“Good Lord,” Mahoney sighed, “you actually saw what happened?”
Ethan Allen nodded.
“Did the attacker see you?”
“Uh-uh.” Ethan Allen timidly shook his head side to side. “He didn’t see me ‘cause I stayed hid, way far back under the bushes.”
“Did you recognize him?”
Ethan Allen nodded and opened his mouth, but the words felt so painful in his throat that instead of speaking the name as he had intended, he began to cry. “Honey,” Olivia sighed, wrapping her arm around the boy’s shoulders, “you don’t have to be afraid of telling the truth. The Lord himself is on the side of truth, and so is Detective Mahoney.”
“That’s right,” Mahoney said. “The only thing anybody can ask of you is the truth about what happened that night.”
Turning his face into Olivia’s shoulder, Ethan mumbled, “Mister Cobb did it.”
“Sam Cobb?” Mahoney gasped.
The boy shook his head, “Uh-uh, his daddy—Mister Scooter.”
“Scooter Cobb was the man who killed your Mama and Daddy?” Mahoney echoed with an overwhelming gasp of astonishment.
“Not Mama; just Daddy.”
“Did you see who killed your Mama?”
“Daddy, I reckon,” Ethan answered, “but, I think it was an accident.”
“Do you suppose,” Mahoney asked, “you could tell me the whole story of how things actually happened that day?”
Ethan looked up at Olivia, his eyes questioning such a move. Only after she gave him a reassuring nod, did he start to speak. “We was gonna run off to New York,” he said, “so Mama told me to hide out back ‘til it was time to leave. She thought I might slip and say something and then Daddy would know what we were up to.”
“Just you and your mama were going to New York?” Mahoney asked.
Ethan shook his head. “No, Mister Scooter was going too, that’s why Mama didn’t want Daddy to know. First off, just me and her were going; but after Daddy took all Mama’s money and spent it on a tractor, she said Mister Scooter was gonna take us cause he had a lot of money. Thing is, Daddy must of caught wind of it, cause him and Mama got into a real big fight. Once the cat was out of the bag, she threw her suitcase in the car and told him she didn’t give a beaver’s tit about what he wanted, we was still going to New York—that’s when Daddy punched her and she fell down.” Ethan suddenly stopped talking and turned his attention to picking at a loose thread on the pocket of his pants.
Seeing the tears in the boy’s eyes, Mahoney waited a long while and then sympathetically said, “So I guess your mama got hurt pretty bad when she fell down, huh?”
Ethan nodded.
“What happened then?”
“Daddy picked her up and put her in bed.”
“You know if she was still alive?”
Ethan shrugged and kept picking at the thread.
“Scooter Cobb, was he there?”
“Not then,” Ethan said, “he came late at night.”
“Were you in the house when he got there?”
“Uh-uh.” Ethan shook his head. “I was out back in the woods.”
“How’d you know it was Scooter?”
“I heard the car. At first I figured it was Mama. I thought she might of felt some better and was leaving, so I snuck close by the yard to see. But it wasn’t Mama, it was Mister Scooter getting out of his car.”
“You sure it was him?”
“I’m real sure.” If Mahoney had looked close enough he might have been able to catch sight of the image flickering across the boy’s eyes, a memory-movie of Scooter Cobb heaving a bloodied Benjamin across the yard. “It was him alright,” Ethan said, “He was driving his big white car. I seen that car plenty of times. One time I even seen him and Mama parked out back of the diner in that car…”
“Ethan…” Olivia warned with a raised eyebrow.
“After Scooter got there,” Mahoney asked, “what happened?”
“He went in our house; then he started screaming that Mama was dead. He called Daddy all kinds of names and said he’d killed her. Then he beat him up.”
“Scooter beat up your Daddy?”
“Yeah. Daddy didn’t even fight back, he just stood there and let Mister Scooter pound on him. I wanted to go help Daddy, but I was too scared so I stayed hid.”
“In a situation such as that, keeping yourself safe is usually the best thing.”
