Judas Cat (16 page)

“That’s right,” Mr. Whiting said. “I’d forgotten that. She was put out the way I set it up. She never has forgiven me. I sided with Mike. I thought he was getting a raw deal.”

“What did you put in, Dad?”

“I don’t remember exactly. I was smart-alecky about it. I remember feeling mighty cheap reading it over a few years later. I slanted it to read that a man could do good things in spite of his background.”

“I remember it now,” Waterman said. “You weren’t re-elected to the council for a while.”

Mr. Whiting pushed his chair away from the table. “I’ve been on and off the council so many times, you’d think it depended on the weather cock. And do you know what, Fred?” He leaned forward and drummed on the table with his finger as he spoke. “I’ve never been elected because I was for something. It’s when I’m against something I get the votes.”

“I see what you mean,” the chief said.

“About Mike,” Alex said persistently. “Was he older or younger than Mabel?”

“Older,” Waterman said. “I’d say quite a bit older. Ten years maybe.”

“Mom, how old did you figure Mabel to be?”

She thought for a moment. “I’d say seventy-five, at least.”

“That would make Mike eighty-five if he were alive. Darn near a contemporary of Andy Mattson. Was he ever back in Hillside?”

His father shook his head.

“I don’t remember it if he was,” Waterman said. “And I don’t remember when he died. It must have been before the Barnards came out here. He left her that property.”

“There were two children?”

“A boy and a girl,” Waterman said. “The boy was a lot older. I don’t recollect ever having seen him. He was away in school most of the time.”

“I saw him once or twice,” Mrs. Whiting said. “He was a stringy, solemn looking youngster.”

“And Norah?”

“A frightened, unhappy child. I remember saying once she was like a frightened doe. Her mother went away to visit the boy once in a while, and Mabel’d bring the girl to church with her.”

“Whatever Mabel did to her, she’s never forgotten it,” Waterman said. “I wonder if Andy could have met Turnsby in the Spanish War. It could be he met him there. Something sure decided him on Hillside. It wasn’t the company.”

Alex fingered the old-fashioned cozy his mother still used for the tea pot, a doll with voluminous, quilted skirts. Its face was highly painted. “Dad, when we were talking last night, you mentioned Mike’s wife. Said she had the reputation of being a flapper. Was she that much younger than him?”

“No. And I always thought she was a mighty attractive woman—well-spoken. She just seemed a little different.”

“That was Mabel’s doing,” Mrs. Whiting said. “I always liked Anne Turnsby myself. She was a good, kind woman. Just liked nice things.”

Alex looked at her. “What did you say her name was?”

“Anne.”

A
FTER SUPPER WATERMAN RETURNED
to the station. Alex went to his room and stretched out on the bed for a few moments. They knew now that Mabel Turnsby was not telling the whole truth. A coincidence in the name of Anne was too much. That brought the Barnards in again, and in a different light. She was reluctant to discuss her Turnsby heritage. Alex wondered if she would not be even more reluctant to discuss her mother. There was always the possibility that she had no idea of her connection with Mattson. But Mabel knew it, or if she had not known it before, she must have done some quick deducting when he had asked her about Anne. He tried to remember if it was from that moment that her attitude toward him had changed. No. The mention of the name had affected her, but she had not really changed until he returned suddenly from Andy’s house. Alex got to his feet. It was a sultry night without even a bit of wind. Throughout the day his mind had strayed now and then from what he was doing to thoughts of Joan Elliot. He went to the extension phone in the hall and called her. His mother and father were on the porch when he went downstairs. “I’m going to pick up Joan and maybe go to a show,” he said. “My mind’s like a Mixmaster.”

“Oh, Alex,” Mrs. Whiting said, “Geraldine Simmons called this afternoon.”

“Oh Lord. I asked her to go to the dance with me tomorrow night. Tomorrow’s Friday, isn’t it?”

“All day,” his father said.

“Maybe she can’t go,” Mrs. Whiting said, somewhat cheerfully.

