Paul Theroux - Murder in Mount Holly

The man said that he had to be going. He had the week’s shopping in the bags, not to mention his wife’s umbrella (he called it a bumbershoot).

“You just take your brolly and your shopping and come in. We’ll have a little tea. I’m weak. I don’t think I can make it into the house.”

The man tried to carry Miss Ball into the house. He struggled and panted. Miss Ball remarked that he must have been a very strong man in his youth. The man said he was.

Miss Ball poured a large tumbler full of whisky and handed it to the man. The man drank it and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Red-eye,” he said.

“Oo! You like your tea, don’t you now?”

The man said he didn’t mind a spot now and then. He put his arm around Miss Ball and began pinching her breast.

“Not here, darling,” said Miss Ball. She tossed her head in the direction of upstairs. Then she stood up and took his hand and pulled him upstairs.

Mr. Gibbon and Mrs. Gneiss tiptoed out of the kitchen and upstairs after them. They listened, their ears against the door.

Inside the room bodies fell, groans resounded, flesh met flesh with slaps and shrieks. Miss Ball squealed, the man roared. Furniture fell and glass broke.

“Lotta spunk left in her !” Mr. Gibbon whispered.

“They’re having fun !” Mrs. Gneiss said. She squeezed Mr. Gibbon’s knee.

“Clever little woman,” Mr. Gibbon said. “See, she must have learned that in one of the books. She’ll get him naked and helpless and then turn on the heat. She’ll get him talking about the bank and find out. The man goes away happy and doesn’t suspect a thing. Nice as you please.”

But there was no talking. The noise had ceased, and now Miss Ball could be heard crying softly. Mr. Gibbon wanted to go right in, but he waited five minutes, and when nothing had changed (the only sound was Miss Ball sniffing) he drew out his pistol and broke the door down.

The room was covered with blood. Sheets and curtains were torn and hanging in shreds, the mirror was shattered, and on the floor lay the bank guard, a large knife-handle sticking out of his back. Bloody handprints were smeared all over the walls and floor. In the corner, a murderous look in his eye, was Juan. His shirt was torn and bloody, his hair bristled. He glowered.

“Dobble cross me! Dat agli gringo bestid don’t know what heet heem. I been seeting that share for two jowers.”

“Warren!” screamed Miss Ball. He turned. Mr. Gibbon took aim and fired. The impact sent Juan into the wall like a swatted fly. Then he fell, his head making a loud bump on the floor.

“There’s two commies out of the way,” said Mr. Gibbon. “Get a mop! See if anyone heard! Lock the front door! This is it, boys! It’s war! We won a battle but we haven’t won the war yet! Fall to, get this mess cleaned up, load the guns!”

Neither Miss Ball nor Mrs. Gneiss moved a muscle. They looked at Mr. Gibbon with horror.

“Hurry up!” said Mr. Gibbon. “You all deef ?”

Mrs. Gneiss’s empty suitcases came in handy for storing the dismembered bodies of Juan and the bank guard. At first, Mrs. Gneiss was all in favor of getting the bank guard’s fingerprints on the gun and calling the police. They would tell the police that there had been a terrible fight between the two men. Juan had stabbed the guard and then the guard had shot Juan for stabbing him. Tit for tat, so to speak. It made some sense. But Mr. Gibbon saw that if the guard had been stabbed he wouldn’t have been able to shoot Juan. Or if Juan were shot the guard would have survived. The murder was without precedent if it was to be believed. They gloomily hacked up the bodies with Mr. Gibbon’s hunting knife, stuffed them into Mrs. Gneiss’s suitcases and put the suitcases and the clothes into the attic. Miss Ball’s Stay-Kleen and Surfy Suds took care of the gore on the rug.

Good Old Providence had done them a turn. The neighbors had miraculously not heard “The Fracas,” as Miss Ball called the double murder. The three comrades had stayed up all night keeping a vigil over the bodies in case the police should come. Then they would have said, yes, we killed the lousy commies. But the police never came. And just as well, the two ladies thought. Mr. Gibbon thought differently: he was convinced that Juan and the bank guard were “in cahoots” (the bank guard more than anyone was a stoolie and a cheat, working for coons as he did). Mr. Gibbon was, as he put it, “pleased as punch” to have plugged Juan, a man he suspected to have been spying on him for nearly a year.

But they had to make short-range plans. The morning after the fracas the three sat around the table (the news was on, but spoke only of the gallstones and the war, both with fervor; the disappearance of a certain bank guard was not mentioned). They looked haggard and mussed, having stayed up all night keeping their vigil. They tried to think of a way to cover up the murder for the time being. They knew that afterward, when the truth about the Mount Holly Trust Company was known (a Communist Front Organization filled with black pinkoes), the murder would be laughed off and their fortune would be secure. Meanwhile, they would have to think of a way to pacify the bank guard’s wife. Unless he had been lying when he told Miss Ball that he had to take the groceries home to his wife; maybe he didn’t have a wife at all. But how could they find out?

It was Miss Ball that came up with the solution. Without a word she darted upstairs to the suitcases. She came back almost immediately, seated herself as before and dropped a blood-stained wallet on the table. Gingerly — because the plastic wallet was still sticky with the gentleman’s blood — Miss Ball picked through it. Out tumbled membership cards, wedding pictures, snapshots of little kids with beach pails, and finally the prize: a picture of the man himself and a woman — obviously his wife; she looked grim and stood apart from him — who was leaning on the very same umbrella that was now resting against the wall upstairs in Miss Ball’s attic. On the back of the photograph was printed: “Benny’s Fotoshop — Close to You in the Lobby of the Barracuda Beach Hotel,” and under that in ballpoint: “Baracuta Beach, 1962.” There was also an identification card which read:

Harold Potts, Jr.

1217 Palm Drive

Mount Holly

In case of accident please notify a priest and

Mrs. Ethel Potts

(address as above)

Harold’s blood type, a little ragged card with a picture of Jesus on the front and a prayer on the back, and a relic of a tiny piece of cloth that had “touched a piece of the True Cross” sealed in plastic, were also among the valuables. Mr. Gibbon searched in vain for a party card. He came up with a few suspicious-looking documents, but remarked, “He’d be a fool if he carried the thing around with him.”

Miss Ball paid no attention to Mr. Gibbon’s investigation. She had found what she wanted.

Dear Ethel (Miss Ball wrote),

I wonder if you remember me? We spent those lovely days together at the Barracuda Beach Hotel back in ’62. We met briefly during a bridge game. (I can’t remember if we were playing, watching, or just passing by the bridge tables — goodness how the memory starts playing tricks as the years go by!)

To make a long story short I met dear old Harold just yesterday at the Mount Holly Trust Company — well, I tell you Harold just couldn’t stop talking! We came to my house for tea and just talked and talked and talked of the wonderful days we spent at the Barracuda Beach Hotel back in ’62. Harold said he had a touch of gastritis and wanted to go straight to bed, couldn’t walk so he said. Well, here it is 10 in the am and he’s still sleeping like a baby! I called the bank and told them he wouldn’t be in this morning. I think his tummy needs a rest, frankly Ethel, and I just hate the thought of waking him up, so peaceful he looks. I think he should be improving in the next few days and I’ll be sure to have him call you when he wakes up.