Early's Fall

by Jerry Peterson

  “Smitts, I assumed Catholic or Lutheran.”

  “Lutheran, when you could get Bill to church. So Judith mostly attended temple with me in Manhattan.”

  “When you aren't at the Christian church down by Keats.”

  A smile brought new life to Granny's face. “Yes, I'm the spy amongst you. Maybe you should come to temple with me, find out what drove Judith to be the person she was. And I won't even make you wear a yarmulke. . . . You find Bill, yet?”

  The telephone rang, a jarring ring that demanded attention.

  Granny turned away, to the counter where his cash register resided. He went around the counter, to the wall, to his crank telephone, and took down the receiver. “Granny, here,” he said into the mouthpiece. “Yes, just a minute.”

  The tailor held out the receiver. “Jimmy, your office.”

  Early took the receiver and pressed it to his ear. “Yeah.”

  “Jim, we've tracked down Mister Smitts. He's at the Central Elevator in Salina. I've got him on the other line, but I haven't told him why you want to talk to him.”

  “Can you patch him through?”

  “Just a minute.”

  Early took out his notepad and felt his pockets for a pencil. When he repeated the patting exercise, a pencil came into view. Early took it from Granny's hand, and gave a self-conscious smile.

  A click came across the line. “This is Bill Smitts, sheriff. You want to talk to me?”

  “Bill, you sitting down?”

  “Oh Lord, this got something to do with Judy?”

  Early drummed his pencil on the pad. “When did you leave home on this trip, Bill?”

  “Monday. Why? Has this got something to do with Judy?”

  “ 'Fraid so. . . . There's no easy way to put it. We found her dead.”

  A clattering came over the line, as if a receiver had been dropped on a desk or the floor. A hollow and distant “Oh Lord, oh Lord” followed.

  A new voice came on the line. “This is George Watson, manager out here at the Central. What'd you just tell Bill?”

  Early pushed his hat onto the back of his head. “Mister Watson, this is the sheriff over in Riley County. Bill lives out here by Leonardville.”

  “I know.”

  “His wife's dead. Yesterday. . . . Mister Watson, you still there?”

  “Yeah. . . . Yeah, I am.”

  “Can you get Bill home?”

  “Sure. I'll get him on the next train to Manhattan. Fact, I'll come with him because he looks to be a wreck.”

  “Can I ask you a question, Mister Watson?”

  “Sure.”

  “When did Bill get into your place?”

  “Couple hours ago, from Abilene. . . . How'd his wife die?”

  “Murdered.”

  “I can't tell him that.”

  “You get him back here, I'll tell him.”

  Early and his deputy, Hutch Tolliver, sat on a bench on the Union-Pacific station's platform, flipping pocketknives, playing mublety-peg.

  Hutch balanced his knife on its point on the tip of his index finger, then flipped the knife high. He watched it thunk down into the pine-plank platform. “Think you'd be better at this game, boss,” he said as he recovered the two knives. He handed one to Early.

  “Guess who's got too much time on his hands. You a candy fiend?”

  “Oh, I buy a Clark bar now and then.”

  “Next time you're over in Leonardville, go into Granny's and ask him if you can try one of his new candies. Chocolate and marshmallow thing. Not half bad.”

  A shadow came over the two, interrupting the game. Early glanced up. “Hey, Trooper Dan.”

  “Hey, Cactus,” Patrolman Daniel Plemmons said. He removed his silvered aviator sunglasses. “Gladys said I'd find you here.”

  “We can't keep secrets from you at all, can we?”

  “So you got the husband coming in on the train.”

  “Couple minutes, yup.”

  “Where's he been?”

  “Abilene, then Salina,” Early said. “That's all I know so far.”

  “Huh.”

  “You know something, super trooper?”

  “Not really.”

  A steam engine's whistle moaned somewhere to the west. Early and Tolliver leaned out to see the One-Seventeen rounding the base of Sunset Hill, chuffing, slowing, the engine's bell clanging as the train glided toward the station. The men rose to stand with Plemmons.

