by Ben Benson
He glanced at me, then edged by and opened the front door. A pattern of light stamped the shabby floor boards of the porch for a brief second. Then the door slammed shut.
I waited a moment. Down below me, Chief Rawlins and Ernie Congdon stood together, looking up at me. There was no conversation between them. A match flamed as Ernie Congdon lit a cigarette.
I went over to the front door and knocked.
Somebody called out, “It’s open.”
I turned the knob and went in. I looked around. I was standing on a raddled old carpet. The thing that overpowered the otherwise threadbare room was the expensive large-screen television set in one corner. Sitting in front of it, in an old stained tapestry chair, was what looked to be a shriveled, sixty-year-old woman. The program was a late movie. The woman was Mrs. Congdon. I found out later she was forty-one years old.
I went over and showed her my I.D. folder. She said nothing. She was thin. The face was hollow-cheeked and vacant, the eyes bleary, the hair gray and straggly. It was a face without much hope. I told her my name.
“Which one is this about?” she asked. “I saw Johnny dash in here and run upstairs.”
“How long will he be running around loose, Mrs. Congdon?”
“I can’t handle him,” she said. There was an indefinable tinge of despair in her voice. “I’ve tried everything and I can’t handle him. He’s plain no-good. Is that why you’re here? About Johnny?”
“No. I want to know where Ernie was last Friday morning.
“Ernie is right outside with that cheap girl friend of his—the little pushover of Travis Road. You ask him.”
“I did. But I want to know where you say he was Friday morning.”
“He was home,” she said. “He and Johnny. Johnny is just like him. Monkey see—monkey do. Neither of them got off their fat prats until noon. They never get up until noon. Lazy, just like their old man was.”
“You’re sure this was Friday?”
“Why is that an exception?” she asked. Her upper lip twisted scornfully, showing a row of decayed teeth. “Every goddam day is the same. Sleep till noon, stay out all night. I remember Friday good because I wanted somebody to go out and get a pound of fish at the market. I went up twice to wake them. They wouldn’t get up. No, not them. Almost halfpast twelve when they came wandering down, expecting a hot meal on the table. Sure, I had food ready for them. I’m a mother.”
“Mrs. Congdon,” I said, “do you have a gun in the house?”
“A gun? No. No gun. I’ve allowed a lot of things in this house because I’m too sick and tired to argue and fight all the time. But never a gun. Never.”
“All right, that’s all,” I said. “Thank you.”
I said good night and went outside. Ernie Congdon was sitting on the top step smoking a cigarette. He moved his trunk out of the way as I went down by him.
“Well?” he called out after me.
I stopped and turned toward him. “Nothing more now. You planning on any trips out of town?”
“With what?” he asked bitterly.
I walked to the car. Rawlins was sitting inside. He was silent. There was very little to talk about on the way back to the town hall. Perhaps he thought he had failed me in some way. And perhaps he had.
I let him off with a brief good night. Then I headed for Concord and the barracks. When I came in, somebody was in the dining room waiting for me. Detective-Lieutenant Newpole.
Chapter 8
He was wearing his fawn hat on the back of his head and he was having coffee with Trooper Bob Littlefield, who was going out on a late patrol. I sat down, picked up the coffee pitcher and poured a cupful, steaming, savory and black. Littlefield went out, buckling on his white luminous crossstraps. Newpole asked if there was anything wrong with my face. I reached up and felt the lump where Johnny Congdon had struck me.
“No, nothing much, sir,” I said. Then I gave him a report on what had happened in Ashendon.
He listened. He was polite enough but he did not seem very much interested. He dismissed my work without any questions.
“We’ve come up with a few things,” he said. “Eugene Somers carried a queer-looking cigarette lighter. It was a gift from a tea planter in Ceylon. A square lighter, solid gold, with a wheel and flint on top. One panel has a carved cobra with ruby eyes. The other side is a carved figure of Buddha. The lighter is very valuable and unique. It wasn’t on Somers and we haven’t been able to find it in the area. It could be the murderer carried it off with him. We’ve sent it out on the teletype.”
I waited as he sipped his coffee with deliberation. The black pipe went into his mouth as he told me more details on the autopsy. There was an excess of tannic acid in the stomach.
“He was a teataster, of course,” Newpole said, drawing on the empty pipe. “That would account for the tannic acid. I wanted to send a man over to Royal Standard Tea this afternoon, but I had nobody to spare. You can go over in the morning, Ralph. I don’t know how much you’ll find.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“About these two boys in Ashendon,” he said. And I knew now he had listened carefully to my report. “The Congdon brothers. You say their alibis stack up?”
“So far,” I said. “If you want to check back on them—”
“Later,” he said. “I have confidence you did a good job. Otherwise you wouldn’t be on the team, would you, Ralph?”
“No, sir.”
“How’s Billy Nesbit looking?”
I looked at him questioningly. “Fine,” I said.
“Must be a big fellow now. I remember him when he was a kid.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Sure. I was stationed here fifteen years ago.” He stood up. “You take care of the tea company in the morning.”
