went on my way. That evening I returned to New York, and two days later Tom Mathewson was struck by a spent bullet while seated in his duck blind. There seemed to be no question in the coroner’s mind about it being an accident, since from the angle of impact and the depth of penetration, it was possible to deduce that the bullet had come from a hunting rifle several miles away.
When Chalmers stopped, I said, “How do you make a murder out of all that?”
“I didn’t until this morning,” he said. “But now it occurs to me Jud Peters was not only an artilleryman, but a communications sergeant. About a hundred yards from Tom’s private lake is a densely-wooded knoll and on top of it I recall spotting a telephone pole. Now this is all assumption, you understand, but suppose that pole was the one that supported the telephone wires going to Jud Peters’ place, and suppose Jud cut in a phone to connect that knoll to his phone at home: Certainly if he had an old hand-set around, a communications sergeant could rig up a simple system like that. An observer—say, his wife—could stand on the knoll, completely hidden by foliage and report how many yards over, short, or to one side the splashes were each time Jud fired the rifle—the rifle I saw clamped in his vise and aimed in the direction of Mathewson’s lake.”
I could not help grinning. “No wonder you hesitated about going to the police. On that mass of assumptions, and entirely lacking evidence, you couldn’t even get them to listen to you. What put such a fantastic idea in your head?”
“This morning’s mail,” Chalmers said. “First, there was a letter from a Catskill accounting firm enclosing an audit of Jud Peters’ total resources. Including an estimated value on the farm, it came to exactly $63,000. In a separate envelope there was a check from Jud Peters for $3150 made out to the estate of Thomas Mathewson III.”
I looked blank. “For what?”
“It was marked. For value received. Take one-twentieth of $63,000 and see what you get.”
MUGGER MURDER
Originally published in Manhunt, April 1953.
I was surprised to see Sergeant Nels Parker in the Coroner’s Court audience, for homicide detectives spend too much of their time there on official business to develop any morbid curiosity about cases not assigned to them. I was in the audience myself, of course, but as a police reporter this was my regular beat on Friday mornings, and after five years of similar Friday mornings, nothing but the continued necessity of making a living could have gotten me within miles of the place.
When I spotted him two rows ahead of me, I moved up and slid into the vacant seat next to him.
“Busman’s holiday, Sergeant?” I asked.
His long face turned and he cocked one dull eye at me. For so many years Nels had practiced looking dull in order to throw homicide witnesses off guard, the expression had become habitual.
“How are you, Sam?” he said.
“You haven’t got a case today, have you?” I persisted.
His head gave a small shake and he turned his eyes front again. Since he seemed to have no desire to explain his presence, I let the matter drop. But as the only inquest scheduled was on the body of a Joseph Garcia, age twenty-one and of no known address, I at least knew what case interested him.
The first witness was a patrolman named Donald Lutz, a thick bodied and round faced young fellow who looked as though he, like the dead man, was no more than twenty-one.
In response to the deputy coroner’s request to describe the circumstances of Joseph Garcia’s death as he knew them, the youthful patrolman said, “Well, it was Wednesday… night before last… about eleven thirty, and I was walking my beat along Broadway just south of Market. As I passed this alley mouth, I heard a scuffling sound in the alley and flashed my light down it. I saw these two guys struggling, one with a hammerlock on the other guy’s head, and just as my light touched them, the guy with the hammerlock gave a hard twist, the other guy went sort of limp, and the first guy let him drop to the alley floor. I moved in with my night stick ready, but the guy stood still and made no move either to run or come at me. He just stood there with his hands at his sides and said, ‘Officer, this man tried to rob me.’
“I told him to stand back, and knelt to look at the man lying down. Near as I could tell, he was dead, but in the dark with just a flashlight I couldn’t be sure, and I didn’t want to take a chance on him waking up and running away while I went to the nearest call box. So I stayed right there and used my stick on the concrete to bring the cop from the next beat. That was Patrolman George Mason.
“Mason went to call for a patrol car and a doctor while I stayed with the two guys. That’s about all I know about things except when the doctor got there, he said the guy lying down was dead.”
The deputy coroner said, “And the dead man was later identified as Joseph Garcia?”
Patrolman Lutz nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“And the man Garcia was struggling with. Will you identify him, please?”
The policeman pointed his finger at a short, plump man of about fifty seated in a chair apart from the audience and within a few feet of where the jury was lined up along the left wall. He was a quietly dressed man with a bland, faintly vacuous smile and an appearance of softness about him until you examined him closely. Then you suspected that a good deal of his plumpness was muscle rather than fat, and you noticed his shoulders wer
e unnaturally wide.
“That’s him there,” the young patrolman said. “Robert Hummel.”
Just in front of the platform containing the deputy coroner’s bench was a long table, one end pointing toward the platform and the other end toward the audience. On the right side of this table, seated side-wise to it with his back to the audience, sat the assistant circuit attorney in charge of the case. On its left side sat Marcus Prout, one of St. Louis’s most prominent criminal lawyers.
Now the assistant C.A. said, “Patrolman Lutz, I understand Robert Hummel had in his possession a .38 caliber pistol at the time of the incident you just described. Is that right?”
“Well, not exactly in his possession, sir. It was lying in the alley nearby, where he’d dropped it. It turned out he had a permit to carry it.”
Marcus Prout put in, “Officer, was there any other weapon in sight?”
“Yes, sir. An open clasp knife lay in the alley. This was later established as belonging to the deceased. Robert Hummel claimed Garcia drew it on him, he in turn drew his gun to defend himself, and ordered the deceased to drop the knife. However, the deceased continued to come at him. Hummel said he didn’t want to shoot the man, so he used the gun to knock the knife from Garcia’s hand, then dropped the gun and grappled with him.”
The lawyer asked, “Was there any mark on the deceased’s wrist to support that statement?”
“The post mortem report notes a bruise,” the deputy coroner interrupted, and glanced over at the jury.
Marcus Prout rose from his chair and strolled toward the patrolman. “Officer, did the deceased… this Joseph Garcia… have a police record?”
The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK® Page 5