  “So he's been out since Monday,” the trooper said.

  “According to his boss in Topeka.” Early folded his knife into its handle and slipped it in his pocket.

  “Convenient.”

  “You're one suspicious soul. . . . According to his boss, Bill was working his way out to Wakeeney. He was to spend the weekend there, then next week work on out to Goodland, calling on shippers, talking freight rates, scheduling rail cars, that sort of thing.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The Baldwin A-Five, steam hissing from its drive cylinders, slipped by those waiting on the platform and stopped so the express car and four passenger cars faced them. Ajax Reynolds, from the post office, rolled out a handcar. He pitched sacks of eastbound mail aboard the express.

  A conductor stepped off, waving for the passengers of the first car to come down the stairs.

  Early and his partners watched.

  Half a dozen came off and a couple handfuls from the other cars, one man helping another.

  “Come on,” Early said and pushed his way along the platform. He waved as the two men stopped, one reaching back up the steps for a suitcase.

  Early shook hands with the man who looked the most unsteady. “Bill, I'm sorry for all that's happened. Missus Gibbs is looking out for your boy.”

  “What did . . . what did happen?” Bill Smitts asked, slump shouldered. In his better days he could have played tackle on a football team, and did at Fort Hays Normal School.

  “Why don't we go over where we can sit a spell?” Early asked. He guided him to a bench, and Smitts sat down.

  “Was it a heart attack? Judy's had heart problems.”

  “I'm sorry. You're not going to find any comfort in this, but someone killed her.”

  His face went slack. What little color it had drained away.

  “Before you ask, we don't know who and we don't know why.”

  Smitts tried to make his mouth work, but no words came out.

  Early looked up at the man with the suitcase, the man about the same age and build as Smitts, but with sandy hair showing beneath his western straw hat. “You're GeorgeWatson?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was good of you to come.”

  “Well, Bill and I have been friends for a couple years. No one should be alone at a time like this. I know I wouldn't want to be.”

  “You gonna stay awhile?”

  “I can. It's up to Bill.”

  Smitts drew a hand down his face. Words came this time but in little more than a whisper. “No, you got a business to run.”

  “You sure?” Watson asked.

  “I'm not sure of anything.”

  “Then I'm staying.” He moved toward the door to the station. “If there's a pay phone inside, I'll call my office. They can get along without me for a couple days.”

  After Watson disappeared, Early turned to Smitts. “Quite a friend there.”

  “My dad said you're entitled to one good one in a lifetime. I guess G.A. is it for me.”

  “G.A.?”

  “George Albert. He's not in love with either name.”

  “Bill, where's your car?”

  “Junction City. That's where I leave it when I catch the train going west.”

  Plemmons brushed the tip of his nose in a subdued effort to get Early's attention. He shook his head.

  Early gazed from Plemmons to Smitts. “You ever meet Trooper Plemmons?”

  Smitts twisted around toward the state policeman.

  Plemmons took out a small notebook and opened it. �
��Mister Smitts, you have a Mercury, current model, isn't that right? Kansas license R-I-eight-five-four?”

  “Yes.”

  “It's not in the parking lot at the Junction City station. I checked.”

  “You don't mean somebody stole it?”

  “Been known to happen. Half-drunk soldiers from Fort Riley have been known to help themselves to cars that don't belong to them.”

  “Oh damn.”

  “Mister Smitts, I'll tool around the post. It'll probably turn up.”

  “I appreciate that, but I better . . . I guess I better tell my insurance man.”

  “Yes, there's always paperwork.”

  Watson came hustling out from the station. “Got through all right. Told them they can reach me at the Wareham Hotel.”

  “That's a good place to bunk,” Early said. “Bill's got another problem.”

  “What's that?”

  “It appears his car's been stolen. I can have my deputy take you over to the Ford dealership. Ed McCarter will loan you a car so the two of you can get around.”

  “That'd be good,” Watson said.

