Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

Stephen Wasylyk The Krowten Corners Crime Wave

When Denny Klinger, the cashier, reported for work that morning, he noticed that the stack of cartons in the storeroom at the rear of the small supermarket had collapsed. He immediately set to work to right them before Mr. Whiffle arrived.

If Denny had known Mr. Whiffle’s dead body was under the tumbled boxes, he probably wouldn’t have bothered. He had never liked Mr. Whiffle.

Hugh Tint, the tall thin sheriff, blinked behind his heavy spectacles. “First fatal accident in Krowten Corners that I can remember. This is a very average town with very average people who do very average work with no risk involved.”

His deputy, young Latham Raster, left his kneeling position at the side of the body and dusted his pudgy hands. “I don’t like to say this, Sheriff, but this is no fatal accident. Someone strangled Mr. Whiffle.”

“Impossible,” said Tint impatiently. “No one ever gets strangled in Krowten Corners. There are no criminal types here. Wake George up and tell him to stop clowning around.”

“He’s really dead,” said Raster. “I guess someone tried to make it look like an accident by toppling these large cartons of toilet tissue down on the body, but the marks on his throat are very clear.”

“Now why would someone strangle poor George Whiffle?” asked Tint.

“Perhaps they found his neck squeezably soft,” said Raster. “What shall we do with the body?”

“Send it to kindly old Dr. Wilby. He’ll take care of it. You and I will start an investigation.”

By the end of the day they determined that practically no one in town had liked Mr. Whiffle and quite a few people couldn’t stand him because he had been an obnoxious, pompous little man who ran around the supermarket all day demanding that customers stop handling the merchandise. The only reason people shopped in the supermarket at all was because it was the only place in town where they could buy groceries, aside from Cara’s General Store, where the selection was severely limited and the prices prohibitive.

One conclusion the two men did reach was that almost anyone could have done it, since it was common knowledge that Mr. Whiffle arrived at the store early every morning to count the cartons of toilet tissue he had on hand, and always entered through the rear door from the parking lot which at that hour of the morning was usually deserted.

“We have reached an impasse,” announced Sheriff Tint. “Let’s sign off for the day and resume our investigation tomorrow.”

Tomorrow brought with it an excited young woman named Convergence O’Toole, who burst into Sheriff Tint’s office with the news that Cara, the woman who owned the general store, was dead.

Tint and Raster found the body of the small old woman sprawled behind the wooden counter. Littering the floor were hundreds of cans of coffee.

“Good heaven,” said Tint. “This is the work of a madman!”

“You can bet your Smith and Wesson on that,” said Convergence indignantly. “He has mixed the perc grind cans with the drip grind. It will take me hours to straighten them out.”

Raster examined the body. “Just like Mr. Whiffle,” he said. “She’s been strangled. Why should someone strangle poor old Cara?”

“I don’t know,” said Tint. “Send the body to kindly old Dr. Wilby. We will investigate.”

Their investigation showed that while Cara had not been as universally disliked as Mr. Whiffle, she had made absolutely the worst coffee in town and was constantly insisting that people who came into her store not only taste it but buy a can whether they wanted one or not.

“It could have been done by a tea drinker,” said Raster.

“That is possible,” said Tint. “Whatever happened to that big fellow who was around town for a time suggesting that everyone drink tea? He didn’t look much like a tea drinker to me. Looked like he’d prefer something much stronger.” Mimicking a man tossing off a quick one, he winked. “Know what I mean?”

“Haven’t seen him in a long time,” said Raster. “I don’t think very many people paid any attention to him, so he left.”

“Well,” said Tint, “I guess we can forget him. But I have the feeling that the same person who strangled Mr. Whiffle also killed Cara.”

“We’re looking for a common denominator?”

“Since I am the sheriff, I am looking for a common denominator. Since you are the deputy, you are looking for fingerprints. Get the super-lightweight but sturdy portable kit and go over the store inch by inch. I’m going home.”

