Nothing Is Impossible: Further Problems for Dr. Sam Hawthorne

by Hoch Edward D.

  “It’s more than a theory,” I insisted.

  “Oh, yes?” she challenged. “I can think of another one right off the top of my head. Frankfurt got hit by a car while he was walking home. The driver didn’t stop and Frankfurt managed to stagger into his house before he died, living long enough to write his shopping list.”

  “Come on, Mary—he was killed with an axe handle. He wasn’t killed by a car.” But I was remembering Dr. Wolfe’s mention of the blood going to the body’s lowest points after death. There was something I wasn’t seeing, something that should have been obvious.

  “You can’t pin half your proof on that dog,” Mary said. “Would he even remember Bill Crawley after two months?”

  “Dogs often remember—” I began, and then stopped. “The dog! I never thought of the dog!”

  “What about him, Sam? You said he was mean-looking.”

  “Not that dog, Mary—the other dog!”

  I slipped into the passenger seat of Paul Nolan’s delivery truck just as he was starting out on his last Saturday run.

  “Want me to drop you off somewhere, Dr. Sam?” he asked, surprised.

  “I just want to ride for a bit, Paul.”

  He shifted gears and pulled out of Spiggins’ parking lot, heading along Main Street toward the town square. “Got any theories about the Frankfurt killing yet?” he asked. “That’s your sort of impossible crime, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve helped Sheriff Lens with a few of them,” I answered, “but sometimes with a crime like this there’s one angle you just can’t figure out, no matter how hard you try.”

  “You mean the way he got into that farmhouse?”

  “I know how he got in, Paul. What I want to know is why. Why did you kill Rudy Frankfurt?”

  The steering wheel jerked in his hands and we almost went up on the sidewalk. He twisted it back in time and tightened his grip on it. “What are you talkin’ about, Doc?”

  “You killed Rudy with that axe handle, Paul. I know all the details about how you did it.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Let me tell you about it, then. Around four o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, Rudy Frankfurt brought his car into the garage to have the gear shift adjusted. He was walking home from there—about a half hour walk—when you happened along in your truck and offered him a ride. He accepted, and somewhere along the way you stopped the truck, got him to step out, and beat him unconscious with that axe handle. You thought he was dead then, though he didn’t actually die for several hours. You wrapped him in a canvas cover you kept in the back of the truck, then planned to bring the body back to his farmhouse, unlock the gate with his keys, and probably leave the body there if you couldn’t get past the dog.”

  “You and me—we found the body in the house!” he reminded me.

  “That was because you returned to find someone parked in the bushes watching the gate. Perhaps you returned several times during the night in hopes of getting in. When it became clear the watchers, whoever they were, didn’t intend to leave right away, you devised a scheme to get in there. You found one of Frankfurt’s old shopping lists at the grocery and typed those instructions on the bottom. Then you removed the gate key from the ring in the dead man’s pocket and enclosed it in an envelope with the grocery list. In the darkness, you could reach the mailbox without being seen by the man in the car because it was partly hidden from his view.”

  “How would I know which was his gate key?”

  “It didn’t really matter. You knew you’d be delivering the groceries, and if you’d guessed wrong you’d try the other keys from his pocket. As it turned out, I decided to come with you. This was both an advantage and a disadvantage. I could testify to your innocence, but I might also see something you didn’t want me to see. Luckily for you, I was questioning the man watching the house when you struggled with the gate keys and I was busy with the dog when you pulled out of sight for a minute or two—long enough to unlock the door with Frankfurt’s key, carry him inside, and close the door so that it locked itself. You didn’t have time to return the keys, but that didn’t matter. The man was in his own house and needn’t have had the keys in his pocket.”

  “Where did I have the body all this time?”

  “Hidden somewhere from Wednesday until you returned it to your truck on Friday afternoon, wrapped in that canvas. I finally remembered that other dog sniffing around the back of your truck before you loaded the groceries in. He could smell it, couldn’t he?”

  Paul pulled over to the side of the road and for just a minute I wondered if he would attack me. “You’re basing all this on a dog, Doc?”

