Death of a Hired Man

by Eric Wright

  Villiers inserted a corner of a match folder between two of his lower side teeth while he considered the implications of answering the question. “If they paid him more than fifty a week, you mean? You mean there could be a considerable sum lying about somewhere?”

  “Could have been, either in some other account, or in his safe-deposit box here or … I don’t know.”

  “Hidden in the woodpile where Siggy hid his?”

  “We found Siggy’s under the mattress.”

  “That’s right. It was Mel Pickett’s chain saw you found in the woodpile. Right?”

  Wilkie nodded, waiting for Villiers to feel his way back to the real question.

  Villiers said, “What happened to the rest of the money that Siggy found on the body?”

  “We confiscated it.”

  “I know that. What happened to it?”

  “You’d have to ask the Provincial Attorney-General’s Office. They handle things like that.”

  “You didn’t leave it with Siggy?”

  ‘Just the bit he’d spent. We didn’t ask for it back. Siggy’s chief reward was that he knew he had been a good citizen.”

  Villiers laughed. “That’s how Siggy tells it, too, in Harlan’s beer parlor. So. No, I don’t believe that Norbert Thompson was the kind of man who would even rent a safe-deposit box. He was a very simple fella.”

  Willie nodded. “You think I might be right then, about some money going begging somewhere?”

  “I see what you’re getting at. Yes, he could have been robbed. Put it like that, if they paid him a living wage, he could have accumulated a tidy little nest egg over the years. But if he did, why didn’t he deposit it here?”

  “He was a strange man. Maybe he didn’t want your tellers to know about his affairs.”

  “Me, you mean. Well, it’s a small town. The only other thing I can think of is that he spent it all on lawyers.” Villiers leaned away from the desk, no longer having to be careful of what he said. “He and I talked about it one day, when he first came here to live, and I started to notice him occasionally at the wicket. I asked him in to the office–I do that just in case one of these farmers strikes oil on his corn patch; then it’s my job to get to him before the other sharks move in and advise him. Anyway, the first and only time we talked, he asked me to recommend a lawyer to him. I asked him how big his problem was–you know, being nosy. I said there were different kinds of lawyers for different classes of work. Was it a will he needed? He said it was his rights he was concerned with. Wanted to sue someone. So I gave him the name of a couple of lawyers in Sweetwater who like being in court, and that was that. But you know, I think he was brooding. It semed to me he was just sort of waking up to how he’d been screwed.”

  “So why did he do it for four years?”

  “As I say, I think he had been asleep. When they let him go, he woke up. Now, I’ve got work to do. So have you. You find out that they were paying Thompson a real wage and you’ve got a puzzle to unpick. But I’ll tell you, it makes just as much sense–no, more sense–to figure they probably only paid him fifty a week.”

  12

  “What’s on your mind, Mel?”

  They were in Wilkie’s office. It had seemed to Pickett like a good idea to see if the sergeant had found out anything he could report to Charlotte, to divert her from asking him what he had been doing in the city. But somehow his apparently casual inquiry had sounded loaded. Wilkie had made a solemn business of taking Pickett into an inner office, closing the door and pouring coffee before asking the question, so that Pickett would know this was important.

  Pickett rubbed his nose with a thumb and a finger, quieting an itch, and told him.

  Wilkie said, “That’s what I figured. The idea occurred to me, too. I mean, the idea that you looked a bit like the guy in the picture, or rather, that someone who didn’t know you, seeing a guy lying on the floor of your cabin, might think it was you. I didn’t make the second jump, though, that someone else had actually come looking for you, and seeing the other guy alive, made the same mistake. I think it’s a little far-fetched, but then, I don’t look like the guy in the picture.” Wilkie sipped his coffee. “So, you feeling nervous?”

  “I figure it wouldn’t hurt to fix up a couple of good trip lights.” This was the point at which Pickett might have mentioned his visit to the Bail-and-Parole Unit, but he stayed silent.

