The Thursday Turkey Murders

by Craig Rice

  He grinned and said, “Hope you ain’t been bored with all this gabbing of mine.”

  “I should say not,” Bingo said. “I’d like to talk some more with you about it.”

  “The whole thing,” Sheriff Judson said, “is a matter of personality. Now, some folks’ll murder, and some folks won’t. You take Will. I could find him standing by a guy that’s just fell dead from being murdered, and with a gun in his hand and fingerprints all over the place, but I wouldn’t figure Will had done a murder, because he don’t have that personality. But if the parson, here, lived in Thursday, why, I’d arrest him on suspicion every time somebody reported a couple of chickens had been stole. There you are.”

  Bingo said casually, “I don’t suppose you have a theory as to who committed these two murders.”

  “Matter of fact,” the sheriff admitted, “I got a hunch about it. But that’s none of your business, and I got no proof, and anyhow, I could be wrong.”

  “Henry!” Will Sims’ voice called from the inner office.

  “Be right there,” Henry Judson called back. He grinned at Bingo and Handsome, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “See you boys later. If anybody else gets shot with a rifle out by your place let me know.”

  “Say. Bingo—” Handsome said, as they walked down the steps.

  “I’m thinking,” Bingo said severely.

  There was silence until they were in the convertible and were driving toward Main Street.

  “But. Bingo,” Handsome said.

  Bingo sighed. He’d forgotten what he was trying to think about anyway. “Well?”

  “Mr. Halvorsen,” Handsome said. “Mr. Judson, the sheriff, he was trying to figure out Mr. Halvorsen having such a bad temper. Only. Bingo, Mr. Halvorsen didn’t have a bad temper. He wasn’t mad.”

  “All right.” Bingo said crossly.

  “He wasn’t mad at all,” Handsome repeated. “Bingo, he was scared.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Charlie Hodges was just coming out of his doorway when Handsome stopped the car. He waved and greeted them cheerfully.

  “You come to see Gus? You’ll have to wait. He ain’t fixed up yet.” He added, almost starry-eyed, “He’s gonna be beautiful, though. Even with that bullet wound. It’ll be an extra fancy job, believe me. Now, when a guy is as thin as Gus was—”

  To ward off further details, Bingo said hastily, “Who’s going to pay for this extra-fancy job?”

  “Gus, he died a pauper,” Charlie Hodges said sadly. “The county allows me thirty dollars. But as far’s I’m concerned, he could be having a thousand-dollar funeral, and I wouldn’t do a better job. That’s what comes of taking real pride in your work.”

  “Say,” Bingo said, “That reminds me. These pictures we took of you—my partner and I brought a few prints over, in case you’d like to have them for souvenirs.”

  Charlie Hodges looked at the prints, said, “Well, I’ll be darned,” beamed, and finally said, “Have you got a copy of these I can have?”

  “Those are for you,” Bingo said. “We thought you might like ’em. That one of you standing under the sign is a whooperdoo.”

  “I’ll say!” Charlie Hodges said, admiring it. “Looks just like me. Sign shows up nice, too.”

  “You know,” Bingo said, “if I were you—” He paused. How could he phrase what he wanted to say?

  None of the sales-talk approaches and openings he’d used in the past seemed to fit this occasion. “Say, how’s business?” seemed highly inappropriate, and “Say, why don’t you pep up your business a little?” was even worse.

  Charlie Hodges solved the problem for him by speaking first. “Mr. Riggs,” he said, almost wistfully, “are these pictures very expensive to make?”

  “Well,” Bingo said thoughtfully, “that would depend on where you had it done. And on how many you wanted.”

  “I’d sure like to have about a hundred of these,” Charlie Hodges said. “Maybe you could recommend somebody that could make me about that many copies. Two hundred, even, if it didn’t cost too much.”

  “Let me think,” Bingo said. He rubbed his chin reflectively. “There’s a firm in Kansas City—” He paused and said, “Heck! We’re going to be here another day or two. Why don’t we make some copies for him, Handsome?”

  “Sure,” Handsome said. “No trouble at all.”

  “Why didn’t I think of that before!” Bingo said. “Then it wouldn’t cost anything except for the materials, and we get them at wholesale.”

