“It’s that old gray house on the Lewiston Road,” the older one of the brothers was saying. “Used to be the Sojda place, next to Toals’.”
“On the hill,” the other one said.
“That’s it. With the big gray barn and the stonewall fence.”
“I know the place.”
“Arson, they think.” The older one shook his head. He was small and lean and sharp-nosed, foreign-looking; a little like a Spaniard, or like an old-time alchemist wasted away to pure alum and sharp bits of bone. He was the brains of the nursery business. The other one was short and soft, with a purplish cast to his face and hands. Looked like he belonged in a feedstore, sitting, in the middle of winter, by the stove. There was no sign of the third son. The two older boys’ wives were with them, but neither of them spoke. People said the two wives had terrible fights, at home. In public, they were like stones.
“Been a lot of arson lately,” the younger one said. “Naturally, the cops never catch the ones that did it.”
The older one shook his head crossly. “Beats all,” he said. “Cops wouldn’t catch ’em if they came in and locked themselves up.”
Clumly shrank away. The floral smell which he always thought pleasant at funerals now seemed cloying. It thickened the air and made it hard for him to breathe. He fumbled for a cigar, then remembered he mustn’t smoke here. When he glanced up, the younger Hubbard’s wife was staring straight at him. He nodded and threw a confused, ghastly smile which he vaguely intended as consolation for the bereaved. He meant to leave and took one step, but the younger Hubbard saw him and said, “Chief Clumly,” and stretched out his hand. Clumly turned, caught at the hand and shook it. “So sorry,” Clumly said. “Fine man, your father.”
“A blessing,” the boy said. It struck Clumly that the young man’s eyes were red-rimmed. He was disconcerted.
“Blessing, yes,” he said. “Poor devil.”
The older brother reached over sadly—as if irritably, as well—and shook Clumly’s hand. “So glad you could get away,” he said.
The smell of the flowers was overwhelming, and the softness of the carpet made Clumly feel unsteady. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Your father was—”
Both sons nodded. Their wives stood with their arms stiffly at their sides, watching.
“Hear about the fire last night?” the older one said. “The old Sojda place. Arson, according to the State Police. Right to the foundation, they say.” His eyes narrowed. “I guess you people been having your hands full too.”
It seemed to Clumly an accusation, and he said, “Short-handed, that’s the trouble.” He winced as if he’d bit into a lemon.
“I can believe it,” Hubbard said sympathetically, but still he was watching Clumly narrowly, as if with disgust. “I understand you finally caught one of those housebreakers. That true?”
“Well, not a housebreaker exactly.” Clumly looked down, evading the chilly eyes. “Thief, yes. One of the pros. If we can prove it.” Instantly he wished he could pull his last words back.
“You can’t prove it, you think?”
Clumly shrugged. “They tie your hands,” he said feebly. “You get what you can on the man and you take it into court—” He concentrated. Someone was whispering behind him. He mopped his brow and pushed the handkerchief back in his pocket. “We’re going through a period of transition,” he said very seriously, as if addressing a visitor at the jail, or making one of those service club speeches Mayor Mullen kept getting him into. “Twenty years ago everything was different. Times are changing. Everybody moving around these days, that’s part of it. Too many strange faces. It used to be when a crime was committed in a town like Batavia … person-to-person operation in the old days. It takes a lot more policemen now, a lot of high-price machinery, a lab no town like this can afford, and even then a lot of times you can’t nail ’em. Old-fashioned rules for admitting evidence. And then the politicians get into it, with their talk about the Productive Time Factor and Public Relations, not to mention the relatives they want to give jobs … and yet all the citizens, the newspapers expect …”
Hubbard patted his shoulder. “Well, we know we’re in good hands with you, Chief. Excuse me.” He turned to say hello to the man behind him. The other brother had vanished. Clumly backed away. Albert Hubbard’s widow was standing alone by the casket, and Clumly went to her cautiously. As he touched her elbow he realized he’d forgotten her name.
“I was sorry to hear,” Clumly said. “He looks very natural.” He considered. “I guess we all go sometime,” he said.
The veiled face turned toward him. He couldn’t see her features behind the black netting, couldn’t know for sure that it was Mrs. Hubbard and not some dangerous stranger. He felt like a man being spied on through a mirror.
