Temple grunted. “Probably so. But that’s not close to making him a suspect.”
“How about this?” Ed relayed Hodge’s account of giving his new shovel to a bum who showed up at the back door.
“Smells sour, but if we arrested people on that count, the jail would be tighter than a can of sardines.”
“But—”
“But with two probable fibs, I agree that Hodge is worth further study. Plus, one of the folks I called who’d been at the matinee said Hodge practically came in on Coombs’s heels and sat not far from the man.” Temple stood, gripped his hips and bent back. “I’ve been settin’ too long. You hold down the fort. Here’s the list the reverend gave me of those he recalled at the rainmaker’s demonstration. Start calling to see if anyone in particular talked to Coombs.” He tossed the paper to Ed. “I’m going out to do some patrolling, get some fresh air.”
* * *
Maybe it was by chance, but when Temple found himself coming up on the turnoff to the hobo jungle, he dialed the steering wheel to the right. Wouldn’t hurt to ask about that shovel Hodge claimed he gave away, Temple told himself. As he pulled in, he noted that the rough encampment wasn’t as populated as the last time he’d dropped by. That was the nature of these bivouacs: the lodgers waxed and waned with the tidal pull of the freights. A couple of teenagers catnapped near the darkened fire ring, heads on logs and legs sprawled out unself-consciously, as if snoozing on their mothers’ sofas.
Murph and three of his deacons were playing cards. Another fellow stood at a mirror hung from a branch, scraping a straight razor across his cheek.
“Boys, put your cards away. Sheriff’s in town,” Murph said with a chuckle.
A half-smile broke across Temple’s face. “No need to panic. Nothing illegal about a friendly game of cards in my book. Just asking for help. I’m chasing down some information connected with the murder on Saturday.”
Murph gestured at a crate. “Make yourself at home.”
Settling on the low box, Temple’s knees pressed against his chest. Not the most comfortable of positions, but the cottonwood’s shade made up for that. “What I’m hoping to find out is if anyone out here, or passing through, got a shovel from someone in town. It wasn’t stolen, so don’t stiffen up on me. And no one is wanting it back. I’m just trying to confirm that the exchange occurred. Sound familiar?”
The three poker players shook their heads, their eyes steadfast on the cards.
Murph said, “Should have brought the missus with you. She was a big hit the other night.”
The jab hit the target but Temple kept his tone level: “So I heard. Etha’s good heart sometimes overtakes her judgment. But what about this shovel?”
“Seems I did see one of the youngsters come back from town with a hoe or something. That kid moved on a couple of days ago, though.”
“A hoe? Sure it wasn’t a shovel?”
“Could have been. Out here no one looks too close into one another’s business. You can wait a bit. A bunch are fishing but will be back in not too long.”
While he waited, Temple surveyed the lean-tos and jerry-rigged clothesline. He thought of the days right after the great flood in Johnstown, when folks foraged among their smashed and sodden belongings. Drug out planks and doors and hammered them into shanties. Unearthed battered cooking pots with squeals of joy. And luck was with the mother who came upon a washboard. He’d been amazed at how fast the women managed to set up housekeeping among the splintered wood, the knee-deep mud, and the stink of corpses. Many Johnstown folks stayed and rebuilt. Within three years, he’d heard, most of the shops and offices were resurrected, the streets repaved with bricks, and 777 of the unknown flood victims were laid to rest in pristine rows with marble headboards at Grandview Cemetery. But not all survivors stayed. Some, including Temple’s family, moved out quick, wanting, as his father said, “to be shut of the place.” Not so different, Temple thought, from these times with young men and boys packing up and heading west in untold numbers. If I didn’t have work here, I’d do the same, he mused. Some head out when things go bad, others dig in. Etha was a digger for sure. Prying her out of Peoria after Jack drowned had ignited the biggest dust-up of their marriage. But it was for the best. It was the kind of thing you just had to put behind you. Like his father said.
Lost in his thoughts, Temple didn’t note a small band of young tramps approaching until they emerged from the tall grasses skirting the campsite. Most had crude fishing poles over their narrow shoulders and a few hoisted strings of glimmering sunfish. Despite the coolness of the shade and the promise of fried fish, most wore the hardened gazes of grown men. As Temple’s glance flicked over their limp shirts and cinched belts, he began to understand Etha’s urge to feed these young drifters and restore their boyhoods, even if only for a few hours.
