Understudy for Death

by Charles Willeford

  In sudden disgust with myself I ripped the pages of my first act in half. I was immediately remorseful, and carefully put the torn sheets away in the middle drawer of the desk. Too many hours, too much thought and effort had gone into that first act to destroy it and start over again. Feeling miserable and filled with self-pity, I left the study, showered, and got dressed to go downtown. I was trying to decide on a necktie when Beryl drove the old Chevy under the carport.

  “Where are you going?” she said sharply, putting the bag of groceries she was carrying down on the dinette table.

  I was planning to attend a movie, but it would have been ill-advised to admit this to my wife. “The M.E. has given me a special assignment,” I said, knotting my tie. “He wants me to write some sort of series for the Sunday Feature Section.”

  “You can’t work night and day too.”

  “This assignment will mean some extra dough if the pieces turn out all right.”

  “Can the newspaper spare it?”

  “I think so. That’s what I’m going to talk to Mr. Curtis about now. Oh. And I’ll have the car greased and the oil changed while I’m downtown.”

  Beryl followed me to the door, slipped her arm about my waist. She kissed me goodbye, a long wet one. Her breath was bad, sulphurous from the hard-boiled eggs she had eaten for breakfast. “Wake me,” she said self-consciously, “when you get home tonight. If you aren’t too tired.”

  “Sure. You bet.” I opened the door.

  “And will you bring the garbage can in before you go?”

  “The garbage can?”

  “This is Tuesday,” Beryl explained patiently, for perhaps the thousandth time. “Every Tuesday and Friday morning the garbage is picked up. If I can carry the full can out to the curb before I go to bed, it seems like the least you can do is bring the empty can back around—”

  “Why can’t Buddy bring it around when he gets home from school?”

  “Because I need the can to put garbage in. Now!”

  “Sure.”

  I got the can, put the lid on, and carried it through the back gate to the concrete platform beside the kitchen door. Before Beryl could trap me into doing any more domestic chores I ran desperately for the Chevy in the carport and backed into the street.

  Downtown, I left the car at Bunny’s Garage and asked the mechanic to park it in the newspaper parking lot (a block down the street) when he completed the grease job. I got to the Sunshine Theater at 12:50, right after the doors had opened, beating the one o’clock price change. As usual, the old ticket-taker shook hands with me, and tried to give me a synopsis of the movie I was about to see. But I managed to get away from him before he finished, not that it makes any difference; all movies end the same way. The important thing about attending a movie in Florida is the state of the theater’s air-conditioning system, and the Sunshine Theater was always cool.

  At three-thirty I emerged again, blinking into the sun. There was time enough for a sandwich and a Coca-Cola before I was due at the office.

  “Ah, yes!” I thought with grisly satisfaction. “The newspaper!” Without my wonderful job, my life would be the most monotonous and boring existence in the entire world.

  It Just Don’t Make Sense!

  By Dave Finney

  News-Press Staff Writer

  “It just don’t make sense!” Mrs. Gertrude S. Slater, 1410 Lake Shore Drive, told this reporter, with reference to the suicide of Mrs. Marion C. Huneker, her neighbor, who fatally shot her two children before taking her own life last night.

  “I’ve known Marion (Mrs. Huneker) ever since she and her husband moved down here from Pittsburgh,” Mrs. Slater continued, “and I never knew a woman more interested in life than she was.

  “Only last week she asked me for a cutting off my flame vine, said she wanted to train it up the poles along her carport. That’s what I mean. That don’t sound like any woman planning to kill herself, does it? It just don’t make sense!”

  Mr. Thomas Fessier, longtime employee for the Magic Garden Spray & Lawn Maintenance Service, had this to say: “I’ve been taking care of the Hunekers’ lawn for more than two years now. Mrs. Huneker was always fussy about her lawn, not that she was unreasonable or anything like a lot of people, but she liked things just so.

  “Last Tuesday, it was, when I mowed her lawn, I told her it needed spraying again. The chinch bugs were beginning to get a nice bite out in back, you see. We must have talked for a good half-hour or more; she was asking about replanting with dichondra. A woman planning a complicated project like that, which would take a lot of work to get started, it just don’t figure she’s going to shoot her kids and herself. When I read about it in the paper this morning I could hardly believe it.”

