The Man Who Cried All the Way Home
Dolores Hitchens
Chapter 1
The ringing of the doorbell, a sound like an angry wasp caught under an overturned flowerpot, jerked Doris Chenoweth from a deep sleep. She started up, confused and instantly alarmed, and then was caught by the sensations of dizziness, headache, the hangover of her almost sleepless night. The windows of the bedroom were open to the morning air, and outside, beyond the railing of the deck, the pines stood tall and green against the blue California sky. After a moment Doris fumbled with the little clock on the bedside table. It was a quarter of eight.
She threw aside the covers, got to her feet, hurried to the closet, even as the doorbell gave forth another wasp like buzzing. “I’m coming … coming,” she muttered. Her shaking hands tangled with the ropelike tie of her robe. “Just don’t wake him up …”
The big house, with an exterior of natural redwood and glass brick, was cantilevered out from the hill on huge steel beams, so that the living room and the bedrooms seemed to float among the pines. The entry, however, was against the hill, with a flagstone patio, now still damp from last night’s fog. Doris opened the door to find a uniformed police officer waiting. The police cruiser, black and white with a gold medallion on the door, sat in the driveway which slanted down from San Jacinto Road.
He touched his cap. “Mrs. Chenoweth?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Winkler. I’m with the Idylynn Police. Is Mr. Chenoweth here?”
“Yes, but he got in quite late last night—he always gets home very late on Wednesday nights—and I hate to wake him unless it’s very urgent.” She brushed back the tousled dark hair, touched faintly now here and there with silver, and smiled at the young officer to take away any sting from her refusal.
He didn’t answer the smile. He didn’t quite meet her eyes, either; he seemed to be staring over her left shoulder. “You’ve seen your husband this morning?”
“Well … I … No, I didn’t look in on him. He must be there, though. He always is.” She tried to make it sound light, joking.
“Would you just check, ma’am?”
She hesitated, half turning from the door. “Do you mind telling me why you want to know if my husband is here?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t say, ma’am.”
Leaving him, leaving the door open a crack, she padded down the shadowy hall to Sargent’s door. She put an ear against the door panel, listening for any hint of movement within. Then, being careful to make no noise, she turned the knob, widened the opening with caution, and peeped into the room. She blinked in surprise, first at the great amount of light—Sargent was a fanatic about drawing the heavy draperies before going to bed—and then at sight of the empty, undisturbed bed across the room.
“Sarge?”
The room was furnished in a masculine style, brown rough-weave draperies and bedspread, heavy oak furniture, plain dark rug. Doris opened the door wide and hurried through to the bathroom beyond. She rapped gently, listened, then threw open this second door and again squeezed her eyes shut in astonishment and fright; she had thought that Sargent must be here, already up and shaving, though the bed-straightening was out of character for him. “Sarge, there’s a policeman to see you….” The words died in the silence. She tried to fight down a sudden panic, aware of how little she was prepared to meet any emergency with her head thick and aching from nerves and sleeplessness.
When she had made sure that Sargent was nowhere in the house, she rushed back to the entry. The officer still stood there, looking patient and capable. “I can’t find him! He’s not here! Did you come to … to tell me something about my husband?”
“No, ma’am,” the young officer said carefully. “I came to find out if he was at home, and if he wasn’t, to get a full description from you.”
“A … a description of Sargent?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The officer had taken out a small notebook and a pencil; he poised the pencil—she noted dazedly that it was a green automatic pencil with some kind of advertising printed on it—and waited.
“But …” She shook her head. “… what’s this all about?”
“I can’t say, ma’am. I was just sent to check.”
She tried to collect her thoughts in the face of his reserve and evasion. “My husband is forty-three. He’s close to six feet tall. He’s rather thin. I don’t know exactly what he weighs right now, but he’s far from heavy. He has blue eyes and brown hair. He wears glasses, brown horn-rims.”
“What about scars? Identifying marks and so on?”
“He has a bad scar that crosses his temple—his right temple—and cuts across his right eyebrow. A very noticeable scar, though when he’s wearing his glasses, it’s not so—” She felt so sick and dizzy at this point that she had to cling to the doorframe. “It happened long ago when he was a child. His brother accidentally pushed him into a barbed-wire fence.”
“I see. Now, about the clothes he was wearing yesterday …”
“A dark-blue suit. White shirt. I don’t remember which tie he wore. I might remember if I went to look.”
“It’s all right, ma’am.”
“He had his blue topcoat along, because he expected to be coming up from San Bernardino quite late.”
The officer scribbled with businesslike speed in the notebook.
The sunlight beat hurtingly into her eyes. The moisture was drying off the flagstones, and out in the pines jays were screeching. “Can’t you tell me anything? There must be some reason—”
“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding as if he meant it. “As I said, I was sent here to check. If you’ll take my advice, ma’am, you’ll try to keep calm. Drink some coffee, maybe eat something. If you have a neighbor close, a good friend …”
She shook her head frantically at him. “No. There’s no one.”