That evening Tint had settled in his easy chair, ready for the latest episode of Upstairs, Downstairs, when his phone rang. Annoyed, he picked up the receiver.

“I have good news,” announced Raster. “I have found an important clue.”

“I can’t talk now,” said Tint. “The King is coming to dinner and Mrs. Bridges is preparing a marvelous feast. You should see it. Those gluttons won’t be able to eat again for a week.”

“Upstairs, Downstairs is more important than my clue?”

“Of course,” said Tint. “After all, the King doesn’t come to dinner every night, and your clue will still be there in the morning. Good night.”

When Tint entered the office after having breakfasted at the diner, he found Raster waiting for him.

Raster pointed to the sheriff’s shirtfront.

“What happened to you?”

Tint frowned. “Rosie, the waitress at the diner, wanted to demonstrate how thirstily absorbent her paper towels are so she slopped some coffee from my cup onto the counter. Unfortunately, a good deal of it landed on my shirt.”

“She has a habit of doing that,” said Raster. “It can become very irritating at times. However, Hester Gillicuddy claims she has a powerful new foaming-action detergent that leaves clothes whiter-than-white. I’m sure she’ll be happy to wash your shirt for you.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Tint. “I’ll let Mordecai Wallbanger wash it in that new top loader he’s promoting at the appliance store, the one that starts out with Brahms’s Lullaby played by musical jets of water as it is filling and ends with Arthur Fiedler conducting the Boston Pops playing The Stars and Stripes Forever during the spin-rinse cycle. Now let me see this clue of yours.”

Raster proudly held up a pair of fingerprints he had lifted from a heavy coffee mug he had found in the corner of Cara’s store behind some rusty garden spades.

“They are a little unusual,” he said. “Obviously they represent a thumb and forefinger but the impressions show a ridge on each that simply has to be a callus. Now what sort of occupation could a man have that develops calluses on his thumb and forefinger?”

“I don’t know,” said Tint, “but I’m sure we’ll find out eventually. If we are persistently dogged...” He frowned. “Or is it doggedly persistent? No matter. We must somehow bring this culprit to justice. We cannot tolerate violence in a typical American town like Krowten Corners.”

Wilmot Krump, the mayor, pushed open the door of the sheriff’s office, his bulk quivering with indignation.

“See here, Tint,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on in this town but you must put a stop to it. I have already lost two people who always contributed generously to my campaigns, and now, when I stopped in at Godwin’s Variety Store, what do you think I found?”

“I couldn’t guess,” said Tint. “Old Smiley is a card.”

“Well, somebody dealt him out,” said Krump. “He’s on the floor, strangled, as dead as yesterday’s voter indignation, and I tell you, Tint, it’s a real horror in there. The murderer took every tube of toothpaste in the place and mashed it flat. It looks as though Godwin is floating on a sea of fluoride.”

“Old Godwin would have liked that,” said Tint. “He was a little flaked on the subject of cavities and checkups. Almost beat up the Billings kid last summer because he had a molar pulled.” He sighed and motioned to Raster. “I suppose we might as well go over there.”

In the variety store the situation was much as Mayor Krump had described it. Mr. Godwin indeed appeared to be floating on the coating of toothpaste that covered the floor.

“I don’t understand why the murderer not only kills these people but insists on making a mess,” said Tint.

“Perhaps he’s angry at more than the people,” said Raster.

Tint frowned at him. “That may well be a very penetrating observation. On the other hand, it may be a very stupid remark.” He pointed. “What is that?”

Raster gingerly stepped through the coating of toothpaste and leaned over. “It’s a footprint.”

“Good,” said Tint. “It is the best clue we have discovered so far. We must preserve it.”

“How?” asked Raster. “The police manual doesn’t cover making a cast of a footprint in toothpaste.”

Tint scratched his chin. “Correct. We could cut out a section of the floor and take it with us.”