I saw Lieutenant Newpole again on the next day, Thursday noon. I had gone into Boston early to Royal Standard Tea. When I came back to the barracks at twelve, I had a head and a notebook crammed full of information. How much of it was important to the case, only Lieutenant Newpole, from his over-all position as detective-in-charge, could determine.
I did learn, I told Lieutenant Newpole in my verbal preliminary report, that Eugene Somers was well liked by his neighbors at his permanent winter home in West Roxbury. That he was a quiet, unassuming man who helped in civic and community affairs. Everyone I spoke with was shocked at his apparently senseless, brutal murder. At Royal Standard Tea the reaction was the same—the shock and the reverence for him. Absolutely no enemies. Somers’ secretary was a thin, gray-haired spinster in her middle sixties with a brace on one leg as a result of polio. There was no one else who would qualify for an office romance.
I learned that a teataster was an executive. It was a specialized science and a very important one. There was no exact formula for manufacturing tea as one manufactured cookies or candy or cough syrup. The blend of each packer lay in the taste buds of their teatasters.
I saw where they worked—the testing counter, the steaming kettles of water on the electric stove. The rows of white, shiny little teacups without handles. And, on the floor, at strategic points, were the tall, shiny, hourglass-shaped brass spittoons. Each batch of tea was tasted and blended, then sent down to the big mixing machines on the floor below. The teatasters could tell the correct blend of Assam and Ceylon and Darjeeling by the smell and taste and by the brightness of infusion. Each sample was weighed very carefully, brewed exactly six minutes, and then tasted.
I learned Somers had no rivals for his job, simply because Royal Standard had nobody capable of replacing him; that, in response to Billy Nesbit’s theory of narcotics, the tea came in chests from the hill countries of Ceylon and Pakistan and India, the port of entry being New Orleans, where watchful customs officers bore into the chests, took samples and plugged the holes with bungs. And that would seem to rule out a narcotics ring.
The only information that seemed of value to me was that Eugene Somers neither drank nor smoked, so neit
her of the cigarette butts found at the scene could be traced to him. Also that, being a quiet, kindly man, he had a habit of picking up hitchhikers.
But we already knew that. It was merely confirmation.
Chapter 9
Friday came and nothing happened on the Somers case. Eugene Somers was buried in Boston. The funeral cortege was long. His many friends paid their sad respects and his family mourned him.
The routine of the investigation continued in every possible phase and avenue. Among the various people who were interviewed, a state detective spoke with the two Congdon brothers. Nothing came of it.
I had been thinking of my question to Billy Nesbit about hitchhikers, and the answer he had given me that he knew of none. It bothered me. So I went to Ashendon. Billy Nesbit wasn’t home.
I drove down to the square. I didn’t see Nesbit’s car around but I walked into the drugstore anyway. My heart gave a little lurch. Karen Morgan was there. She was at the fountain having an ice-cream soda. A large shopping bag was on the seat beside her.
I went up to her. She looked at me with her green eyes. Her smile was warm and friendly. She put her hand out and took my fingers.
“Ralph,” she said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “And you?”
“Wonderful. Sit down and join me in something fattening.”
“No, thank you,” I said.
She spooned up some ice cream from the tall glass, licked it off with a pink tongue and pushed the glass away. “I’m finished,” she said, “and I’m definitely going on a diet next Monday. This time for sure. If not, I’ll get as big as a house.” She smiled again. “Ralph, we’ve missed you. Where have you been?”
“Busy working,” I said.
“Did you have a good time at my house the other evening?”
“Yes, fine.”
“What did you think of Lorelei?”
“Oh, very nice. But I was concentrating more on you.”
She laughed and squeezed my hand. “You’re sweet. And Billy likes you so much, too. I do hope you’ll become good friends.”
“Where is he today?”
“In Boston. He had to go in and see the family attorney on some business affair. He’ll be disappointed that you were in town and he didn’t see you.”
“Have you got a ride home?” I asked.
“I can walk,” she said. “It’s not too far.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“Oh, I don’t want to be any trouble, Ralph.”
“No trouble,” I said. I picked up the shopping bag and took some silver out of my pocket.
“Please.” She smiled. “I paid for the soda. Thank you. Are you always so thoughtful?”
“Are you always so complimentary?”
“Only to the people I like,” she said.
We went outside. I opened the door of the black cruiser and put the bag in back. She slid in. When I got in on the other side, she was looking at the radiophone in the open glove compartment in front of her.
“Is this a police car?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t look like one. From the outside it looks like an ordinary sedan.”
“It’s for detective work.”
“I’ve never been in a police car before,” she said, her hand touching and smoothing her blond hair. “Are you still working on the Somers case?”
“Yes,” I said. I started the car and turned off in the direction of her home.
“Do you take it personally?” she asked. “The case, I mean.”
“I found him that morning,” I said, “and I can never forget it. Yes, I take it very personally.”
“I don’t blame you,” she said softly. Then she sat very quietly as I drove along the tree-lined street.
I made a turn and said, “He was murdered on the morning of Friday, June seventh. People were going about their ordinary routine. I remember I had a court case that day. Where were you that morning, Karen?”
