Behind Howard, Sheriff Loudermilk said, “We’ll get the inquest over quick, so’s you can get on with it, Howard. Just a formality, that’s all. Ain’t no doubt she died accidental, purely accidental.” Loudermilk went out. Howard spent the rest of the day seeing to preliminaries, such as pricing caskets in Atlanta and comparing them with prices quoted over the phone from Montgomery.
When he drove down Main Street at dusk he sensed a change that had come over Pine Needle. Sidewalk loungers waved to him, and he knew they were talking about him as he drove on.
When he got home, Clara met him with a kiss. Her smile was bright and warm.
She had cooked his favorite dinner, porterhouse steak with mushrooms. He hadn’t eaten a dinner like that in a long while now. It did more than warm his stomach. It told him their credit at the butcher and at the grocery was once more A+.
“Howard,” she ventured, “do you think we might have a weekend in Atlanta sometime? After the vanDeventer funeral, I mean?”
“I don’t see why not,” he said expansively.
Right after dinner the phone rang. The caller was Bayliss, who owned the dry goods store and was Pine Needle’s leading merchant.
“Say, Howie old man, think you’ll be free for a few days after the vanDeventer funeral?”
“I might be.”
“Sure hope so. Me and the boys got to have you on that fishing trip. Wouldn’t be a real trip without you, son.”
“I’d like to go,” Howard said simply, really meaning it. He wasn’t going to permit himself any resentment. Yesterday he had been nothing; today he was a leading citizen. The profit on fifty thousand in a pauperized village like Pine Needle made a lot of difference. That was all right with Howard. He was glad it did.
“Me and Loudermilk was talking a few minutes ago,” Bayliss said. “You know, this town needs enterprising young blood on our town council. We can chin about it on the trip. And I reckon I’ll see you in the diner tomorrow?”
“Sure, a man’s got to have a spot of coffee to keep him going.”
“That’s right,” Bayliss laughed heartily. “Specially a real live wire. Loudermilk told me—and the whole town’s talking—what a real spunky job of selling you did on the poor old man. Real salesmanship, boy!” Salesmanship, Howard thought after he had hung up. He stood by the phone and a faint shudder passed over him. But he controlled it quickly.
Selling the old man hadn’t been so tough. He hadn’t figured for a moment it would be.
The really tough part of the job had been that moment last night when Maddy realized it was he who was shoving her over the cliff.
JURY OF ONE
Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, October 1959.
I knew right away that the district attorney wanted this Mrs. Clevenger on the jury.
Pretending to listen to my lawyer question a prospective male juror, the D. A. studied Mrs. Clevenger, sized her up out of the corner of his eye.
There was a dryness in my throat, a fluttering in my stomach—I was on trial for my life. Murder was a capital crime in this state, and they didn’t use anything merciful and clean like a gas chamber. They made you take that last long walk and sit down in a chair wired for death.
It was a nice spring day. The tall windows of the vaulted courtroom were open, letting in a soft, lazy breeze. Speaking quietly and without hurry, the lawyers had been going about the business of picking a jury for a day and a half. The fat, bald judge looked sleepy, as if his thoughts were of trout streams. The whole thing so far had been casual, almost informal. I wondered, considering the difference this day and half had made inside of me, if l was going to be able to sit through the whole trial without screaming and making a break for one of the windows.
To get my mind off myself, I swiveled my head enough to take a new look at Mrs. Clevenger. She was well into middle age; her armor of girdles and corsets reminded me of a concrete pillbox. Her clothing, jewels, and the mink neckpiece draped carelessly over the arm of her chair all added up to a big dollar sign.
I looked at the heavy, blunt outlines of her face which even the services of an expensive cosmetician had failed to soften. You didn’t have to know her; just looking at her would tell you she was rich, arrogant, selfish, merciless. Nothing, quite obviously, mattered to Mrs. Clevenger, except Mrs. Clevenger. And as she cast a passing glance in my direction, her eyes were beady and cold. There was no doubt about her being the kind of person who would have her way, no matter what.
I didn’t like the way she glanced at me, but the D. A. did. He was the sort who could impress women easing past their prime. He had a tall, rangy, athletic build, a rugged face, sandy hair worn in a crew cut. He’d spotted Mrs. Clevenger already as the key juror, the one he would turn those open, warm, brown eyes on, the one he’d address his quiet, reasonable remarks to—if she were chosen. Win her, and he would have the jury. Win her, and the rest of the jury might as well try to move a mountain.
My lawyer finished his examination of the male juror. “He’s acceptable to us, Your Honor,” he said.
The judge stifled a yawn, nodded, plunked indolently with his gavel, and told the juror to step down.
Mrs. Clevenger was the next one to be up for examination. Mentally, I squirmed to the edge of my seat.
My lawyer came to the defense counsel table. His name was Cyril Abbott. His given name fitted him very well, perfectly. He was lanky, had a thin face which made his nose look like a big afterthought, carelessly stuck between drooping lips and narrow eyes. A gray thatch of