“Of this floor? It’s solid marble. Did you forget that this was once a drug store of the type that has almost faded from the American scene, complete with a marble soda fountain and a kindly old pharmacist who compounded prescriptions with cool and unerring skill instead of counting out pills from a large bottle into a small one?”

“Hmmm,” said Tint. “You’re right, but you’re not old enough to remember things like that. What TV program was that on?”

“It was called A Re-examination of Our Past and a Projection of the Next One Hundred Years of Medical Care in America, complete with a panel of thirty-four distinguished physicians,” said Raster.

“Sounds interesting,” said Tint. “Wonder how I missed it.”

“You had to be alert,” said Raster. “They squeezed it in between the end of Barnaby Jones and the eleven o’clock news.”

Tint grunted. “Well, let’s get on with our investigation. Suppose you just measure it with your deputy’s rustproof stainless-steel, self-winding tape you received as a premium for sending in three boxtops from that sugar-coated cereal.”

Raster measured. “It is exactly twelve inches long and four inches wide.”

“Ah,” said Tint. He thumbed through a small book. “My compendium of useful information for law-enforcement officers that Steve McGarrett sent to me from Hawaii says that it is a size 9½-D. which indicates a man of medium height.”

“Not necessarily,” said Raster thoughtfully. “Perhaps the shoe was worn by a short man with large feet.” He frowned. “Or perhaps a large man with small feet. Or even a small man with small feet wearing shoes that are too large. It could even be a large man with large feet wearing shoes that are too small.”

Tint glared at him. “Just send the body to kindly old Dr. Wilby. I will return to the office and try to think of someone to suspect. We now know we are looking for an average-sized man who has calluses on his thumb and forefinger.”

An hour later Raster burst through the door of the office. “I have a suspect!” he announced excitedly. “The washing-machine repairman who has nothing to do but watch what goes on says that Artemis Kaber had a big argument with Mr. Godwin yesterday. It seems that Artemis wanted to buy a tube of non-fluoride toothpaste because he hates fluoride but Mr. Godwin threw him out of the store. Obviously Artemis has a motive.”

“Nonsense,” said Tint. “You know Artemis is a small man and he would hardly have calluses on his thumb and forefinger because he’s the only manicurist in town and constantly soaking his fingers in that dishwashing liquid.” The sheriff sighed as he stared out the window. “I’m afraid we are looking for someone more average than Artemis. I have come to the conclusion that the man we are looking for could be either a writer or an accountant, which would explain the calluses on his thumb and forefinger.”

“Fantastic thinking!” exclaimed Raster. “It should be easy to check your theory since we have only two accountants and one writer in town.”

“One accountant,” said Tint. “Several men in white coats came and took away Hapgood Turbuckle the other day. It seems that Hapgood placed a perfectly good eight-hundred-dollar color television set, console model, superbly crafted of Australian wormwood with supermatrix, with a self-tuning twenty-five-inch picture tube out for the trash collectors. Naturally his wife thought this was a little odd, so she sent for the mind mechanics out at the Home to come and take him away for a tune-up.”

“That leaves only Sylvanus Grubb,” said Raster, disappointed. “He is quite short and very fat and is on a physical-fitness binge right now. He wears his red warmup suit and striped athletic shoes from morning until night and jogs wherever he goes, so I don’t think he’s our man.”

“We still have the writer, Lochinvar Lovelace,” said Tint.

Raster shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t see how he can be guilty. Lochinvar is ninety years old, even though you wouldn’t know it from those passionate love novels he turns out. I often wonder how he does it.”

“Nothing wrong with Lochinvar’s memory,” said Tint. “But I guess you’re right. A man who found it necessary to hire a beautiful young girl just to insert the paper into his typewriter is a little too old to run around strangling people. What we need is another clue.”

At seven the next morning Tint was awakened by a pounding on his door. He opened it to find a stout handsome woman in her fifties patting her short blonde hair and smiling at him.