Alex lifted one eyebrow and looked at her. It suddenly occurred to him that his mother and father were very fond of Joan. On the whole, his mother did not approve his selection of girls, although she said very little about it. But when he was going out a little too often with someone she particularly disapproved of, she would be fussy, a bit irritable. “All right,” he’d say, “what’s wrong with So-and-So?” “She’s an inferior sort of person,” was the only answer he ever got. There was no getting away from it: where he was concerned, his mother was a snob. But she was snobbish about character and mind. Joan probably had less money and came from a larger family than anyone in Hillside. Her father was a carpenter. Two of her brothers had started a cabinet-making shop since they came home from service. Alex wondered, as he often did, if he were not too close to his parents, spoiled, with too many of his decisions made for him. The rebellion boiled up in him once in a while. But the truth of the matter was, he had nothing at home to rebel against. His father stood for everything he thought worthy of standing for. He had never been ashamed of him, even for a moment, and there were darned few kids reached his age without having felt that way sometime.

“I guess I better call Jerry,” he said. When he returned, he stopped at his mother’s chair. “She can’t go,” he said.

“Oh? Why?”

“She can’t go with me, that is. She’s got a cousin visiting from Jackson, a male cousin.”

“Isn’t that nice,” Mrs. Whiting said, sticking a darning heel in a sock.

“Wouldn’t you think she’d fix him up with a date? I must be slipping,” Alex said.

“Simmons,” Mr. Whiting said. “That’s Gerald Simmons’ daughter, isn’t it? Or is it Phil’s? I always get their kids mixed up.”

“Gerald,” Alex said. “She’s named after him.”

“He’s the town treasurer. I don’t think you’re slipping, son. You haven’t been around all day. Things are pretty tense.”

“They’ll be more tense tomorrow, when the
Sentinel
comes out with nothing except the coroner’s report. Altman’ll be like a mad toad.”

“I’ve thought about that, Alex. I’ve got a lot of confidence in you, in the way your mind works. You don’t make quick judgments like I do, but we generally come out the same door. But I’ll tell you the truth, son, you may not want him that mad. He’s got a lot of power, and he’s got a town council he darned near hand-picked. You may not want things popping all around you. That makes for confusion. And there’s nothing a criminal likes better than that.”

“A criminal,” Mrs. Whiting repeated. “That’s a horrible word.”

By an all too obvious association Alex remembered something. “Mom, Miss Turnsby asked me to remind you of the luncheon tomorrow.”

“I’ve been reminded a dozen times. I’d rather do a week’s wash than go. I don’t like cards, and in this weather … I don’t know what they’re thinking of.”

“Mabel said there’d be bunco,” Alex said, grinning.

Joan’s father and two brothers were pitching horseshoes at the side of the house when he drove up. The lawn had just been mowed, and the grass was piled up to dry out for burning. They kept the place well, he thought. He got out of the car and went over to them.

“Hi, Whitie.”

“Good evening, Mr. Elliot. Bill, Tony.”

Mr. Elliot came a few steps to meet him. “It was too crowded for us up at the fire station tonight,” he said. “They won’t do much pitching. Talk, talk, talk.”

“About Mattson’s death?” Alex said.

“About that. About the old lady next door to him. About that veterinary. Everybody’s dirty wash is hanging on the line, Alex.”

There was the clang of iron on iron, as Bill ringed the stake. “Beat that one, Pop. Hi, Alex. Joan ought to be ready. We did the dishes.”

Joan was the only girl at home now, Alex remembered. One of her sisters was studying nursing at the hospital in Jackson, and another was going to summer school at State. Their mother had died several years ago.

“Hello, stranger,” Joan said, coming down the steps.

“I do feel as though I’d been away,” Alex said. “It seems weeks since I was in the office.”

They walked to the car. “I thought we might go to a movie or something,” he said. “Any suggestions?”

“I don’t want to stay out too late tonight.”

“Let’s take a drive in the country anyway.” They took Highway 64 out of town toward Masontown. There was no escaping thoughts of Andy Mattson. They passed the barbecue stand, the cemetery on Cobbler’s Hill where he was to be buried in the morning. To the south, across the slope was the toy factory, the smoke rising from an engine on the train switch there. The smoke hung in the air like sky-writing. At Three Corners they passed Barnard’s. A car was in the driveway.

“You can’t get away from it, can you, Alex?”

“It’s not easy,” he said. “Want to talk about it?”

Joan nodded. He brought her up to date on what had happened during the day.

“Now you have two possible motives,” she said. “Alex, I can’t help thinking you’ve got to get at the bottom of the relationship between him and Addison.”

“But how? George Addison doesn’t know anything about it. At least he says he doesn’t.”

