Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 23, No. 12, December 1978

Jigsaw Puzzle by Stephen Wasylyk

Why was Toper wandering around at 3 A.M.?...

Toper Kelly died on the main street of Fox River at three o’clock on a chilly October morning, his life finished by a hit-and-run driver.

Swashbuckling with Errol Flynn across the Spanish Main via early-morning television in his apartment above his souvenir shop, Merv Groves was brought back to reality by the sickening thud and the tinkling of broken glass. He rushed to the window too late to do much except call the Sheriff’s Office.

If Groves hadn’t heard the impact, the time of the accident might never have been established. On an October morning in Fox River, very few people were stirring. Most of the bars closed early. The summer visitors were long gone, the snow that would bring the skiers to the resorts was still far over the horizon, and hunting season was weeks away, so the only people in Fox River were the locals, whose activities at that hour, whatever they might be, were confined within four walls.

At seven I sat at my desk in the Sheriff’s Office and listened to Julio explain that all he could do was send Toper’s body to the hospital for examination by Dr. Blenheim and pick up the broken glass from the shattered headlight, which was the only physical evidence to be found. He stood at the window, his hands in his uniform pockets. He was wide-shouldered and black-haired, with a fierce black moustache and soft voice, and it didn’t take a sensitive man to realize Toper Kelly’s death affected him deeply.

Several years before, Toper Kelly had stepped off a Greyhound bus for a rest stop. Something about Fox River must have pleased him or he was tired of traveling, because he let the bus leave without him. He was a short thin man with a full beard, a great capacity for liquor, and a penchant for sleeping it off in the back seat of the nearest available car, thereby frightening many a resident or summer visitor who opened his car door in the morning to find a bearded gnome curled up inside.

As long as the temperatures were bearable, he earned a few dollars doing odd jobs, but once the really cold weather and snow came, his income touched zero long before the thermometer, a problem he solved by blatantly walking out of the supermarket with his pockets full of canned dog food, receiving as a result a ninety-day sentence for shoplifting. The judge and I had reached an understanding that he would never serve his time in county prison. He occupied an unlocked cell in the sheriff’s building and for three months was almost an ex officio member of my staff, answering the phone and the radio if we were all out and playing devastating chess with Julio while pointing out the deficiencies of my deputy’s strategy in fluid Spanish.

Julio turned from the window. “The bum should have stopped. All right, anyone can have an accident and Toper probably stepped in front of him, but he should have stopped.”

“I can’t argue with that,” I said. “We’ll just have to find him and ask why he didn’t. You have the pieces from the smashed headlight. Blenheim will tell us if the clothes show any paint scrapings. The car will have to be repaired somewhere. There are only a half-dozen body shops near here where that could be done.” I glanced at my watch. “Get on the phone and alert them all. I’ll see if Blenheim has found anything that will help.”

Julio’s voice was careful. “I’d like to handle this one myself.”

The grey light of dawn coming through the window modeled his face into harsh planes and I realized Julio hadn’t smiled yet that morning. “I think not,” I said gently. “You weren’t the only one who liked Toper.”

While the operator paged Blenheim, I waited in his office, looking at the framed certificate on the wall whose Latin proclaimed him to be a graduate of one of the finer schools of medicine. Blenheim was no older than I was, but his dark hair already showed grey and I sometimes had the feeling that because of our jobs we were the two oldest men in Fox River.

He spread his thin hands when he entered. “What can I say, Gates? I’m sure you don’t want a list of the multiple injuries caused by the impact of an automobile on the human body. I don’t know how much longer Toper could have continued anyway. He was determined to drink himself into his grave.”

“Did you find anything I can use?” I asked.

He shook his head. “The impact wasn’t that great. Toper wasn’t young or in the best of condition. The car probably sustained little damage.”

“Did Toper carry anything that would tell us where he came from and if he had any relatives?”

“Not even a wallet with a picture. The only thing in his pockets was a hundred dollars. Where would Toper get that kind of money at this time of the year?”

“He could have done some work for someone. When he was sober, no one was handier.”

