Old Ansel, the cemetery caretaker, had grumbled at her through the years for allowing the pop-eyed waddling Peke to lift his leg against the chiefest monuments of Minchville’s dear departed. On those occasions the solemn cemetery silence would be rent with shrill altercation.
“Now, Miz Trimble,” Ansel would rumble in his age-and tobacco-thickened voice, “it just ain’t respectful for you to let that mutt scamper over them graves and do what he likes just anywheres. Even on the Judge.” And he would threaten to lock the gates and put up a No Dogs Allowed sign.
Mrs. Trimble’s nasal voice would rise and split the air, float among the tombstones and down the hill, until the whole town could hear her declaiming, “I had little respect for the Judge in life, so why should I waste it on him now, Ansel Coombs? Tell me that. And while you’re at it, tell me on whose authority you will lock those gates and keep me out. My plot is bought and paid for, and so is one for Precious Lotus, and if we wish to spend twenty-four hours a day visiting our final resting place, no amount of signs or locks will keep us out.”
There had been some objection in the town to Mildred Trimble’s desire to spend eternity with Precious Lotus by her side. Some folks even thought it was against the law to bury animals in a human cemetery. But Mrs. Trimble raised her voice and, aided by her status as the Judge’s widow, prevailed. Some folks wouldn’t speak to her or have her to tea after that, but they mostly considered it a small loss since speaking to Mrs. Trimble consisted mainly of listening to her whine and rail against the town council, the postal service, the price of eggs, and her son, Wayne.
Wayne Trimble, happily full of sweet pastry and several cups of coffee, forbidden during his mother’s long reign in favor of economical breakfasts of nourishing but tasteless mush, listened to the tip-tapping of his small feet on the sidewalks of Main Street this fine October morning and his head buzzed with a little rhyme to keep time with his steps.
To outward appearances Wayne Trimble was the very model of the bereaved son. This past week had been a trying one for him. From the moment that Mildred Trimble had been discovered sprawled in the cemetery with her head bashed in and Precious Lotus snuffling and shaking at her side until the final ceremonies yesterday afternoon, Wayne had conducted himself with a solemn decorum that satisfied the town at large and Officer Hupp in particular. Everyone knew how devoted Wayne had been to his mother. He had to be to put up with her constant nagging and complaining delivered in tones of shrewish self-pity for forty-odd years. Everyone also knew that for years Wayne had been “visiting” with Verna Hicks who lived in the trailer park on the south side of town and worked as a finisher in the town’s one industry, the shoe factory out on Route 2.
Mrs. Trimble had loudly refused to countenance Verna as a daughter-in-law. She was low class, a factory girl. Wayne, in a feeble gesture of independence, had continued to see Verna, spending many of his evenings in her trailer watching television and playing cards and eating butter-pecan ice cream. Verna considered herself engaged to Wayne, and didn’t seem to mind either the interminable length of the engagement or her second-class status in Mrs. Trimble’s eyes.
“Peace, ho-ho!” sang the little voice inside Wayne Trimble’s head as he returned subdued “Good mornings” to the few townsfolk he met on his way down early-morning Main Street. “Quiet, ha-ha!” Arriving at Vogelsang’s Drug Store he paused to admire the window display: two large apothecary jars filled with colored liquid surrounded by a wealth of trusses and bedpans, heating pads and crutches, and occupying the foreground an artistic pyramid of patent cold remedies.
It was a dizzying display of all that was dear to the heart of Wayne Trimble. Only last week, in fact, the day before the tragic demise of Mrs. Trimble, Wayne had removed the summertime pyramid of insect repellent and sunburn lotion and replaced it with the more seasonal pile now reposing colorfully in the foreground. The background never changed. Wayne had dusted the jars and prosthetic appliances lovingly, but they were the same jars and appliances that had reminded Minchville’s populace of their infirmities for over 20 years. Between the two large jars, one red, one amber, there squatted a solid bronze mortar, symbol of the pill-pounder’s ancient craft.
Wayne smiled as he unlocked the door and prepared to resume his position as Minchville’s chief (and only) pharmacist, splinter remover, and sympathizer to the town’s lumbagoes and sciaticas, rheumatisms and unspecified aches and pains. But before exchanging his sober gray suit coat, the black band still fastened around its sleeve, for his starched white pharmacist’s jacket, he removed a long, heavy, knobbed object from his pocket.
Alone in the shop, for his assistant had covered for him during his week of tribulation and loss and now would have the day off, and the soda fountain did not open until mid-morning, Wayne weighed the object in his hand and examined it carefully under the fluorescent light. It looked just fine. Next, he peered out of the shop door, and satisfied that no person abroad on Main Street would approach the drug store within the next few moments, he nipped over to the back of the window, opened the wooden hatch giving access to the display, and swiftly replaced the long, heavy, knobbed object in its accustomed place.
“For what is a mortar without a pestle,” he chirruped to himself, “what is a train without a trestle, what is a Wayne without his mother?” Ending on a high note, Wayne Trimble allowed himself a euphoria of chuckles and a modified tap dance on the resounding marble floor of the drug store before buttoning himself into his professional manner. He then set himself to the chore of taking stock of his pharmaceutical supplies to see what might have run short during his week-long absence.
Wayne Trimble had a busy day. It seemed as though everyone in Minchville and its environs had developed an alarming series of minor ailments. Sore throats came in for lozenges and to extend sympathy. Migraine sufferers had run out of aspirin and asked how he was doing. Even Officer Hupp came in for a package of com plasters, bringing with him a plate of brownies baked by Mrs. Hupp for “that poor Trimble boy,” and the news that a farmer several miles out on the River Road had found and turned in a waterlogged ladies’ billfold containing Mrs. Trimble’s driver’s license and identification cards. There was no money in the billfold. Everyone in town knew of Mrs. Trimble’s habit of carrying several bills of large denomination. She had delighted in buying a newspaper or a ten-cent postage stamp with a $20 bill.
No, Wayne had no idea how much money had been in the billfold on the fateful night. And yes, he’d be happy to stop by the station on his lunch hour to identify it for sure. In the meantime don’t those brownies look yummy, and wouldn’t Officer Hupp like to have one along with a cup of coffee at the soda fountain? Wayne poured the coffee himself into thick tan mugs, and side by side at the counter they munched brownies and discussed “the case.”
Officer Hupp considered that the finding of the billfold out on the River Road bore out his theory of a gang of young thugs, probably on motorcycles, who had swept through Minchville pausing only long enough to bean Mrs. Trimble, steal her billfold, then race away down the River Road. They were probably in the next state by now.
To Officer Hupp’s credit it should be noted that before embracing his motorcycle-gang theory, he had looked into the whereabouts of both Wayne Trimble and Ansel Coombs that night. He considered it far more likely that old Ansel should rise up in wrath against the continued desecration of his graveyard and strike down old lady Trimble with a spade than that the wormish Wayne should turn on his mother after a lifetime of submission to her ear-splitting demands.