Peyton Place (53 page)

Tom looked sharply at the lawyer. “Where are you from, Drake?” he asked, and it was a full minute before he realized the suspiciousness of the tone he had used.

By Jesus! he thought, I'll have to watch it. I'm beginning to sound like a true shellback. He threw back his head and began to laugh.

“From New Jersey,” said Drake, eying the laughing Tom. “You?”

“From Peyton Place,” said Tom, “via New York, Pittsburgh, and other points to the south.”

Outside, the men of Chestnut Street stepped into Leslie Harrington's car.

“I wonder where Charlie Partridge was today?” asked Drake.

“Home in bed with the grippe,” said Tom. “If he weren't, he would have been here, and he would be riding back to Chestnut Street with the others right now, in Leslie's car.”

“All the same,” said Drake, dropping his cigarette and stepping on it, “the old order changeth. The backbone of Chestnut Street is broken for fair.”

“Maybe,” said Tom, and walked out of the courthouse.

It was one sunny, fresh-scented May morning when Buck McCracken first realized the meaning of words to which he had listened for years.

“It's a small world,” people said, but Buck always disagreed silently and violently.

It was an enormous world, thought Buck, millions of miles tall, and deep, and wide. Let one of those who always spoke of a small world set out to walk from Peyton Place to Boston some fine day. Maybe then they'd quit their gab about a small world and realize what a damned big place the world really was.

Buck was sitting at the counter in Hyde's Diner on this particular morning. He always sat in the end seat, if he could, which was not too often, for this was regarded by practically everyone as “Clayton Frazier's seat.” No matter who was sitting in the end seat, if Clayton came in, he always stood up and moved somewhere else. Buck liked to sit in the end seat because it was next to a window which overlooked Elm Street, and from it he could look out at his black sheriff's car parked at the curb. The red blinker on the car's roof gleamed in the sunlight this morning, and the sharp, pointed antenna of the two-way radio rose like a shaft in the bright morning. Buck was proud of his official car. He kept it washed and polished and looked at it often and fondly. With a contented smile, Buck turned away from the window as a stranger came into the diner.

Salesman. Buck's mind ticketed the stranger at once, although the sheriff pretended not to stare at the stranger. He sipped his coffee and seemed to be lost in thought when the stranger spoke.

“This place looks a lot different than it did the last time I was through here,” he said.

Buck looked up disinterestedly. “Oh? Come this way often?”

“No, thank God, although as I say, the place looks pretty good this morning. The last time I was here, it was in the dead of winter. Snowing and blowing like the hounds of hell. That was a night, I'm telling you. I couldn't make it beyond White River, and had to spend the night there. I brought a fellow up with me that night, all the way from Boston. Ask him. He'll tell you what a night it was.”

“Feller from here?” asked Buck, trying to remember who had been out of town last winter during the big blizzard.

“Sure,” said the salesman. “Navy man. Can't remember his name right now, but he told me what it was. God, how he told me! Drank like a fish, all the way from Boston.”

“Navy man, you say?” asked Buck, standing up as Clayton Frazier came into the diner. Clayton sat down in his accustomed seat, and the sheriff moved to the stranger's other side. “I can't remember nobody from here was in the Navy last winter. Can you, Clayton?”

“Nope,” said Clayton, picking up the cup of coffee which Corey Hyde had put down in front of him. “You, Corey?”

“Nope. Nobody I know.”

“Listen,” said the stranger, becoming flustered by all the opposition to his simple statement, “this man came from here all right. He told me so. And he was in the Navy. I picked him up right outside Boston and gave him a lift all the way to here. He said he was coming home to visit his children, and that he hadn't been home since 1939.”

Buck, Corey and Clayton looked at one another. Lucas Cross, they thought, as if with one mind, but they would not give the stranger the satisfaction of knowing he had stumped them momentarily.

“What'd the feller look like?” asked Buck, fixing the stranger with a suspicious eye.

“Well, I can't remember exactly,” said the stranger uncomfortably. “He was big.”

“So am I,” said Buck. “Was it me?”

“No. No, of course not. This fellow drank quite a lot. I remember that.”

“Well, that could make him just about anybody in town,” said Corey Hyde. “Is that all you can remember?”

