Killing Cousins

Twelve

The Quivera police force included, besides a chief and the usual uniformed contingent, three plain-clothes detectives, of which one was Elgin Necessary, bearing the rank of lieutenant and presently standing at Willie Hogan’s door with his hat in his hand. He was a tall, thin man with a tendency to droop at the joints, so that he gave an over-all effect of being boneless and in process of collapsing slowly with a whisper into a little pile of wilted seersucker. At this moment, as a matter of fact, he was rather embarrassed and as a consequence rather angry. He felt that he was being forced to meddle without cause in something that was none of his God-damn business, and what he wished was that certain fat, nosy women in this town were not always imposing their nosiness on the God-damn police force in general and Lieutenant Elgin Necessary in particular. He looked at Willie from under limp lids that never quite uncovered his eyes, in which there was now a gleam of appreciation. She was certainly a cute little trick, about a hundred pounds of a lonely man’s dream, and he began to feel, before saying a word, like a lousy bully.

“Mrs. Hogan?” he said.

“Yes,” Willie said.

“I’m Lieutenant Elgin Necessary of the police. I’m sorry to bother you, but we’ve been asked to investigate the disappearance of your husband. Is it true that he’s gone?”

“Yes, it’s true, but it’s a personal matter and very unpleasant, and I don’t see why it’s necessary to make any investigation of it. Is it the custom of the police to make an investigation every time a husband runs away from home?”

“Only when there’s a particular complaint or request. May I come in and talk with you about it?”

“I suppose, if you must, you may.”

He went into the hall and followed her from there into the living room. He stood turning his straw hat by its brim in his hands, feeling now like a trespasser as well as a fool and a bully, until she had sat down on a sofa with her little stern just catching the edge and her knees together and her hands folded on her knees around what appeared to be a letter. He also sat down, in a chair facing her, and dropped his hat on the floor.

“I imagine,” she said, “that it was Mother Hogan who sent you here.”

“Mrs. Howard Hogan, Senior. She didn’t really send me. She requested an investigation, and I was assigned. I’m sure we can get everything cleared up quickly with your cooperation.”

“I’m willing to cooperate in any way I can. What do you want to know?”

“Mrs. Hogan, your husband’s mother, seems to be convinced that there is something wrong. Do you know why she feels that way?”

“She doesn’t like me and merely wants to cause trouble for me.”

“You don’t think it’s anything more than that?”

“I don’t know what more it could be. I’ve told her and told her that Howard and I had a quarrel, and he went away with three bags that he was packing when I got home from the Club, where we’d been to a party, and I haven’t seen him since.”

“What time was this? When you had the quarrel, I mean?”

“I don’t remember exactly, except that it was late. After one o’clock, I think.”

“Friday night?”

“Well, it was Saturday morning, to be exact.”

“Yes. Saturday morning after one o’clock. Did he leave the house soon after that?”

“Pretty soon. Maybe about two. He drove away in the Buick.”

“Did he give any indication of where he was going?”

“No. Not then. I told Mother Hogan that he didn’t, but she wouldn’t believe me.”

“Did he take anything besides the three bags and the Buick?”

“Well, he had clothes and things in the bags, of course. I don’t know what all. Clothes and toilet articles and things like that, I guess.”

“Do you know how much money he had on his person?”

“Yes, I do, the sneak. I didn’t know it at the time, but I’ve learned today that he drew out all the money in our joint savings account, besides cashing all our government bonds, and altogether he had about twenty thousand dollars.”

Lieutenant Elgin Necessary could not repress a low whistle, and for a moment he gave the impression of being erect in his chair, although Willie could not remember afterward that he had actually moved discernibly at all.

“That’s a lot of money,” he said. “You’re sure he had it on his person?”

“Of course I’m not sure. He’d hardly show it to me, after all, since he was running off with my share. He must have had it, though. Probably in one of the bags he packed.”

“With that much money, he must have planned to go somewhere to stay a while. He also must have planned in advance, as you must see. He evidently didn’t leave solely because of your quarrel.”

“That’s true. I can see it clearly, now that I’ve learned about the money.”

“How did you learn about it? Did the bank notify you?”

“They didn’t notify me, but I found out about it this morning when I went there to get a check cashed. Howard’s cousin works in the bank, you know.”

“I didn’t know, as a matter of fact.”

“He does. He works there as a teller. He was the one who told me about Howard’s drawing out the money and cashing the bonds.”

“He did this on Friday?”

“Yes. Sometime Friday.”

Necessary looked down at his hands, which were lying in his lap. They were very large hands with knobby knuckles. One of them picked the other up and began to rub it with a massaging motion, as if it were in pain.

‘Well,” Necessary said, watching the performance of his hands, “it seems pretty apparent that your husband planned to go away without your knowledge and that he made certain preparations in advance. Maybe he left a little earlier because of the quarrel, but he would have gone anyhow. That’s the way it looks to me. Are you certain you can’t think of where he may be?”

