Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 5. Whole No. 801, May 2008
- Автор: Блок Лоуренс, Пикард Нэнси
- Год: 2008
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 5. Whole No. 801, May 2008». Краткое содержание книги:
“Stay back,” Dad said, just as if he were talking to a dog. I froze, watched as he scrambled to Teg’s side and tried to breathe life into his mouth. He tried for more than twenty minutes to revive Teg, but to no avail.
“How long you figure he’s been dead?” Lehigh asked.
“Hard to say.” Dad answered. “When’d you last see him?”
“Last night. Loreen can’t keep track of that boy. Sometimes she goes to get him for breakfast and he’s done snuck out of his room.”
“I guess he could have been here all night. You sure you didn’t see him at breakfast, Lehigh?”
“Nope. Loreen was still sleeping. Neither one of them is early birds.”
“What about you, Mike? When was the last time you saw Teg?”
Big Mike glared at me, shifted his weight, and looked away. “I ain’t seen him for about a week.”
My father nodded.
“Well, I guess he decided to go swimmin’ and banged his head, huh, Doc,” Lehigh said.
“Could be, but I don’t see any sign of that.” Dad had begun to examine Teg, running his fingers through Teg’s hair, putting pressure on the skull, looking for a soft spot. “Not a drop of blood, though. I imagine the coroner’s going to want an autopsy done.”
“I don’t want Loreen to go through that.”
“Can’t be helped, Lehigh, you know how these things work.”
“Maybe he just drowned. Just got caught on something.”
I spoke up. “Teg was a good swimmer.” Dad looked at me curiously and then I sighed, nodded. I knew I had just told on myself, so I figured I might as well tell everything else I knew. “Teg wouldn’t have swum with his clothes on. He never did, Dad.”
“I don’t know what the boy’s tryin’ to say, Doc, but this here is an accidental drowning and nothing more.”
“Might be, Lehigh, but it might not be, either.”
“I said it was an accident, and that’s the way it’s gonna be.” Lehigh said.
In the end, Lehigh was right; Teg’s death was ruled an accidental drowning. Now I figure if it would’ve happened in today’s world, with forensics being what they are, things might’ve turned out differently. Old man Deeter was the coroner when he wasn’t overseeing the only funeral parlor in Harlow, and when he wasn’t doing that, he was playing poker in Store Longwood’s basement, so he probably wasn’t much motivated to order an autopsy. Right before the funeral, I overheard Dad tell Mother something about some bruises on Teg’s back around the kidneys that didn’t make sense. Dad knew it wouldn’t do him any good to raise a stink, but I think he thought the same thing I did: Teg Saidlow might not have drowned all on his own.
Two things happened that day that changed everything. The first being Loreen at the funeral. She looked as if she’d woken up from a coma, like a big weight had been lifted off her. She had healed from her latest sickness, and glued on a shiny black dress to attend her only child’s funeral. She almost looked high society, hat and all. Now I fully expected Loreen to play it up, throw herself on the casket like my cousin June did when her husband, Buddy, got run over by a train, but it didn’t happen. I didn’t see her shed a tear.
The other thing was Pearl. She comforted me, held my hand at the funeral, even gave me a hug at the cemetery and said she was sorry.
As we got in the car to go home, Pearl said, “There’s something about this that’s just not right, Dad. And Lehigh Bowman could care less.”
I nodded.
“That’ll be enough of that kind of talk, Pearl, you hear me?”
“Yes, Daddy, but...”
“No buts. Let the boy rest in peace.”
Now Pearl and I, we put our heads together, and figured there was a murder to solve, with at least three suspects: Big Mike, Lehigh, or a madman loose at the quarry. Pearl put her nose to the grindstone and found out pretty quick that Big Mike had been hanging out at the gas station with a couple of his friends, smoking cigarettes and tinkering with an old Ford, so that pretty much ruled him out. That left the bogeyman at the quarry and Lehigh.
The bogeyman theory didn’t hold a lot of mustard from the start; we’d have heard about it from somewhere else if an escaped prisoner was living in the woods, or a Gypsy had taken up residence in one of the old shacks out there. We hadn’t heard anything of the like. I was suspicious of Loreen, but Pearl wore me down on that one; she just couldn’t believe a mother of any kind would kill her only son.
That left Lehigh. Tracking him down was like tracking a snake in water, if he wasn’t napping in his usual places.
We had just about given up until, as fate would have it, Mother came home one day all up in the air. Loreen Bowman had been getting her hair done at the same time Mother was. And Loreen had been talking about Teg, about how hard to control he’d been, how Lehigh had to threaten him just to mind. Mother told Dad that Loreen said, “If I wasn’t so weak I’d a given him a good spanking and shaped him up, but I left that to Lehigh. Some days it’s a blessing he’s with the Lord now.”
I had told Mother that Teg was exiled to the basement, and I think she was putting two and two together. Somebody had hit Teg too hard and then dumped his body in the quarry. Add in what Teg had said to Pearl — “Lehigh never hits anyone, at least not where it can be seen by the light of day” — and you pretty much came to the same conclusion. Somehow, Lehigh had killed Teg.
Proving it was another matter. And once again, Dad wouldn’t hear of making a fuss. He told me years later that he regretted not doing so, but back then, he wasn’t up to facing down the Bowmans. The whole family had a way of making it tough on someone if they put their minds to it. Big Mike had learned his bully lessons well. I never could tell Dad what Pearl and I knew, and that galls me to this day.
But we did prove Teg was murdered. At least to ourselves. Knowing the truth came with a huge price, though.
One day, about a week after the hairdresser incident, Pearl told Mother she’d heard that Loreen had taken sick again.
“Let her rot,” were Mother’s first words. And then she shrugged, her shoulders sagged with defeat, and finally said we’d have to make her a basket come Sunday. Mother wasn’t the kind to carry a grudge, you know, but I really think she could’ve hated Loreen Bowman if she’d let herself.
Pearl drew the short stick this time. We figured she would. Mother had forbidden me from ever stepping foot on Bowman property or going near the quarry. But I rode out with Pearl because she helped me with my route so we’d have time to find out what we could about Lehigh.
Once we got to the road that led to the big house, I broke off, hid my bike in the woods, and made my way toward Teg’s transom window. Pearl and I had the whole thing worked out. We figured if we got caught, we’d be in trouble until the time we left home, but it was worth the risk, finding out who killed Teg and bringing them to justice if the grownups weren’t going to do anything about it.
What happened between Pearl and Loreen before I came into the picture was told to me by Pearl, so I’ll tell you the best I can.
Pearl had to damn near push her way inside the house. Loreen was drunk. The house was a wreck, and Lehigh was nowhere to be seen. Pearl knew he was behind the post office, fast asleep.
So Pearl said, “I’m sure sorry about Teg, Mrs. Bowman.”
Loreen barely answered, took the basket, and told Pearl to leave.
“Oh, I will, Mrs. Bowman. But I heard Daddy talking to another doctor the other night and they were talking about Teg. I thought you’d want to know.”