  Early turned back to Smitts. “I expect you'll want to go by the funeral parlor first. I asked Sherm Brown to handle everything. He'll help you with the funeral, get a preacher, whatever you need.”

  Smitts, glazed, didn't respond.

  Early put a hand on the man's arm. “Bill, I hate to ask, but we think it may have been a robbery that started it all. We need for you to meet us out at the house, see what's missing.”

  Watson interrupted. “You really need to do this?”

  “Yes. The more time passes, the less chance of figuring out who did this and catching the man. We're already a day behind.”

  “So when?”Watson asked.

  “Say after supper. About seven.” Early nodded to Tolliver, and the deputy helped Smitts up and took him and Watson to the near end of the platform where he had left his Jeep.

  Early and Plemmons drifted out among the last passengers hurrying to board the eastbound, the engine's bell clanging, the conductor bellowing out, “All aboard! Topeka, Lawrence, and Kansas City!”

  “Do you believe that,” Plemmons asked, “his car being stolen?”

  “Happens. The man seems genuinely shook to the soles of his shoes.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  The Baldwin A-Five belched. It jerked its string of cars into motion, the lawmen walking along with them, then falling behind as the train gathered speed.

  “You be out at the house this evening, when we walk through it with Bill?” Early asked.

  “Naw, yours isn't the only case I'm working on. I got to be down in Council Grove tonight.”

  A voice called out from the train. “Hey, sheriff?”

  Early turned and, as he did, a hand slapped away his hat.

  “Sumbitch!” The sheriff wheeled and pounded away after the last car of the train, a cowboy on the back platform, laughing, waving joyously his own hat.

  CHAPTER 6

  * * *

  August 17—Wednesday Afternoon

  The Diary

  Early gave up the chase when it became apparent he couldn't catch the train.

  Plemmons trotted up beside him, clutching the sheriff's hat, Early bent forward, wheezing.

  “What was that all about?” the trooper asked.

  “ 'At's our damn bank robber.”

  “We can call ahead. Get the train stopped.”

  “A waste. He'll jump off long before anybody can look for him. Gotta be hiding out around here somewhere. Dammit, I hoped he'd run away.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted him to be somebody else's problem.”

  Early and Mose Dickerson stood gassing in the dusty grass next to their vehicles, the sun lowering in the west, when Hutch Tolliver drove in and, a couple minutes later, a new Ford Woody with dealer plates on it. The two-door station wagon stopped behind Dickerson's old Chevrolet coupe, and two men got out, George Watson from the driver's side and Bill Smitts.

  “This take long?”Watson asked after Early introduced him to the Riley constable.

  “Tell you where we'd like to start,” Early said. “We found lots of fingerprints in the house. That's no surprise. We've got to know which ones are Bill's so we can eliminate them and see if we got any strangers in the collection.”

  “You want to fingerprint Bill?”

  “Hutch has got the kit.”

  Watson motioned for Smitts to go with Tolliver. When he turned back, he asked, “What about his wife? There got to be lots of her fingerprints in there.”

  “And you're right. We fingerprinted the body, so we know which ones are hers.”

  “So if you find some fingerprints that don't match Bill or his wife or his little boy, you might have something?”

  “That's what we figure.”

  “You got any leads?”

  “Well, we think we got a couple. Nothing real promising yet.”

  “So you really are banking on fingerprints.”

  “If we come up with one or two unexpected and, say, in the right place, could be a plus.”

  “Well, here's hoping,”Watson said.

  Early moved off into the yard, leading Watson and Dickerson away. “You say you've known Bill for a couple years?”

  “Ever since the U-P put him out here.”

  “You have occasion to meet his wife?”

  “Once. Bill and she were going out to Wakeeney, to see his parents. He telegraphed me to meet him at the station for the couple minutes the train would be stopped, wanted to tell me about a new rate schedule that would be coming out.”

  “So you and Missus Smitts didn't get to talk.”

  “Just to say hello.”