“Oh, I know where he is.”

He looked up from his hands, and again she had that queer impression of sudden sharp straightening of his body, although nothing actually moved except his head. On the contrary, he stopped the one small motion he was making, the one hand dropping the other and lying down quietly beside it in his lap.

“What’s that? You know where he is?”

“Yes. He’s in Dallas, Texas. At least he was there yesterday.”

“I thought you said you didn’t know where he went.”

“I meant I didn’t know where he went immediately after leaving, but now I know he’s in Dallas, or was yesterday, because I received a letter from him in the afternoon mail.”

“Is that the letter you’re holding?”

“Yes. I’d just finished reading it when you came. Would you care to see it?”

“It’s none of my business, really. You needn’t let me see it if you don’t want to, but it would be kind if you would, and maybe it would definitely settle this business.”

“I want you to read it. You’ll see that he has simply gone away and doesn’t intend to return.”

He took the letter and read it with an odd feeling of reluctance and shame, as if he were committing in her presence some kind of obscenity. In order to read the typed words, he put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, which he took from the breast pocket of his seersucker coat. He looked, she thought, like a rather seedy high-school teacher who had probably once dreamed of becoming a scholar and moving up into a university, someplace like that, but had now resigned himself to being no more than he was, if not less. At the same time, however, he conveyed an impression of shrewdness that was brought into focus, like the words on the paper, by the glasses and the manner in which he peered through them. After a couple of minutes, he returned the letter to her and the glasses to his pocket.

“Isn’t it rather unusual to write a letter like this on a typewriter?” he said.

“Do you think so? Why?”

“It’s a personal letter. Usually, it seems to me, such letters are written by hand.”

“That’s so, of course, usually. Howard, however, never wrote anything at all by hand if he could avoid it. His handwriting was simply atrocious, hardly legible, and I think it embarrassed him. He had a kind of obsession or something about it. As you can see by the letter, he never even signed his own name unless it was on some kind of paper that required it.”

“Yes. I see. Where do you suppose he came upon a typewriter to use in this case? I mean, hotel and motel rooms are not equipped with typewriters, are they? When you come to think of it, a typewriter is not something that’s readily available unless you have one of your own or know someone who will loan you one.”

“Howard had his own, of course. I told you that he never wrote anything by hand if he could avoid it.”

“Did he take it with him?”

“Yes. It was a Royal portable, and he had it when he left. I remember seeing it.”

“You said he took three bags. You mean he took two bags and the portable typewriter?”

“No. I don’t think so. I’m certain not, now that I think about it. He took three bags and the portable.”

“Four pieces of luggage altogether?”

“Yes. That’s right. Four.”

“I just wanted it clarified. You neglected to mention this before.”

“I didn’t think it was particularly important. Is it?”

“No. It explains how he was able to type the letter, that’s all.” Necessary stood up, started to cover his head with his straw hat and then, evidently remembering where he was, jerked it away and hid it behind his back. “Thank you for helping me, Mrs. Hogan. You’ve been very considerate.”

“Not at all. I hope everything has been explained satisfactorily.”

“It seems clear enough. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

“You are obligated to make investigations if they are requested, I suppose, however silly. May I offer you something before you go? A drink or something?”

“No, thank you. I’d better get along.”

He walked to the door ahead of her and turned there to say goodbye. He was reluctant to leave and would have liked to stay for the drink she had offered him. Although it was against regulations to drink while on duty, he had broken regulations before under lesser temptation. He didn’t really know why he felt compelled to decline and leave. Perhaps it was because he was aware of a total inability to be detached in her presence. Talking to her and listening to her, watching her all the while as she sat primly with her small stern just catching the edge of the sofa, he had felt a strong impulse to take her in his arms and comfort her with kisses. He had not felt like this in the presence of a girl, or a woman, for much longer than he cared to think about, and it disturbed him. It was far too late for such emotion, almost adolescent in its poignancy, and it had been, in truth, always too late for him, even thirty years ago. Now, outside on the lawn, he yielded to another impulse, turning to wave to her as she stood in the doorway to watch him leave. She waved back and smiled, and he went on across the lawn to the drive and his car.

Driving downtown, he thought that it all seemed obvious, although a bit queer in spots. It was obvious that Mrs. Howard, Senior, was a stupid and probably vindictive bitch who was getting excited about very little, which was what he had guessed in the beginning, and that Mrs. Hogan’s son Howard had simply gathered up all available cash and deserted his wife, which made him in Necessary’s book a damn fool who didn’t know a good thing when he had it. Necessary was vastly relieved that the case could be closed so quietly and quickly — that there was, in fact, no case at all so far as he was concerned in his official position. He hoped, just as soon as he could get Mrs. Howard Hogan, Senior, off his tail, that it would never be necessary to think of her again, although it would be quite a while, he conceded bleakly, before he would forget, case or no case, Mrs. Howard Hogan, Junior.