The Glass Village (14 page)

The Scott boy flushed scarlet.

“Who has the key to the bin?”

“There's a guard down there,” mumbled the boy.

They went past him down the crumbling stone steps to the church cellar. Johnny blinked after the sunshine. As he accommodated to the gloom he made out rough rafters overhead bearing irregular axmarks. They had been hewn out of whole oak trees; some of the original bark clung, looking petrified. There was a storage bin, an oldfashioned coal furnace, and the coalbin.

The coalbin was large and entirely enclosed. The door was slightly ajar, a lock hanging open from a new-looking hasp. Light came through chinks in the walls.

On a chair facing the bin door, a shotgun across his knees, sat Merton Isbel. The chair was part of an old broken pew, which seemed to Johnny fitting. The craggy features bunched at sight of him.

“Someone in there with him, Mert?” asked the Judge.

“Mr. Sheare.” Isbel's bass voice had an unused sound.

Judge Shinn touched Johnny's arm. “Before we go in,” he said in a low voice.

“Yes?”

“I want you to pretend you're interested in him.”

“In Kowalczyk? But I am.”

“Question him, Johnny.”

Johnny nodded.

The minister's voice answered the Judge's knock, and they entered the bin.

The only coal Johnny saw was a small heap in a corner, apparently the leftovers of the previous winter's supply. But coal dust was everywhere. An attempt had been made—by the Sheares, he felt sure—to sweep it up, but the prisoner's movements had scattered it again; and nothing could be done about the soot on the walls, which looked as if they had been sprayed with lampblack.

The one window high in the rough foundation wall, the chute window, had been newly boarded up. Light came from a 25-watt bulb in a naked ceiling socket protected by a wire cage.

Josef Kowalczyk sat on the edge of a cot drinking hot tea out of a water glass. A folding table was strewn with the remains of a meal. Mr. Sheare was stacking the dishes on a tray when they came in.

“He's had a hearty dinner,” said the minister cheerfully. “Wanted his tea in a glass with lemon and jelly, European style. Judge, don't you think he's lookin' a good deal better?”

“I do, Mr. Sheare.” The Judge glanced at the dishes. “Some of Elizabeth's famous boiled dinner, I see.”

The minister said in a firm voice, “Someone must take care of his bodily needs. I wish we could do somethin' about this coal dust.”

“You've done wonders, Mr. Sheare.”

A white chamberpot stood in one corner.

The minister's troubled smile returned. He picked up the tray and went out. The door remained open.

Merton Isbel sat watching them.

The prisoner set down his empty glass with a start, as if he had just noticed them. He started to rise.

“Sit down, sit down, Kowalczyk,” said the Judge testily.

Kowalczyk sank back, staring at Johnny.

He was wearing his own clothes again; Elizabeth Sheare had evidently tried to clean as well as mend them, with indifferent results. The gray flannel shirt she had washed and ironed. Either his shoes were beyond repair or the village fathers had decreed their confiscation: he wore old carpet slippers, presumably Mr. Sheare's. His colorless hair was combed; aside from a badly swollen lower lip, where he had lost the tooth, his face was unmarked.

The stubble of blondish beard was salted with gray and white now; Johnny suspected that Mr. Sheare had been forbidden to provide a razor. Beneath the stubble and the dark gray skin the face was skeletal, with flaring jaws and high cheekbones, the ears wide and prominent, the forehead low with heavily furred bulges of bone above the eyes. The eyes themselves, still timid, still burning, were deep in his head. His neck was loose and stringy over a large Adam's apple; it looked like the neck of a gobbler. His hands were work hands, joints swollen, nails cracked, fingertips splayed. He kept them clasped between his thighs and his torso bent forward, as if his groin still ached.

He looked sixty-five. It was hard to remember that he was in his early forties.

“This gentleman,” said Judge Shinn to the staring man, “is interested in your story, Kowalczyk. He's had a lot of experience talking to men in trouble. His name is Mr. Shinn.”

“Sheen,” said the prisoner. “Mister Sheen, what they do to me?” He spoke awkwardly, with a thick accent.

Johnny glanced at the Judge. The Judge nodded.

“Kowalczyk,” said Johnny. “Do you know why you are here in this cellar, a prisoner?”