“The flowers are beautiful,” he said. “He looks very natural.”
After a long time the old woman said, “Yes.” He felt violent relief. The organ music started, and Clumly looked down at the corpse. The mouth was sealed forever with mortician’s paint.
“He’ll be missed,” Chief Clumly said. He began to weep, and Mrs. Hubbard took his hand.
It wasn’t until after the prayer at the cemetery that he saw Ben Hodge again. He and Vanessa were standing by the fieldstone gateposts, listening from there. The gravel cemetery drive would have been hard going for Vanessa, with those bad knees. When Clumly went up to them, Hodge said, “You still got my boys down there?”
“Slater boys? The Indians? They’re there all right. We been expecting you to come down and post bail for ’em.”
“Not me. I’ve done all I can for those boys. You can ship ’em away to Elmira, it’s the only course left.” He smiled unhappily.
“Blooey!” Vanessa said. “We quit.”
“Listen here,” Hodge said. He tapped Clumly’s chest gently, as if absent-mindedly, the way his father the Congressman used to tap a neighbor’s chest when he wanted his vote. “Those boys have had homes. Good homes. I don’t mean just ours, which may or may not be what you’d call good. They got forty dollars a month spending money when they were at our place, and for dang little work, too. And the place they were before, over there in Byron, that woman had the patience of a saint. You wonder what gets into them.”
“You heard what the younger one said to the social worker,” Vanessa said. “She asked him what he wanted to be and he said—he’s honest, you’ll have to say that!—he said, ‘I just want to hang around.’” Vanessa laughed, mp, mp! slapping Ben Hodge’s shoulder. She was old, but when she laughed she was pretty for a moment. Bill Churchill was passing them, leaving the cemetery, and when he nodded hello she drew him into the group and told him the same story she’d just told Clumly, in the same words, and laughed, and slapped Hodge’s shoulder.
“Honest!” Hodge said, “why you know what that little monkey did? The County got him a room at the Y, right after he’d decided he was fed up with us, and they gave him fifty dollars for it. For some reason they can’t pay the rent direct—I don’t know what the technicality is. Anyway, he spent twenty-five dollars on clothes and lost the rest of it shooting craps, and you know what that boy did? He went back to the County and told them exactly what had happened and asked for more.”
They all laughed except Bill Churchill, who was outraged. “Welfare!” he said. “It’s sucking the blood out of this country! How many people are there, I wonder, that all they want is just to ‘hang around’? They can do it, too. That’s what burns me. ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme!’” He was still jabbing at Hodge’s chest. Hodge reached out with his own, gentler tap, like a man absent-mindedly keeping time to music on Bill Churchill’s tie. “It’s a complicated thing, though, isn’t it.”
“Faw!” Churchill said.
Vanessa said, “What bothers me is the fact that those boys will buy a new shirt every day, but they’ll never shell out for socks and underwear.” She turned to Clumly and smiled. “They’ll buy shocks—blooey!—” She batted away the mistake with
both hands. “They’ll buy shirts, but do you think they’ll buy socks?”
Clumly shook his head.
“No!” she said, pleased with him for being alert. “Shocks,” she said. “That’s a good one.” She laughed. “Hmpf.”
Clumly laughed too and Hodge smiled sociably. Churchill excused himself and hurried down the road toward where his car was parked. Clumly and the Hodges watched people leave, most of them people Fred Clumly had never seen before, relatives from far-off places, perhaps, or friends of the family who’d moved away from Batavia years ago. The sight of so many strangers was for Clumly faintly distressing. “Times change,” he said aloud, accidentally.
“Well, yes and no,” Hodge said.
The Hodges started down the driveway, and Clumly went along beside them, mopping his forehead and the back of his neck. “You heard about our bearded fellow?” he said. “The one we’ve got locked up for defacing public property.”
Hodge looked puzzled, then lighted up. “The one that wrote love on the Thruway? He’s still in jail?”
“Yessir,” Clumly said. “Order of the court. He’ll be transferred over to the Veterans’ Hospital as soon as it’s convenient, for a mental check-up, you know. Meanwhile, he’s with us.” He glanced over his shoulder and leaned toward Hodge. “Between you and me, it’s understood that we’ll question him a little, from time to time, see if we can’t find out what he’s really up to.”
