Chapter 4
The preliminary hearing was conducted in a long, narrow room with the medical examiner presiding.
Alan slumped in a chair, sweating and rumpled after a night in a jail cell.
Shades were drawn against the sunlit spring morning. At the front of the room, where Alan sat between Sevidge and Renner, officials and technicians whispered and rustled papers and pictures. Most of the chairs were taken, but spectators spoke infrequently, watching Alan and the law officials.
The delivery boy was called first. His name was Peter Springle. He'd been sure, for some reason he couldn't give, that Mr. Sheram was at home. The boss had told him not to leave the packages without collecting for them. On the other hand, old Mr. Sheram had a bad temper and Peter had been afraid he'd get in trouble if he returned the packages. He'd looked through a window and saw Mr. Sheram sprawled on the floor. Sun flooding through the window showed Peter blood on the carpet under Mr. Sherarn's head.
Each of the police officers was called. Three uniformed patrolmen had questioned neighbors, all mentioned the violent argument in the alley between Mr. Sheram and Alan Taylor.
Carlos Wakefield was sixty-seven. He wore thick-lensed glasses, was a retired bookkeeper. He lived two houses east of Alan on Summit Street.
"Did you hear Mr. Sheram and Mr. Taylor argue?" Wakefield was asked.
"Yes. I was one of the first to see them in the alley the day before Mr. Sheram was killed. I was emptying garbage and heard voices. I saw Mr. Sheram waving his arms and shouting. There was always excitement when Sheram got angry. I walked down there. I hadn't been there long before most everybody in the neighborhood was standing in the alley, or leaning over fences, watching Sheram. He always put on quite a show."
"Do you know what the two men were arguing about?"
"Mr. Taylor accused Sheram of poisoning Mr. Taylor's dog, named Tippy. We all knew Sheram hated animals. Most dogs avoided his place, but that little dog of Mr. Taylor's was friendly with everybody. She'd stand and wag her stub of a tail even when Sheram threw things at her."
"Did Mr. Sheram admit poisoning the dog."
"Yes. He made no bones about it. Taylor told him that Tippy's death had been painful and agonizing. This seemed to please Sheram, and I could see Mr. Taylor getting madder."
"What did Mr. Taylor say to Mr. Sheram?" Wakefield frowned. "He said, 'I could kill you like that.'"
Alan stared at Wakefield. Surely Wakefield understood this was said in anger and despair. But as far as the people in this room was concerned, it was something said in deadly earnest, threatened, and executed.
Rose Miner took the chair before the presiding officer. She refused to meet Alan's gaze. She kept her eyes down, fixed on her locked fingers.
"What has been Mr. Taylor's condition as far as you're concerned in the three months you've worked for him, Mrs. Miner?"
"He was a moody man. His wife had been dead a year, but he didn't seem able to get over it. He was lonely. He worked hard, as though his work was all he had."
"You'd say he was emotionally upset?"
Rose hesitated. "You mean was he nervous? And like I said, moody? If that's what you mean, he was that."
"And had the dog been a pet of his wife's?"
"He told me she had been."
"And he attached great importance to the dog and its well-being?"
Mrs. Miner nodded. "Several times he told me he had bought the home in Island Groves so the dog would have a home. I thought it odd a man with no family or children would buy a house in a neighborhood full of children. He said he wanted a place where Tippy would be happy."
The police officers whispered together, the spectators nudged each other. This sounded odd, even in California.
Mr. Tillinghast sat in the witness chair and mopped his round forehead.
"Mr. Taylor came to my office that afternoon and told me he wanted to list his house for sale. He quoted a price substantially lower than the present market."
"Did he seem upset?"
"I could see he had a lot on his mind. Otherwise, he was calm. Thoughtful."
"Did you see him later?"
"Yes I walked over to the shopping center for refreshment." The spectators tittered. "Mr. Taylor came in. He ordered a drink, but now he did act upset, and he spilled his drink. Told me he had heavy work ahead of him. He seemed not even to listen when I talked to him."
Alan felt the sense of being helpless against what was happening as these people built at least a circumstantial case against him.
The woman who followed Tillinghast to the witness chair walked tight-kneed, tight-lipped.
Her name was Tess Simpson, and she lived in the house immediately west of Alan.
She was in her forties, and looked as if she'd been pickled in vinegar. When he thought about her at all, Alan considered her a Lesbian, and put her from his mind. Where the others had been retiring, almost unwilling to testify, Tess looked like a woman on a crusade.
