Death of a Dude

Chapter 7

At a quarter past ten Saturday morning I opened a door on the first floor of the Monroe County courthouse in Timberburg and entered — a door with a glass panel that had painted on it in big bold black gilt-edged letters:

Inside, not even turning my head for a glance at the county employee seated at a table inside the railing, I kept going, on through the gate in the railing, across to a door in the left wall, opened it, and stepped in.

I admit it wouldn’t be correct to say I was in pursuit of a fugitive from justice, but the man I had had in tow had broken loose, and it would have been a pleasure to bulldog him. I had not been cocky. Arriving at the Presto gas station twenty minutes ago, at 9:55, I had pulled over to the edge of the gravel, got out, asked the help politely if Gil was around, and gone where his thumb pointed, on through the bright sun to the shady inside. Gilbert Haight, over to the left, stacking cans of oil on a shelf, twisted his long neck for a look at me, twisted it back to see his hand place a couple of cans nice and even, turned around, and said, “Nice mahrnin’.”

If it had been yesterday instead of today and I had just come from Jessup’s office with the credentials, I would have had a little fun, but now it was just a job. “Better than yesterday,” I said. “That was quite a rain.”

“It sure was.”

“Maybe we could sit somewhere for a little talk?”

He nodded. “I knew you’d be comin’.”

“Naturally. If your father still says you mustn’t talk to me maybe I should see him first. I wouldn’t mind.”

“I bet you wouldn’t. He don’t say that. He says the law’s the law. He knows the law. But this is no place to talk, people comin’ and goin’. I suppose you’ve got some kind of a paper from the county attorney.”

I got an envelope from a pocket, took from it the “To Whom It May Concern,” unfolded it, and handed it to him. He read it twice, taking his time, handed it back, and said, “It looks legal to me. I guess the best place to talk is right there in his office, where it sure will be legal. My sister’s got my car so we’ll go in yours. Miss Rowan’s.”

I could have said something like “Father knows best,” but didn’t bother. He put a few more cans in place, went out and told his colleague he was leaving for a while — his privilege, since his father owned the place — and came and joined me on the front seat of the station wagon. It was only half a mile to the courthouse. As usual on a Saturday morning all the nearby parking spots were occupied, but I turned in, swung around the courthouse to the rear, and on past a sign that said OFFICIAL CARS ONLY. One, I was now official, and two, his name was Haight. The rear door of the courthouse was standing open, and I led the way in and headed down the long hall to the front, where the main stairs were. We passed doors on both sides, but the three on the left were crisscrossed with iron bars because that was the old part of the county jail. Entering the big lobby, I turned right toward the stairs, but halfway there I stopped and wheeled because I no longer had company. He had headed back toward the opening to a side hall and was turning back into it on the trot. I had no desire to stop him but wanted to know, not just guess, so I got to the hall fast, in time to see him open a door and go in — and as I said, the door was shut when I reached it.

The county employee at the table barked something and jumped up as I crossed, quick, to the inner door and on in. I stopped short of the desk and said, “What the hell, as long as it’s legal.”

You haven’t met Sheriff Morley Haight, which is fair enough, because he hadn’t met himself. Lily and I, having had occasion to discuss him, had done so. His basic idea of a Western sheriff was Wyatt Earp, so that was how he dressed, but obviously the modern way to tote a gun was on a belt like a state trooper’s, so he did, though he knew he shouldn’t. An even bigger difficulty was that he was a born loudmouth, a natural roof-raiser, and of course that wouldn’t do at all for a Wyatt Earp. As if that wasn’t enough, he had told various people, two of whom I had met, that when there was a problem to handle he always asked himself what J. Edgar Hoover would do. The product was a personality mess that couldn’t have been made any worse even by a trained psychoanalyst.

Since he had known what I would do as soon as he heard about my credentials from Jessup, and since he had told his son what to do, my marching in was no surprise for him and he didn’t pretend it was. He just squinted at me, his Wyatt Earp squint, and growled, “What kept you?”