  “Two dogs, really. When Frankfurt’s dog attacked me, you came running out with dogfood. You said he was hungry, and you were right. How’d you know that? How’d you know Frankfurt hadn’t been there to feed him? And why did Frankfurt order more dogfood when there was plenty in the garage? When we check, we’ll probably find he didn’t need most of the things on that old shopping list. And I think we’ll also find that the words on the bottom of the shopping list were typed by a machine at the grocery store. There was a lot of dogfood at Frankfurt’s place, but there sure wasn’t a typewriter.”

  “Why would I kill him?”

  “That’s what you’re going to tell me. It wasn’t just the act of killing him. You went to considerable risk so he’d be found inside his fenced-in farm. You could have just buried the body in the woods. It was almost as if—”

  And then I saw it all too clearly. “You graduated from high school with Bill Crawley and Gretchen Pratt, didn’t you? This whole thing was planned for one reason—to frame Bill for a murder he didn’t commit. You heard him arguing with Frankfurt in the grocery, and you knew Bill was the only person in town who could leap a seven-foot fence. The dog coming from Kasper’s Kennel was a bonus that fit right into your scheme.”

  He was close to the breaking point, close to tears. “I’ll say he did it!” he shouted. “I’ll still say he did it, no matter what you say!”

  He’d wanted me to find the evidence pointed to Bill Crawley, just as I had done. He wanted to frame Bill for the killing. “You wanted Gretchen,” I said softly.

  “God, I’ve always wanted her, ever since grammar school. First I was going to kill him, but I knew she’d suspect me. I decided nobody would care about that old German. Even if Bill wasn’t convicted, there would always be the suspicion he did it. It would ruin his Olympics chances.”

  “You’re too late, Paul. They’ll be married within the month.”

  He shouted something, and started beating me with his fists. I leaped from the truck, fearing for my life. But he didn’t come after me. Instead, he drove away alone, speeding down the country road toward some dark destiny only he could see.

  “The police in the next state picked up Paul the following day,” Dr. Sam concluded. “He was allowed to plead guilty to a manslaughter charge because of his age and he received a twenty-year sentence.” The FBI agents returned to Washington and Bill Crawley returned to college. He and Gretchen were married in October. By the time he went to the Olympics in Berlin the following summer, he was a proud father. He didn’t win a medal, but he finished fourth in one event, and that was good enough for him.

  “Next time I’ll have a more peaceful story for you, about a puzzle that didn’t seem to involve a crime at all.”

  THE PROBLEM OF THE HAUNTED TEPEE

  On a cool, clear afternoon in September of 1935, Dr. Sam Hawthorne and his nurse Mary Best went shopping for office furniture, specifically for a new credenza to go next to Mary’s desk and hold supplies. It had been a good summer for them both, and Sam wasn’t concerned about the mounting number of unpaid bills that had resulted from the ravages of the Depression.

  “I think the worst is over,” he’d told Mary that morning. “These are good people—they’ll pay up when they can.”

  It was shortly thereafter that she noticed the white-haired old man loitering in the hospital pa
rking lot near where Sam and the other doctors left their cars. “Who’s that man out there?”

  “No idea. His wife’s probably in for surgery and he’s just nervous.” The office wing was attached to Pilgrim Memorial Hospital, and they often encountered family members in the halls, waiting for the latest report on loved ones.

  “I don’t know,” Mary murmured. “He looks different somehow. He keeps glancing this way.”

  Now she saw him again as they came out of the Main Street shop where they’d finally settled on a credenza of unfinished wood. “I can stain it myself,” Mary was saying when, by the car, she stopped and whispered, “It’s that old man again. He’s coming up behind you.”

  Close up, the white-haired man wasn’t quite as old as he’d appeared at a distance, though his skin was quite weathered. “Are you Dr. Sam Hawthorne?” he asked, stopping at the curb.

  “That’s me,” Sam said with a smile. “What can I do for you?”

  “I wonder if you could give me some time—and some advice. Naturally, I’d be willing to pay for it.”

  “Advice about what?” If the man needed to consult a doctor, the reason for it wasn’t immediately obvious. “Is it about your health?”

  “Not my health, exactly.”

  “Your wife’s?”

