Chapter 11 summer snowman

When our new daughter, Samantha, was seven weeks old, there was a case in North Hills that was one of the most difficult murders I had ever worked on (Dr. Sam Hawthorne was telling stories to guests again).This case, how should I put it, can't be said to be solved.Have another glass of wine, if you like, and let me take my time. That was in late August 1944, and there were frequent reports of success on all fronts.Allied forces had reached the outskirts of Paris, and the assault was on the horizon within days.Some of the boys in our town have even been cleared to leave the army, and I've seen some of these faces around the town.Annabelle has returned to her busy schedule at The Ark, taking our daughter to work each day in a wicker basket to care for.It's unbelievable what it's like to be a baby growing up in a veterinary clinic, but with a mother like Annabelle, our baby will thrive.In the meantime we have started looking for a nanny who can take care of the baby when she starts to walk.

One night, just after dinner, Annabelle and I mentioned the name Scott Grossman.Most of the young men in our town had gone into the army, and as an unmarried young man he was one of the few exceptions. That night, he sent a sick cat to the "Ark", and Annabelle had the following remarks: "We've got to find her a girl." "What's wrong with him? Why didn't the army draft him?" "I guess it's the medical exam. You don't ask this kind of question before, Sam. There are so many possibilities, from pierced eardrums to homosexuality, who knows."

"If he's gay, why does he need pretty girls?" I said. "Sam!" Grossman, in his late forties, lives alone with his cats, but one of his older brothers and sisters are both married and have families of their own.Although he is not my patient, but in such a small place as Beishan Town, he is basically an old face walking on the road. "Why are you so excited about him all of a sudden?" I asked her. "I don't know, but I think he seems like a nice guy anyway. He told me he was planning a birthday party for his eight-year-old nephew on Saturday. Another nephew just came back from the Navy."

"He's got to go back to the Navy," I guessed. "The battle isn't over yet." "People say that as long as Paris is captured, the German army will fall apart." "It's hard to say. They will definitely protect their country at all costs." I hadn't thought of Grossman's name until Saturday.The news of the capture of Paris was reported on the radio, and American soldiers marched on the Champs-Elysées.It was a perfect day, made even better by the boozy warmth of late summer.I was enjoying a leisurely moment on the porch while Annabelle nursed my daughter.At this time, Sergeant Lansi's police car stopped in front of our house without warning.

"The weather is so good!" I greeted him with a smile. "It happened half an hour ago, Scott Grossman's house, are you free now? I may need your help." "What's going on? Someone's sick?" "Unclear, family members gathered for a birthday party, but the house was locked and no one could get in. Someone saw someone lying on the ground through the kitchen curtain." I reported the situation to Annabelle, and she said reflexively: "Please, don't go to the secret room again!" Ten minutes later, we arrived at our destination on Dakota Street—the Grossman’s small home. A group of people stood at the door. They were all here for a birthday party.Eight-year-old Todd is today's birthday, and he waited restlessly for the carnival to begin.His older brother Mickey was trying to reassure the little brother.Mickey just got back from the Navy, but he's not wearing uniform today.Todd's parents, Hugh and Vicky Grossman, showed increasingly disturbed expressions, while Grossman's older sister Ethel was already on the verge of collapse.When she saw me get out of the police car, she dragged a little girl with blond curly hair who didn't look five years old and ran over.

"Doctor Sam, this is Amy Feathers. She lives in the green house two houses down. Amy, tell the doctor what you saw." The little girl stared with big blue eyes. "I saw a snowman," she said, "just drop it, and he went into Mr. Grossman's house." We smashed the glass on the kitchen door and Mitch Grossman reached in and pulled the latch.Entering the room, we found Scott.He was lying out of breath on the hall leading into the living room. "It looks like the wound is in the heart," I said. "It's too big, it's not a bullet, it might be a knife wound."

The children were all left outside, under the care of Vicki Grossman.Sergeant Lan Si and I immediately launched an investigation. "The front and rear doors are locked and bolted from the inside," the sheriff told me, "and one of the side windows was left Get out here." "The little girl next door said she saw a snowman come in." "Yeah, a snowman in August!" "You may think it's bullshit, but she's our only witness." "She almost said that it was Santa who killed the man. By the way, is it possible for the deceased to lock the door after being injured?"

