The Judas Cat

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  Alex was tired, but not sleepy. He drove past the house. His folks were upstairs. The night light was burning in the hall for him. He drove back to 64 and turned up Sunrise Avenue. A light was burning above the garage door at Baldwins’. They were just home from the carnival. There was a light in Mabel’s kitchen. His headlights were reflected in the windshields of cars parked along the street. A lot of people left their cars out in this weather. He had put his away after the package was stolen. Had their failure to find what they wanted in it led them directly to Barnard? Who were “they”? Why did he keep thinking that more than one person was involved? He turned left at the end of the block and returned to 64 on Townline Road. He wondered whom the land between it and Sunrise Avenue belonged to. He could never remember having seen anything planted there. He got a whiff of something that reminded him of Joe Hershel and his goats. The barbecue stand was closed; so was Fitzsimmons’ gas station. He parked the car at the Sunrise entrance of the station, and walked up the street. Somewhere a cat was screeching. Two cats, no doubt. If there was anything he’d never have in the house now, it was a cat. He and Maudie and George Addison and Mabel Turnsby. Nobody had yet said they liked cats. Except Mrs. Liston who kept every stray animal she could lay her charity upon.

  He stopped for a moment and looked around. Behind him the gas pumps looked naked without the hose attachments. The light had gone out at Baldwins’. Beside him the goldenrod was grey in the moonlight. There was a ripple of movement in the center of it where some little night animal was scurrying. Beyond it, Andy’s house was dark and forlorn, and patched with the boards Waterman had nailed up over the place the glass was missing. Abreast of the house he saw that Mabel’s light was still on, and he was moved with curiosity as to what she was doing up at that hour. She herself had said that she was always in bed at ten-thirty. The rasp of Andy’s gate would have sounded like thunder in the stillness. He went to the goldenrod side of his house and climbed the fence, pushing the sunflowers out of his face. At Andy’s back steps he was opposite Mabel’s. The kitchen blinds were drawn, but the old lady was silhouetted against them like a cartoon character in the movies. And she was talking. Mabel Turnsby had company.

  There was a wide expanse of moonlit ground between the two houses, and Alex hesitated getting caught in it, should Mabel look out. Before he had made up his mind what to do, the kitchen light went out. He heard the scraping of a bolt across the door but no one came out. He drew his coat collar up to cover the whiteness of his shirt and crept along the side of Mattson’s house, ready to fall to the grass should anyone look out. He could not go too far, lest the visitor get out the back door without his seeing him. Presently a light went on upstairs, its reflection falling on the grass near Alex. He instinctively dropped to the ground, and at that moment a man hurried down Mabel’s steps and across the lawn to the south, stepping over the forsythia bushes. Before Alex had made it around the fence, he heard the grind of a starter, and the smooth steady acceleration of the motor. He saw the dark sedan pass, its driver lost in the tree-shadowed street, and ran after it, seeing it turn through the station toward Riverdale. He climbed into his own car and whirled it around. The minute or two start was enough. Only when he was near the top of Cobbler’s Hill, did the driver turn on his lights. Alex followed as far as Three Corners catching the tail-light as he reached the crest of each hill. At Three Corners he lost it, for he could concentrate only on the highway, and the light did not re-appear there. The driver had taken one of the two side roads and eluded him. He swung around at the restaurant parking lot, and went home, passing the darkened Barnard house.

  Chapter 24

  IT WAS TWENTY MINUTES after seven the next morning when Alex left the house. The day was overcast and muggy, but the clouds did not seem heavy enough for rain. Next door, Will Withrow was hauling the garden hose out of the basement. “Out early, aren’t you, Alex?” he called.

  “A little. Some rain would sure help, wouldn’t it?”

  “That’s why I’m putting up the sprinkler. It rains every time I do it. What’s the latest on Mattson?”

  “His funeral, I guess.”

  “How come you didn’t put anything about him in the paper? That coroner’s report all by itself looked funny. It gave me the creeps.”

