The Second Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 More Classic Mystery Stories

The Commune

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, January 1971.

The intruder couldn’t have picked a safer place to invade than the rambling, age-musty Victorian house where little old lady Lominac lived alone.

The widow was less than a hundred pounds of dainty bones and wrinkles — incredible wrinkles, like skeins of cobwebs delicately traced in layers, one upon another. Yet even if the widow Lominac’s wrinkles had wrinkles, the effect was not unpleasant. Sweetly formed little bones lurked beneath the wrinkles, and gentle blue eyes peered out.

Physically, she was no match for any intruder stronger than a sturdy six-year-old. Even if she’d had a weapon, it was impossible to think of her firing it at another human being. One might just as easily have imagined Whistler’s mother, mini-skirted in a psychedelic joint, plunging a heroin hypo into her arm.

The widow’s house was, by today’s standards, a gingerbread monstrosity of cupolas, turrets, gables, leaves, tall chimneys, and blank windows. It glowered gothically from a slight rise that overlooked the weedy acres of what had once been a landscaped estate on the edge of town.

Like its owner, the place had an aura of loneliness, as if bewildered at finding itself in an era of split-levels, jet planes, and polluted air. The house lurked with memories of croquet games on sunny lawns, genteel courtships on the porch swing, summer parties lighted by paper lanterns.

Mrs. Lominac’s young husband had gone forth in World War I, never to return to the house. A generation later, her only child, a son born just three months after his father had gone overseas to France, had marched away down the same front walk. It had been the first leg of a journey that ended when a Japanese machine gun cut him in two on a South Pacific island.

Mrs. Lominac bore her losses bravely. If she wept, it was in the privacy of a familiar, high-ceilinged room. She closed off parts of the house as the years eroded her strength. At last she resided in three pleasantly antiquated rooms on the ground floor, with southern exposure. They were all she cared to housekeep, but whatever she did, she did well, with thoroughness. The rooms reflected a quaint, story-bookish comfort, with the brass fire tongs polished, the lace curtains snowy, the heavy furniture (over which an antique collector would have drooled) gleaming from the years-long ritual of anointment with lemon oil.

Making do comfortably on the modest income left by her husband, little Mrs. Lominac gradually curtailed herself, as she had done with her house. She literally hated the moments when she gave up another motion of living. Even more, she would have despised the humiliation of having a red-faced, throat-clearing deacon or committee chairman tell her in a polite, roundabout way that they’d have to get along without her.

She knew the generations had come and gone. Nobody had to tell her. She knew what she was, a cobwebby old woman who lived in a spooky relic of the past. She hardly talked the language of the young people today who made up the church visiting committee, which she had once headed. She was too gray now for the hospital Gray Ladies. Her visage seemed to frighten the tykes at the orthopedic home more than the stories she read amused them when she creaked out there of a Wednesday afternoon.

Each time she retired from this or that with a brief speech or letter, the deacon or committeeman protested, “But, Mrs. Lominac, it won’t be the same — how can we ever get along without you?”... and each time she sensed the relief inside the committeeman when her firm little smile convinced him that she really meant it. The kind and gentle little old anachronism was actually getting out from underfoot.

She would return to her house a bit slower each time, feeling the years, the loss of another particle of herself. The day she gave up the story hour at the orthopedic home, to be replaced by a glowingly healthy college girl with huge glasses and apple cheeks, Mrs. Lominac opened the brass-bound chest in her bedroom and placed the storybook beside her husband’s Croix de Guerre and her son’s Silver Star.

She wondered later if that was the night the unknown visitor had come for the first time. She had no way of knowing for sure. He came as silently and invisibly as the years themselves.

She discovered the first evidence of his presence the next morning. Nothing nerve-shattering announced that she’d had a visitor, no broken window or forced lock, no muddy boot prints. The day dawned like a thousand other winter days, clear and cold, brittling the inch-deep dusting of snow that had fallen the day before.

Mrs. Lominac, almost an elfin impression in the massive poster bed, clung to the warmth of her comforters after her eyes slowly opened. She looked at her window and the ice-laced oak outside... the earth seemed very silent and empty. A lassitude came over her. There wasn’t a reason on earth for her to get up, when you came right down to it. A relic... unneeded... unwanted... a husk enduring beyond its period of usefulness. Then her lips firmed. She threw back the covers and hopped out of bed in her white, ankle-length muslin gown as if she had half a dozen appointments to keep today.