The man raised his thin shoulders, dropped them. It was an Old World gesture, saying: I know, I do not know, what does it matter?

“Tell me everything that happened yesterday,” said Johnny. “But first I wish to know more about you, Kowalczyk, your life, where you came from, where you were going. Will you tell me?”

“Tell Judge before,” said the prisoner. “What they do to me?”

“Tell me,” Johnny smiled.

The prisoner unclasped his hands and rubbed the palms slowly together, addressing the floor of the coalbin. “Me Polish. Had got wife, two child, old mother, old father in Poland. Nazis come, kill them. Me, put labor camp. After war, Communists. No good. Escape, come America, have cousin New York, live by cousin three year. Try get job—”

“Did you have a trade in the old country?”

“Work l'ather.”

“Lather?” said Johnny. “You mean you were a barber?”

“No, no. L'ather, like for shoe.”

“Oh, leather! Leather worker? Tanning, that sort of thing?”

“Yes,” said Josef Kowalczyk with a trace of animation. “Good worker, me. Old father, he learn me trade.” Then the shoulders went up and down again, and the animation died. “In America no can get job l'ather worker. No got union card. I like belong union, but got no money pay dues. Got no ref—no ref—”

“Work references?”

“Yes. So no can work l'ather job. Then cousin die, heart. Go live Polish family Brooklyn, friend my cousin. Work odd job, one day here, two day there. Friend get 'nother baby, no more room Kowalczyk. Say why not go country, Josef, get work farm. I go, I walk country. Get job one farm, two farm, walk more, work again—”

The prisoner stopped, glancing at Judge Shinn helplessly.

“Apparently,” explained the Judge, “he's been an itinerant farm worker for the past several years, wandering all over New England. From what I gather he doesn't like farm work, feels it's beneath him, and has never given up the hope that he'd find a job at his old trade. Where were you coming from, Kowalczyk, when you passed through this village yesterday?”

“Come long. From far. Walk eight-nine day.” Kowalczyk frowned, concentrating; then he slapped his forehead impatiently. “No 'member name place last work. Sleep barn, do chore for eat, walk more. Lose money—”

“Oh, you had some money?” said Johnny.

“Seven dollar. Lose. Fall out hole pocket.” Kowalczyk frowned again. “No like lose money. People say you tramp, I show money. No tramp, see? But people say you tramp, no can show money—lose—so tramp!” Kowalczyk jumped up, his broad jaws rippling. “No like for be call tramp!” he cried.

“Not many of us do,” said Johnny. “Where were you going?”

“Polish farmer Petunxit say can get job Cudbury l'ather factory,” muttered Kowalczyk. “He say no union that factory. So walk quick for to get job …” He sank to the cot again. He lay down and turned his face to the sooty wall.

Johnny glanced at Judge Shinn. The Judge's face was impassive.

“Kowalczyk.” He touched the prisoner's shoulder. “Why did you kill the old lady?”

The man sat up with such violence that Johnny stepped back. “Not kill!” he shouted. “Not kill!” He rolled off the cot and seized Johnny's lapels with both hands. “Not kill!”

Over Kowalczyk's head Johnny saw Merton Isbel beyond the bin door with the shotgun across his knees and his eyes glittering.

“Sit down.” John took the man's bony wrists and gently forced him back on the cot. “Before you go on, I'm going to try to tell you why the people in this village believe you murdered the old lady.”

“Not kill,” whispered the prisoner.

“Listen, Kowalczyk. Try to understand what I say. You were seen going up to the old lady's house twenty minutes or so before she died—”

“Not kill,” repeated Kowalczyk.

“You actually spent some time in the old lady's house. How do I know this? Because the Judge and I met you walking on the road in the rain, no more than a mile and a quarter from the village, at twenty-five minutes to three yesterday afternoon. It certainly didn't take you three-quarters of an hour to walk a trifle over a mile. A man walks about three miles an hour, and we saw with our own eyes how fast you were walking. So you couldn't have been on the road more than twenty or twenty-five minutes when we passed you. That means you left the village at ten or fifteen minutes past two o'clock. But it was no later than ten minutes to two when a woman of the village saw you walk up to the old lady's house. So, we say, between ten minutes to two and about a quarter past two you must have been in the old lady's house. If you were, you were there about the time she was killed, which was two-thirteen. You see?”