“Not only handy, but educated. He spoke at least three languages.” Blenheim sat at his desk and toyed with a pencil. “Toper wasn’t your average alcoholic. I always had the feeling he could walk away from the bottle whenever he chose.”

“You’re right,” I said. “He hated his annual ninety-day sentence, but even though he had every opportunity to walk out and into the nearest bar, he never stepped outside. He lived by his own rules.”

“I hate to see a man like that end in a paupers grave.”

“So do I,” I said. “That’s why I’d like you to tell Kirk Milford to give him a decent funeral and a regular burial plot, and send me the bill.”

“Half the bill to you,” said Blenheim. “The other half to me.” He smiled. “Of course, there is always the possibility Milford may not send a bill at all. He’s been in shock since his wife left him last week.”

“So I heard.” I zipped up my jacket. “You were the family doctor. Does your code of ethics preclude your telling me why she left?”

He shrugged. “Middle-age syndrome. She wanted to end the marriage and get out of Fox River.”

“Do me a favor,” I said. “You’re a medical expert and not a forensic specialist, but check out Toper’s clothing again before I send it to the State Police lab. Those people take their time and I’d like to settle this quickly.”

He nodded and I left.

On the radio, Julio told me the State Police wanted to see me about ten miles out of town on Highway 13. I pulled up behind the police cruiser parked on a curve about fifteen minutes later. Beyond the cruiser on the opposite shoulder of the road was a big station wagon, its right front caved in from flattening the row of guard posts like dominoes. Hennessey, one of the troopers recently transferred in from further south, came over as I stepped out.

“I found it at dawn,” he said. “There was no one in it, no one around. I ran a make on it. It belongs to Kirk Milford of Fox River. Do you know him?”

I thought of my conversation with Blenheim. “He’s one of the local funeral directors. He’s a little upset at the moment because his wife left him.”

“If he’d been going a little faster, he might have been one of his own customers.” He pointed. “It looks like he came down the hill and didn’t quite make it all the way around.”

“Some of the locals call this Four-Beer Curve,” I said. “Anything more than that under your belt and you end up in the field. I suppose that was Milford’s trouble. Take a good look at the roadbed. It’s the only curve in the county where the road slants away from the center rather than toward it.”

His hands on his hips, Hennessey sighted back along the curve. “I see what you mean. It ought to be fixed before someone gets killed.”

“We’ve tried. If we wanted a few million Federal dollars to build a divided high-speed highway through the center of town, we’d have no problem, but the state doesn’t have a few thousand to spend repaving this.”

He grinned. “That figures. Do you want to take care of it from here in? Since he’s not around, I guess he promoted himself a ride into town, unless he’s sleeping it off in the underbrush somewhere.”

“I’ll see if I can find him and get a tow truck out here if he hasn’t arranged for one.”

“Tell them to expect a bill for the guard rail,” Hennessey said. “Drowning your sorrows can be expensive.”

Milford’s Funeral Home was on the edge of town about six miles down the road, a long, low, red-brick building with a center entrance — four chapels in one wing and the mortuary and office in the other. A driveway led around to the rear where there was a spacious parking lot. In one corner of the lot was another red-brick building that Milford used to garage his hearse and the one limousine he kept on hand.

I went through the back door down a carpeted hallway, past a green-painted metal door labeled no admittance, poked my head into the open door of a walnut-paneled office, saw no one, and continued around to the front of the building. Milford was standing in the entrance lobby, his hands raised against the door frame, staring out into the street — a tired, dejected figure of a man. He was heavy set, middle-aged, of average height, with greying hair and a large nose that supported a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. His face was colorless except for the blue shadows beneath his eyes.

“Milford,” I said.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Hello, Gates.” He lowered his hands reluctantly and turned to me slowly. “Doctor Blenheim called about Toper Kelly. I’m really sorry to hear it. If you want him to have a proper funeral. I’ll be glad to cooperate. I knew him too. I gave him the job of keeping the hearse and limousine washed and polished last summer, but of course he was undependable. I had to let him go.”