“It didn’t feel like the best thing,” Ethan replied sorrowfully.
“But, it is a lot safer to stay hidden,” Mahoney said, “besides, if it was Scooter Cobb, I doubt there’s anything you could have done to save your Daddy.” He went on with a number of questions as to where exactly the fight had taken place; then reiterated, “Now Ethan Allen, you’re absolutely sure it was Scooter Cobb, right?”
“I told you I was.”
“You’re sure you ain’t just making up this story, to get back at Mister Cobb for his taking advantage of your Mama?”
“I didn’t say none of Mama’s other boyfriends did it.”
“That’s true,” Mahoney replied, nervously pushing his fingertips back and forth across his forehead. “Okay, I’m gonna take you at your word.”
“Now, you’ll arrest Scooter Cobb?” Olivia asked.
“We’ll see,” Mahoney replied.
“See?” A frown drifted across Olivia’s face. “What is there to see?”
“Every accusation has to be investigated; proven meritorious.” Mahoney pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and swabbed his eyes, “We’ve got procedures,” he said, “we don’t go around arresting every person rumored to have done something.”
Olivia bent forward and studied his eyes—the light was gone. There was not even a trace of glimmer; they were dark and dry. She had mistaken faulty tear ducts for the light of God, how absolutely stupid. “Don’t think for an instant that I’ll allow you to take this boy back with you,” she said in a manner concrete as the building cornerstone. “Do whatever investigating you need to do, but expect nothing more from either of us.”
Ethan sensing a heavy duty argument hanging in the air slipped behind Olivia. Clara and Barbara Conklin moved forward to the edge of the sofa. A click sounded from the bedroom, where Seth Porter had cocked his rifle even though he had no bullets. “Let’s just calm down and take it easy,” Mahoney said, extending out the palms of his hands, “I’m not here to take Ethan Allen back. He’s where he belongs. There’s simply some groundwork to be done before I arrest anybody. The law states a man’s innocent until proven guilty—the proving, that’s my job.”
“How can you possibly suggest that Scooter Cobb might be innocent? Ethan Allen saw him do it!”
“If we have nothing but the boy’s say so, it’s simply one person’s word against the other. That’s why we’ve got to substantiate his claim with actual evidence.”
When Mahoney finally took his leave, Olivia was not feeling one bit good about convincing Ethan to tell what he knew. In fact, she was considering taking Fred up on his offer of marriage and the three of them moving off to Baltimore, Maryland.
Mahoney was feeling no better about the situation. “Hell’s afire,” he moaned as he slid behind the wheel wishing he didn’t know what he knew. He was suddenly wishing that he’d simply left well enough alone and settled for having an unsolved murder on the books. If the boy didn’t want to be found, what business did he or anybody else have in finding him? Long before the ferry docked on the Eastern Shore, Jack Mahoney decided to do a bit of behind-the-scene investigating before he said anything to anyone, especially Sam Cobb.
Detective Jack Mahoney
I’d like to believe that the kid is lying; that he’s concocted the entire story, just to get even with Sam. It would make my life a whole lot easier if I could just chalk the kid’s story up to a case of misdirected anger.
After all the boy’s been through, it’s logical to think he might be looking to get even—pay Sam back for the way he
treated his Grandma.
It was dark and the kid had to be seventy or eighty yards away; how probable was it that he could actually see the face of the attacker? And then, how likely was it that he’d stay hidden in the bushes and watch his daddy being murdered?
That bit about Scooter Cobb taking them to New York…I gotta question that. Scooter might be a man to chase around a bit; but the women have come and gone and he’s always stayed married. Running off to New York? What about Emma? What about the diner?
If I start thinking Scooter Cobb might have done this thing, then I have to ask myself—does Sam know? Is that his reason for acting so belligerent toward the boy? Is that the real reason he felt a runaway kid wasn’t worth chasing after?
Let me tell you, the last thing any detective wants to do is suspect a fellow officer of covering up a crime—especially one as heinous as this. Much as I hate the thought of what I could be walking into, I can’t get rid of the feeling that the kid is telling the truth.
