Nothing Is Impossible: Further Problems for Dr. Sam Hawthorne

by Hoch Edward D.

“Just for something to do while his hand was healing. He didn’t really care about me.”

  “Did you see him in the curing barn with your mother?”

  He looked away. “No.” His voice was low. “I made that up. I just wanted to hurt her. I thought maybe she’d stay away from him and pay more attention to me.”

  “We’re going to have to tell her what you did, Matthew. It was very bad, but it had nothing to do with your father’s death. You can’t go on blaming yourself for that.”

  I stayed with him a while longer and he talked about his father and his mother, and about his dream of moving to the city. Finally I left him and went back downstairs. Sheriff Lens was standing in the barnyard, looking dejected.

  “We searched every inch of the barn floor, Doc. There’s no knife or anything else that coulda been used to cut his throat.”

  I had an idea.

  “Have you searched Jennings’ pockets?”

  “Huh? I didn’t think of that.”

  “If Prescott or Roy Hanson did kill him, they might have slipped the knife in his pocket to get rid of it.”

  It was a good idea, but there was nothing in Jennings’ pockets but a handkerchief and a plug of chewing tobacco. Sheriff Lens stood up after searching him, shook his head, and ordered the body removed to the hospital for an autopsy. “Looks like we struck out on this one, Doc.”

  “Give me some time,” I told him.

  Some of the other workers were standing in the shadows watching the activity. Maybe they were worried about their jobs now that Jennings was dead. That must have occurred to Sarah, too, because she sent Frank Prescott out to speak with them.

  “Mrs. Jennings says you’re not to worry about your jobs. Work will go on tomorrow as scheduled. She’s going to keep the farm running.”

  It was too gloomy an occasion for any cheers, but his words seemed to ignite a spark in the men. There were murmurs of agreement as they headed back to the bunkhouse.

  Sheriff Lens stood watching Prescott. “Think the two of ’em are in it together, Doc?”

  “No. I don’t think they were that friendly.”

  “What do I do now?”

  “Look for a left-handed person.”

  He looked at me. “There’s no left-handed person among the possible suspects.”

  “Then it must be an impossible crime,” I said with a grin.

  “What’s that smile for? You know something, Doc?”

  “Just an idea. I’ll check it out,” I said. But suddenly I knew I was right.

  I found Sarah alone in the parlor and sat across from her. “I found out who was writing those letters.”

  “That seems a long time ago now.”

  “It was Matthew. He admitted it to me.”

  “Why? Did he say why he’d do such a terrible thing?”

  “He thought you were paying more attention to Roy than to him. Roy’s only eleven years older than your son, you know.”

  “I know.” Her face was drawn and pale. “But to torture me with such lies—”

  I took a deep breath.

  “They were lies to Matthew. But there was some truth in it, wasn’t there? In striking out at you with those anonymous letters, your son touched a vulnerable spot. You and Roy Hanson are lovers, and when you showed the letters to Roy he panicked. He must have feared that Jasper had either written the letters himself or would find out about them.”

  “Stop it!” she shouted at me, leaping to her feet. “Don’t say anything more. You’re going to accuse Roy of killing my husband and it’s not true! I know it’s not true!”

  “I’m terribly sorry, Sarah. But Roy Hanson killed Jasper and I think you know it.”

  Sarah Jennings did know it was true. Sheriff Lens took some convincing.

  “If he cut Jasper’s throat, what happened to the knife? Don’t try telling me he used a piece of ice that melted away. The wound was too smooth for that. It had to have been made by something very sharp.”

  “It was, Sheriff. I’d guess it was made by a razor blade.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “Give me your flashlight and maybe I’ll show you.”

  I took the flashlight and led the way back inside the curing barn to the spot where Jasper Jennings had been struck down. Shining the light straight up,

  I directed the beam around the highest parts of the roof, above the hanging lights that illuminated the place. “There. Do you see it?”

  “I see something. Looks like—hell, it looks like a blue balloon!”