“You among many others,” I said. “Toper never let a steady job interfere with his drinking. We found your station wagon out on Highway 13. How did it get there?”

“I’m sure you’ve already guessed. I had too much to drink at a bar down the road and lost control on the curve. I started walking. I walked the whole way. It sobered me up.”

“You walked six miles?”

He smiled. “I can jog five.”

“No one offered you a lift?”

“At four in the morning?”

“The State Police want the car out of there and they’re sending a bill for repairing the guard rail.”

He shrugged. “I intended to call Harry Orbis to tow the car in.”

“I’ll handle it if you like, but I really stopped to tell you that if you insist on drinking, stay home. All you ran into this time was a guard rail. Next time it could be a Toper Kelly.”

“Do you think I don’t know?” He lifted a hand and dropped it. “No need to worry. It was something I had to get out of my system. Running off the road last night was enough to bring me to my senses. You can’t appreciate how much of a shock it is, Gates, to have your wife of fifteen years have you called to the phone from a Chamber of Commerce meeting so she can tell you she’s leaving and won’t be back. I thought it was some sort of a joke, but when I got home she was gone, along with her clothes and her car.”

“Was the car registered in her name?”

“No, in mine. Why?”

“Then she can’t sell it. How much money did she have when she left?”

He straightened his glasses as if to see me more clearly, his eyes wide behind the lenses. “I have no idea. She had her own checking account and credit cards.”

“What can she do to earn a living?”

“She shouldn’t have any trouble getting a job. She practically ran the business here. She had a nice way with people, and she took care of the books, which left me free to take care of the undertaking part. All I needed was Sims, the handyman.” His voice became curious. “Why are you asking me these questions?”

“If you’d like to find her it shouldn’t be too difficult,” I said. “I’d be happy to help. Perhaps if you talked to her...”

He clasped his hands behind his back and took a few steps. “I’ve given that a lot of thought.” His shoulders squared. “I’m a proud man, Gates. I refuse to chase her or beg her to come home no matter how much I need her. I’m not at fault in this. She left of her own accord. Let her come back the same way. I’ll manage.”

“That’s your decision,” I said. I headed for the door. “I’ll tell Harry Orbis to bring your car in.”

“I’d appreciate that,” he said.

I drove a few blocks to Harry Orbis’ big service station, found him inside the office, and asked him to tow Milford’s station wagon to the local body shop.

“For a good customer like Milford, I’ll do it right now,” he said. “He’s given me all his business for years, and never questioned a bill. He’s a real nice guy.”

“Did you service his wife’s car?” I asked.

“I sure did. She was a fine lady. I’m sorry she’s gone.”

“She didn’t happen to stop by the evening she left, did she?”

“Not to my knowledge. Why?”

“I’m just asking. I thought she might have filled the tank and mentioned where she was headed. Milford has his back up and says he doesn’t want to know where she is, but I think if I located her he might be interested enough to show up with a dozen roses or something.”

He grinned. “I didn’t know you were a marriage counselor.”

“When you’re sheriff of this county, you’re a little bit of everything. Get the car before the State Police impound it.”

I drove back to the office. Julio was pacing back and forth, his hat on and his jacket zipped closed. “I was just about to start yelling for you over the radio. I got a call from Pat’s Body Shop up in Morgan. A young guy brought in a smashed headlight and a damaged grille. I told Pat to stall until one of us got there.”

“And you want it to be you.” I pointed to the door. “Go.”

After he had gone, I took the envelope that held the broken glass he had picked up at the scene and slid the pieces out onto my desk. Using the eraser at the end of a pencil, I began pushing them around, more or less fitting them together as if working a jigsaw puzzle. There were pieces missing that had been carried down the roadway or imbedded in Toper’s clothing, but it really didn’t matter. It was obvious the glass came from a rectangular headlight on one of the later-model cars.

I glanced at my watch. Julio was taking longer than he should for the run up to Morgan and back. I thought of Milford and his wife, wondering just exactly what he would do if I walked up and handed him her present address. Husbands and wives had a way of saying one thing and doing something entirely different, which was why I generally liked to skate around the edges of a marital quarrel, but Milford was a nice guy — well liked and respected — and his wife was a fine woman. Getting them back together was worth a try.

