Leopold's Way

by Edward D. Hoch

  “Who else helped you pull him out, anyway?” Leopold asked.

  “I think it was Jim Groves.”

  Leopold nodded. “I thought it might have been. Funny he didn’t mention it today.”

  “What did he say about it?” Chuck Quain asked.

  “Oh, nothing really. Just that he thought there might have been something funny. Something not quite right.”

  Shirley Quain laughed. “Are you going to make a murder case out of it after all these years, Captain?”

  He joined her with a chuckle. “Hardly.”

  Chuck studied the damp end of his cigar. “It would be too late now anyway, wouldn’t it? After twenty-five years?”

  “Well, there’s no statute of limitations on murder, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Let’s find a pleasanter subject,” Shirley suggested. “How about another drink, Captain?”

  “No, no. I really have to be going. I didn’t mean to be talking shop either. Just wanted to tell you about the reunion.”

  “Do you think under the circumstances that Venice Park is a very good place to have it?” Chuck asked.

  Leopold got to his feet. “I’ll bring up the point with Harry Tolliver. He might have forgotten about Fisher too.”

  “Everyone seems to have.”

  Leopold nodded. “Everyone but Jim Groves. He still remembers it.”

  That night, later, Leopold phoned Harry Tolliver at his home. The man was a bit overly jovial, as if he might have been drinking. “Hi, boy! How you doing? Did you reach everyone?”

  “All but George Fisher. He’s dead.”

  “George…Oh, sure. I didn’t know his name was on the list.”

  “Harry?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think we should consider moving the reunion to some other location? Venice Park might bring back unpleasant memories.”

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  “Well, Fisher and all.”

  “Everybody’s forgotten that.”

  “Some people haven’t. Some people even think his death might not have been accidental.”

  “What? God, Leopold, stop letting that badge go to your head! I asked you to call a few people, that’s all.”

  “Sorry.” Leopold hung up and lit a cigarette. For a long time he sat staring at the frosted glass of his office door. What was it? Was he just trying to be a big man with his former classmates? Was he overdoing the detective bit? He was forty-three years old—hardly a child any more. He’d forget about the thing. Right now!

  But the next afternoon he went to see Jim Groves again.

  Groves was blinking sleepy eyes as he opened the door. “Hey! We don’t see each other for twenty-five years, and then bingo—two days in a row!”

  “Sorry to bother you again,” Leopold said.

  “Come on in. I got some cold beer in the icebox.”

  “No thanks. I just wanted to ask you something, Jim. Yesterday you said something about George Fisher’s death. You said you thought someone may have pushed him out of that boat. Why?”

  “You’re working now, aren’t you? You’re going to solve the damn thing after twenty-five years!”

  “If there’s anything to solve. It was a long time ago.”

  “There’s something to solve, all right. Fisher was never much of a swimmer, but the damned creek was only ten feet wide!”

  “How deep?”

  “Six feet, maybe. He could almost have walked out.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “Darn right he didn’t! Because somebody pushed him out of the canoe.”

  “Somebody walking on the water?”

  “Maybe somebody in another canoe,” Groves answered.

  Leopold lit a cigarette. “You’ve got quite a memory. What else do you remember? Who else had a canoe out that night?”

  “Quain. Chuck Quain was right behind him when it happened.”

  “Were they friends?”

  “That’s hard to say.” He went into the kitchen for a moment and returned with a frosty bottle of beer. “Hard to say. They both were hot for that Shirley Fazen. I remember the football games when she used to cheer. She was really built.”

  “Wasn’t just about everybody hot for Shirley, as I remember it?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Even me, once.”

  “Was George with Shirley that day?”

  “Not too much as I remember it. He had this other chick on the string. Marge Alguard. Remember her?”

  “Vaguely. Short girl, dark hair?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What’s she doing these days?”

  “I don’t think she ever got married. I see her around town once in a while. She works at one of the department stores.”

  “Thanks a lot, Jim. You’ve got quite a memory.”

  “Listen, if you’ve got some time, let me tell you about one or two of my best games. Remember the time I ran eighty-five yards for a touchdown against Tech?”

  “I remember, Jim. Maybe I can come again some time and we can talk about it. Right now you’d better start getting ready for work.”

  “What? Yeah, it is getting late.” He downed the rest of his beer. “See you around. In June if not before.”

  “Sure.” Leopold left him there, feeling vaguely sorry for Jim Groves, feeling that nobody should be cursed with that good a memory of the better days.

  Marge Alguard’s name didn’t start with F or G, but Leopold went to see her anyway. He found her working behind the candy counter of the city’s largest department store, scooping multicolored jelly beans into little plastic bags. Easter was only a few weeks past, and he imagined this was the unsold remainder. He found himself wondering if they melted down the chocolate rabbits, too.

  “Pardon me. Miss Alguard?”

  “Yes?” She still had a pleasant smile, though she was too obviously a woman in her forties.

  “You probably don’t remember me after all these years. My name’s Leopold and I went to high school with you.”

