by Craig Rice
“Looks pretty good,” Dr. Puckett said contentedly. “Fine sandy loam here. Well,” he sighed, “seed and weed, that’s the way it goes. You plant, but you never know what’s going to come up. Same way with people.” He stooped, picked up a stone, and tossed it out of the garden. “I remember, I delivered five babies in a family, good, honest, God-fearing people. All nice, healthy, handsome kids. Three boys and two girls. One girl’s a school principal now, a fine respected woman. Her sister’s married and has a nice little family, she’s president of the PTA in Grove Falls. One boy runs a grocery store, the other’s a real good farmer. The third boy ran away from home twice, got sent to the reform school once, stole a car, held up a bank, shot the cashier, and got hanged. It just goes to show.” He rubbed the dirt from his fingers on the seat of his pants and said, “Let’s go in the house and have a bite to eat, I’m hungry. Got a cigarette with you?”
Jake was hungry. He’d missed lunch. Come to think of it, he hadn’t had any breakfast, either. Dr. Puckett led him into a neat little kitchen, washed his hands and handed Jake the soap, brought out a half-gallon bottle of beer, a loaf of bread, a carton of eggs, a bowl of butter, a frying pan, and an onion. He put the frying pan on the stove to heat, poured out two glasses of beer, and said, “Drink up,” put a hunk of butter in the pan and waited for it to brown. “Hope you like an egg sandwich,” he said. “That’s one thing a country doctor knows how to make.” He chuckled, breaking the eggs into the pan. “You go out to a farm to deliver a baby. Five o’clock in the morning you’re ready to go home, but you’re hungry. Somebody’s thought to put a pot of coffee on the stove for you, but nobody’s thought you might like something to eat. So you look in the icebox, and there’s never anything but eggs. You make an egg sandwich, and go home.” He shaved onion into the frying pan and said, “Why did you come out here, anyway?”
“Frankly,” Jake said, “I’m damned if I know. I guess I just wanted to talk to you.”
“All right,” Dr. Puckett said. “Go ahead, talk.” He sprinkled salt, pepper, and celery salt in the frying pan. “Only maybe you’d better eat first.” He flipped over the eggs, sauced the browned butter over them with a big spoon, and slid them expertly on the thick slices of bread he’d been warming in the oven.
Jake took one bite and said, “Boy!” He took another bite and said, “I never knew anybody in my life could make egg sandwiches like this, except my grandpop.” He took two more bites and said, “Funny, this is one of the things no woman can cook right.”
“Ma never learned how to make a good egg sandwich,” Dr. Puckett admitted. “But you should just taste her devil’s-food cake once.”
“I’d love to!” Jake said. He licked the last bit of egg off his fingers. “You’d never believe it to look at her, but my wife makes the most wonderful corned-beef hash.”
“You should taste Ma’s watermelon preserves sometime,” Dr. Puckett said. He refilled Jake’s beer glass and his own. “Hazel was a fine cook, too. Won a blue ribbon at the county fair for her grape jelly one year.” He reached for his pipe. “Now, what was it you wanted to talk to me about, son?”
Jake lit a cigarette and stared for a long time at its smoke. “I want to find the man who murdered your daughter.” He held the cigarette so tight that it went out. “I started out to, for the most selfish reasons in the world. Now, well”—he dropped the dead cigarette in his saucer—“I guess it’s just—” He looked up. “I’d like to see the son-of-a-bitch in the electric chair. I came out here to pump you for any information that might lead me to him, that’s all.”
