Killing Cassidy

by Jeanne M. Dams

  Oh, it was interesting, up to a point. Alan and I are both opposed to mega-anything and in favor of small business. When I said something to that effect, Hannah was off again on a new tack.

  “And don’t forget that includes the small farmer. What’s going to happen to this country when all the arable land is paved over for malls and highways and cities? What are we going to eat? And what’s the small farmer going to live on? And don’t forget the environmental impact of all those parking lots! We’re having a study done to see what oily runoff from the mall and the roads leading to it would do to the streams and, ultimately, to the aquifer beneath this whole part of the country. …”

  She let us leave at last, armed with a sheaf of the leaflets. “Just leave them lying around at the hotel, or anywhere else you can think of. We’re papering the town with them.”

  “She’s right,” I said to Alan when we got back to the peace and quiet of our hotel room. “She’s absolutely right about everything she says. So why do I feel so numb?”

  “Paralysis of the ear, the inevitable result of listening to a fanatic. You might go and see Ms. Carmichael for a few minutes, as an antidote; she says nothing at all most of the time. The message light on the phone is blinking, love. Shall I get it?”

  The recorded voice was Darryl’s, sounding grim, reminding us to come to the police station and have our fingerprints taken.

  “I suppose we’d better do it.” I sighed. “I’d rather sit and listen to Hannah for another two hours, and that’s saying something.”

  The actual fingerprinting wasn’t bad, when we got to the police station. The sergeant who supervised the procedure was courteous and absolutely impersonal, and of course we’d both had it done before and knew the drill.

  While we were there, the young officer I’d talked to that morning came in. I smiled and said hello.

  For a moment he didn’t know who I was, now that I no longer looked homeless. But then he smiled back. “The cat lady!”

  “Oh, good heavens, Alan! I forgot all about the cats again. What’s to become of the poor things?”

  “Now, ma’am, that’s all taken care of. I volunteer for the animal shelter. I’ve rounded them up. Six of them, right?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t really know. There were a good many, but they never stayed still long enough to count.”

  “Well, I found six and took them to the shelter.”

  “But the people won’t—I mean, do they—”

  “They never kill a healthy animal. They find homes for all of ’em.”

  “Oh, what a relief. That was really kind of you.” I beamed at him. “Listen, if you’ll give me the address of the shelter, I’ll take over that food I bought. And I’ll make a donation as soon as—”

  “Mrs. Martin. Mr. Nesbitt. I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”

  Darryl stood outside his office, beckoning.

  He shut the door, went behind his desk, and sat down, without inviting us to do so. “I’ve been checkin’ around,” he said without preamble. “You two’ve been talkin’ to a lot of people. Askin’ a lot of questions about the professor. And what I want to know is, why?”

  13

  I looked at Alan. He looked at me. Darryl, I thought in a panic, would have to be a total ignoramus not to know we were trying to hide something. And unfortunately he was quite bright, not at all the idiot policeman so prevalent in classic mystery fiction.

  If there is a patron saint of liars, he—or more likely she; women are more creative—came to my aid at that moment. God bless Agatha Christie and all the rest who have given me a devious mind, I thought piously as I tried to produce a blush, gave it up as a bad job, and looked Darryl straight in the eye.

  “Well, I didn’t intend to say anything to anyone, but—no, Alan, let me finish. I’ve decided to tell all.” I tapped my foot against his in an urgent Keep still and took a deep breath. “The fact is, Darryl, I’m writing a book.”

  Whatever the police chief had expected, it wasn’t that. As for Alan, I didn’t dare catch his eye.

  “Actually, that’s what we’re doing in Hillsburg. You see, I got this letter from Kevin’s lawyer. …”

  The story was straight right up to the point when we opened the letter from Kevin in Ms. Carmichael’s office. It took all my acting skill to keep from thinking about the real content of that letter and getting teary, but I managed it. “And the upshot of it was, Kevin wanted me to write his biography. He had an extraordinary life, you know. But Darryl, you’ll keep this under wraps, won’t you? Kevin didn’t want anybody to know about it until it was published—if it ever is. I’ve never written anything in my life, of course—well, not for publication, that is.”

