The Man Who Cried All the Way Home

by Dolores Hitchens

  “Doris believes that the burglary was a real one,” Uncle Chuck told him. “Don’t you think that’s the best protection she has?”

  “Well, I just wanted her to know the score,” Wally insisted, his voice quivering.

  “This story of yours just doesn’t make sense, Wiegand. Sargent didn’t need your fireplace to burn any mysterious papers. He had this whole deserted mountainside to do it in. So what was the burglary supposed to cover up?”

  “No idea,” Wally gasped, moving uneasily on the bench.

  “I’ve got another idea,” Uncle Chuck persisted. “Suppose you were the one who took the stuff from the garage—including some clippings Sargent had which you felt might embarrass you somehow in your big plans for expanding your tire outfit. Wouldn’t this yarn you’re telling now be exactly what you’d come forward with?”

  “Me …!”

  “Exactly. You. Sargent was a notorious clipping collector. There could have been something printed, not recently, which wouldn’t go too well with what you have planned now.”

  “Oh, now, look,” Wally cried. “You’re guessing, man. Bum guesses. And I came up here with the best intentions in the world—”

  “All right, let’s see how good your intentions are toward Doris. Last night, during this party you had with Doris, or whatever you want to call it, did she make any threats about what she was going to do to Sargent? Did she threaten to kill him? Did she wave the poker from the fireplace, and did you beg her to calm down, give you the poker, and take another drink instead?”

  The dim glow from the service entry showed him Wiegand’s bulging eyes and stupefied expression.

  “Come on, give me an answer,” Uncle Chuck demanded.

  “Y … you’ve lost your marbles,” Wiegand whispered, picking up the big flashlight, which lay between them, as if to protect himself with it. “You’ve cracked up. You’re nuts!”

  “You’re saying that Doris didn’t do these things? Didn’t gesture with the poker, didn’t make threats that scared you?”

  “My God, of course she didn’t!”

  “But she refused to give Sargent the divorce he wanted.”

  “Sure. I said she wouldn’t give in, didn’t I? But she wasn’t mean or threatening about it. Just unhappy. Kind of—uh—regretful. She asked me once, where was Sarge hid out and waiting to hear the word, was he free or not? But there were no threats at all.”

  For a moment or two they sat in silence. Wiegand still held the flashlight defensively, still watched Uncle Chuck with bulgy-eyed alarm. Uncle Chuck’s head had sunk forward and his eyes were shut. Around them the mountain, wrapped in night, lay utterly silent. There was no whisper of prowling night life, no nocturnal bird song.

  Finally Uncle Chuck said quietly, “When you told me earlier today that Doris wouldn’t give in, you meant she wouldn’t give in about the divorce?”

  “Heck, yes. Of course. What else?” Wiegand sounded oddly innocent, almost offended.

  When Uncle Chuck didn’t immediately answer, Wally straightened on the bench, laid down the flashlight.

  “What are you trying to say, Sadler? That I had some kind of immoral designs on Doris? If that’s your idea, you can forget it. I respect Doris. Sure, she and I got drunk together; we cut a few capers, danced, acted the fool. That doesn’t mean I’d try any funny business.”

  When Uncle Chuck didn’t answer at once, Wiegand added, “Say, who told you this yarn about Doris waving a poker? Is this something the cops have made up?”

  “No. Not the cops.”

  “Well, who, then?”

  Uncle Chuck started to rise, maneuvering the cane to brace himself. “I want to make an experiment, Wiegand. It will only take a few minutes. Will you co-operate?”

  “Why, sure. I guess so.” In his turn Wiegand stood up, looking puzzled.

  “I want you to go into the living room. Make sure the draperies are almost closed over the windows. Almost—but not quite. Leave a small space open. Let them hang as they might if they were closed quickly and carelessly.”

  “Okay. And then what?”

  “I want you to walk around in the living room. Walk back and forth in front of that small opening in the draperies.”

  “I guess you know what you’re doing.”

  Uncle Chuck picked up the flashlight. “The rear door is open. The service door, over there behind the trellis.”

  Wiegand hesitated, then started for the light which glowed from behind the trellis.