Dr. Puckett said, “You don’t need to be so vehement about it, son. Murder’s a terrible crime, but I don’t know as it does any good to revenge yourself on the murderer. Murder brings its own punishment, one way or another. Now you take Lew Hays, back home. I knew he’d poisoned his wife the night he called me in to treat her. She died just a little while after I got there. In a way it seemed like an act of justice, because Minnie Hays had been an awful mean woman. Frankly, I always thought she starved her father while she was taking care of him on his deathbed, though when she inherited his farm she found out it was mortgaged. And I knew for sure she was behind driving a little schoolteacher out of town just becase she’d made sheep’s-eyes at Lew. The schoolteacher hanged herself out of the back window of a house of ill-fame in St. Paul six months after she’d been driven out of town. Still, you hate to see a person die like that, even an awful mean person like Minnie Hays. From poison that acts that way, I mean. Not just so much because it was painful, but because it must have been embarrassing. She was conscious all the time, and Minnie had always been a terrible prim woman. Still, maybe she had it coming to her. Well, anyway, next month Lew married a blonde girl who’d been working in Wirke’s Variety Store, and she’s made his life a hell. She’s twenty years younger than Lew, and I guess she found out there wasn’t as much money as she’d expected, and she has a lot of boy friends. Maybe it’s just as well I made out the certificate ‘Death from Natural Causes,’ instead of calling up the sheriff. Seems to me like most people get punished for what they do, one way or another. Now that blonde girl who married Lew, she got herself a mother-in-law who’s an old—” He paused, knocked his pipe against the side of the table, and said, “What were we talking about, anyway?”
Jake gulped down the rest of his beer and said, “The man or woman who murdered your daughter.”
“Oh, him?” Dr. Puckett said. “Don’t worry. He’ll get his comeuppance, someday.” He rose. “I’d better go out and wet down those seeds I put in. Hazel was a pretty girl, and her ma’s going to feel awful bad about this, but she wasn’t perfect either.”
29. Helene Sells a Poem
Malone started his renewed search for Bertha Morrison by looking up a friend and client from the old days in Chicago, one Charlie Firman, whom he’d successfully defended against a variety of charges, beginning with running a horse parlor and slowly working up to selling stock in a nonexistent platinum mine. Charlie had become a smart operator in the stock market, made a million dollars, lost it and his shirt, after which he’d borrowed a hundred dollars from Malone and gone to New York, where, from what Malone heard, he had a series of very high ups and very low downs.
He seemed to be in the midst of one of the very low downs right now. Malone found him occupying desk space in a shabby building (“Desk space, incoming phone calls, mailing address, $2.50 weekly”) from which he was mailing out extravagantly printed brochures urging his sucker list to “Own a share in a radium mine!”
Charlie greeted Malone joyously, showed him the brochure, and said, “They’ll love it! Radium has glamour! Everybody’s heard about radium.” Malone nodded critical approval of the brochure. “I paid a thousand bucks to have a specialist write that page about the source of radium,” Charlie bragged, licking a stamp.
“You’re a damn liar,” Malone said amiably, dropping the brochure back on the desk. “You lifted it word for word out of the encyclopedia. Listen, pal. Want to do me a favor?”
“For you,” Charlie Firman said, “anything.”
Malone told him what he wanted. One thing about Charlie Firman, he had an uncanny ability for weaseling out information about people’s most private financial affairs. More than once in the past he’d obliged Malone by finding out if a client was really too hard up to pay a big fee, or if he had a secret bank account tucked away somewhere. He’d always come up with the facts, too.
“Brother, I’m your man,” Charlie Firman said. He stuffed the last brochure in an envelope, sealed and stamped it, and said, “I’ll get you the dope on this Proudfoot guy, right down to the last penny.”
Malone went away, satisfied. Meanwhile, he told himself, there was no point to working on the Bertha Morrison matter. Not until he heard from Charlie Firman.
The report on Abner Proudfoot reached him late that afternoon at the hotel, sent (collect) by special messenger. Charlie hadn’t missed a thing. Malone read it through slowl
y and with satisfaction. It answered his most important question, that Abner Proudfoot would be able to pay the rest of the fee for finding Bertha. It answered a number of other questions, too, that Malone hadn’t thought to ask.
He yawned, and reached for the phone. Jake had come in, and gone out again. Helene had come in later, and was dressing. She’d be ready to leave for Wildavine Williams’ in a few minutes. Dennis Morrison had returned from the hospital and was in bed; he was going to have dinner in his room. The little lawyer shaved and dressed leisurely. He wasn’t looking forward to dinner at Wildavine Williams’, but he might find out a few things he needed to know. He had the curious feeling that he had all the facts in the case except one, and that when he stumbled on that one, everything would fall automatically into place. He didn’t know what that one missing fact could be, or whom it concerned, but he was serenely confident that he was going to find it.