“I was thinking about it today. I remember seeing an annual report of Addison Industries and it seems to me they had a list of pensioners.”

“They put out house publications,” Alex said. “There’s always something about old timers in them. You think if we could find one or two of them they might remember Addison in his early days, and Mattson if he was connected with him?”

“Yes.”

“You might really have something there, Joan.”

“I’d like that as my project,” she said. “Things are pretty slow on Fridays. Maude might let me off for it.”

“We’ll get Dad to tell her if we have to. Look, honey.” He pointed down the road. “Just what the doctor ordered.”

In the scattered lights of Masontown ahead of them was a revolving circle of whiteness. “A carnival,” Joan said.

A lot of people had come over from Hillside. They saw Gilbert at the shooting gallery. “I’ll lay you a buck I can beat you in two rounds, Alex,” he said.

“I’d lay you a buck you could beat me in one round.”

“Weren’t you in the army?”

“The only thing they let me shoot was potatoes into a bucket.”

At the next concession people were throwing baseballs at a target, a plate-sized gong which sounded with a bull’s-eye and simultaneously released a Negro boy from a perch into a tub of water. The girls watching shrieked every time he went down. “Some fun,” Alex said.

“Hello, Whitie.” It was Al Tompson. They met every once in a while on inter-town ball games. “Give us another quarter’s worth of balls here. I’ll set you up a round, Whitie. A quarter bet on the side.”

Alex shook his head. “No thanks, Al.”

“Or what’s a heaven for?” Joan said as they moved on.

“Huh?”

“‘That a man’s aim should exceed his goal … or what’s a heaven for?’” she repeated. “Far fetched. But it made sense when I thought of it.”

“It still makes sense,” he said. “Milk bottles. Now that’s my speed. Want to try it?”

“Okay.”

Alex whizzed three fast balls, one of which skimmed the top bottle off the pyramid. Joan loped three slow ones over, and managed to knock all the bottles down but only one of them off the stand. “With your aim and my speed we might get some place,” he said. “If you’re going to take anything home from here tonight, we’re going to have to buy it. You know that, don’t you?”

“I’ve begun to suspect it,” she said. “Alex, there’s Doctor Jacobs.”

“Oh-oh. At the race-horse wheel. Watch. There’s a poker face, if you ever saw one.” He lit a cigarette, and they stood a moment or two watching the doctor. They felt the brush of people by them, and the dust rose from the pounding feet of youngsters loose from their families and with extra allowances. Joan remembered how, as a child, she used to scuffle her feet through the dust looking for change. Once she had found fifty cents, and she had never gotten over it. … The clicking of the wheels of chance, the “pops” from the target booths, thin waltzes from the merry-go-round, squeals from the house of terror, pink snow on a stick, hot dogs, bottle caps, the smell of hamburgers, sweat, dust, cigar smoke; giggles, hawking. A crescendo of laughter rose over the other noises.

“Mrs. Baldwin’s here,” Joan said.

“Yep. Think what it would be like to live in the same house with that. Let’s go over and needle Doc for a while.”

“… Win, place or show. Three chances on every number … Play as much as you like. Up to five dollars. Down to a nickel. Keep the pennies for the newspapers.

Alex got a dollar’s worth of dimes and split them with Joan. “Get on Whirlaway, honey. You can’t lose.”

Jacobs grunted, but he did not look up. Whirlaway came in on the turn of the wheel, paying six to one. “Well I’ll be damned,” the doctor said, watching only the attendant’s hand as he counted out six dimes.

“Place your bets, going, going. Keep your hands off after the wheel starts …”

“Do it again, honey,” Alex said. “Put a couple on. It’s going to repeat. I got a feeling …”

Joan left five dimes on Whirlaway, and the wheel turned. “Number-r-r …” Whirlaway climbed up inch by inch, the odds changing with each click. “Number seven. A repeater. Fifteen to one on the nose, four to one to show, and even place money.”

“On the nose,” Alex said.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Jacobs said again.

“Good evening, Doctor,” Alex said.

The doctor looked up at him sharply. “Hah, young Whiting,” he said.

“You ought to get a younger horse,” Alex said, looking up to identify number five on the wheel. “Man o’ War. He’s dead on his feet.”

“When I was in medical school I won twenty dollars on him. I lived on it for two weeks.”

“This is no place to get sentimental, Doc. Come on. Joan’ll buy us a couple of beers.”