I flipped open my telephone-number index, found the one I wanted, and dialed. When the operator answered, I said, “Mr. Zeller’s office.”

The secretary sounded nice enough to invite to lunch sight unseen, and if I knew Zeller that was no gamble at all. When she asked my name I said, “Tell Mr. Zeller the big bass he’s been after for two years with all of that expensive gear was caught by a kid with a fishing pole and a can of worms.”

She laughed. The phone clicked and Zeller’s deep voice came on. “I hope you’re lying, Gates, because if you’re not I’m selling that cabin of mine.”

“If I were, you’d never know. I’d import a couple of big ones just to keep you happy. You still have a few weeks before everything freezes over. Are you going to try?”

“I can’t get away. I intend to make it for a little skiing later — but you didn’t call to check on my vacation plans. What can I do for you?”

“Do you have access to the billing records of gasoline credit-card purchases for your oil company?”

“With a phone call. Why?”

“I’d like to do a man a favor. His wife left Fox River last week. I figure she has to be using one of your credit cards for gasoline. The charge slips will show the location of the stations.”

“That may be too recent for the records to have been processed but I’ll try. Give me the name and account number.”

“I don’t have the number. The name is Zoe Milford. The card is probably made out to Kirk Milford.”

“I have a meeting in fifteen minutes but my secretary will see what she can do and call you.”

“Fine,” I said. “I wouldn’t want you to feel hurt, but I’d prefer talking to her anyway. She has a beautiful voice.”

“My wife keeps reminding me of that,” he said drily.

A gleaming red fastback rumbled past the window, followed by Julio’s four-wheel drive, and in a few minutes a young man with long blond hair came into the office with Julio close behind.

“This is Hugo Waller,” said Julio. “His car is outside. It has one broken headlight, a dented grille, and what looks to me like blood-stains on the lip of the fender.”

Waller folded his arms, his face impassive.

“I suppose he has an explanation for the broken headlight?” I asked.

“He claims someone backed into him in the parking lot of one of the roadhouses last night. I took him to several of them. Unfortunately, none seemed to be the right place.”

I looked at Waller. “Any witnesses?”

“No,” he said.

“Did you report it to your insurance company?”

“So they can raise my premium?”

“Why waste any more time?” asked Julio. “The State Police can analyze the blood.”

My eyes found Waller’s. “Remarkable what they can do,” I told him.

“Since we’re going to find out anyway, you might as well tell us what you hit. I’m sure it wasn’t Toper Kelly.”

Julio stared at me.

Waller sighed. “I never could figure out why I’ve always been so unlucky. We’re overhauling the ski lift up at the lodge for the winter. I was working up at the top and at the end of the day, I started down the road. You know that road?”

“I know the road,” I said.

“There are places where you can’t see what’s around the curve ahead,” said Waller. “It was almost dark and I was pushing it a little. I came around a curve and there was a young doe right in front of me. She froze. I tried to miss her but just caught her with the right side of my car. I broke her neck. I stood there wondering what to do. I know you’re supposed to report it to the District Game Protector, but I decided to keep the doe. She was small, so I put her in the trunk, figuring I’d get some venison out of it at least. I dressed her out when I got home and hung her up. She’s still there. You can go look. That’s all there was to it.”

“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” demanded Julio.

“I already told you it would cost me a hundred and a half for the car. Now I’m on the hook for another two hundred for not reporting it and the doe will be confiscated!”

“You’re getting off easy,” I said. “Get that deer and take it to the game protector. We’ll call and tell him you’re coming. If you don’t show, you’ll find out what trouble really is.”

The moment the door closed behind Waller, Julio asked, “How did you know it wasn’t him?”

I pointed at the broken lens. “Waller is driving a car that has round headlights. This one is from a car with rectangular headlights. The glass couldn’t have come from his car.”

Julio spread his hands. “What now?”