He joined Helene in the lobby. She had on her simplest dress and an unfurred coat, no jewelry, and very little make-up. Malone looked at her approvingly. She’d meant to give Wildavine a break. Not that it would do any good. Helene, Malone reflected, just couldn’t help being beautiful. Helene said, “We’ve a few minutes. Let’s go up and see how Dennis Morrison feels.”
Malone had had the same idea. He wasn’t so much concerned with how Dennis Morrison felt, as with whether or not Dennis had ever known Howie Lutts.
The young man looked tired and pale, propped up against the pillows. A wisp of bandage showed at the collar of his pajama coat. He was sorry he’d run off and left Malone and Helene like that. It had been an impulse, a sudden impulse. He’d wanted to catch up with old Dr. Puckett and tell him how sorry he was about Gloria Garden’s murder, and—well, everything. “About my not being there. If I had, you know, there wouldn’t have been any murder.”
“You can’t be sure,” Malone said. “There might have been a murder, with you on the receiving end.”
Dennis stared and said, “I never thought of that! Someone did try to murder me. Why? Why would any one want to murder me?”
“If you don’t know,” Malone said, biting the end off his cigar, “I can’t guess.”
“The whole thing seems so senseless,” Dennis said. “And now, even more so. Do you know about the letters?”
Malone said, “Yes,” and Helene said, “What letters?”
“From Bertha,” Dennis said. “It’s mad. It’s insane.” He gasped, and said, “But it means she’s alive.” A Mrs. Martha Chalette had received a letter that morning from Bertha, and turned it over to the police. It had been mailed from Niagara Falls. Arthur Peterson had shown it to Dennis. Bertha had written it all right. It had been just a little note, thanking Martha for her lovely gift, saying that Niagara Falls was beautiful, and that Bertha was deliriously happy.
“But that’s impossible,” Helene said. She turned to Malone. “Tell me. What does it mean?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Malone said, lighting the cigar. “Unless she’s married to someone else she thinks is Dennis.” He had an alternative theory he didn’t want to voice. But Dennis said it for him.
“Or she’s gone crazy,” Dennis said wildly. “All this has driven her crazy. But, at least, she’s alive.” He sat upright and said, his eyes desperate, “I ought to be out looking for her. I shouldn’t be here, in bed. I feel perfectly all right.”
“You stay where you are,” Malone said. “Don’t forget, there’s some guy with a knife out looking for you, and the police are having enough trouble as it is without you getting murdered, too.”
Dennis sank back against the pillows. He managed a very faint smile. “You’re right, of course. But I feel so—useless.”
Malone brought the conversation back to where it had started from. The results were unsatisfactory. Dennis didn’t remember anything helpful about the murder attempt. He hadn’t been able to catch up with Dr. Puckett, who’d taken the ferry by the time he arrived. He’d just missed that boat. He’d been standing there, in the crowd, waiting to catch the next one, when he’d felt a sharp pain. Then someone had shoved him. He remembered the cold feeling of the water, and that was all. Yes, he had known Howie Lutts. Not well, though. And not as Howie Lutts, but as Harris Lawrence. Not until now had he known that Harris Lawrence was Bertha’s cousin. “She might have learned of the escort bureau through him,” Dennis said. “I wouldn’t know. I just know I was sent to take her out one night, and that was—the beginning. He wouldn’t have been interested in her as a client, even if she was his cousin. He was strictly working a racket”—he smiled wryly—“as of course you know.”
Did Dennis know about the pawnshop where Bertha’s jewels had turned up? He knew, vaguely, that there was such a place, but he hadn’t known where it was.
Could Dennis have inadvertently stumbled on any information, while working for the escort service, that would have called for an attempt to murder him? He didn’t think so.
Did Dennis ever know a man named Abner Proudfoot? Dennis knew the name. He was Bertha’s trustee. He’d never met him.
It was getting late. Helene rose and slid into her coat. Malone picked up his hat. Would Dennis be a good boy and stay put, and not run around and get murdered? Dennis would.
Was there anything they could do, or get for him before they left? Not a thing, thanks.
