The Hayloft: a 1950s Mystery

by Alan Cook

  There was enough light from the shaft so that I could dimly make out the items in the shelter that were near it. The boxes of supplies looked different than they felt. The sense of sight and the sense of feel give somewhat conflicting images to the brain. For example, the cardboard box with the batteries in it, which was clearly labeled “BATTERIES” in black crayon, looked too deep to be holding only batteries. That hadn’t occurred to me when I could only touch it.

  I went over to the box and placed my hand inside. There were batteries in packages of two. I knew that already. Underneath the layer of batteries was cardboard. Previously, I had interpreted the cardboard as being the bottom of the box. But it wasn’t deep enough. I shoved both hands through the batteries and found that the cardboard wasn’t part of the box at all. It had been laid above something else.

  I dug my fingers into the edges of the cardboard until I could get a grip on it. Then I pulled it out of the box, spilling batteries all over the floor in the process. I thrust a hand back in and felt something metal. Like a toolbox. My heart thumping, I found the handle attached to the lid and pulled it out. It was heavy, like a toolbox.

  I set it down directly under the ventilation shaft and opened the clasps. Upon lifting the lid, I could see a number of tools, neatly organized. I didn’t have time to sort through them. I upended the box and dumped the tools onto the floor. I quickly found a hammer and a pair of pliers. There were several screwdrivers. I selected the sturdiest one with the largest blade.

  I carried these tools over to the door. The light from the shaft didn’t reach this far. I had to work by feel again. I found the middle hinge of the door. It was a convenient height to start with. I had to extract the rod that went through the hinge holes on the door and the frame.

  I used the pliers to attempt to pull the rod up out of the holes. After losing the grip of the pliers on the rod several times, I managed to pull it up a fraction of an inch. At least it was fairly new and not stuck in place. I placed the screwdriver blade under the head of the rod and tapped the handle of the screwdriver with the hammer, trying not to tap my fingers. In this I was not totally successful, but little by little, I knocked the rod upward, until it fell onto the floor with a clang.

  I uttered a silent cheer and went to work on the lowest hinge. After five minutes of effort, I extracted this rod. Now for the highest hinge. This one was about even with the top of my head. I had to reach up with the pliers and pull this rod up, and I had trouble getting enough leverage. I struggled for a while, unsuccessfully. I needed something to stand on.

  I brought the toolbox over to the door, closed it, and stood on it. This gave me leverage, and it was a more convenient height than the chair I had stood on before. I got a good grip on the rod with the pliers and gave a big yank upward. To my surprise, the rod came completely out of the hinge. My hand hit the ceiling, and I lost my balance as a result of the effort. The toolbox skidded out from under me, and I fell onto the concrete floor. Hard.

  I grunted at the shock of hitting something so unyielding and lay there, stunned. In a few seconds, I began to hurt. Everywhere. I closed my eyes as the pain washed over me, hoping that it was temporary. After a minute, the pain localized in my right hip, which had taken the brunt of the fall. My hands also stung, especially the one that had hit the ceiling. I had slapped the floor with both hands, trying to protect my head, which, thankfully, had been spared. All I needed was another head injury. I got slowly to a sitting position and tried to assess the damage.

  I could move my hands and fingers. No broken bones were present, and I knew the stinging sensation in my hands would subside. I had hurt the back of my right hand, but the injury was more painful than debilitating. My hip still ached, but I got carefully to my feet and discovered that I could walk—with a limp. I felt the area of my hip and suspected that I would get away with just a large bruise. I had been lucky. I needed to be more careful.

  When I could stand the pain, I inspected the door by feel. The rods were gone, and the door should open. However, it hadn’t moved. I had to pull it. But I had nothing on this edge of the door to grip. Hitting the door with the hammer to see if it would bounce open produced no result. It was set firmly in place.