  His father was right, Alex thought. It gave him a sinking feeling in his stomach. “That was all I knew for sure,” he said.

  “Don’t give me that stuff, kid. You could write two volumes on rumors alone.”

  “That’s just what I didn’t want to publish.”

  “It’s a queer attitude for a newspaper. Altman’s like a boil. Got me out of bed. Council meeting tomorrow morning. He’s as busy as a lone rooster.”

  “He’s always busy,” Alex said.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” his neighbor said. “He’s about to be a father again.”

  “Don’t you call that busy? See you later, Will.”

  He walked down to the post office first. The council meeting was inevitable. Whenever Altman wanted something, he called a council meeting. For a week before it, he would run from one member to the other selling them on his idea. The meeting wasn’t much more than a formality unless someone like his father was on the council. He tried to remember who was serving this term. Business people, all of them. If Altman convinced them that Waterman was pursuing a will-o’-the-wisp, things could be tough.

  The post office was the only modern building in town. It was not the newest, but its design was modern, and it had two front entrances. At this hour the farmers were in town to pick up their mail. Most of them did not care to bother with rural delivery. They wanted the latest papers and an excuse to talk with their neighbors. The two super markets on the square opened at eight o’clock, and the men lingered on the post-office steps until then. That morning the flag above the building hung limp in the heavy atmosphere, and the men were constantly wiping the moisture from their faces.

  “… I’m telling you, Al. Doc killed that mare as sure as if he’d taken a sledge hammer to her … a butcher …”

  The words made Alex stop abruptly as he came abreast the three men talking together on the steps. One of them noticed him then. He nodded. “Morning, Alex.”

  “Good morning,” he said, and walked on. Not another word was spoken among them until the door swung closed behind him. It must have been Barnard they were talking about; otherwise the silence would not have been so abrupt, so obvious. No one involved in the investigation now was safe from gossip, from the twisted interpretation of whoever cared to pass along a tale. He wondered if he would ever again feel the same toward the people in Hillside. At the main window he asked if Dan Casey had started on his rounds yet. They were still sorting mail. Presently the carrier came out the door. His grey shirt was already dark with sweat.

  “I won’t keep you a minute,” Alex said.

  “As long as you like,” Casey said. “They can wait a bit. They got the Sentinel this morning. You disappointed us, Alex. Not even a word on the old man, and everyone talking about him. I says to the missus last night, ‘wait till you see what the Sentinel says. The kid’s been in it from the start.’ And now the devil a word.”

  “I’ll make it up to you next week,” Alex said. “I wanted to ask you about Mattson’s mail.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. He didn’t get any.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Nothing to speak of. A couple of mailhouse catalogues once in a while.”

  “When’s the last time you left him anything?”

  “Away early summer. June maybe. It was a letter from the Addison Industries.”

  “Did you leave it in the box or give it to him?”

  “I handed it to him, and I thought maybe he’d say something, the way he never got any mail. But the devil a word he said, no more than if he hadn’t a tongue in his head. Just sitting there, tickling that cat of his. It scratched him up bad, didn’t it?”

  “Yes, it did.”

  “I alw
ays say you can’t trust a cat. They’re like women: one day sidlin’ up to you, as sweet as sugar candy, and the next they’d scratch the eyes out of your head.”

  Casey must not have admitted his low opinion of women often, Alex thought. He was the darling of every one of them who had a mail box. “Did Andy ever ask you to mail any letters for him?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Casey said thoughtfully. “A couple of weeks back, now that you mention it. Mabel saw him give it to me and she was waiting for me. ‘Who did he write to?’ she says, the brazened face on her. ‘And will you have a cup of coffee and some cinnamon rolls, Dan?’—the way you’d think I was perishing. ‘Thank you, ma’m,’ I says, ‘but I’m on my rounds.’ I don’t be giving out information like that, not to the likes of her, anyway.”

  “Naturally,” Alex said patiently. “How about to the likes of me? Do you remember who the letter was addressed to?”