When questioned, none knew anything about Hodge or his shovel. Temple checked his watch, saw he’d been gone too long from the office, and climbed back into the sedan. He motored back to town, believing that he was none the wiser for the trip. He was still angry at Etha but it seemed that the stone lodged in his heart had loosened a speck.
Back at the office, Temple sent Ed home for the day and then spent another hour with the receiver pressed to one ear, quizzing Vermillion’s moving-picture devotees. Most declared it was too dark, even with kerosene lamps, to see much of anything, as the air was thick and murky. “It was no different from going down to the cellar and closing the door. The world was blotted out,” one lady said.
When he got to the end of the list with no solid information, Temple stood up, stretched his legs, and rubbed his ear. A beer at the Idle Hour was in order.
* * *
Hinchie’s rounded back occupied the short end of the bar. His stethoscope, its surface nicked with the hieroglyphics of constant use, was tossed over his right shoulder—the signal everyone in town recognized as, The doctor is out.
Temple swung a leg over a stool. Ike, the barkeep, delivered a glass of beer.
Hinchie studied Temple’s face. “You look wore in. Getting enough sleep?”
Temple sipped the beer’s foamy surface. “I am, and nope.”
Hinchie studied his own topped-off shot glass. “Me neither. Three new cases of dust pneumonia just today. All three Fitzgerald tots. Fevers, coughing, the works. Not sure one of the babies is going to make it. When Minnie raises cane about what the dust is doing to her curtains, I say, You should see what it does to the lungs, and she clams right up.” Hinchie laughed grimly and tossed back his whiskey.
The two men sat in silence, staring at the mounted elk head hanging above the door to the kitchen. Long ago someone had tossed a derby onto one of its antlers, giving the animal a jaunty air.
After a bit, Temple said, “The Coombs case has me stumped, I can tell you that.”
“That so? Thought you had the fox locked up.”
“Turned out might be the wrong fox.”
“Don’t say?”
“And here’s the kicker: my most promising new suspect is John Hodge, Esquire.”
Hinchie almost choked. “You’re joking.”
“Nope.” Temple sipped thoughtfully. “The leads pointing to him are weak. He’s acting dodgy, but I’m not sure if it’s connected to Coombs.”
Within Hinchie’s mind, a nasty purple bruise bloomed. Over the years, Florence Hodge had come to him with a parade of shiners, lacerations, and poorly healed welts. One morning he found her sitting on his porch step cradling a broken wrist that had knit crookedly and had to be reset. The bones made a sickening crack as he snapped them apart. Most patients would have screamed, but Florence bit her lip and took it. Slippery stairs, cooking mishaps, and general clumsiness were always to blame. Sickened, but unable to shake her explanations, he had bound up her wounds and kept quiet despite his suspicions. But it didn’t sit easy.
He was brought back to the moment with a nudge from Temple’s elbow and a query: “Sound far-fetched? I mean, do you think t
he man is capable of murder? I’ve got to say that I don’t. Full of hot air but not much else.”
Two farmers moseyed into the bar, pulling the hats off their heads; bib overalls hanging loose as sacks over their haunches.
“Evening,” one of them said, to which Temple answered, “Gentlemen.” The two men slipped into a booth.
Temple turned back to Hinchie. “My impression, anyways.”
The doctor screwed and unscrewed his empty shot glass. Now was the time to speak up. To lay out his suspicions about what Hodge’s fists and belt had done. But to do so meant opening himself to the possibility of Hodge’s retribution. I can’t afford to pick a fight with the man or his cronies, he thought. Those cronies included Darnell the banker. Hinchie was deeply in debt to the bank after losing almost every penny he and Minnie had saved for old age on a land scheme that went bust. So far, Darnell had not pressed him about late or missed payments, but that could change in a snap. If that happened, the county poor farm loomed. Minnie knew none of this.