  “Oh, come now,” Charlie Hodges said. “I couldn’t let you do that.” But there was a hopeful note in his voice.

  “Nonsense,” Bingo said. “We do it for the fun of it. And you’re a friend of ours.” He turned to Handsome. “Remember, when I first saw that picture I said that if I were Mr. Hodges I’d get some copies made of it, to send to my prospects.” He paused, aghast. Prospects didn’t seem like just the word to have used.

  Evidently the word seemed perfectly all right to Charlie Hodges. He beamed and said, “That’s exactly the idea. I’ve got a list of folks in the county that are in poor health, or getting along in years. Accidents and such, I figure I’ll get anyway. Henry Judson’s a good friend of mine. And there’s a number of folks I know I’ll get. But I got a couple of hundred doubtful cases. If I could mail out those pictures, with a nice little letter, I might be able to swing most of ’em away from that feller in Dalesport.”

  “A very sound investment, I would say,” Bingo said. “Now, let’s see. Two hundred prints—”

  A spirited business discussion followed. The final agreement was two hundred pictures, at fifteen cents each.

  “Of course,” Charlie Hodges said, after the deal was closed, “there’s a lot of speculation in this business. You’d be surprised. I remember a feller out near Lima Junction. Seventy-six years old, and he had about every kind of sickness in the books. Heart trouble, stomach trouble, kidney trouble, about every darn thing you can think of. On top of that, he slipped on the cellar stairs and broke his leg.”

  He sighed. “You wouldn’t believe the work I did, cultivating his family. Sent Christmas cards and Easter cards and birthday cards. Sent his wife a pot of poinsettias I had to order all the way from Des Moines. Went out and visited. My wife got his daughter-in-law into the Thursday Ladies Literary Society. One of my boys courted his granddaughter.” He paused and shook his head sadly.

  “And what happened?” Bingo asked. “Did he finally pick the man in Dalesport, or did he move away? Or what?”

  “Nothing like that,” Charlie Hodges said. There was a wounded note in his voice. “But that was almost ten years ago. And he’s living yet.”

  Bingo nodded sympathetically. “And Christmas cards and Easter cards and birthday cards, and poinsettias, every year for ten years—it adds up.”

  “Oh, well,” Charlie Hodges said philosophically. “He’s eighty-six now. Almost eighty-seven. And I get a cut rate on the poinsettia plants.”

  They had driven half a block before Handsome said, “It’s a good thing we’re going to be practically to Hollywood before he finds out he could have postcards made of that picture for about a nickel apiece, maybe less.”

  “Handsome,” Bingo said, “the trouble with you is you haven’t any business judgment. And if you ask me, it’s a good thing we got away from there when we did. I was afraid that any minute he was going to ask me how I was feeling.”

  “Come to think of it,” Handsome said, “you don’t look so good.”

  “Shut up,” Bingo said.

  Handsome grinned silently.

  Suddenly the convertible slowed down. “Bingo. That lady. Mrs. Silton. She wanted to see you.”

  “To see us,” Bingo corrected.

  “Well,” Handsome said, “you’d know better what to say to her. Or ask her. This might be a good time for you to go see her. We’re right near that Mrs. O’Callaghan’s boardinghouse. I could drive you there and then come pick you up.” He added uncomfortabl
y, “Bingo, it’s almost four o’clock.”

  “Oh.” Suddenly Bingo remembered. Handsome had a date at four o’clock. A date in the old red hay barn, with the farmer’s daughter.

  “If she’s your girl, Bingo—” Handsome began. “And maybe I ought to finish up the pictures, anyway—”

  “She’s Herb’s girl,” Bingo said. “And the pictures can wait. And you’re right, I should go visit the widow Silton.”

  Handsome turned the convertible in the direction of the O’Callaghan boardinghouse. “Bingo. She’s a nice girl and I like her, only—” He paused. “It isn’t exactly like a date. She just wanted I should give her some advice.” He paused again. “I don’t know much about giving advice.” He paused for a third time. “Besides, I ought to be working on them pictures. The corset lady wants hers tonight.”

  He stopped the convertible in front of Mrs. O’Callaghan’s boardinghouse. “Bingo. I don’t know what I should talk about with her.”