“Don’t keep your phone tied up, at any rate. Probably you’ll be hearing from the county sheriff’s office.”
“They’re the ones who … who sent you?”
He nodded. “You understand, we co-operate with them, they do the same for us.” He started away, then turned. “Don’t try to imagine all sorts of things, ma’am. It may not be anything serious.”
He didn’t believe that it was nothing serious, and neither did she. She felt all at once that this system, this sending a man who couldn’t tell you anything, a man who asked questions but gave no answers, was completely inhuman. She swayed back into the hall, shut the door, leaned there for a moment, then made her way to the kitchen. Here everything was brightness and cleanliness, white tile and chrome. There were decorative brass molds and trivets hung on the wall above the long formica counter. Doris went to the counter and bent above it and cried.
She could have a drink.
The thought beat through the fuzzy misery. She was reaching for the cupboard door when another thought came—Uncle Chuck.
She hesitated. The door had begun to swing open and now completed the swing by itself. The bottle sat there on the shelf, down by almost half.
How could she nerve herself to call Uncle Chuck after the long months of silence and neglect? How could she turn to a half-paralyzed old man whom she had all but abandoned, discarded; how could she beg him for comfort, for reassurance against the terror that froze her sick brain?
“I have to have someone …”
She took the whisky from the cupboard. Her hands shook so that some of the liquid spilled before she could get it into a glass. She splashed in water from the faucet, gulped some of the drink down, then was suddenly seized with retching and had to bend over the sink to be sick.
Where was Sargent?
Why wasn’t he here at home as usual, yawning over a late Thursday-morning breakfast? Still leaning over the sink, she stole a glance toward the sunny alcove at the end of the room. The table held a little bowl of buttercups and ferns, wild things she had gathered a day or two before, now half withered. Through the bright mesh curtains she could see the pine trees and the sky. And that was all. Sargent really wasn’t here. He was gone. And now he would never be here again. The thought brought such agony that she forced down the rest of the drink.
After a second drink she staggered back to her own room, stripped off the robe and gown, showered in the bathroom, combed her hair, and put on bra and panties and a gray terry-cloth overall she liked to wear around the house.
“Now I have to wait….” She went to the living room, crossing the deep-piled silver rug to draw back the window draperies. It seemed to her, standing by the big windows, that she had never noticed before how still the house could be. How deadly still. Her ears seemed to prickle with the silence.
Then the phone rang.
Chapter 2
She steadied herself by a conscious act of will.
I won’t tremble, or cry, or go to pieces. No matter what is said …
She walked to the end of the couch and sat down, put out a hand to the phone on its small table. The phone was silver-gray, matching the décor of the room; its plastic surface seemed to sting her hand with its coldness. She waited a moment, swallowing her fear. It seemed impossible to lift the receiver.
Now … She put the receiver to her ear. “Hello.”
“Mrs. Chenoweth?”
“Yes.”
“This is Detective Lieutenant Martin speaking. I’m with the sheriff’s office. We asked the Idylynn Police to send an officer to talk with you a short while ago. This was a preliminary check, just to make sure—”
“Where is my husband?”
“—to make sure that there was no mistake, before we contacted you direct. You’d better brace yourself, Mrs. Chenoweth. I’m afraid I have bad news for you.”
The phone almost fell from her grip. A chill spread across her body and a darting blackness covered the room around her. It was more than a minute before she again caught the thread of what the officer was saying. “… and we’ll send someone up there for you, to bring you down here so that you can make an identification.”
“I’m sorry. I haven’t been … I didn’t catch what you’ve been saying.”
“A man whom we believe to be your husband has been found dead at Borrego Reservoir. His car was parked at the rim of the reservoir. We checked out the license number on the car, the driver’s license on the body—”
He paused, and in the silence she heard a whining at the entry door. Pete was there, scratching to come in and be fed. She’d forgotten all about Pete—Pete, who never forgot her and never forgot or neglected his job, which was to patrol the place at night. Tears of weakness and despair came into her eyes; she had a sudden wish to throw the phone far from her, or to smash it on the wall, or to beat it to pieces with a hammer.
“Mrs. Chenoweth?”
“I’m … I’m listening.”
“Do you have a friend, a neighbor, someone you could call, who’d be willing to stay with you right now?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry to have to break the news this way. Could you be ready in about thirty or forty minutes?”
“Ready?”
“We need you to come to the morgue and make positive identification of the body.”
“I can’t believe …” She tried to force away the beating darkness that threatened to swallow her. Great wings of it skittered back and forth across her vision. “I can’t believe that my husband is drowned. Why should he go to the reservoir at night? A deserted place like that—it doesn’t make sense.”
“He wasn’t drowned, Mrs. Chenoweth. I can’t discuss the other items over the phone. Please be ready when our car gets there.”
“All right.”
She sat with the phone in her hand, crouched against the arm of the divan. Pete was using his nails, snuffling and whining at the doorsill. The noise seemed to magnify the stillness that surrounded her. She thought, I must cry. I must shed tears for Sargent. But no tears came.