Malone observed contentedly that Schultz was sitting in the lobby, trying unsuccessfully to look inconspicuous. Not a word was said until they were in the taxi. Then Malone glanced at Helene and, ignoring all the other puzzling facts in the case, said, “Funny damn thing, though, about that dinner jacket.”
“Isn’t it,” Helene said serenely. There was something about her manner that he didn’t quite like. She was entirely too calm, and she looked a little too pleased with herself. Something was brewing. He couldn’t guess what it would be, but he suspected he wouldn’t enjoy it.
He likewise suspected he wouldn’t enjoy the next few hours. Fortunate, he told himself, that he’d fortified himself during the afternoon with the pint of grape brandy and the six bottles of Coca-Cola. It had made an agreeable mixture to sip while he waited for Charlie Firman to call. Now it had left him with a pleasant feeling of warmth and a slight buzzing in the ears.
They climbed the stairs to Wildavine’s apartment. The door was ajar. There was a smell of garlic and tomato paste that had reached all the way down to the first floor. Wildavine was saying, “Magnificent! Such verve! Such significance! And three hundred pages long! Just a matter now of getting it into the right hands.”
She was sitting on one of the painted chairs talking to Jake, who was sitting on the edge of the couch. She had on enormous loops of earrings, a green ribbon bound her hair, and she was wearing bright-orange house pajamas. There was make-up on her face, too. Too much of it, and not very carefully applied, but at least it was there. Evidently she’d decided to offer a little competition herself.
She greeted them effusively, invited them to sit down on the teetery couch. Malone looked around the room. Cooking was obviously going on behind the curtain. The pictures on the wall held him spellbound, particularly one, titled Unfinished Symphony. It looked like a bright-green angleworm between two pale-blue fried eggs. The little lawyer stared at it for a long time. He wished he was back in Chicago.
A very tall, very thin, very gloomy young man came in, carrying a jug. Wildavine bounced up to greet him. A small woman with a lot of fuzzy white hair came in just behind him. She was dressed in a bright-red sweater, a tight black skirt, red anklet socks, and tennis shoes. “This is Madame.” Wildavine said reverently. “She paints.”
Madame said, “How do you do,” in a deep sepulchral voice, and sat down in a corner, with an air of having said her last words for the evening.
“And Peter Kipp,” Wildavine said. “A very great poet.”
The young man put the jug down on the table, looked at Malone, and said, “Do you write, or do you read?”
“Neither one,” Ma
lone said, startled. “I’m illegitimate.”
“I recite,” the young man said. He poured red wine into the Kraft-cheese glasses Wildavine had produced. “I compose orally.”
A plump, red-haired girl with freckles emerged from behind the curtain to announce that the spaghetti was ready to serve. “And this is Zora,” Wildavine said. “She lives next door.”
Malone, in a slight daze, wondered if Zora wrote, read, painted, or composed. It turned out that she was a night cashier in a neighborhood movie house, and that this was her evening off.
A plate of spaghetti was put on his knees. Malone looked at it dubiously. There seemed to be a lot more spaghetti than there was sauce. One very lonesome-looking little meatball reposed in the center of it. He gulped the glass of red wine to encourage himself, poked an experimental fork in one end of a piece of spaghetti, and pulled it upward. It was approximately thirty-six inches long. “Like this,” Wildavine said brightly, performing an expert but horrifying trick with a fork and a tablespoon. “See how easy?”
Malone tried it, became hopelessly entangled, and ended by nearly strangling himself. Maybe, he thought, he should have drunk only half the bottle of brandy before starting out. He ended up by employing a technique similar to that employed by a bird with an angleworm and finally slid his plate onto the table under the cover of a furious argument about art. He wondered how soon he could get out and find a steak.
Peter refilled all the wineglasses and was prevailed upon to compose, orally. Then Wildavine refilled them and consented to recite a poem which, it just happened, she had memorized. Madame sat in her corner, working on her fourth plate of spaghetti. Zora carried out the dishes and refilled the wineglasses for the fourth time.
When there was a faint lull in the conversation, Helene said brightly, “You know, I sold a poem today. To Whither.”
There was an amazed silence. Then Wildavine gave a hollow titter and said, “Your wife has such a wonderful sense of humor, Mr. Justus.”