The attorney pursed his lips. “I wouldn’t pursue that right now. You haven’t turned up anything to prove it. But he could feel secure about being able to send her upstairs again before she saw anything. That’s what was important: that he could feel safe, secure. That’s how I’d use it. Put that together with the Lyons woman’s testimony and his own daughter’s. No jury will take his word that he was home with his grandson between 10 and 11.”
“Did he strip naked to do the job?” said Willets. “His clothes went through the lab.”
“Old work clothes.” The attorney looked him in the eyes. “There’s been cleaner jobs than this before and I’ll prove it. I don’t expect to go in with the perfect case. There’s no such thing.”
“Then all I have to do,” Willets said, “is get the warrant and bring him in.”
“That’s all. The rest is up to me.” The sheriff had reached the door when Harris called after him. “Andy…I’m not the s.o.b. you seem to think I am. It’s all in here.” He indicated the file. “You’ll see it yourself when you get to where you can have some perspective.”
Harris might very well be right, the sheriff thought as he walked through the county court building. He had to accept it. Either Harris was right and he had done his job as sheriff to the best of his ability and without prejudice, making the facts stand out from sentiments…or he had to accept something that logic would not sanction: Sue Thompson as the murderer of her own father. That this amenable girl, as Harris called her, who by the very imperturbability of her disposition had managed a life for herself in the house of her father—that she, soft and slovenly, could do a neat and terrible job of murder, he could not believe. But even granting that she could have done it, could someone as emotionally untried as she withstand the strain of guilt? He doubted it. Such a strain would crack her, he thought, much as an overripe plum bursts while yet hanging on the tree.
But the motive, Canby’s motive: it was there and it was not there, he thought. It was the thing which so far had restrained him from making the arrest—that, and his own stubborn refusal to be pressured by the followers of Mary Lyons.
The sheriff sat for some time at his desk, and then he telephoned Matt Thompson’s friend, Alvin Rhodes. The appointment made, he drove out to see the former superintendent of the state hospital for the insane.
Rhodes, as affable as Thompson had been dour, told of Matt Thompson’s visiting him the previous Wednesday, the day before his death. “We were not friends, Willets,” the older man said, “although his visit implies that we were. He was seeking advice on his daughter’s infatuation with a man three times her age.”
As Thompson had grown more sullen with the years, the sheriff thought, Rhodes had mellowed into affability upon retirement. Such advice was not sought of someone uncongenial to the seeker. “And did you advise him, Mr. Rhodes?”
“I advised him to do nothing about it. I recounted my experience with men of Canby’s age who were similarly afflicted. The closer they came to consummation, shall we say, the more they feared it. That’s why the May and December affairs are rare indeed. I advised him to keep close watch on the girl, to forestall an elopement, and leave the rest to nature. In truth, Willets, although I did not say it to him, I felt that if they were determined, he could not prevent it.”
“He cared so little for the girl,” Willets said, “I wonder why he interfered at all. Why not let her go and good riddance?”
Rhodes drew his white brows together while he phrased the words carefully. “Because as long as he kept her in the house, he could atone for having begot her, and in those terms for having caused his wife’s death.” Willets shook his head. Rhodes added then: “I told him frankly that if anyone in the family should be examined, it was he and not the girl.”
Willets felt the shock like a blow. “The girl?”
Rhodes nodded. “That’s why he came to me, to explore the possibility of confining her—temporarily. In his distorted mind he calculated the stigma of such proceedings to be sufficient to discourage Canby.”
And the threat of such proceedings, Willets thought, was sufficient to drive Canby to murder—as such threats against his own person were not. “I should think,” he said, preparing to depart, “you might have taken steps against Matt Thompson yourself.”
Rhodes rose with him. “I intended to,” he said coldly. “If you consult the state’s attorney, you will discover that I made an appointment with him for 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon. By then Thompson was dead. I shall give evidence when I am called upon.”
