When I switched on the front room light, I called, “Hazel!” Just as though I expected her to answer.
Mavis would have thrown me a sardonic grin if she had been there to hear. My increasing carefulness over the years had become a source of amusement to her.
I didn’t consider it over-carefulness. While Tom Benjamin had already driven off, and no one else was on the street to see me enter, how did I know but what some snoopy neighbor was peering into my front room from a darkened window at that moment? They couldn’t have heard me call Hazel’s name, of course, but anyone in the house could have. I didn’t want to overlook even the remote chance that some neighbor might have knocked at the back door just as I came up the front walk and, getting no answer, had stepped into the kitchen.
Through repeated practice, I had trained myself to act perfectly natural in these situations, even when I was sure there was no audience. Now I put a faintly puzzled look on my face when my call brought nothing but silence, and began to look through the house. I covered the three downstairs rooms, letting my expression grow more puzzled all the time.
Then I mounted the stairs, glanced into both bedrooms and the bath, and came downstairs again. For a few moments I stood in the front room with the vaguely irked expression of a man who is more disappointed than worried at not finding his wife home when he expected her.
Finally I went out the back way, crossed the lawn to the Erlings’ and knocked at their back door. Ed Erling came to the door.
“Evening, Mr. Henshaw,” he said with a note of surprise in his voice. “Come on in.”
“No thanks,” I said. “I’m just looking for my wife. She over here?”
He shook his head. “Haven’t seen her.”
“I guess she must be over at the Shermans’. She can’t be far, because she left the back door unlocked.”
“Oh, you been out?” he asked.
“Mr. Benjamin took me to the school board meeting and I just got home. Well, thanks, anyway. I’ll get over to the Shermans’.”
That was normal enough, I thought as I crossed my back yard again toward the house the other side of mine. When it came time for Ed Erling to remember how I had acted tonight, he’d certainly recall that there had been nothing in my manner to indicate I was making an attempt to cover up a guilty conscience. I hadn’t tried to look worried or implant in his mind that I was afraid something had happened to Hazel. I had made it a simple inquiry such as any husband might make when he unexpectedly found out his wife had gone out.
I stayed close to the rear of my own house as I crossed the yard, so as not to tread on any of the tulipbeds Hazel had set out all over the yard. In the dark I passed within feet of the old dry cistern with the pile of new lumber next to it, but didn’t even glance in that direction. It was so dark I couldn’t have seen it anyway, though from the corner of my eye I could make out the dim outline of the lumber pile next to it.
Of course Hazel wasn’t at the Shermans’ either. This time I let myself look thoroughly puzzled.
“She can’t have walked down to one of the stores, because even the drugstore closes at ten,” I said. “Wonder where she went?”
“Did you have the car?” Mrs. Sherman asked.
“No. Mr. Benjamin drove me to the school board meeting and back. I haven’t looked in the garage.”
“Why don’t you look?” George Sherman asked.
I peered out across the dark yard. “You have a flashlight you could loan me, Mr. Sherman? Hazel will skin me if I walk on one of her tulip beds.”
“Sure,” Sherman said.
While he was gone after the flashlight, Mrs. Sherman asked, “Isn’t your sister home either, Mr. Henshaw?”
“Mavis left for Chicago earlier this evening to visit our folks,” I said.
George Sherman came back with the flashlight and handed it to me. I wanted him to stroll over to the garage with me, but I couldn’t just bluntly ask him to. The whole thing would seem more natural if he trailed along on his own hook.
One of the first things I’d learned about George Sherman when I’d rented the bungalow next door to him six weeks before was that he was an avid Cleveland fan. Now I used the knowledge as bait.
As I moved across the back porch, I said, “Cleveland dropped one yesterday, I noticed.”
With Sherman this was enough to start an evening-long dissertation. On several occasions I had listened to him explain his favorite ball club’s 1954 Series performance so convincingly, he nearly had me believing its four straight losses were entirely due to bad breaks instead of the Giants’ superior playing. Now he followed me down the porch steps explaining the Cleveland misfortunes which had brought about yesterday’s loss. When I switched on the flashlight to start across the back lawn, he continued to follow, still talking.
The night was so dark, we could see nothing either side of the flashlight beam. When we neared the small pile of new lumber next to the cistern, I interrupted his apologia.
Flicking the beam over the pile, I said, “I’ve got to get to work on that cistern cover tomorrow before some kid falls through those rotten boards.”
Then I let the light play over the square wooden cover of the cistern.
“It was that triple of Los Angeles’ in the fifth,” Sherman resumed. “With a batting average of only a hundred seventeen, who’d ever expect—Hey, looks like somebody already fell through there.”
I had moved the light away from the cistern after holding it only long enough to give him a good look. Now I swung it back again.
“Yeah,” I said, walking toward the cover, whose rotten boards we could now see had given way in the center, leaving a gaping hole.
When I knelt at the edge of the hole and directed the light downward, George Sherman leaned over and peered into the deep pit also.
“My God!” he said. “There’s somebody down there!”
