He appraised me. “Yeah, I remember. You’re a friend of Fenshaw’s.”
“He’s a fellow doctor, that’s all. What’s the trouble?”
“Uncle Matt was murdered. Fenshaw poisoned him.”
“Do you have any evidence of that?”
“Of course not—he destroyed the evidence! That’s why I want them to look again!”
“You can’t make baseless charges like that, Scott.”
“I know what I know!”
“I saw you at the funeral yesterday. A young woman drowned in the cemetery creek about that same time.”
“I heard.”
“Know anything about it?”
“What would I know?”
Talking to him was getting me nowhere. “Forget about your uncle,” I advised. “He died a natural death.”
“Like the woman who drowned?” he asked slyly.
As I was leaving the courthouse I spied the older of the Bush brothers lounging against the cemetery’s pickup truck, apparently waiting for some bags of fertilizer to be loaded inside.
“Hello, Cedric,” I greeted him. “How are you today?”
“Can’t complain, Dr. Sam.”
“Where’s Teddy?”
“Over at the lunch counter gettin’ his morning shot in a cup of coffee. You think Roosevelt will really come out for Repeal if he gets nominated?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if both candidates support it.” Cedric was halfway intelligent, unlike Teddy who never read anything more uplifting than the barber-shop copy of the Police Gazette. “Did you finish with Xavier’s grave yesterday?”
“That’s what we’re paid for.”
“I passed by around noon and Teddy wasn’t there.”
“He went off in the bushes to relieve himself.” He laughed. “He was gone so long I thought he was lost.”
“He’s a hard worker, though.”
“Some of the time.”
“You heard about the young woman who drowned in the park?”
“Everybody heard about it. Someone from Shinn Corners, wasn’t it?”
I nodded. “You and Teddy didn’t see it happen?”
“I didn’t.”
I left him standing against the truck and headed down the block toward the lunch counter. For some reason I was growing more certain that Rose Duprey had been murdered. Some fact, still buried in my subconscious, was guiding me in that direction. But how, and why?
Teddy Bush wasn’t at the lunch counter, though I was told he hadn’t been gone long. I was about to drive back to my office when I saw Sheriff Lens hurrying toward me. “I need you, Doc!”
“What’s up?”
“Teddy Bush just tried to hurt a girl. I had to arrest him.”
The girl was frightened but unharmed except for several black-and-blue marks. She was a pretty young redhead in her early twenties named Susan Gregger, from Cabin Road on the way to Shinn Corners. She’d driven the family Hudson into town alone to do some shopping, and as she’d walked across the parking lot behind the lunch counter Teddy Bush had approached her.
“I could smell liquor on his breath,” she told me as I completed my examination in a private room off the sheriff’s office. “He said something I couldn’t understand and then grabbed my skirt. I screamed and—”
“You can dress now,” I told her. “You’re a lucky young lady.”
Back in the sheriff’s office, he filled me in. “I heard her scream and came runnin’. By that time Teddy had her on the ground. I had to pull him off and handcuff him.”
“I can’t believe it of Teddy,” I said. “Let me talk to him.”
We went upstairs to the cellblock. Teddy was on a cot with his eyes closed. He looked up and said, “Hello, Doc.”
“What happened, Teddy? What were you trying to do?”
“Nothin’, Doc. It was the drink I had—it went to my head.”
“So you went outside and grabbed the first woman you saw? That’s not like you, Teddy.”
“I don’t know, Doc. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Teddy—”
“I was drunk, that’s all!”
I sighed and left him. “What’ll happen to him?” I asked the sheriff as we went back downstairs.
“He didn’t hurt her much. It’ll depend on whether she wants to press charges against him.”
I suddenly remembered Cedric, waiting for his brother back at the truck and told Sheriff Lens I’d better go get him.
When I found Cedric, he listened quietly to what I told him. “That damn fool,” he grumbled when I’d finished.
“Come on, Cedric,” I said. “I’ll take you over to the jail to see him.”
