Killing Cassidy (6 page)

“Huh? Hey, where you from, anyways?”

“I'm from England. My wife was born and raised in Hillsburg.”

The massive head turned my way. “Then how come you talk funny, too? I heard you when I come up.”

I was getting tired of remarks about my accent. “I've lived away from here for several years. My name is Dorothy Martin, by the way. My husband—my late husband—was a professor, too. We used to come and visit Kevin now and then, but I don't believe we've ever met.” I held out my hand. It was ignored.

“Y'know, I don't much like strangers comin' pokin' around. I kept an eye on the place when the professor was alive and I'm still keepin' an eye on it. Don't want nobody stealin' nothin'. He was a good man, the professor.”

I wondered if it would help if I identified Alan as a retired policeman. I decided not.

In fact, I wasn't sure what to do. We certainly couldn't go into the house with the self-appointed guardian there, nor even peer in the windows. And the giant was extremely intimidating. I looked helplessly at Alan.

He came through in style. “I'm sure all the professor's friends are very grateful to you, Mr.—I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name.” He spoke very slowly and articulated very carefully.

“Jerry's the name. Pleased to meetcha.” He shifted the rifle and squeezed Alan's hand. I saw the fleeting expression of pain cross Alan's face, but he managed not to wring his hand. I got the picture. He would shake Alan's hand, but not mine. That put me in
my
place!

“Mine's Alan. We've been worried, my wife and I, about Professor Cassidy's house, and of course his animals, but it's obvious you have everything under control. Though I don't suppose there's any danger, really. Certainly there can't be very much traffic in this out-of-the-way spot.”

“Traffic? Ain't no traffic. This here driveway don't go no place.”

“Sorry, I meant foot traffic. People coming to call—to visit.”

“Mister, ain't nobody comin',” said the giant patiently. “Nobody comes to a man's house when he's dead. 'Cept you folks.” The suspicion, which had abated, crept back into his voice.

“Of course. I seem to be very stupid today. What I meant to say was, did people come to see him before he became ill?”

“Not many, not no more. I been livin' over yonder”—he gestured vaguely with the rifle—“gettin' on for thirty years now. Used to be people comin' all the time, kids, other professors.” He looked back at me; his gaze sharpened, focused on my bright orange linen hat. “Sa-ay! I think mebbe I do remember you now. Are you the crazy woman who always used to show up in hats?”

I accepted the adjective. “That's me.”

The giant looked at me critically. “You wasn't so fat then. And your hair wasn't gray.”

I judged that it was not a moment to take offense. “Time is cruel, isn't it? How is it that I don't remember you at all?”

“Never let myself be seen. Just kept an eye on the comin's and goin's, that's all. The professor, he was good to me, and I reckon he trusted ever'body. Don't do to trust ever'body. I looked out for him. Hey, how come you want to know so much?”

Alan opened his mouth, but I poked him in the elbow. I was ready for this one.

“I moved away, you see, a few years ago when my husband died. I'd lost touch with Kevin. And now I feel guilty. I wanted to talk to the people who saw the most of him at the end, make sure he was well and happy—oh, I suppose just make sure there was nothing I could have done. I know it doesn't make sense, but he was good to me, too, Jerry. I loved him.”

The bearded face split in what might have been a smile. The whiskers made it hard to tell. “Lady, you're mebbe all right after all. You want to know about the professor, you come with me. I can tell you anything you want to know. Come on, then!” he said impatiently.

He turned his back and stomped off. I looked at Alan. He raised his eyebrows fractionally, then shrugged and jerked his head.

We followed Jerry into the woods.

A
LAN'S
eyebrows rose again, a little higher, when we reached our destination.

Jerry's home, though only a few yards away from Kevin's, was well hidden. It was a trailer. “Mobile home” didn't suit it at all. This was a 1950s-era trailer. Not that it would ever trail behind anything ever again. The tough, wiry vines of bindweed had knitted it firmly to the ground.

