Dale Andrews - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 134 & 135, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 817 & 818, September/October 2009

The figure had no arms, two massive breasts, and a deeply cleft “Y” to outline her private parts. The body was the pale creamy yellow color of fresh-cut wood, except for where the bark was left on, in two spots — delineating a grey, rugose nipple at the end of each torpedo-shaped breast. Oh, and unless Halsey was planning to add another chunk of wood up top, there was no head.

I wasn’t surprised that Marilyn Doughty was afraid to leave her house. I was still in my car.

I sat and watched for a few moments as the man worked on the bizarre wooden figure. It was definitely odd. And more than a little offensive. I just wasn’t sure it was news. So I called in.

“ ‘Course it’s news!” grunted Boss Hogg after I had told him what was going on. “Local color. Get the story. Get a decent photo this time.”

I sighed as I hung up and decided to get the neighbor’s story first, mostly because she had the attractive feature of not currently holding an ax.

Marilyn Doughty flung her door open as soon as I knocked and dragged me into her small, neat kitchen. She was a chubby woman with features that seemed too sharp for the round, puffy face nature had given her.

“You see?” she jutted a pointed chin toward the kitchen window, toward her neighbor, who was still chopping. We could both hear it. “What did I tell you?” she gasped, still in that breathless, runaway voice I had heard on the phone. “I’m living right next to a homicidal maniac. All these years, acting so quiet, so normal. I knew it. I knew he would finally lose it.”

“Well, it does seem sort of odd...” I peered out. Everett Halsey was setting down his ax. He took out a handkerchief and patted his balding head, blew his nose. He went inside his house.

I studied the carved woman-stump which stood, raw and upright, amongst the debris of limbs and leaves. The figure did look bizarre. Almost unreal, I thought, like some sort of ancient totem plunked out here in the middle of Maine. The crude, almost savage way the figure was cut added to the macabre look.

“Maybe he’s taken up sculpture,” I offered.

Marilyn Doughty gave me a blank look.

“You know, art.”

She frowned. “That’s crazy talk.” She leaned forward and held up a chubby finger. “It’s murder,” she said in a conspiratorial tone. “And if you want the truth, I think he’s been planning it for years. Oh, everything looked fine between him and Sheila but I could tell.”

“Who’s Sheila?”

“Sheila is — was ,” she corrected herself with emphasis, “Everett’s wife. He’s killed her.”

I looked at her in blank surprise. “How do you know that?”

The woman didn’t answer but looked out the window, her eyes directed at the wooden stump outside. Her head turned back toward me before her gaze did, as if she couldn’t tear her eyes away. “She’s gone,” she said softly. “Her car is still here, that little Subaru in the drive. But there’s been no sign of her for the past three days and she wasn’t at the fire station craft and bake sale.” She raised an eyebrow. “Which she never misses. Not in thirteen years.” Marilyn Doughty folded her arms, tucking them up under the shelf of her broad chest. It was a stance of conviction.

Missing a bake sale, I thought. Carving a tree stump. This was the kind of high-profile criminal activity that journalistic dreams are made of here in Witka. It would be right up there with the big story of who switched the magnetic letters on the sign in front of Gillespie’s package store from “Buck-Off Fall Specials” to read, well, something else.

“Did you ask Mr. Halsey where his wife is?” I asked.

Marilyn Doughty shook her head at me in a pitying way. “What do you think a murderer would say?” she retorted. “Says she’s gone off for a little vacation . A retreat. To some yoga place in Nashua.” Marilyn Doughty let out one of those little pshaw sounds of disbelief — sounding like a popped tire. “Who goes to New Hampshire for vacation?” she demanded. Luckily, it was rhetorical, and she went on, “I called the police. But they haven’t done anything. He hasn’t committed any crime, they say. And as far as public indecency — it has to go through channels .” Marilyn Doughty’s expression left little doubt about her view of such bureaucracy. “If that ain’t indecent,” she jabbed a finger through her country-kitchen curtains at Halsey’s yard, “I don’t know what is. And I’ll bet we never see poor Sheila again,” she added.

I wondered which was stronger, Marilyn Doughty’s concern for Sheila Halsey or her outrage over the piney pinup girl in the yard.

“If Mr. Halsey did anything to his wife,” I pointed out, “surely the last thing he’d want is to call attention to himself with this kind of, um, display.”

“Murderers aren’t always logical,” said Marilyn Doughty with complacent assurance, due, no doubt, to many hours of television crime-show watching.

She narrowed her eyes and stared at the carved stump outside. “ There’s your evidence,” she said in dramatic tones. “It’s as plain a confession as I ever saw.”

I sighed. I didn’t blame the woman for being upset. I certainly wouldn’t want to look up from my kitchen sink and see that every morning. It was pretty creepy. But that didn’t mean that Halsey was a murderer. No wonder the police didn’t bite. But like it or not, I was going to have to go over and get the story. And a picture.

Just as I came out, Everett Halsey was emerging from his own door. He had put on a weathered barn jacket and was getting into the Subaru. The other vehicle in his drive was a battered Ford pickup with a bumper sticker that read: “Welcome to Maine. Now Go Home.”

“Mr. Halsey,” I called out.

If he heard me, he gave no sign of it. Without looking up, he started the car, backed out, and drove off down the street. Darn it. Listening to Marilyn Doughty’s rant, I’d lost my chance to talk to Halsey. But I could still take some pictures.

The low afternoon sun sent glancing shafts of warmth and light through the trees and the smell of fresh-cut pine hung sweet in the still air. It felt weird being here alone, so close to the stump. I went closer, feeling uncomfortable, as if I was trespassing on a scene of intimacy. Despite how crude it looked, there was something about it that drew the eye. I walked around it slowly. The legs rose up from the ground in two sturdy columns, a shallow dimple hacked in each to indicate the knee. One leg was more in front, as if striding forward. Above the legs the figure flared out in the back and in the front — making protuberant female buttocks and belly. The waist was cut in deeply and the upper part of the body was angled, one shoulder slightly dropped — in a pose that was almost graceful. The arms seemed to be stretching backwards, but they ended abruptly, sawn off. I circled to the front and gave a grimace. It was those huge jutting breasts that were really distracting. And the bark. Yikes.

I took a number of shots from different angles — even a closeup that showed the pale rings of growth in one cross-sectioned plane.

Finished, I looked around. I didn’t really want to sit around and wait for Halsey to return. I wondered what the other neighbors thought of his... handiwork.

I didn’t have to wonder long. As I was putting away my camera, a minivan screeched to a halt at the curb. A tall woman in a purple velour sweat suit slammed the door and strode across the lawn, kicking branches out of her way.

“Are you here to do something about this?” she demanded.

“Uh, hello. No, not really. I was taking some pictures. For the paper,” I clarified. “Are you a neighbor?”