"Tell us in your own words, Miss Simpson, what you saw about four a.m. night before last."
"Certainly. I'd lost my brother recently, and since his death I've not been sleeping well. That night I was unusually restless. I heard sounds in the yard and I was nervous. I got up to take sleeping pills my doctor prescribed. That was when I looked out my window.
"I noticed Mr. Taylor's light was burning. I don't know how long it had been burning. But I thought it an odd coincidence that both of us were unable to sleep. I looked at my clock and it was a few minutes past four ajn."
Alan stared at the Simpson woman. She was slack-jawed, slack-breasted. He remembered Sevidge's questioning him about his actions about four that morning. He'd told them he was asleep. He saw now that Renner had been about to throw the Simpson testimony at him, but Sevidge had stopped him.
Alan drew a deep breath. His gaze touched at the gray, imperturbable face of Sevidge. Sevidge had hoped he'd lie, waiting for him to trip himself, to help hang himself.
Sevidge felt he had a complete case against him.
Alan felt the irregular pound of his heart. It was as if the world had turned upside down. The hell of it was, he might have been awake at four a.m. He didn't know. It seemed Nora had left hours earlier. He'd passed out. He didn't remember getting up. But he knew bitterly that when he'd been drinking heavily a few months ago, he'd done things he could not later remember, and hated to believe he had done.
He shivered. Why should he have found sleep easy, even after Nora had gone away leaving him exhausted physically? Tippy was dead, the last thing he had of Caroline. The stupid argument with old Sheram had upset him.
He remembered ugly dreams, and sometime during that morning after Nora left him, he'd made up his mind to sell the house and move down town.
But he had no memory of getting out of his bed.
He recalled turning on no lights.
The hell of it was, he remembered nothing after Nora went away.
He looked around emptily. To the people in this room, it all added up to proof of murder.
Sevidge placed his coat carefully over the back of his chair. He stared across his desk at Alan.
"Now, suppose we have a nice long talk, Taylor," he said. "You heard what the police said, what the neighbors said. I think you're guilty. I'm tired of fooling with you. You killed that old man. I'm ready now for you to tell me how you did it."
Alan shook his head. "You haven't even told me why I'd kill him. I've lived thirty-one years. I'm reasonably intelligent. I've never killed anyone. What you have is a series of coincidences, and hearsay, and you're adding it up to suit yourself."
Renner leaned forward. "What about that gun, Taylor? What about that footprint?"
"I don't know!"
Renner snarled. "Why don't you get smart, Taylor? We're through babying you. You're accused of murder. We don't handle murderers gently."
"If I'm accused of murder, I want a lawyer."
"You'll get a lawyer when we tell you to get one."
"I want one now."
Sevidge stood before him. "The best way to get a lawyer is to talk to us first. We can keep you here as long as we like, Taylor. Nobody cares about you. Nobody but us. And we want the truth from you."
"I've told you that."
"Suppose you tell it to us again."
"Suppose you tell us where that gun is."
"Tell us why your shoe made a clear print in Sherarn's yard if you never wore it over there."
Alan stared at them. "Because I don't know! Because something is wrong. Something I don't understand."
"We didn't wear that shoe over there, Taylor.
We didn't fight with Sheram." Sevidge's voice got soft again. "I'm not saying you didn't have reason to hate Sheram. Maybe you did. Maybe you hated him enough that you wanted to take your 32 and kill him."
Renner leaned closer. "Sure. What was it you told him? You wanted to see him suffer the way your dog had suffered?"
"I was angered. Upset."
"So. It built up all night. Right? Then you got up, put on crepe-sole shoes, went over there, got the old man up you argued some more and you killed him. What did you do with the gun, Taylor?"
Alan met his gaze levelly. "Somebody stole it. I don't know where it is."
"And your shoes? Somebody stole them? Wore them? And brought them back?"
"Yes."
"Make sense, man! You expect us to believe anything like that?"
"It's the truth!"
"All right, Taylor. Somebody else did it. Somebody hated you enough to do that to you. Who, Taylor? You tell us who and we'll arrest him. We'll bring him down here and we'll make him talk. If we have to use scalding enemas, we'll make him talk. Who is it?"
Alan shook his head. He scrubbed at his day-old beard. "I don't know. Nobody. Nobody would hate me that much."
"Right. But you'd bate that old man that much.
Get smart, Taylor. We haven't begun to get tough with you."
