Judas Cat (11 page)

He turned his back on the painting. He had neglected to ask Miss Turnsby about the Addison visits and she had not brought up the subject. They were events of history in Hillside and certainly not lost upon her. It was she who called the
Sentinel
every time he came.

He felt sure that the picture was an original. He wrote down the name of the artist. From the dining-room window he could see Mabel in her yard brushing the contents of the dustpan into the wire burner. He decided to speak to her again. She did not hear him coming up behind her for the crackle of the fire she had just started. She jumped when he spoke her name.

“I’m sorry if I startled you,” he said.

She smiled presently, but it was a tight-lipped smile, and her eyes had no part in it. “What is it, Alex?”

“Something else I meant to ask you.” It was all wrong, he thought. Mabel Turnsby was not the same helpful person she had been a few minutes before. Something he had asked or done had miffed her. He wanted to stall, to get into his subject more gradually. “Excelsior used to fascinate me as a kid,” he said, “the way it burns.”

“I got new dishes from the Emporium,” she said. “What did you forget, Alex?” Her voice was false with her controlled annoyance.

“I wondered if we might be able to work out anything on Andy from his friendship with Henry Addison. What do you think?”

“I gave up thinking of that a long time ago.”

“I wonder what they did when he came to visit.”

“Talked.”

“Friendly, would you say?”

“I wouldn’t say, Alex. There’s some things I don’t pry into. I just know they talked.”

It was hopeless, Alex thought. She just did not know anything about it, and it was that, not his asking, that irked her. “Well,” he said, “I just thought I’d ask.”

“Mr. Addison had relatives. Why don’t you ask them?”

“Maybe I will,” he said. “Thank you, Miss Turnsby. Can I give you a lift any place? I’ll be leaving soon.”

“Where’d I be going?”

“Shopping maybe. I just thought I’d ask.”

“Thank you, Alex, but I’ve walked it many years. I can still do it.”

He was depressed when he re-entered Andy’s house. His good relationship with Miss Turnsby had curdled, although for the life of him he did not know why. It was also disconcerting that he had noticed the painting for the first time today. His powers of observation were just not keen enough. He made up his mind to go over the house foot by foot. He had just removed his coat and hung it over the kitchen chair when he heard someone calling him. He went to the back porch. It was Miss Turnsby.

“Alex,” she said. “They just called up from the police station. Chief Waterman wants you down there right away.”

W
ATERMAN HAD BEEN TIRED
before he got out of bed that morning, and in the first few moments of his waking he had wished that he might fall asleep again and reawaken to another day, another responsibility. He had heard his wife singing downstairs, an intense sort of singing in which the words didn’t matter, nor the melody, as long as she was singing. When her throat gave out, she probably talked to herself, he thought, until he came down. Then she would talk to him, and ask him questions and not wait for the answers.

He was not on the street long when he picked up word of Altman’s attempts to discredit him, just in case he did not close up the Mattson business quickly, and there were too many things about it that left his conscience unsatisfied. All in all, it didn’t matter very much to him what Altman said, and when Alex told him about having taken the cat to Barnard, and the disappearance of the package, he knew what he had to do.

On the way to the toy factory he stopped at the barbecue stand. There was a boy behind the counter when he walked in. He ducked into the kitchen when he saw the chief and presently his mother came out. “Chief Waterman,” she said.

“Mrs. Wilks, the old man, Andy Mattson that died a couple of days ago, I was wondering if you ever saw him?”

“I saw him every once in a while, heading out toward the toy factory.”

“That’s quite a ways past here.”

“I didn’t say he was going there,” she said. “I just say he was heading that way. He didn’t stop here.”

“Do you remember the last time you saw him?”

“Early spring, I’d say. The way I remember, I was thinking he’d freeze to death in that field if he was to fall down and nobody saw him. He gave me heart failure picking his way through.”

“Why do you suppose he’d go through a field like that instead of along the walk?” the chief asked.

“Shorter. Besides there’s a lane back of the stand. It must run all the way to his place. Always had coal and lumber sent in that way.”