“My name is Euphoria Hackenstack,” she said. “I live at the west end of town in what everyone calls a typical American suburb. In my typically American way I was out walking my pedigreed dog this morning when I found something lying on the lawn of one of our typically American homes. I asked myself who might be interested in what I had found and it occurred to me that you, as sheriff, might want to know first.”

“What did you find?” asked Tint.

“A body,” said Euphoria. “Someone has killed poor Mrs. Nelson.”

“Who is Mrs. Nelson?”

“Well,” said Euphoria, “I guess you would call Mrs. Nelson a typically American busybody. She was forever coming into people’s homes and giving wives advice about coffee. I don’t know how many broken marriages she has been responsible for.”

“Was her advice that bad?”

“Terrible. She subscribed to the theory that a wife should brew excellent coffee for her husband, which is really ridiculous. The opposite is true. No smart wife gives her husband anything but terrible coffee because it gives him something to complain about. Husbands love to complain, so why should a woman stick her neck out? Let him complain about the coffee. It will take his mind off the money spent at the beauty parlor or something equally important.”

“You sound like an expert,” said Tint.

“I have thirty years of domestic bliss and tranquillity behind me,” said Euphoria proudly. “I think that perhaps you had better come look at this body, Sheriff. While I may not have cared much for Mrs. Nelson, my social consciousness tells me she should not be left lying there indefinitely. Furthermore, since I assume you are interested in catching the person responsible, I am forced to point out you can’t do so standing here gossiping with me.”

Tint bowed. “I will call my deputy and then you may lead me to the body.”

Mrs. Nelson had been an attractive woman of about forty. Surrounded by scattered cans of coffee, she lay on a patch of lawn alongside the back yard of a small corner home, several feet from assorted athletic paraphernalia designed to develop the muscles and motor skills of children and to keep them out of the house on nice days. Raster, kneeling beside the body, looked up as Tint and Euphoria pushed their way through the typically American crowd.

“At least this one wasn’t strangled,” said Raster. “She has a terrible bruise on her forehead. It’s possible she was struck by one of those cans of coffee.”

He came close to Tint and whispered. “I think we have discovered our third clue. Look.” He opened his palm. “This strand of red hair was clutched in her hand.”

Tint pulled a small magnifying glass from his pocket and examined the hair closely. “Ah, yes,” he said. “This is obviously a hair from the head of a woman born and raised in the Andante Valley of northern Italy.”

“You mean our murderer is a redhaired immigrant?”

“Of course not,” said Tint impatiently. “It means our murderer is an averagesized man with calluses on his thumb and forefinger who wears a toupee made of red hair.”

Euphoria gasped and clutched her bosom.

“You seem upset,” said Tint.

“You have described my beloved husband Alexander,” she said.

“Where is he now?” asked Tint.

“Shopping,” she said. “He retired a year ago and used to sit around the house watching television day and night but he found very few programs that pleased him. He changed channels so often he developed calluses on his thumb and forefinger. Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer. I suggested he take over the shopping. He’s been doing it for a week now.”

“Quick,” said Tint to Raster. “Take the body to kindly old Dr. Wilby and then meet me at the supermarket.”

“I can’t do that,” said Raster. “Kindly old Dr. Wilby said if I bring him one more body he’ll punch me in the nose. He says that when he agreed to act as coroner, he thought it was an honorary position. He didn’t know he would be dealing with corpses. His specialties are exotic diseases and major personality traumas.”

“Cart Mrs. Nelson over there and forget about it,” said Tint. “The last time kindly old Dr. Wilby punched anyone in the nose, he was six years old and he’s felt guilty about it ever since. Why do you think he became kindly old Dr. Wilby?”

At the supermarket Tint peered through the plate-glass window. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Many shoppers, most of them women, were already lined up at the checkout counters while others strolled the aisles pushing carts. Suddenly everyone in the store seemed to turn simultaneously and stare toward the rear.

Tint ran inside and pushed his way through the people toward the center of interest, almost knocking down a tall blonde woman who attempted to shove a buttered cracker into his mouth as he passed.