  She hesitated a moment and then her tiny face lit up. “Why yes, I remember you! How are you?”

  “Fine. I’d like to talk to you a few minutes if I could. Do you get a coffee break or anything?”

  “I’m in charge of the department,” she answered with a superior smile, signaling to one of the other girls. “I’d be happy to have coffee with you. I see so few of the old crowd any more.”

  Over coffee in the store’s gaudy restaurant they talked of old times and people they’d known, and finally after a decent interval of casualness Leopold asked her, “Remember George Fisher? The fellow that drowned at the senior picnic?”

  “Oh yes, George Fisher.” Her eyes seemed suddenly to blur.

  “I was thinking about that day, trying to figure what really happened. You were with George, weren’t you?”

  “Not when he died.”

  “No, no. I meant earlier.”

  “It’s hard to remember. Twenty-five years next month. You know, Harry Tolliver called me the other day about a class reunion.”

  “I know.”

  “Yes, I guess I was with George most of that day. I remember he rented the canoe and we paddled all over the park, up and down those creeks and streams, under the bridges, through the branches of the trees where they touched the water.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. We rested for a time on the bank. I remember how nice the grass was, how soft. Then it was dark, and he said he had to return the canoe. I never saw him alive again. I heard the shouting and ran down and saw them trying to revive him. It was horrible.”

  Leopold wanted to leave her in peace, but there was one other question he had to ask. “When…when you rested on the bank, did he kiss you, neck with you?”

  “Say, what is this?” Her blurred eyes were suddenly sharp with suspicion. “Why are you asking me all these questions?”

  “I’m looking into Fisher’s death.”

  �
��Are you a cop or something?”

  “It’s not an official investigation,” he said quickly, but he saw that he had already lost her. He had gone too far with his casual questions. She finished her coffee and hurried back to the candy counter with hardly a good-bye.

  Leopold sighed and ordered a second cup of coffee. He should forget the thing, then and there. Nothing good could come of what he was doing. He was just stirring up a lot of memories better left buried after twenty-five years. At times he had too much of the detective’s mentality—the ability to see evil where no evil lurked. Perhaps this was one of those times.

  That night Harry Tolliver—an alarmed Harry Tolliver—phoned Leopold at his apartment. His voice over the telephone had lost now all of the friendly charm he’d tried to show that first day.

  “Leopold, what in hell are you trying to do?”

  “About what?”

  “You know. George Fisher. You’ve got everybody all upset.”

  “Oh? Who?”

  “Marge Alguard, just to name one. She found out you were with the police and she’s scared half out of her wits. What did you ask her, anyway?”

  “Nothing special.”

  “Her name wasn’t on your list, even. What in hell are you trying to stir up?”

  “Just the truth.”

  “After twenty-five years there isn’t any truth, only memories. Stop bothering these people. Stop bothering me!”

  “You?”

  “I want this reunion to be a success. You think anyone’ll show up if you turn it into a murder investigation?”

  “No one’s mentioned murder. No one till now.”

  “Look, just forget I ever approached you about the reunion. Forget everything, huh?”

  “That’s difficult to do at this point. Memories linger.”

  Tolliver hung up in disgust. Leopold felt a bit sorry for the man, as he did for most people, but the thing was almost out of his hands. He had the decided feeling that wheels had been set in motion, wheels which could not now be stopped until they had ground exceedingly fine.

  That night Leopold’s dreams were troubled, and he awoke at the first hint of dawn with a cool layer of sweat covering his body. By some trick of memory he was back there, back on that stone bridge over the creek, remembering it all as clearly as if it were yesterday. Yes, the lights playing on the water, the wet stone beneath his hands as he clutched the parapet and peered down; it was all too vividly clear. There was Shirley Quain—Shirley Fazen then—the bathing suit clinging to her strong young form, helping to pull the limp, sodden body from the water. And there too was Jim Groves, aiding her, though his clothes were soaked and his shoes lost somewhere in the creek.

  Leopold came suddenly awake. Jim Groves, for all his remarkable memory, had not mentioned to Leopold that he’d helped recover Fisher’s body from the creek. Why not? Was it simply that he hadn’t been asked?

  Leopold rolled out of bed and dressed quickly. He wanted to get down to headquarters, away from his thoughts, away from the memories. When he reached his desk he rang for Fletcher and asked at once for an account of the night’s activities.

  “Morning report’s not ready yet,” Fletcher said. “What’s the trouble this morning, Captain?”

  Leopold ran a hand over his eyes. “I don’t know. Talk to me about something, will you? What about that jewel robbery yesterday?”

  Fletcher’s smile broadened. “We cracked that one. The bird they grabbed outside the building finally confessed.”

  “What did he do with the diamond rings?”

  “Damnedest thing you ever heard of! He’s got a girl friend working in the building and he had it set up that she’d leave her office and go down for coffee at exactly three o’clock. He staged the robbery when he saw her coming back along the hallway with her paper cup full of coffee. As he ran by her he just dropped the rings into the coffee and kept going. It was perfect.”