“Me? Last Friday morning? A week ago?” She held her forefinger to her lips and her eyes half-closed. “I have to think. It was the day my folks went to Atlantic City. Oh, yes. That morning I was in the kitchen having breakfast with Billy.” Her color deepened and her eyes dropped. “Oh, Lord, not that kind of breakfast, not the morning-after type. I mean, Billy had phoned. He sounded so lonely. He had received a letter from his father in Japan and he wanted to read it to me. So I told him to come over.”
I came into Grasshopper Lane and parked in front of her house. “He came over and read you the letter?”
“Yes. He does get lonely in that big house. The servants keep to their own quarters.”
“What time did he come over?”
“He came about eight-fifteen that morning.”
“Your folks were home, of course.”
Her eyes were puzzled. “No, not then. They had left for Atlantic City earlier. At 6:00 A.M.”
I looked up at the house. “Then Lorelei was here with you.”
“No. We didn’t go and fetch Lorelei until noon. Billy and I were alone for about four hours. But I assure you we behaved impeccably.”
“Sure,” I said. “I hope I didn’t give any impression—”
“You didn’t,” she said briefly. She opened her door.
I went around and picked up her bundle. We started up the flagstone walk. I said, “What time did Billy leave you that morning?”
“I just told you he didn’t,” she said with a little irritation. “We stayed at the house until about twelve when he drove me in the Volkswagen to pick up Lorelei. She and her folks have a summer camp on Lake Conacook. It’s only five miles from here.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “You didn’t see Ernie Congdon that morning, did you?”
“No,” she said.
“Then that’s it. Thanks.”
“Is that all you want to know?”
“Yes.”
She gave a breathless little laugh as she opened her front door with a key. “I didn’t realize it,” she said, “but for a moment there you were asking me questions as though I were on a witness stand.”
“I’m sorry I gave you that impression.”
“And those were very pointed questions you were asking.”
“I’m not always tactful. Again I’m sorry.”
“But it’s hard to believe,” she said wonderingly. “You asked about Billy as if—” She stopped.
“As if what, Karen?”
She held the door halfway open. “You know what I mean. According to the papers, Eugene Somers left his house in Baycroft at eight-thirty. If Billy was here at the time then he couldn’t have—”
“I wouldn’t ask the questions without reason, Karen.”
Her eyes were shocked. “But you asked about Billy”
“Not exactly about Billy. Just questions.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“In this business,” I said slowly, “asking is nothing. I ask questions all day long, and mostly of nice people. And very few of these people take offense. They know it’s my job. It’s the job Billy hopes to be doing some day. Asking questions, and sifting answers, and making reports. Didn’t you know that, Karen?”
“Of course, but—”
“There’s no but, and no special rules for Billy Nesbit. I hope he knows that.”
“Don’t worry about Billy,” she said. Her voice was cool. She took the bag from me. “Thank you for the ride home. Good-by, Ralph.”
She went inside and the door closed firmly behind her.
The next day Lieutenant Newpole phoned me at the barracks. In his intense search for a suspect he was trying the hitchhiker theory again. He asked if I would arrange for written corroboration of the alibis of the two Congdon brothers.
“Yes, sir,” I said to him over the telephone. “You want a signed statement from the mother, Mrs. Congdon?”
“I want it on record in the folder,” he said, and there seemed to be quiet frustratio
n in his voice.
So I went out to Ashendon again, this time with a state policewoman. We brought Mrs. Congdon to the district attorney’s office, where she made the same signed statement she had made to me verbally.
I waited for her and brought her home again, and all the time she was in the car she sat in a corner without speaking. When I let her out at the ugly, mustard-colored house on Travis Road, she stood beside the car and said to me, “They must be pretty hard up for a suspect, sonny.”
“It was a rotten murder,” I said.
“I don’t mind the inconvenience,” she said. “It don’t bother me none because I’ve been through it before. I never had much luck with my children—or with my husband either. Not much luck at all.”
She was a shabby, pathetic figure as she went wearily into the house. I drove off. If the policewoman had not been sitting beside me, I probably would have gone by Grasshopper Lane, hoping to catch a glimpse of Karen Morgan.
I didn’t go and it was a hopeless situation anyway. I should have pushed her out of my mind forever.
I should have—but I didn’t.
Two more days passed. The Somers case was now three lines in the back of the newspapers and the investigation seemed to have stalled. Then I saw Billy Nesbit again.
I had gone back into uniform to help Bob Littlefield do a night patrol. At midnight Tuesday we had stopped off at an all-night diner on the highway near Ashendon. Among the cars parked outside I saw a little, gray Volkswagen. To me the Volkswagen meant Nesbit, and Nesbit meant Karen Morgan. And when I went inside, Billy Nesbit and Karen Morgan were sitting in an end booth. They were munching hamburgers.
When Nesbit saw me, he broke into a big smile and waved me over. “Join us, Ralph.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking off my visored cap. I went over to the counter and gave my order.
When I came back, I slid into the booth and said, “It’s our midnight break. I’m only in for a quick sandwich and coffee. Bob Littlefield is waiting his turn outside.”
“I missed you last time you were in town,” Nesbit said.
“Yes,” I said. I waited for him to mention my questioning of Karen. He didn’t.