  “We did turn up someone who was looking for the cabin that afternoon.” And he told Pickett the story of the over-the-hill hockey player who had wanted to find out how to build a cabin. “You know anyone like that?”

  Pickett shook his head, troubled by his lie of omission, but only to the extent of not wanting to be caught out. “Trouble is, that cabin has made me famous in these parts.” And then, as if the idea had just occurred to him, “Suppose they were after me? What happens when the news about Thompson gets out? Will they come back looking for me?”

  “Take it easy. To start with, this is just you thinking the picture in the cabin looks like you.”

  “Eliza’s on her own up in the trailer sometimes.”

  Wilkie frowned. “Eliza? Yeah, right. I thought she was shacked up with some Indian guy. That’s what the whole town thinks. East Indian, not an Ojibwa.”

  “Sometimes she’s shacked up with some Indian guy and sometimes she isn’t. And that’s another possibility. I don’t like the idea of punks in pickup trucks looking for some excitement. What are the statistics on racism around here? I know your general crime rate is pretty high, but how are you fixed for the Klan, or the Hitler Youth, or whatever they call themselves? Any assholes like that around?”

  “Okay, okay. We have sighted two pickup trucks driving around.”

  “One of them driven by an old hockey player? Or do you mean two other pickup trucks?”

  “Just two, probably including the hockey player. But we’ve got one other license number. Seems someone paid for some gas in brand-new twenties, so the girl wrote the license number on the back just in case they made them themselves. And there’s a gray Chevrolet acting strange.”

  “Eliza noticed him. Probably a bird-watcher. You found anyone local who might have had it in for Thompson?”

  “People around Larch River hardly knew him. He did odd jobs that he got through Harlan.”

  “Didn’t he socialize?”

  “Only on Saturday afternoons in Sweetwater. The same as when he lived on the farm. Two beers a week and a steak dinner at the Chew’n’Chat.”

  “What about the farm? Was there any bad blood between Thompson and his sister-in-law, or her new husband?”

  Wilkie told Pickett of what he had learned from Sproat about the lack of any relationship between Thompson and Mrs. Sproat.

  Pickett said, “You think she and this guy Sproat were lovers all the time her husband was sick? And Thompson didn’t know?”

  “They were a pair, all right, but not like the two up in your trailer. They had a cup of coffee and a piece of coconut pie together once a week after church for about two years. That’s it. These are very, very religious people. They even got the minister’s okay to have their coffee together.”

  “So what made them a pair?”

  “They themselves probably didn’t think they were a pair, until her husband died. They would be operating under a big taboo, I would think. After her husband finally was gone, they realized they had been courting for two years and they got married in four weeks. With the minister’s blessing. You belong to a church?”

  “No.”

  Wilkie nodded, released from having to be careful. “I kind of liked the minister.”

  “All this sounds like Norbert Thompson having a good reason to kill Sproat, or even Mrs. Sproat, not the other way around.”

  “That’s what I said. But Norbert Thompson lived a pretty simple life, and I don’t have many places to look. We’ve found where he used to drink his two beers on Saturday afternoons, sometimes with a couple of other guys. They talked about ho
ckey or baseball, but he never seemed interested in a game of hearts up at the Legion, anything like that. He sounds a little bit retarded to me. Not mentally, emotionally.”

  “You’ve been talking to that psychiatrist again. And that’s it? That all the gossip?”

  “Except for the guy in the gray Chevy, and a welder.”

  Pickett stood up. “This hockey player, how did you run across him?”

  “The guy in the hardware store mentioned him.”

  “Did he know me? The hockey player?”

  “No. No, the hardware guy mentioned you to him. Apparently he had heard about your cabin, but he didn’t know you.”

  “See? I’m a tourist attraction.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Wilkie followed Pickett to Larch River, but drove on through the town until he came again to the Sroats’ place.

