The Blunderer (29 page)

“I can be here at noon,” Walter said.

“I know about such things as furniture appraising. I don't want you to get cheated,” she said with a laugh.

That afternoon Walter began to sort out the things he would give to Claudia. His father and Cliff might be willing to take some of the living-room furniture, Walter thought. He should answer his brother's letter. It had come ten days ago—the third or fourth letter from Cliff since Clara's death—full of such brotherly affection and Cliff's shy, roundabout sympathy that Walter had been touched almost to tears over it. But he hadn't answered.

He went upstairs and began to put all the linens out on the bed, but he got discouraged after a few minutes and decided to wait until Claudia came that evening so she could help him.

He started to call Ellie to tell her he was selling the house, actually went to the telephone, then changed his mind. He decided to drive to Benedict to mail his letter to Columbia. He got into his car and drove to Benedict.

Then it was 3:12. He debated parking the car somewhere and taking a long walk in the woods. Or going home and getting drunk all by himself. Ellie was gone by now. She would have started off for Corning around two to visit her mother, and she would be gone overnight. But they had newspapers in Corning, too, of course. Ellie might see it tonight, certainly by tomorrow morning. He wondered if he would ever see Ellie again. He whipped the car around and headed for New York. He was going to do what he wanted to do, wait around in Manhattan for the evening papers to come out. He would put the car somewhere and walk, anywhere. He had always loved to walk in Manhattan. Nobody looked at him, nobody paid any attention. He could stop and stare into shop windows at rows of glistening scissors and knives, and feel like nothing but a pair of eyes without an identity behind them.

He went, and walked, and waited. He drank brandies and cups of coffee, and walked some more. But the story was not in the papers by 10 p.m. For hours he had been debating calling Corby and asking him to stop Kimmel, swallowing his pride and begging Corby to stop him. In between his debates with himself his pride would suddenly soar, and he would take an arrogant, desperate attitude of not caring. Corby as a savior was an absurdity, anyway. He'd be on Kimmel's side about this. Or rather, he'd back either of them, whichever one was trying to accuse the other.

There was another edition around midnight. Walter waited for it, and still there was nothing in it about him. Walter began to wonder if Kimmel was not going to tell the newspapers after all. Or was Kimmel sitting in some room in Newark, waiting for a telephone call from him, saying that he had changed his mind?

Or was Corby beating up Kimmel again tonight? Kimmel perhaps hadn't had time to tell the newspapers. But Walter couldn't imagine Corby detaining him if he had such an important mission.

Walter stood on the corner of Fifty-third Street and Third Avenue, looking up at the old elevated structure over his head, wincing as a taxi's brakes shrieked. The glare of light in the Rikers' shop beside him hurt his eyes. As he looked up the dark tunnel under the elevated a bus slid silently towards him with headlights like the eyes of a monster. Walter shivered.

He was in hell.

34

H
e lay awake, listening for the feathery impact of the paper striking the front door. The paper generally came at a quarter to seven. By then he hadn't heard it, and he went downstairs, turned the front door light on to see the steps. The paper had not come. He went back upstairs and got dressed.

The paper had arrived when he started out from the front door. Walter looked at it by the hall light.

NEWARK MAN TELLS OF PLANNED MURDER

OF BENEDICT WOMAN

Nov.
27—An amazing story—with nothing but a pencil-written order for a book and a tortured man's grim and earnest statements to back it up—was unfolded late last night in the offices of the Newark
Sun.
Melchior J. Kimmel, owner of a bookshop in Newark, stated that Walter Stackhouse, husband of the late Clara Stackhouse of Benedict, Long Island, came to his shop two weeks before Mrs. Stackhouse's death in October, and asked him pertinent questions about the murder of his own wife, Helen Kimmel….

Walter stuck the paper under his arm and ran out to his car. He wanted to get the other papers, all of them, at once. But he put the light on in his car and glanced at the solid double-column box again.

“I was horrified,” Kimmel stated, “I started to turn the man in as a criminal psychopath, but on second thoughts decided to wash my hands of the whole thing. In view of later developments, I bitterly regret my cowardice.”

