“I see. Thank you, Doctor. Oh, by the way, have you heard there’s been another murder in the neighborhood of the canyon?”
“No! Who this time?”
“Day. Ben Day.”
“Do I know him? Yes, I think, vaguely, by hearsay. And wasn’t he at that wretched picnic?”
“He was. We found him dead inside his own field, not so far from his mailbox.”
“And you’re sure he was murdered?”
“No doubt about it on first examination.”
“I don’t envy you your job, Sheriff. No clues yet, I suppose. Two shootings and no clues.”
“None worth a damn.”
“Too bad. I can only wish you good luck.”
“I’ll need it. Thanks. But back to this case of senility. Nothing to do but stow her away, huh?”
“Right.” He added, “Sorry.”
Charleston said thanks again, hung up and turned to me. “Last gasp, and it turned out short and sweet. Don’t forget to tell your mother, Jase.”
As I was saying I wouldn’t, the door opened and Guy Jamison came in, dressed like the dude’s idea of the master of the outdoors. “Now I have maybe a little clue, Chick,” he said.
The phone rang, and Charleston told Jimmy, “Get that damn phone in the other office, will you, Jim? Anything important, goose me. Go ahead, Guy.”
“I was coming from the city last night with a car full of dudes. Late-ish. Going back today for some more. Anyhow, along about Ben Day’s place I passed a strange car.”
He waited until Charleston answered, “There’s considerable traffic up there.”
“Not at that hour, close to midnight. Now I can’t tell you just where. Day’s land runs along the road for a mile, but there’s a place on the road where the shoulder has given away, making a kind of tight squeeze. That’s where we passed.”
“Any idea of the make of the car, license number, driver?”
“It was too dark for a bat, Chick, and I had to watch the road so’s not to hit him or fall in the ditch, and the dudes were jabbering, but I got the idea, the bare idea, the car wasn’t local.”
“Did you get a glimpse of the driver?”
“Glimpse is right. I wouldn’t know him from the cue ball.”
“But he wasn’t a neighbor?”
“Hell, Chick, you ought to know a neighbor would have stopped, like I would’ve, and said good evening and how’s tricks and all that. This man squeezed by, mum, and went on. I didn’t give him or his car another thought until I heard about Ben Day an hour or so ago.”
“All right, Guy.” Charleston got up. “Maybe it will help. We’re much obliged. Now Jase and I are due at court.”
Jamison let himself out. The phone had rung a couple of times, and Charleston paused long enough to ask, raising his voice, “Anything important, Jimmy?”
Old Jimmy showed at the connecting door. “Yeah. Some joker says try a Ouija board.”
The hearing for Mrs. Jenkins was held in the courtroom, not in chambers, but since it was special and the court not in regular session, no one but the involved parties attended, though once or twice the door to the room opened and someone peeked in only to leave. Judge Todd hadn’t bothered to robe himself. Maybe he thought judicial appearance would rattle old Mrs. Jenkins.
Mrs. Jenkins and Mrs. Conner sat in the second row of seats. Mrs. Conner, who was perhaps fifteen years younger than Jimmy, had dressed up for the occasion but still looked like a nurse, I thought guiltily, who could keep in fine fettle three or four babies.
The sheriff and I and Doc Yak occupied the first row. Between us and the bench sat Marion Shannon, the court reporter, with his stenotype, and Montgomery Clough, the pip-squeak county attorney, who attended the hearing for reasons never apparent, since the judge himself took over the questioning.
The sheriff was the first witness. After he had been sworn and identified himself, Judge Todd said, “As you know, Sheriff Charleston, before the court is a petition to commit Mrs. Jennie Caine Jenkins.”
I noticed he omitted the legal phrase, “for reasons of insanity.” But it wouldn’t have made any difference, I thought. Mrs. Jenkins sat as if lost and unhearing, her wrinkled hands held placid in her lap.
The judge was saying, “What can you tell the court, as a matter of fact, in support of the petition?”
“Not a great deal, myself,” Charleston answered. “But it will be supported, Your Honor. And, of course, it is common knowledge that Mrs. Jenkins sings hymns, sings them aloud, on her daily march to the post office.”