No one in Tuscola was even faintly suspicious of Hazel’s death. The primary reaction of everyone in town seemed to be sympathy for me at losing my bride after less than two months of marriage. If this was tempered by the thought that a skinny bride of nearly forty whose main attraction had been a rather vapid good nature shouldn’t be an irreparable loss to a tall and fairly good-looking man of thirty-five, it wasn’t apparent.
Nevertheless, the police had to make a routine investigation because of the nature of the presumed accident. Chief Howard Stoyle handled it personally, having me stop by his office the next morning. I found Tom Benjamin there too.
After the usual sympathetic cliches everybody uses in such circumstances, the fat chief said, “This is routine, you understand, Mr. Henshaw, but I have to ask some questions about last night. Just to try to fix the time of death and so on. Now I understand you were away from home at a school board meeting when it happened.”
“Yes,” I said. “Mr. Benjamin took me. I’ve been trying to get acquainted with as many facets of the town as I could, and he thought I might like to see the board in action.”
“Your wife was all right when you left?”
“She waved to me from the door. That was about eight-thirty. The meeting was scheduled for a quarter of nine.”
I looked at Benjamin for confirmation, and the old hardware merchant said, “That’s right. She was alive at eight-thirty. I yelled hello to her from the car and she called hello back.”
“What time was the meeting over?” Chief Stoyle asked.
“About ten-fifteen,” I said. “It must have been about ten-thirty when Mr. Benjamin dropped me in front of my house.”
“That places it between eight-thirty and ten-thirty,” the chief said thoughtfully. “Which conforms to the coroner’s guess. It was eleven when he examined the body, and he placed the time of death as two to four hours earlier. Far as you know, was your wife alone all evening?”
“My sister took the evening train to Chicago last night,” I explained. “Mr. Benjamin and I drove her to the station.”
When Benjamin nodded agreement to
this, Chief Stoyle said, “Then she won’t be able to tell us anything. No point in talking to her.”
“She’ll be available if you want her,” I said. “I wired her this morning asking her to come home at once. It’s only about a four-hour train trip, so she should be in by evening.”
“Fine. But I don’t think I’ll be wanting her.”
I said, “I can’t understand what Hazel was doing out there in the dark.”
“She had her hat on,” the chief said. “We figure she decided to run downtown for something at one of the stores and was heading for the garage. Instead of sticking to the walk, she took a catty-corner shortcut, just as you and George Sherman were doing when you found her.”
“She should have taken a light,” I said. Then I made a hopeless gesture. “The worst of it is, I intended to build a new cover for that thing today. I already had the lumber for it.”
“Well, it was a terrible tragedy, Mr. Henshaw. Particularly since you were still practically newlyweds. But don’t go blaming yourself. It was just an unforeseeable accident.”
Unforeseeable. I wondered what the fat chief would say if I told him that the main feature which had attracted me to the house when I rented it was the abandoned cistern with its dangerous-looking wooden cover.
There wasn’t any more to the investigation. Chief Stoyle didn’t even question Ed Erling in order to verify that I had been to his house looking for Hazel. He did ask George Sherman a question or two as co-discoverer of the body, but he didn’t even bother with Mrs. Sherman.
Later Mavis was, as usual, amused at how many of my precautions had turned out to be unnecessary.
CHAPTER X
I MET MAVIS at the station when she came in from Chicago. We both kept our expressions appropriately sad, but when I gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek for the benefit of station onlookers, deep in her green eyes I could detect the suppressed relief she always felt when we neared the end of a deal.
Even in her ordinary dress Mavis had never been a beautiful woman so much as a desirable one. Except for sensually full lips, her features were too thin for real beauty. Yet properly clothed in the extremely feminine clothes she loved, she could start any man’s pulse hammering.
As she was now, though, no man would have looked at her twice. Her tailored suit gave her a neat appearance, but it effectively hid the soft lines of her body. The prim way in which her sleek black hair was drawn back tightly gave her face a thin, bony appearance entirely missing when she wore it loose. Her stiff walk, lacking even the slightest hip sway, plus a total absence of makeup, completed the illusion that she was an eminently respectable and uninteresting spinster.
I had trained her well. She was no longer the amateur thespian she had been when we met. Now, in any part I set for her, she could put on as convincing a performance as any top actress.
I knew she was dying to ask how things had gone so far, but all she said was, “I’m terribly sorry, Sam.”
The loungers at the station, watching us, nodded sympathetically.
Mavis didn’t even ask any questions when we got back to the house. Even in privacy I insisted on preserving appearances. Once during dinner she did look at me somewhat pleadingly, but when I merely said, “Later,” she let it drop.
In a town of only three thousand, there isn’t much choice of funeral homes. I wouldn’t have picked Jackson’s otherwise, because Lyman Jackson was as curious about other people’s business as an old woman. But he happened to run the only funeral parlor in town.
After dinner I took Mavis with me when I went to keep my appointment with Jackson. The plump, benign-looking funeral director courteously showed us to chairs in his office and seated himself behind a discreetly expensive desk.
“I can’t begin to express my sorrow for your tragic loss, Mr. Henshaw,” he said unctuously, then turned grave eyes on Mavis. “I know your sister by sight, of course, but I don’t believe we’ve ever been formally introduced.”