  Casey thought for a moment, his lips pursed together as though he were trying to whistle. “It was a funny name and I can’t lay my tongue on it. An attorney-at-law, it was, up in Riverdale.”

  Alex’s mind flashed to the one lawyer he had heard mentioned recently, the man who had smiled at him at the carnival the night before. “Roy Gautier?”

  “Ay, that’s the name. It’s a queer sort for this part of the country.”

  Alex stopped him before he got going on the subject of names. “Dan, have you mentioned this to anyone?”

  “No. Is it important?”

  Casey’s eagerness made him wish that he had kept still, but it was too late. “It might be, and it might not. It might be very important. You know Waterman’s having a tough time on this.”

  “I do that. I says to my wife the minute the name Addison came up, ‘now there’ll be the devil to pay …’”

  “Dan, I’d like to ask you not to mention the letter to a soul for now. I’ll tell Waterman, but that’s all. If we get a case, you’ll be called upon then to testify.”

  “Mum’s the word,” said Casey. “You’d never believe it, but I’m told more secrets than the parish priest.”

  Alex did not wait. He was afraid that he might learn some of the secrets, and right now he wanted to think that he could trust Dan Casey. He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes to eight. He had two hours and a few moments before the funeral. He stopped at the cigar store and bought a package of cigarettes and a Jackson paper. Harry Kruger asked him to share a thermos of coffee, but Alex refused. Harry wanted to talk. “Going to the funeral?” he asked.

  “I think so,” Alex said.

  “Think Addison’ll be down?”

  “Probably.”

  “I think I’ll run out there myself,” Harry said. “I’d like to see what sixty million bucks looks like.”

  “He wears it like an old pair of shoes,” Alex said, starting for the door. He stopped. “Did the old man buy his papers from you?”

  “Sure did. Thirty years of ’em. Last couple of years I’d save them for him. He’d come in two or three times a week.”

  “Ever have anything to say?”

  “Two words. Every Saturday he’d say, ‘how much?’”

  “Thanks,” Alex said, going out. Sixty million dollars, he thought. Addison didn’t look like it, but how should he expect him to look? The probate session of county court met today. He let himself into the Sentinel office and shoved the stopper under the door. The office was stuffy. He went through to the plant and threw open the windows. The clouds were breaking and then reforming. All the wind was up there with not a breath of it in Hillside. Returning to his office, he glanced at the Sentinel on his desk. The coroner’s report, with its marginal space, stood out more boldly than if they had bordered it in black. He turned it away from him on the desk and picked up the Jackson paper. It was on the first page: the estate of the late Henry Addison, inventor and industrialist, would be filed in Riverdale county court, probate session, today, August 20. It was estimated at sixty million dollars by the executor, George Addison. There was no word yet on the provisions of the will. Once again he wondered who knew of them. If anyone in Hillside did, he was not letting it out. There had been quite a few words against the Addisons for not doing something for Andy, and not even a rumor about the twenty-five-thousand-dollar bequest. Maude Needham was the first of the staff to arrive.

  “Hi, Maudie,” Alex called.

  “Hi yourself. The phone ringing yet?”

  “They’re waiting for you,” Alex said.

  “I’ve a good notion to start my vacation today.”

  “Maude, what’s your schedule today?”

  “We’ve got all the handbills to run off for that dollar day next week. Everybody’s in on it this year. Even the agency stores.”

  “That’s what we make our money on,” Alex said. “It certainly doesn’t come from the Sentinel.”

  “Don’t try to teach your granny to milk ducks,” Maude said. “I was running handbills when you were in rompers.”

  “Can I buy you a cup of coffee, Maudie?”

  “No. I just had two of them. They didn’t help.”

  “I wanted to ask you a favor,” Alex said.

  “Ask. I’m not going to eat your head off.”

  “If you could manage without her, I’ve got a few things on the Mattson business I’d like Joan to look up for me today.”

  “You want to get her into trouble too?”

  Alex did not answer that.