  “So why did he choose you to write his life story? And why was he making such a big deal out of it, keeping it a secret and all?”

  Drat the boy! I wished I hadn’t worked so hard to instill good sense in my fourth-graders. Darryl was being entirely too intelligent about this.

  “Well, I think it’s just another example of what a nice person he was. The truth is, I used to try to write a little, and Kevin was the only soul who knew about it. I never even told Frank, but Kevin caught me at it one day in the library, and made me show him what I was working on. It was just some reminiscences, tiny things that had happened over the years, funny things my schoolkids had said and done, that sort of nonsense. Anyway, he said he liked it, it was good, I should try to get it published. Well, I never did, of course, and he used to prod me about it now and then when nobody else was around. This biography project was his way of making sure I got serious about writing.”

  I paused for breath. “And as for the secrecy … I suppose he didn’t want word to get out, in case I fell flat on my face. He wasn’t out to embarrass me, after all.”

  It sounded so reasonable I almost began to believe it myself. Even Darryl looked considerably less skeptical.

  “How come you had to go around asking all kinds of questions? Kevin must have left you something to go on, notes or diaries or whatever. He couldn’t expect you just to pull it all out of your head. The man lived for ninety-six years, for Pete’s sake.”

  “Of course he had notes, piles of them, I gather, but none of it would cover the last couple of weeks of his life, and I wanted to get that from people while it’s fresh in their minds. Details of a death are important in a biography. Besides, all the notes are at Kevin’s house, and I haven’t had time to collect them yet. Actually, Alan and I intended to go over there this morning, but we stopped to say hello to Jerry, and of course …”

  I trailed off artistically. Darryl fiddled with a ballpoint pen, bouncing first one end and then the other on his desk. Finally he sighed and stood up. “Okay. Keep in touch.”

  The interview was apparently over.

  “Whew!” I turned to Alan when we were a block or so away, safely out of both sight and earshot of the police station.

  “Indeed.” His tone was a trifle dry.

  “All right, I know you don’t like lying to the police. But I couldn’t just blurt out the real situation, not with him being a suspect! And this way if we go on asking questions, he’ll think it’s perfectly normal.”

  “Well, it’s one approach. And in a way it isn’t a lie. We are trying to discover Kevin’s life story. One could argue that there are similarities between our quest and that of the biographer.”

  “Oh. I suppose that’s what put it into my head. And here I was taking credit for making it up all by myself. Alan, this is a mess.”

  “The situation is unfortunate, certainly.”

  Well, that was Alan at his understated British best.

  “What it is, is ridiculous. The whole thing, I mean. Here we are, trying to investigate a couple of murders, neither getting any help from the police nor giving them any. Talk about futility! The only thing that makes any sense at all is to try to get Darryl cleared as soon as we can. Then we can tell him the whole thing and work together.”

 
“If, of course, it’s possible to clear him.”

  I put my hands over my ears. “Don’t even say that! In fact, don’t say anything. I feel like my head’s stuffed with cream cheese and I can’t think at all. Let’s go to a movie, or something, and forget about it for a while.”

  Nothing showing at Hillsburg’s theaters had much appeal, so we went to a video store and rented several of my favorite old movies and then stopped at a pizza place and a liquor store. The evening was an orgy of take-out pizza, beer, and Bing Crosby. I fell asleep to Going My Way.

  In the morning my stomach and head were a little unhappy about my indulgences of the night before, but my mind was functioning again.

  “Alan, I have an idea.”

  It was too early. We had just begun our first cups of coffee. Alan grunted and went on sipping, but I persisted. “His priest, Alan. We’ve forgotten his priest!”

  One eyebrow was elevated a sixteenth of an inch. “You suspect his priest of murder?”

  “No, I—never mind, finish your coffee.”

  But when he was fully awake and I explained, he agreed that we should talk to Kevin’s priest.

