Chapter 34 – Four Roses
I went home for lunch after leaving Jane’s place. The older kids in my family were talking about the murder, and the arrest of Roger Warren, the drug dealer from California, but I just sat there silently sipping my soup and eating my sandwich. Because of the gaps in our ages, I was the only one in the family at Prospect Street School this year, so I was the only one who knew Miss Delisle, and, of course, I was the one who found her body. So I was the only one that the whole thing touched personally. Normally, I would have been more forthcoming in sharing what I knew and felt, but I was too absorbed at the moment. I had something to do.
After lunch, I put on my warmest stuff – it had turned very cold, and it was blowing fine snow – and I headed for the library. It was a short walk, just to the end of Central Street and left on Lincoln about a hundred yards.
Just after crossing the railroad tracks, I passed Todd’s Restaurant on my right. It wasn’t much of a restaurant, as far as I knew; it was a bar. I could just picture my father’s disapproving expression whenever he drove past the place, or whenever anybody mentioned it. My parents were both teetotalers, and while my Mom was a little more understanding of people’s habits and weaknesses, my Dad was not at all tolerant of such disorderly behavior.
Todd’s was quiet as I passed by, with a half-dozen cars outside, but no noise leaking out of the closed doors. That would change in a few hours. I had never been in the place, but it was one of Todd’s employees I was going to see.
Miss Temple was used to seeing me come into the library at any time, in any weather, so she just gave me the ghost of a smile as I quietly stamped my feet in the entryway and took off my coat and boots. I had a couple of books to return – my Mom had insisted – so I stopped at the desk and had them stamped, then I headed for one of the quiet corners where I expected to find my quarry, and there he was.
Sergeant Smithers epitomized the expression “grizzled veteran.” He was in his mid-fifties, I guess, grey-haired and balding, with a weather-beaten face and a thin, wiry body. He was a thirty-year-man, and proud of it. Thirty years in the “Regular Army,” he would tell you, disdaining the hordes of draftees and “short timers” who had swelled the ranks during the war. Now he was retired, living in the house he was born in, with his “housekeeper,” reading voraciously, and tending bar three nights a week at Todd’s.
I saw the Sergeant regularly at the library, and we were on good terms. It was he who had encouraged me to write my term paper about the injustice done to General Fitz John Porter after the second Bull Run battle. Military history was one of his main reading interests, along with the Bible and Elizabethan poets. He was a library rat, like me, only forty years older. His military career had not afforded him the opportunity to accumulate books, and his pension wasn’t that much, so he spent a lot of time in Essex Junction’s excellent library.
He greeted me quietly, and asked how my parents were doing. As a member of the First Congregational Church, he knew my parents, especially my Dad. They had been in a Bible study group together.
“Your father’s a fine man, Denny. There’s nobody that loves to read scripture like he does, that I know of.”
I mumbled some sort of non-committal reply; my father’s interests were very different from mine.
“It’s a shame he doesn’t seem to like me much. He hates that bar I work at, and he can’t understand why I won’t marry my housekeeper. Still, when we get to talking about the Bible, that all goes away, and we get along fine.”
He asked about school, and what I was reading, and we talked about that for a while. He was not a man to be rushed, and I knew it, so I was working my way around to asking him the questions I had.
“Lot of talk at the bar last night about that boy from California that killed that girl. People are worried about drugs, you know. This village isn’t ready for that.”
“I know. They’re scared. The cops and the Principal and the teachers.” I told him about the assembly and how they had tried to paint Miss Delisle as an outsider, and part of the same foreign culture as Roger Warren.
The Sergeant chuckled. “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. I don’t know Mr. Camp, but I sure know Mulrooney. He'll go on the defensive whenever something comes along he doesn’t understand, and what he doesn’t understand would fill this library ten times over.”
I didn’t want to have to tell him any more than was necessary. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, but the information I had was pretty sensitive, and besides, I didn’t have time to go over the whole thing, anyway.
“Sergeant,” I asked him, “You’ve seen a lot of fights, haven’t you?”
He laughed quietly – a library laugh. “More than I can count. We have occasional fights to deal with at Todd’s, but it’s pretty tame compared to what it used to be. There are so many more people here since IBM moved in, and the old ways and the old feelings – the things people used to fight about - don’t mean so much anymore. Back before IBM, the population here was steady and everyone who lived here came from here, so the old cultural divides stayed in place, and meant a lot to people.”