  I returned to the floor under the ventilation shaft where the tools were scattered, looking for a crowbar that I already knew wasn’t there. The hammer had to serve as a crowbar. Back at the door, I tried to force the claws of the hammer between the door and the jamb. There wasn’t room. I tried to dig the claws of the hammer into the door, but the hard wood only threatened to break the hammer.

  I had another thought. The metal hinge pieces on the door stuck out. If I could get a good grip on one… They were too small for my fingers to grasp, so I took the pliers and gripped a piece of the middle hinge. I pulled, and the pliers slipped off the hinge. I felt the hinge and realized that the hinge pieces attached to the doorjamb were stopping me from pulling the door open. There were two such pieces on each of the three hinges.

  I took the hammer and screwdriver. Using the screwdriver as a chisel, I placed the blade against each piece of the hinge that was attached to the jamb and tapped on the screwdriver with the hammer. It was hard to do in the dark, and I cursed when I hit my fingers instead of the screwdriver.

  But this turned out to be a weak point of the door. Repeated tapping bent the hinge pieces until they were out of the way of the door opening. I had to go through the same procedure six times, but eventually nothing remained to hold the door closed.

  I took the pliers again and tried to pull the door open. Again the pliers slipped off the metal hinge piece I was pulling on. I needed to get a tighter grip. Gloves. There had been work gloves in the toolbox. I found them on the floor, pulled them onto my hands, and tried again.

  The first time I pulled with the gloves on, the pliers slipped off the hinge again. My grip was definitely stronger, but my hands still hurt, and my fingers weren’t at full strength. I limped around, flexing my fingers, willing them to get stronger. Time was of the essence. It was morning, and whatever Ed was going to do, he would do today.

  I held the pliers as tightly as I could and tried once more to pull the hinge. I managed to move it a fraction of an inch before I lost the grip. Another rest. Another try. It moved another fraction. It occurred to me that I could stick one of the rods partway back into the holes of the hinge—now that the hinge pieces attached to the jamb were out of the way—and pull on the rod. I inserted a rod halfway into the middle hinge and hooked the claws of the hammer around it.

  I pulled on the hammer. With the leverage this gave me, I slowly pulled the door free of the hinges. The bottom of the door shifted a little and rested on the ground. I kept pulling. Why was it still so hard to move? Then I realized that the outside hasp had to bend in order to move the door, because it was still locked. I saw a crack of light as the outside edge of the door moved past the jamb. So close. I placed the claws of the hammer on the outside surface of the door, and pulled hard.

  The door continued to move, making a rasping noise on the concrete floor. I pulled harder. Gradually I opened a space big enough for me to squeeze through. The second I thought I could make it, I went through the crack, scraping various parts of my body and tearing my jacket in the process. But I was free. I felt as if I had just gotten out of prison.

  CHAPTER 29

  I trotted, limping, up the lawn to the two-lane road, breathing in the cold morning air that smelled fresher than the air in the shelter. The sun was out, and it would warm the earth, but this process would take a while. Judging from the position of the sun, it had been up for some time. I wasn’t wearing my watch, and it was later than I thought.

  This added urgency to my mission, which was to warn everybody to watch out for Ed. I needed a telephone. There was nobody home at Veronica’s house. The nearest neighbor appeared to be about a quarter mile up the road. I started jogging in that direction, still limping.

  A car was coming, headed in the same dire
ction. I debated trying to get a ride toward home. No, my first priority was to spread the alarm, and the house was close at hand. I let the car go by and turned into the driveway. I limped up to the door and rang the doorbell. At least I shouldn’t be waking anybody up.

  The door had a window in it. I could see an older woman approaching, wiping her hands on the apron she was wearing. I tried to look harmless. She opened the door a crack, and I said, “Good morning, ma’am. May I use your telephone to make a collect call? I…I’m kind of lost.”

  She closed the door to slip off a chain and then opened it again. I was thankful because I suddenly realized that I must look like a bum with my torn jacket. I also noticed for the first time that the knuckles of my right hand were bloody. I tried to keep them out of sight.