“We keep looking. Run out to the hospital and see if Blenheim has come up with anything and collect Toper’s clothes so we can send them to the State Police lab.”

I leaned back and clasped my hands behind my neck, thinking of Toper Kelly and wondering what he was doing out at three in the morning. In all the years I’d known him, that wasn’t his style. He’d take on his quota early, crawl into a car somewhere, and pass out. And then there was the money in his pocket. A hundred dollars was probably more than he ever had since he hit Fox River.

I couldn’t see Toper wandering around on a chilly October morning when he had the money to buy a bottle and hole up somewhere in comfort.

I sat and waited while the sun rose higher and the day turned balmy. If I had the manpower, I could send someone out to track down Toper’s movements for the past few days, which wouldn’t be difficult. He had a way of floating in and out of view like a disembodied spirit, haunting the town and its environs. Almost everyone knew him and accepted him as part of the local scene.

The phone rang and the voice of Zeller s secretary was more interesting than it had been previously.

“I’ve gone as far as I can, Sheriff,” she said. “From what they tell me, no one named Zoe Milford has used our credit card in more than a week. The last record we have for her is about ten days ago for only five gallons. The only other charge slips we can track down have been signed by a Kirk Milford and all are from an Orbis service station right in your town. Of course, if the purchase was within the past two or three days it may not have come through yet. I asked our people to let me know if any did.”

“The next time I come to town you are entitled to one dinner complete with flowers, candlelight, and wine,” I said.

She laughed. “I’ll look forward to it.”

After I hung up, I tilted my chair back, folded my arms, and thought. I reached for the phone and dialed again. It took three calls before I found the bank where Milford kept his accounts and only a few minutes to determine Zoe Milford hadn’t closed her account, nor had any checks against it been processed in the past week. When I hung up the thought was fixed in my mind that a person cannot exist in today’s society without spending money, and unless Zoe Milford had enough with her to last until she had an income of her own there would be no reason why she hadn’t used her oil-company credit card or cashed at least one check.

Julio came in, Toper Kelly’s clothing in a plastic bag.

“Julio,” I said, “I suppose you realize we’re both stupid.”

He grinned. “I never had any doubt about myself, but I thought you were smart enough for both of us. What’s wrong?”

“There were two cars smashed last night. We’ve eliminated only one.”

His eyes widened briefly. “Milford? I thought there was no question about his accident.”

“Milford’s station wagon has rectangular headlights. So did the car that hit Toper Kelly. What do you think the odds are that three cars smashed headlights in one night in Fox River?”

“You think that Milford hit Toper, realized he had to account for that broken headlight, ran out to the curve, and wiped out the front of the car on the guard posts to conceal the damage?”

“It’s worth checking. Go over to the body shop. You know what to look for. If you find nothing, then the odds are wrong and we look for a third car.”

The radio crackled twenty minutes later. “It will take the State Police lab to confirm it,” said Julio, “but if there isn’t blood on that smashed fender along with white paint from the guard posts I’ll turn in my badge.”

“You wanted to handle it,” I said quietly. “Go get Milford.”

Milford sat alongside my desk, his face white, his tongue wetting his lips occasionally, and I sat and watched him and said nothing.

He spread his hands and said, “It was an accident, Gates, and I panicked. I was thinking of telling you about it when you came in this morning but I lost my nerve. I’m sorry.”

I just sat and looked at him.

His voice rose. “I told you it was an accident. You want to crucify me for accidentally killing a drunk who stumbled in front of my car?”

Julio’s chair creaked as he shifted. The sun had wanned the office and was gleaming on the polished tile floor. A fly, who should have been long dead, buzzed and bumped against one of the window panes.

Milford rose to his feet abruptly. “Look, Gates...”

“Sit down,” I said softly. I pushed my phone toward him. “You’d better call your attorney.”

He reached for the receiver. “I’ll do that. I’ll be out of here in an hour.”

“I think not,” I said. “Tell him the charge is murder.”

He froze, his eyes fixed on me. “You’ve lost your mind.”