The telephone rang shrilly. Renner jerked his head up, face sweating, and glared at the instrument. Sevidge glanced over his shoulder toward it.
Alan saw then the violence in store for him. These men were going to get his confession, one way or another. The shrilling of the phone was like a physical intrusion, and they resented it.
Finally Sevidge leaned against his desk, lifted the receiver. "Sevidge."
Something happened to his face. He peered at Alan, eyes relentless.
Sevidge said, "Yes ... yes." He found pencil and pad on his desk, scribbled a message. "Who is this? What's your name? Hello ... Hello."
Sevidge replaced the receiver. He handed the scribbled message to Renner. "Get on this thing, right now."
"What about him?" Renner jerked his head toward Alan.
"Not now. If this ain't just a crank call, we can wrap this case up. Somebody called, said if we'd look near two elms in the wooded area at the end of Summit Street, we'd find something interesting in the Taylor case like a gun."
Renner's face flushed. He shrugged into his coat. "What do you think?"
"Might be a crank. Might be the gun." Sevidge stared down at Alan. "That where you hid the gun, Taylor? In the wooded place at the end of your street?"
"Real clever," Renner said in sarcasm, moving toward the door.
"Who called?" Alan asked.
"Whoever it was hung up before I asked the name. Muffled voice. Heard a coin drop. Call was from a pay booth."
Renner closed the door behind him.
Sevidge sighed expansively. "Suppose we just take you back to your cell, Taylor. Nothing we can do right now. You might just think about what's going to happen to you if Renner turns up that missing .32. You could have made it a lot easier on yourself."
Alan sat on the edge of his cot and stared at the floor of his cell. He had had some hope that the world would get back on axis, things would make sense again, that he would be cleared of this stupid charge. He no longer had such a hope. The future stretched ahead, terrifying, as if he'd fallen into space, into the unknown where nothing made sense, nothing had to make sense, and he was alone and helpless.
He clenched his fists between his knees. They wouldn't even permit him to call a lawyer until he gave them a confession. They called it a statement, but what they wanted was an admission of guilt. They weren't going to settle for less.
He was too confused to think clearly. Over and over through his mind, ran the charges the police and his neighbors made against him, the way his gun had been missing, the way his work shoes had fit that police-cast mold.
He got up and prowled to the bars. It was all wrong. Something was missing, the one element that would make it all clear, put reason into this insanity.
The doors were opened at the end of the cell block corridor.
They came toward him, striding swiftly, and he knew they were bringing doom with them. It was in their faces.
He could smell their triumph.
Renner walked up close to the cell. Renner's fat-jowled face was more sweaty than ever. His clothing showed stains. He had something in his hand. He thrust out his, arm, opening his palm.
Alan stared at his gun. He recognized it, knew it was his, even dirt-covered, as it was.
Renner's voice rasped. "This your gun?"
Alan nodded numbly.
None of them said anything. The two cops just looked at each other in smug satisfaction.
Alan went on staring at his gun, sickness welling up in the pit of his belly.
"When did you bury it?" Renner persisted.
Alan shook his head.
Sevidge's voice was hard and cold. "Let him alone. We got what we want. We'll run a test on this gun. If ballistics match the bullets, we won't need a statement anyhow."
They stared at him another few seconds. He was like an animal in a cage to them now, a killer animal.
They turned and walked away. Alan stood with his arms at his sides. He wanted to yell after them, to bring them back.
He didn't speak. What was there to say? They could prove the gun was his. Could he prove he hadn't buried it?
He felt a chill rack him. In that moment, he could have told them. They needn't run a ballistics test. Somehow he knew. His .32 had fired the shot that went into Sheram's brain. His gun. His bullet. His shoes.
He walked back to the cot. His legs felt too weak to support him. He wavered, staggering slightly. He sat down on the edge of the cot.
He was cold. The cell was cold, and the world was. In Sevidge's office, he had sworn somebody had stolen his gun and his shoes. He hadn't really believed it then. It had been too wild, too fantastic.
It wasn't wild now. It was fact. Someone had set out coldly and deliberately to frame him for murder. Why? Who? Who'd want him framed for murder?
He struck his forehead with the heel of his hand. He tried to find in his past anyone who'd hate him enough to do such a thing, someone who knew him, knew his dog, his neighbors, his emotional upset, his habits.
He had to do something. Somebody was framing him for murder, chopping him off at every step, and the frame was fitting, snug all around. He had to find out who was framing him and he had to do it fast.