The Listening Walls

7.

Elmer Dodd was a brash, bushy-haired little man, who’d been, at various times and with varying success, a carpenter in New Jersey, seaman on a Panamanian freighter, military policeman in Korea, bodyguard to a Chinese exporter in Singapore, and Bible salesman in Los Angeles. When, at forty, he met a woman who persuaded him to settle down, he found himself experienced in many things and expert in none, so he decided to become a private detective. He moved his bride to San Francisco. Here he hung around the Hall of Justice to get the feel of things, attended trials, where he took notes, and haunted the morgues of the Chronicle and the Examiner, where he read up on famous criminal cases of the past.

All this might eventually have helped, but it was sheer coincidence that set him up in business. He was having a snack one day in a spaghetti joint in North Beach when the proprietor shot his wife and mother-in-law and the mother-in-law’s boyfriend. Dodd was the sole surviving witness.

During the years that followed, Dodd’s name became familiar to every newspaper reader in the Bay area. It popped up in divorce cases, felony trials, gossip columns and, more regularly, in the personal section of the want ads where he offered his services as an expert in various fields, including handwriting analysis. He owned a couple of books on the subject, which, in his own opinion, made him as much of an expert as anyone else since handwriting analysis was not an exact science. He knew enough, at any rate, for run-of-the-mill cases like this Amy business.

Amy sounded like a bit of a nut (Dodd also owned a book on abnormal psychology), but nut or not, she had certainly written all four of the letters Gill Brandon had brought in for comparison. Dodd had known this immediately, even before Brandon had left his office. But it would have been impractical to admit it. Experts took time, they checked and rechecked, and were suitably reimbursed for their trouble. Dodd took a week, during which he checked and rechecked Gill Brandon’s financial standing and decided on a fee. It was just enough to make Brandon squawk in protest, but not so much as to cause him to refuse payment.

Dodd was satisfied.

So, in spite of the fee, was Gill. “I don’t mind telling you, Dodd, that this is a great load off my mind. Naturally, I was almost positive she wrote the letter. There was only a small element of doubt.”

What a liar, Dodd thought. “Which is now dispelled, of course?”

“Of course. As a matter of fact, we heard from her again yesterday. By ‘we’ I mean she wrote to her husband and he forwarded her letter to me.”

“Why?”

“Why? Well, I — he realizes I’m very concerned about my sister. He wanted me to know she is all right.”

“And is she?”

“Certainly. She’s in New York. I should have guessed she might go there — we have relatives in Queens and Westchester.”

“Did you bring the letter with you?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to see it. There’ll be no extra charge, of course,” Dodd added, after a quick study of Gill’s expression. “I’m just curious.”

Gill passed the letter across the desk, reluctantly, as if he were afraid that Dodd might suddenly alter his opinion and claim all the letters were forgeries.

Dodd knew at first sight that the handwriting was identical with that in the other letters, but he went through a few motions for Gill’s benefit. Using a magnifying glass and a ruler, he measured and compared spaces between lines and words, margins, paragraph indentations. It was, however, the text of the letter that interested him: it seemed so much sharper and more positive than any of the others. The handwriting was the same, certainly. But was the woman?

“Christmas card list,” Dodd said without expression. “This is September.”

“I taught Amy — that is, we were both brought up to attend to such matters well in advance.”

“Isn’t this overdoing it a bit?”

Gill knew it was, but he asked, “What do you mean?”

“It sounds to me as if she doesn’t intend to be home for Christmas and is trying to tell you in a nice way.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“Well, you don’t have to,” Dodd said cheerfully. “Maybe it’s not true. Have you talked it over with your brother- in-law?”

“No.”

“I suggest you do. He’s probably better acquainted with his wife than you are.”

“I doubt that. Besides, Rupert and I are not exactly on the best of terms.”

“Family friction, eh? Maybe that’s the real reason Amy decided to leave town.”

“There was no family friction until she left. Some has developed since, of course.”

“Why ‘of course’?” When Gill didn’t answer, Dodd went on, “Cases like this are a lot commoner than you might imagine, Mr. Brandon. Most of them don’t get as far as the police files or the newspapers; they’re kept within the family. A lady gets bored or disgusted or both, and off she goes on a bit of a wingding. When the wingding is over, she comes home. The neighbors think she’s been on a holiday, so nobody’s any the wiser. Except maybe her. Wingdings can be rough on a lady.”

Dodd was an expert on wingdings, without owning any books on the subject.

“My sister,” Gill said, “is not the kind of woman who would be interested in wingdings.” He coughed over the unfamiliar word as if it had stuck in his throat like a fishbone. When he had finished coughing he wiped his mouth and stared at Dodd, suddenly hating the bushy-haired little man with his metallic eyes and his tarnished, keyhole views of the back bedrooms of life.

He rose without speaking, not trusting his voice, and reached for the letters on Dodd’s desk.

“No offense intended,” Dodd said, observing Gill’s trembling hands and the bulging veins in his temples with detachment. “And none given, I trust?”

“Good day.”

“Good day, Mr. Brandon.”

That night at dinner Dodd’s wife asked, “How was business today?”

“Fine.”

“Blond and beautiful?”

“That’s strictly in books, sweetheart.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Mr. Brandon is neither blond nor beautiful,” Dodd said, “but he’s interesting.”

“How so?”

“He has a problem. He thinks his sister was murdered by her husband.”

“And what do you think?”

“Nobody’s paid me to think,” Dodd said. “Yet.”