  Another friend and neighbor of Mrs. Huneker’s, Mrs. Lawrence B. McKeldin, 1402 Lake Shore Drive, had known the deceased three years, as a member of the Wednesday Afternoon Bridge Club.

  “This wasn’t any tightly organized club,” Mrs. McKeldin explained. “It was more of an informal get-together of four girls, so to speak. But Marion (Mrs. Huneker) was definitely one of the group.

  “We met almost every Wednesday afternoon, taking turns at each other’s homes. We play Culbertson, and most people today have switched to Goren. What I’m getting to is this:

  “Only two or three weeks ago, I had a long talk with Marion about Jacoby. She wanted us to get a book on Jacoby and plan a full afternoon where we could discuss his system of play. It was all I could do to dissuade her from this idea. But she was very cheerful, not disappointed about it. Marion was an animated person, with a keen interest in bridge, and although she liked to win, like every good player, she was philosophical when she lost. All of the girls in the club were shocked by the news, and we’re sending a wreath…”

  Several neighbors and friends of Mrs. Huneker this reporter interviewed requested that they not be quoted, although none of them could advance a reason for the double-murder and suicide.

  The late Mrs. Huneker’s priest, Fr. Donald Hardy, SJ, pastor of The Church of the Sacred Heart, and Dr. Maxwell Goldman, the Huneker’s family doctor, had “no comment” concerning the deceased matron.

  Chapter Three

  Dave’s story, beneath a 42 point Ludlow Coronet head, took up two parallel columns on the left side of the front page in the Evening Press. There were half-column cuts of Mrs. Slater, Mr. Fessier, and Mrs. McKeldin set into the copy opposite their banal remarks. I dropped the paper flat on the desk, clasped my hands behind my head, and grinned fondly at Dave Finney.

  Dave had been a journalism major at the University of Miami, and actually considered journalism as a “profession.” His dark sienna eyes were alert and inquisitive, and he wore his hair in a brush cut. No matter how hot it was—even in the middle of summer—he wore a coat and tie to add dignity to his profession. He was only twenty-four, and planned to get a good “grounding” on a small city newspaper before becoming a foreign correspondent. An eager type. We usually talked to each other every day for a few minutes before I took over the desk.

  “What do you think of it, Richard?” Dave said anxiously, meaning his by-lined story, not the murder-suicide.

  “It just do not make sense,” I replied, shaking my head sadly.

  Dave blushed slightly. “I was a little worried about that myself,” he admitted. “I started to change ‘don’t’ to ‘doesn’t’ and then I thought it sounded more like real dialogue. Besides, that’s what she said. I didn’t think Mr. Gladden would pick it up for the head, though.”

  “It just do not make sense,” I repeated, with an air of feigned bewilderment.

  “Otherwise the story’s all right, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t ask me. You’re the journalism major around here.”

  “Well, I didn’t sneak the story in.” Dave cleared his throat. “Mr. Gladden okayed it,” he added defensively, “and he is the City Editor.”

  “You’re worried, I take it, because Mr. Curtis didn’t get a look at
the copy first. Well, Dave,” I nodded soberly, “you’re wise to worry. Last night J.C. racked me up and down about my first-hand exposition of the case.”

  “He did? I thought your story was great—”

  “You should’ve seen it before J.C.’s pencil. But I wouldn’t worry too much, Dave. J.C. told me that he didn’t expect to see good newswriting anymore. So you haven’t disappointed him.”

  “What is wrong with it, then?”

  “It just do not make sense,” I said again, tasting the words slowly, as if they were sweet. “You haven’t told me anything,” I continued, seriously. “Now that I’ve read your story, and I read it twice, what have I learned? Mrs. Huneker was fond of flame vines, she played a fair game of bridge, she had her lawn mowed regularly, and a woman named—” here I had to glance at the story again “—Mrs. McKeldin considered her ‘one of the group.’ Her priest and doctor, who may have been able to throw a little light on the case, are both down as ‘no comment.’ Except for these mild criticisms, I’d say it’s a fine story. Yes, siree!”

