Judas Cat Read Free Page B

speaking.
    “You’ll stay here till Doc Jacobs comes. Don’t let anybody in except Alex, here. And Gilbert, you can look. But don’t touch anything.”
    The boy nodded.
    “I’m going over now and call the sheriff.”
    Gilbert gradually regained his self-assurance. “Was he murdered, Alex? Buckshot, maybe?”
    “We don’t know yet. His cat may have scratched him up.”
    “He looks more like a disk ran over him. Remember when Johnnie Lyons got his leg cut up?”
    Alex went into the dining room. Andy Mattson got his name in the Sentinel once a year. That was when Henry Addison came to visit him—and now thinking of the times when he had written up the visit, he could not recall having ever said anything more descriptive of Andy than that he was the life-long friend of the inventor. Words like “solitary” and “secluded” sometimes got into the items about him, but for the most part they were accounts of Addison and the empire he had built since the days when Mattson was supposed to have loaned him five hundred dollars. As far as Alex was concerned, Andy had always been a part of the town, a queer old codger stupid parents frightened their kids with because of the fierceness of his eyes and the sharpness with which he spoke. But Andy had never harmed any one, and Alex remembered stopping at the house once when he was twelve or thirteen years old. He was delivering Sentinels to everyone in town free. His father had been on one of his crusades then. Mattson had taken the paper from him at the door. Alex remembered his fine teeth, and the eyes, of course, and the voice, for the old man gave out with a great “Ha,” when he saw what it was. “The revolutionary press. Good! Good boy, good father.” After that Alex defended him when he heard tales about his queerness, and later when he came across pictures of John Brown in his history book, he thought he looked like Andrew Mattson. But that was all he knew of the hermit who lay dead in the living room.
    Doctor Jacobs came then and Alex waited in the dining room until Waterman returned. They went in together. “Well, what do you think, Jake?” Waterman asked after the doctor had made a cursory examination.
    “About what?”
    “What caused his death?”
    “Offhand, I’d say he was scared to death. Had a shock, maybe. Heart naturally weak at his age.”
    “But those scratches, Doctor,” Alex said.
    “I see them. Had nothing to do with him dying. Not direct, from what I can tell now. Died soon after getting them though.”
    “But they wasn’t the cause of death?” Waterman said.
    “I just said that. Can’t tell for sure just looking at him. Want me to do an autopsy?”
    “I just called the sheriff’s office. Better wait till they get here.”
    “What did you call me for then?” the doctor said irritably.
    “An opinion,” said the chief. “I hadn’t made up my mind to call them in when I called you.”
    “All right. You’ve had an opinion. Now forget I was here.”
    “Don’t go talking like that, Jake. I know how you feel. But you know what they’re like up there. The old man and Addison was thick as buttermilk. Supposing he was murdered? We’d be in a hell of a jam if I wasn’t to call them. They’ll want your opinion anyway.”
    “Then let them ask for it. They got a coroner. An undertaker, that’s what Mark Tobin is. What does he care why a man dies? How can he tell? He can just about make sure he’s dead and put in a bid for the burial. I’ll be in my office.”
    “Brother, is he a sour apple this morning,” Alex said when Jacobs was gone. “What’s eating him?”
    “Altman tried to get him on the county slate for coroner last election,” Waterman said. “You know how he does every once in a while, trying his power with the county boys. Happens this time he was right, but Jacobs didn’t have a chance against that outfit.”
    “And Tobin really is an undertaker, isn’t he?”
    “Sure. Same way up in Bay County. It ain’t