  The chicken farm still looked like a prisoner-of-war camp during a rest period. Only the dogs testified to the presence of life inside, but when they came forward, barking, the door opened and Aaron Sproat stood there. Something about him suggested that he saw himself as the guardian of the keep. He called the dogs to him, and Wilkie climbed out of the car and approached.

  “I need a word with Mrs. Sproat,” he said.

  “What for?”

  “Mrs. Sproat,” Wilkie repeated, letting Sproat know that he didn’t plan to explain himself.

  Sproat stepped back and let him by.

  “I won’t need you,” Wilkie said.

  “I’m staying anyways. Mrs. Sproat might want me.”

  “You’ll stay out of our talk, though, won’t you?”

  The level of hostility was escalating as Wilkie tried to irritate Sproat, to find out if there was more behind his attitude than ordinary protectiveness.

  “Mrs. Sproat’s my wife.”

  “I know that, sir. I’m not here to arrest anyone, just to ask a couple of questions. So stay if you like, but don’t speak until I ask you to, okay?”

  They moved into the living room, where Mrs. Sproat was already seated at the table on one of the straight-backed chairs. Wilkie took a chair opposite and Sproat sat between them, on one side, with his arms crossed.

  “We’ve been trying to establish why anyone would want to kill someone as harmless as Norbert Thompson,” Wilkie began. “Find a motive.” He addressed himself directly to Mrs. Sproat.

  “We heard it could’ve been an accident,” Sproat said. “He could’ve fell against the stove.”

  Wilkie turned sharply and cut in on the last word. “That’s the free one, sir,” he said. “You don’t get any more of those. Speak up once more and we’ll go into Sweetwater, where your wife and I can talk in private. Suit yourself.”

  Sproat laced his hands over his crotch and leaned back, silent.

  “How much did you pay Thompson, Mrs. Sproat?”

  Without actually speaking, Sproat, by stiffening his back, turning his head, snorting softly, then shifting his chair, made it clear that Mrs. Sproat was dealing with a loaded question. Wilkie ignored him, keeping his eyes on Mrs. Sproat.

  “Who needs to know?” she asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Who needs to know? Why?”

  “How much did you pay him, ma’am?”

  “A hundred a week.”

  Sproat let out a sigh.

  Wilkie nodded. “A couple more then, and I’ll tell you why I want to know. I asked you this already, but again, as far as you know, he didn’t spend his money on anything except his Saturday-afternoon outings?”

  “He didn’t need to, mister. He didn’t need to. I took care of all his meals, and I gave him most of Mr. Maguire’s clothes before Mr. Maguire died. What else did he need money for? He never complained to me, or asked me for a raise. That wage was fixed between him and my former husband when Thompson first came, and he agreed to it.”

  “Actually, I’m interested in the money he had left over, not the money he should have earned. Okay? You say he never got letters. Did he ever ask you for a stamp to send a letter?”

  “That would have been more personal than we were.”

  “There’s hardly any money in his bank account. Where did he cash your checks? It’ll say on the back of them.”

  “I paid him in cash. That way, we didn’t have to bother with deductions and all that.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “It’s not wrong, I know that. That’s the way we started out and that’s the way we kept up. My bookkeeper in Sweetwater entered it as some kind of contract we had with Norbert. It was up to him to say what he owed the government.”

  “Did he spend money on holidays?”

  “He used to just take a week off to go to the exhibition in Toronto. But that wouldn’t cost him much. He stayed at a rooming house, and he was only interested in the farm animals and such. He never went on no swings or rides or anything like that.”

  “Did he keep much in his wallet? I mean, did he like to flash a few bills? A lot of single guys do.”

  She stared at him ponderingly, interested now in the question. “No. No, he never made a display of his money. In fact, once or twice I’d need help paying for something at the door—someone selling berries, for instance–but he hardly ever had change of a twenty. He must have kept it somewhere. I never thought of that.” She looked at Sproat, who nodded, confirming and approving.

  “That’s what I wanted to know. He might have been the victim of a robbery. If he kept the money by him, like a miser, someone might have got wind of it.”