  “Exactly—and it’s tied to a blade from a safety razor. Hanson took the balloon from Matthew’s room. He was up there playing Monopoly with the boy earlier. He tied it to the razor blade and slipped it under the loose jacket he was wearing. He knew Jennings would go out to replace the fuse himself, and he got Prescott to go along, too. In the darkness he reached over Jasper’s shoulder and slit his throat with one stroke, getting his hand out of the way before blood started to flow. Then he simply released his grip on the razor blade and the balloon carried it up to the roof of the barn. It was well out of sight there, and even if we’d looked up it isn’t likely we’d have spotted that blue color. He probably planned to retrieve it tomorrow before it was noticed in the daylight. If he couldn’t reach it on a ladder he could puncture it with a slingshot or a BB gun.”

  “It could have been Prescott that done it,” the sheriff argued.

  I shook my head.

  “Hanson had the motive, which I’ll tell you about later. And Hanson had access to the balloons in Matthew’s room. Most of all, Roy Hanson is left-handed.”

  “Hell, Doc, we been all through that! He’s right-handed—he proved it.”

  “A small number of people are ambidextrous and can use both hands equally well. Hanson’s one of them. I have the best evidence in the world for that, because earlier this summer I treated him for a hand injury. He was trimming the tops off tobacco plants with an axe when he accidentally hit the hand holding the plant. He hit his right hand, Sheriff, which means he was swinging the axe with his left hand—the same hand he used to cut Jennings’ throat.”

  “Hanson was a tragic young man,” Dr. Sam concluded, taking a sip of sherry. “He ran away that night when Sheriff Lens tried to arrest him. They found him in the morning over by the railroad tracks. He’d tried to hop a freight train in the dark and fell under the wheels. It took Sarah a long time to recover from the double tragedy of that night.

  “Next time you come by the house, I’ll tell you about my winter vacation in Maine, and about some strange tracks in the snow.”

  THE PROBLEM OF THE SNOWBOUND CABIN

  Dr. Sam Hawthorne settled down in his favorite chair, took a sip of brandy, and said, “I wanted to tell you about my vacation in Maine back in January of ’thirty-five and I suppose you wonder why any sane person would drive up to Maine in the middle of winter, especially in the days before turnpikes and expressways. Well, I suppose it was because of the car . . .”

  My major weakness (Dr. Sam continued) has always been sports-cars. When I completed my internship, my father and mother presented me with a ­yellow 1921 Pierce-Arrow Runabout and it was the pride of my life until it was destroyed in an explosion. The cars I owned after that, in the early 1930s, were unsatisfactory shadows of that great vehicle. Then, in early ’35, I finally found the car of my dreams—a Mercedes-Benz 500K Special Roadster in glorious red. It was expensive, of course, but by that time I’d been a practicing physician for over twelve years and in my single state I’d managed to save a fair amount of money from my country practice.

  I purchased the car in Boston, and when I drove up to the office wing at Pilgrim Memorial Hospital with it, my nurse April couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “You bought it, Sam? It’s yours?“

  “That’s right. Hawthorne’s folly.”

  She ran her hands over the red lacquer, admiring the long sleek lines of the engine housing. We tried out the rumble seat together and examined the
twin spare tires mounted behind it. Then I let her take the car for a drive around the hospital parking lot. “It’s a dream, Sam!” she said. “I never saw anything like it!”

  April had been with me since I came to Northmont, and a decade earlier we’d had a brief vacation on Cape Cod together, but our relationship had remained platonic. I liked April as a friend and found her perfect as a nurse, but no spark of romance had ever developed between us. She was a few years older than I, in her late thirties, but still an attractive woman for the right man. Though we never discussed her private life, I had the feeling the right man hadn’t yet appeared within the confines of Northmont.

  It was against this background that I impulsively said, as she climbed out of the Mercedes, “Let’s drive it up to Maine.”

  “Maine? In January?”

  “Why not? It’s been a fairly open winter and the roads are clear. We might even try some skiing.”

  “No, thanks, I don’t want a leg in a cast.” But I could see the idea of a vacation intrigued her. “What would we do about your patients?”