  “You’ll find out,” Bingo said, opening the door. “Just don’t promise to make any free pictures. Her old man’s got money. And keep in mind that Herb wouldn’t like it a bit if she went off to Hollywood.”

  The widow Silton was in a wicker rocking chair on the side porch of Mrs. O’Callaghan’s establishment, a tall, cold drink at her elbow.

  “Just a nip,” Mrs. O’Callaghan explained to Bingo. “Poor lady, and her so recently widowed. You’re a friend of hers? Sure, a nip wouldn’t do you a bit of harm, either. I’ll be bringing it to you.” She blew her large, pink nose and said, “Poor, poor lady. I’ve not had a dry eye for as much as a minute since she came in the door.”

  The widow Silton herself seemed in a much calmer frame of mind than her landlady. And considerably more sober.

  Bingo sat down in the other wicker rocker and said, “It seems very comfortable here.”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I’ve got a clean room with a good bed, I had a wonderful lunch, and I’ve got a landlady to do my bawling for me. What more could I ask?”

  She glanced at Bingo and said, “I suppose you think I’m pretty coldhearted. I’ve always thought it was easier to joke about things than cry about them. Of course I’m sorry about Hal. Not as much sorry about him as sorry for him, if you know what I mean.”

  “I have the general idea,” Bingo said.

  “I didn’t marry him because he was handsome, or brilliant, or the world’s greatest lover,” the widow Silton said. “But because he was one hell of a good bookkeeper and he had a good head for business. Outside of that he was a gambler and a woman chaser. I didn’t mind that. And I didn’t mind that every time he got a little high he’d get sentimental and go around blubbering about this daughter of his that he’d never seen. But—”

  She frowned. “Anybody could talk him into anything. I’ve no doubt that’s how the bank robbery came about in the first place. Oh, yes, I know the story he told me. But I’d be willing to bet that what really happened—this Engan person came around and said, ‘Look, you’ve got the inside dope on this bank. Let’s go into business together and rob it.’ And Hal, the damn fool, said yes.”

  “And then didn’t get any of the money,” Bingo said.

  “Poor guy. It’s sort of sad, you know. All these years he kept thinking about that money. Till it must have almost gotten to seem as if it rightfully belonged to him—as if it had been his in the first place. Then, he came so close to it and—bang!”

  Bingo jumped.

  “Oh, well,” she said. “What can’t be cured must be endured, as Mrs. O’Callaghan was saying. Now, smart boy, just where do you fit into this picture, and what do you know about the money?”

  “Believe me,” Bingo said. “We’re just a couple of innocent bystanders who came along for the ride.”

  Mrs. O’Callaghan interrupted him by appearing with the little nip. It turned out to be a tumbler of cheap rye whisky with a very small quantity of soda water.

  “Comfort her,” Mrs. O’Callaghan said, sniffing. “The poor lady.” She burst into tears and fled into the house.

  Bingo decided it would be simpler to tell the whole truth. He’d gotten as far as Gus and the turkeys when the widow Silton began to laugh.

  “You, too,” she said. “Clancy almost fell for that same gag. Only with him, it was chickens. It was a scream, the way he could tell it. He was driving out to Reno from Chicago. Seems this mangy old rooster ran across the road and Clancy hit him. The farmer came out and went into this prize-rooster routine. And this farmer went into his speech about his wife dying in Shreveport, Louisiana, and he’d sell the whole five hundred chickens for a thousand dollars cash.”

  “With us,” Bingo said, “it was his mother, back in Illinois. And it was two thousand dollars.”

  She wiped her eyes and shook her head. “He must have been a wonder! Too bad he was killed!” Suddenly her face grew sober. “Say! Wait a minute!”

  Bingo waited, almost breathlessly.

  “I remember something. Clancy telling that story. And Hal acting funny, and asking Clancy a lot of questions about where it was in Iowa, and so forth and so on. It was just about that time Hal and Clancy got so chummy. Then Clancy left on this so-called vacation trip. Um-hm. And was arrested for robbing a drunk.” She paused, smiled brightly, and said, “Well!”

  “Well, what?” Bingo demanded.

  “Well, I don’t think I need to talk any more business with you,” she said. “Thanks just the same.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Bingo began.