  “And Bill?”

  “What about Bill?”

  Early took off his hat. He scratched at the back of his head. “Might as well be direct. These traveling types have been known to have women in other towns. He ever mention any?”

  Watson's eyes narrowed, a hint of steel showing. “I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer.”

  “Look, I'm sorry, but we've got to consider everything.”

  “Maybe you do, but I don't.”

  Smitts came over, scrubbing ink from his fingers onto a handkerchief. “Guess this stuff will come off.”

  “What doesn't,” Early said, “a little bleach will get it if it concerns you. You ready to go inside?”

  “No, but let's get it done.”

  Early and Smitts chatted as they ambled across the dry lawn—the last rain three weeks ago and then not much. They sidestepped a Mason jar with holes punched in the lid, dead bugs inside—a child's experiment. That disturbed Early, and he forced the image of the Smitts' boy playing here out of his mind as they stepped up onto the porch. “We didn't straighten up a thing or clean up,” Early said as he opened the screen, then the storm door. “It's a mess inside.”

  Smitts stepped in and, at the sight of the front room, sucked in a breath. “Who could have . . .”

  “As we said, we don't know. Take your time. Tell us what might be missing.”

  Early switched on the room light, to supplement the dwindling light from outside.

  Smitts moved around, pain, increasing pain, showing about his eyes with each step he took. He stopped in front of one corner. “The radio. We had a big Crosley sitting right here.”

  Tolliver and Dickerson took out notepads and wrote.

  “Mahogany cabinet,” Smitts said. “Bought it two years ago from Fletcher's in Manhattan. They can probably get the model number for you, maybe even the serial number.”

  He moved on to a glass-front cabinet, the glass broken out. “Judy kept the things that were important to her here.”

  “Like what?” Early asked.

  “A couple Hummel figurines I got her, some pieces of her mother's china—soup tureen, I think—and a pot, teapot I guess, some cups. She'd started a collection of spoons, from states we visited.”


  “You traveled some, as a family then?”

  “Advantage of working for a railroad. Free passes. You can go anywhere.” Smitts turned. “On the wall there, that's where we hung our wedding picture. Who'd want to take that?”

  “You keep any guns in the house? We didn't find any.”

  “No. Judy was deathly afraid of guns.”

  Dickerson scribbled a note and handed it to Early. He looked at it, then slipped it in his shirt pocket.

  “Suppose we go on to the kitchen,” Early said.

  Smitts and Watson went first, the lawmen following, the hard heels of their boots clicking on the floor, sounding hollow in the barren hallway. Early switched on the kitchen light when he came in.

  “This blood?” Smitts asked, motioning at some red-tinged splotches on the floor and the cabinet faces.

  “Yes.”

  He blanched and his knees buckled as he stepped back. Watson grabbed him to keep him from falling.

  “Sorry,” Smitts said, “it's just that . . .”

  “You need to sit?” Early asked.

  “No. I'll . . . I'll . . . she die here?”

  “The bedroom, but we're not going in there unless you kept valuables there. It's pretty bad.”

  “Just, um . . . um . . . Judy's jewelry box, I think.”

  “We found it.”

  Smitts steadied himself. He gazed about, turning. “Um . . . Can't think of anything . . . uh . . . anything anybody'd want from a kitchen, you know. The stove's here. The refrigerator. They're the only things of any value.”

  He opened a cupboard. “Oh Lord.”

  “We wondered about that,” Early said.

  “Who'd go and break our dishes?”

  “Yes, and they kept all the pieces in the cupboard. Didn't let anything fall out.”

  Smitts's hand went to his face. “I don't understand any of this.”

  “Come on, Bill, let's get you out of here,” Watson said. He put his arm around Smitts's shoulders and pushed the man along, out through the dining room and the front room.

  Early leaned against the counter near where Smitts had stood. He jacked his hat onto the back of his head. “So what do you think?”

  “He sure seemed shook,” Tolliver said as he scanned down his notes.