The prisoner rocked, his hands clasped tightly again. “Not kill,” he groaned.

“If you were in the house, you had the opportunity to kill her. If you were in the house, you also had the means—the poker from her fireplace. If you were in the house, you also had motive—the hundred and twenty-four dollars hidden in the handkerchief about your waist.

“That's the case against you, Kowalczyk. In fact, we don't have to suppose you were in the house. We know it. The money proves you were there. The stolen money.” Johnny paused, wondering how much of this the man understood. “Do you understand what I am saying?”

“Not kill,” said the prisoner, rocking. “Steal, yes. Kill, not!”

“Oh, you admit stealing the hundred and twenty-four dollars?”

“Never I steal before!” cried Josef Kowalczyk. “But lose seven dollar—I see lots money in jar … Is not good. Is wrong. Is terrible do that. But lose seven dollar … Steal, yes. But not kill, not kill …”

Kowalczyk began to cry. It was dry and soundless, the kind of weeping a man might have learned in the nightmare reaches of the European darkness—a slave laborer's weeping, kept silent because silence was a locked door insuring the dignity of grief.

Johnny turned away. He took out a pack of cigarets and, without quite knowing why, set it down on the folding table with a packet of matches.

“No matches!” The rumble came from Merton Isbel.

Johnny lit a cigaret and placed it between the prisoner's lips. At the contact Kowalczyk recoiled. Then he sucked hungrily on the cigaret, and after a moment he began to talk.

He had reached the old lady's kitchen door a few minutes after being refused by “the other lady.” He had knocked, and the old lady had come to the door. He had asked for something to eat. The old lady had said she did not feed beggars, but that if he was willing to work for his food she would feed him well. He had said yes, he would do anything, he was not a beggar, he would work for his meal, what work did she have for him to do? She had said to him, you will find some logs behind the barn and an ax in the barn. Take the ax and split the logs in quarters for firewood, they are too heavy for an old woman as they are, and they will burn better in quarters. He had gone to the barn, found the ax, walked through the lean-to and around behind the barn, where the logs were lying, and he had set to work splitting them with the ax. He had split many logs in the past three years during his wanderings from farm to farm, and he was expert. It took him only a few minutes—

“How many logs did you split?” interrupted Johnny.

“Six log,” said the prisoner.

“You split each log into four pieces?”

“Four. Yes.”

“And this took you only a few minutes, you say?”

“Go quick when know how.”

“How many minutes, Kowalczyk?”

The prisoner shrugged. He was no man to count the minutes, he said. But very few. He remembered that just as he had finished splitting the last log, the rain began.

“Two o'clock,” murmured Judge Shinn.

He had hurriedly but neatly stacked the firewood in the empty lean-to, replaced the ax in the barn, and run back to the house. The old lady had made him wipe his feet on a mat before he could enter.

He had thought her a very queer old lady. First, she had refused him food unless he worked. Then, the work she had given him to do was to split firewood—in July! Then, when he had split the firewood, she had not only had ready for him on the kitchen table a plate piled high with boiled ham and potato salad and a big piece of berry pie and a pitcher of milk, but while he was eating she had taken down from the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet a jar stuffed with money and she had given him from it a fifty-cent piece. Then she had put the jar back and gone through the swinging door into another room, and he was left alone with the money.

He choked on the food, temptation had been so strong. It was no excuse, he said, but his pockets were empty, and this old woman seemed to have so much. If he was to get a job in the Cudbury leather factory at his old trade, he would need money to make himself look clean and prosperous, to rent decent lodgings as a working man of self-respect should, instead of bedding down on hay in a barn like a beast. It was no excuse, but temptation was too strong. He had bolted down only half the food on the plate, he had not touched the berry pie or the milk. He had got noiselessly out of the chair and tiptoed to her door and swung it open a little. The old lady was standing in the other room, her back to him, painting a picture. He had swung the door shut without sound, reached up to the jar, taken out all the paper money, and run out of the old lady's house. And he had walked very fast up the road leading to Cudbury, clutching the money in his pocket. Only once had he stopped in the rain, to go behind some bushes, wrap the stolen money in his handkerchief, tie it to a length of rope he had in his satchel, and tie the rope around his waist beneath his clothing.