Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1998
- Автор: Alexander Gary, Crawford Dan
- Год: 1998
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines/Crosstown Publications
- ISBN: ISSN: 0002-5224
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1998». Краткое содержание книги:
I knew by his tone what was coming, but I also knew this:
“I don’t want any favors from you, Jake. I appreciate your picking me up, but if I never see you again, I couldn’t care less. My life is hell right now, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
I think he wanted to say something, probably something upbeat and positive. I could tell by the look on his face, it was kind of confused, but that’s when his radio gave a crackle: official business calling.
I turned away, slumping down in the seat, and folded my arms over my chest. I didn’t even care what the call was about, though normally I’d be curious. It wasn’t until I heard him say, “Corner of Bayview and Oak? I’m close. I’ll be right there,” that I turned around.
“Not Mr. Hornton? That’s his address.”
“I know,” he said, replacing the receiver. “There’s been an accident. They think Elmer fell off his roof or from a ladder. Ed Andersen’s there, and the fire department.” He pulled into a rest stop, spinning the wheel to turn the Firebird around the other way. “Let’s see what’s going on.”
“It was an accident, Jake, pure and simple,” Officer Andersen was saying as he pointed to the back roof of Mr. Hornton’s small, one story Cape. Across the yard a ways, out near Mr. Hornton’s quahog-shell driveway, another police officer was talking to a small group of people, neighbors mostly who’d been attracted by the commotion created by two police cars, a firetruck, an ambulance. Even the local ice cream guy had parked his truck behind Mr. Hornton’s beat-up pickup and ambled over to see what was going on.
“It seems to have happened about, oh, one o’clock. Elmer was up there,” Ed Andersen went on, “cleaning out the gutters maybe, and he slipped. Though I guess the doctors have to check for heart attack, stroke, that sort of thing. Won’t know until they get a good look at him.”
“Cleaning out the gutters,” I muttered. I looked at where Mr. Hornton’s aluminum ladder had been propped against the side of the house. Then I turned around and looked at the garage. It was twelve, maybe thirteen feet from the house, a large, sturdy structure with a sloping roof. The grass between the two buildings was more brown than green and cut very short. In some places there was no grass at all, just a grayish-brown sand, typical of this part of Cape Cod. There were no flattened areas in the grass, you could see, and no marks in the dirt, so at first glance, there was no way to tell where the feet of the ladder had been placed. Against the house? Or against the garage?
“Or maybe a dizzy spell?” Officer Andersen added as he wiped his forehead. “Hot day, still summer, you know.” He looked at me. “Hey, Herbie, what are you doing out of school?”
But it was more reasonable to suppose that Mr. Hornton had been working on the house or its gutters than on the garage. For one thing, the garage had no gutters. For another, the garage roof was newer, with fresh black shingles, though a few about a foot from the edge looked like there was white mildew on them.
If he’d needed his gutters cleaned, he should have asked me to do it, I said to myself.
The EMT’s had already come and gone. I hadn’t had a chance to see Mr. Hornton, though we’d been told he was found lying on his back in the small grassy area between the house and garage. A lady walking her dog had spotted him and had rushed over, then waved down some guys along the road who were removing a tree. One of them had used the phone in his truck to call the police.
Jake had talked to the woman and the tree crew briefly when we first arrived, but now they were gone, too.
As for the ladder, it lay between the house and the garage. Next to it was Mr. Hornton’s green corduroy fishing cap, the one he always wore. “Can I pick it up?” I asked Jake.
“Sure. Not a crime scene, Herbie,” Jake assured me, hands on his hips as he continued to talk to Ed Andersen and look up at the roof, the side of the house, and the garage, its doors thrown wide open, where Mr. Hornton kept his small workshop.
Mr. Hornton was retired, like I said, but he kept busy. He painted for one thing, mostly watercolors — beaches, seagulls, boats — and he did small jobs like lettering trucks and boats, election posters, and the new signs, all gold leaf and dark blue paint, for the Town Hall. He kept paints and other supplies in the garage, plus an odd assortment of tools, old outboard motors, sawhorses, fishing poles, and buoys. It was a big building with a huge overhead loft accessible by a ladder. Up there he stored plans and drawings for signs he’d designed and made over the last forty or fifty years. It was a great garage, a great place to keep... well, to keep all the stuff a guy needs.
I needed a garage, too, although I might not have one much longer.
But that was hardly important now and I was angry at myself for even thinking it.
“He going to be okay, Jake?” I asked, walking back to the two men with the cap in my hand.
“Oh, sure, Herbie,” Ed Andersen said. He pushed his notepad into his back pocket. “He was talking when we got here, not making much sense, kind of in a daze, you know? But he was moving his arms and legs and breathing pretty good. Maybe he just got the wind knocked out of him. Elmer Hornton’s a crusty old son of a—” he smiled “—gun. Little tumble ain’t going to hurt him.”
The small group of neighbors had wandered over our way. I knew most of them including Buster Holiday, who made a point of telling Jake, “Just saw Elmer this morning. Gave him a hand with his stairs, but he didn’t say nothing about going up on the roof.” Buster was a nice enough guy, pushing eighty if he was a day, with bad eyes, bad teeth, and most noticeably bad breath. We all kept our distance as he asked the others standing there — mostly men in their sixties and seventies — “Elmer tell any of you fellers what needed doing up on the roof?”
There was a lot of head shaking and a lot of speculation about leaky roofs, loose shingles, dirty gutters, but none of them was much help.
“I’ll call,” Jake said to me as this little group went on sharing opinions among themselves. “See if the doctors have come up with anything.”
I looked at the ladder, then at Ed Andersen. Not a crime scene. He turned away from the group of men and smiled. Ed Andersen was a nice enough guy, but I never thought he was particularly bright. “That’s where the ladder fell? I mean, no one moved it, did they?”
“Heck,” Ed answered, taking out his notepad and checking it. “Didn’t think to ask, Herbie. I suppose one of the tree guys might have moved it, or the EMT’s. Don’t know for sure.”
Jake was heading for Mr. Hornton’s side door. The house was wide open, and Jake was probably going to look around inside to make sure Mr. Hornton hadn’t been cooking, or left something else on. He paused on the bottom step, looked at me, and said, “Go ahead. Do what you want with it.”
Fifteen minutes later, after I’d done what I wanted with the ladder, I went inside. Jake and Ed Andersen had shut off a radio, turned off the coffeemaker, and put the contents of a slowly simmering Crock-Pot in the refrigerator. Jake sent Ed out to check the garage, make sure no power tools were left on and the lights were all off, paint cans sealed, and so on. Now Jake was standing before Mr. Hornton’s phone, a frown on his face. It looked like he had something in his hand, maybe his notepad. Whatever it was, he slipped it into his pocket, then went to the sink.
There was nothing in it but a couple of coffee mugs and some dishes, soaking in soapy water.
I can be pretty patient for a kid with a fresh mouth, but Jake was too quiet. I glanced at the phone on the wall. It was an old fashioned model, rotary dial, black in color. Next to it on the counter was an answering machine, and it was plugged in, which surprised me. I knew Mr. Hornton hated the thing even if he’d pretended to be pleased and surprised when Mom and I gave it to him last Christmas.