The Man Who Cried All the Way Home

by Dolores Hitchens

  “You be careful what you say to me,” Cannon flared back. “You’ll find yourself answering a suit for slander.”

  “Awfully hard to mount a slander suit without a witness,” Uncle Chuck answered. “My word’s as good as yours and I’ll say I didn’t say it. But for now I’ll withdraw the remark until I see whether it’s called for.”

  Cannon tried to appear as cocky and brisk as ever, but Uncle Chuck thought that under the surface there was a certain thoughtfulness. In the kitchen Doris greeted Cannon with friendliness and a touch of surprise. “Won’t you sit down and have lunch with Uncle Chuck? Or coffee, at least?” When Cannon refused, she added, “Sit down, Uncle Chuck, before your beer goes flat.” She pulled out a chair, offering it to Cannon, and after a moment’s hesitation he sat down, holding the brief case on his lap.

  Uncle Chuck regained his place at the table and picked up his sandwich. “Go right ahead with what you came for,” he told Cannon.

  Cannon ignored him to look at Doris, who was pouring herself a cup of coffee at the counter. “First, Doris—did Sarge discuss his investments with you?”

  “Not much. Oh, insurance, yes. Like some plan of starting an annuity. He’d had that idea for years. But I know what you mean, penny mining stocks. Silver and uranium and that kind of thing, and no, he didn’t, except once in a while, as a sort of joke, he’d announce that he had cleared a profit of fifty cents on a hundred shares. I guess he just threw small change into those stocks, a way of gambling.”

  Cannon nodded. More determinedly than ever he seemed to avoid looking in Uncle Chuck’s direction. “For a long time it was, as you say, just small change. A lot of my clients are like that. Gambling cigarette money. But then sometimes these penny mining stocks can surprise you. And when that happens it can turn little gamblers into big gamblers. Fast.”

  “Yes, I know that once in a while …” Doris had brought her coffee to the table. She broke off to give Cannon a puzzled, half-anxious look. “But nothing like that happened to Sarge.”

  “It did indeed. Too bad it had to be … uh … at this particular time.”

  “He had stock that went up quite a lot?”

  “He had about fifty dollars in a stock called Diamond Tunnel. Diamond Tunnel has nothing to do with diamonds, in spite of the name. The company searches for various rare minerals, space-age stuff. Sells out to developers if it locates anything.” Cannon started to put the brief case on the floor, then seemed to remember what was in it and settled it back upon his knees. “A few weeks ago a rumor spread that Diamond Tunnel was onto something really hot. The stock soared. Sarge sold as soon as he had a fairly good profit—far too soon. Then he took it into his head to buy back and to buy more. Lots more. Doris, I … I did my very damnedest to persuade him not to do it.”

  “He bought a lot of Diamond Tunnel? What happened next?”

  “Dorrie, I can tell you what happened next,” Uncle Chuck put in, though Cannon turned instantly with a flash of anger. “The bottom fell out. Whammo. Kaboom. Ceiling zero, and all the rest. He’s got a brief case stuffed with Diamond Tunnel stock, now worth about fifteen cents a share, that he’s going to try to charge you a dollar for.”

  “But … but Sarge never said a word,” Doris stammered.

  “How many shares in the brief case?” Uncle Chuck asked Cannon.

  Cannon’s face had reddened; his mouth twitched, and his hands, holding the leather case, trembled. “Five thousand,” he got out.

  “Ordered when Diamond Tunnel was selling at—”

  “Ninety-nine cents.”

  “So, call it five thousand dollars. What’s it selling for today?”

  “Two and three-quarter cents.”

  There was silence for a couple of minutes. Cannon tried to go on looking angry and outraged, but the effect was spoiled by the trickle of sudden perspiration that dribbled from his brow down the side of his nose to his chin. Doris just looked blank and bewildered. Uncle Chuck finished his bottle of beer, wiped his mouth on his napkin, lit a cigarette.

  “You have Sargent’s signature on the order to buy, of course?”

  “Of course not. I was his broker; it was all done over the phone.”

  “Well, some kind of initial agreement then.”

  Cannon shrugged, a fiercely indignant gesture. “We were old friends. That’s all there was—friendship. Call it trust.”