His son, Gil, who was standing over by a tier of filing cabinets, had got his long-limbed setup, including his extra inch and a half of neck, straight from Dad, and of course that wasn’t ideal for a sheriff, but he had got elected anyway and that’s the test — lick your handicaps. One of his dodges was keeping his shoulders up and back to make them look broader, and he was doing that now.

There was a plain wood chair at the end of his desk, and I went and took it. “Mr. Wolfe thought there were better things to do yesterday,” I said politely. “This will be the first time I ever questioned a murder suspect with a sheriff listening. Do we want a stenographer?”

“We don’t need one.” He opened a desk drawer, fingered in it, brought papers out, and selected one. “Here’s an extra copy of a signed statement by one of the suspects I questioned.” He held it out and I took it. “I guess you can read?”

I didn’t bother to bat that back. The exhibit was typewritten on a plain 8½-by-11 sheet, single-spaced and wide-margined:

The names were typed below the signatures. Apple-pie order.

Of course he expected me either to tackle Gil on the alibi, trying to find a crack, or to get personal with him about his relations with Alma Greve and his contacts with Philip Brodell, so I had to do something else. There weren’t many alternatives. I folded the document carefully, pocketed it, narrowed my eyes at him, and said the way Wyatt Earp would have said it, “That seems to account for him, subject to a check, but what about you? Where were you from two p.m. to six p.m. on Thursday, July twenty-fifth?”

The reaction was even better than expected. His hand went to his belt and for half a second I thought he was actually going to draw; his eyes bugged; and he roared like a bull at the touch of the branding iron, “You goddam New York punk!” He then jerked his chair back and started up, but I don’t know how fast or far he came because I was walking out and my back was turned. On through the anteroom and down the hall and out to the car.

Having been to 360 Willow Street once before, I didn’t have to get directions. It was a neat little one-story white cottage with a narrow concrete walk leading to the three steps up to a little covered porch. I hadn’t been inside because Miss Boughton had spoken her few words to me through the screen door, but this time she pushed it open and I entered. Obviously she too had been expecting me, though she didn’t say so. All she said, after inviting me in and taking me to a neat little room with two windows, and one wall covered nearly to the ceiling with shelves of books, was that I should have phoned because she often spent weekends at her brother’s ranch. Before she sat on the biggest chair of the three available she had to pick up an embroidery frame with work in progress that was there on the seat. Probably the Thomas Jefferson that decorated the back of my chair had come from that frame.

“I had Gilbert Haight in my political-science class for two years,” she said. “When I started teaching thirty-eight years ago, they called it history.”

I gave her a cordial smile. Evidently we weren’t going to bother about approach, but I asked if she would like to see my credentials from the county attorney.

She shook her head, making glints dart at me as the light from a window bounced from the thick lenses of her goldrimmed cheaters, which were too big for her little round face. “Gilbert saw it,” she said. “He just told me on the phone. Of course it wouldn’t have been proper for me to talk when you were here before, since you were just a stranger I knew nothing about, but now I’ll be glad to. Some people are criticizing Tom Jessup for getting outsiders like Nero Wolfe and you to help, but that’s parochial and narrow-minded. I thoroughly approve. Tom’s a good boy, I had him back in nineteen forty-three, a war year. We are all citizens of this great Republic, and it’s your Constitution just as much as it’s mine. What do you want to know?”

“Just a few little facts,” I said. “Since you teach political science of course you know that when a crime is committed, for instance homicide, anyone with a known motive is asked some questions, and his answers should be checked. Gilbert Haight says he was here with you for part of a certain afternoon a couple of weeks ago. So of course he was. Right?”

“Yes. He came about half past two and left about half past four.”

“What day of the week was it?”

“It was a Thursday. Thursday, July twenty-fifth.”

“How sure are you it was that day?”