We’ll see.
Evidentiary Fact
On Wednesday morning Mahoney walked into the criminal records office and asked to take another look at the file for the Doyle murders. Line by line he read through every detail of the findings. He studied the photographs of the shoe prints alongside Benjamin’s body—a man’s shoe, size thirteen, a heavy tread on the bottom, the sort of shoe a man standing on his feet all day might wear. The window broken from inside; it matched up with Ethan’s story. Then there was the partial thumbprint on the bedroom doorknob—not enough for identification, but sure evidence of a large hand. Susanna Doyle killed by a single blow to the back of the head, her blood found on a large rock alongside the driveway, her body found lying in bed—everything was just as the boy told it. “Shit!” Mahoney said and closed the folder. He left the station house and headed for the diner.
He knew Scooter Cobb would be there; standing behind the counter nursing a cold cup of coffee, or standing at the griddle and frying up some hamburgers. Scooter was a man who stood twelve hours a day, seven days a week. He more than likely wore shoes with a heavy tread on the sole, a tread that could absorb the pressure of his weight. Of course, Mahoney reasoned, there was any number of people about whom you could say the same thing; but the boy had specifically named Scooter. There were days when Mahoney wished that he’d chosen another profession, anything but this—teacher maybe, or a Southern Electric Company meter reader with little to do but stroll from house to house recording the amount of electricity each family used.
Mahoney arrived at the diner shortly before eleven; the noonday rush had not yet started. Scooter was standing at the counter with a half-empty coffee cup and gave a nod when Mahoney walked in. “How’s the investigation going?” he asked. He set a cup and saucer in front of Jack then filled the cup with coffee.
“Slow,” Mahoney answered, “A lot of standing around; my feet are killing me.”
Scooter topped off his own cup. “Standing’s tough duty,” he said.
Mahoney nodded, “You ought to know, you’re on your feet all day.”
Scooter rolled his eyes; “That’s for sure.”
“What I should do,” Mahoney said, “is get myself a pair of more cushiony shoes. Shoes meant for standing; something like you’ve got.”
“These, is a lifesaver. Cost thirty-nine dollars, but worth every cent.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Be my guest.” Scooter bent over, untied his right shoe, and handed it to Mahoney. “Stick your foot in,” he said, “these are probably too big for you, but you’ll get the feel.”
Mahoney pulled off his own shoe and slid his foot into Scooter’s. “You’re right,” he said casually, “these are way too big for me, what size foot you got?”
“Thirteen, extra wide.”
Mahoney pulled the shoe off and turned it over in his hand. The tread was a narrow-wide, narrow-wide, zigzag pattern—exactly the same as the footprint found alongside Benjamin’s body. Same size, same tread pattern; not what he’d been hoping to find. “Long as I’m here,” Mahoney said, handing the shoe back to its owner, “mind if I ask you a few questions about Susanna Doyle?”
“Susanna? She worked here, that was about it.”
“Oh? There’s talk of her having a lover, you know anything of that?”
Scooter shrugged, “News to me,” he said, “where’d you hear a thing like that?”
“We got it from her boy,” Mahoney answered. “Ethan Allen claims he and Susanna were supposed to go to New York City with this man.”
Scooter began nervously swiping at the countertop which didn’t have a speck of dirt on it. “That kid,” he said, his voice sounding a register higher than it had earlier, “he’s a born liar. You can’t believe a thing he says. Poor Susanna had all kinds of problems with him.”
“Kids!” Mahoney shook his head but offered neither agreement nor disagreement as to Scooter’s opinion of Ethan Allen.
“And Susanna,” Scooter went on, “she was sure as hell no angel. I wouldn’t doubt for a minute she had a lover; more than one I’ll wager. Plenty of times I seen her hanging over the counter, eyeballing it with some passing-through salesman.”
“Didn’t she work the late shift?” Mahoney asked.
Scooter nodded, but didn’t look up; he focused his eyes on the speckled countertop, stretched across and gave it another swipe.