I shook my head and said, "It's very likely that he died immediately after being attacked—an autopsy should reveal that the wound was right on the heart. Have you found the murder weapon?" "No, it may have been taken away by the murderer." I wandered around the tiny living room, and all I saw were some paperback westerns and a cheap chess set.On a table at the far end of the living room was a twelve-inch globe and a crystal lamp that looked like antiques.I felt something was missing, and then it dawned on me. "Where's the cat?" I asked. "what?"

"Scott's cat. Annabelle just treated it. I don't know if it's an infection or something." We searched around, found nothing, and finally went upstairs to the cramped bedroom under the roof beams.As soon as I opened the door, the cat rushed to welcome me. "It turns out that here, I really didn't expect him to raise the cat with himself." I squatted down and teased the cat for a while, then closed the door.It's best not to let him see his master's body, I thought.Leaving the bedroom, I searched the upstairs storage room, too small to fit a dwarf.There were no couches or pull-out beds in the house for the murderer to hide in, and there was no basement.

When I came down the stairs, Sergeant Lens noticed something strange on the carpet in the living room, and was kneeling on the ground to check: "Look here, doctor, there is a big wet area on the carpet. What do you think is the cause?" Reluctantly, I can't think of a better reason: "It's the result of melting ice, Sheriff. The murderer was a Yeti, probably with an ice pick." The family members went back to Todd's own house to continue celebrating the birthday, and in the words of Vicki Grossman: "We can't let his uncle's death ruin what was supposed to be a good thing." Seemingly unmoved by the murder .I promised them to come later, hoping this cleared up some of the gloom for them.But first I have to talk to Amy Feathers' parents.Her mother, Janet, was at home, and she invited me in as soon as she saw me. She didn't seem to know what was going on in the neighborhood two doors away.