Her lips parted to show two even rows of little white teeth. I wouldn’t have called it a grin, but she probably thought it was. “I suppose,” she said, “there is no man or woman anywhere who has answered more questions than I have in the last thirty-eight years. You get so you know exactly what questions to expect, and I decided the best way to answer that one would be to tell you the whole thing. When I heard the next day about that man being shot I said to myself, ‘Now Gilbert won’t have to tar and feather him.’”

“Oh,” I said.

She nodded and I got more glints. “You probably want to know why he was here two whole hours that day. It took that long to persuade him. I won’t say he looks on me as his mother — he was only four years old when his mother died — because I’m not cut out to be a mother, I’m too intellectual, but I’m not bragging when I say that Gilbert isn’t the only boy who has come to me for advice when he had a problem. He had told me all about that problem — that girl he wanted to marry, and that man. When he came here that day he was all worked up because the man had come back and he had decided he had to do something but didn’t know what. The first thing he asked me, he wanted my advice how he could force him to marry her.”

“He must have a shotgun.”

“Of course, every boy has a shotgun, but the trouble was more her than the man. With her it was double trouble. One trouble was Gilbert still wanted to marry her himself, and the other was that she was saying that she hated Philip Brodell and never wanted to see him again. So I told him he didn’t need anybody’s advice on that because he couldn’t take it, no matter what it was. Even if he could somehow force him, there was no possible way he could force her, and on top of that, if he still wanted to marry her himself, where would he be if she had a husband? I told him he wasn’t thinking it through. I always tell my boys and girls the first thing to learn is to think things through. George Washington did and John Adams did and Abraham Lincoln did.”

“And you do.”

“I certainly try to. So then he proposed another idea. Did you know that more than ninety per cent of the duels fought in this country took place west of the Mississippi?”

“If you mean on television, yes.”

“I don’t mean television, I mean history. I have researched it. They didn’t call them duels, but that’s what they were, and they didn’t happen often until our forefathers got west of that river. It’s an important historical fact, and my boys and girls are always interested in it. I don’t think...” She shut her eyes and compressed her lips.

She opened her eyes and went on. “I was trying to remember if Gilbert used that word that day, ‘duel.’ I’m pretty sure he didn’t. He just said he would take two guns, hand guns, and he would give one to Philip Brodell and they would shoot it out, and he wanted my advice on the details, how to arrange it, and where, and how many cartridges in each gun — he said he would need only one — all the details. Of course I had to talk him out of it.”

“Why of course?”

“Well, there were several things wrong with it, but the worst one was that historically — I mean our Western history — each man used his own gun, and probably Brodell didn’t have one, and who was going to check the one Gilbert gave him? There would have to be at least two other men in on the preparations, and who would they be, willing to get involved in violent death like that? Because Gilbert can shoot, and he would have killed him. So I had to talk him out of it, but I had to suggest something else and I did.”

“Let me guess. Tar and feathers.”

“That’s not a guess, I already told you. Tarring and feathering isn’t as Western as the American duel, because it didn’t always move along with the frontier. I’ve never been sure it was a good idea to give it up. If it was done by law, not just by a mob, and if you want a penalty to be effective, especially as a deterrent, tarring and feathering would be better than a fine or a month in jail. Wouldn’t you think twice before you’d risk being tarred and feathered?”

“I think twice before I risk a fine. Tarring and feathering, three times at least.”

She nodded and the glints came. “The way it looked to me, the main point was to get that man away from here, so he would stay away, and if he was tarred and feathered, that should do it. Gilbert tried to argue that it wouldn’t settle anything, but that was just talk, he really liked the idea because the one thing he couldn’t stand was the man coming back. He knew he was back ten minutes after he got off the bus that Monday. Some friend told him. You have friends like that, we all have. We decided he would need eight or ten boys to help him — he said he could get as many as he wanted — and the best time would be Saturday night at Lame Horse because Brodell would almost certainly be there, at Woody’s. I suppose you know about Saturday nights at Woody’s.”

“Yes.”

“We decided all the details — where to get the tar and feathers.”

“Homer Dowd and Jimmy Negron.”

