Archie Goes Home

Chapter 18

I had plenty to think about on the drive back to my mother’s house. There was no question that Newman had become psychologically scarred by his war experiences. But did he use that scarring as a figurative crutch to avoid facing an unpleasant reality, one in which he was the shooter of Logan Mulgrew?

He seemed relatively lucid until I started talking about the possibility that Mulgrew might have been killed. Then he became unhinged — or did he? Nero Wolfe has on more than one occasion discussed the ways in which people can use their supposed mental or psychological deficiencies to their benefit by appearing to be more disturbed than they really are. I may have just witnessed such behavior from Lester Newman.

In fact, my boss had been on my mind often since my arrival in Ohio. As I continued to gather information about the deaths of both Logan Mulgrew and his wife, I found myself wondering: What would Nero Wolfe do with this fact or that comment? Over the years, I have tried to train myself to think like him, but it has almost never worked. He was born a genius, and I was born... well, not a genius.

Wolfe may have put it best when I told him once that I had some ideas about a case on which we were working. His response: “Your head full of ideas? Even my death by violence is not too high a price for so rare and happy a phenomenon as that.” I should have been insulted, but I wasn’t. He was right, and I have long since become aware that my role in our operation is not as a thinker but as a man of action.

That being the case, what action should I now take? First, I had one more individual to meet with — Eldon Kiefer. I was thinking about how best to approach him when I realized I had arrived at my mother’s home.

She had seen me coming and held open the front door. “Successful trip?” she asked.

“Mixed. Mr. Newman seems to be a very troubled man.”

“Well, the war did a lot of horrible things to a lot of people. I was proud of the fact that you were in the army but was also glad you were stationed in the States.”

“And ironically, I wished I had seen combat. Anything going on here?”

“Oh yes. Katie, the intrepid reporter, called — twice. She seemed very curious as to where you were.”

“You didn’t tell her?”

“Of course not, Archie. I just said you had gone out and were probably visiting some of your old haunts on your first visit back here in a long time.”

“You are a good liar, Mom.”

“I was not lying, I just wasn’t being specific.”

“Did Katie say why she was looking for me?”

“No, but if I were to make a guess, she was suspicious that you were doing some investigating and leaving her out of it.”

“A good guess. Not to take anything away from Katie, but I tend to operate more efficiently when I work alone. What’s different here is that after I’ve collected whatever information I get, there’s no Nero Wolfe to unload it on. I’ve gotten so used to having him do all the thinking that I may have forgotten how to do it myself.”

“I don’t believe that for a second!” my mother said in an admonishing tone. “I think you are selling yourself short.”

“Maybe, but after talking to all these people — and I still have Kiefer left — I’m no closer to figuring things out than when I started.”

“Don’t you suppose it’s possible that Sylvia Mulgrew died of natural causes and her husband really did shoot himself?”

“Yes, it’s possible, but I don’t believe it, at least in the case of Logan Mulgrew. So far, nothing I’ve learned about the man would indicate he was so heartbroken over his wife’s death that he would kill himself.”

“I wish I could be of some help to you, Archie. Unfortunately, as I’ve told you, I’m not really tuned in to the talk that goes on around town. Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. You are not a gossip, and I happen to like that. It’s very possible that I’ll go back to New York without having accomplished a darn thing here.”

“You’ve already accomplished something just by being here so that we could have some time together, one-on-one.”

“Yeah, that has been nice, no question. But just because we have gotten caught up these last few days is no reason that you shouldn’t come to Manhattan in the fall, just as we had planned. Remember, Lily Rowan likes to have somebody to go shopping with at all those pricey clothing and shoe stores.”

“As I’ve mentioned to you before, she hardly needs an excuse,” my mother said, rolling her eyes.

“Still, I gather it’s more fun to have a partner in crime when shopping,” I replied.

“Leave it to my detective son to equate everything to crime. On that subject, when do you plan to see Mr. Kiefer?”

“Possibly as early as tonight, if he happens to be in town and at his favorite watering hole.”