  “Doc Handleman’s offered to take care of them if I want to get away for a week. I’m filling in for him in March when he goes to Florida.”

  “Let’s do it,” April decided with an impish grin. “But remember, no skiing . . .!”

  We set off at the beginning of the following week, driving north through Massachusetts and into New Hampshire. The car handled like a dream, and though it was far too cold to drive with the convertible top down, the right-hand steering wheel and the long hood gave the feeling of driving something foreign and fast. I’d telephoned ahead and made reservations at a vacation lodge north of Bangor, so even after we crossed the state line into Maine we had a long drive ahead of us.

  “It’s starting to snow,” April pointed out as the first fine flakes hit the windshield.

  “I guess we were lucky to get this far without it.”

  The snow was light but steady for the remainder of our journey, and when we reached the Greenbush Inn a few inches had accumulated on the road. I parked in the shelter of a large pine tree and took our bags out of the rumble seat where they’d been stored. The lodge was a large structure built entirely of logs, reminding me of the number one resource of the Maine woods. Inside a cheery lobby with the fireside atmosphere of a cozy living room, we were greeted by a tall dark man in his forties whose speech held just a hint of an accent.

  “Good afternoon and welcome to Greenbush. I am your host, Andre Mulhone.”

  “Dr. Sam Hawthorne,” I said, extending my hand. “And this is—”

  “Ah, Mrs. Hawthorne!”

  “No—,” I continued my introduction, “—I’ve booked separate rooms.”

  Andre Mulhone smiled. “Separate but connecting. If you’ll sign the register, I’ll show them to you.”

  “We’ll be here for six nights.”

  “Very good.”

  Our rooms were pleasant and when we went down for dinner an hour later, Mulhone motioned us to join him at his table. “I despise dining alone,” he said. “Please dine with me.”

  It was an enjoyable meal, and I could see April warming to Andre. He told us about his French-Irish background and about his wife who had been killed the previous winter when her car skidded off the road. “What was her name?” April asked sympathetically.

  “Lois. I have a picture of her in my wallet. When she went out of my life, I had very little to keep me going. We had no children and the inn was all I had to occupy myself.”

  He showed us a snapshot of a pleasant-looking woman about his age. “What a nice smile,” April commented.

  Mulhone’s conversation at dinner reflected cosmopolitan interests I found surprising in the Maine woods. At one moment he’d be speaking of Thoreau’s visit there a century earlier and the next he was discussing Adolf Hitler, who was threatening all of Europe. It wasn’t the sort of discussion I ever had back in Northmont.

  “What’s there to do around here?” I asked, adding, “Neither of us ski.”

  Andre Mulhone shrugged. “Skiing is an Alpine sport. I often wonder if it will be as popular in America as it is in Switzerland and Norway. I understand, though, that it is gaining popularity in Minnesota among the Scandinavians. And who knows? There is a new invention called the ski lift, which could revolutionize the pastime. One can ski downhill and ride back up.”

  “But you have no skiing at Greenbush?” April asked.

  “No. But we have snowshoeing and hiking. Let me fit you both out with snowshoes in the morning and I’ll show you a bit of the countryside.”

  I was sure Mulhone’s special interest in us had more to do with April than with me, but I had no cause for complaint. He was a charming man and an excellent conversationalist. I went to bed looking forward to the morning.

  It was bright and brisk, with a north wind that made us turn up our collars as we waited for Andre to join us in front of the lodge. April had her eyes on the door and I let mine wander to the pine tree where I’d parked my Mercedes. I was startled to see a young man in a plaid jacket hovering by it. In one hand he carried a shotgun.

  I strolled over. “Admiring the car?” I said.

  “It’s a beauty. Is it yours?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You staying at the lodge?”

  I nodded. “My name is Sam Hawthorne.”

  “I’m Gus Laxault. I do some odd jobs around here.”

  “With a shotgun?”

  “Been out shootin’ varmints. When there’s a snow cover and they can’t get food easily, they come in to our rubbish dump. Got me a bobcat this morning.”

