The Case of the Turning Tide

Chapter 3

Frank Duryea stopped in at a restaurant on the road home for a cup of coffee. He noticed that his hand was shaking slightly as he poured a spoonful of sugar into the steaming liquid. Well, after all, he told himself, he’d been up until three o’clock, had rolled out at nine, and then had this murder case dumped into his lap. He felt pretty shaky. The hot coffee revived him somewhat.

Driving home, he found himself thinking of a dozen questions he should have asked the witnesses. However, it wouldn’t have been wise to keep them there in their wet clothes. If one should turn out to be suspect, a clever lawyer could make a grandstand play to the jury by harping on how the accused had been kept standing in wet clothes while being interrogated, first by the sheriff, and then by the district attorney.

Duryea rounded the corner, swung wide for his driveway, and then, with an exclamation of surprise, slammed on the brakes and stopped the car. A somewhat dilapidated-looking automobile and a house trailer which bore the unmistakable stamp of being what was known in the trade as “a backyard job” were parked in his driveway.

Duryea parked his car parallel to the curb, got out, and walked up the steps of his bungalow, regarding the visiting car and trailer dubiously.

Milred, attired in sharkskin slacks, came to the door. Ignoring the fact that he already had his latchkey in the lock, she made quite a ceremony of opening the front door.

“Why, hello, Frank! I didn’t expect you’d be back so soon. Guess who’s here?”

Her voice was raised sufficiently to be distinctly audible to a visitor who was in the Living room, and she accompanied her question with the distress signal of a lowered right eyelid — a wink so violent that it twisted up the right-hand corner of her mouth.

Duryea winked back and raised his voice. “Gosh, I don’t know. Who is here?”

“Gramps.”

Duryea looked blank.

“You remember. Grandfather Wiggins. I’ve told you about him. You never met him, though. He was down in Mexico when we were married. Remember? He...”

Duryea heard quick steps coming across the living room, then an undersized man with twinkling eyes, white hair, a close-cropped white mustache, and quick motions, so spry they seemed birdlike, came bearing down on him.

“It’s all right, my boy! She’s trying to break it to you easy. I’m bad news, but I ain’t goin’ to stay. Got Milred up out o’ bed on a Sunday when she wanted to sleep, that’s what I did! Just a damned old nuisance. She said you’d been up until three or four o’clock this morning makin’ whoopee. More power to you. Didn’t think you had it in you. Thought you was pantywaist. Heard you was district attorney, an’ thought you’d be somethin’ of a stick. How are you, son?” Grandpa Wiggins shot out his right hand, shook hands, said, “Turn around to the light. Let’s have a look at you.”

Duryea saw twinkling blue eyes surveying him through steel-rimmed glasses, eyes framed in a network of kindly crow’s-feet. “Look all right,” Wiggins said. “Damn it, you look human. Had any breakfast?”

“Not yet,” Duryea said. “We’ll go out and get something. The maid’s off for a couple of days, and...”

“Have breakfast with me,” Wiggins said. “No use spendin’ money at a restaurant. I’m the black sheep o’ the Wiggins family, but I’m a good cook. I’ll go cook up some breakfast. Good idea — mighty good I’ll get out an’ Milred’ll give you the dirt on me. I’ve been a heller, an’ I ain’t reformed yet. I’m the rollin’ stone that’s gathered no moss. All right, folks, when you hear me beatin’ on the bottom of a fryin’ pan, that’ll mean breakfast’s ready. Nothin’ fancy, now. Just plain wholesome grub, but it’ll do you good.”

He nodded three or four times, beaming at them, then turned and darted across the living room, through the dining room, and out to the kitchen. Duryea had a departing glimpse of fast-moving legs, of baggy, somewhat frayed trousers, surmounted by a completely disreputable sweater.

When the bang of the back door announced their guest had left the house, Milred looked up at him. “Well, that’s it, Frank. That’s the family skeleton in the Wiggins closet.”

Duryea asked, “What do we do with him?”

She said, “We don’t do anything with him. No one ever has yet. The question is what he’s going to do with us. He’s capable of darn near anything. Honestly, Frank, I never thought you’d have to see him. That’s why I never told you more about him. He doesn’t like cops or the law, and, knowing you were a district attorney, I thought he’d give you a wide berth.”

Duryea grinned. “What’s he done?”

“Oh, everything and nothing. I think he did a little boot-legging once. He hates conventional things. He likes people who are — well, sort of on the fringe. He’s always getting chummy with some down-and-outer. The last time I saw him, he was telling about a bank robber he knew, said he was a splendid chap — that the only difference between whether you robbed a bank or whether the bank robbed you was which one got there first. He’s simply impossible, Frank — and yet he’s likeable.”

Duryea said, “I thought he had some mining property down in Mexico.”

“He did. They took it away from him. He has some sort of an annuity that keeps him going. He just doesn’t care enough about money to be bothered with it. Frank, I’ll get rid of him by tomorrow, but if it isn’t too much, can you put up with him today?”

Duryea slid his arm around her shoulders. “Sure thing, hon. Why shouldn’t I put up with him? He’s your family.”

“I know, but he’s so thoroughly unpredictable, and — gosh, you just can’t tell what he’ll do. I remember Dad telling stories about him. Dad was methodical and prudent, and — well, I think Grandfather hated him — said he took after his mother’s side of the family.”

“Where in the world did he get that trailer?” Duryea asked. “And where’s he been?”

“He made the trailer himself, and he’s been everywhere. I tell you, Frank, he has the weirdest assortment of friends and cronies scattered around the country, and...”

Duryea patted his wife’s shoulder. “Listen, babe, you’re all worked up. Sure, I’ll like him — only we’ll have to put him in the guest room, and get that trailer out of the neighborhood.”

