Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1998

I slapped his hand. Buster Holiday watched too many basketball games, too many late-night movies. It was hard to believe, as Mr. Hornton once told me, that Buster had done a stint in Hollywood as an extra for some of the biggest names in movies back in the thirties and forties.

Then, equally hard to believe, he’d written a series of self-help books on home repair, made a bunch of money, and settled here on Cape Cod. He had a beautiful big house on the bluff but spent most of his time on the twenty foot sailboat he kept moored at a private dock. He was always puttering around, fishing, going for clams, quahogs, mussels, whatever was in season.

I got right down to business. “I’ve got some questions for you, Mr. Holiday, about Elmer Hornton...”

Of course that caused a lot more coughing and scratching and even some belching. “How the heck is he? I tried to see him this morning, they wouldn’t let me near him.” This was followed by a general denouncement of the medical establishment, Mr. Hornton’s doctors in particular.

“He’s the same, Mr. Holiday, no change. My mother’s going to see him this morning. We’ll let you know if we hear anything.”

“Now, your mother, a fine woman, a real lady—” Several seconds of lauding my mother; she’d made the mistake of sending him an eggplant casserole when he’d been sick a while back — until I could finally interject:

“I need to know... Buster, if you saw anyone at Mr. Hornton’s house yesterday. You know, if someone stopped by, like a friend or even a stranger or, say, a delivery guy?”

More scratching and frowning and looking off across the water as a pair of terns wheeled and twittered overhead. For a moment I thought, great, he’s finally gone senile; he’s not going to be any help at all.

“Well, no. Why you asking?” His sharp little eyes turned on me. He needed a bath; he needed a shave, he needed some mouthwash.

And I needed a new approach. What if Buster himself had — what? Leaned against Mr. Hornton’s ladder? Deliberately pushed it? How did I know what went through somebody else’s mind? Or what arguments, grudges, or differences existed between any two people when I barely knew what existed between me and Jake Valari?

“We’re just wondering—” I said, realizing another mistake, the use of “we.” It was strange, wasn’t it, how I could identify so closely with Jake Valari and still hate him. “—if you or someone else noticed that Mr. Hornton was experiencing any, you know, chest pains or headaches that would be—”

“Symptomatic of an oncoming stroke?” he said, surprising me with his grasp of medical jargon.

Everyone surprised me.

“Well, hell no, I didn’t, at least he didn’t complain of nothing like that. We had a cup of coffee after we worked on the stairs.” He sat back on the rim of the boat and scratched again, his neck, his forehead, his chest. “Oh, then we took a hike down the road, watched those tree guys again. They been taking trees down all along Bayview. Lot of damage that last windstorm, you know; damn shame. Some of those trees are over a hundred years old.” He belched again; I stepped back. “Watched those guys take down one heck of a big oak. Full of ants it was. You should have seen them scamper when they took the big saws to it. Heck of a big saw, too — never saw a saw so big! Get it?” He moved toward me with his elbow, so I nodded quickly.

“I got it.”

“Disgusting things, ants. Had a problem with carpenter ants once, nearly ate me out of house and home—”

“So you were with Mr. Hornton all morning?”

“Until noon. Had myself an ice cream, went home. Funny that Elmer never said anything about his roof. I would have helped him. Never go up a ladder alone, Herbie. Too dangerous. You need someone down below balancing it, and just looking out in case of a problem. I guess Elmer never read that chapter in my book.” More scratching. “Hope I’ve been of some help to you. It’s a damn shame.”

“Yeah, thanks.” I turned to climb off his boat. I’d left my bike up on the bluff.

“But you know Elmer, does everything himself, never wants any help. Wouldn’t have let me help him with the stairs if I hadn’t been there at the time.”

I had one foot on the mooring, the other still in the boat. “What stairs?”

“Why, the new stairs in the garage of course!” he laughed.

“There are no stairs in the garage, Mr. Hobday.”

“The stairs going up—” he pointed one dirty finger into the air “—overhead. You know what I mean, the collapsible kind. Complicated thing. He got a kit and put it together himself. I helped him put it in.”

“Collapsible stairs?”

“Why of course! Into the loft he’s building over the garage. He didn’t tell you?”