Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

“I was wondering if the carving was by a local person.”

“I couldn’t tell you that. If there’s an opportunity you might ask Rusty when he’s here Tuesday.”

“Rusty?”

“He was living at the Black Cloister at the time of the fire.”

“How old would he have been at that time?”

“Eighteen, I think. Same age as me. He and another boy, Fritz, were caught stealing a car in Hartford. The judge suggested they could avoid jail by spending the summer doing farm work at the Cloister and they agreed quickly enough. That’s how I got to know Rusty. His name was George then, but he never liked it. We saw a lot of each other that one summer, before the fire.”

He moved on to greet others, and I was left with unanswered questions.

On Monday Sheriff Lens stopped by my office in a wing of Pilgrim Memorial Hospital. He was chatting with April as I finished seeing the morning’s last patient and I invited him into my examining room. “Everything set for the bond rally tomorrow, Sheriff?”

“I guess so. Vera’s had me run ragged, picking up donations for the auction.”

“I was talking to our mayor yesterday and he tells me Rusty Wagner was a resident of the Black Cloister. You never did finish about the fire.”

“It was so long ago I can barely remember it now. Like I said, it was the summer of ’twenty-one. The Cloister was home to about a dozen men, some from a Trappist monastery that had closed, and others from various Protestant denominations. They were men with problems or at loose ends. There were also those two kids doing farm work to avoid prison. I guess Rusty Wagner was one of them. The other fellow was killed in the fire.”

“Tell me about it.”

Sheriff Lens sighed. “Don’t you have enough mysteries in the present to satisfy you, Doc? This was no impossible crime or anything. No crime at all, far as I know. The fire started in the kitchen somehow and spread to the rest of the house. It was in the afternoon and the other residents were out in the fields working. Wagner and this other young fellow, whose name I don’t recall-”

“The mayor said it was Fritz.”

“That’s right, Fritz Heck. Anyway, they were preparing the evening meal when it happened. Wagner managed to get out with a few bad burns, but the other boy didn’t make it. I suppose that little scarring on Wagner’s face didn’t hurt when he started playing villain roles.”

That was pretty much all he remembered, but I was still interested in tracking down the origin of that door. I drove over to Felix Pond’s hardware store on my lunch hour and waited while he took care of a couple of customers. Pond was a bristling, bearded man who seemed strong as an ox, constantly carrying lumber and supplies out to waiting wagons. I was not one of his regular customers, but he knew me by sight. “Dr Hawthorne! What brings you here? Got a need for a hammer or screwdriver?”

“Curiosity brings me,” I told him. “I was admiring that door from the old Cloister and they told me you’d donated it. I wondered how you came by it.”

“That’s easy,” he said with a grin. “I stole it, years ago. The place seemed to be just rotting away after the fire. The residents had all scattered and no one was even sure who owned the property. It was a sin to see that fancy door just sit there and decay like that so I took it home with me. Stored it in my supply shed out back and forgot all about it till somebody asked me about it last year.”

“It might be worth some money,” I speculated.

“Sure might! It’s fine workmanship, made by one of the original residents of the Cloister. But I figured I couldn’t really sell it since it wasn’t mine to begin with. When someone suggested I donate it for the bond auction it seemed like a good idea.”

“I’m sure people will bid on it. I might even do so myself.” But then something clicked in my mind. “Tell me, Felix. Did you decide to donate this to the bond auction after you heard Rusty Wagner was going to be here?”

He frowned at my question. “Why would I do that?”

“Someone told me he was living in the Cloister at the time of the fire.”

“Really?” He thought about it. “I guess maybe it was after we heard he was coming. Can’t remember who suggested it, though.”

I left the hardware store, wondering more than ever what was bringing Rusty Wagner back to Northmont.

Tuesday was sunny and mild, a perfect spring day to greet the crowd that had turned out for the war-bond rally. It was nothing compared to the Boston crowd, of course, but I recognized several people from Shinn Corners and other towns who’d driven over for the event. We’d set up a stage in the town square, with a billowing flag bunting as a backdrop. The auction items were all on view, including the Cloister door standing upright against one of the backdrop supports.

Just before the rally began, Mayor Bensmith made a point of introducing me to the star attraction, Rusty Wagner. He was shorter than I’d expected, and his features were a bit sharper. Close up I could see the scarring on the right side of his face. It appeared that the skin had been burnt, apparently during the Cloister fire. The damaged area was not large and could have been easily covered by make up if he wished. Accompanying him was his manager, a fellow named Jack Mitchell, looking uncomfortable in a suit already rumpled from their train trip.

“I understand you lived here for a time,” I said, shaking Wagner’s hand.

He smiled pleasantly. “A long time ago, one summer before I moved to New York City. The town has changed a lot since then.”

The mayor rested a hand on his old friend’s shoulder. “We’re going to start in a few minutes. You’d better get in position on the stage.” He turned to me with a wink. “We want to open with a bang, like in Rusty’s movies.”

For a moment I didn’t know what he meant. Then, as Wagner took the stage amidst an outburst of applause, a man in a German officer’s uniform suddenly appeared from behind the flag bunting and stood before the Cloister door, taking aim at him with a Luger pistol. There were screams from the spectators as a shot rang out and Rusty Wagner clutched his chest, falling to the floor.

Immediately Mayor Bensmith sprang to the microphone, holding up his arms to calm the audience. “That, folks, is what could happen right here if not enough of us support our government with war bonds! Happily, the German officer is really our own Milt Stern, and Rusty Wagner is alive to fight another day.” He motioned to the downed star. “Time to greet your public, Rusty!”

But Wagner remained sprawled on the floor of the stage without moving. I went quickly to his side. There was no blood, no sign of a wound, but I knew at once that he was dead.

When a well-known movie star dies before hundreds of people at a bond rally, it makes news all over the country. Mayor Bensmith and Sheriff Lens both knew Northmont would be on the front pages the following day and they turned to me for help. I urged them to calm down, reminding them that we didn’t yet know the cause of Wagner’s death. “One thing we know for sure, whatever killed him, it wasn’t a bullet from Milt Stern’s gun.”

Nevertheless, while the mayor tried to calm the crowd and get on with the war-bond auction, Milt was the first person the sheriff and I questioned. He was a ten-year resident of Northmont, in his mid thirties, married with two children. For the past several years he’d worked at the local feed store. “Is Wagner dead?” he asked us at once. “They took him away in the ambulance and somebody said he was breathing.”

“He’s dead, son,” Sheriff Lens told him. “We just didn’t want to announce it right away and put a damper on things. After the bond rally’s over there’ll be an announcement.”