It was surrounded by junk. An old television and a front-loading washing machine leaned drunkenly against each other. Their two large, mismatched glass eyes stared out at us. Broken furniture, a bedspring, discarded cans and bottles, and several rusting hulks of cars sketched a sadly familiar scene of rural poverty. The only vehicle that looked to be in running condition was a motorcycle, an elderly but still mean-looking Harley Davidson. All in character.

The trailer itself, however, was not quite what one would expect. The concrete blocks for a doorstep, the sagging door, the torn screen, yes. But the body of the trailer—

“Surprised you, huh? The professor give me the paint. Nice 'n' bright, ain't it?”

It was. Jerry's home was painted a vivid glow-in-the-dark orange.

“I've never seen anything like it,” I said with the utmost sincerity.

“It ain't the right kind of paint, the professor said. It'll wear off pretty soon. But he give me plenty, so's I can keep fixin' it. Kind of a memorial to him, like. Well, come on in.”

I took a deep breath of what was likely to be the last fresh air I'd get for a while and followed the giant into his den, Alan behind me.

“You gotta bang the door.” Jerry turned back and did just that. “It don't shut good. Got to fix that one of these days.”

I wished he'd left it open. It was as dirty inside as I'd feared, and as odorous. The smell of stale food and unwashed human was no match for the pervasive smell of cat. The couch was covered with a fine collection of clothes, jumbled together with several weeks' worth of TV
Guides
and the crumbs of a good many meals. Jerry scooped it all off and dumped it on the floor on top of a pizza box with a couple of dead slices still in it.

“Take a load off your feet. Want a beer?”

It still lacked an hour or so till noon. I shook my head, but Alan said, “Yes, thank you very much. My throat's quite dry. Dorothy will have one, too. She was only being polite.”

“Alan!” I said in an undertone as Jerry rummaged in his refrigerator.

“I know, and you don't actually have to drink it, but I think we must accept his hospitality. If we refused beer he might offer something else, and at least beer comes in clean cans or bottles.”

Jerry gave us our beers, took a long pull of his own, and sat himself down in a battered recliner.

“Where are the cats?” I asked brightly, as I inhaled a strong reminder of their presence.

“Around. They don't cotton to strangers much. Prob'ly under the bed, if they're not outside huntin' theirselves a snack. Say, that reminds me. I shot a couple of rabbits last night and made me some stew. You want some? It's right good. I'm an okay cook, doin' for myself all these years.”

I was suddenly, unwillingly, touched with sympathy. There was something in that last remark, a wistfulness, a shy pride—but I still wasn't prepared to risk ptomaine. “I'll bet it's delicious, but Alan and I are still not quite up to eating much. Jet lag?”

Surely even he had heard of jet lag. He did have a television, after all.

“Man, I know all about that. When I come back from 'Nam, I wasn't up to nothin' for a week. Long ways back, that was, but I still recollect how sick I was. 'Course, I hadn't had no good food for a long time in that cage they put me in.” He finished his beer, belched, and crumpled the can in one huge fist. “Okay. So you want to hear about the professor. What you want to know?”

“Anything you can tell us, Jerry. You said he didn't have many visitors. That surprises me a little. He had so many friends.”

“Yeah, but you know how it is. People get busy, they move away, they figger somebody else is goin' to keep the old man company. They got their own lives. Just like you.”

The guilt that I had tried to lull to sleep stirred and stretched itself. Alan's hand closed over mine, and he took up the conversation.

“I trust, at least, that someone looked in on him regularly. At his age, almost anything could have happened.”

“Oh, they was a few people now and then. But as for reg'lar, that was me. I'd go see him every day. He didn't get out much anymore, only to the store for food and that. So mostly I'd find him in that workshop of his.”

“Workshop?” I frowned.

“Yeah, the glass. You know.”

“No. What was he doing with glass?”

“Gee, maybe he took that up after you left. How long ago'd you say that was?”

“Over three years ago, now.”

“Yeah, I guess maybe it was after that. He was gettin' restless, see. He didn't go to work in the lab no more, said he couldn't see good enough.”