  The woman pointed to a telephone sitting on a windowsill nearby and said, “Check to see if someone else is using the phone before you dial. We’re on a party line.”

  I knew about party lines. The phone at the farm was on a party line. Our ring was one long. Any other combination of short and long rings was for somebody else. But that didn’t keep people from listening in on the conversations of others.

  I thanked the woman, lifted the receiver, and made sure there was a dial tone. Then I placed my finger on the zero of the rotary dial and spun it. I told the operator who answered that I wished to make a collect call and gave her Aunt Dorothy’s number. The phone rang half a dozen times, and the operator told me what I already knew—there was no answer.

  I asked the operator to try another number collect and gave her my home number. This produced the same result. My family must be at church. Whatever Ed was going to do, he apparently wanted the families together. My folks would be getting to the farm about noon. I didn’t know the Drucquers’ number, and I didn’t want to waste any more time trying to get their number using the inefficient telephone information system for long-distance calls. I didn’t know what I would tell Mr. and Mrs. Drucquer, anyway. “I think your son is a murderer.” How would they react to that?

  I could also call the local police, but then they would have to communicate with the Carter police. I suspected Carter had a minimum staff on duty Sunday mornings, and it might be a long time before they would actually do anything. I wasn’t sure what to tell them, either, that would inspire them to take action.

  I hung up and asked the woman, who had been watching me carefully from the other side of the room, what time it was.

  “Ten minutes past ten,” she said, indicating an ancient clock hanging on the wall that I had failed to see. “Are you all right? Can I get you something to eat?”

  Her mothering instincts had kicked in.

  I said, “Thank-you, but I need to get home.” I started for the door.

  “Where do you live?” she asked.

  “Carter.”

  “That’s…thirty or forty miles from here.”

  “Yes, ma’am. So I’d better get going.”

  “Do you have a car?”

  “No, I’m going to hitchhike.”

  “Good luck. Be careful.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  I was out the door and jogging back to the road. I started walking in the direction of Carter. The first few cars to pass were full of people in their Sunday best. I faced them and stuck out my arm with my thumb up, but they didn’t stop. I continued walking during the gaps in the cars, even though I could never walk all the way. But at least I was doing something.

  It took a while, but finally an old car braked to a stop twenty yards past me. I ran up to it, opened the passenger door, and climbed in. The driver had a lined face and was dressed in farm clothes and a blue cap, with a cigarette between his lips.

  “Where you headed?” he asked, not bothering to take the cigarette out of his mouth.

  “Carter.”

  “Well, I’m only going up the road a piece, but I’ll take you within half a mile of the highway that goes toward Carter. Maybe you can hitch a ride from there.

  “Thanks.”

  He drove for several miles and let me off where he said he was going to. Not seeing any other cars coming, I ran-jogged as fast as I could with my limp, toward the highway. I reached it in a few minutes. Cars were moving faster here and might be harder to stop, but if I got a ride it could take me a good part of the distance I needed to cover.

  There was no point in walking along the highway, and the cars were going by frequently, so I stood in one spot. I tucked in the loose fabric where my jacket had torn, trying not to look down and out. I ran my hands through my hair. Having a short haircut meant that it never looked too bad, for which I was thankful.

  I stuck my thumb out. I was right about it being harder to get a ride here. A number of cars sped by me without slowing down. My ears and hands were cold. The sun wasn’t very effective yet. In between cars, I rubbed my hands together and jumped up and down to keep warm.

  A Chevy station wagon slowed down as it approached and stopped just a few feet beyond me. I ran up to the car.

  A man stuck his head out of the front window on the passenger side and said, “Get in the back.”

  I opened the back door and piled in as the driver, also a man, jammed the stick shift on the steering post into first gear and took off. Judging from their plentiful dark hair and their sideburns, the men weren’t that much older than I was.

  The passenger turned around and smiled at me. I smiled back, thankful for his friendliness. He kept smiling, looking me right in the eye.

