The Silver Cobweb

by Ben Benson

  “It’s too bad,” I said when Newpole told me that. “They were more concerned about the mother.”

  “The father kept it in too long,” Newpole said. “He had no safety valve like the mother. Their daughter was an only child. Naturally they tried to do all they could for her. The father wasn’t a rich man. He was superintendent of some department in that big distillery in Newburyport.” Newpole’s face hardened. “Every time something new comes up it focuses on either Newburyport or Ipswich. I’m sending detectives all through the North Shore. So what do we expect to find?”

  “Well,” Captain Dondera said, “you sure as hell don’t crack a case by sitting in an office drawing doodles on a scratch pad.”

  “Roger, you were smart to stay in the uniformed branch,” Newpole said to him. “If I had to do it over, I’d be what you are.”

  “Not now,” Dondera said, smiling broadly. “You’re a little too old, Ed.”

  “I’d last forever on your job,” Newpole said. “Your biggest worry is traffic on Route 128.”

  Dondera laughed. “You try running a troop and five substations. It’s ulcer stuff.”

  “Funny, I’ve got the ulcer,” Newpole said, “not you.”

  “Sir,” I said to Newpole, “how’s the girl’s fiancé taking it?”

  “Russell Westlake? After the first shock wore off, he began to get damn mad. I wouldn’t be surprised if he grabbed a shotgun and made for the Salem jail where Swenke has set up housekeeping. And I guess he’s sore at the cops, too.”

  “Why the cops, sir?”

  “We have to ask certain questions, Ralph. Was Mary Ann as innocent as they say? Did she ever meet Swenke before? Did she have an affair with him? Was Swenke jealous because she was marrying somebody else? Was her killing the result of a revenge motive? What did Westlake have to do with it? Did he have any reason to hire somebody to kill his girl? Those are all nasty questions, Ralph, but they have to be asked. Westlake got damn mad. If it was me, I’d have been mad, too.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “It’s only natural.”

  “We’ve cleared up the sex angle,” Newpole said. “The autopsy shows Mary Ann wasn’t attacked and she wasn’t pregnant. In fact, she was a virgin. Unusual in this day and age, huh?”

  “Ed, you’re a cynic,” Dondera said.

  “I’m a realist,” Newpole said. “What I want to find out is what happened just prior to the murder. We know Mary Ann was driving into Dorset from the east, from the direction of Ipswich. Swenke was following her. After he killed her he didn’t turn around. He kept heading west until Lindsey grabbed him. Usually, on a job, a careful criminal like Swenke maps a getaway route. If his plan was to travel west, where was he heading? Then take Mary Ann. The last we know anyone saw her was around noon. She had lunch with a girl friend named Rodna Dryden at Rodna’s house on Elm Street. Mary Fedder left there at 12:30. She was in bubbling spirits and the two girls laughed a lot during lunch. When Mary Ann left, Rodna asked her where she was going. Mary Ann told her it was a big secret. But nobody knows what the secret was. Rodna reminded her there was a church rehearsal at 2:30. Mary said she’d be there. She drove off in her little Nash and that’s the last anybody saw of her until two o’ clock when she was killed. That gives us an hour and a half that’s unaccounted for. What happened in that hour and a half that made Swenke chase her down and kill her? And where did it start?”

  He looked at Captain Dondera, but Dondera was silent. Newpole shook his head and said, “We’ve questioned Swenke for hours. All we’ve got out of him is the story of the other blue truck. He’s repeated it so long he’s starting to believe it himself. Well, I’m going to ask our boy here.” Newpole turned and eyed me. “Ralph, I want you to think back to Swenke’s conduct when you were chasing him. Did he act like he knew where he was going?”

  “I don’t think he did,” I said. “Not on 110. He was swerving all over the road. He didn’t know the turns. That’s why I caught up with him so soon.”

  Newpole rubbed his nose. “I don’t see it. He wouldn’t kill the girl on the spur of the moment. He’s not the type who loses his head. To him it’s a job. He kills for money. This girl didn’t have any money. Now—was it planned, or wasn’t it?”