Around noon, alone with Sheriff Lens, I was feeling depressed. “I’m frustrated, Sheriff. I can’t get a grip on this case.”
“Maybe there isn’t any case, Doc. Every unexplained death isn’t murder. You want things too neat. You’d like a solution that ties up Matt Xavier’s funeral and the Duprey death and Teddy’s attack on that girl all in one big bundle. But life’s not like that.”
“Maybe not,” I admitted.
“Look, I’ve got the husband, Bob Duprey, coming in at one. Want to stay and talk with him?”
“What’s he coming for?”
“Funeral arrangements. They want to bury her at Spring Glen tomorrow morning and I have to release the body. No reason why I shouldn’t.”
“No reason,” I agreed.
When Duprey arrived, he was pale and nervous, still not fully accepting the tragic event. “I’m surprised you want to bury her here,” Sheriff Lens said as he signed the release papers for the undertaker.
“She always liked Spring Glen.”
“Mr. Duprey, did you know your wife was pregnant?” I asked.
He nodded. “She just found out from Dr. Fenshaw last week.”
“And she was happy about the baby? No cause for depression?”
“None at all. We were both looking forward to it.”
I took a deep breath. “Did you ever hear of a man named Teddy Bush?”
“No.”
“Might your wife have known him?”
“I doubt it. What are you getting at?”
“She seemed to be running away when the accident happened. Bush is a gravedigger at the cemetery. I wonder if she might have been running from him.”
“You were the only one in sight.”
“I know, but she never really looked at me.”
After he’d gone, Sheriff Lens said, “Do you think he might have killed her somehow?”
“The husband is always a prime suspect, but he was in my sight all the time. He didn’t throw anything, or pull any wires. If she was killed, it had to be someone else.”
“Maybe whoever it was used a fishin’ tackle to cast a line at her and yank her off the side of the bridge.”
“I’d have seen it. We were in bright sunlight. And she wasn’t yanked over. She simply toppled over.”
“There were no drugs in her system—you said so yourself. Hell, let go of this one, Doc. It was an accident. Maybe she got dizzy and fell because she was pregnant. You’re startin’ to sound like Scott Xavier, tryin’ to see a murder where there isn’t one.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I admitted. “I guess I’d better get back to the office.”
“By the way, that girl decided not to press charges against Teddy. I’ll let him sweat a few more hours and then turn him loose.”
“Well, that’s good news, anyway. I just wish we knew what made him do it.”
“And if he’s likely to do it again.”
Back at the office, I found Dave Fenshaw waiting for me. I was beginning to realize the drawbacks of my location in a wing of the hospital.
“I need a word with you,” he said, perching on a corner of my desk.
“What about?” I asked, glancing through a few messages April had left on the blotter.
“I hear you were down at the courthouse this morning tal
king to Scott Xavier. The man’s really crazy, you know.”
“Is that your medical diagnosis?”
“Look, Sam—Xavier was an old man. He died a natural death.”
“You protest too much, Dave. But I believe you.”
That seemed to satisfy him. “I just don’t want trouble with Scott Xavier.”
After he had gone, I started playing with theories. Dave Fenshaw had killed Xavier and Rose Duprey had found out somehow—she was a patient of Fenshaw. She’d suggested the graveyard picnic so she could observe Xavier’s funeral, and when Fenshaw saw her there he’d killed her, too. Or maybe he had another reason for killing her.
But how? By magic? Hypnotism? Could a person who didn’t swim be hypnotized and made to jump off a bridge into a creek?
I gave up and made myself concentrate on April’s messages. There were patients to see.
It was late afternoon, almost five o’clock, when April told me Teddy Bush was waiting outside to see me. I finished with my last patient and asked him to come in. He was obviously embarrassed and entered the office with his head down, averting my eyes.
“So you’re out of jail, Teddy.”
“Yeah, Doc. She—that girl’s not gonna press charges. I don’t know what came over me. I wonder if I’m sick or something.”
“Sit down and let’s talk about it. You were drinking this morning, weren’t you?”