At the rear of the store he saw a small stout woman dressed in blue. She was screaming and using a roll of paper towels to fend off an elderly redhaired man of average height whose clawed fingers were aimed at her throat.

Tint wrapped a hand in the man’s collar.

“That’s enough,” he said.

The man subsided and the woman lowered the roll of paper towels.

“Now exactly what is going on?” asked Tint.

“He tried to kill me!” yelled the woman.

“Did you?” Tint asked the man.

“You can bet your coffee-stained shirt on that,” said the man.

“Why?” asked Tint.

“Listen,” said the man. “I came in here to do some shopping for my wife. Paper towels were on the list. I looked over the various brands and made my selection. The next thing I knew, this old biddy grabs me and starts singing in my ear that her brand of paper towels is heavier and that I’m making a big mistake. I told her to get lost, but she grabs my arm and pulls me to a scale, where she weighs her brand of towels and mine and babbles on and on that hers is heavier.

“Give me my towels and get away from me, I said, but she begins screaming at me to stop being so stupid. I told her I didn’t want her towels, I didn’t care about her towels, and I wouldn’t take them as a gift, but she begins screaming louder and beating me on the head with her towels and shouting if I don’t buy at least one roll I can’t leave the store. So I tried to shut her up.”

“Is that true?” Tint asked the woman.

“I was only doing my job,” said the woman stiffly. “I’m a consumer-education expert and it’s my responsibility to see that this man buys the best paper towel for his money. He is supposed to smile and thank me, but he’s too stupid to know what’s best for him. If he had bought the towels, I know he would have been grateful to me for the rest of his life, so all I did was apply a little typical American selling persuasion. Now I want him arrested. After all, I simply didn’t want to see him waste his money on inferior, second-rate towels even if he did like the smiling camel printed on them in that gruesome magenta ink.”

She made a face. “Sort of hokey, don’t you agree, Sheriff? Now, mine have a different point of interest from all over the world printed on each oversized, extra-thirsty sheet. Sort of gives you a thrill during the dull workaday existence to realize you are mopping up the dog’s muddy footprints with the Eiffel Tower, n’est-ce pas? Come, Sheriff, let me show you.”

Tint tore himself from her grasp. “Later,” he said. He beckoned to the man. “Come along.”

As they walked toward the jail, Tint said, “I guess you’re Alexander Hackenstack. Your wife told me where to find you.”

“Euphoria is all right,” said Hackenstack. “Makes terrible coffee and spends too much at the beauty parlor but a husband learns to live with those things. She also has a tendency to become a little too emotional at times. She cried terribly when the fad for hula hoops died.”

“I suppose you strangled all those people,” said Tint. “Now why did you do such an unsocial thing?”

“I was defending myself,” said Hackenstack, “just as I was in the supermarket just now. Take that Whiffle jerk. I went into the store early that morning, the first customer. I was wandering around when I saw this sign on the toilet tissue that said don’t squeeze, so naturally I squeezed. The next thing I knew there was Whiffle carrying on and screaming he would have me arrested. I was so embarrassed I tried to go out the rear door but he wouldn’t leave me alone. He said I would have to wait for you and he tried to hold me. In the struggle the boxes of toilet tissue sort of tumbled down on us. To keep from being knocked off my feet, I grabbed the first thing handy. It wasn’t my fault it happened to be his neck.”

“How about Cara at the general store?”

“Same thing,” said Hackenstack. “My wife wanted a super-easy, fast-cutting 1929-type Boy Scout can opener that only Cara stocked, so I stopped in. I never did get the can opener. First thing I knew, she was shoving a cup of coffee under my nose and demanding that I taste it. I told her I didn’t want any but she kept pushing it at me and saying I had to buy a can.”

Hackenstack shook his head. “Would you believe she actually pushed me to the floor and poured the coffee down my throat so I could see how good it was? In the struggle we knocked over all the coffee shelves and in an effort to protect the poor woman I grabbed her to pull her out of the way. Unfortunately, I grabbed her by the throat.”

