Pity Him Afterwards

Mel went over to the bar and got himself a beer. Then, because the booth would only fit four comfortably, he commandeered a chair, and brought it over.

Rod McGee, the thin eager cheerful one, was saying, “What do you think of that cop anyway? What’s his name, Sondgard? What do you think of him?”

“An extremely able man,” Tom Burns started to say, but Will Henley, big and dour, overrode him, saying, “I don’t think much of him. He doesn’t know his ass from his elbow, if you ask me.”

“I’ve known Eric a number of years,” Tom Burns told him, “and I believe he may surprise you.”

“He’s a teacher,” said Ken Forrest. His voice was low, almost diffident.

Mel said, “A teacher? What kind of teacher?”

“English,” said Tom Burns. “I don’t recall the college at the moment. Isn’t it someone’s turn to go for refreshments?”

“Yours,” said Henley.

But Rod McGee was already on his feet, saying, “No, it’s mine. Five beers. You ready, Mel?”

“I will be.”

McGee hurried away, and Mel turned to Ken Forrest. “You mean he isn’t a full-time policeman?”

“No, he’s a teacher.”

“He works here summertimes,” Burns explained.

“Fine,” said Henley sarcastically. “A part-time cop. He’s an amateur, for God’s sake. You really expect him to catch a clever killer?”

Ken Forrest echoed, “Clever?” His voice was still low, his manner that of a shy man unsure of his acceptance in any group conversation.

Henley slapped him down at once, saying, “Of course, clever! A lot more clever than our English teacher.”

Forrest retired deeper in his corner, and studied his empty beer glass. It was Mel who picked up the ball for him: “He doesn’t seem so clever to me. He acted like an animal. That doesn’t seem clever.”

“Why not? Cunning as a fox, you’ve heard that before.” Henley’s whole tone was belligerent; he leaned far over the table, frowning as he talked. “Here we’ve got a house full of people, maybe, I don’t know, how many of us? Ten? And this guy comes in and kills somebody right under our noses and goes right back out again and doesn’t leave us a hint of who he is or where he came from. You don’t call that clever?”

Mel said, “You think it was somebody from outside, then.”

“I don’t know, what difference does it make? One of us, maybe? In that case, he’s even more clever. He managed to leave us, go commit his murder, and come back, without any of us suspecting what he’d done. Face it, this guy isn’t stupid. Now, I don’t say this Captain Whatsisname is stupid either, all I say is this killer knows his business and Captain Whatsisname doesn’t know his business. He may be the greatest English teacher in the world, but as a cop he makes a good English teacher. That’s all I say.”

Rod McGee came back with the fresh beer then, and the subject shifted. For a while, they talked about the likelihood of there being a season here this summer. Bob Haldemann had told them all the same thing, that he hoped there would be but he couldn’t be sure yet.

They were rather widely split in their opinions. Tom Burns thought there would be a season, but he guessed the opening would be postponed, maybe a week. Will Henley thought, loudly, that there wouldn’t be a season, that once this thing was settled most of them would want nothing more but to get away from this part of the country as quick as possible, so there wouldn’t be the personnel to put on any plays. Ken Forrest stated with characteristic quiet that he thought the show would go on, but offered no amplification. Rod McGee said he for one was willing to stay if Haldemann decided to go ahead, but he wasn’t so sure Haldemann would want to; Haldemann seemed like a pretty sensitive guy, and he might decide it wasn’t in good taste to go ahead and put on plays.

Mel had no strong opinion one way or the other yet, so he said nothing. He was, in fact, thinking of something else entirely. For the first time, the idea had become real to him that the killer was very possibly one of the people in the company, maybe even one of the people at this table. He looked at them with this new realization, studying their faces, trying to decide if one of those faces was a mask hiding a murderer.

Tom Burns? The man was obviously a heavy drinker, you could tell from looking at him. He had a careless attitude toward life in general. Could the killing of Cissie Walker have been prompted by alcohol? Had Tom Burns, drunk, tried to force himself on her, been rebuffed, and had he in a drunken rage killed her?

Or Will Henley. He was the biggest and strongest of any of them there; he could most easily have beaten and strangled the girl without giving her a chance to run away or scream for help. And he’d been praising the killer’s cleverness; was that simply arrogance? Was he himself the “clever” killer, mocking them?

Or Ken Forrest. Silent, withdrawn, oddly unemphatic. Couldn’t the killer be one of those people who bottles up his emotions, who holds everything in with no safety valve, and who suddenly blows up all at once?