Her chin jerked up and she frowned. “You knew all about it.” From her tone, she would have sent me to the principal’s office if it had been handy.

Not wanting to leave under a cloud, I explained. “No, I only knew where he said he went when he left here — to the Dowd Roofing Company and Negron’s chicken farm, but I didn’t know why.” I rose. “So he was completely sold on tar and feathers?”

“He wasn’t sold. He didn’t have to be. He just realized it was the best solution for his problem. Are you going? I haven’t told you much. All I’ve done, you asked me how sure I was it was that day, and I told you. What else do you want to know?”

“I want to know who shot Philip Brodell.” I sat down. “You said Gilbert — I’ll quote it — you said, ‘He had told me all about that problem, that girl he wanted to marry and that man.’ If you can spare the time I would appreciate it if you’ll tell me everything he told you about Brodell.”

“Well... there was the question of rape. Statutory rape. She was eighteen years old. But Gilbert couldn’t start an action.”

“I know, and Mr. and Mrs. Greve didn’t. But what did he say about Brodell? You may know that I don’t believe Harvey Greve shot him, and I’m trying to think it through. Gilbert might have said something about him that would give me a hint.”

“Not to me. I feel sorry for you, Mr. Goodwin. You have my sympathy. But I can’t help you with your problem.”

“Of course you think Harvey Greve shot him.”

“Did I say I do?”

“No.”

“Then don’t you say it. He’s innocent until a jury of his peers says he’s guilty. That’s one of the glories of our great Republic.”

“It sure is. So are you. Citizens like you.” I stood up. I wasn’t exactly sore at her; it was just that a man doesn’t like having a gate shut in his face any better than a horse does. I said, “I don’t quite see how you fit advising him to commit assault and feathers, which is a felony, into the Constitution of our great Republic, but that’s your problem. Think it through.”

I didn’t thank her for the time. I departed, not on the run, but fast enough to get outside and to the car without hearing any remarks. I pulled the car door shut and looked at both my wrist and the dash clock, a habit. Seventeen minutes past eleven. By the time I got to Main Street, only three short blocks, I had the situation analyzed. For the Dowd Roofing Company, which was a few doors from the library, I should turn right. For the road to Lame Horse I should turn left. I turned left.

I took my time on the curves and bumps and ups-and-downs, and when I reached the end of the blacktop at Vawter’s General Store it was three minutes after noon. Three o’clock Saturday afternoon in New York, and Saul might have found Manhattan so empty for the summer weekend that he had called it a day, so I pulled up in front of the Hall of Culture, went in, and got permission from Woody to use the phone. The arrangement was that Saul was not to call us unless he had something urgent; we were to call him. But all I got on two tries was no answer, so I returned to the car and headed for the cabin. In time for lunch, I thought.

There wasn’t any lunch. There was no one on the terrace, and no one in the big room, or in Lily’s room, or in mine, or in Wolfe’s. But there were noises in the kitchen, and I found Wade there, at the can opener, opening a can of clam chowder. I asked him if it was enough for two, and he said no but there was more in the storeroom. I went and opened the small refrigerator for a survey, and got out a Boone County ham — what there was left of one. As I got a knife from a drawer I asked, “Are they all riding range?”

He was dumping the chowder into a pot. “No, they’re on wheels. A car from the ranch. If I got it straight, you and Wolfe are going across to the ranch this afternoon?”

“That was the idea. Late this afternoon.”

“Well, Mrs. Greve came and said she would like to give Wolfe a real Montana trout deal if she had some trout, and they collected some tackle and grub and took off for the river.”

“Including Mr. Wolfe?”

“No, Lily and Diana and Mimi. And Mrs. Greve. Wolfe, I don’t know. I was in my room, but I heard him in the kitchen and the storeroom around ten o’clock, so wherever he is he’s not starving. Beer or coffee?”

I said neither one, thanks, I’d have milk.