  “It depends on how much time he had to plan,” Dondera said. “It was done in broad daylight, in plain sight of witnesses. I know Swenke is supposed to be a big operator and sure of himself. But still, to me, the man was taking a big risk. The only thing I can say it must have come up suddenly. That forced Swenke to take the chance he did.”

  “I’ll buy that,” Newpole said. “He didn’t chase her to see the color of her pretty blue eyes. But what was it that came up so suddenly? And what was the packed suitcase doing in her car?”

  “A suitcase, sir?” I asked.

  “Filled with her clothes,” Newpole said. “Maybe that was her secret. For all I know she might have been running off with Swenke, then changed her mind at the last minute. He got sore and killed her. If I knew more about women I’d say Swenke was definitely not her type. But who can tell what a woman will do?”

  Nobody answered the question because I guess there was no answer to it. The two of them sat there silently for a few moments; then Captain Dondera looked up as though surprised I was still there. He dismissed me.

  After lunch I got into uniform and took Cruiser 27 out. I had only a short patrol because I was going on a night pass at five. My territory was west of Dorset again, Route 110 and Pond Road. They ran parallel for several miles. I was to cover the sector to the Georgetown fine.

  But this time it wasn’t a routine traffic patrol. I was carrying a picture of Kurt Swenke and I was to ask every store and house along the way if they had ever seen him. I knew troopers and detectives were in other areas, in Dorset and Newburyport and Ipswich, going from relative to friend, neighbor to neighbor and store to store. Old schoolmates and boy friends of Mary Ann were being questioned. In Boston, detectives would be at Simmons College and at the dormitories on Kent Street. Did Mary Ann Fedder ever go out with any men? Was there ever a time when she went out alone in the evening? Did any man ever call for her? Did she like a drink and a good time? Could she have possibly met a hoodlum like Kurt Swenke? Then—holding up a picture of Swenke—have you ever seen this man?

  I drove through Dorset on my way out. In the town I spotted several black cruisers. Beyond the town I came to jumbled stone walls along the road and scattered, weatherbeaten farmhouses set among gently rolling hills and rocky pastures.

  I began to work—eagerly at first. A number of people along the route knew Mary Ann and were church members with her. Everybody had a kind word and an eulogy. Some had wild theories as to why the crime was committed. One old spinster said it was caused by the inherent bestiality of lust-maddened men. And she looked at me as though she didn’t quite trust me either. But the more I went from residence to gas station to farm, the more my enthusiasm cooled. Most people talked too much and said the same thing. Some expressed shock and pious indignation, yet their eyes fastened on me greedily in the hope I had some juicy morsel to tell them. Nobody had seen Kurt Swenke or the blue panel truck.

  I worked along steadily, reporting my locations to the dispatcher in Framingham. At 3:30 I was at the end of my sector. This was Pond Road as it curved and ended along Dorset Pond. Up ahead where the road ended were only some unoccupied summer camps.

  The last house was set back from the road. It was not really a house but a converted summer cabin. The mailbox in front said, in faded letters, Derechy. As I stepped out of the cruiser I gave the dispatcher my location and a Signal 4.

  I walked up a narrow, rutted dirt driveway. Parked in front of the house was a battered, decrepit old Hudson. The yard was piled with rubbish and garbage, a broken swing and broken, rusted toys. There was a fetid, rotting odor about the place. I banged on the front door.

  The woman who opened it was young, but fat and slatternly. She wore a filthy housedress. Her dirt-encrusted feet w
ere bare. There was a bad stench coming from inside the house.

  “Hello,” I said. “You’re Mrs. Derechy?”

  “Yes,” she simpered.

  I showed the Swenke picture. “Have you ever seen this man?”

  She shook her head and burped. I could smell the sour odor of beer. Behind her, clutching at her dress, were two tots about three and five. The three-year-old was a boy, and the five-year-old was a girl. I knew their sex because the only clothes they wore were short, grimy, stained undershirts. Beyond Mrs. Derechy, on a table in the middle of the room, were a dozen beer cans. Sitting at the table was a fat, hairy, unshaven young man with a puffy, drink-red face and unkempt hair. He wore a dirty striped jersey and pants.

  He said, “What the hell is it?”

  I stepped around the litter on the floor, noticing that the little girl had a red, running nose and little scabby sores on her face.

