Admittedly there were a few that said give the man his due, he was innocent until the courts proved otherwise. Bob Milhaus was one of these. He told me that there was no solid evidence against Murphy that he knew of. It was that public spat with the storekeeper raising questions and causing suspicions. Made no difference that it happened a year ago. Then too, even though Murphy was only a petty thief , he was an ex-con and that made people nervous.
So the general tide of public opinion was negative. His landlord packed up all his belongings the day of the hearing. I was momentarily shocked that the landlord could be so cold-blooded. He did have enough common decency left in him to send someone around to ask if I’d like to hold Murphy’s things in the meantime. Of course I took his possessions in. There were few enough of them. Then too I felt a great deal of responsibility for the whole mess.
Murphy lost his job at about the same time he lost his apartment. It was the day after the hearing that Murphy’s boss at the garment factory got wind of the news. He sent Murphy at letter at the jail saying that Murphy’s services were no longer required. Also they wanted his security guard uniform back. So now the poor man had no job and no place to live. He was back to square one and facing all the problems of just getting out of prison. A road he had successfully walked before was in front of him again.
Off and on I heard suggestions as to the kind of punishment Murphy was deserving of. I was shaken by some of the atrocities I heard, they wanted to publicly tear him apart. To torture him. I could only conclude that their viciousness was a direct result of their proximity to the crime. It had become personal to these people because it had happened in their own neighborhood. Their cause, although misdirected, was to see Murphy pay for Evelyn Frome’s murder.
* * *
When I saw Murphy next he was in the recreation room with several other prisoners. I was able to see into this room through heavy glass windows laced with wire. Through this window I noticed that Murphy was actually conversing with the other prisoners. Thank God I thought, he’s coming out of it now. Soon he’ll be his own self again.
I saw too that Murphy was as relaxed as he’d been while standing on the sidewalk in front of my garage. He even laughed a time or two while I stood there observing. It hit me like a blow that he was one of them. After only three days of imprisonment. One of a select group, the only problem being the private club was prison.
The guard approached Murphy and was met with a stone face. Murphy listened to him without nodding or speaking then summarily followed the guard to the visiting area. His expression never changed when he saw me. “Nicholas” he said.
After a few heartbeats he remembered who I was, an old friend, and he became warmer to me. He laughed and I knew what he was going to say. “Yesterday, boss I enjoyed that. You sure told ‘em. Don’t think I ever saw anything like that before. They arrested you, didn’t they? Well, looks like you got out of it okay.”
He sat down with me then, my old friend. We looked straight at each other and it came back to us. A level we could meet on. It was good to see him again and I told him so. It was the best I’ve felt since this whole unfortunate incident got started. Unburdened for the first time since Murphy was arrested on Tuesday.
We talked for quite a few minutes before he remembered the state of his life. And it happened so sudden that I was startled by it. The look he gave me then was beyond my grasp. Although I’m sure I’ll never be able to forget it.
He said, “Boss, I have things to tell you. You need to understand what’s happened here.”
He stood up though he was still looking into my eyes. Then, almost in the tone of one lecturing, “It’s over for me now, Boss. No,” he stopped me, “I don’t want to argue with you about this. I just want you to know how it is with me.”
There were tears in his eyes suddenly, but I only saw them for an instant. Murphy was a blur moving out of the room. I sat there alone for awhile. Thinking. I just kept right on thinking. The apple cart’s not completely upset. Just has a real bad lean to it.
Chapter 10
The day after that unsettling visit with Murphy I woke up with a start. A strong feeling of clarity is what I had. And in combination with fresh morning light it was a powerful and heady sensation. It was so obvious. The solution was in front of me all the time. I’d been so rattled myself that I hadn’t seen it. Until now.
In a bemused state of mind I followed the usual routine of my morning. I was so relieved to have the answer that it took a while to see the mistake in my thinking. If I did call the police anonymously and tell them they were holding the wrong man, they would want to know how I came by this information.
And a fair question, no doubt about it. It was one with no logical answer as well. I pondered a letter giving them fresh information in exchange for Murphy and wondered if it would be taken seriously. Somehow I doubted it.
Over and over I turned the problem in my mind, toying with thoughts of acts and consequences. I walked out to the garage and stopped on my way to consider the rosebush at the corner of the house. It was only two months ago I’d planted it. Retirement hobby. Then too, landscaping would certainly help to increase the property value. In case I decided to leave the area, sell the house, and start over in another place. And look at it now. Damned neighbor cat had eaten most of it.
For a few minutes I thought about that damned cat. I’d been seeing it on occasion for the last couple of months, since it was a kitten. A little hell raiser it was, always running and jumping. Until it started visiting my yard that was fine. It was a playful little devil and tried to make up to me a time or two but I let it know I wasn’t interested. I would have been happier to see the beast in a cage. Animals shouldn’t run free in residential areas.
It truly was a blight on the neighborhood and I couldn’t abide anything of the sort. A man only has what he can see around him. Since the rosebush already looked fairly well dead, I dumped a couple of handfuls of lime on it and turned it over with a shovel. When I finished smoothing it out the small mound looked like a grave to me.