The sheriff returned to the courthouse and swore out the warrant before the county judge. At peace with his conscience at last, he drove again to the Murray house.
Betty Murray was staring out boldly at the watchers who had reconvened—as boldly as they were again staring in at her.
There would be a time now, Willets thought, when they could stare their fill and feel righteous in their prejudgment of the man. Only then would they be willing to judge the full story, only then would they be merciful, vindicating their vindictiveness. He ordered his deputies to clear the street. John Murray opened the door when the sheriff reached the steps.
“Better take Betty upstairs,” Willets said to her husband. He could see the others in the living room, Sue and Phil Ganby sitting at either ends of the couch, their hands touching as he came.
“The old man?” John whispered. Willets nodded and Murray called to his wife. Betty looked at him over her shoulder but did not move from the window.
“You too, Miss Thompson,” Willets said quietly. “You both better go upstairs with John.
Betty lifted her chin. “I shall stay,” she said. “This is my father’s house and I’ll stay where I want to in it.”
Nor did Sue Thompson make any move to rise. Willets strode across to Canby. “Get up,” he said. “I’m arresting you, Phil Canby, for the willful murder of Matt Thompson.”
“I don’t believe it,” Betty said from behind them, her voice high, tremulous. “If God’s own angel stood here now and said it, I still wouldn’t believe it.”
“Betty, Betty,” her husband soothed, murmuring something about good lawyers.
Canby’s eyes were cold and dark upon the sheriff. “What’s to become of her?” he said, with a slight indication of his head toward Sue.
“I don’t know,” Willets said. No one did, he thought, for she looked completely bemused, her eyes wide upon him as she tried to understand.
“You’re taking him away?” she said as Canby rose. Willets nodded.
“It won’t be for long,” John Murray said in hollow comfort, and more to his wife than to the girl.
“Don’t lie to her,” Canby said. “If they can arrest me for something I didn’t do, they can hang me for it.” He turned to Willets. “If you’re taking me, do it now.”
“You can get some things if you want.”
“I don’t want no things.”
Willets started to the door with him. Betty looked to her husband. He shook his head. She whirled around then on Sue Thompson. “Don’t you understand? They’re taking him to jail. Because of you, Sue Thompson!”
Canby stiffened at the door. “You leave her alone, Betty. Just leave her alone.”
“I won’t leave her alone and I won’t leave Sheriff Willets alone. What’s the matter with everyone? My father’s not a murderer.” Again she turned on Sue. “He’s not! He’s a good man. You’ve got to say it, too. We’ve got to shout it out at everybody, do you hear me?”
“Betty, leave her alone,” her father repeated.
“Then get her out of here,” John Murray said, his own fury rising with his helplessness. “She sits like a bloody cat and you don’t know what’s going on in her mind…”
The sheriff cut him off. “That’s enough, John. It’s no good.” He looked at the girl. Her face was puckered up almost like an infant’s about to cry. “You can go over home now, Miss Thompson. I’ll send a deputy in to help you.”
/> She did not answer. Instead she seemed convulsed with the effort to cry, although there was no sound to her apparent agony. Little choking noises came then. She made no move to cover her face and, as Willets watched, the face purpled in its distortion. All of them stared at her, themselves feeling straitened with the ache of tears they could not shed. Sue’s body quivered and her face crinkled up still more, like a baby’s.
Then the sound of crying came—a high, gurgling noise—and it carried with the very timbre and rasp of an infant’s. Willets felt Phil Canby clutch his arm and he felt terror icing its way up his own spine; he heard a sick, fainting moan from Betty Murray between the girl’s spasms, but he could not take his eyes from the sight. Nor could he move to help her. Sue hammered her clenched fists on her knees helplessly. Then she tried to get up, rocking from side to side. Finally she rolled over on the couch and, her backside in the air, pushed herself up as a very small child must. Her first steps were like a toddle when she turned and tried to balance herself. Then, catching up an ashstand which chanced to stand in her way, she ran headlong at Willets with it, the infantile screams tearing from her throat…
In time it would be told that Sue Thompson reverted to the infancy she coveted at least once before her attack on Willets, rising from sleep as a child on the night of her father’s quarrel with Canby, ripping off her night clothes when she could not manage the buttons, and in a rage with her father—when, perhaps, he berated her for nudity, immodesty, or some such thing a child’s mind cannot comprehend—attacking him with a child’s fury and a frenzied adult’s strength…using the weapon at hand, Phil Canby’s wrench.