  Using the flashlight in one hand, picking his way carefully with the cane, Uncle Chuck crossed the patio and the paved driveway beyond, skirting his car which sat there. Beyond the drive was an arrangement of wild growth, marking the boundary of the landscaping. Uncle Chuck went through the wild shrubbery and beyond, to a spot sheltered by the pines where anyone wanting to see into the house would logically stand.

  Wiegand had already fixed the draperies as Uncle Chuck had instructed. There was a space of perhaps six inches open at the bottom, and through this Uncle Chuck could see a part of the ceiling. Once in a while a vague, elongated shadow flickered on the ceiling as Wiegand apparently moved about.

  Uncle Chuck went closer, crossing matted pine needles and rough clumps of earth, but this position was even worse, giving an even narrower view of the ceiling within.

  There was nothing for it but to move farther back into the trees.

  Fifteen minutes later he went back into the house and found Wiegand conscientiously walking back and forth, puffing a cigarette and staring anxiously at the opening in the draperies.

  “Could the draperies have been open much more than that last night without your noticing?” Uncle Chuck asked.

  Wiegand shook his head. “No. I’m sure of it. I remember wondering, when we were pouring the drinks pretty fast, if Sarge might be watching us. And then I looked around the room and decided, how could he? So any big opening in the drapes is out.”

  Uncle Chuck nodded. Was Wiegand lying? Had he made sure that Sargent could spy on them by deliberately leaving a bigger space in the window draperies?

  It didn’t matter. There was no way in which Knowles, or Sargent, could stand outside, close enough to see details such as Knowles had described, and look into the room and see anything but the ceiling. The hill sloped too steeply. The trees concealed a large gully across which the watcher would have had to make his way, further increasing the distance from the house.

  Knowles had lied then.

  Chapter 13

  By eight-fifteen the next morning the kitchen and dining nook glowed with sunshine. The smell of coffee, the fragrance of fried bacon, filled the air. Uncle Chuck, in shirt sleeves and with one of Doris’s aprons tied at his waist, stood at the counter stirring a bowl of pancake batter.

  Doris came in from the other part of the house. Pete was lying under the breakfast table; he rose and went to her, wagging his tail, and she bent to inspect the wounded place beside his ear. Doris had brushed her dark hair back off her face, had put on a touch of lipstick. She wore a flattering pink housecoat and matching pink sandals.

  Uncle Chuck glanced at her approvingly. “Well, you look like the old Dorrie, the one I remember.”

  “Uncle Chuck, I’m so ashamed. I’ve been lying in there, thinking of the way I neglected you, ignored you. And then turned to you at the first hint of trouble.” She left Pete, came close to Uncle Chuck, put a hand on his arm, and laid her cheek against his shoulder. “I didn’t deserve even a minute of your consideration.”

  “You quit that kind of talk,” Uncle Chuck commanded.

  “I can’t help thinking of what a … a cheap kind of thing I did.”

  “It wasn’t cheap, it wasn’t wrong. Suppose I’d read about all of this in the papers, knowing you hadn’t even called me? Think for a while of how I’d have felt then. Now, you look rested and alive again, a change from last night, and we’ll have a good breakfast and then we’ll talk. There are a couple of things we’re going to get straight before M
artin descends on us.”

  “Martin? But why should he—”

  Uncle Chuck laid aside the spoon. “Martin will get hold of your friend Bill Knowles. When he shows Knowles the body of his daughter, Knowles is going to spill everything, including that lie about what he saw through your living-room draperies.”

  A look of relief flashed over her face. “Lie? Then you’ve talked to Wally—”

  “Wiegand came up here last night. Late. I didn’t have to go looking for him. He came to confess that Sargent’s burglary had been a fraud. Sargent took the missing stuff, the tools and the broken radio and some clippings, to Wiegand’s place. He gave Wiegand a yarn about wanting to clear out the garage, but that you wouldn’t allow it, so a fake burglary was the easiest way out—as bald an act as I’ve ever heard of. Even old Wally couldn’t have believed it. Wiegand says you can have back the tools and other stuff. The clippings are gone, burned to ashes personally by Sargent in Wiegand’s fireplace.”