  “Obvious, really,” he commented. “A man Kevin apparently trusted, since he was not on the list of suspects, a man in whom he might have confided—”

  “Hah! You didn’t think of it, either!”

  “I admit it. Full marks to you, Dorothy. Do you know him?”

  “I used to. He’s a lovely man. If it’s still the same one. If they haven’t gotten in some kid. At least it won’t be a woman, not with the Romans.” I was still cross about what they’d done to my church.

  It was a beautiful morning, October at its loveliest. Brilliant orange and gold leaves drifted to the ground in a light breeze. The Victorian spire of St. Peter’s, with its scalloped red shingles and gilded cross, stood out against the bright blue sky as if etched. Even the rectory looked pleasant, its brown brick ugliness hidden by a riot of autumn-painted ivy. We rang the bell.

  Yes, said the housekeeper, Father Kennedy was still the pastor at St. Peter’s. Yes, he was at home. And if we wouldn’t mind waiting a minute or two?

  When Father Kennedy appeared, he had changed so little I felt tears start. His blue Irish eyes were just as alert as ever, his smile just as warm. I blew my nose and touched the handkerchief furtively to my eyes. Here, praise the Lord, was something, someone, who hadn’t changed in any fundamental way, beyond the normal weight of aging and pastoral cares.

  He remembered me. I introduced Alan and we settled down in the rather stuffy and overcrowded office.

  “Well now, Mrs. Martin, what can I do for you? Not decided to convert, have you? Leave Henry the Eighth’s wicked ways?”

  It was his old joke. I smiled broadly, more broadly than the little sally deserved, just because of its familiarity. “No, but you can give us some information, if you will. It’s about Kevin Cassidy.”

  “Ah.” His face changed. “Dear old Kevin. My oldest parishioner, you know. He’s sadly missed.” He looked at me keenly, expectantly.

  I took a deep breath. “Father Kennedy, this is going to sound completely crazy, but Kevin thought somebody was trying to kill him. He left a letter asking me to look into it. And I thought you might know if he’d had any odd accidents in his last few months. There must have been something to make him suspicious. Unless, of course, he was just—just senile.”

  “No.” The monosyllable sat there in the room, a stone thrown into a pool of silence. “I wondered when someone would come to me about this.”

  The simple remark took my breath away. “Then—you knew?”

  “Oh, yes.” The priest paused. “I think I’d better tell you the whole story.” He settled himself comfortably. “Will you have some coffee? Or tea? This is going to take a little while.”

  We accepted tea. I would be making trips to the bathroom the rest of the morning, but I felt I needed the moral support.

  “It began,” said Father Kennedy, “or rather I first heard about it, last April. Kevin fell down the front steps of his house and sprained his ankle.”

  “Yes, we heard about that one. Doc Foley happened to find out. Apparently Kevin never went to him about it, but then that was the way he was.”

  “And often I berated him about it. A man his age ought to look after his health, I’d tell him. But when he came to see me that day, it wasn’t his health he wanted to talk to me about.

  “Just after Easter, it was. He came here, said he wanted to talk. I was a little surprised. He’d made his Easter confession, and I couldn’t imagine … well, he sat here, right in that very chair, Mrs. Martin, and told me he thought someone was trying to murder him.”

  He shook his head. “I confess, for just a few minutes I thought he’d lost it. But then he began to tell me.

  “That accident, falling down the steps, was just the most recent in a whole series. There’d been his car, first of all.”

  “Oh, then he was still driving.”

  “He had been. And reasonably well, for someone as old as that. But one day, about a year ago it’d be now, he was driving along that back road of his, and his brakes failed.”

  I made a shocked noise.

  “Yes. There might have been a terrible accident, but he was driving very slowly. He’d slowed still more, for a curve, or he’d tried to, but nothing happened. Well, there was no other traffic, and he had the presence of mind to run the car into a bank at the side of the road. He wasn’t hurt, shaken up was all, but the car was fairly well beat up.”

  “Did he have a mechanic look at the brakes?”