“Ah,” Hodge said.
It sounded noncommittal, merely polite, weighted with some reservation, and again Clumly felt on the spot. “Oh, I know, it looks like just another prank to a complete outsider. But there may be one or two aspects of this case you’re not aware of.” He gave Hodge a meaningful look.
“Hmm,” Hodge said. They’d come to the Hodge truck, an old hay-green Chevy pick-up, and Hodge went around to Vanessa’s side to help boost her in. Clumly followed.
“Oops!” Vanessa said. But Hodge caught her and lifted again, and after a moment she was sitting at ease, fanning herself and panting, saying “Hoo!” Even with the windows open (the key was in the ignition, too, he noticed) it would be hot as an oven in the cab of that track. When Vanessa’s door was shut, Hodge turned, found Clumly at his back, and shook his hand. “Keep up the good work,” Hodge said. “Give ’em heck.”
“I’ll do that,” Clumly said. He followed Hodge around to his side. Hodge shook hands with him again, then opened his door and climbed in. “Hot,” he said, closing the door.
Clumly nodded. “Listen.” He put his hands on the window-frame. Hodge waited with his fingers on the ignition key, his teeth resting on his drawn-in lower lip, and Clumly tipped his head and squinted at him. “What do you think made him burn all the papers in his billfold?”
“Him?”
“The bearded one.”
Hodge gazed through the windshield and thought about it—not as seriously, Clumly saw, as he’d have had to do if he were wearing Clumly’s shoes. Vanessa sat looking at them wearily, like an old woman waiting for a bus.
“What’s your theory?” Hodge said.
“Well, I don’t think he’s crazy, if that’s what you mean,” Clumly said.
Hodge switched on the ignition and started the truck. “Well, I guess time will tell,” he said.
“Here,” Clumly said. “Look. Look at this.” He searched through his pockets and found among his various notes to himself the folded yellow paper and shook it under Hodge’s face. Hodge studied him, frowning, then took the paper, held it away a little, and looked at it. Clumly got up on the narrow strip of running board and poked in his head and looked too.
“That’s what we got when we examined him,” Clumly said. “Not just me. Miller was there too. Those are the answers he gave us. You can’t tell me he’s insane. Too pat. Look.” Clumly leaned closer to the paper and read aloud, pointing with his finger.
MILLER: What’s your name?
PRISONER: Puddin Tane.
MILLER: Look, don’t be smart. It makes us irritable, and when your supper comes, no Jell-O.
CLUMLY: Do you know your social security number?
PRISONER: Pick-up-sticks shut-the-door gone-to-heaven …
MILLER: Come on, Chief, nobody knows their social security number.
CLUMLY: You think not? My number’s 287–40–0839.
MILLER: Mister, you’ve committed a serious crime. You aware of that?
CLUMLY: What have you to say for yourself?
PRISONER: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
MILLER: Mine too. Praise. Now tell us who you are and where you live, and maybe I’ll take it back about the Jell-O.
PRISONER: I’ve told you. I’m Captain Marvel.
MILLER: Right. But we got a lot of them. What are you for short?
PRISONER: I’m called the Sunlight Man.
MILLER: Good. Now we’re getting places. You spread sunlight in the world, that it?
PRISONER: No.
MILLER: Are you self-employed?
PRISONER: Definitely not.
CLUMLY: Miller, this is stupid.
PRISONER: You ask the wrong questions.
MILLER: Get him out of here.
Hodge was smiling, but thoughtfully.
Clumly said, “What do you think?”
“Is this a joke?” Hodge asked. He gave the paper back.
“A joke?” Clumly exclaimed. “You can call it a joke, if you think it’s funny. I don’t, myself. I’ve seen wiseguys before—but this one, he can’t be broken. He’s an educated man, you can see. Could be he’s a college professor.” He got down off the running board. Hodge was still watching him, and Vanessa had her fingertips over her mouth, the other hand over her heart. Clumly said, “You can make them talk sense, most of them. We have our ways. But with him, nothing.”