We ate our snacks in the kitchen, and he probably thought my mind was wandering, because it was. It wasn’t likely that Wolfe had hiked the three miles to Farnham’s, to harass DuBois and others, but where was he? Worthy said there had been no phone call that he knew of, but he had been in his room. In addition to the Wolfe problem there was the Worthy problem. I had been floundering around for two full weeks and hadn’t got a smell, and now Gil Haight’s alibi was tight as a drum, and there I was having a bite and chatting with a man who had had both means and opportunity. Instead of a sociable chat, what I wanted to say to him was this:

“Since we’re fellow guests I ought to tell you that at my request a man named Saul Panzer, who is better at almost anything than anyone else I know, is working on you in New York. If you ever had any contact there with Philip Brodell, he’ll get it, so you might as well tell me now. I’m going to phone him between six and seven today and every day.”

I had to use will power to keep from saying it. I wanted and needed some action, and I might get some by saying that to him. Of course if I did and there really was something that Saul could find, something good enough, it was more than possible that Worthy would no longer be around when six o’clock came, but then it would be just a chase, and that would suit me fine. But I used will power and vetoed it. Wolfe was paying me, and I was supposed to act on intelligence guided by experience only when he couldn’t be consulted. So Worthy probably thought my mind was wandering.

After doing the dishes, the few we had used, he went to his room and I went outdoors. The question was how well did I know Nero Wolfe? and in two minutes I had answered it. If he had decided to do something desperate like phoning to Lame Horse or Timberburg for a car, or starting off on foot for Farnham’s, he would have left a note for me and he hadn’t. But he hadn’t known when to expect me back from Timberburg, and he would want to know how I had made out with Gil Haight, so he wouldn’t want me to roam around looking for him. Therefore I knew where he was. I went in and changed my shoes and slacks, left by the creek terrace, and started the climb. For the first few hundred yards I went right along, but when I got near the picnic spot I took it easy — not quiet enough to stalk a deer, but easy. The creek was only some thirty feet away from that rock, and along there it was fairly noisy.

He wasn’t on the rock, but his coat and vest were, and a book, and a knapsack. He wasn’t in sight. I advanced to the edge of the creek bank, which sloped down a little steep ten or twelve rocky feet in August, and there he was, perched on a boulder surrounded by water dancing along, his pants rolled up above his knees, his feet in the water, and the sleeves of his yellow shirt rolled up.

I said, raising my voice above the creek’s noise, “You’ll freeze your toes.”

His head turned. “When did you get back?”

“Half an hour ago. I ate something and came straight here. Where are your cuff links?”

“In my coat pocket.”

I went to the rock, lifted the coat, and found them in the right-hand pocket. Those two Muso emeralds, bigger than robin eggs, had once been in the earrings of a female who had later died and left them to Wolfe in her will. Only a year ago a man had offered him thirty-five grand for them, and I didn’t want that to be added to the cost of his getting me back to New York. I put them in my pocket, and as I put his coat down I noticed that the book was The First Circle, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Not the one about Indians. I went back to the rim of the bank and said, “I met a woman who could tell you all about red men, especially the tribes west of the Mississippi River. Incidentally, she gave Gil Haight’s alibi two good legs and a coat of feathers.”

“Meaning?”

“Forget him.”

He slid his feet around under eight inches of fast water, moved them right and left and out and back, feeling for a good spot, got upright, and faced the bank. Knowing how easy it was to take a tumble walking those loose rocks of all sizes, not only in the fast water where you couldn’t see them but even on the dry bank where you could, I made it five to one that he would go down. But he didn’t. He made it to a big flat slab of granite halfway up the bank, where he had left his shoes and socks, sat, and said, “Report.”

“When you’re up here out of danger.”

“I can’t put my socks on until the sun dries and warms my feet.”

“You should have brought a towel.” I sat, on the lip of the bank. “Verbatim?”

“If you still have the knack.”

I reported. First the brief exchanges with the Haights, including Gil’s signed statement, which I read, and then Bessie Boughton. I was a little rusty on word-for-word recall, having had no practice since June, and it was a pleasure to get back into the swing of it. By the time I got to the tar and feathers it was coming as smooth as a tape recorder, though the conditions were unprecedented. I had never before reported with him sitting on a slab of granite barefooted, wiggling his toes.