After remarking on that, I went back to thinking about the problem of Murphy. As I was thinking earlier, the police needed to be set on another trail. And before much more time had passed. And knowing how dogmatic the police tended to be at the best of times, a certain amount of truth best be dangled before them. Something they would be able to prove, or at least see in a concrete way. Perhaps even a revelation to change the course of their thinking.
Just then I heard wheezing. Immediately I resigned myself to a bout of long-winded monologue and prying. Because as surely as the sun shines in the daytime, it was old Mr. Nailor. I motioned him to a chair right away. The way that old man pushed himself I was afraid he might just keel over on me someday. Besides that, he was very old and should probably be dead already. I’d hate to have to be the one that witnessed his life’s departure.
He hunkered down over his breathing, all the time studying me with his small bright eyes. I’d had more association with this old man lately that I cared to count, twice the day Murphy was arrested and once the next day after the hearing. Now here he was on my doorstep again. I hadn’t seen old Nailor in the last couple of days though. He’d surely had plenty of interesting gossip to keep himself busy since then. My guess was that he was running a little low on half-truths and was looking to me for fresh ammunition.
I knew it was a lost cause to struggle against the old man’s wiles. I couldn’t stop speculation about Murphy any more that I could keep him from being arrested. I truly did not want to participate in this game but somehow felt that I had to. It was just a matter of choosing which tidbit might satisfy old man Nailor and at the same time, leave me feeling unsullied by the local grapevine. Yet I daren’t go the other way and give too much, for the last thing I needed was such an alliance.
I tossed it over for a minute or two longer. Old man Nailo
r wasn’t about to let me get off too easily. He had to have the time to make his pitch. That was all part of it – the gossip round with its close friendly ties and an ever attentive audience for his antics. I knew it all meant a great deal to the old man so I didn’t quite have the heart for snubbing him outright. And I sure didn’t want him for an enemy. Gossip can get a person killed with its wildfire uncontrollable growth. A small piece of information can escalate into an inferno.
He talked, I listened. On he went about the activities of the neighborhood. Slowly. He kept to his own pace. Then, at his leisure, he started in on Murphy’s case. I’d grown sleepy by that time. The trial was three and a half weeks away I heard him say and I began to wake up some. I agreed on that point. Things were bad for Murphy he said. I just looked at him and waited for the rest of it.
He asked me then what I thought Murphy would get out of it and I wasn’t expecting it. I’d forgotten how good that old man was once he took a notion to move. And he was right too. If Murphy was somehow convicted, he’d either get a long prison sentence or something far worse. Something I wasn’t prepared to think about, the death penalty. Hard to conceive such a thing in today’s world.
Instead of opening myself up for a telling reaction on my part, I looked Mr. Nailor right in the face and asked him what he thought. After all, the best defense is a sharp offense. Being a good player, he didn’t even have to think the proposition over. And he kept his eyes sharply on my face as he told me he thought Murphy would get the death penalty. I was braced for it and I noticed that his voice had taken on sepulchral overtones for this pronouncement. I wasn’t surprised though. That old man was always on a stage.
I lost my patience for the game at this point and prepared to send him packing. He saw what I was about and hurried to fend off my helpful shooing motions. “Nicholas.” he said, with an air of authority to his voice. “I heard somethin’ that might help Murphy.”
This had the air of truth about it, so I assumed a listening posture again and told him to go on. With his audience so tenuously secured, Mr. Nailor suddenly felt the need to reconfirm his reputation and so proceeded to run through his list of references. He meticulously catalogued his wide circle of friends and acquaintances, mentioned the distances traveled on his daily rounds, and particularly noted his sharp memory and the strictest adherence to detail.
All of this I suffered through and agreed with before he was willing to tell me what he knew. “After all,” he said, “you useta go with Evelyn.” I didn’t bother to dispute this charge, it would only serve to further slow Nailor’s story. But I sure didn’t like it and I was fairly certain he knew it.
What he told me was that someone in a long black coat had been seen leaving the store not long before the murder was discovered. This person was said to be much larger than Murphy, although his hat had kept him well disguised. So no one knew who it was.
When pressed about this story, Mr. Nailor said that the lady across the street was the informant. “Mrs. Byrd.” he whispered. He confided to me that she had not gone to the police yet, as she was somewhat leery of them. But the old man thought that her conscience would get the better of her sooner or later and then she’d talk to the police. I was inclined to agree with him.
I remembered some work that needed doing and told Nailor I’d have to get busy soon. He acted like he wanted to stay but I wasn’t having it. Finally I was able to disentangle him and escort him out of my garage. Still, he wasn’t willing to go until satisfied that his job was complete. All that remained of the exchange was my giving him something in return. And he intended to go nowhere until he had received his end.
I’d been tossing it around in the back of my mind and whimsically decided to give him something substantial, something that would set the whole neighborhood on ear. An experiment it was. I knew that he’d eat up anything of a sensational nature and there was a small chance that Murphy could benefit from the fringe shocks.
In a hesitating voice I said Mr. Nailor, I don’t know what to think about it, but you know it’s funny that the woman on the corner is suddenly spouting stories this way. It’s almost as if she’s trying to keep things stirred up. But whether to be deliberately misleading or to cover something else, I really couldn’t say.