  “No, she’s fine. It’s someone else—”

  “Well, the best thing would be for this person to come in for an examination.”

  The old man smiled. “That would be difficult, Doctor. He’s been dead for forty-five years.”

  Sam’s schedule was clear of patient appointments until late that afternoon, so they drove the man back to the office. He said his name was Ben Snow and that he’d been a cowboy during the 1880s and ’90s before coming East. This fascinated Mary, who held the Old West in a sort of awe. “Did you ever kill anyone?” she asked him.

  “Lots of people. In my younger days, some people thought I was Billy the Kid.”

  “Were you?”

  “No, but we were born the same year—1859. What do you think, Dr. Hawthorne? I’m in pretty good shape for a man of seventy-six, right?”

  “You certainly look healthy,” Sam admitted. “Do you live in Northmont now?”

  “No, I’m down in Richmond, Virginia. After the Old West started to fade at the turn of the century, I drifted East, mostly to cities along the Mississippi. I was even up in Buffalo in ’aught one and down in Kitty Hawk when the Wright Brothers went up in ’aught three. I married soon after that and settled in Richmond. Been there thirty years now.”

  Sam had the impression the old man could go on talking by the hour, recounting long-ago adventures that may or may not have been exaggerated by memory. “What was it that brought you here?” he asked.

  “I heard about you down in Richmond. I heard that you’ve got quite a reputation for solving impossible crimes. So last week I said to my wife, ‘I’m gonna get on the train and go up to New England and see that Dr. Sam Hawthorne. I’m gonna tell him about the time with the Sioux and see what he thinks.’ So here I am.”

  “Well, I’ve helped my friend Sheriff Lens solve a number of local cases,” Sam admitted, “but I don’t know how good I’d do with something that happened out West forty-five years ago.”

  “Will you listen, at least? Will you hear me out? I can pay for an appointment, just like a patient.”

  Sam smiled. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Snow. Go ahead and tell me your story.”

  Ben Snow settled back in his chair, and since he didn’t seem to mind an audience Mary drew up a chair to listen, too.

  “It was in the summer of 1890,” he began, “and it had to do with a haunted tepee that seemed to kill the people who slept in it. Not all Indians used tepees, of course. It was mainly the plains tribes like the Sioux. In fact, the word ‘tepee’ comes from the Dakota language. Dakota is what the Sioux like to call themselves. Anyway, this summer I’d been riding north . . .”

  Ben Snow had been riding north that summer, toward the Canadian border, and he wasn’t surprised to encounter Sioux encampments soon after he crossed into South Dakota. It was good buffalo-hunting country here, and no one was better at it than the Sioux. Fourteen years earlier, after Custer’s death at the Little Big Horn, the larger Sioux tribes had split up to avoid retaliation by the U.S. Cavalry. Now they mainly lived and traveled in extended family units. One rarely saw more than two hundred men, women, and children at a time.

  Ben knew there was an encampment nearby even before he saw it, from the way Oats slowed to a trot and seemed to sniff the air. Indian horses—Oats could smell them every time.

  As they topped the next hill Ben saw the encampment. There were seven tepees arranged in a rough circle, with an area for the horses off to one side. He rode down peacefully, though his hand was never far from his gun. The white men were hated and feared by most Sioux, and he had to show them he came alone, with no warlike intentions.

  Almost at once a Sioux brave appeared to challenge him. The young man carried a carbine in one hand, but carefully kept it pointed at the ground. “I’m only passing through!” Ben called to him, hoping he understood English.

  As the gap between them narrowed, the brave spoke. “I am Running Cloud. We hunt buffalo here. We want no trouble with the white man.”

  Ben could see the carbine was new. That interested him. “I like your rifle. Where did you buy it?”

  “Trader. He come through with wagon, selling good hunting guns to Dakota. This morning.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Landsman. He go to visit my father, Running Elk.”

  “Near here?”

  “Over next hill.” Running Cloud pointed. “One mile.”

  It seemed odd to Ben that the young brave’s father would be so close and yet separated from the main party of hunters. But his main interest was in the sutler, Landsman, and his wagonload of provisions. Ben was running low on ammunition, and he could use a new blanket roll, too. “Thank you,” he said, then added, “Could you go with me, so they know I come in peace?”