“Miller doesn’t seem worried,” Hodge said.
Chief Clumly dismissed it with a wave. “Miller can make mistakes too.” It sounded pointlessly bitter, and he regretted saying it.
“If you want my advice, Chief,” Hodge began. Clumly waited, absurdly eager to hear what Ben Hodge would advise. But Hodge thought better of whatever it was he had intended to say. Or perhaps his mind wandered.
“I think he comes from California,” Clumly said.
Hodge mused on this, too. “I have a boy in California,” he said. “Adopted son.” Finally he nodded, noncommittal as ever, and shifted into low. “Wal, getting towards choretime,” he said. “Take care of yourself, Chief.” He spoke too kindly. It sounded faintly ominous to Clumly.
“Same to you,” he said. He stood back, resting his hands on his hips, and watched the truck pull out onto the highway and draw away. Then, his leather shoes slipping a little on the hillside along the road, he hurried back to his car. Late, he thought. Towards choretime, in fact. His chest filled with panic. He’d wasted almost another whole day. The pile of papers on his desk was as high as ever, unless Miller had done some of the work, as he did now and then. There was a letter from the Jaycees, he remembered suddenly, that had come to him May 16th—three months ago. Something about the parking situation, wanted statistics from him, or some fool thing. He ought to have slapped them down right off:
17 May 1966
Gentlemen:
It has come to my attention that
Too late. Couldn’t do that now. Short-handed, that’s the thing. And the men available mostly new, no dedication, no sense of the dangers or difficulties. He suddenly remembered he’d agreed to speak to the Dairyman’s League. When was it? Had he missed it? He bent over the car door, unlocking it, thinking again of the bearded man from California. Was he making a mountain of a molehill? He started violently. There was a dry cowplop on the seat. Kids. Jokers. But how had they gotten it there? He’d locked the door. He got out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead, trying to think. His head ached from the muggy August heat, and his shortsleeved shirt was pasted to his skin with sweat. Open window, he thought, sick at heart. Locked the door but le
ft the window open. Must be losing my marbles.
He stood very still, looking over his shoulder toward the cemetery. He was frightened for an instant. What would they be saying about him at City Hall? Would they have heard about his crazy mistake this morning with Kozlowski?
But the cemetery stood serene in the shadow of its hemlock trees, the tombstone markers solemn and patient and indifferent to the bug-filled heat, the field flowers encroaching on the graveyard grass, indifferent to what City Hall would think, neither troubled nor amused by the joke that had been played on the Batavia Chief of Police. To the left of the cemetery, beyond the iron fence, cows and calves lay chewing in the calm, dry grass, facing toward Nelson St. John’s big red barns, dreaming vaguely of grain and water. Chief Clumly screwed up his face, calmer now, and picked up the dry cowplop with two fingers and threw it in the weeds. He dusted the seat.
“Think you’re smart, don’t you,” he said. He slid in behind the wheel and sighed. Quarter-to-four. If he hurried he could get in his talk with the Woodworth sisters. He sighed again, more deeply, sucking to get more than mere heat inside his lungs. “A funny business,” he said. Poor Hubbard. An image of the casket returned to his mind, the white flowers on the lid already wilting in the cemetery’s heat. There had been someone whispering behind Clumly while the minister prayed. It ruined it. What was the matter with people? Clumly gritted his teeth.
4
On the eleventh of July, 1966, Miss Editha Woodworth, who was said to be aged one hundred and eight and who lived with her younger sister Octave, aged ninety-seven, the only surviving descendants of the Reverend Burgess Woodworth, original pastor of the First Baptist Church of Batavia, New York, had been burgled in broad daylight, when both ladies were at home (they were always at home) by “a wild-looking man,” as they told the police, who had gained access by knocking out a pane of the back-porch door with a hammer and reaching to the latch. The back porch of the Woodworth home, like all the back porches on Ross Street, was glassed in, and had been for fifty years. It was used, or had been long ago, as a potting shed. It was now a clutter of old crates and boxes, broom handles, porcelain, ancient calendars, books—Four Feathers; In the Name of a Lady—so rotten from dampness that they crumbled in your fingers like cake. The porch looked out on what had once been a garden.