“But why?” he wanted to know. “I don’t think she killed that old woman.” He was bewildered but I could see that he was running over all the options in his mind.
I took a long pause and a deep breath to demonstrate my great reluctance over the matter. No, she’s up to something else I agreed. But I swear I’d never tell any tales on her or anybody else in that position. It’s up to her to make her peace with her husband and her God. That’s not something I’d like to be involved in. It’s a sad thing when a family has problems like that. I shook my head when I was finished and embarrassed, looked off to the distance. Then I mumbled that I was sorry I’d said anything.
The old man nodded thoughtfully at this apologetic posturing and told me goodbye. It was a cordial leave-taking on both parts. I watched him shuffle away, while noticing out of the corner of my eye the damned neighbor cat still digging at my dead rosebush. It had lime all over its paws and occasionally licked at them. Briefly I wondered if the lime would kill the cat. I sincerely hoped that it would.
By evening it was everywhere but on the evening news. Mrs. Byrd was said to be having an illicit love affair with her neighbor. And her husband was off getting dead drunk as a result.
Chapter 11
Ultimately I was sorry about the trouble I’d stirred up. The whole neighborhood was in an uproar for weeks. After awhile even I believed that Mrs. Byrd was having an affair with her neighbor. Even so I felt very contrite when I heard that she’d been seen with a black eye.
She’d been buying groceries and tried to conceal her face, but to no avail. Several people saw it clearly. They repeated this news over and over until it was common knowledge. Old Nailor must have some truly spectacular connections I thought bitterly when I first realized the distance the tale had traveled. It was a regular spider web of news, electrical charges rushing madly in all directions and then coming back to the source empowered and far bigger than when they first went out.
The fighting and arguing of the Byrds rapidly became item number one around our way. He had become hysterical when he heard the news about his wife and next door neighbor. He felt bitterly betrayed by both. Already prone to the evils of strong drink, he at once immersed himself in acts of drunkenness and cruelty. When at home, he cursed, ranted, and accused his wife of all manner of heinous crimes. And when he was out, he boasted of vengeance and murder to anyone who dared to listen to his ravings. Soon he was shouting his unhappiness to uncaring strangers.
Shocked and appalled by the accusations regarding her virtue, Mrs. Byrd initially protested her innocence in mere choked whispers. Eventually however, as her friends drew away to less contagious regions, she became infuriated and screamed at the lies told about her. Overnight it seemed the woman had become a shrew, startling the unwary passerby and frightening children. Especially, her own children appeared terrorized by her. She lost all patience with them in her panic. Their crying could be heard amid the screams of their parents. The matrons of the neighborhood were horrified by this, but knew not how to interfere.
Perhaps the most bewildered of the three was the patsy neighbor, Mr. Roberts. An accountant he was, and as finicky as an old maid. Mild in manner as well. A man who lived a very quiet life, he never quite seemed to grasp that with which he was accused.
His mother, with whom he had lived all his life, was so scandalized by the gossip and the loud fighting next door that she had the vapors almost constantly until she succumbed to a heart attack. This was a week after I’d talked to old man Nailor. I was a little surprised that she died, although I knew she had considered herself sickly. Still, she had always looked exceedingly healthy whenever I happen
ed to see her, robust even.
In the next week, Mr. Roberts grieved strenuously for about two days. Then he seemed to discover a new facet to himself. Immediately after the funeral, he packed some of his possessions and sold or gave away the rest. Then he sold the house, quit his job, and left for parts unknown. All witnesses to these events swear the man never stopped smiling. I couldn’t help being pleased at Roberts’ good fortune in losing his mother. No man should live under a woman’s thumb, particularly his mother’s. It was the only good that came from these events.
The Byrds, unfortunately, could never resolve their differences. The howling continued day and night. The small faces of the Byrd children were perpetually unhappy. Their parents began to physically assail each other with fists and any handy objects. Bruising was rampant on both of them. One event seemed to escalate upon another and before I knew it, rumor caught up with fact and another murder was done.
It was Mrs. Byrd whose body was found. In the early evening someone out for a stroll saw her lying there. Later he told me that he’d thought a garbage can had been kicked over. It was in the back alley she was discovered, cruelly beaten and strangled. Her groceries were scattered about in horrible violence.
I visited the scene of the crime early on and thought about the sad wasting of this woman’s life. If only she’d minded her own affairs she’d still be alive. I wondered then what Murphy would say if he’d been able to see the carnage. With his great appreciation for violence, he’d surely have enjoyed himself. And amused me. Again I missed him.
Although Mr. Byrd never stopped protesting his innocence, such as his wife had done, it made no difference to the law. He was arrested for the crime within an hour of the body being found. His trial was a hasty affair and in short order he was sentenced to life in prison. No other suspects were ever considered.
The day after the body was discovered, anonymously, I phoned the police to point out that Mr. Byrd must have also killed Evelyn Frome. Apparently, for whatever reason, the police did not see this. The officer I spoke to was much more interested in my identity that in what I was telling him. Those men have no imagination for criminal activities.