  “I didn’t realize we were that close to nature.”

  Laxault was more interested in the Mercedes. “First one of these I’ve seen,” he said, running his hand over the fender. “I’ll bet it set you back a good piece of money.”

  “It wasn’t cheap.” I didn’t want to pursue the conversation any longer. When I moved away from the car, I was relieved that he followed along.

  Mulhone had arrived by this time, carrying three pairs of snowshoes. He frowned at Laxault and seemed about to say something, then to think better of it. The varmint-hunter veered off and disappeared around the back of the lodge.

  “Oh, it’s a perfect morning!” April was radiant.

  “We had snow last night back in the hills,” Andre said. “You’ll find it quite deep in spots.” He knelt to fit April’s snowshoes while I struggled with the pair he gave me.

  “How many people do you employ here?” I asked.

  “It depends on how busy we are. If we have many reservations for a particular weekend, I call on some temporary help from town.”

  “Is Laxault one of your temporaries?”

  “He does odd jobs, but he’s a bit unreliable.”

  “He told me he shot a bobcat this morning.”

  “He probably did. During the winter they come looking for food.”

  We started out, heading north across a frozen lake and up the side of a gentle hill. April and I were unaccustomed to snowshoes and walking with them wasn’t as easy as it looked. My leg muscles were aching before we’d covered the first mile.

  “We can rest at Ted Shorter’s cabin on the other side of this hill,” Mulhone suggested. “It’s hard walking in this cold wind if you’re not used to it.”

  “Who’s Ted Shorter?”

  “A retired stockbroker who moved up here a few years ago. He lives by himself, but he’s friendly enough if you come to visit.”

  Once we reached the crest of the hill, the cabin came into view. A Ford sedan was parked nearby, but the road was completely buried by the snow that had drifted across the cabin’s front door. There was smoke coming from the chimney.

  “He must be home,” Mulhone observed. “The fireplace is going and there are no tracks out of the house.”

  Following his lead, we made our way down the hill. April pointed off to the left. “Are those bobcat tracks?”

>   Mulhone went closer to them and said, “I think so. They’re about nine inches apart. It might be the one Gus Laxault shot.” The tracks wandered toward the corner of the cabin and then went off in the other direction. The drifted snow grew deeper near the cabin and I doubted we could have made it without snowshoes. When we reached the door, Mulhone pounded on it with a gloved fist.

  When no one came, he tried the knob. “It’s unlocked,” he said and carefully pushed it open, letting the drifted snow fall in on the floor. He turned a switch and a single overhead light came on. Over his shoulder, I saw a pleasant room with a large easy chair drawn up to the fire. Sunshine from a skylight in the roof flooded the room. I could make out a sleeping loft with an unmade bed and some dirty breakfast dishes on a dining table.

  We could see the top of someone’s head in the easy chair and Mulhone hurried forward while April and I waited in the doorway. “Ted, it’s Andre. I was out snowshoeing and stopped to—” He bent over the chair, shaking the man slightly. Then I saw his face change.

  “What is it?” I asked, starting forward.

  “My God—he’s been stabbed.”

  I took one look and saw it was true. And that the man in the chair was dead.

  Mulhone used the crank phone on the wall to call the authorities.

  When he arrived a half hour later, Sheriff Petty proved to be quite different from Sheriff Lens, my best friend back home in Northmont. He seemed out of place in the backwoods—a tall, slim, frowning man who wore an expensive leather coat over his tailored uniform. He wanted to know what had brought us to the cabin that morning. Though he’d ignored me during the initial questioning, he perked up when he learned I was a doctor.

  “We don’t have a full-time coroner right now,” he said. “Is there any chance you could estimate the time of death for us, Dr. Hawthorne?”

  “I could try,” I told him, “but the body was so close to the fireplace it’s hard to be accurate. There’s no sign of rigor mortis. He could have been dead anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Certainly no longer than a few hours. The fact that the fire was still burning when we entered the cabin tells us something. It would have burned itself out over a longer period.”