  “All right,” Maude continued, “if she wants to that’s her business. I can manage without her today. There it goes.”

  The telephone had started to ring. “Have the first one on me,” Alex said, picking up the receiver. It was the mayor, and Alex could have held the phone at arm’s length and still heard him. He let him finish before he tried to say a word, and as the mayor’s voice rose, so did Alex’s temper. “Mr. Altman,” he said at last, “the Sentinel is not your propaganda sheet. You put the heat on me to publish that report. Let’s not kid ourselves. You wanted the whole matter of Mattson’s death dropped there. That was too rich for my blood. I ran the thing as I did because it was the only honest protest I knew. If it embarrasses you, I think you’ve got yourself to thank for it.”

  “That is enough of your impertinence, young man. And I wouldn’t be solicitous about my embarrassments. You’ll have enough of your own before this matter’s closed.” Alex heard the bang of the receiver at the other end. Maude had been standing at his desk. “Here we go again,” she said.

  Joan came in then. She was wearing a yellow linen dress, Alex noticed, fresh and cool looking. “Maude says you can help me today, and we’ve got plenty to do.”

  Joan took a booklet from her purse and gave it to him. “I found this last night,” she said. “It’s the catalogue on that Addison art exhibit.”

  Alex looked through it. “Here,” he said. There were three Pissarros in the collection. “Andy’s thing didn’t come from their show, anyway. Joan, I’d like you to get a look at that painting of his. If Waterman’ll give us the key, let’s pick it up now and go over there. Damn it, I still feel there’s something in that house we missed, something that holds the whole story, and we’ve got to get it soon.”

  Mr. Whiting came in and hung his hat on the hall tree in the office. “Hell’s a-popping,” he said. “The mayor’s rounding up council members.” He threw the keys of the car on Alex’s desk. Alex took them.

  “I’ll pick you up in time for the funeral, Dad.”

  Joan waited in the car outside the station. Waterman was at his desk, drumming the end of his pencil on the pad. “I was thinking I might as well be playing tick-tack-toe,” he said when he saw Alex. “I’m just as liable to come out with the truth.” He opened the top drawer and took from it a telegram which he handed to Alex. “Add this to your collection.”

  It was from the Chicago police department. Alex read:

  3467 PAULA AVENUE RESIDENCE HOMER THORESON. PURCHASED 1933 FROM WALTER TURNSBY. ADDRESS THEN GIVEN WALTER TURNSB
Y 231 WEST AVENUE DENVER COLORADO.

  “Is that Mike Turnsby’s son?” he asked, giving the wire back.

  Waterman nodded.

  “They certainly have a way of selling out and vanishing, don’t they?” Alex said. “At least it definitely links Andy with them beyond coincidence.”

  “I thought we were out of coincidences a long time ago,” Waterman said. “The bank’s refused to give me any information without a court order, by the way.”

  “I made a mistake crossing Altman like we did on the Sentinel story,” Alex said.

  “We’d have crossed him anyway.”

  “Chief, I can’t help thinking there’s something in the house still that we’ve missed. There was a reason they came back and broke in that north window. There was a reason I got that call to take me out of there, whether it was Mabel who was responsible or not.”

  “I was thinking of that, too, Alex. But if they didn’t get it, why didn’t they come back last night?”

  “How do you know they didn’t?”

  “I got every window and door there marked so’s I’d know if they were touched. I checked them this morning.”

  Alex thought for a moment. “I think they did come back, chief.” He told Waterman about Mabel’s late visitor.

  “That a fact?” Waterman said. “It begins to look kind of bad for Mabel, don’t it? I’m about at the point where I’m going to ask some straight questions. So far I’ve been pussy-footing around so’s I wouldn’t step on anybody’s toes. I was out to Allendale—that’s where Doc Barnard was the morning his lab got smashed. They got a sick cow all right. Lost her calf. They don’t think much of Doc as a vet, but I guess they wouldn’t right now. I’ve been wondering, Alex, if Doc ain’t afraid of something. He’s acted strange on this.”