Hinchie considered the glassy eyes of the mounted elk. During the many hours he’d warmed this particular stool, he’d given the animal the name of Walt, after the poet Whitman. A bit of poetry came to him: The courage of present times and all times. “My impression,” he said at last, “is that Hodge is a mean son of a bitch and is capable of killing a man, or a woman.”
Temple jerked his head back in surprise. “Really?”
* * *
Back home, Temple and Etha fell into their usual dinner habit of complaining about the weather and sharing news of the day. It was just the two of them as the kitchen lockup was empty. Afterward, Temple turned the radio on and both let the comfort of routine soften, at least temporarily, the strains of disagreement.
Chapter twenty-one
The next morning, as Etha dried the breakfast dishes, the telephone rang. When she picked it up, Lottie was sobbing, “. . . not since Thursday. I don’t even know . . .”
Etha jammed the receiver between her head and shoulder. “Lottie, dear, what’s happened?”
A huge sniffle filled Etha’s head. “Can you come over to the store? Now?”
“Is someone sick?”
“No.”
There was a pause. Another sniffle told Etha all she needed to know. “Chester.”
“Uh-huh,” Lottie squeaked.
Hurrying up Main, Etha noticed the banner stretched across the street: Rabbit Drive Today! Vince Doll For Sheriff! Join The Fun! Her mouth turned down in distaste, not only at what would be a bloody spectacle but also at the glad-handing Doll, who was pulling out all the stops to win votes. Worry, like a cloud of gnats, was suddenly upon her. She tried to shake it off but a nub of anxiety remained even as she stepped inside Klein’s Model Apparel and inhaled the pleasant starchy scent of new shirts and dresses. She caught sight of Mr. Klein’s well-tailored bottom as he bent to extract a tray of men’s handkerchiefs from below the counter for Reverend Coxey’s approval. Mr. Klein straightened and both men exchanged greetings with Etha. Mr. Klein hooked his thumb toward the ladies’ section in the connecting storefront, saying to Etha, “Over there.”
A woman and her teenage daughter, fingering the fabric of a collared dress on a rack, appeared to be the department’s only occupants. Then Etha heard sniffles from one of the curtained dressing cubicles and her own worries about the election fell away. Inside, Lottie sat on a small stool, her red-rimmed eyes and dripping nose replicated dozens of times in the three-sided mirror. She wore a rather dowdy skirt and blouse.
“He’s cut me off!” she wailed the moment Etha parted the curtains. “Won’t even take my calls.”
“What happened?” Etha asked, offering a fresh hankie.
“It was Thursday. He’d made an appointment with the china salesman to sign up for Dish Night promotions. You know how he feels about those abominations. But ticket sales are way down and he thought he didn’t have a choice. He asked me to help pick out the pattern. He always says I have such good taste.” She broke into fresh sobs. “And it was going swell. Chester and I were working together—how I’d always dreamed. But then, after the paperwork was signed and the salesman and I were chatting, he just snapped. Said I didn’t understand how hard it’s been for him, a blind man and all, and that he’s on the verge of losing the business. As if the drought is my fault! Then he ordered me out; the salesman too. Told me to leave! I’m crushed. I can’t believe he’d think such—”
“Why don’t you tell your father that you and I need to step out back for a minute. Then we can talk in private,” Etha suggested.
This time of day, shade darkened the alley running behind the store. The two plopped down on the splintered loading dock, their legs dangling. They smoked silently for a while and, as Lottie’s father called it, “contemplated the overhead.”
Etha stubbed out her cigarette. “You must confront Chester. Today. Whatever got him lathered up has surely cooled off. Now it is a question of his pride. He’s too embarrassed to admit he was in the wrong.”
“He is a prideful man. Takes offense at the slightest things.”
“That’s just it! You have been nothing but loyal for how many years? You should be given the benefit of the doubt even if he believes you slipped up. Which you didn’t.” As she spoke, it occurred to Etha that the same applied to Temple and herself in a way, although pride was not his Achilles’ heel. It was stubbornness.
Lottie looked doubtful. “Tonight’s the Dish Night premiere. He’ll be hepped up to beat the band.”
“All the better. Get there early. He will be so relieved to have you there to lend a hand, he’ll let down his guard.”
A stray dog with patches of mange loped past, stopping to sniff a can of garbage.
“You’re right!”