  Doris said placatingly, putting a hand out toward Cannon, “Of course I won’t leave you holding the bag under these circumstances. I don’t know yet exactly what I’ll have left of my own, if anything. The house will be clear—”

  “Dorrie, shut up,” Uncle Chuck said. “It’s none of his damned business. He’s going to have to prove this claim. I won’t let you fork out all that money on a dead-horse race. One thing that’s damned funny—his mother-in-law says he hadn’t seen Sargent for weeks, that the disagreement between them was so bitter that if Sargent had showed up at the house she would have expected something violent to happen.”

  “You … you—” Cannon twisted on the chair. He brought a fist down on the edge of the brief case. “Unspeakable. Pumping and quizzing an old woman who is senile, a babbler—”

  “Seemed pretty sharp to me,” Uncle Chuck offered.

  “She’s a hopeless gossip. She’ll say anything, and I take care she knows nothing of my affairs,” Cannon said harshly.

  “But now, this disagreement between you and Sargent—”

  “In spite of what she told you, it was nothing.”

  “Nothing to do with investments?”

  Cannon gave Uncle Chuck a glance of hatred. “We … we disagreed over a commission; it didn’t amount to anything. With the small amount of money involved, how could it? In the end I just let Sargent have his way and I cut my losses—and they weren’t anything to cry over, either. It was just a misunderstanding.”

  “But it wasn’t about you buying all this Diamond Tunnel … actually for yourself, and then when it went down, you telling him he had ordered you to get it?”

  “No! No! No!”

  “Prove it,” Uncle Chuck said flatly.

  Cannon took out a handkerchief and patted at the sweat on his face. “Doris, are you with your uncle in this—this larceny?”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Doris cried. Her gray eyes were filling with tears. “I have to listen to Uncle Chuck—he’s my lawyer—and anyway, isn’t it awfully soon to be worrying over things like this? Sarge only died last night, and yet here you are the next afternoon, wanting to get it settled about the money he owed you. And you know, Arthur, when you came in you didn’t even offer condolences. You didn’t even say you were sorry he was dead.”

  “I—I forgot,” Cannon said, scarlet now with embarrassment. “I am sorry, though, Doris. I’m grieved. He was, after all, an old, old friend. And I do care that he’s gone. It’s just that … that I’m worried about the amount of money I put out, getting this stock for him, and afraid you wouldn’t know anything about it and might not want to pay for it.”

  He seemed humbled, really ashamed of himself and his premature errand, and for the first time it seemed to Uncle Chuck that the man might even be telling the truth.

  “Why don’t you figure up what I owe—I mean, what Sarge owed—the difference between what you can sell the stock for now and what you paid, and get it all settled, and send me a bill?” she said, drying her eyes.

  “Yes, Doris, I’ll do that.”

  There was a further uncomfortable moment of silence, and then Cannon stood up as if to leave.

  Uncle Chuck rose, too, reaching for his cane. “If there’s nothing more, I’ll see you out. But by the way—there are some papers missing here, the contents of a steel box in Sargent’s room. Would you know anything about them?”

  “Missing papers? How would I know?” Cannon didn’t reply with his old fire, however; he seemed genuinely chastened and dejected.

  As they started out of the room, Pete trotted in, licking his mouth after
the last taste of ham. On seeing Cannon the dog came to an abrupt stop. Cannon was looking at Pete over his shoulder and edging past Uncle Chuck as if anxious to reach the hall. Uncle Chuck snapped his fingers and spoke to Pete, but Pete didn’t move except to perk his ears forward.

  “I … I’d forgotten you and Sarge had a dog,” Cannon said to Doris. “He’s a big brute, ha, ha.”

  “I thought you’d seen Pete before,” Doris said, looking after Cannon’s vanishing back.

  As Uncle Chuck let him out the front door, Cannon muttered something about the sudden sight of the dog being a big surprise.

  Watching Cannon walk away toward his car in the drive, Uncle Chuck wondered about him. Was Cannon sincere? Had Sargent’s sudden desire to gamble on Diamond Tunnel really left him with a big deficit to cover? Or had he come, as Uncle Chuck had originally suspected, to make Doris pay for a fraud, stock that Sargent had never wanted but that Cannon had speculated in on his own? Had Doris’s reminder of his callous hurry proved too much for his conscience?