“That could happen,” said Tint. “What about Mr. Godwin?”

Hackenstack sighed. “Would you believe I went in there just to buy a toothbrush? He asked me what kind of toothpaste I used. I told him. That was horrible stuff, he said. The next thing I knew he had me backed against the wall and was squeezing fluoride toothpaste into my mouth, yelling that I had to prevent cavities. I almost choked on the stuff. I tried to push him away but in the struggle we knocked down all the toothpaste and trampled it out of the tubes, which made the floor very slippery. I tried to support myself by hanging onto his neck and accidentally strangled him.”

“That sounds reasonable,” said Tint. “But there is still Mrs. Nelson.”

“I had nothing to do with her death,” said Hackenstack. “It’s a little embarrassing but I must tell you that the woman had her cap set for me for a long time. Always whispering in my ear about how bad Euphoria’s coffee was and if I would go with her she would show me how a real woman made coffee. Of course, I tried to avoid her but, busybody that she was, she knew I rose early to do a little jogging before breakfast, so she was waiting for me, carrying that paper bag filled with cans of coffee. Never could understand why the woman always had a paper bag filled with coffee cans with her wherever she went.

“She wanted me to run away with her to her coffee ranch in the mountains of Colombia and pick coffee beans with her cousin Juan Something-or-other. I’m afraid I was rather harsh. I told her to drop dead. She became angry and began throwing coffee cans at me. When I ducked, one hit that crazy bounce-back affair the Baylor kid uses to practise his fielding with the hope that someday he’ll be a highly paid big-league shortstop. The can bounced straight back and bonked her on the forehead.”

Tint held the cell door open for him. “Well, I guess I’ll have to keep you here for a time. You can turn on the TV and relax.”

“No, thanks,” said Hackenstack. “It seems as though everywhere I look lately, I think I see one of those people in the commercials. Like the woman who collapses with shame because her husband has a ringy-dingy collar and the healthy-looking ones who drink iron. I could swear that just the other day I saw one of those detergent women floating down the street, yelling she had used only one cup in cold water and her clothes had come out squeaky-clean. And as I left a bar yesterday, a guy sprayed deodorant in my face to prove it wasn’t an economical way to remain socially acceptable.”

Tint patted him gently on the head. “You’re just tired. Those people don’t really exist, especially in Krowten Corners.”

An hour later Tint finished explaining it all to Raster.

“So it really wasn’t a crime wave,” said Raster.

“More like a series of fatal misadventures brought on by their own actions,” said Tint. “I told you there were no bad people in Krowten Corners.”

The door of the office opened and an elderly, sweet-faced, motherly woman came in. She smiled at Tint. “I have just heard about your troubles of the past few days. You must be upset.”

Tint shook his head. “Not me. I’m an experienced police officer. I don’t get upset. However, my deputy is young and not accustomed to these things.”

The woman advanced on Raster, smiling. “I’m sure you must have developed indigestion.”

“No,” said Raster. “I feel fine.”

The woman held out a roll of small mints. “Take one,” she said. “It will make you feel better.”

“I don’t need any,” said Raster.

“Of course you do,” she said soothingly. “A Bummy in your tummy will get rid of all that nasty acid indigestion and make you feel ten feet tall again.”

Raster backed away. “I don’t have acid indigestion.”

The woman became angry. “If Mother Bummy says you have acid indigestion, you have acid indigestion! Now take one of these!” She launched herself at Raster, knocking him to the floor, and astride his chest began to stuff Bummy after Bummy into his mouth.

Tint sighed, picked up the phone, and dialed.

When the man answered, Tint said, “Kindly old Dr. Wilby, I know you don’t like to handle the bodies I have been sending over but I want you to know there will be at least one more. A motherly old woman who will be strangled.”

He paused and studied the struggling figures.

“On the other hand,” he said, “if Raster doesn’t get moving, it just might be a young man with an overdose of Bummies.”