The stranger scratched his cheek thoughtfully. “There was something else,” he said. “Something about the way this man smiled. I never saw anybody else smile in quite that way. When this man smiled, his forehead moved. Craziest looking thing I ever saw. I never forgot it. I'd know that smile if I ever saw it again.”

“Listen, mister,” said Buck softly, “I think you musta been the one drinkin’ that night. I've lived in Peyton Place all my life, and I never yet seen a feller who smiled with his forehead. You musta been the one drinkin’, and I don't take kindly to fellers drivin’ drunk through my town.”

“Now listen here,” said the stranger, and looked at the faces of Buck, Clayton, and Corey. He did not say anything else. He finished his coffee and walked quickly out of the diner.

For a few minutes, neither of the three men in Hyde's spoke. Then Clayton Frazier set his cup down in his saucer.

“Seems funny,” he said, “that Lucas'd come home and nobody'd know about it.”

There was another long pause before Buck said: “Selena and Joey didn't see him if he did come. I was over to their place when them Navy men was here lookin’ for Lucas. Selena and Joey both said they hadn't seen him.”

Corey Hyde refilled the coffee cups. “Selena is no liar,” he said. “Neither's the boy.”

“Nope, they ain't,” agreed Buck and Clayton. “Still, seems funny the way that stranger could describe Lucas so good. I never seen another man smiled like Lucas, either. No more than that salesman ever done.”

“Of course,” said Buck, quoting as nearly as he could remember from a policeman's manual of long ago, “We have to consider the possibility of foul play.”

“Whaddya mean, foul play?” demanded Corey.

“Oh, you know,” said Buck. “Somebody hittin’ a guy over the head and takin’ his money, and like that.”

“Who'd hit Lucas over the head?” asked Clayton. “Here in Peyton Place.”

“I dunno,” said Buck. “I didn't say somebody did. I just said we had to consider the possibility.”

“That's one possibility seems highly improbable to me,” snorted Clayton. “The idea of one of Lucas’ neighbors hittin’ him over the head for his money. Lucas never had no money.”

“I never said one of his neighbors,” said Buck defensively. “It coulda been somebody else, couldn't it? What about that salesman feller. How do we know he didn't do it?”

“Yeah,” said Corey disgustedly. “He'd be sure to come right back to Peyton Place and start talkin’ about Lucas if he'd hit him over the head.”

“Oh, I dunno,” said Buck, in a superior tone. “Criminals often return to the scene of the crime.”

“Wonder who that salesman worked for?” said Clayton.

“S. S. Pierce, out of Boston,” said Buck, in a snappy tone. “I seen it on that brief case he was carryin’.”

“Maybe you oughta go after him and ask him if he hit Lucas over the head,” said Clayton derisively.

“No, I won't do that,” said Buck thoughtfully. “First, I'll get in touch with them Navy fellers and see if Lucas ever went back to his ship in Boston. If he didn't, then I'll begin to do some wonderin’.”

“Ain't it a small world,” said Corey. “A stranger passin’ through town on his way north, stops for coffee in my diner and sits down right next to the sheriff and tells him that he's seen a man nobody in town has seen since ’39. Ain't it a small world?”

“Yeah,” agreed Buck McCracken thoughtfully, and walked out of the diner to the shiny sheriff's car parked at the curb.