Slipping into a plaid woolen robe and felt slippers, she padded to the kitchen, put water on to boil for tea, and turned on the radio to catch a newscast.

It was when she opened the breadbox that the first question stirred in her mind. In that moment, it was a question relating to herself. Was her memory starting to go? She was certain this fresh loaf had been unopened when she retired last night. She’d bought it along with a few other things on her way from the orthopedic home, put it in the breadbox, and had a leftover corn muffin with her dinner last night.

Yet here the loaf was now, with the end of the plastic wrapper ripped open and a third of the slices gone.

She stood in momentary quandary. Was it possible she had got up, had a night snack, and forgotten?

The thought was scary; until this moment she’d believed her mental faculties were as clear as they were thirty years ago.

As the thought crossed her mind, her gaze drifted to the sink. Her frown, parallel crevices in the maze of lines and cracks and shallower ravines, deepened. Slowly, she extended her hand and picked up the case knife from the bottom of the sink. It simply wasn’t like her to leave a dirty dish or piece of cutlery when the after-dinner chores were over. She always put things away.

She squinted at the brown smear on the knife blade, lifted it to her nose and sniffed. Looked like the residue of peanut butter. Smelled like it. She stripped her finger along the knife and lifted her finger to her mouth. Tasted like peanut butter, too.

Opening the overhead cabinet, she lifted out the peanut butter jar and unscrewed its cap. Staring inside the empty jar, she felt her breath binding. Now who would do a thing like that? Slip in and gobble up all the peanut butter?

The teakettle whistled at her now. She turned it off, bunched the front of her housecoat to keep it from binding about her ankles, and toured her apartment, eyes searching every detail.

Nothing had been touched, nothing taken — except the bread and peanut butter.

Surely there had to be a simple and harmless answer. A youngster, hiking through the woods, perhaps chasing rabbits across the snowy fields, had felt drawn by the haunted aspect of the old Lominac house. In her absence, he’d sneaked in, heart hammering a little, bug eyes exploring. The nerve of the cocky little rascal, Mrs. Lominac chuckled to herself.

Her busy day passed quickly. She cooked, cleaned, filled the bird-feeder in the side yard, washed, ironed, worked needlepoint, watched TV in the evening. It wasn’t until the next morning, early, that her uneasy subconscious mind disgorged the fallacy in her reasoning.

She snapped awake in the gray wintry dawn. The thought was full-blown: I didn’t go out again after I brought the bread home. It means the intruder helped himself in my kitchen while I lay in here asleep...

A faint shiver tugged at her thin muscles. She drew rigidly to a half-sitting position, staring at the closed door of the bedroom, listening to the silence throughout the cavernous old house.

She slipped out of bed, donned slippers and robe, and padded to the kitchen. She looked about carefully. Nothing seemed amiss.

She turned, opened a door, and stepped into a part of the house where she hadn’t been for days. She toured the silent, deserted dining room, the large, vaulted living-room, the library-study, the almost forgotten sun parlor where dust lay on the windowsills. In the gray light, the furniture loomed spectrally with its white muslin dust covers. Out here, the old-fashioned steam radiators had long since been turned off. The chill seeped through her robe and muslin gown. Her breath made faint gray puffs as Mrs. Lominac went from window to window, door to door.

Everything was locked, snug, secure. She paused in the gloomy rear hall, her wrinkles pinched in a pattern of thought. Turning, she opened the basement door. She clicked on a light and went down slowly. The narrow wooden steps creaked a sound of decay even under her slight weight. The faint mustiness of old and dampish concrete, bricks and mortar seeped into her nostrils.

The basement was barren, uncluttered. The fuel oil burner clicked on in obedience to the thermostat in her apartment... the sound was inordinately loud in the silence.

At the rear, a portion of the basement was above ground level. Four small steel-casement windows, widely spaced, admitted dust-filled light from the back yard. At the first of these, the window nearest the north corner, Mrs. Lominac found her answer. She fingered the thin tongue-and-sleeve latch that had rusted through. A person had only to push the window from outside, swing it up, and wriggle into the basement.

Mrs. Lominac lowered her hand slowly. So much for that. She knew how she had been burgled.

But by whom? She found the answer rather touching: obviously by some poor hungry soul who, contrary to intending any harm, had dined on the most frugal food in the house.