“Have you seen anyone go in that way lately?”

“No. Come out here, Jimmie,” she called to her son. “He’s been pestering me about a car he says was out back in the middle of the night, night before last. I don’t put much stock in it, the imagination he’s got.”

“I see,” Waterman said. “When did he first tell you about it?”

“Yesterday morning he was talking about it. I paid no attention till I heard what they’re saying in town.”

“Why didn’t you come to me about it, ma’m?”

“He’s always imagining things,” the woman said, pushing Jimmie in front of her. “It’s the kind of books they let him read from the library. All these scary things. And the stuff he hears on the radio.”

“Suppose you tell me what you saw, son,” Waterman said.

“I just woke up and looked out,” the boy said. “I saw the car cutting through the field, no lights or nothing. I thought it was a buffalo at first the way it was bucking, like.”

“Did it get close enough for you to get a good look—maybe to see what color it was?” Waterman asked.

“Came out past our place. In the field it looked kind of blue, but everything was blue so’s I couldn’t tell for sure.”

“Good boy!” Waterman said. “Did you get up out of bed to look out?”

“Sure. I cracked my shin on the rocker. You can see the black and blue mark.”

“That don’t sound much like imagination, ma’m,” the chief said.

“He’s got black and blue marks all over him.”

“Did you see the driver at all, Jimmie?”

“Not good. He was leaning away close over the wheel, trying to see, I guess.”

“How many people were in the car?”

“Just him.”

“Which way did he turn?”

“Must have been out of town,” the boy said. “I watched for a couple of minutes to see if he turned on his lights, but I didn’t see the car even.”

“I see,” the chief said. “You’d have seen if there’d been any other cars up there lately, wouldn’t you, ma’m?”

“I might and I might not. It ain’t a thoroughfare and it goes right through our parking space. And I wouldn’t put too much stock in what Jimmie says, Chief Waterman. Like I say, with all them radio programs and books and things. Jimmie, show the chief that book you brought home yesterday.”

The boy reluctantly drew a book from beneath the counter and handed it to Waterman. “I saw it just as plain as anything,” he said.

The chief was turning the pages of
The Nelson Boys at Secret Cove.
“I don’t think it does the boy much harm,” Waterman said, handing it back. “Maybe it sort of makes him alert.”

“Alert,” she said. “In the middle of the night. Healthy kids are asleep then.”

Waterman winked at Jimmie, thanked them and went out. Even in the way he turned the car around there was a purpose in him from then on.

The office to the toy factory was behind the loading platform. Hershel was giving orders to the loaders when Waterman drove up. He led him through the crates indoors. He was a short man. His feet didn’t touch the floor when he sat behind the desk, but he had made a bee-line for it. He probably felt more comfortable when his stature was less conspicuous. He was about fifty years old, still dark although there were traces of grey in his hair and mustache. People liked Joe. They still had not forgotten that during the depression he had kept on his employees until he had to borrow from them to keep the business going. The manufacture of miniature golf sets had pulled him out of one bad spot, which was a bit ironic, considering his self-consciousness about his size. It was hard to think of him in any sort of connivery, Waterman thought.

“I guess maybe you know why I’m here, Joe,” he said.

“Andrew Mattson? I was sorry to hear about the old man dying. Mighty sorry. I always felt there was something decent about him. It’s a shame he had to go that way. Cats are strange animals.”

“They aren’t much stranger than men,” Waterman said.

Hershel leaned across his desk close to the chief. “If he was alive I wouldn’t want to talk to you,” he said. “I made an agreement with him a long time ago, and by the green grasshoppers, I’ve kept it. I suppose you saw the model toys in his place?”

“Mighty cute little gadgets,” Waterman said.

“Whenever he needed money he brought one to me,” Hershel continued. “And I could use them. Oh my, how I could use them. You know how kids get tired of toys? Just think what it’s like trying to keep up with them.”

“A good business, though,” Waterman said, thinking of the expansion plans.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. I’ve had good times and bad.”

“Did you pay Andy much?” the chief asked.

