Yankee Mystery Files →
I Was Suspected of Murder
(page 3 of 5)
The Atherton murder was headlined everywhere, in all its gory detail. State and local police, conducting their separate and joint investigations, were without a single valid clue. House and yard so far had yielded no helpful fingerprints or footprints. Nothing at all had been taken; no door or window showed signs of having been forced. All bloodstains matched the victim's own Type B. Miss Atherton had not been sexually attacked, and nobody in her present or past appeared to have any reason to kill her. Though bloodstained articles from cleaning establishments and trash collections had led to a number of unnamed suspects, no one so far was charged with the crime. Except for the utter impossibility of it, the lone woman might have strangled and then lacerated herself. Where no one appeared guilty, anyone, of course, could be.
None of the papers mentioned that the investigation had reached into a classroom at Swampscott High School. That, I supposed, was part of a grand design. No doubt the police were playing cat and mouse with those they had questioned.
Tuesday I got as far as the door of the principal's office, intending to find out if the detectives on Monday had given him the real reason for their visit. But I walked away again. If they had not told him, my inquiring would arouse suspicion. If they had, my best bet was a show of unconcerned innocence.
I had already begun to sense accusation in the eyes of students and teachers, and to wonder if passing comments on my patched-up face were mere ruses to disclose my guilt. Wednesday afternoon I watched uneasily as an attendant at the dry cleaner's left his counter to fetch my raincoat; I was sure he was staring back at me from behind the racks of hanging garments. At the near-empty comer drugstore that same evening, a young girl clerk remarked she'd never seen anybody buy so many papers at one time. "You must like reading about the murder." Her smile struck me as the kind that accompanies an insinuation.
Residents of both towns had taken to bolting previously unlocked doors and not venturing out at night unless they had to. Evening business -- at movies, drugstores, bowling alleys -- was at a standstill. In Marblehead, women applied for and received gun permits, and a distraught chief of police canceled all leaves and put his entire force on twenty-four-hour alert. Thursday afternoon, officers stationed at several Old Town vantage points kept the Atherton funeral under tightest scrutiny.
That evening, I telephoned Worcester. I had heard nothing all week from my mother; apparently she had not been bothered. Feeling, though, that official eyes were on me as I came and went about Swampscott, I did not want to be shadowed sixty miles by car and cause a stake-out at her house as well. I told her, therefore, that I had work to do, that I was sorry I could not spend this weekend with her as I had the last.
I lugged a briefcase full of English compositions to my room after school on Friday, and until late that night and for most of Saturday blue-penciled account after account of the horror in the neighboring town. One young lady had read into the Atherton family history a father's unnatural domination and the jealousy of a secret lover who murdered his love-torn Beryl to break the dead clergyman's preternatural hold. Yet nowhere did I find a single hint that the teacher correcting these papers could himself be the killer who slashed in the sign of the cross.
Reader Comments
Comment from Robert Shepardson on October 20, 2009
A good mystery, well-written and, like a good mystery should, leaving you with the one basic question unanswered.
Registered users can add comments.
Registration is free, and just takes a moment.
Login or Register.