Walter started his car. It was still almost dark, and his headlights fell on Claudia walking towards him on Marlborough Drive. Walter saw her step quickly to the edge of the road, and he felt she shied away from him more than from his rushing car. He wondered if she had seen it yet, or had talked to the woman she sometimes rode with on the bus.

He drove to Oyster Bay and stopped at the first newsstand. He saw it on the front pages of two New York papers. He bought all the morning papers and took them back to his car. He began to read them all at once, skipping over them, looking for the worst.

The body of Helen Kimmel was found in the woods near a bus stop in Tarrytown, New York, on August 14. The body of Clara Stackhouse was found at the bottom of a cliff near Allentown, Pa., on October 24. Police, who listed the death of Mrs. Stackhouse as a suicide, have not commented on the Kimmel story as yet.

NEWARK BOOKDEALER ASSERTS STACKHOUSE
“
PLANNED
”
MURDER OF WIFE AT BUS STOP

The New York
Times
account was not very long but it amounted to plain accusation of murder, with Kimmel's statements cushioned by “alleged … according to Kimmel … Kimmel attested …”

A New York tabloid had a very long account with a photograph of Kimmel talking vociferously with raised finger, and a picture of the order slip with his own name very legible on it. And the date.

Melchior Kimmel, forty, impressively huge with alert brown eyes behind the thick-lensed glasses of a scholar, told his story in rolling phrases and with a thundering conviction that made his statements hard to disbelieve, said Editor Grimler of the Newark
Sun
….

The conversation about the murder occurred, said Kimmel, after Stackhouse (a lawyer) had placed an order for a book called
Man Who Stretch the Law.
Kimmel produced the dated order for the book to substantiate his statement. Kimmel stated that Stackhouse appeared to assume he (Kimmel) had killed his wife Helen, and said that he intended to kill his own wife by the “same method,” that is attacking her during a rest stop on a bus trip.

The Kimmel account goes on to state that Stackhouse proposed to follow the bus in his own car, speak to his wife during the rest stop, and persuade her to a secluded spot where he could attack and kill her without being seen, a method Kimmel says Stackhouse appeared to assume he, Kimmel, had used.

“This,” Kimmel charged yesterday, “is what Stackhouse did.”

Kimmel further asserted that Stackhouse came to see him again on November 15, in order to make a “maudlin apology” and to confess his guilt in the murder of his wife. Stackhouse, who denies any part in his wife's death, Kimmel said “suffers under a psychotic fixation on me.” Kimmel hinted at frequent visits from Stackhouse, which he said he “did not want to go into.” The November 15 visit of Stackhouse was confirmed by Lieutenant Lawrence Corby, Philadelphia Police Homicide Squad detective, who has been investigating the Kimmel and Stackhouse cases for the past several weeks.

Kimmel stated that Stackhouse's alleged actions “disrupted his life,” causing the police to begin investigating his (Kimmel's) movements on the night of his wife's murder. It is this, he said, which prompted him to reveal the story of Stackhouse's October visit at this late date.

“I am not a vindictive man,” Kimmel said, “but this man is obviously guilty and moreover has ruthlessly disrupted my personal and professional life in an effort to besmirch me with guilt. I say, let justice be done where justice is due!”

Kimmel's allegations follow earlier disclosures by the police that Stackhouse was seen and identified at the scene of his wife's death at 7:30 p.m. October 23, though in his first statements to the police, Stackhouse declared he had been in Long Island the evening of his wife's death.

A newspaper story of Helen Kimmel's murder was found in Stackhouse's possession on October 29. An admission by Stackhouse that he had torn the story out of a newspaper and kept it in a scrapbook was corroborated by Lieutenant Corby when Editor Grimler of the Newark
Sun
telephoned him to check on it.

Lieutenant Corby reminded Grimler that Kimmel himself was not entirely clear of suspicion in his wife's murder, and that he would not accept responsibility for anything Kimmel said against Stackhouse, unless he personally corroborated it….

But Corby did corroborate Kimmel in practically everything he said, Walter thought. Corby might have been briefing Kimmel all afternoon yesterday, to make sure he told every fact, to make sure he spoke forcibly enough when he made up his fiction!