“I pay the highest prices in the business.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. If you was to tell me what you paid I wouldn’t know whether it was good or bad. What I meant was, did it amount to much money or just enough for the old man to live on?”

“He never brought me anything until he wanted money to live on,” the manufacturer said. “The most I ever gave him at one time was two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“When was the last time you gave him money?”

“Last spring. I gave him two-fifty cash. He always wanted cash. No checks for people to know where he got it.”

“Did he sell them outright to you, or did he get money against their sales over the years?”

Hershel looked at him as though he was not sure whether he wanted to answer the question. He offered Waterman a cigar and when the chief refused, he took the paper off it for himself.

“That was the funny part of our arrangement,” he said. “Mattson laid down the law to me the first time he came. I wasn’t to patent anything. At first, I thought to hell with you, mister. I’m not cutting dies on these things and then have some competitor pick up the idea and undersell me all over the country.” He bit off the end of the cigar and spat it into a piece of Kleenex. It amused Waterman. You couldn’t guess people’s personal habits by their surroundings.

“But he sold you on the idea?”

“No. I liked the darned things so much, I had confidence in them. I decided to risk a big run of them for the Christmas trade and it worked. Sure, I could have made a fortune, but I’ve never been in too much of a hurry for it.”

Waterman wanted to ask him then if he expected his fortune soon, but he had no doubt that Altman had already talked to Hershel the way he had to a lot of people. His only chance of getting information was to not be too keen about it. “Was the agreement you speak of the patent business?” he asked.

“That was part of it. The main thing was that I was not to tell anybody about it or about him making them.”

“Did he say why?”

“Never.”

“How long has he been making them?”

“Twenty-five years, at least. I think he was making them for my father. My father never told me, though, and he died suddenly. Andy came to me with the proposition cold. But we had a couple of things in the files I got looking at later, and they were Andy’s drawings all right.”

“Did he come often?”

“No. Two or three times a year. And he only came to the office once or twice altogether. Generally my home. There’s hardly anyone around there ever. Maybe on account of the goats.”

Waterman remembered the goats now that he mentioned them. Hershel pulled at his cigar thoughtfully. “I gave him more money once,” he said. “I just thought of it now. It hit me at a tough time, but I knew he needed it if he asked it, and I raised five hundred dollars for him. Right in the middle of the Depression, that was.”

“Did he tell you what he needed it for?”

“Oh no.”

“He sure kept his business to himself,” Waterman said. “Did he make what he felt like or did you ever ask him for anything particular?”

“I only asked him once,” Hershel said. “I thought the way he made little people—regular characters they were—he could make me some United Nations soldiers.”

“But he didn’t,” Waterman said.

“No, he certainly didn’t. He was sitting on the porch steps with me, and I can see him yet. His lip curled up like a dog ready to snap at you, and I could feel his eyes scalding me. Black, but alive, like they had specks of fire in them, like coals in a hearth. ‘I’ll make you the men,’ he said. ‘Boys. That’s what you want. They make better soldiers. But I’ll give them to you naked. Naked and strong, and made in the image of God. Put the togs of war on them if you like, but I’ll have no part of it’.”

Waterman’s hand trembled as he reached for the desk to pull his chair upright from where he had tilted it. He got to his feet slowly. “When did you say was the last time he came?”

“Last spring. March, or April maybe.”

“Did he act different at all?”

“Yes, he did. In all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen him what I’d call happy till then. It did my heart good.”

“Any idea why he was feeling good?”

“No. It wasn’t anything he said. Just the way he walked. Kind of jaunty for an old man, and his eyes weren’t brooding. It seemed like things were right for him for the first time. I thought then he wouldn’t mind dying. Funny I should think that the last time I saw him. I don’t know what it was about him, but he sort of got inside you and twisted.”

“I think I know what you mean,” Waterman said.

A
LEX’S ONE THOUGHT WHEN
Mabel called him was that word had come from Barnard. He turned the key in the back door and hurried to the station. Gilbert had his feet on Waterman’s desk when Alex walked in.