“Just one shot in a coffee cup, like always.”
“A big enough shot can hit you hard on an empty stomach.”
“I guess so,” he agreed.
“So you went outside and saw the girl and tried to attack her.”
“I—I wouldn’t have—But, Doc, I saw her swimmin’ naked in Duck Pond yesterday, and then there she was, right in front of me with her clothes on.
I guess the drink just made me want her, and—”
“She’s not even from town, Teddy. You probably saw someone else.”
“No, I’d recognize that redhead anywhere. I was in the woods on top of the hill, near that grave we were fillin’. I looked down and there she was, swimmin’ in the pond. I watched her come out and put on her clothes.”
“So that’s where you were when Cedric was looking for you.”
“I guess so,” he admitted. “I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”
“Teddy, I want you to stop drinking. You see what it can do to you. If you ever do anything like this again, you won’t be so lucky. Sheriff Lens will lock you up and throw away the key.”
“I know.” He lowered his head again.
“All right, then. Get out of here and stay out of trouble.”
“You don’t think I need some sort of medicine?”
“Only common sense, Teddy.”
When he’d gone, April came into my office. “Do I have any appointments tomorrow morning?” I asked her.
“Just a house call to Mrs. Wennis.”
“Phone and say I’ll be there after lunch. I want to attend Rose Duprey’s funeral in the morning.”
I went to the funeral with Sheriff Lens and we sat talking in his car for a long time before the service started. “You got no evidence, Doc,” he kept insisting.
“Let me give it a try anyway.”
He merely sighed, and later as we followed the funeral procession from the church at Shinn Corners to Spring Glen Cemetery he refused to talk about it. “Guesswork,” was all he’d say. “We don’t convict murderers on guesswork.”
The warm April weather had continued, along with the sunshine, and the day was much like the one on which Rose Duprey had died. As the procession of mourners moved toward the waiting grave, I saw Teddy and Cedric Bush standing off to one side with their shovels.
The dead woman had come from a large family and they trailed along after her husband, who led the procession alone. I turned and glanced around at the other spectators, surprised to see Dr. Fenshaw in attendance. Apparently he’d walked over from the hospital as I had on the day of Matt Xavier’s funeral.
The minister stood above the coffin, saying a few words we couldn’t quite hear. Soon it would be time for Teddy and Cedric to do their job. “Satisfied?” Sheriff Lens asked as the brief graveside service came to an end.
“Just about,” I said. I’d seen a flicker of color in among the trees. “Come on!” I urged, breaking into a run.
“Doc, what in hell—?”
It wasn’t far to the trees and I covered the distance in seconds. “The killer returned to the scene of the crime,” I said, reaching out to grasp the slim wrist and pull her from behind the tree. “Sheriff, let me introduce the murderer of Rose Duprey—Miss Susan Gregger.”
“You must be mad!” she screamed. “Let me go!”
Sheriff Lens looked unhappy. “Doc, I—”
But I hurried on. “You’re a good swimmer, Susan. You had to be, to fall off that bridge and swim all the way down the creek to Duck Pond. With a black wig and a blouse and slacks like Rose was wearing, you could pass for her so long as I didn’t get a good look at your face. When you reached the pond, you shed your wet clothes and the wig and came out to retrieve your own dry clothes. That’s when Teddy Bush happened to spot you. Was it unpleasant, swimming by that dead log where Rose’s body was waiting to be found?”
“I didn’t kill her,” she insisted. “You can’t prove any of this.”
I counted off the points of evidence on my fingers. “Teddy Bush saw you swimming nude in Duck Pond, and the creek flows into it. I can testify that the creek water was chilly that day—it was coming down the mountain from melting snow, after all. No one would swim nude in such cold water just to cool off. Your friend Bob Duprey indicated I might have frightened his wife by my arrival. Actually, she kept her face averted—I never got a good look at it. Since it was really you, you couldn’t risk that.