Judge Todd let a little smile crack the solemnity of his face. “You have heard of the First Amendment, Sheriff?”
“And defend it, Your Honor. It is her right to sing if she wants to. I point to it only as an oddity of behavior.”
“Yes. Go on.”
“Yesterday afternoon, Your Honor, Mr. Jason Beard came to my office to report that Mrs. Jenkins had taken a shot at a man and, later, threatened himself.”
“The court will hear from Mr. Beard on that point.”
“Yes. Then in company with Mr. Beard I called immediately at the home of Mrs. Jenkins.”
“And?”
“She welcomed us.”
“And seemed rational enough?”
“I can hardly say that. She was very vague, with no apparent memory of having shot at or threatened anybody. Also she seemed to think that her husband, dead now for a good many years, was away only temporarily.”
By squirming around, I could steal another glance at Mrs. Jenkins. She sat without movement, unheeding, her eyes blank, clouded, lost somewhere in the long roll of her life. The years. They had left only scattered memories, the then time or times, and the rare, cruel grasp of the now.
I heard Judge Todd say, “That is the extent of your testimony?”
“Not quite, Your Honor,” Charleston responded. “On the way out of the house I happened to see this revolver.” The sheriff took it out of his pocket, which was insufficient to hide it, stood up and laid it on the bench. “It is an old forty-five with an eight-inch barrel, as you see, and it has been recently fired. Just once.”
Judge Todd studied it, his eyes down-turned and tired. “Where?” he asked.
“On a chest or table just inside the entrance.”
“The victim? The intended victim? Where is he?”
“Mr. Beard can tell you about him. We have been unable to locate him. I imagine he is a far piece away.”
“Very well,” Judge Todd said. “Stand down, Sheriff Charleston.”
I was aware that Doc Yak, seated beside me, had been fidgeting throughout the proceedings. He was nervous by nature and in spite of his pills. Now, as the judge’s eyes rested on me, Doc Yak stood up. “Your Honor,” he said, “may I be heard? Necessarily I’m in a hurry.”
“You are also in a court of law.”
“Yes, Your Honor, but urgencies—”
“Sit down, Doctor. Before the court is an urgency, too, an important matter, a matter of a human life. And may I remind you that in a case of this kind the court and the medical profession act, so to speak, in concert? We must both hear the evidence. Then you may speak. Take the stand, Mr. Beard.”
Doc Yak sat down as I went forward, but his head had a lift to it as if he might howl at the moon.
I went through the business of swearing and identifying myself.
“You’re not a deputy in the sheriff’s office?” Judge Todd asked, knowing very well I wasn’t.
“No, Your Honor, I guess I’m just a hanger-on.”
“But you help out when you can?”
I said I did.
“You were at the residence of Mrs. Jenkins yesterday afternoon?”
“Twice, sir. The first time I didn’t go in because of that horse pistol there. The second time I did, along with Mr. Charleston.”
“Tell the court about the first time.”
“Well, Dippy Ferguson was there before me, and so I stopped by the fence.”
> “Can you identify the said Dippy Ferguson?”
“He was the man at the door. Oh, he’s a door-to-door salesman of one thing and another, and he comes to town once in a while.”
“And why were you there, outside Mrs. Jenkins’ house?”
“To chop the head off a chicken, if she wanted me to.”
The judge frowned, as if the reason demanded examination.
“I often did that for her,” I told him, and added in the cause of justice, “for twenty-five cents.”
“She paid you always?”
“She certainly did, Your Honor. Sometimes she got mixed up with the change, but I always straightened it out.”
“I see. Go on. A man had preceded you?”
“Yes. Dippy Ferguson was at the door, trying to sell a magazine or newspaper subscription, as I got it, and Mrs. Jenkins sang out—I mean she really sang—‘No, I don’t want your paper.’”
“And then?”
“Well, Dippy likes to sing, too, and he has a pretty good voice only he spits, and he didn’t get the name Dippy for nothing, so he sang back to her that she needed to know the news. Then they had a kind of a song fest, not a duet but, I guess, opera style, singing back and forth. I stood and listened.”