The Sergeant loved to talk like that; local history and culture, and simple ideas expressed logically as grand concepts, using a lot of words.
“You know,” he said, “small towns like Essex are inherently conservative, culturally I mean, and they resist change until change is forced upon them by some big event, like IBM building a plant here and doubling the population almost overnight. Now, with all these new families moving in from Poughkeepsie, and from Virginia, and from all over the country, the newcomers outnumber the natives.” He laughed at the patient, but puzzled expression on my face.
“I suppose you’re wondering what this has to do with bar fights. Well, the thing is, up until the mid-fifties, there was a cultural divide in the village, from way, way back, and it was all about religion. Two communities, or societies, within one village. And one aspect of that divide, one that everybody knew about and respected, was that if you were a Protestant, and you wanted a drink, you went to Todd’s. If you were a Catholic, you went to Bouchard’s. Unless, of course, you were looking for a fight, and a lot of Friday nights, that’s exactly what men were looking for. As you know, it’s less than a hundred yards between the two bars, so it was always easy to find one, and there were some wild fights every weekend.
“Now, you see, all these new people, the IBMers, they don’t think about such things, because they don’t know about it, or care about it. When they want a drink, they just go where they will. All they care about is spending their money and having a good time, and there’s so many more of them than there are of the old-timers, that their behavior pattern has become the new norm. Well, that’s kind of a long-winded explanation for why there aren’t as many fights anymore. Here in the village, I mean.
“You know that I was an M.P. for most of my time in the Army, right?”
I nodded.
“Well, that’s what I did for a living, mostly, is break up fights. I was stationed at Pearl for over ten years, from ’38 to early ’49. All through the war I was there, and let me tell you, every weekend was a battle, and a lot of weeknights, too. The Army was there, the Navy, the Gyrenes; and whenever a man gets a weekend pass, he looks for three things – booze, women, and somebody to fight. Yeah, you could say I’ve seen a few fights.”
“That’s what I figured. Well, I was wondering about something. You must have seen people get hit over the head with a bottle before…”
“Lots of times.”
“Well, I was wondering. If somebody got hit over the head with a full bottle of whiskey, like a quart, could it kill them? And would the bottle break?”
Now Sergeant Smithers was a smart guy, and I could tell from his expression that he was putting things together, but he didn’t ask me why, which I was grateful for.
“Now, that’s an interesting question. I have seen that happen a few times, but not as many times as you would think. Usually, if a fellow hit somebody with a bottle, it was a beer bottle, and it usually wasn’t full. Beer bottles are thinner glass than liquor bottles, and they would almost always break, which the fellow wouldn’t mind, because then the broken bottle became a weapon itself, with its sharp, jagged edge. Hitting somebody with a liquor bottle didn’t happen as often, because the bottles were usually behind the bar, not on the bar itself or on a table.
“But I have seen it, and, in fact, I’ve done it myself. Let me tell you. This was in 1941, I believe, and there was a big fight in this little bar in Honolulu. Some non-coms from the 4th Marine Regiment, the China Marines, were on their way stateside to train recruits, and they were partying in Pearl while they had the chance. We got called in, the M.P.s, because there were GIs there, and the Shore Patrol was there, too. Well, I was trying to subdue this Marine Sergeant, Sergeant Andersen, and I made a big mistake. See, we had batons, like we always did. What you might call a “billy club.” Now the first rule of using your baton is you never raise it over your head to swing with it.”
He demonstrated the grip for me with an imaginary baton.
“You hold the handle like this, with the strap around your wrist, and you poke and jab with the baton. As long as you keep it moving, it’s really hard for your adversary to grab a hold of it, and you keep him away from your body. But if you raise it up to swing, like this, you open up your guard, and an experienced fighter will charge right into you. Well, I’d been told that, but sometimes you need to learn a lesson the hard way, and I sure learned my lesson that night. I thought I saw a chance to clobber Andersen and put him down, but as soon as I raised the baton, he charged and rammed his head right into my chest.