Sheriff Willets could document much of it when the sad horror had been manifest before him: the crying Mrs. Lyons heard, even the cleaning up after murder, for he had watched Canby’s grandson clean off the tray of his highchair. And he could believe she had then gone upstairs to fall asleep again and waken in the morning as Sue Thompson, nineteen years old and the happy betrothed of Phil Canby.
1954
The Muted Horn
THESE WERE THE MOMENTS when it felt good to be a farmer, Jeb thought. From where he stood at the pump he could see the clean straight rows of young com, unbroken in any direction he looked. A day’s work.
He had cleared the field of thistle and he felt as though he had driven out a thousand devils.
The cat was watching him from the back porch while he filled the tub and lathered himself with soap. She smoothed the fur on her breast. “Stepping out tonight, Cindy?” Jeb said. His own mind was filled with thoughts of Ellen and the music shop, and their evening together after the shop was closed. He whipped a handful of suds to the ground and the cat leaped into it. She bristled with disappointment and stiff-legged it back to the porch.
“That was a dirty trick, Cindy. I’ll give you the real stuff in a minute.”
“She’s had her milk,” his father said from the doorway. “Supper’s on the table and there’s company waiting.”
“I’ll be right in. How does the corn look, Dad?”
The old man looked down at the field. “It’ll be choked again in a week,” he said, turning back into the house.
Jeb emptied the tub and hung it up. He wondered if, twenty years from then, he would be like his father. He was the sixth generation of Sayers farming this stubborn New England soil, and he was still washing at an outdoor pump. No, he decided, he would not be like his father. The old man fought every improvement he tried to put into the place. He still distrusted electricity. Every time there was a thunder storm, the switch had to be thrown off before he would stay indoors. And he was not much worse than the majority of people in Tinton. Jeb tickled the cat’s ear as he went up the steps. “It’s a hell of a life, Cinderella. But we’ll bring them round yet.”
The company was Nathan Wilkinson, town moderator, deacon of the church, and publisher of the oldest weekly in the state. “I won’t keep you from your supper,” he said, shaking hands. “I’ve come to tell you I’m putting you up for elder in Tinton Church, Jeb.”
“Oh,” said Jeb, looking from Mr. Wilkinson who was examining the backs of his hands to his father.
“It’s a great honor, my boy,” the deacon continued. “There’s no more than half a dozen men received it at your age in the whole history of Tinton. Your father should be mightily pleased.”
“Oh, aye,” his father said without looking up.
Jeb moistened his lips before speaking, “I feel I must decline the honor, Mr. Wilkinson…Will you have a bite with us?”
“I will not, thank you. May I ask your reason for declining? If you’re afraid the board won’t confirm it, in all humility, I can say my word is…”
Before he had selected the delicate word to complete his thought, Jeb said: “If it’s not impertinent, sir, I’d rather know your reason for nominating me.”
“It is impertinent, Jeb. Most impertinent.”
“There’s always been a Sayers on the church board, Jeb,” his father murmured uneasily.
“Nominated for good and true service,” Jeb said, “and upright citizenry. Would you credit me with those virtues, Mr. Wilkinson?”
“I think you’re capable of them, Jeb—when you’re through sowing your wild oats.”
“I think I was done with them when I draped the parish chains across the vicars’ tombstones. That’s a long time ago, sir.”
“But you’re still proud of it, aren’t you, Jeb?”