“Third, Duprey and his supposed wife were just finishing sandwiches as I came along, yet the autopsy revealed that Rose Duprey’s stomach was empty. Conclusion: the woman I saw fall off the bridge was someone else. Fourth, when I examined you after Teddy’s would-be attack, I noticed some black-and-blue spots. But bruises wouldn’t form that quickly, within minutes. The bruises were from the day before, in the creek. Fifth, Rose’s body was barely bruised at all, despite supposedly being carried all that distance by the water. Why? Because she didn’t travel that distance. The few bruises she had were caused by your knocking her out before you drowned her—probably right where she was found.”
I saw Bob Duprey hurrying toward us, and Susan Gregger saw him too. “No,” she said. “I’m not taking the blame for this. Bob killed her. He knocked her out and he drowned her. All I did was jump in the water in front of a witness. He wanted to divorce her and marry me, but when she found out she was pregnant she refused to let him go.”
Bob Duprey was within earshot now, his face twisted with fury. “Shut up!” he shouted. “Shut up! You’re convicting us both!”
That was all Sheriff Lens needed. He had his handcuffs out before Duprey could spring at the girl.
“So you see,” Dr. Sam Hawthorne concluded, “I did manage to tie Rose Duprey’s drowning in with Teddy’s attack on Susan Gregger. What about Matt Xavier’s death, you ask? Well, no, that was from natural causes as far as I know.
“Next time I’ll tell you about our centennial summer, and a bizarre locked-room murder that almost spoiled it.”
THE PROBLEM OF THE CRYING ROOM
“Come in, come in!” Dr. Sam Hawthorne said. “Will you have the usual libation? Good! I promised to tell you about our centennial locked room this time, didn’t I? Northmont in those days was a great place for celebrations. We’d already had a tercentennial in the summer of ’27 to mark an early pilgrim settlement, and now in the summer of ’32 we were marking the centennial of Northmont’s incorporation as a village. It was a time of Depression, and a year of presidential election, and I suppose the town fathers thought a celebration was just what we needed . . .”
For most
people (Dr. Sam continued), the high point of the centennial celebration was to be the opening of the Northmont Cinema, our very first talking-picture palace. It was like a step into the future for us, and far more important to most residents than the opening of Pilgrim Memorial Hospital had been a few years earlier. Mayor Trenton had already agreed to cut the ribbon on opening day, Wednesday, June 29th, as part of a week-long celebration climaxing with fireworks on July 4th, the following Monday.
I stopped by the Cinema on Tuesday, the day before the grand opening. The signs were already in place out front announcing the first double bill: Winner Take All with James Cagney and The Miracle Man with Chester Morris. Matt Creeley, the owner, was as excited as everyone else in town.
“Let me show you the place, Doc,” he urged, taking me by the arm. “We can seat four hundred and thirty people in comfort. That’s half the population of Northmont, and I figure we’ll draw from as far away as Shinn Corners. They’ve got nothing like this!”
The auditorium was indeed impressive. “What’s this little glassed-in room at the back?” I asked him.
“A soundproof room for families with babies or small children. Sort of a crying room, so they won’t disturb the rest of the audience. The sound from the screen comes in through this speaker. There are only a few theaters in the country that have one of these.” His voice was filled with pride.
“You’ve certainly done a fine job, Matt,” I said, looking over the little room, which had a dozen seats. We went down the center aisle and I glanced back over my shoulder. “That’s the projection booth up there?”
“Right. I’ll be running the projectors sometimes, but Freddie Bay is going to be my official projectionist.”
“Think you can keep him sober?” Freddie was the town character, drunk more often than sober even though Prohibition was still the law of the land.
“He’s been pretty good lately, Doc. I been teaching him how to run the projector and he’s really taking an interest in it.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I told him. Freddie Bay rented a room over the barber shop on Main Street and I often saw him on my way to the office.
On the way out, a pretty dark-haired girl came up with a question for Creeley. He turned to me. “You know Vera Smith, don’t you, Sam?”
Nothing Is Impossible: Further Problems for Dr. Sam Hawthorne Page 2