After a while, with a deep sigh, she put the phone back into its cradle and went to admit the dog. He was a big dog, long-haired, tawny in color, a collie mix. Rescued from the pound three years before, he was a grateful and lovable pet. He capered around her now, making little mock, growls deep in his throat. “Down, Pete. Good Pete.” Draggingly she led the way into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. As she bent to put down Pete’s dish of food, she noticed the blood caked along his ear and neck. “Pete … you’re hurt!” She touched his ear, and he flinched. “Still, Pete, hold still.” The famished dog began to wolf down his breakfast, and gingerly Doris searched for the wounded place. Separating the tawny fur and being careful not to tweak the ear, she finally saw the deep groove which had creased the flesh just below the ear. It was not bleeding now but was caked over with dried blood, and the flesh around the wound looked red and swollen.
Could it have been a scratch from a wild animal?
It would take something the size of a large wildcat, or even a puma, to make such a wound on the big dog, she thought. It had been a long time since any such animals had been spotted near Idylynn.
She wondered what she should do about the injury. Put on some antiseptic? But that might dissolve the caked blood and open the wound again. A bandage? But she knew that Pete would scratch and dig at any bandage until it was off.
In the end she took a wet paper towel and cleaned off the fur as best she could, avoiding any pressure on the deep groove. Then she took Pete to his bed in the service area and made him lie down there and closed the door.
Coming back through the kitchen, her eyes fell on the extension phone on the wall at the end of the cabinets. She could call Uncle Chuck now. He was down there in San Bernardino, a crippled old man, but one whose love and understanding had been unstinted during the time she had been growing up. He would think of a way to help.
The number—
Once she had known it as well as her own.
She returned to her bedroom, took the time to change to a blue wool dress in preparation, for the trip with the police, put on a pair of black pumps, make-up, and recombed her hair. Then she took the small address book from her dresser drawer and went back to the living room.
On the third ring Uncle Chuck’s voice came on strongly. “Hello. Chuck Sadler here.”
“Uncle Chuck …”
There was a moment or so of silence, as if of shock and surprise. “My God! Dorrie! Is it you?”
“Yes. Uncle Chuck, I’ve only got a minute. The police are coming. No, don’t interrupt. Just let me tell you quickly what it’s all about. Sargent has been found dead at Borrego Reservoir. His car is there, at the edge of the water. But it seems he didn’t drown. A policeman came here this morning before eight, one of the local police officers, and wanted to know all about Sargent …” Now, in sudden relief at being able to tell someone else about it, she began to cry. She hung sobbing at the phone, unable to go on.
“Dorrie, listen. You say the cops are on their way? What for?”
“To … to take me down to iden … identify him.”
“Dorrie, you don’t have time to cry. Not right now. When did Sargent die? Did they tell you that?”
“No.”
“Wasn’t he home last night?”
The sobs froze in her throat, and for an instant her tear-filled eyes widened as if with alarm. “Wh—what?”
“Was Sargent home last night? Did you see him at all during the evening?”
She swallowed, rubbing the tears away with the back of her free hand. She seemed suddenly to come to a decision. “No.”
“He never did come home?”
“His bed wasn’t slept in. You know—or maybe you’ve forgotten—Sargent had so
me friends, three friends he’d known for years, old friends from his college days, and he spent an evening a week with them. Sometimes they’d bowl. Sometimes they played poker.”
“He was still doing that?” Uncle Chuck asked, as if it might have been outgrown by now.
“Yes.”
“So you hadn’t seen him since yesterday morning?”
She hesitated over the direct reply. “I hadn’t seen him since he left to go to the office.”
There was silence at the other end of the line, as if Uncle Chuck was thinking something over. “Dorrie, I know you pretty well, or I used to, anyway. There’s something funny about the way you’re answering me. Did you really not see Sargent at any time last night?”
“Uncle Chuck, I’m telling the truth. I didn’t see Sargent once he left the house yesterday morning.”
“All right. Now listen carefully. I’m going to meet you at the morgue. If you get there and they take you on in, and it’s over before I can make it, don’t leave. Wait for me. I’ll drive you home. And Dorrie, this is important—”
“Yes?”
“Say as little as possible to the cops. Tell them you don’t want to make a statement unless your attorney is there. They won’t like that, but—”
“Uncle Chuck, I don’t have an attorney!”
“I’m your attorney, Dorrie, for the time being. Had you forgotten?”
Yes, Doris admitted to herself, she had forgotten. Uncle Chuck and his affairs had so far slipped from her mind that she hadn’t thought at all of the fact that after retirement, when most men spend their time loafing, raking leaves, or playing croquet, Uncle Chuck had studied law and had passed the bar examination.
“Later on we can call in a younger man with experience in this kind of thing, if we need to. But right now I’m it,” he said.
“Yes. Oh, thank you, Uncle Chuck!”
“Good girl. Keep calm—as calm as you can—and say as little as possible to the cops, and don’t run off without me.”
As she hung up the phone for the second time that morning, Doris felt a lift of spirit, the beginnings of hope and something like confidence.
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