  The widow Silton shook her head. “I enjoy your company, and we’ll talk about the weather, or the movies, or sex, or politics, but we won’t talk about business. Unless you can locate Clancy and send him here to see me, in which case I might pay you a moderate fee.”

  Bingo rose. “Madam,” he said, with all the wounded dignity in the world, “I am not a private detective.”

  She laughed. “No. You’re just a city slicker that buys prize turkeys. If I were you, I’d hurry on out to Hollywood before you find you’ve bought the Thursday County courthouse.”

  “Good day, madam,” Bingo said. It wasn’t a very good exit line, but it was all he could think of at the time.

  He was almost over being furious by the time he reached the front door of Mrs. O’Callaghan’s boardinghouse. By the time he reached the sidewalk, he was regretting it.

  It wasn’t because further conversation with the widow Silton would have been profitable. She was too smooth a customer. Besides, he didn’t need to learn anything from her. But the side porch was a cool, pleasant place to wait for Handsome.

  At least he should have kept his temper long enough to finish the little nip.

  It was hot out on the sidewalk, and there were no more than a few inches of shade. Bingo tried standing with a telephone pole between him and the sun, but it didn’t work very well. Besides, he realized that if he continued to hang around waiting for Handsome, he was going to become unpleasantly and embarrassingly conspicuous.

  He started walking, in spite of the scorching sidewalks and the tan calf oxfords. After half a block he took his coat off and carried it over his arm. Another half block, and he took off his tie. He was just starting to unbutton his shirt when Handsome turned the corner, stopped the convertible against the curb, and said, “Hi!”

  Bingo was too hot, exhausted, and uncomfortable to say anything. He slid into the seat, slammed the door, took his shoes off, leaned back, and drew a long breath. Handsome didn’t say a word until they were a good half mile out of town. Then he pulled up under the shade of an enormous maple tree.

  “Bingo, I didn’t mean to be so long. But I went into Thursday for some cold beer. I thought maybe those guys out at the shanty would like some cold beer. It must get pretty stuffy out there, on a day like this.”

  He reached into a big brown paper bag, drew out a frosty brown bottle, expertly flipped the cap off on the under side of the dashboard, and handed it to Bingo.

  Bingo took one long
pull at the bottle and closed his eyes for a moment. “How did you make out with Christine?”

  “Oh, fine,” Handsome said, a little vaguely. “How did you make out with that Mrs. Silton?”

  “Well,” Bingo said, “it’s like this.” He paused for another soothing gulp. “She didn’t say so, but she figured everything out. I could see what she figured out. Maybe I never told you, but I’m a mind-reader.”

  “Bingo,” Handsome said. “Be serious, now.”

  “I am serious,” Bingo said. He started to toss the empty bottle out the window, paused, and said, “Is there a deposit on this?”

  “Uh-huh,” Handsome said. “Two cents on every bottle.”

  Bingo put the bottle down carefully on the floor of the car. “Clancy tangled with Gus, same way we did. Only it was roosters, not chickens. He thought it was a helluva good joke, same as we do, and told it all over Reno when he got there. Well, evidently Henry Siller, or Hal Silton, recognized the locality and started asking questions. Maybe that made Clancy suspicious and he started investigating Henry. Anyway, they teamed up.”

  He lit a cigarette. “Clancy came back here and got himself arrested for something that would send him to the state prison, but for a short term. There he proceeded to get acquainted with a guy, or guys, who’d been pals of the late Chuck Engan. Our pals, now.”

  “Our guests, you mean,” Handsome said.

  “Guests! Pests,” Bingo said. “However. These guys knew something Clancy and Henry Siller needed to know. Not where the money was buried, but the identity of the man who’d buried it. Clancy and the guys made a deal. Clancy’d do the outside work on the jailbreak. Then the guys would get together with Clancy and Siller and tell what they knew.”

  He was silent for a minute. “Gus was a stooge of Clancy’s. The shanty was picked for a meeting place. Then things began to go wrong. First Gus crossed things up. Maybe he was mixed up about the date, or maybe he didn’t know when the jailbreak was coming along. But he couldn’t resist a chance to pull his old game. He probably figured we’d find out we’d been gypped, and go along on our way next morning or maybe that same night, and think it was a good joke. His other suckers evidently hadn’t had the staying power we have.”