  “No, he’d decided then and there that he wouldn’t drive anymore. He just had them come and haul the car away, and he never mentioned the brakes to anyone until he told me.”

  “It must have left him very isolated, not having a car way out there in the country.”

  “He got a tricycle.”

  I choked on my tea, and Father Kennedy chuckled.

  “Oh, yes, he made quite a picture, pedaling along. It looked very much like an overgrown child’s toy, except for being chain driven like a bicycle. The three wheels made it much more stable than a bike, and he didn’t need to pedal as fast. Of course, it wasn’t much good to him when the weather was bad, but he managed to get to the grocery store when he needed to, get in to town for mass, that kind of thing. His house isn’t really that far out, you know. He got along just fine until the tricycle was stolen.”

  I shook my head sadly. “Things like that never used to happen in Hillsburg.”

  “They still don’t, not often. Kids’ bikes, yes. But who’d have any use for an adult tricycle? Anyway, it was the only one in town, and everyone recognized it. Nobody could possibly have used it, not around here. But stolen it was, and boldly, too. From in front of the pet store, in broad daylight. He’d come to town for some cat litter, and when he came out of the store, the trike was gone.

  “He couldn’t take his purchase home, of course, not without his transportation; the bag was too heavy. But it seemed there was no one around to drive him just then, so he said he’d collect the stuff later, somehow, and he started to walk home. Three miles, and it was a blustery March day, not terribly cold, but with a wind you could stand up against.

  “Fortunately, I happened to be driving that way. I saw him and gave him a ride. I scolded him about walking on such a day, but he just glowered at me. Never said a word about the theft; I learned about that later. I think he felt like a fool for letting such a thing happen. Silly, of course, but he had his pride, and a temper, too, you know.”

  “I do know. An Irish temper,” I added.

  “And what would ye be meanin’ by that?” he demanded in an exaggerated brogue.

  But I’d heard the act before. “The sort that’s like an April day, thunder and lightning one minute and soft sunshine the next. Your definition, as I recall.”

  “And me own words used against me!” He twinkled at me for a moment and then sobered again. �
��You do see the implication, don’t you? Of the theft?”

  I saw, all right. “Someone hoped that his heart would give out, walking that far against the wind. Or that he’d get sick. That he’d get pneumonia. But he didn’t—not that time. When did you say this happened?”

  “Mid-March sometime. I don’t recall exactly. I do know he never went for a long walk again. After the tricycle incident—and mind you, I thought it was nothing more than simple theft—I put my foot down and absolutely forbade him to gad about on his own. I didn’t like to do it, and Kevin hated the idea like poison. No one wants to lose his independence, but I made him see, at last, that he was taking suicidal risks. The church frowns on suicide, you know. So he gave in, and we organized a schedule at St. Peter’s. Someone phoned him every day to see if he needed to go anywhere or have anything brought to him.”

  “Doc Foley said he was trying to convince Kevin to hire some help around the house.”

  “Yes, we both were. Everyone knew the volunteer routine wouldn’t work forever. He was getting frail; we worried about him falling and not being able to get help. That was another thing. His phone kept going out, and when the repairman would come, he’d never find anything wrong. There was a little fire once, too, one of the times when the phone wasn’t working.”

  I gasped.

  “Yes. Oh, Kevin managed to put it out himself. Didn’t do much damage. And eventually he got a cellular phone. But even so, it all added up to a dangerous situation. I’d talked to Doc about a live-in housekeeper, even home health care, but Kevin was fighting tooth and nail against it. In the end, of course …” He held up his hands and shrugged.

  “Father, do you think … was his death natural, or … not?”

  He thought for a long time, looking at the crucifix on the wall. “I don’t see how it could have been anything but natural. He was lucid at first, you know, and of course I visited him in the hospital. He swore to me he hadn’t taken any long walks. He’d had a flu shot, and hadn’t been anywhere with lots of people to get exposed to bugs, except to mass, of course. And no one in the parish had pneumonia at the time, or even a serious cold.”