“Not exactly. It was a stupid thing to do. But I’m not ashamed of the reason I did it. It’s a long past time that Tinton outgrew its chains.”
“The chains are nothing but a symbol, Jeb,” Wilkinson said with paternal patience. “They’re a symbol of sin and the bondage into which it sells a man. But I did not come to discuss either with you. Think over the honor I’m offering you. Give me your answer at services tomorrow. Good night, Martin.” He nodded to Jeb’s father and went out the back door.
“The meat’s as hard as leather,” the old man said, putting a portion on each of their plates.
“No harder than Wilkinson,” said Jeb.
His father had nothing to say during the meal, but his face was tightened with pain. Finally Jeb could stand it no longer.
“Don’t you see what he’s trying to do, Dad? He wants me to get into line, into his line, and he figures if I’m an elder, I’ll have to do it. I’m working for what I think is right for Tinton. There’s nothing wrong in that. It used to be wrong to dance. Now there’s even church dances. I want a town where people speak through their board members, instead of being spoken to or for.”
His father shook his head. “I know nothing of politics, Jeb, and I want to know less.”
“Damn it, Dad, you need to know more. We all do.”
“You’ll not swear in this house, boy.”
Jeb got up from the table. “Then I’ll swear out of it,” he said, “if that’s swearing.”
He went to his room and changed his clothes. It was the only place in the house where he felt at home, there and in the fields and woods. At times he thought that it would be better for him to leave Tinton. For five years he had put every spare moment into the town and the church. He had organized study groups and bought the books with his own money, money he should have laid away for the time Ellen would marry him. Despairing of bringing Tinton into the world, he tried to bring the world into Tinton. There was not even a high school in the town. Those who wanted it enough traveled eighteen miles morning and night.
“It’s the chains,” he said aloud, “the damned blasted chains.”
There was a legend about the town that in the early days it had been a wicked place, so wicked that once the church elders had gone among the citizens in chains lest one of them fall into temptation. Thus bound together they had surrounded the maker of evil and captured him. Jeb could almost see them, so obsessed had he become with the story. He wondered what the poor devil had done. The chroniclers had left that out. Conveniently, he thought. But
the chains still lay in the church belfry, and whenever a preacher was hard put for a subject, he was likely to stumble over the chains that day. It was after one such sermon, that Jeb, at eighteen, had hauled the chains to the cemetery and strung them over the tombstones of the vicars buried there in the seventeenth century.
Downstairs, he stopped at the kitchen door. His father was still sitting there, in the semi-darkness now. “I’ll be home late,” he said gently. “I’m sorry if I disappoint you, Dad. But I’m trying to do what I think right.”
The old man looked up at him. For all his stubborn blindness, he knew how hard it was for Jeb to stay sometimes. His gratitude was in his eyes. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Jeb. Whenever you want to reform something, you do it from the inside if you’re honest. It isn’t the easiest way, ever. The easiest way is starting something new. But first you’ve got to try and fix up what you’ve got. If you’re honest, that is. And I don’t know a more honest person than you, Jeb.”
“Thanks, Dad. I’ll try.”
He decided to walk the two miles to Tinton. When he reached the main road the sun had already set and a heavy blue mist hung close to the ground, reminding him of the thistle he had hoed that day. In a way, it was the same with all his work. Thistle was quicker than corn. But he could not abandon it any more than he could abandon Tinton itself. He tried to buoy his spirits with the thought of Ellen. But she, too, was part of Tinton. For all that she admitted her love of him, she had not consented to marriage. It was as though she were in some sort of bondage.
The full moon was rising. It would be overhead by his return. Far below him he could see the lights going on in the town, and he could see the smoke of the seven-fifty train. The mist lay like a long sheet over a hollow that ended at Hank’s woods. He could hear a car grinding to a start somewhere, and the long whistle of the train. He watched it come into view between the hills and then vanish again. When its sound was gone, there was only the burble of frogs.
Tales for a Stormy Night: Fifteen Crime Stories Page 9