  Running Cloud hesitated, then nodded and went for his horse. A few women and children had come out of their tepees to gaze at Ben, but he saw no other adults. Perhaps they were off on the buffalo hunt.

  The Indian slipped easily onto the bare back of his horse and led the way past the little encampment and up the next hill. From the top, Ben could see smoke rising from a lone tepee some distance away. Nearby was a horse-drawn wagon with a name painted on the side. From this distance Ben couldn’t quite make it out. “Down there,” the Indian pointed again, indicating he intended to go no farther.

  Ben assumed they had already been spotted down below and decided he could ride on safely without his guide. But it seemed odd that Running Cloud would go to such lengths to avoid his father, and Ben wondered if Running Elk might have some contagious disease.

  As Ben rode nearer, he could read the name on the side of the wagon:

  A. LANDSMAN, SUPPLIER OF PROVISIONS TO THE U.S. ARMY.

  As soon as Ben spotted the sutler himself, he recognized him. Aaron Landsman was a middle-aged man with a fringe of greying beard around the edge of his chin. He was mainly to be found at the cavalry posts in the area, but often he dealt with the Sioux as well. The carbines were supposed to be used only for buffalo hunting, and though the Army forbade their sale to Indians everyone knew a man like Landsman would have a short life if he attempted to travel in the area without accepting them as customers. As it was, Ben wondered how he’d lasted this long.

  Landsman came over to shake his hand as Ben dismounted. “Snow, isn’t it? Didn’t we meet last year at Fort Laramie?”

  “I think we did,” Ben acknowledged, accepting the handshake. “You’ve been selling rifles.”

  “A few, only for buffalo. You can’t expect them to use spears, can you?”

  “It’s not my problem,” Ben said. The flap of the tepee was raised and a young Indian woman came out. Bent over, with her face down, Ben
could see only her body and her shapely legs beneath the fringed buckskin skirt. Then she straightened up and he saw the terrible scar on her face, running from her left eye down across her cheek and mouth. It looked as if it had been caused by a knife, not too long ago.

  “Lakwella,” Landsman said, “this is Ben Snow, an old acquaintance of mine.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you,” Ben told the disfigured young woman.

  She said a word in the Dakota language and immediately followed it with, “I greet you on behalf of Running Elk.” She bent again to lift the flap of the tepee and a white-haired Indian with a weathered face emerged. His posture was that of a tribal elder, a chief perhaps, or even a medicine man. Ben gave him the traditional greeting of respect and waited until Lakwella had helped him to sit.

  “You have a fire today,” Ben observed, referring to the smoke still curling from the tepee.

  “His bones are chilled,” Lakwella explained. “He has not been well.”

  “I spoke with Running Cloud at the other encampment. He directed me here.”

  “What do you seek?” she asked.

  “Only to purchase some supplies from the sutler, as you do yourself.”

  “Certainly, sir,” Aaron Landsman said, quickly taking his cue. “What may I show you today? I have some fine hemp rope—”

  “A bedroll would do me, and perhaps some ammunition for my rifle.”

  Running Elk roused himself. “Will you be buffalo hunting on Indian land?”

  “Never,” Ben assured him. “I honor the traditional rights of the red man.” The words were out of his mouth before he remembered that some Indians found the term offensive. Running Elk’s expression never changed.

  Ben walked over to the wagon and the sutler followed. “What sort of rifle you got? A Remington?” Ben nodded, and Landsman lowered his voice a bit. “I thought you stopped because you’d heard about Running Elk’s tepee.”

  “What about it?”

  “Indian spirits are supposed to haunt it. Some people have died when they slept in it.”

  Ben Snow looked anew at the dried and sewn animal skins that covered the traditional framework of long poles in the shape of a cone. The flap door stood open and smoke still drifted from the ventilation hole in the top. The skins themselves had been painted with various Indian symbols. One was a sun, and another could have been an eagle. Ben estimated that the inside was about ten feet high and might have measured fifteen feet across. Through the open flap he could see that the ground inside was also covered with animal skins to guard against the cold.