At four o’clock that afternoon Mrs. Lominac was in the kitchen taking a load from her clothes dryer when she heard a car approach and stop outside. Visitors were too rare a treat nowadays, and Mrs. Lominac was in an instant flurry, dumping the clothes in a wicker basket and rushing to the side door that served as an outside entry to her apartment.

She flung the door open, a frown catching quickly as she saw the official markings on the car that had halted in the driveway nearby.

She watched Sheriff Grimsby get out, a big, reddish man in boots, poplin jacket, and Stetson. His weight crunched solidly across the snow-crust. His big-jowled face split in a smile to relieve the question in Mrs. Lominac’s eyes. “Just passing, Mrs. Lominac, and thought I’d say hello.”

She ushered him in and took his hat, her eyes sparkling with the advent of company. “It was certainly thoughtful of you, Sheriff, dropping in this way. Do sit down. I’ll have tea ready before you can say Jack Robinson!”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I’m afraid I haven’t time, Mrs. Lominac. This isn’t entirely a social call.”

“Oh?”

“I’m doing a favor for some folks who live over in the old Cranston place.”

“You mean that tumbledown shack by the river? My goodness, I thought the place was deserted since Mr. Cranston passed away. His son lives in New York, you know, and never sets foot in these parts.”

Sheriff Grimsby nodded. Under the urging of Mrs. Lominac’s bright eyes, he eased his bulk to the edge of a sofa. “Seems the son was propositioned by some people to rent the place... for next to nothing. They got a legal paper to prove they’re not trespassing.”

Mrs. Lominac, sitting stiffly erect in a Windsor chair facing the sheriff, pursed her wrinkled lips. “I can’t imagine anyone living in that cracker box.”

“These ain’t run-of-the-mill people, Mrs. Lominac. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about them.” Grimsby’s robust, hearty face quirked ruefully. “We’ve had a small hippie commune in our midst for three, four weeks now. Half a dozen youngsters living over there.”

Mrs. Lominac’s eyes sparked with quick interest. “That must have jarred some of our good people, I can imagine, Sheriff!”

The lively remark brought a chuckle from Grimsby. “You imagine right, Mrs. Lominac. Had a delegation call on me, wanted them chased out of the county.” Grimsby shrugged. “But what could I do? They were there legally, not squatters. Minding their own business. Soft-speaking kids. Peaceful. Even gentle.”

Grimsby’s voice trailed off. Mrs. Lominac shifted in her chair, the movement impatient for Grimsby to get on with the story.

“The delegation wasn’t happy, but accepted the reality. I thought the matter was closed, figured the kids would hang around for a while and drift on. But a couple nights ago...” Grimsby’s teeth bit off the words. A breath flared from him.

“Yes, Sheriff?” Mrs. Lominac prodded.

“Carload of local toughs went out there,” Grimsby snorted. “Big men, you know. Out for some fun.” The sheriff’s voice thickened with sarcasm and disgust. “They snuck up, busted in, scattered the commune, and chased the kids roundabout the woods and hills until the whole thing got to be a bore.”

“Did you catch them, Sheriff?”

“You kidding? Didn’t know anything about it until a boy from the commune came into town this morning. Said one of them hadn’t returned. So,” Grimsby rose heavily, “I’m just sort of checking around to see if anybody’s seen this kid. About twenty, from the description I got. Slender. Long brown hair and beard. Dressed in Navy surplus pants and pea jacket.”

Mrs. Lominac’s gaze drifted toward her kitchen. She thought for a moment, then nodded decisively to herself. “I haven’t seen him, but I think you’ve solved my mystery. I think he was here.”

Reaching for his hat, which Mrs. Lominac had carefully deposited on a drum table, Grimsby went rigid for a second. “How’s that? Mystery? He was here — in this house?”

“I’ve no real proof, Sheriff. But someone entered and quietly stuffed himself with peanut butter sandwiches. I didn’t know until yesterday morning, when I discovered the food missing.”

Grimsby stood fingering the brim of his five-gallon hat. “It adds up,” he agreed. “The kid gets lost, wandering around. Scared to go back to the commune, anyhow. Probably figures the others feel the same way. Starving and got nothing but the clothes on his back. Then he stumbles onto the sight of this big old house where a harmless little woman evidently lives alone.”

Mrs. Lominac smiled. “Don’t worry about me, Sheriff, I seem to have been quite safe.” Her smile became a brief laugh. “You might even say he was the most courteous of burglars.”