“I went down like a ton of bricks, and dropped my baton, too. But I wasn’t finished; I was pretty tough back then. We rolled around on that barroom floor, grappling each other and trying to get a clear swing, and I was looking around, trying to find my baton, when I saw a bottle lying on the floor that had been knocked off a table. I grabbed it by the neck and swung as hard as I could and knocked Sergeant Andersen out cold.
“It didn’t kill him; just left a dent in his skull. He was in the hospital for a couple weeks, but he recovered. Got killed at Tarawa; won the Navy Cross, posthumously. Now, just because that bottle didn’t kill him, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t. I’ve seen men killed by a rifle butt, and that isn’t as hard as a full bottle of whiskey. See, if a bottle is full, it weighs a lot more, and it isn’t as likely to break.
“So, to answer your question, yes, somebody could be killed by getting hit over the head with a bottle of whiskey, especially if somebody got hit twice in the same spot. And the bottle probably wouldn’t break, if it was full.”
There was a speculative look in his eyes, and I knew that he knew. When I didn’t say anything, he just picked up the volume of sixteenth century sonnets he was reading and sat back with a contented smile on his face.
Miss Temple gave me a curious look when I left after only a few minutes; I sometimes stayed for hours. I put my stuff back on and headed out into the weather.
It was getting worse; one of those triple-threat storms that brought us a lot of snow and heavy winds while the temperature hovered around zero. I was warm enough, though, with my tuque and scarf and heavy coat, as I walked down Lincoln Street and turned up Prospect towards the school. It wasn’t the school I was headed for this time, though.
Right across the street was the little house that Ben Flanders and his wife lived in. I had never been to Ben’s house, but everybody knew where he lived, and today I needed to see him. He answered my knock almost immediately and hustled me inside, out of the storm.
It was just Old Ben and his wife; a small, quiet woman who didn’t seem at all surprised to see me there. Ben introduced us, and she said she had heard a lot about me. Her name was Marie Rose, and she asked if I wanted something to warm me up. I said yes, that would be nice, and she told me to take off my coat and sit next to the fire.
There was a low fire in the fireplace, and the living room was warm, cozy, and nice. There was a small Christmas tree in one corner, modestly decorated with very old-looking ornaments, most of which looked to be religious. A crucifix hung on the wall over the mantle, flanked by photographs of their children and grandchildren. The furniture was old, with scratched wood and frayed upholstery, but it all looked very comfortable. It was definitely a Catholic household, but, in some ways, it reminded me of my own home, or maybe my grandmother’s home – a place where all the resources had gone towards a better life for the children rather than material goods for the parents.
Ben insisted that I settle in my chair and wait for my tea before I began telling him why I was there. That was what Mrs. Flanders brought me – a cup of hot, sweet tea. We didn’t drink tea in my house, so this was a first for me. Somewhat to my surprise, it turned out to be just the right thing. I had a few sips and let my body warm up a little, then I told Ben what I suspected.
Ben was very saddened by what I had to say, but he didn’t seem very surprised. Probably nobody knew better than he did what went on between teachers at that school, although he would never reveal any secrets. Unless, like now, it was a matter of life and death. He knew how important it was to me to find out who had killed Miss Delisle, and Ben cared, too. It was very much his school, and he cared very much about all the people in it. Sally Delisle was “that poor, sweet girl” to Old Ben, and if he could help to find her killer, he would.
“Of course there was a bottle of whiskey in that desk drawer; there always was, and there is now.”
“You’ve seen it, then.”
Ben made a kind of disgusted noise that reminded me of my father whenever anybody mentioned Todd’s Restaurant. “I’ve been emptying the baskets in that room for many years, and I can’t count the number of empty Four Roses bottles I’ve carried out to the incinerator.”
“Four Roses? That’s what she drinks?”
“Always. Almost a quart a week.”
“So tell me, Ben. If she did it, as I think she did, would she get rid of the bottle? If she thought she was safe? A full quart of whiskey? Or would she bring it back to the teachers’ room, make sure it was clean, and put it back in the drawer?”
“That’s a good question, Denny. That woman, I tell you, she don’t waste nothing. Paper, pencils, paper clips; she don’t throw nothing away.”
“So it’s possible that a bottle of Four Roses was the murder weapon, and that it ended up in the desk drawer in the teachers’ room.”
