The last five minutes were about how dee-voted the twins were to each other. Always dressed alike. Not that they were alike, you understand—
At this point Doc Rennie leaned back and stared at the ceiling, and I knew he was getting extra interested.
“Julie’s always been the lively one,” said Ma Thoroughgood, store teeth clicking like knitting needles. “Johanna’s always been — always was, that is,” — she sniffed and dabbed at her eyes.
“Oh, you knew that was Julie you were helping upstairs?” asked Doc Rennie quickly, coming to life.
“Not till I heard Ed McKay tell Hi Fillmore that it was Johanna in the kitchen, poor lamb,” snapped Ma Thoroughgood. So the old harpy had been listening at the top of the stairs.
“Johanna always was the one that did the looking-after,” she went on, her face triumphant. “Julie, she just worshipped Johanna, and Johanna laid herself out to spare Julie everything. Johanna was quiet — yes. But wait till something bothered Julie and you’d see Johanna rise up and take over quick enough. She’d’ve died rather than let anything upset Julie. Why, I remember once when Julie got in an argument with the Widow Mitchell at the Notion Shoppe over a slip she’d bought that wouldn’t fit. Julie was never used to trouble, and she began to tremble, and Johanna just sailed in and—”
“Fine! Fine!” cut in Doc Rennie. “An excellent account, Mrs. Thoroughgood.”
Ma Thoroughgood looked part pleased and part miffed. She wasn’t through. Not by a darn sight.
“And now I think Sheriff McKay would like to ask you what you saw and heard tonight,” went on Doc Rennie, with a nod to me.
I stopped pacing and sulking.
Ma Thoroughgood went for this part in a big way — the present, I suppose, being more exciting than the past.
“Well, Ben was on the porch, it being hot, and when I come out after doin’ the supper dishes he said, ‘Welch girls got quite a lot o’ company — at least Julie has.’ And I said, ‘Who, Ben?’ And he said, ‘Hi Fillmore and Gerald O’Moore.’ ”
Chapter Three
A Lynching Bee
Gerald O’Moore! I’d forgotten he was said to be sweet on Julie Welch! Dave whistled under his breath. Doc Rennie sat up, and this time he didn’t bother to say “Ouch!” although I could tell by the way he winced that his ankle was giving him a fit.
“Who’s Gerald O’Moore?” he demanded.
Ma Thoroughgood swelled up at getting such a rise out of us. “Why, he’s—” she said. But I took it away from her.
“He’s Dexter Bassett, the hardware man’s nephew,” I said. “Lived with his mother over in Suffern. One of these big, plump bachelors who always talks about his mother and never goes out with girls. That is, not till his mother died about six months ago and he moved over here with Dexter. Works in Dexter’s office. I’d heard he was real sweet on Julie, but I’d forgotten it...”
I kind of trailed this part off, for bait. But Dave, the big goop, bit first. “Ed,” he said, eyes shining, “tell Doc Rennie about O’Moore.”
So I had to come out with it.
“The folks here don’t know about it,” I said slowly, letting Doc Rennie’s mouth water, “but Dexter told Dave and me. O’Moore’s been away three times to sanitariums with mental breakdowns.”
“Oh,” said Doc Rennie. “Go on, Mrs. Thoroughgood.” He yawned. Once upon a time that would have made me mad, like he intended. Now I’ve learned some of this psychology stuff myself.
Ma Thoroughgood speeded up. The old girl was busting to get out and spread the news about Gerald O’Moore.
“A little later,” she said, “Ben and I took a walk out back, to look at the garden, and we couldn’t help overhearing Dan Garner and Johanna on the back porch.”
I felt sorry for Dan. Plain misery was written all over his face. His eyes were deep and hot.
“We heard Dan asking Johanna to marry him. She was putting him off. She said, ‘Why, Dan, you’re only twenty-two and I’m thirty.’ And he said, ‘I’ll finish my course next February and I’ve got a good job promised me over at the Suffern Nurseries.’ And he began telling her about how he loved her, and how she was—” The old lady was enjoying herself — too much.
“Skip that part,” said Doc Rennie, sharp, and I was glad.
Ma Thoroughgood tossed her needle-nose in the air. “Very well,” she snapped. “But it’s my bounden duty to tell you the end. Because Dan Garner” — she aimed her bony forefinger at Dan, and if looks could kill his eyes would have cut her throat then and there — “got up and said, real passionate, ‘You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, Johanna, and nobody else is going to have you as long as I’m alive.’ And she said, ‘Dan, if you’re going to talk like that I’ll have to ask you to stop working here.’ And he grumbled, ‘I won’t leave,’ and stamped off to that lean-to behind the barn where his room is. And now I’ll leave you gentlemen.” And Ma Thoroughgood stamped off, too, and went upstairs.
“That right?” I shot at Dan.
He looked me in the eye. “That’s right,” he said. He was defiant now, and suspicious.
Hi Fillmore held out his hand to Doc Rennie, who gave him one of those stinking cigarettes. Hi dropped it, picked it up again. His hand shook so that the match nearly went out.
“What happened then?” I asked Dan.
“I was in my room by the barn, trying to study,” said Dan, “when I heard the screams. I ran right to the house and into the kitchen” — he swallowed, and one hand went to his throat — “and there was Johanna — just like she is out there now. And Julie had flopped down over her and was screaming... and then... I don’t remember exactly... but Mr. Fillmore ran in from the diningroom and we got Julie up and got her out in the parlor here. I didn’t even know, then, which one...”
His head went to his knees and the sobs shook him all over. I had to remind myself that I was sheriff and he was a front-rank suspect in the ugliest murder case...
I wheeled on Fillmore. “Take it from there, Hi,” I ordered.
Hi said: “O’Moore was here when I called on Julie tonight.” His eyes kept going from Doc Rennie to me as he talked. “I suppose you’d call Gerald my rival, but — well, I think it would have taken him a couple of years to work himself up to popping the question. He’s a bit of a dreamer, Gerald is, and it was plain that he idolized Julie. He still had that mother fixation, I think, although he’s my age. Still, there’s something kiddish about him...”
Doc Rennie nodded understandingly. I didn’t get it, but this wasn’t the part I was interested in. In the pause it came to me with a shock that Hi Fillmore must be over forty now. God, it seemed only yesterday that he was fresh from college and starting the Daily Farmer and beating around the county selling ads and button-holing folks for news items.
Forty! They say that when a man over forty falls in love for the first time it’s a pretty violent proposition. And did Hi Fillmore know that Johanna didn’t want Julie to marry him? Or was that a lie of Dan Garner’s?
“He had a little suitcase with him,” went on Fillmore, “and he left about nine. Said he was going downtown and catch the nine thirty bus for Suffern — going over to Suffern on business for Dexter. He kept looking at me. I think he knew what was on my mind. Finally he tore himself away. And a little later,” said Hi, and there was a new note in his voice, “I asked Julie if she’d marry me and she said she would.”
Here Doc Rennie whispered something to Dave and Dave drifted out, avoiding my eye.
Hi Fillmore took off his glasses and wiped the thick lenses with a handkerchief. Without the glasses he looked younger, like a different man.