Etha nodded. “You run off home and make yourself presentable.”
Back inside, Lottie asked her father for the afternoon off.
“No customers to speak of anyway. Go. Go!” He made a shooing motion. After Lottie had gathered her things, gave her father a peck on the cheek and her friend a hug, she was out the door.
* * *
Etha had been hoping to talk to Lottie about Florence Hodge. She’d had an uneasy feeling about the woman since stopping by her house. Now that Lottie had galloped off, she turned to Meyer. “I’d appreciate your opinion,” she said.
“Of course,” he said, “if you don’t mind that I work on the front display as we talk.” He opened the low wooden gate that separated the shop from the window area and stepped inside.
“In your line of business, you must know the temperament of your steady customers,” Etha began.
Meyer, who was gathering up a wagon-wheel arrangement of neckties, paused. “Oh, yes. That is essential to establishing a strong relationship between customer and merchant.”
“Why I’m asking is that I’m worried about Florence Hodge. Do you think she would welcome a woman-to-woman chat about—”
“My advice?” Meyer interrupted. “Waste of breath. A more timid woman I’ve never seen. Scared of her own shadow on the best days. She was here in the shop when the storm hit. Slunk into a corner with Nudnick at the first gust. They both shook and shivered the whole time. I suppose where she came from the weather was more tame.”
“She’s not from here? I had assumed—”
“She is not. Mr. Hodge went up to Kansas for some legal conference maybe fifteen years ago as a single man. Returned with a wife. But honestly, Kansas weather is the same.”
“That must have been just before Temple and I moved here.”
“Might be. Anyway, she twitched and shook the whole time until the blow passed by and her mister showed up.”
“He was here? I thought Lottie said he missed the fitting.”
“He did. But ten minutes after the storm passed, he was banging on the door. I had to clear a path with the broom to let him in. But nothing is done fast enough for that man. He was tapping his foot out there, pant legs rolled up
, worried about getting his white suit dirty.”
“Really?”
“For a big man, he has those bandy rooster legs. You know the kind? Bow out, white as his jacket. Forever I regret selling that suit to him. He insisted. Listen to me? No! Didn’t I point out that the air here is so thick with dirt you could plant seeds in it? But a white suit he had to have.”
Etha thanked Meyer and started for home. It was almost noon and, in the heat, her once crisp crepe wilted against her back. Fretting about the unreachable Mrs. Hodge and obstinate Chester, she walked home in a bleak mood.
* * *
While Etha was counseling Lottie, Ed had spent the morning on the horn, picking up where he’d left off the night before. Ticking off Reverend Coxey’s list of the spectators at the rainmaker’s display was nothing but drudgery. After a couple of hours, Ed’s notepad was ornamented with doodles and not much else. No one had witnessed a fractious exchange between the rainmaker and anyone in the crowd. No one had heard any heckling or catcalls. In fact, Coombs had apparently made a sterling impression. He was the aces. So far, the only bright spot had been a small wave from Viviane, along with a glimpse of her calves, as she passed by.
The deputy was more than three-quarters of the way through his list and discouraged as all get-out when a glimmer of something promising emerged. Mr. Lovell, a teacher in the crossroad community of Sterling Grove, had answered the phone promptly. After Ed wearily recited his standard question, “Did you notice any harsh words exchanged?” the man had answered, “As a matter of fact, yes.” It had happened at the end of the evening, as the crowd was dribbling back to town. He had overheard Coombs and Mr. Hodge in a brief but heated argument.
“John Hodge?” Ed asked excitedly.
“That’d be him.”
“I’ll be right over,” Ed said. Leaving a note for Temple, who was due back from patrol any minute, he smashed his hat on his head and was dashing through the courthouse door before the telephone receiver cooled in its cradle.
Twenty minutes later, the deputy turned left at Sterling Grove’s single intersection and, after a mile of nothing but empty sky, spotted a dirt-spattered school building on the left. Beyond the school was a trim four-room house. He nosed the county car through a gathering of tumbleweeds lingering in the lane and parked beside the house. On the porch, a fellow with sandy-colored hair and spectacles occupied a rocker, an open book filling his lap.
Death of a Rainmaker Page 23