  “I’m going to Carter,” I said, feeling exposed by his penetrating gaze.

  “We’re going to Rochester,” the passenger said. “Beautiful Rochester. If you don’t get snowed in.” He laughed.

  I smiled. Rochester was well past Carter. I told him where they could drop me off. It was close to twenty miles away still, but it was something to say. The driver kept his eyes on the road and didn’t look back. He drove at a steady fifty miles per hour. It wouldn’t take long for us to get there at this rate. That was good news.

  “Are you in college?” the passenger asked.

  “High school. I’m a senior at Carter High.”

  He asked me what subjects I was taking, what sports I liked, whether the girls at Carter were good looking. He was full of questions. All the while he kept smiling at me. His smile was making me uncomfortable. I answered his questions with a minimum of information. I didn’t want to tell him my life story. I didn’t tell him about my ordeal of last night. I sensed that it wasn’t a good idea.

  After I answered one of his questions, he said, “You might like Rochester. We’ve got a nice pad there.”

  “You go to the University of Rochester?” I asked.

  “No, we’ve been out of school for ages. But we live near the university. Are you interested in going there?”

  “I’d like to go to the University of Michigan.”

  “Too big. You should go to a smaller school. Come to Rochester with us and look it over. You might like it.”

  “I have to get home,” I said.

  “What’s the hurry? We can drive you home later. If you went to the University of Rochester, you could share our pad with us. A good looking guy like you, you’d fit right in.”

  I didn’t like where this conversation was going. I said, “You can let me off at that next corner.”

  “You said you were going to Carter. We’ve got miles to go yet.”

  The driver didn’t slow down. The passenger turned his head to the front and said something to the driver in a low voice. The driver said a couple of words back, but I couldn’t hear any of it.

  The passenger turned around and beamed his smile at me again. He said, “You may be wondering about us. We met in the army. We shared one of those two-man tents. You develop a lot of closeness when you live together in a tent.” He laughed. “We’ve been together ever since.”

  I needed to get out of here. But at fifty miles per hour I didn’t have too many options. And there weren’t any tr
affic lights along this stretch of highway. I continued to carry on a light conversation with the man, trying to hide my alarm, looking for an opportunity.

  As we finally approached the intersection where I wanted to get out, I said, “There’s my stop. I’m having dinner at my aunt’s house. My whole family’s going to be there. They’ll be mad at me if I don’t show up.”

  The driver slowed down a little and for a few seconds I thought he was going to stop. But he was just checking for cross traffic. He sailed right on through the intersection.

  “Hey,” I said, “That’s my stop. Let me off, please.”

  “Don’t worry,” the smiling passenger said. “You’ll like Rochester.”

  I looked through the front window. Ahead was a traffic light. It was red. Here was my opportunity. I tried not to telegraph what I was thinking. I smiled back vaguely at my tormenter. The driver slowed down, and it looked as if he were going to have to stop. Then the light turned green.

  We had slowed to under ten miles per hour, but the cars ahead of us started to move. I opened the door as the driver downshifted into second gear.

  “What are you doing?” the passenger asked.

  He reached a hand back and tried to grab me. I eluded his grasp and jumped from the car. I hit the ground and rolled in the direction the car was going. I stopped on the shoulder and lay there for a couple of seconds. But I had to move over, because I might be in the path of other cars. I came up to an all-fours position and crawled completely off the road. A Studebaker went by, but its occupants ignored me.

  I felt real pain again, including in my sore hip. I struggled to my feet and uttered a groan. I definitely had scratches on my legs and arms, and my jacket was torn in several more places. I didn’t see any blood on my pants, and this was no time to check and see how bad my injuries were. I could still walk, at least.

  I hobbled back in the direction of the turnoff to Carter. It must be a mile down the road. When it was safe, I crossed the highway. I contemplated sticking out my thumb, but it was too short a distance, and I was leery about accepting another ride on the highway.