Cedric leaned against a bookcase, sipping his coffee. “I can’t imagine how Millie stays married to him. That man’s impossible. The tractor wasn’t new, but it was the best I could get second-hand. I warned him that he should stay on relatively flat fields with it. He hadn’t had it a week when he tried to plow the side of a hill. It’s a wonder his leg was the only thing got broken.”
June interrupted then, taking up the battle. “He told Millie he was going to kill Ralph as soon as he could get over here. Said he could make himself invisible. Isn’t that enough to get him committed?”
“He hasn’t done anything yet,” I pointed out. “But I’ve asked Sheriff Lens to keep an eye on the place.”
“What’s this coming up the front walk?” Cedric asked, glancing out the window. “Is that Millie carrying a snowman?”
It was indeed. Millie Finesaw was bearing down on us with a three-foot-tall snowman made of giant cotton balls with a carrot nose and coal for eyes, a corn-cob pipe and a little top hat. June greeted her at the door. “Millie — what have you done?”
“I made this as a peace offering. There’s no snow yet, but you can have a cotton snowman in your yard, or even in your living room if you want.”
June took it from her and invited her in. “This had to be a lot of work, Millie.” She placed it on the floor near the fireplace.
“It was nothing. I love fiddling around with things like this. Takes my mind off—” She stopped short, with a pained expression we could all read.
It was my job to ask the question, so I did. “How is Julius today?”
“All right, sleeping mostly. I think those pain pills really numb the brain. He just hasn’t been himself lately.”
I nodded. “It’s best he sleep as much as possible. I have to be getting along now. I’ll let you people visit.”
Somehow Millie’s visit seemed to relieve the tension all around. I left them with a good feeling that, shepherd’s ring or not, her husband was not about to transmogrify into an invisible murderer at midnight.
Annabel and I had dinner that night at our favorite restaurant, Max’s Steakhouse, so we could tell him our good news. We’d held our wedding reception there and Max Fortesque was like one of the family. “That’s great news!” he told us, ordering a bottle of wine for our table. “It means one more customer.”
“Not for a few years,” Annabel told him with a smile.
Sheriff Lens came in then, perhaps hoping to find me there, and joined us at our table. “Vera and I are delighted about the baby,” he told her at once. “I guess I’m too old to be godfather but we’ll love it like our own. Vera’s already planning to knit some bootees.”
“Thanks, Sheriff.”
We invited him to join us and he agreed to a glass of wine. Annabel was careful to take only a few sips for herself. I told him about Millie’s gift of a homemade snowman for the Cedrics and he agreed it sounded as if things were under control. “But I think I’ll manage to be out on Chestnut Hill Road around midnight, just in case.”
“That’s good,” Annabel agreed, “because Sam will be home in bed.” She said it with a smile, but I knew she meant it. She was never happy when I went chasing off after dark.
Although I usually tried to be in bed by eleven, I found excuses that night to stay up later, near the telephone, even as my wife was calling to me from upstairs. “I’ll be up in a few minutes,” I told her, knowing that Sheriff Lens would radio in to his office if anything happened.
I was about to call it quits and go to bed when the phone rang. It was one of Lens’s deputies. The sheriff had called for assistance at Ralph Cedric’s home, and he wanted me there, too. I quickly explained the situation to my unhappy wife and slipped into a coat as I hurried to the car. On the deserted midnight roads it took me only ten minutes to reach Chestnut Hill Road and the flashing lights of three sheriff’s cars.
Sheriff Lens was waiting for me out front. Even in the dim light from the house windows I could see he was distraught. “Sheriff—”
“It was Finesaw,” he told me. “I was watching the street all the time. He never crossed it, yet the next instant he was there by the front of the house. He smashed the door glass with his walking stick and unlocked the door. As soon as he was inside June ran out screaming and wailing. My God, Sam—”
I followed him into the house. The destruction seemed to be everywhere. Even the cotton snowman had been trampled and pulled apart, a lamp broken, books pulled from their shelves, clothes scattered. Ralph Cedric lay in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor, his skull battered by Finesaw’s gnarled walking stick, which lay at his side.
“Is he still here?” I asked.
The sheriff shook his head. “We’ve searched every inch of the house. I’ve got a couple of men watching Finesaw’s place but we haven’t gone in yet.”
I could hear sobbing from the dining room. “What about June?”
“She’s in bad shape, Doc. Maybe you could give her something.”
I went into the next room, where a deputy was trying to comfort her. “Is there any family we could call?” he was asking, but she only shook her head.
“Give me a few minutes alone with her,” I told the deputy, then sat down at the table. “Tell me about it, June. How did it happen?”
“He... he smashed in the door with his cane. Then he just started breaking everything.”
“It was Julius Finesaw?”
She nodded. “He had a hooded jacket on but I knew him. He walked stiffly because of the cast on his leg. Ralph came running out of the kitchen. I told him to go back, but Finesaw was already on him with that cane. I ran to the door and started screaming. The sheriff came running but by that time it was too late. Ralph was dead.”
“And Finesaw?”
“He was just... gone.”
I turned back to Sheriff Lens. “What did you see?”
“Like I said. All of a sudden he was on the front walk, heading for the door. When he smashed the glass I jumped out and ran toward the house. If I’d been parked a little closer I might have gotten here in time to save Ralph’s life.”
“We’d better see about Finesaw,” I said grimly. “And Millie.”
I think we were both a bit fearful of what we would find at the Finesaw house, but after a couple of rings of the doorbell Millie appeared in her robe and slippers. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s happened?”
“Is Julius here?” Sheriff Lens asked, delaying an answer to her question.
“Why... I think he’s sleeping. I gave him another pain pill.”
She led the way up to his room, and I noticed the sheriff surreptitiously slip the gun from his holster, holding it out of sight against his leg. She opened the door to her husband’s room and turned on the light. He was lying there in bed, his cast-bound leg up on pillows, and his eyes opened at once. When he saw me he smiled and said, “I’ve done it just as I promised. I’ve killed Ralph Cedric.”
Impossible as it seemed, there was evidence to bear out his words. The gnarled walking stick that had leaned against his bed on my previous visit was now the blood-stained murder weapon in Ralph Cedric’s kitchen. The slippers next to the bed showed traces of dirt on their bottoms, and a hooded jacket lay on the floor nearby.
“Let me take your pulse,” I said, gripping his right wrist. It was racing a bit, though I couldn’t attribute that to any recent physical activity. The sight of us invading his bedroom in the middle of the night might have accounted for it.
“You weren’t sleeping with him?” the sheriff asked Millie.
“Not since the accident. With the cast and all I knew he’d be more comfortable with the entire bed. I’ve been using the extra room.” She took a deep breath. “Tell me what happened to Ralph Cedric.”