“These are facts?” Judge Todd asked, scratching his head. “Facts?”
“Yes, Your Honor. All facts.”
“Tell the court more.”
“She sang part of a hymn then, one you probably know. It tells you to pass the good around.”
“And this Dippy person answered?”
“He sure did, but not what a man would expect if he didn’t know Dippy. I suppose that line about passing the good set him off in his own way, like it would. His answer was a little off-color.”
“Can you remember it?”
I could easy enough. It had been running through my head as things will, but I asked, “Must I, Judge?”
“If you please.”
So, feeling foolish, I half sang “In the Good Old Summertime” with the tootsie-wootsie twist. Doing so, I looked at Mrs. Jenkins, wondering if she’d take a shot at me if she had a pistol. She wouldn’t this time. Tootsie-wootsie passed her by.
Judge Todd had his hand over his face. Through it he said, “Read on, Jason.”
“Mrs. Jenkins didn’t like it, or it seems so, anyhow, because she backed into the house and came back with that old pistol and fired at Dippy.”
“But missed him?”
“He didn’t cripple away.”
“Just the one shot?”
“That’s all she had time for.”
“Then what?”
“I thought I had given her time to cool off, but when I knocked at the door, she met me with that same revolver. I don’t think she recognized me. She said evil had no business waiting on the homes of the righteous, or words to that effect. I can repeat her exactly if you give me a minute to think.”
“Never mind. Did you try to reason with her?”
“Not very long. Would you, Judge?”
The judge passed his hand over his face again. Looking down from the witness box during my testimony, I had seen smiles, slow smiles, almost guilty, on the faces of the sheriff, Doc Yak and Mrs. Collins; and it came to me, earlier than to most, that humor and pathos were close kin. What’s funny unless grounded in hurt?
“Do not address such questions to the court,” the judge was telling me through his fingers.
“Sorry, Your Honor.”
“Now on your second visit?”
“Mr. Charleston has told you about that—all but one thing.”
“And that was?”
“When we showed up, I smelled smoke and beat it to the kitchen. A pot had boiled dry. It was red hot, and the burner was still on high. I attended to that and got to thinking that someday Mrs. Jenkins would burn the house down and herself along with it. She passed it off like it was nothing when I told her about it.”
“Have you anything further?” Judge Todd asked.
“Nothing,” I said and looked at old Mrs. Jenkins sitting there patiently. “Nothing, except it’s a shame, a damn shame—”
“I know.” the judge broke in. “Step down, Jason. Now, Doctor.”
Doc Yak, moving like a bundle of hurried sticks, came forward and sat. I was reminded, during the swearing in, that he was really Gaylord Summerville, M.D.
“You do know Mrs. Jenkins, the defendant, Doctor?” Judge Todd asked.
“For forty years. Splendid woman. When she’s at herself. Husband was my patient, too. Dead of cancer.”
Doc Yak was rattling off answers as if, unless he hurried, some patient would perish of mere waiting.
“Your present opinion, Doctor, based on the evidence and your experience with her?”
Doc Yak wasn’t looking at Mrs. Jenkins or she at him. He said, “I’m not forced to testify. Breach of professional ethics.”
“But you will help the court, Doctor? You’ll advise?”
“With reluctance. For her sake. Mrs. Jenkins calls me once or twice a week. Often I answer in person. Last time I made a house call—”
“When?”
Doc Yak took a worn little book from his hip pocket and consulted it. “Three o’clock this past Wednesday, July twenty-three.”
“Yes.”
“She had forgotten she called me. Thought I was the plumber. Couldn’t tell me what to plumb.”
Behind me I heard Mrs. Jenkins tell Mrs. Conner, “Faucets. He knows very well it was leaky faucets.”
Judge Todd rapped softly with his gavel. He could have heard the sounds but not the words. “So, Doctor? A diagnosis? Your opinion for the guidance of the court?”
“Senile dementia,” Doc Yak answered as if the words were sour on his tongue. “Brain starved for blood. Nothing to do but commit her. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Doctor. You may be excused.”
Doc Yak clattered out of the witness box and galloped away.