“Have you ever put together a jigsaw puzzle, Milford? You start with a couple of pieces you’re sure of and you fit them together, like the broken glass and the blood on your car that say you killed Toper. But you don’t have a complete picture yet, so you begin trying other pieces, and after a time the picture starts to take shape because there’s only one way it can go together.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I told you I ran the man down. That’s all there is to it.”

“I think not,” I said again. “Toper was killed at three in the morning when he had a hundred dollars in his pocket. That wasn’t like Toper. He didn’t wander around when he drank so that people could stare at him. He had a sense of dignity that prevented that. He would get his bottle, hide away somewhere, finish it off, and fall asleep. I think he went out to get that money and was sober when he died. Blenheim can easily confirm that with a blood test.

“The point is that Toper was doing something he wouldn’t ordinarily do and that piece didn’t fit. Then it developed that you ran him down, which could happen to anybody, but you didn’t stop and report it, and that piece didn’t fit either. You tried to conceal it. Why? You had little to worry about. You’re a respected member of the community and Toper was the town drunk. All you had to face was the loss of your driver’s license and an involuntary manslaughter sentence that probably would have been suspended.”

“I told you I panicked.”

“Panic is running away. Panic is not risking injury by smashing a guard rail deliberately.”

“That still isn’t murder.”

“Not yet. We’re still going through the pieces. Toper liked to crawl into cars to sleep it off. He would have loved that limousine of yours. He had worked for you and he knew where it was parked every night.”

“Are you implying I killed him for sleeping in my limousine?”

“Just another piece,” I said. “Now try this one. Suppose Toper was sleeping in that limousine that night your wife disappeared. He heard something, got up to investigate, and saw you carry your wife’s body into the funeral home. She was up when you arrived home, you had an argument, and you killed her. After placing her body in the mortuary, you went back, put her clothes in her car, and drove it away to make it appear as though she had left town.

“Because he was a little fuzzy, it probably took Toper a few days to put it all together and, if it hadn’t been October, he might have come to me and told me about it. But winter was coming and he hated the restriction of that ninety days in jail, so he went to you and told you he would keep quiet if you gave him enough to see him through until spring.

“But you couldn’t afford to have him around. You met him, gave him a hundred dollars, then ran him down. That was enough. If you were seen, you would claim it was just an accident, but you didn’t want to report it unless you had to because you wanted no connection with Toper at all, which was a mistake. We probably would have taken your word about what happened just as we took it about your wife’s leaving because your character and the facts as we knew them justified believing you.”

His voice was careful. “You still have no reason not to believe me.”

“A couple of phone calls give me a good reason,” I said. “I need only two more pieces to complete the picture and they won’t be hard to find because I know what I’m looking for. For instance, there aren’t too many places you could have disposed of the car. The river is one. It’s too cold now to be used very much and it will start to freeze over sometime in December, so there will be no swimming or diving until summer. I’m sure I can find the car, Milford. And then there’s your wife’s body. All I need for that is a court order.”

He raised his face toward the ceiling and covered it with his hands, the cords in his neck taut, and I thought he would scream, but then I realized he was crying.

“Read him his rights as you’re walking him to a cell, Julio,” I said.

When Julio came back, he stood silently for a moment and then said, “You think his wife’s body is still in the funeral home?”

When I spoke, I spoke carefully because until I had seen the expression on Milford’s face I had been doing exactly what I told him I was doing — testing pieces of a puzzle to see if they fit. “That would take a search warrant. I said court order, which is what is required to open a grave and disinter a body.”

Julio’s eyes widened and he said, “He buried her with someone else.” He turned away and took a few steps before turning to face me again. “It would work. Zoe Milford couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds. The pall bearers wouldn’t hardly notice the added weight. But which one? If he doesn’t tell us, we’ll have to open the graves of everyone he buried during the week until we find her. The man must have been insane.”

“More so than you think, Julio,” I said. “You didn’t see the look in his eyes. I have the feeling she isn’t in just one.”

Julio was lean and tough, but he stared at me for a moment, then moved to the window to stand in the warmth of the bright October sun — and, almost imperceptibly, he shivered.