“Nights, you and her worked together, right?”
“Most times,” Scooter turned away, emptied out a half-pot of coffee and started scrubbing the Brew Master for all he was worth.
“Did Sam or Emma know that you were having an affair with Susanna?” Mahoney asked.
“What the hell kind of question is that? I wasn’t having no affair with nobody, least of all Susanna Doyle!”
Mahoney who believed enough bait thrown into the water, would surface the truth of a person’s guilt or innocence, said, “Ethan Allen claims he saw you out at the farm on the night of the murders. He claims you’re the one who beat up Benjamin.”
“He’s a liar! A shit-faced mealy-mouthed liar; I wasn’t nowhere near their place that night and the kid knows it!”
“Where were you that night?” Mahoney asked.
“Right here; I worked ‘til eleven-thirty, same as every night.”
“Where’d you go after that?”
“Home! That’s where I always go when I’m done working.”
Mahoney drained the last of his coffee, then using a napkin he picked up the saucer and slid it into his pocket. As he stood to leave, he asked, “Did you and Susanna Doyle ever make love in that big white Cadillac of yours?”
“Screw you,” Scooter answered.
As soon as Mahoney was out the door, Scooter Cobb picked up the telephone and called his son, Sam. “What the fuck are you trying to pull?” he asked.
“Trying to pull?” Buckling beneath the sound of his father’s anger, Sam stammered, “….about what?”
“You know damn good and well what I’m talking about—sending Mahoney over here with that shit about me and Susanna having an affair.”
“Me send Mahoney? He’s a detective, I’m a street cop!”
“Yeah, but you’re working the Doyle case with him.”
“No more,” Sam said, “the Captain needed me for another job.”
“Well, you better find a way to get back on the Doyle case,” Scooter growled. “’Cause that shit-faced kid of Susanna’s is saying I was there the night of the murder.”
“You? Why?”
“How the hell should I know? The kid’s probably just out to get me, he told Mahoney I was having a thing with Susanna.”
“There’s no truth to that, is there?”
“Of course not!” Scooter answered emphatically. “I might of grabbed onto her tit or pinched her ass a few times, but that’s it. The problem is, I don’t want your Mama getting hold of this, so you gotta talk to the kid, make him see this is all a big mistake.”
“Yeah,
sure Pop,” Sam said. But even as he hung up the telephone, Sam Cobb knew there was no way the Captain was going to put him back on the case—whatever he was going to do, would have to be done on his own.
After Mahoney left the diner, he went to see Emma Cobb. “Hello, Jack,” she said with a broad smile then swung the door wide open and invited him into the house. She sat him at the kitchen table and before he’d had time to refuse she set out a tray of lemon cakes and turned the coffee pot to brew.
Emma was a genuinely likeable woman which made what Mahoney had to do all the more difficult. “Emma, I’m real sorry, but I’m here on official business,” he said in an apologetic tone of voice.
“Business?” she replied laughingly, “what business could the police department have with me?”
“Not you…” he smiled, “but, we’re still investigating the Doyle murders and trying to verify the alibi of anyone who had a relationship with Benjamin or Susanna. Since Scooter worked with Susanna, I’ve got to ask—did he come home after work the night of the murders? There are witnesses that prove he was at the diner until almost midnight, but Benjamin Doyle’s murder occurred later than that; do you recall what time Scooter actually got home?”
“I can’t say with certainty, because I usually go to bed about ten. I stir a bit when he comes to bed, and I don’t recall, him being any later than usual, that night.”
“The next morning, did he seem stressful? Nervous, maybe? Out of sorts?”
“Scooter’s always a bit out of sorts when he gets up, but I can’t say he was any worse than usual. Of course, he didn’t find out about what happened to poor Susanna and her husband until late that afternoon.”
“After he found out about the murders, what did he have to say?”
“He felt real bad. Said it was horrible that such a thing could happen. I knew he was thinking how much he was gonna miss Susanna; she’d been working at the diner for a couple of years and was his only late night waitress.”
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