“Yes, he'd given that up even before Frank died. It was hard on him, but he was very firm about it. He said he wasn't going to be one of those old bores who got in the way of the young people and messed up their experiments. As if he would!”

“Yeah, well, when he quit, it left him with nothin' much to do with his time. And I guess he went to one of them art fairs, up in Brown County or somewheres, and he got interested in that stuff they do with colored glass. So he built hisself a workshop out back and took it up.”

“He started working in stained glass? At—what—ninety-three, ninety-four?”

“Yep. Pretty good at it, too. People come and give him stuff to do for them, whaddaya call it—”

“Commissions?”

“Yeah, that's it. He was real proud of that. Did right pretty stuff. Give me one last Christmas.” He gestured toward a dirty window where a sun-catcher hung crookedly from a rusty wire.

I had missed it when I first came in, overlooked it in the general clutter. Now I couldn't take my eyes off it. A swirl of abstract color, it glowed like a costly jewel in a pinchbeck setting.

“Don't know what it's supposed to be, but I kinda like it,” said Jerry.

My throat was too tight to answer. Once more Alan stepped into the breach.

“It's a beautiful thing, Jerry. Do you remember who came to give Professor Cassidy commissions? We'd like to see more of his work.”

“Lots of it in the workshop. I could take you over and see it.”

“That would be very kind of you, and we'd like to do that. But we—my wife—would also like to talk to the people who saw the professor close to his death, if you remember who any of them are.”

I marveled at Alan's patience. I was longing to get out of the smelly trailer, see Kevin's workshop, learn something—anything—that might be of use. My husband the policeman was able to set aside impatience, prod gently, get anything Jerry might be able to give us.

It worked, too, at last. “Sure I remember! Didn't I tell you I seen everything went on over there? Lemme see, now. The last week or two before he went to the hospital, you mean?”

“Or even before that.”

“Don't know how far back I can recollect. But them last few days, sure, 'cause seemed like they was a lot of 'em.”

I held my breath while Jerry searched his trauma-addled brain.

“They was the doctor, for one. Not his real doctor, but another one. I reckon he sent for him, on account of his real doctor was out of town. Got no business goin' away, doctors, if you ask me.”

“You mean a doctor actually came to see him?” I spoke up. “A house call?”

Alan looked puzzled and opened his mouth, but now was not the time to explain that American doctors, unlike their English counterparts, stopped making house calls years ago. I frowned at my husband, and he closed his mouth again.

“Yeah, I thought it was kind of funny, too, but I guess, the prof bein' so old and all—”

“Probably. That was just before he went to the hospital, then?”

“Yeah. And before that—well, they was the lady lives next door. She wanted him to make her some glass, I reckon, 'cause she went out to the workshop. You might go to her house, if you want, but you won't see nothin', 'cause he never had time to finish whatever he was doin' for her. Then they was the cop.”

I swear our ears pricked up like a cat's.

“A policeman? What was he doing there?”

“Not just
a
cop,
the
cop. Chief of po-lice.” The accent was on the first syllable, and the tone was one of infinite contempt. I was extremely glad I hadn't mentioned Alan's profession.

“Come there for the same thing as everybody else, I reckon—wanted the prof to make him some glass. Don't know what no cop wants with somethin' nice like that.”

I didn't speculate, but willed Jerry to continue.

He scratched his head. “Oh, then they was the preacher. He come round 'bout once a month, tryin' to sell the prof religion.”

“What preacher was that? A priest, was it? Kevin was a good Catholic.”

“Naah. Wasn't no priest, didn't wear no round collar or nothin'. Just the preacher from down the road. He was always preachin' hellfire and damnation and sayin' Catholics was idol-worshipers and that. I could hear him, summers when the windows was open, all the way over here. The prof never paid him no never mind, but he never throw him out, neither. He'd just listen, polite-like, and after a while the preacher'd run down and leave.” Jerry guffawed, an alarming noise. “The prof told me onc't, he said he just turned off his hearin' aid till the preacher give up.”

Alan chuckled. “That's one way to deal with a pest. When my hearing gets a little worse, I'll have to remember that. Jerry, did none of his family come to call?”