  “You’re Mr. Derechy?” I asked the man.

  “I’m not his mother,” Derechy said. “What have you got there?”

  “A picture. I want to know if you’ve ever seen this man.”

  Derechy took the picture in his big paw. He squinted, studied it, held it up to the light. “What’s the guy done?”

  “I want to know if you’ve ever seen him, that’s all.”

  “Never in my life,” he said. “Grace, this guy in the picture a lover of yours?”

  “Joe,” Mrs. Derechy giggled coyly, “honestly, how you carry on.”

  “My wife don’t know him either,” Derechy said. “Anything else, trooper?”

  I waved in the direction of the pond. “Any other houses around here? I mean, where people are living?”

  “About a half-mile down in Georgetown there’s the Fisher Farm. The rest of the places around here are summer camps. They’re all empty.”

  “All of them?”

  “Wouldn’t I know? I go all through there picking wood. It’s as dead as a morgue. Be another month yet before any people start moving in.”

  “Ever see any cars ride by here?” I asked.

  “Not during this time of year. At night, once in a while, the kids come along and park at the pond.”

  “Have you seen a blue panel truck?”

  “No.”

  “One of those little baby Nash cars?”

  “Ain’t seen it. You don’t see nothing go by here during the day.”

  “Notice anything strange lately?”

  “No, nothing. What’s this, the Mary Ann Fedder murder?”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “I don’t know nothing about it. I got my own troubles. Anything else?”

  “No, that’s all,” I said, turning to go. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me, trooper. Just take the air, boy.”

  I turned around and moved up to him. “What’s the matter, Derechy? You itching for trouble?”

  He stared at me for a moment, his lips pouting. Then his eyes dropped. “Trouble is all I ever get from you guys. You’re always nosing around here poking in my business.”

  “Not me,” I said. “And if I ever have to come here again it’ll be with a clothespin clamped to my nose.”

  I walked out, down the driveway, gulping the sweet fresh air and feeling that I needed a bath. In the cruiser I gave a Signal 5. My calls were over.

  A hundred yards below the Derechy house the road curved sharply as it met the shore of the pond. I drove down the road, following the turn. The road went over a rise to a small bluff. At the top of the bluff the road ended. Here the shoulders were wide because it was a turnaround.

  I stopped the cruiser. The view was pretty. You caught the graceful, drooping willows that edged the pond below. There was a stretch of sandy beach and, beyond it, the sparkling blue water.

  Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought it was a good parking spot. There were rusted beer cans, crumpled cigarette packs and candy wrappings. Across the rippling water, on the other side, I could see several small piers. And, scattered among the trees, I could catch a glimpse of a roof or a side of an occasional cottage. Up ahead of me, on my own side of the pond, where the road ended, a pair of dual dirt tracks descended the hill and disappeared into the woods. I saw, partly obscured by the pines, one summer camp whose windows seemed to be shuttered with steel boiler plating.

  A bluejay chattered nearby. It was so quiet and peaceful and fragrant I thought I would stay and have a cigarette. Before I realized it I had been there a half-hour. To tell the truth, if I could have taken the chance of not being spotted, I might have slipped off my uniform and gone in for a swim. I don’t know if Keith Ludwell would have. I rather think he wouldn’t. But I never pretended to be as eager as Keith Ludwell.

  As I sat there I wasn’t thinking of the Mary Ann Fedder case. I was visualizing Amy Bell. The truth was she had been sneaking into my mind all day and I had been pushing her away. I don’t know why I persisted in thinking about her. She had never shown the slightest interest in me except annoyance. But she was attractive and desirable and sophisticated and there’s something of a mysterious allure that an older girl has when you’re not too many years past twenty-one.

  I did more than think about her. I made plans to see her.

  6

  I WAS BACK IN THE BARRACKS AT FOUR-THIRTY. Tony Pellegrini was in the garage when I pulled in. He was in fatigue clothes and was washing his cruiser. We spoke a few moments and he gave me some additional bits of information about the Fedder case. Then he said, “The joint is still hopping with brass. I guess they want to see you in the guardroom. The Westlake kid is there.”