Grimsby paused with his hand on the doorknob. “At least I’m glad none of our local boys, even the punks, are guilty of bashing a head in.”

“Do come again when you can visit longer, Sheriff.”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s always a pleasure to see you, Mrs. Lominac. And thanks for the help.” The sheriff opened the door, glanced across the snow-blanketed, empty fields. “Could be the boy is hitchhiking his way to Florida by this time.”

“Good-bye, Sheriff,” Mrs. Lominac called, framed in the open doorway.

Grimsby waved a reply as he slid into his car. Mrs. Lominac watched him drive away, and then closed the door against the winter chill.

She crossed the room slowly, going to the kitchen. She mulled the whole thing over in her mind while she folded the linens she’d taken from the clothes dryer.

By six-thirty, Mrs. Lominac had finished the few things that needed ironing. She folded the board, swinging it up into its wall niche, crossed the kitchen, and turned on water for tea.

She couldn’t decide what she wanted for dinner. She opened the food storage cabinets over the counter topping that stretched away from the sink on either side. She studied canned goods, boxes, jars, fingertip thoughtfully against her chin.

Then a slow frown began to form in the network over her eyes. Thoughts of dinner faded. She was nagged with the feeling that something was out of place... something was wrong. Her subconscious had noticed and was trying to tell her.

She reached and touched items in the cabinet. It was really quite irksome, this knowing that you were looking at something you couldn’t recognize.

Then it came to her. The glass container of baked beans was missing. She always bought the same brand. She had bought them day before yesterday, in the grocery order she had brought home. She’d put them in this exact spot...

She drew back, a tiny pulse beating in her slender, wrinkle-enfolded neck. The lost, wandering boy had eaten here... peanut butter one night... baked beans the next?

A spark flared in her eyes. In a sudden burst of action, she hurried into the bedroom, slipped into a heavy coat and galoshes. She swathed her head in a woolen scarf as she dashed into the twilight; cold outside. It took her less than ten minutes to circle the house, her eyes surveying the white, unbroken sheet of snow that covered the hills, fields, gullies.

She entered her apartment, cheeks pinked from the cold. Taking off her outdoor garments, she dropped them across a chair, her gaze slanted toward the ceiling of the room.

The snow had fallen afresh after the intruder had come here. Now, there were no tracks going away from the house, except for the sheriff’s and the tire marks of his car.

Mrs. Lominac didn’t feel the chill in the gray, unused part of her house as she slipped from her apartment, crossed the vaulted, spectral living-room, and floated up the long curving stairway with the silence of a little ghost.

Swallowed by the gloom of the upper hallway, she paused to listen. Then she slid along the wall until she came to the narrow stairs that led to the attic. She hardly stirred a mote of dust, going up. She pressed her ear against the small door. The twilight thickened. Then at last she heard the soft sound of a movement in the attic... a rustling... a brief cough.

She lowered her head to keyhole level and pressed her right eye to the aperture.

He had a light — a candle — but he was out of range. Mrs. Lominac waited, and her patience was rewarded when he came into her field of view. He sat down cross-legged on a pallet he’d fashioned for himself, and opened a book he’d borrowed from the dusty library downstairs.

Mrs. Lominac studied all that she could see of him through the constriction of the keyhole: the slender bone structure... the sensitive face under the long beard... the intentness of the hollow-socketed eyes as they strained to read in the candlelight.

Carefully, Mrs. Lominac inched her way back down.

Am I crazy? she asked herself. She really didn’t care about the answer.

On the main floor she went from room to room, turning on radiators that creaked and popped when the steam began seeping into them.

Returning to her apartment, she decided that yes, she was crazy. But perhaps in the right kind of way. At least it felt pretty nice, this craziness; this feeling that the old relic might still be of use, was still needed, still had a value.

When you’re all used up in one world, she thought, you’re mighty lucky, I guess, if you stumble on another. A strange new world to be explored... new talk... new ideas...

The last thing before she retired that night, Mrs. Lominac wrote the note. She taped it to the door of the grocery cabinet where the boy couldn’t miss it when he eased down later for his monastically simple meal of the night.

She stepped back and read the large block letters of her message over again: “The warmest of invitations is extended to you and the others as well. Please bring them. We’ll have a ball.”

Then Mrs. Lominac turned off the light and went to her bedroom. She sat in a boudoir chair in the darkness, waiting, listening impatiently, filled with the heavy excitement of a girl about to attend her first party.