  Dave laughed. “What’s got into you? You left me the note to interview the neighbors, and Gladden hadn’t thought of it. I told him it was my idea, and he considered it a good follow-up, and sent the photographer along. What did you expect me to get, anyway?”

  “Nothing. Not really. You got about as much as I would, Dave. You covered a lot of territory in the time you had.” I snipped Dave’s story out of the paper, pulled out my SUICIDE SERIES envelope, and dropped the clipping inside.

  “I just happened to notice that envelope this morning,” Dave said, trying to appear unconcerned. “What—”

  “J.C. Curtis. The Yankee mind of the M.E. came up with an idea about a suicide series, and gave me the assignment to write it. All I have to do is find out why Mrs. Huneker, a Roman Catholic of Italian parentage, married to a—what is Huneker, anyway? German, Jewish?”

  “Beats me,” Dave shrugged.

  “Anyway, as the colorful oldtime reporters used to put it so colorfully, I’m supposed to find out why she took the Dutch Route.”

  Dave whistled, and then laughed happily. “What does he expect you to find? I know you think my story’s lousy, but—”

  “I was only kidding you, Dave.”

  “All right. But I had to hustle to get as much copy as I did. All of the opinions I got from her neighbors were useless. Dr. Goldman wouldn’t tell me anything on the phone, and asked me not to use his name even. There’s only one person who can tell you why Mrs. Huneker killed herself, and that’s Mrs. Huneker.”

  “I agree. Now, Mr. Curtis is in his office; I can see him through the glass door. I’d appreciate it if you’d go into his office and tell him his idea smells.”

  “There might be some interesting angles at that.” Dave frowned, plucked thoughtfully at his lower lip.

  “Give me one.” I snapped my fingers. “Just one.”

  “I’d have to give it a little thought, and why should I? It’s your assignment, not mine.” Dave got up from the chair beside the desk and stretched. “I’ll look forward to reading your series, Mr. Hudson. I’m a little curious myself about why she killed the children.”

  “That’s easy. All children should be killed at birth. They make too much noise growing up, and a lot of them end up as journalism majors.”

  “You’re covering the lecture at the Beachcomber’s tonight, aren’t you?”

  “I’d planned on it. Why?”

  “Mrs. Huneker was a member. Why don’t you see what some of her club members have to say. It’s a beginning.”

  “Thanks for the suggestion,” I said dryly. “The thought had occurred to me independently. I believe, if I try hard enough, that I can discover what Mrs. Huneker’s favorite drink was, maybe. Yes, yes, you’ve given me my lead, Dave! ‘Mr. Mel Haight, chief bartender at the Beachcomber’s Club, stated in an exclusive interview that the late Mrs. Huneker’s favorite drink was a tall Tom Collins, on the rocks. It just do not make sense, the bartender continued—’” Dave walked away, shaking his head in disgust, and disappeared down the stairs.

  I clipped my own story out of the Morning News, added it to the contents of my growing file, and made a few notes. I turned through the phone book, copied Dr. Morris Goldman’s clinic address and number into my notebook; but not the priest’s address. I knew where Father Hardy lived; he resided in a beautiful, white, two-story house right next to his church, and he had two fulltime servants besides. White servants, at that. Not many Negro Catholics in Lake Springs, I supposed.

  Who else? The creative writing teacher, of course. For this information, I checked with Mrs. Mosby, a truly wonderful woman. Mrs. Mosby had been with the News-Press forever. Her duties were so varied and numerous, they were almost impossible to sum up coherently. She was the M.E.’s personal secretary, the keeper of the morgue, compiler of the payroll, a writer of classified ads, hand-holder, advice-giver, and a veritable storehouse of information. Her sweet little old gray head held facts and figures about everything and everybody in Lake Springs. The perfect companion to be marooned on an island with, if a man could be that fortunate.

  “Mrs. Mosby,” I said, “do you happen to know who teaches the so-called creative writing course at the Adult Education Center?”

  “Paul Hershey. Monday and Friday evenings, seven-thirty to nine-thirty, Room 103, at the high school.”

  “That’s pretty glib, young lady,” I said sternly. “As a rule you have to think for a minute or two.”

  “Not really, Richard,” Mrs. Mosby smiled, and wrinkled her nose. “It just happens that I took Mr. Hershey’s course for a while last year.”