  “Certainly might,” Sproat said. “Hear that, Ruth?”

  “I hear it,” Mrs. Sproat said. “We paid him a lot of money over the years.”

  Sproat nodded in half a dozen slow arcs.

  “Thing is,” Wilkie said, “someone might’ve figured on a lot more. Someone who knew he didn’t keep it at the bank and guessed wrong about his wages, guessed he made the same as other hired men. Someone who could figure that he had maybe twenty thousand stashed away. I mean, how much does the average hired man earn?”

  But Sproat was equal to the problem. “Whatever he’s worth, mister. That’s what Jesus said.”

  “You think there’s a chance he saved it all up and spent it at the exhibition?” Wilkie asked, ignoring Sproat.

  “I wouldn’t think so. He was a bit of a miser, like you said.”

  “Help me think, Ernie.” Wilkie was in Villiers’ office again, passing through Larch River on his way back to Sweetwater. “They paid him a hundred a week.”

  “For Christ’s sake.”

  “Okay, okay. But I’m not concerned with the minimum wage. It seems to me that even on that, there ought to be some money around. Fifty a week for four years.”

  Villiers did a sum on a scrap of paper. “Could be. Want me to find out if he deposited any in Sweetwater?”

  “I don’t need to rely on you for everything, Ernie, thanks. I already checked that. He had no other bank account than yours, no safe-deposit box, nothing.”

  “Better look for a loose brick by the fireplace.”

  “What? Oh, yeah. That’s what I figure. He had a stash, and someone knew it.” Wilkie stood up. “Let me know if someone brings in a sack of money smelling of chicken shit, would you?”

  But Villiers didn’t smile. He was brooding. “A hundred a week. Goddam fundamentarians,” he said.

  “I don’t know that word.”

  “I just made it up. Means religious assholes.”

  First, Pickett stopped in at the hardware store and confirmed for himself all that Wilkie had said. He tried to keep the visit at the level of gossip. He didn’t want their conversation to be worth remembering in the event that Wilkie should come along after him. Then he asked, “Did you give the guy good directions to my place?”

  “I think so.”

  “What time was this? At night, near to closing time?”

  “More like the middle of the afternoon.”

  “That right? Anyway, what I came in for was a Leatherman.
You know it? One of those all-purpose tools. I’ve lost mine and I’m totally dependent on it.”

  The storekeeper shook his head. “Don’t carry them. I could order one in.”

  “I kind of need it today.”

  “Try Lindsay. You’ll find it there.”

  The next morning, Pickett told Charlotte that one of the floodlights he had bought was cracked and he would have to go back to Toronto for a replacement.

  At the Bail-and-Parole Unit, he waited until he could get Marinelli alone. “I’m looking for a guy about thirty, an old hockey player probably, with no upper plate. You know, gummy. Drives a pickup truck.”

  “On parole?”

  “No. Or he wouldn’t be driving, would he? You aren’t allowed to drive on parole, are you? No, but just maybe he’s been around here, possibly on bail.” He told Marinelli the rest of the story of the sighting of the hockey player. “He’s been inquiring after my cabin,” he concluded. “A guy in a pickup truck.”

  Marinelli held up his hand as Pickett made to continue. “Lemme think.” Several long minutes later, he said, “Tell me again. You still think someone’s looking for you, someone on our books?”

  “I think there’s a chance something like that’s happening.”

  “Is happening?”

  “He’s still out there, and he might know now that he made a mistake.”

  Marinelli asked the obvious question. “If he’s around thirty years old and you helped put him away, then it was in the last ten years. No, you worked here for the last six years, and you’ve been retired for two, so you’ve only got a couple of years to check to see if you nailed any hockey player. Shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  Nor was it. Marinelli gave the problem to a young constable who sat down at a computer and began a search, starting with Pickett’s name, then scanning the record of convictions for various kinds of homicides, then the list of serious assaults, in the period they had chosen. Pickett recognized three of the names, all of them still in Kingston Penitentiary.