  Truth or fraud, he was going to be back with that brief case full of stock certificates.

  Remembering now the information he had requested earlier from his friend, the insurance man, Uncle Chuck went to the living room and dialed his friend’s number. “Hi, Chuck here. Do you have the answer on that car license?”

  “I sure do. License is in the name of Katrina Knowles. Spell Katrina with a K. Address given is twenty-two Wild-oaks Lane—and if my memory serves, that’s out in a kind of ritzy neighborhood, new big places out past Linden Hills.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Uncle Chuck said. “My acquaintance with ritzy neighborhoods is so limited. Anyway, thanks a lot for getting this for me.”

  “This Katrina … I take it she’s a charming widow type you’ve got an eye on?”

  “Nothing like it. You know I’ve got more sense than that.”

  “The word, Chuck, is old.”

  “Oh, go to hell.”

  He hung up, sat there looking thoughtful for a moment, then dialed Information and got the number for Knowles on Wildoaks Lane. He then dialed the house. He could hear the phone ringing; he let it ring for almost twenty times before he gave up and replaced the receiver.

  In the kitchen Doris was cleaning up the few dishes, the cups, and frying pan. She stood at the sink, looking around at Uncle Chuck. She was haggard, he thought; this day that must seem endless was taking its toll of her. She said worriedly, “You seemed so suspicious of Arthur. You practically accused him of coming here to cheat me.”

  “It’s probably what he came for. Even you couldn’t help notice what a hell of a hurry he was in about the money. He wasn’t a bit curious about the murder, who might have killed Sargent, what the police were doing, when the funeral would be, or how you were going to make out as the widow—”

  “Yes, I know, Uncle Chuck, and yet it’s just what I should have expected if I’d stopped to think. Arthur’s always been that way, abrupt and sort of uncaring—”

  “About other people’s feelings,” Uncle Chuck supplied.

  “Yes, and thinking of his own interests. And still, when you do remind him, as I did just now, he’ll seem embarrassed and he apologizes. It’s happened before. I’ve seen Sarge bring him up short.” She put away the last of the dishes, turned from the sink. “Let’s go sit in the living room.”

  “Those reporters interrupted the rest I wanted you to take—”

  “Yes, but I don’t feel like lying down now.”

  They went into the living room and Doris drew the draperies a little to soften the afternoon warmth of the sun.

  “Sarge had three old friends,” Uncle Chuck said, “and I’ve only seen two of them. This third one—”

  “Bill Knowles.”

  “What?” Uncle Chuck fumbled for the folded card, yanked it out, stared at it in astonishment. “You didn’t finish writing this last name. You’ve got William … I thought—”

  She rubbed the dark hair back off her forehead. “Wait a minute. Something interrupted just then—Pete. Pete was scratching to come in. And that’s when you told me the scratch on his ear was a bullet wound. And I didn’t finish writing the third name. William Knowles.”

  “Does he live on Wildoaks Lane?”

  “Yes.” She was staring at Uncle Chuck in a puzzled way now. “Bill has done very well down through the years. He owns a chain of drive-in cafés. He’s—”

  “Does he have a daughter?”

  “Yes, Katrina. I haven’t seen her since she was about fourteen. She was such a beautiful child, a little golden haired doll. And then, when I last saw her—you know, a teen-ager—she was all legs and eyes, but you could see what a beauty she was going to turn into. What’s the matter, Uncle Chuck?”

  “Katrina’s the only child?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would she drive a little red foreign sports car?”

  “I … I guess she’d drive anything she wanted. Bill spoiled her terribly. His wife died when Kat was little, and after that the little girl was all he had.”

  “How come you haven’t seen her for four years?”

  “It may not be that long,” Doris corrected herself. “I just don’t remember. Bill and Sarge were old friends, and they had their nights out together, as I’ve told you. But there wasn’t anything social otherwise. I mean that involved me.”

  “How much social life had you been sharing with Sargent these last few years, Dorrie?”

  She winced. “Not much.”

  “You lived up here practically alone, on this mountain, and he supported the home—and that was it. Is that right?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid that’s all there was, Uncle Chuck.”