“You won’t get Gramps Wiggins out of the trailer,” she said. “That’s his. It’s his home.”

“Been in it yet?” Duryea asked.

“No. He only got here about half an hour ago, and I kept him waiting while I bathed and dressed.”

“Reminds me, I’m going to shave.”

“You’d better hurry,” she warned, “because Gramps moves like chain lightning. He’s never able to stay put. Heaven knows what he’ll cook for breakfast, but it won’t be long before he’ll be beating on the bottom of that frying pan.”

Her husband made a grimace. “And me with a head,” he observed. “Better go out and head off that frying pan business, Milred. The neighbors might not like it.”

“Okay, you hurry with your shaving. I’ll do my best. But if he says he’s going to beat on a frying pan, it’s my own private opinion that he’s going to beat on a frying pan.”

Duryea went into the bathroom, ran an electric razor quickly over his face, took two aspirin tablets, and was combing his hair when he heard the unmistakable sound of a heavy spoon beating against the bottom of a frying pan.

He hurried out through the kitchen to find Wiggins standing in the door, grinning. Milred was holding his arm. “Please don’t do it any more, Gramps.”

“Why not? What’s the matter?”

“The neighbors might not like it.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s — you see, Frank has a position to maintain.”

Gramps Wiggins surveyed the district attorney of Santa Delbarra County. “Shucks,” he said, “come on in, son, and sit.”

Duryea entered the trailer.

It showed unmistakably that it was purely a masculine contraption, but it was scrupulously clean. The interior had been arranged with great efficiency and gave evidence of unusual mechanical ability on the part of its designer. Every inch of space was utilized to advantage. A gasoline stove was hissing a blue flame under a battered teakettle. On the table were three cups, three plates containing bacon, scrambled eggs, and buttered toast. Wiggins poured clear, golden-brown coffee from a tin coffee pot. “Milred tells me you’re feelin’ kinda low.”

The district attorney nodded.

Wiggins swooped down under the table, jerked open a closet door, came up with a bottle, and poured a generous portion into Duryea’s coffee cup, dumped a similar load into his own, and looked inquiringly at Milred.

“What is it?” Duryea asked suspiciously.

“Fix you right up,” Wiggins said. “Put it in coffee, it makes you feel good right away. How about it, Milred.”

She made a gesture of surrender. “Go to it, Gramps.”

He poured some in her cup, shoved the cork back in the bottle, and dove down out of sight. During the interval while he was storing the bottle, Milred leaned over and sniffed the concoction in the coffee cup, then she looked up at her husband and rolled her eyes.

Wiggins popped up into view. “All right, folks, let’s go! Food’s gettin’ cold. Sit down and dig in. Don’t stand on formality. Drink your coffee first. It’ll warm you up.”

Duryea tried his coffee. The smell of rich brandy mingling with the coffee odor soothed his nostrils. He tasted the concoction, said to Wiggins with sudden respect in his voice, “Say, what is that stuff?”

“Best brandy on earth,” Gramps said. “A friend o’ mine mails it to me. Got a vineyard up in Northern California. I’m on my way to see him. This is old, old stuff. Keeps it just for his friends.”

Duryea took a deep swig of the coffee, picked up a wooden-handled fork, and tentatively tried the eggs. An expression of pleased surprise came over his face. He raised a piece of toast and conveyed a large forkful of eggs to his mouth.

“Told you he’d like it,” Wiggins said to Milred, then to Duryea, “That’s my own private recipe for scrambled eggs.”

Duryea said, “Don’t think I’m a dissipated hulk, Gramps, just because I’ve got the shakes this morning. My stomach’s been looping the loop. You see, I was called out early this morning...”

Milred coughed.

Duryea stopped, thinking over what he had said. That cough was certainly a warning signal, but it couldn’t have been because of anything he had said. He wondered if it was be-cause of something he had done.

Grandfather Wiggins was waiting, with his head tilted slightly on one side as though to hear better. “Yep,” he said, “you was called out this morning. What was it?”

“A very gruesome double murder,” Duryea explained. “The bodies were...”

“A murder!” Gramps Wiggins shrilled.

Duryea nodded.

“Gee gosh!” Wiggins exclaimed, then turned reproachfully to Milred. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She looked across at her husband. “Why, I didn’t — I just didn’t think of it.”

“Didn’t think of it! Me droppin’ right in on a murder case, a real, honest-to-goodness murder case, an’ you not thinkin’ about it! Gee gosh!”

Milred explained belatedly, “Gramps is a mystery addict.”

“I’ll say I’m a mystery addict,” Gramps Wiggins said. He stepped back from the table, swung open the doors of a locker, showed shelves packed with books, and magazines. “Here you are. Best mystery stories published during the last ten years, and clippings from the True Detective magazines about crimes I happen to know somethin’ about. Makes it interestin’. Read about a crime in a paper, then after a while, an article will come out in one of these True Detective magazines. I clip it out an’ fasten ’em all together. Lots o’ times I’ll sit up nights with newspaper accounts of a crime, tryin’ to work out a solution. You’d be s’prised how often I hit it, too. Well, well, so we’ve got a murder, have we?”

“Two murders,” Duryea said, somewhat lamely, fully conscious of the implications of the plural pronoun.

“Well, now,” Gramps Wiggins announced, “I guess Milred’s marryin’ a district attorney ain’t goin’ to be so bad after all. I’m stayin’ right here an’ helpin’ you solve ’em, son. You can count on me.”

“Thanks,” Duryea said dryly, “but I won’t need to bother you, Gramps. I have the sheriff, you see.”

“Sheriff!” the old man exclaimed. “Sheriff! Sheriff, hell! You’ve got me!”

Milred looked across at her husband. “Drink your coffee, dear,” she said, “and then let Gramps fill your cup again. You’ll probably need it.”