  “How did you find the time?”

  “I took the time, but it was time wasted.” She shrugged her thin, narrow shoulders. “Oh, not really wasted. A person can always learn something. I wrote two stories, but I’ve been around the paper too long.” She laughed gently. “I crammed my whole story into the first paragraph, instead of holding things back for the end. Fiction’s written backward, you know.”

  “I never looked at it that way, but I suppose you could say fiction was backward. I imagined magazine editors chop their stories off at the first paragraph instead of at the end. How come you dropped out of the class?”

  “Well, Mr. Hershey runs a sort of seminar. The class discusses the student’s stories after he reads them aloud. It could’ve been a good course, but there was one old harridan who talked constantly, using the class as a town hall for her own views on everything she could think of. I kept waiting for her to turn in a story of her own so I could get in a few choice critical remarks, but she never did write anything. Too busy talking all the time. I gave up finally, all out of patience.”

  “What kind of a guy is Mr. Hershey?”

  “He’s very nice, Richard. Too nice, really. Quite old. He doesn’t have a firm control over the class, but he’s really a writer, not a teacher.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Mosby. Was Mrs. Huneker, by any chance, in your class last year?”

  “No, I’m sorry to say. I never met her.”

  “I’m sorry, too. If you had known her, I could get out of my assignment, and turn it over to you.”

  “Why I think you’re a wonderful reporter, Richard.”

  “Thank you. You don’t know what that remark means to my morale.”

  I returned to my desk to do a little work. I called the desk sergeant at the police station. Auntie Rosetta had been picked up again for the nth time for selling bolita tickets. I had filed too many stories on Auntie Rosetta already, and asked if he had anything else. I had heard the dirty joke he told me, but there was a filler item I could use about a gas station. This was the kind of filler that J.C. liked to see:

  Despite the typical October high of 82 degrees yesterday, Winter has arrived at last. Patrick Odium, owner of an independent filling station, 1635 Hotchkiss Rd., reported to the police last night that a northbound motorist had stolen two gallons of Zerex anti-freeze out of his offic
e while he was servicing another car.

  As I jerked this hackneyed filler out of the typewriter I saw J.C. Curtis, accompanied by a visitor, approaching my desk, and I got hastily to my feet. The little old man with J.C. was wearing yellow Bermuda shorts and a bright red sport shirt.

  “This is Mr. Hudson,” J.C. said to the bright-eyed little old man. “This is Mr. Adamski, Hudson. He’s celebrating his golden wedding anniversary coming up Sunday. Take care of him.” The M.E. turned away and I shook hands with Adamski.

  “Sit down, sir,” I said cordially. Adamski sat down on the first fourth of the chair beside my desk, and handed me an enormous white leather scrapbook. OUR LIFE was carved into the cover, and the incised letters had been filled in with gold leaf.

  “It’s all in here, Mr. Hudson,” Adamski said eagerly, patting the album with a small arthritic hand. “Fifty wonderful years of a wonderful, wonderful union. Me and Hazel was married fifty years ago come Sunday, and it seems just like only yesterday.”

  “Well, well. What’s your address?”

  Adamski gave me his address—he lived in the retirement village—and I wrote it on my pad, along with his age, 76, and his wife’s maiden name. Once started, he talked quickly and earnestly; I learned that he was originally from Detroit; that he had been residing in Lake Springs for three years; and that prior to his retirement, he had worked for General Motors as a paint shop sub-foreman.

  I leafed idly through the white scrapbook and the old man winked craftily and leaned forward. “Betcha never took me for seventy-six, didja?” he whispered.

  “Why no,” I replied sharply. “I thought you were in your late eighties.”

  His face fell and his alert, blue eyes darkened with disappointment. I hadn’t intended to be cruel, so I laughed, and clapped him on the shoulder. “I was teasing you, Mr. Adamski. To tell the truth,” I lied, “you don’t look much more than fifty.”

  He perked up at once, smiling with self-satisfaction. “I knew you were joking. I never did look my real age. Now that there,” he pointed to the open album, “that’s a picture of me and Hazel taken in a studio about a year after we was married. Pretty then, wasn’t she?”