Free Hire a Hangman by Collin Wilcox Page B

Bell?”
    “Oh. Oh. Yes. Sure. Please.” Anxiously, Bell stepped back, waited for Hastings to enter the hallway. Then Bell closed the door—and locked it.
    For Hastings, the house’s interior and its furnishings evoked another pang of recollection and recall. The narrow entry hallway, the crocheted antimacassars pinned to the overstuffed furniture, the ruffled curtains at the windows and the ruffled shades on the lamps, all of it was there. All carefully cared for, each item of furniture precisely placed, each dust-free surface gleaming.
    As they sat down facing each other, Hastings said, “You didn’t know about Dr. Hanchett’s death.”
    Quickly, anxiously, Bell shook his head. “No. I—” He faltered. “I work nights, you see, and I sleep during the day. So I never hear the news. Not until later in the day.”
    “Ah.” As if he were satisfied, Hastings nodded. “Yes, I see. But you knew him, of course.”
    “Oh, yes. I—”
    From the hallway behind his chair, Hastings sensed movement, confirmed by the shift of Fred Bell’s eyes, tracking the movement. Turning, Hastings saw a woman standing silently in the archway. The instant’s evocation was of stark black-and-white photographs documenting the Great Depression. One of those photographs, Hastings vividly remembered, showed an emaciated, hollow-eyed woman standing in the doorway of a sharecropper’s shack. The woman’s face was wasted, a haunted mask of utter despair.
    But Teresa Bell’s eyes, abnormally large in her thin, ravaged face, burned with an emotion more desperate than despair. Plainly, Teresa Bell was deranged.
    Instantly, Fred Bell was on his feet and at her side, his hand touching her arm as if to turn her aside, to deflect her. As though seeking some terrible truth, Bell’s eyes searched her face as he moved protectively between his wife and Hastings, who was also on his feet.
    “Teresa, this—this doesn’t concern you. It’s—please—” Bell increased the pressure on her arm, half turning her away.
    “Wait.” Hastings stepped forward. “It’s all right, Mr. Bell. I’d like to talk to both of you.”
    “But—”
    Preempting a response, Hastings gestured to the woman, inviting her into the living room. But, shaking off her husband’s hand, she stood motionless, her dark, manic eyes fixed on Hastings.
    “Teresa. Please. You—”
    Sharply raising his hand to cut off the husband, Hastings spoke directly to the woman: “Dr. Hanchett was killed last night, Mrs. Bell.” It was a statement, not a question. It was an accusation.
    Still staring, she made no response. Resigned, Fred Bell took his hand from her arm, stepped back. Hastings could hear Bell’s breathing, shallow and rigid, as if an anxiety attack were imminent.
    “You knew Hanchett was dead.” It was another statement.
    Slowly, gravely, she nodded. “Oh, yes. I knew.” A pause. Then: “He killed Timothy, you know. Timmy died because of Dr. Hanchett.” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. She wore a shapeless housedress and run-over fuzzy house slippers adorned with felt rabbits. The dress revealed nothing of the woman’s body beneath. Her short dark hair was hardly combed.
    “I know about Timmy.” Holding her feverish gaze, Hastings spoke softly. “It was terrible, about Timmy.”
    “But now Dr. Hanchett is dead.”
    “Yes,” he answered. “Dr. Hanchett is dead.” He spoke slowly, leadenly, in cadence with her.
    “Teresa, I don’t want you to—”
    Hastings gripped Bell’s arm hard enough to silence the smaller man. For a long moment there was no sound. As Teresa Bell’s eyes slowly wandered far away, both Hastings and Bell stared at her with gathering intensity. Then the woman focused her gaze on Hastings as she said, “He’s here, you know.” She gestured vaguely. “Would you—”
    “Teresa, for God’s sake.” Bell twisted away, broke Hastings’s grip, went to his wife, and took rough hold of her arms as he forced her to look at