  “I’m going out for a minute,” he told her, reaching for his cane. He stood up, aware of a great sense of dreadful expectation, a heavy fear. “While I’m gone, you just stay put. Don’t answer the door if anyone comes. And keep Pete handy.”

  “Pete …” she echoed, also rising, her face full of uneasy speculation. “You sound as if someone might get in even with the place locked.”

  “Sargent had a set of keys, didn’t he? We don’t know where those keys are, Dorrie. Perhaps they were with his body and the cops have them. And perhaps not.”

  She shivered, rubbing her hands along her folded arms as if from a sudden chill. “I understand …”

  “I won’t be long. Maybe just a minute or so.”

  He went out to his car, started it, and backed up into the street. He drove slowly down the long stretch of road that led to the corner where the new homes were being built. The wind seemed to be rising; even inside the car he could hear its soft humming through the pines. The scene had the look of late afternoon, peaceful and deserted.

  He kept his eyes on the road, waiting for that flicker of autumn color, and for a minute he thought that it was gone, it wouldn’t flash this time. But then it came, the red-orange gleam. His heart thudded. The brief delay had been due to the different angle of sunlight now that it was later in the day.

  Chapter 9

  Uncle Chuck got out of his car, reached for his cane, steadied himself on the uneven ground. Shut in here closely among the pine trees, there was almost a feeling of twilight; the wind touched him and he shivered. Behind the pile of wilting brush the little car seemed secret and lonely. Uncle Chuck went over to it.

  In the glove compartment he found the registration certificate which, by law, belonged on the steering post or otherwise openly displayed. Sure enough, the car was registered to Katrina Knowles at the Wildoaks Lane address. Uncle Chuck examined the clips which would have fastened the holder to the steering post; they were bent, almost pulled loose from the plastic straps, as if someone had hastily yanked the holder from whatever it had been fixed to.

  He laid the owner’s certificate on the bucket seat and examined the other things in the glove compartment.

  There were a lot of thin-paper charge slips for gasoline, stuffed in helter-skelter, a tire-repair rec
eipt, two appointment cards from a beauty salon, the dates on them recent ones, a pair of worn brown kid gloves, a red silk scarf almost the exact shade of the car itself, a pack of cigarettes, a lot of half-used match packs, and a dog’s leather leash.

  Uncle Chuck ran the leash through his hands a couple of times, looped it to test its stiffness, decided that it was new.

  Then he put all of the stuff back into the glove compartment, including the registration certificate, and went to the rear of the car. He propped the cane against the bumper, braced himself with a hand on the fender, and opened the trunk.

  Unlike the glove compartment, the trunk was neat, almost empty. There was the spare tire, and some tools rolled inside a plastic case, the bumper jack, and a gallon can painted red, obviously used to carry extra gas. The can was empty, but in finding this out Uncle Chuck had moved it, and behind the can was a large envelope. The envelope had Katrina Knowles’ name and address on it—it had come through the mail—and the return address was that of a Canadian Travel Bureau.

  He opened the envelope and spread its contents, which consisted of booklets about touring the various provinces of Canada.

  He studied the envelope as he returned the booklets to it. He decided that the envelope had lain here in the trunk for some time; it was not dirty—the trunk was quite clean—but it looked somehow worn, as if it had been shuffled around quite a lot, as, for instance, with the various twists and turns of the little car.

  Uncle Chuck closed the trunk and picked up his cane. He stood for a moment unmoving. He knew what he had to do, and he didn’t at all want to do it. Maybe, he thought, it wasn’t even his business. He could just call the cops.

  But no. The only way he could protect Dorrie was by knowing as much as possible—as soon as possible. After he’d looked in the house on the slope above, and found nothing, he could tell the cops about Katrina Knowles’s car.

  He picked his way up the slope, warily, afraid of losing his balance. If you fell here, he thought, you might lie quite a while if you needed help in getting up—probably until the real-estate man came around with a prospective buyer for the house. The closer he got to the house the more aware Uncle Chuck was of its silent desertedness. Someday it would be a home, he thought, but right now it was a shell, hollow and untenanted. The humming sound of the wind in the pines was a disembodied sighing, grieving.