It did not take long for Buck to receive a reply to the inquiries he had made of the Navy Department. Within three days the same two men who had been searching for Lucas Cross during the winter were back in Peyton Place. They contacted the Boston office of the S. S. Pierce Company and located the salesman who had passed through Peyton Place. His name was Gerald Gage, and the Boston office of his company said that he was, at the moment, making business calls on stores in Montpelier, Vermont. Mr. Gage was contacted at Montpelier, and requested to return with all speed to Peyton Place, which he did. He eyed Buck McCracken warily as the two men from the Navy Department questioned him. Yes, he had on the night of, let's see—the twelfth of December, he'd guess, because it was his last trip north until after the holidays, and he was due in Burlington on the thirteenth, picked up a hitch-hiker who wore the uniform of the United States Navy. No, he had not asked the sailor if he was on leave. Why the hell should he? The guy wanted a ride, and he, Gerry Gage, being a good sort, had offered him one. He wished to hell he'd never done it now. But that was his trouble, too goodhearted. He could never pass a fellow up on the road, especially on a night like that one had been last December. Snow? He guessed to hell it was snowing. And windy. Oh, about half-past twelve, he'd guess. He'd noticed the time on account of he was worried about finding a room in Burlington at that hour. As it turned out, he never did make Burlington that night. Got hung up in White River and couldn't drive another yard. That's how hard it had been snowing. Sure, he guessed that he'd recognize the fellow again, all right. Of course, it had been dark when he picked him up, and dark in the car, but they had stopped for coffee down below Nashua someplace, and he'd got a close look at the guy then. Big fellow, and tight as a tick. Drank whisky all the way up from Boston. He'd recognize him again, all right. In his business, it didn't do to forget a face, or a name, either. He'd remembered the name the hitch-hiker had given him a couple of days ago. Lucas Cross, that was the name the guy had given him. Lucas Cross. He was coming home to visit his kids. Said he hadn't been home since ’39. And what was all this anyway? What had the sailor done? What did they want with him, Gerry Gage? There was no law against picking up hitch-hikers that he knew of, so how about if they let him go back to work, huh? What? Why, he'd let him off right on Elm Street. What did they want from him? That he take the guy right to his door and see him in? No, the sailor hadn't said where he lived except that it was a long walk on a cold night. Tough, that was what Gerry Gage had told him. He had plenty of liquor inside of him to keep him warm all the way to White River, if need be.

A short while later, on the same day, the two men from the Navy Department went to the Thrifty Corner Apparel Shoppe to see Selena. They told her that a salesman from Boston had positively identified her father from a batch of Navy photographs, as the man whom he had picked up in Boston and set down in Peyton Place.

“I can't understand it,” said Selena levelly. “If Pa came home on leave, why didn't he come to the house?”

Less than an hour later, Joey Cross, protected by Miss Elsie Thornton, was giving the same answer in the office of the grade school.

“It seems odd,” said Miss Thornton coldly, “that neither of you two gentlemen have anything better to do with your time than the questioning of little children.”

“Yes, ma'am,” said the two men, and returned to Buck McCracken's office in the courthouse.

It was all over town that same afternoon. Everyone buzzed with it.

“Seems funny that Lucas'd come home and nobody'd know it.”

“Not even his own kids.”

“Who'd ever've thought that Lucas'd join up with the Navy?”

“Seems funny. You'd think
somebody
would've seen him.”

“Well, Selena's no liar. Never was. Neither is Joey. Lucas was always the crooked one in that family. Nellie wa'nt never too bright, but she was honest as the day is long.”

“Nope. The Cross kids are no liars. If they say Lucas never reached home, he never reached home, and that's the end of it.”

Nevertheless, the two men from the Navy Department, together with an embarrassed Buck McCracken, went to call on Selena and Joey that evening. Buck sat in a chair, twisting his doffed hat nervously, and wished that he'd never started any of this. The Navy men asked polite questions, to which Selena and Joey replied with one answer. No. No, they had not seen Lucas. They had not heard from him in years. No. Never. He never wrote home. They had not even known that their father had been in the Navy, until these same two gentlemen had informed them of this fact last winter. In the end, the two men went away, followed by a sullen Buck McCracken who whispered an apology to Selena behind their backs.

“Selena!”

“Don't be afraid, Joey.”

“But, Selena, so many questions!”

“Don't be afraid, Joey. They don't know anything. They can't. We were too careful. We buried him, and we scrubbed and cleaned and burned everything that might have given us away. Don't be afraid, Joey.”

“Selena, are you afraid?”

“Yes.”

Ted Carter came home that week end, and when he learned of the apparent disappearance of Lucas Cross from Peyton Place, he went at once to Selena.

“Didn't your father come here at all?” he asked.

Selena's tautly held nerves quivered. “Listen,” she said, “stop making noises like a lawyer around me! I've answered questions until I'm ready to heave, and I've only one answer to make to any question. No. No! No! No! Now leave me alone!”

“But Selena, I only want to help.”

“I don't need your help.”

He gave her an odd look. “Don't you want Lucas found?” he asked.

“You have known me for years,” said Selena wearily. “If you had had to live with him would you want him found?”

“I should at least want to know what had happened to him.”

“Well, I don't. I pray to God that no one ever finds him.”