Judge Todd said, “You have heard the evidence, Mrs. Jenkins. You are not represented by counsel, I see, nor is there any need of that in the eyes of this court. The question is: Do you wish to take the stand? Do you wish to appear in your own defense? Mrs. Jenkins? Do you hear me? Do you want to be heard?”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Jenkins said, coming jerkily to her feet. Her eyes had gone away again, away from the faucets and plumber, into some cataract dimness of dream. “I have enjoyed myself, but I must go now. I have a guest.” She stared around for the guest and found her at last in the person of Mrs. Conner, who had been holding her arm all the time. They left the courtroom.
“Sheriff,” Judge Todd said then, “this has been a most irregular proceeding, but it is in accordance with the court’s good judgment, if against its sentiments, that an emergency commitment in this case be issued at once. Central State Hospital has facilities, experts in mental disorders, that we lack here, and it can pass on her competency, insanity if you will, with an authority we don’t possess. Court’s adjourned.”
Once inside his office the sheriff got rid of Halvor by asking if he wouldn’t go buy some cigars. The girl clerk at the drugstore was a looker, and Halvor strode off. Then Charleston told me, “Jase, you’re elected.”
“To what, Mr. Charleston?”
“To driving Mrs. Jenkins, along with Mrs. Conner as her attendant, to Central State Hospital. Start early in the morning but take it easy—two days at least—because of Mrs. Jenkins’ age and condition.”
At the expression on my face he went on, “You know I can’t go, not with two murders, last one just today. My outside deputy has his hands full there in the oil country. I wouldn’t trust Jimmy to drive so far.” He gave me a small smile. “And I wouldn’t trust Halvor with Mrs. Conner, good woman as she may be. He might die of mammary smother. That leaves you. I’ll fix you and Mrs. Conner up with official letters.”
“But there’s a ball game Sunday.”
“Yes, Jase,” he answered. “There’s a ball game.
”
A silence hung between us.
I got up and said, “Please don’t solve the murders while I’m gone.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The car I was to drive was a two-year-old Chev, assigned to the sheriff’s office and used mostly by Halvor, since Jimmy didn’t wheel around much and Charleston preferred his own Special. It could almost have passed for new. Charleston saw to that.
Before I left to pick up my passengers, the sheriff gave me a letter in witness of my responsibility and official mission and with it thirty dollars for expenses. Also, he handed over an envelope for Mrs. Conner. It contained, he told me, the commitment papers and a statement identifying the bearer.
Two suitcases and an overnight bag were waiting on Mrs. Jenkins’ front porch. I stowed them in the trunk before knocking. Mrs. Conner, looking efficient though bulgy, answered the door. She carried a piece of hand luggage big enough for all Woolworth’s cosmetics. Her other hand pulled Mrs. Jenkins along. Though her stockings didn’t match, Mrs. Jenkins was dressed for the ball, the result of joint effort, no doubt.
Mrs. Conner locked the door, saying as she did so, “We’ll have a nice ride, Mrs. Jenkins, and people will be so glad to see us. A beautiful day for an outing.”
Mrs. Jenkins hung back. “I must be back before sundown. Where’s my purse? Did you lock the door?”
“Yes. Yes. Everything’s attended to. Here’s your purse in my bag, if you’d rather carry it. Come on, now.” Mrs. Conner managed to urge Mrs. Jenkins into the back seat, then climbed in herself.
It was a nice day all right. The sun, now perhaps two hours awake, shone gently—which was no promise it wouldn’t blister us later—and the southwest wind was no more than a breath. What clouds there were were fluffy.
East of town, once we were out of the valley and up on the bench, the treeless land flowed away, so level and long it might have been planed by John Bunyan’s carpenter. It was checkered by wheat fields that lapped and ebbed at the sides of the road, answering to the faint breeze. In a week or so would come harvest time. Here and there, rarely, was a house or a shack, forsaken now because wheat ranchers all lived in town so’s to enjoy daily mail and flush toilets. Scattered cattle grazed or dozed in fields not touched by plows. The wild sweet clover that crowded the pavement gave off a scent. A dust devil played in a patch of summer fallow. I tooled the car toward the end of this flat world, toward the end of the world.
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