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry. My sister Mavis, Mr. Jackson.”
“How do you do?” Mavis asked politely.
“A pleasure, Miss Henshaw.” His attention reverted to me. “I think first we should discuss the date and time of the funeral. Later, if you feel up to it, I’ll show you our casket display and we’ll talk over the type of funeral you wish. Or, if you prefer, we’ll postpone that business until tomorrow.”
I said, “I’d rather get everything settled tonight. I’d like the funeral as soon as possible.”
“Of course,” Jackson said, benignly placing his palms together. “Let’s see now. This is Wednesday and the paper publishes tomorrow. We can have the notice printed and schedule the funeral as early as Friday, if you wish. Unless you want to allow more time for out-of-town relatives to get here.”
“My folks are too old to travel,” I told him. “And Hazel didn’t have any relatives. Make it Friday.”
We completed arrangements within a half-hour, deciding on a three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar package funeral. Funeral arrangements were another thing I was always very careful about. In a small town too cheap a funeral risks local criticism. Too elaborate a one excites comment. I always tried to keep them at an anonymous in-between level which would create little stir and be quickly forgotten.
After our business was completed, we had to go through the trying ordeal of satisfying the undertaker’s curiosity about our future plans.
“Will this affect your negotiations with Mr. Benjamin?” he asked me as he escorted us to the door.
I was tempted to make some noncommittal reply, but then it occurred to me there might be some advantage in making use of Jackson’s tendency to gossip. When Mavis and I pulled up stakes and left Tuscola shortly after the funeral, it might create less comment if the town were prepared in advance.
I said, “I’m afraid I haven’t much heart for going into the hardware business right now, Mr. Jackson. Actually I haven’t given my plans for buying out Mr. Benjamin’s store a thought since this happened. But offhand I doubt that Mr. Benjamin and I will come to terms now. Hazel and I planned on the store together, and I don’t think I could face it alone.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” the undertaker said. “Mr. Benjamin will be disappointed. Undoubtedly he’ll be able to find another buyer, though, so it will only temporarily postpone his retirement. I hope the town isn’t going to lose you, Mr. Henshaw.”
“I hadn’t thought of that yet, either. But I wouldn’t be surprised. It was only Mr. Benjamin’s magazine ad which brought Hazel and me here in the first place. If I’m not going into business here, there won’t be anything to hold me.”
“Except sorrowful memories,” Jackson agreed. “And I suppose it’s wisest to flee those when you have no other roots. The town will be sorry to lose you, Mr. Henshaw, but I can’t say I blame you for wanting to leave a community which has brought you such sorrow.”
I hoped his feeling would be reflected by the rest of the community. The biggest single factor in our success was that we always managed to leave behind us a feeling of liking and respect and sympathy whenever we finally departed from a community. In the early days we had often left suspicion behind instead. A good deal of my careful planning was designed merely to leave pleasant memories of us in the townspeople’s minds. Pleasant memories eventually fade and die, whereas suspicion has an unsettling habit of getting into the newspapers and warning future marks.
We finally broke away from Lyman Jackson. Mavis and I didn’t speak until we were safely home and I had checked the house to make sure it was empty, locked the doors and drawn the Venetian blinds. This was safe now though I had refused to allow it before Hazel’s death. The neighbors would expect to see drawn blinds at a home which had just suffered a tragedy.
When we were seated in the front room with drinks, I said, “Okay, you can relax now.”
Mavis let out a deep breath. “Any sign of suspicion?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Chief Stoyle made a routine investigat
ion, but everything was friendly and sympathetic. He doesn’t even want to talk to you. The ticklish part is yet to come, though.”
“You mean the bank and the insurance company? Why should it be ticklish?”
“I’m not worried about the bank,” I said. “Soon as probate court gives the green light, I can withdraw the ten thousand in Hazel’s and my joint account, and the bank won’t have the right even to question it. But ever since Houston, insurance adjusters have always made me nervous.”
“They’ve never yet fussed over the piddling little policies you insist on,” Mavis said. “Five thousand dollars, when we could have cleaned up. We should have done what I wanted and insured her for ten thousand with a double-indemnity clause.”
“Sure,” I said. “If I listened to your advice, we’d be in jail long ago. Can’t I get it through your head that insurance companies are always automatically suspicious of accidental deaths when there’s a double-indemnity clause? The only safe policy to fool with is straight life, and even then it’s dangerous to get greedy.”
“But for fifteen thousand more,” Mavis said wistfully.
“And fifteen times the risk. Remember that insurance investigator in Houston? If they’d check on a policy that’s been in effect twenty years, what do you think they’d do about one that’s been in effect only two months? They’d want to look into my background clear back to birth. And when they found out Sam Henshaw didn’t have any background farther back than two months, we’d be in real trouble.”
“I suppose so,” Mavis said reluctantly.
“Five thousand is about the limit any company will pay off on a new policy without suspicion,” I told her. “We’ve got the five thousand Hazel put up to match mine in the bank account, plus five thousand insurance. What more do you want for two months’ work?”
“Nothing, I guess. I know you’ve got more brains than I have, Sam. But we used to make such big scores. Sometimes for only two weeks’ work.”
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