“So,” I said, “if we get a replacement for Harvey it won’t be Gilbert Haight. She has covered him good to half past four. It’s possible, better than possible, that she tells it like it was — I beg your pardon, as it was — but even if she’s a damn liar she’s a good one, and any jury would take it hook, line, and feathers. But that’s not the point because no jury will ever hear it. The point is Jessup. You said he’s an ass, but is he a double-breasted ass?”

“No.”

“Then we forget Gil.”

“Confound it, yes.”

He reached for his socks and shoes, put them on, kept a hand on the granite slab while he got erect with a solid footing, and came on up. I didn’t offer a hand because he wouldn’t have taken it, and anyway the more exercise he got the better. As he rolled his pants and sleeves down I got the cuff links from my pocket, and of course I had to put them in; he couldn’t very well show at the cabin with his cuffs flapping. Not him. Then he went to the rock and got his vest and put it on, and his coat, sat, and said, “What is a real Montana trout deal?”

“That’s a good question,” I said, “and I’m sorry you asked it.” I went and sat on the other rock. “It depends on who’s cooking it, and when and where. The first real Montana trout deal — that is, the first one cooked by a paleface — was probably at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, fried on a campfire in a rusty pan in buffalo grease, with salt if they had any left. Since then there have been hundreds of versions, depending on what was handy. There’s an old-timer in a hardware store in Timberburg who says that for the real thing you rub bacon grease on a piece of brown wrapping paper, wrap it around the trout, with the head and tail on and plenty of salt and pepper, and put it in the oven of a camp stove as hot as you can get it. The time depends on the size of the trout. Mrs. Greve got her version from an uncle of hers who was probably inspired by what he had left at the tail end of a packing-in trip. She has changed two details: she uses aluminum foil instead of wrapping paper, and the oven of her electric range instead of a camp stove. It’s very simple. Put a thin slice of ham about three inches wide on a piece of foil, sprinkle some brown sugar on it and a few little scraps of onion, and a few drops of Worcestershire sauce. Lay the trout on it, scraped and gutted but with the head and tail on, and salt it. Repeat the brown sugar and onion and Worcestershire, wrap the foil around it close, and put it in a hot oven. If some of the trout are eight or nine inches and others are fourteen or so, the timing is a problem. Serve them in the foil.”

He did not scowl or growl but merely said, “It could be edible.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I have noticed. You haven’t said a single thing, even to me, about the feed, even the griddle cakes from a mass-produced mix or the stuff from the freezer. Obviously you gave yourself your word of honor, probably on your way to the airport, that you would take the insults to your palate without a murmur. I can hear you telling Fritz about it when we get back, assuming we do. I hope they get plenty of trout. What is your honest opinion of the canned consommé?”

I thought it would do him good to get it off his chest, but evidently he didn’t. He said, “You can’t go to St. Louis. You’re needed here.”

“Sure. To crack alibis.”

“Pfui. Have you any comments about last evening?”

“None to add to the one I made on the way back, and the one you made. I still like both of them. I like the way Farnham told you about the mortgage. It could have a bearing. Then the way Sam Peacock tried to slide past that morning when Brodell went for a look at Berry Creek. You had to interrupt him twice, and when you asked if Brodell had mentioned meeting anyone he tugged at his neck rag and said you asked a lot of questions. If Brodell was alive I’d like to ask him about that Thursday morning.”

“Yes. Would Mr. Peacock be available if we went there now?”

“Saturday afternoon, I doubt it.”

“Will he be at that gathering at Mr. Stepanian’s place this evening?”

“He always is.”

“Then we’ll see him there.”

“We? You’re going?”

“Yes.”

My brows didn’t go up; I was too impressed. I just stared.

“I’m thirsty,” Wolfe said. “There are two cans of beer in the creek.”

I rose and went to get them.