  He had feared that Doris might respond with incredulous half-hysterics, tearful questions, as she had yesterday, but the night’s rest had calmed her, restored her. She walked to the breakfast alcove and sat down, looking out silently at the pines below, apparently deep in thought.

  “That’s just silly,” she said finally. “Why would Sargent need anyone’s fireplace to burn something? He had his own. He could have started a fire here any evening, used stacks of clippings. I wouldn’t even have noticed.”

  “I think Wally understands that. He must have suspected at the time that he was playing some part in a plot, a plan of Sargent’s. By the way, he said that Knowles lied about the scene he claims he saw, your making threatening gestures with the poker. And I found out something more—even if you had done it, Knowles couldn’t have seen you from outside the house where he said he stood to watch.”

  “That does worry me. The deliberate, malicious lie.”

  “If Martin plays it smart and makes him pinpoint the area where he stood and looked inside, and tests the view, the yarn will fall apart. Otherwise—”

  “But why should he tell the lie at all? Why me?” She was frowning in concentration.

  Uncle Chuck tested the pancake griddle with a spoonful of batter. He opened the oven, looked in at the bacon. Then he began to fry the pancakes. “This is just talking off the top of my head, Dorrie, as the boys are supposed to say in the ad offices. Remember, Knowles knew that Sargent had been murdered, that the police hadn’t settled on a suspect. Then, too, he thought Kat must be hiding out. So the aim of his story of you with the poker is obvious. Take the heat off Kat and draw attention to somebody else, You.”

  “Yes, that’s logical.”

  “But there’s more to it than just that. The yam sounds like a revision, and a damned clumsy revision, of something else. There was an elaborate plan going. This story of Bill Knowles’s, whatever it was originally, filled a gap.”

  She looked up at him as he set a cup of coffee in front of her. “A plot? You mean about Sarge’s planning to leave me?”

  “I wonder, Dorrie.” He went back to the range. “There are some strange lies in all of this, seemingly pointless lies. The simple theory of Sargent’s running away to begin a new life with Kat doesn’t seem to cover it all.” One by one he flipped the pancakes expertly.

  She stirred the coffee, looked down into the dark liquid. “What do you mean by a pointless lie? Give me an example.”

  “Just one, then, because we’re almost ready to eat. And I should have said seemingly pointless lies, because every one of them must fit Sargent’s purposes somehow. But the example, or one of them, is this: You told me that Sargent was highly displeased, greatly disappointed, with the results of his teaming up with Sharon Baxter. She wasn’t efficient, she hadn’t brought in the new accounts he’d expected, and so on.”

  “Yes, but that’s true!”

  “One of the first things she told me was how well the business had been going and how pleased and satisfied Sargent had been.”

  “But … but why should he tell me—”

  “Which was the lie, Dorrie? Was he lying to you or to Sharon Baxter? I’m going to stick my neck out and say you. For this reason, that Sargent wasn’t a man who would have kept a woman in his office who had displeased and disappointed him. He’d have found a way to get rid of her.”

  After a moment’s thought Doris answered, “That should have occurred to me. I should have asked him why he didn’t simply dissolve the partnership.”

  “He would have thought of some excuse. Now we’re going to drop the subject of Sargent and eat breakfast. My pancakes and bacon deserve quiet and uninterrupted appreciation.”

  She smiled at him, and Uncle Chuck was pleased to note that the talk about Sargent’s lies, and the plans which must have called them forth, hadn’t dismayed her. There was color in her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. She was a pretty woman—the faint touch of silver in the dark hair didn’t spoil that; and when Martin came he was going to find her a different person from the shattered and terrified woman of yesterday.

  They ate in companionable silence. Uncle Chuck slipped Pete an occasional bite of bacon from his plate. Sargent had had strict rules about just when and where the dog should be fed, but Sargent was gone and the rules he had enforced didn’t have the importance now of the ones he had broken.

  When breakfast was done, Uncle Chuck told Doris, “I’m going to tidy up the kitchen and put the dishes in the dishwasher. You go into Sargent’s room, and in the bottom bureau drawer you’ll find that big folder that Mrs. Baxter brought here yesterday. I want you to get out those insurance policies and make a note of whomever you’re supposed to get in touch with—the agent, whoever that is—and don’t forget to include the mortgage insurance. Calling the insurance man is a job for today. He’s almost certainly heard the news or read the papers, but notify him anyway. Some of the other documents in that folder are going to have to be turned over to Martin.”