He nodded slowly. “It’s possible. And you know what, Denny? If it was, the same bottle is still there. I saw it yesterday, and it had this much left in it.” He held up his right hand with thumb and index finger about an inch apart. “If she had worked yesterday, she would have brought in a new bottle and finished the old one.”
I looked questioningly at him, and he nodded his assent.
“You have some more tea, and we’ll walk over in a few minutes.”
We walked over to the school together, through the driving snow. It was still mid-afternoon; maybe two-thirty. The snow was piling up – the first big snowfall since the day of the murder, two weeks before. Ben unlocked the door at the east end and we walked across to the stairs that led up to the teachers’ room. Then Ben stopped, remembering something.
“You go up and wait on the landing, Denny; I’ll be back in a minute.”
He must have gone down to his room in the basement. He came back in a few minutes carrying a pair of rubber gloves; good idea, I thought.
We went into the teachers’ room and Ben turned on the overhead light. There was a table and chairs in one corner, and a big desk in the opposite corner. Along one wall was a tall cupboard filled with individual cubbies, each one labeled with the name of a teacher.
Looking around, I was a little disappointed. I had never been inside this sanctum sanctorum of the teachers, had never had more than a tiny glimpse through a partially opened door. The reality was pretty boring. But we were only interested in one thing.
Ben put on his rubber gloves and opened the big drawer in the desk, where he knew the bottle was. Sure enough, there it was, and Ben carefully lifted it by the neck and set it down on the desk. I came closer and stared at the bottle, willing it to reveal its secret. There was about an inch and a half of whiskey left in the bottle, enough for one work day, if Old Ben’s calculations were correct.
Truth is, I didn’t know what I was looking for. It was obvious that the bottle wasn’t going to be covered in blood. But would there be any kind of clue at all?
Ben held the top of the bottle and slowly turned it. When he had turned it around so the front label was facing away from us, I heard a sharp intake of breath from Ben, but I had no idea what he had noticed.
“There’s no label on the back, Denny.”
“Is there supposed to be?”
He nodded, as he lifted the bottle and held it close to his eyes. “Every bottle has a big label on the front and a small label on the back.” He turned the bottle slowly back and forth in front of his face, then set it back down on the desk and looked at me.
“She scraped it off. She scraped off the back label.”
His tone and his expression were solemn. We both knew there was only one reason she would scrape off the label.
What Ben did over the next few minutes was kind of amazing. Old Ben was a great employee; diligent, conscientious, and thorough. But no one would ever accuse him of being a decisive man of action. But on this day, he knew just what to do and he did it swiftly and efficiently.
There was a telephone on the desk, with the Essex Police number printed right in the middle of the dial. Ben picked up the phone and dialed the number. When the dispatcher answered, he identified himself and asked if Junior was available. He was there, which was a great relief, and Ben made it clear that he needed urgently to speak with him.
When Junior came to the phone, Ben greeted him with a familiarity that surprised me; I hadn’t realized they were such good friends. The next surprise was when they quickly switched to French. I knew that Ben was from Quebec, so it was natural that he spoke French, but I had had no idea that Junior spoke it, as well. What I was hearing was a rapid-fire volley of sounds that were nothing like anything I had heard in Mrs. Pratt’s class. Of course, what she was teaching was pure “Parisian” French, not that bastard tongue they spoke up north.
I was in no position to judge Ben’s dialect for its purity or anything else, being one of the worst pupils in my class in the subject, but they were certainly communicating effectively. Then, to my surprise, I heard “Madame Rock,” and I knew what it meant. Then I heard it again, and then I heard my name. Ben cast a glance at me while he continued talking, then, a minute later, he hung up the phone.
“Denny,” Ben said to me, rather solemnly, “Junior is coming here in about fifteen minutes to look things over and collect the evidence. I will wait for him here, but I think you should go.”
Well, that was another surprise, and a disappointing one.
“Why?”
“I will tell you why. Junior can deal with this situation on his own authority, right now. But tomorrow, he’s going to have to convince the Chief to consider this new evidence and, if it tells what we think it tells, to act on it. That will be easier if you are not seen or heard from.”
“The Chief hates me.”
“Yes, he does. Junior won’t tell him you were here, or anything about your part in this, but he’s bringing a patrolman to help him, and he can’t guarantee that man won’t talk.”
So I had to go, and it wasn’t until much later that I learned the rest about the bottle.