Walter stamped on his starter and turned automatically towards home.

He found Claudia standing in the kitchen with her coat and hat still on and a newspaper in her hands. She looked stunned. “Myra gave me this on the bus this morning,” she said, indicating the newspaper. “Mr. Stackhouse, I come here this morning to tell you that I'd like to quit—if you don't mind, Mr. Stackhouse.”

Walter couldn't say anything for a moment, only stare at her face that looked rigid and shy and terrified at the same time. He walked towards the center of the kitchen and saw her step back from him, and he stopped, knowing that she was afraid because she thought he was a murderer. “I understand, Claudia. It's all right. I'll get your—”

“If you don't mind, I'll just collect my shoes out of the closet and a couple of other things.”

“Go ahead, Claudia.”

But she turned back. “I didn't believe it when I heard it from Myra this morning, but when I read it myself—” She stopped.

Walter said nothing.

“Then I don't like these police to question me all the time, neither,” she said a little more boldly.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“He told me not to tell you about it—Mr. Corby. But now I guess it don't matter. I couldn't stop him from coming, but I don't want to have anything to do with it.”

Slimy bastard, Walter thought. He could see him pumping Claudia of every detail. Walter had wanted to ask Claudia weeks ago if Corby had come to see her. He had never dared to.

“I never told Mr. Corby anything against you, Mr. Stackhouse,” Claudia said a little frightenedly.

Walter nodded. “Go ahead and get your shoes, Claudia.” He went to the hall stairs. He had to get his billfold to pay her. He'd forgotten it this morning and gone off with only change in his pocket.

Walter stopped in the act of taking the bills from the billfold: he imagined he heard an outcry from Clara—shocked and reproachful—because Claudia was leaving them, and through his own fault. For a moment, Walter suffered that familiar sensation of shame, sudden anger and resentment, because he had committed a blunder that Clara was reproaching him for. Then he moved again and ran downstairs with the money and his check book. He made out a check to her for two weeks' pay and handed it to her with three ten-dollar bills.

“The tens are just for your good service, Claudia,” he said.

Claudia looked down at them, then handed the check back. “I didn't work but four days this week, Mr. Stackhouse. I'll just take what's due me and no more. I'll just take the thirty dollars.”

“But that's not quite enough,” Walter protested.

“This'll be fine,” Claudia said, moving away. “I'll be going now. I think I've got everything.”

He couldn't even give her a reference, Walter thought. She wouldn't want one, from him. She was carrying a bulging paper bag in her arms, and Walter opened the door for her. She edged away with a real physical fear of him as she passed him. No use offering to drive her to the end of Marlborough to the bus stop, no use saying anything else. He watched her as she descended the slope in the lawn to the road, watched her turn and walk under the row of willow trees. It was hard to realize that he'd probably never see Claudia again. And it was astonishing how much her leaving hurt him.

Walter closed the kitchen door. He felt suddenly alone and desolate. And this was only the maid. What about the others? What about Ellie? And Jon? And Cliff and his father? And Dick? Walter set about mechanically making his coffee. He wondered if Mrs. Philpott would come this morning, if she would call and make an excuse, or not even call?

The telephone rang just before nine. It was a toll call, and Walter waited while the quarters dripped in. He knew it would be Ellie calling from Corning. Then Jon's voice said:

“Walter?”

“Yes, Jon.”

“Well, I've seen it.”

Walter waited.

“Just how true is it?” Jon asked.

“The visits are true—most of them. What he says I said—that isn't true.” Even his voice sounded spent and hopeless, not to be believed. And Jon was silent for a long time, as if he didn't believe him.

“What are they going to do to you?”

“Nothing!” Walter said explosively. “They're not going to put me in jail or anything logical like that. They haven't got the facts, anyway. They make no attempt to prove anything. Any man can get up and say anything, that's their technique!”

“Listen, Walter, when you cool down a bit, you'd better make a statement and tell them the whole thing,” Jon said in his deep, calm voice. “Tell them whatever you've left out and get it—”