  “You mean the photostat of Kat’s birth certificate.”

  “Yes.”

  She rose from the table, carrying some dishes to the sink counter. She set down the dishes, turned to face him. “Why couldn’t all that part about wanting Kat have been a lie?”

  “Don’t rule out that possibility until we know everything about the funny game Sargent was playing.”

  “Do you think it might have been true, that he met her when she had a flat tire on her little car?”

  “It could have been true. Or not true. What must have been a fact was that he did run into Kat Knowles and they started having an affair. I think we can allow that.”

  “I shudder when I think that I lived with him and all the while he was capable of that. A child. A child we’d known all of her life.”

  “Kat Knowles wasn’t a child any more, Dorrie. She’d grown up, all the way up. It’s possible that she was the aggressor in the affair. She’d run wild and had her own way with an indulgent father. She might have found Sargent interesting just because he was out of bounds, as it were, because of being married and being so much older and being her father’s pal. Young and wild like that, a secret affair might have been right up her alley.”

  Doris shook her head. “Even so, there’s no excuse for Sargent.”

  “I’m not trying to excuse him. I’m trying to explain him for your benefit.” Into Uncle Chuck’s mind flashed the memory of the young girl as he had found her dead yesterday. There had been something wrenchingly pathetic about the soft young breast bared for the bullet. “Now run along and call your insurance man while I clear the kitchen and take Pete out for a short run.”

  In a little over ten minutes Doris went out into the patio where Uncle Chuck sat on a bench, enjoying the bright morning sun. Pete was on the slope that led to the street, searching the dew-covered grasses with a lowered nose.

  “Everything straightened out?” Uncle Chuck asked.

  “He’ll be up this afternoon to go over the policies.” She frowned up at
the nervous-acting dog. “Don’t you think Pete seems jittery and suspicious?”

  “Yes, and I think he’s got a damned good reason,” Uncle Chuck replied.

  “You mean the fact that he was shot in the ear?”

  Uncle Chuck rose, nodding at her. “If the person who shot Pete also murdered Sargent and the Knowles girl, he might figure Pete knows him, knows who he is, and will react when they meet again. Identify him, as it were. It could be he has plans to finish the dog off when the chance comes.”

  She whistled the dog down to her, coaxed him to stand still, and inspected the wounded ear, which seemed to be healing well. “I’m not going to put him out again at night. I won’t sacrifice Pete.”

  Uncle Chuck was studying the dog with a thoughtful eye. “The trouble with poor old Pete is he reacts to everybody. Anyone who comes to the house now seems an enemy. He doesn’t discriminate and maybe he really doesn’t know who did shoot him. Maybe the shot came from someone he never got wind of, didn’t see.”

  “If I have to, I’ll get another dog for outside—”

  “Another dog is an idea I’ve been toying with.” Uncle Chuck, braced on the cane, started for the house. “Right now I’m going to call Cannon’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Criff. I’m going to see if she won’t meet me somewhere and talk further about Arthur Cannon and his affairs. And this time I want you along, Dorrie. I want you playing the silent, saddened widow. I have a hunch Mrs. Criff would appreciate a few soap-opera touches. Appreciate them enough to do a lot more talking.”

  For a moment Doris seemed hurt and dismayed. “I … I couldn’t put on an act—”

  “Well, put yourself back into yesterday—you’ll do fine.” She held out a hand as if to delay him. “I haven’t any quarrel with Arthur. You heard the agreement I made with him, that he’s to figure up his losses on the stock, that Diamond Tunnel thing—”

  “Yes, Dorrie, and let’s make sure if we can that you’re not paying what you don’t owe him.” He left her standing there with her hand on Pete’s collar and went into the house.

  Uncle Chuck dialed from the kitchen extension phone. Mrs. Criff herself answered on the second ring. “Yes? Who is it?” she cried, and then added as an afterthought, “This is the Cannon residence, Emily Criff speaking.”