  “Not quite perfect,” Leopold said.

  “What?”

  “You caught him.”

  “Yeah, but if he hadn’t broken down and talked we’d never have gotten wise to the way he worked it.”

  The conversation depressed Leopold. Everything seemed to depress him. “Fletcher, perfect crimes can become an obsession with detectives sometimes. I wonder if that’s what’s happening to me.”

  “What’s the trouble, Captain?”

  “Twenty-five years ago an eighteen-year-old boy drowned at Venice Park during a class picnic. I was practically a witness to the thing. Now I’m wondering about it, wondering if someone might have killed him.”

  “Take my advice and forget it, Captain. We have enough new murders coming in every day without worrying about anything that old.”

  Leopold sighed and swiveled around to look out the window. These first few days in May were always among his favorites, a special time when the earth seemed alive again not just with spring but with an electric impulse to accomplish the strident tasks of winter. Perhaps it was the weather that was against him this day. “Fletcher, I value your opinion, but I just can’t accept it. Go down to the records room and dig me out what they’ve got on this drowning, will you?”

  “How long ago did you say it was?”

  “Twenty-five years next month, but we must have something on it. The boy’s name was George Fisher. He was a senior at Washington High.”

  “That stuff’s probably in the basement, under a ton of dust.”

  “See what you can find,” Leopold said. “Just to humor me.”

  Fletcher was gone for the better part of an hour, and when he returned his brow was streaked with a line of dust. He collapsed into Leopold’s straight-backed chair and blew more dust from a thin legal-sized folder. “I hope you’re satisfied, Captain.”

  Leopold smiled through tight lips. “I don’t think anything could satisfy me today. What’ve you got?”

  “Who knows? I only hope the paper hasn’t all crumbled into dust. Weren’t they talking about putting all this old stuff on microfilm?”

  “They’ll do that about the same time they give us a new building, “Leopold said. He was now suddenly anxious to see these old reports, anxious to delve into this page from his past. He wondered if somewhere on these pages his own name might even appear, like a ghostly vision of another, forgotten life. “What’ve you got, Fletcher?”

  “Not too much, really. Let’s see—autopsy report, statements by some of the kids, and the report of the investigating detective.”

  “Detective?” Leopold sat up straighter in his chair. “Why a detective?”

  “Don’t know. Nothing to indicate why, but apparently they thought something was funny at first.”

  “Yeah. The autopsy—what were the findings?”

  “Death by drowning. Nothing irregular there.”

  “Any other marks or wounds on the body?”

  “Not a thing. Some hair pulled out, but that probably happened when they tried to rescue him.”

  Leopold stared off into space. “Do you have a statement by Chuck Quain there?”

  Fletcher flipped through the papers. “Here it is…He was in a canoe about a hundred feet behind Fisher. It was dark, but there was an occasional moon through the clouds. He hadn’t been with Fisher, but had seen him earlier in the boat with a girl named Marge Alguard…”

  Leopold nodded. “What about the drowning?”

  “…Well, Quain heard a yell and a splash from around a bend in the creek. By the time he reached the spot, he saw Fisher struggling in the water. Quain couldn’t swim, and hesitated about going in after him. He shouted for help, and some of the others came running. It was hard to see anything, and by that time Fisher had gone under for good. But after a moment or two Shirley Fazen and Jim Groves found him and pulled him out. They applied artificial respiration, but it was too late.”

  “What are the other statements?”

  “Let’s see…Shirley Fazen—she was the only one who still had her bathing suit on, and she was the
first to reach the creek and go in after Fisher. But she couldn’t find him until Groves joined her after a moment. He was fully dressed, but he dived in anyway and they pulled Fisher out together.”

  “What did Groves say?”

  “About the same thing. He’d been swimming earlier in the evening with Shirley Fazen, and she stayed in the water while he dried off and got dressed. This was at a pool about a hundred yards from the creek. The first thing he knew he heard Quain shouting for help and he started to run towards the sound. He dived into the creek and found that Shirley was already there, searching for Fisher. They found him together.”

  “Is Marge Alguard mentioned anywhere?”

  “In Quain’s statement.”

  “Yeah. Anywhere else?”

  “Here’s a very brief statement by her, just to the effect that she’d been in the canoe with Fisher earlier.”

  “How about Harry Tolliver?”

  Fletcher skimmed over the last remaining sheet of paper. “Nothing on him. This is just the detective’s conclusions.”

  “That should be interesting.”

  “It should be, but it isn’t. He figures Fisher was standing up in the canoe and fell in. That’s all.”

  “Why would he stand up?”

  Fletcher shrugged. “Beats me.” He fumbled for a cigarette and lit it. “But then I can’t figure out why you’re so interested in making this a murder, Captain.”

  “Shouldn’t I be? Isn’t it my job?”

  “After all this time?”

  “If it was murder then, it’s still murder today.”

  Fletcher frowned into the cigarette smoke, blue against the morning sunshine filtering through the dirty window. “Yeah. But if it’s murder, then you could be one of the suspects yourself.”