  I went up the stairs and into the guardroom. Mary Ann Fedder’s fiancé was seated at the long table. He was a tall, thin, snub-nosed, good-looking kid of about twenty-two, with a pale, harried face. His eyes were red as though he had been crying. Lieutenants Newpole and Gahagan were seated opposite him. At the end of the table was Chief Rigsby of Dorset. Newpole waved me over.

  He introduced me to Russell Westlake, then said, “Russell, this is the man you wanted to see. Lindsey was the arresting officer.”

  Westlake looked at me intently, then said, “You want to know why I asked to see you?”

  “Why, yes,” I said. “If there’s anything I can do—”

  “I want to know why you didn’t kill Swenke.”

  “I’m not sure I understand you—” I started to say.

  “I said I wanted to know why you didn’t kill Swenke.”

  “I don’t know if you’re serious,” I said. “But we have courts and laws. You don’t deliberately kill a man no matter what he’s—”

  “I’d have killed him,” Westlake said, his voice keening. “I’d kill him now if I could get near him. I don’t care what they’d do to me.”

  Lieutenant Newpole said mildly, “We wouldn’t have much law and order that way, would we?”

  “Law and order?” Westlake blurted out. “What the hell kind of law and order do we have? Why did a known killer, scum like Whitey Swenke, walk around free? What did the police ever do about him? Nothing. He comes to Dorset as free as a bird. He feels like killing a girl and he does it.”

  “Swenke has done time before,” Lieutenant Sam Gahagan said. “Long stretches of it. And you should understand this, Russell. Criminals like Swenke are cannibalistic. They live off each other, robbing, stealing and murdering mostly among themselves. It isn’t always easy to get evidence of those kind of homicides. When New York finally did get evidence on Swenke, he went on the run. This time we have him, Russ.”

  “The fact that you caught him doesn’t bring Mary Ann back to life. He should never have had the opportunity.”

  I think Westlake had a point there and I, for one, wouldn’t argue it. Now he was looking at me as though he had expended all his ammunition on the others and I was a new target.

  “You’re my age, Lindsey,” he said bitterly. “You’re probably thinking of getting married. I’ll sell you a gold wedding band real cheap.”


  “Take it easy, kid,” Newpole said gently.

  “Don’t tell me to take it easy,” Westlake said. “The cops come around asking insinuating questions about Mary Ann. They’re not interested in finding out why she was killed. All they want to do is dig up some dirt for those reporters outside.”

  “Now, Russ, you really don’t mean that—” Chief Rigsby started to say.

  “If you were on the job, you’d make Swenke talk. I know I could make him talk.”

  Newpole’s jaw became rigid. “What do you suggest, Russell? The Chinese water torture? Or hot pincers under the fingernails?”

  “Very funny,” Westlake said. “Very, very funny.”

  “It’s not funny at all,” Newpole said, “and that’s why you have no cause to talk foolish.”

  “Now I know where I stand,” Westlake said ominously. “I’ll handle it my own way. I can do things the cops can’t do.”

  Newpole looked over at me with one of those dismissal glances. I excused myself and left.

  I reported to Sergeant Neal in the duty office. Neal asked me if I had obtained any information on my calls. I told him I had not. Then I mentioned my experience with the Derechys.

  Neal’s shoulders drooped tiredly. “Those damn Derechys again. How did the house look? Like a pigsty?”

  “Worse.”

  “And the two kids?”

  “Filthy.”

  Neal drummed his fingers on the desk. “We’ve had the SPCC and the Welfare and our own policewomen there time and time again. This Derechy has a record. He’s a lazy, drunken troublemaker, and he costs the Commonwealth plenty because he won’t support his family. We’ve had those two up for child neglect so many times it became monotonous. You always get a soft-hearted judge who talks of mother love. Boloney. Those kids would be better off in a clean, decent foster home. They’d have a chance then. This Grace Derechy is a stupid, drunken, dirty woman. Let her husband beat her and starve her and she still thinks he’s a Clark Gable and an Einstein all rolled into one. One of these days those kids will die of disease or get burned up in a fire caused by a drunken brawl. But you can’t spoil the sanctity of the home.” He made an entry in the log book. “You going on a night off now?”