"Your neighbor has probably been murdered." I broke the news to her. She was a big woman, not far from the ranks of fat people, and I secretly hoped that her daughter would not follow in her mother's footsteps. "Mr. Grossman? Amy told me, and I thought she was joking." I looked at the little girl playing with her dolls outside the drawing-room and asked: "Has she always made up stories, Mrs. Feathers?" "Amy? No, sometimes she tells little stories while she's playing with dolls, as girls her age do, but she never lies." "She said she saw a snowman walk into the Grossman house." "I know this. I tried to communicate with her. I told her that there are no snowmen in summer, but she insisted that what she saw was a snowman." "Can we take her out into the yard and ask her to tell us where we were standing?" "Of course." Hearing her mother's call, Amy ran over excitedly.We went outside in the yard next to a neighbor's house, and she pointed to Scott Grossman's house and said, "When I see a snowman, that's where I stand." "Every house has a fence," I said. "You can't see the snowman's feet." "Well, didn't see the feet, but I saw the rest, especially the snowman's head." "Can you show us the snowman you see?" "Okay." She eagerly agreed.So we went back into the room and she quickly finished drawing a white figure behind the fence with a big round head that was obviously the head of a snowman. "Does he have eyes and a nose?" I asked. She thought for a while before saying, "I didn't see it!" "Thank you, Amy. You were a great help. Thank you too, Mrs. Feathers." She walked me to the door, and by this time Amy could no longer hear our conversation, and she asked calmly, "Is there a burglary?" "We can't tell right now. Did you happen to see someone leave his house?" "No, but I didn't look that way. I saw a high school boy running in shorts and a woman who lived down the road walking her dog. The cleaners collected the trash on Saturdays, of course. Most of the time I watched Amy, she was playing alone in the yard, I was worried." "So you haven't seen the snowman." She smiled slightly: "If you are a five-year-old child, you can probably see a snowman in summer." Saying goodbye to mother and daughter Amy, I drove to Hugh Grossman's house.He was calling relatives and friends to report Scott's death.In the living room, his wife, Vicky, was trying to create a happy birthday atmosphere.Grossman's older sister, Ethel, already had someone else beside her husband, Pete Norris, a truck driver, whom I saw parked at the gate. "Has Sheriff Lence been here?" I asked Vicky. "Not yet, he said he would come over after the on-site investigation." It seemed that Scott's death had finally made her feel sad, and I saw her weeping expression. Hugh hung up the phone at this time, and I went up to him to find out the situation. "Who do you think will kill your brother?" "I can't figure it out! Almost everyone in town likes Scott." "Does he always lock up the house like this?" "How could it be such a hot day? It must be that the murderer was afraid of being caught when he killed." "Everyone has enemies, Hugh, and your brother is certainly no exception." "It must not be someone from outside." I shook my head and said, "You mean..." Before he could answer, Sergeant Lan Si walked in with one of his men.Vicky hurried forward to block the way, for fear that he would spoil the atmosphere of the celebration.Todd was too busy playing a new game with his brother to notice the Sheriff. "Am I just in time for birthday cake?" the sheriff joked with Hugh. Grossman laughed: "We have left a copy, just waiting for you to come. Is there any progress in the investigation?" "No. The doorknobs and other areas where fingerprints might have been left have been wiped clean." We were joined by Ethel Norris, a slender figure who looked a bit like her younger brother. "Sheriff, I don't know if you've heard any rumors, but my husband wasn't even in town when it happened. He just got back half an hour ago." I remembered what Hugh had said to me just now, so I asked her, "What's the conflict between them?" She threw her head up contemptuously, as if she didn't bother to answer the question, but then changed her mind and replied, "Pete's a truck driver and he's got a bad leg so he didn't enlist. Scott keeps making it up." He laughed at him, and he didn't think about whether he didn't go to the front line. It wasn't a big deal at first, but it turned out to be a big deal somehow." "But surely it's not big enough to take a life?" "Of course not! I'm just reminding the Sheriff..." As soon as she walked away, Vicky Grossman came over: "Today is my son's eighth birthday, Sheriff, everyone is in a terrible mood, can you save the question for tomorrow?" "Okay," he said empathetically. I followed him outside the house, and we sat in the car for a while, discussing the case with each other. "What do you think?" I asked. "No clue. Yeti? Or someone dressed as a snowman? He went into Scott Grossman's house, stabbed him, and turned into a puddle. The doors and windows were either locked or screened." "Perhaps the murderer wasn't the Yeti," I surmised. "Maybe the Yeti was Grossman himself." "Is it suicide?" "Well... so we have to explain how the murder weapon and the snowman's costume disappeared, and why only the little girl saw the snowman." "You're always asking so many questions that you're making a big head, doctor." I just laughed it off: "I gotta go home and see Samantha." "This name is so sweet, the corners of my mouth rise when I say it, and I want to laugh." "me too." The next morning, Annabelle kept urging me to go to church. I was never a well-behaved churchgoer before. I went to church occasionally on Sundays, but after I got married, I went more often because of being with Annabelle. Not a lot. "We're going to start thinking about baptisms and godparents." "I want my nurse, Aibo, to be her godmother," I said after a moment, "because I'm her son's godfather, and she's even named Sam." "That's great, how about having Max as godfather?" Max Verdick is the owner of Max's Steakhouse, our favorite restaurant, where we were married. I smiled knowingly: "That's it. If we can meet the pastor today, we will make a date." "What about the Scott Grossman case? Any leads?" "Some new discoveries. It was supposed to be his nephew's - Todd's - eighth birthday party. A little girl from the neighborhood saw a snowman come into their house. Apparently what she saw wasn't real A snowman, but what is it? If someone is wearing a snowman costume, how can no one else notice? How did the murderer escape from the secret room?" I listed the clues that are currently limited. "Is there no one else in the room?" "Nothing, except a cat in the upstairs bedroom of the deceased. Don't know why Scott kept it there." "Ha, I know about that," Annabelle said. "You just mentioned that he was going to hold a birthday party for little Todd. Scott once mentioned that Todd is allergic to cats, which Hugh inherited." "Do you know Ethel's husband? The truck driver." "Pete Norris? I've never dealt with him, but I've seen this guy on the road. A big mouth sometimes, and I hear he and Scott had a run-in at a family picnic last month. " "Does Scott have any enemies?" "It's gone. As far as I know, he has never had a girlfriend. It is unlikely that the murder was caused by jealousy or being abandoned. If he had a girlfriend, then the confidentiality work is very good." After the service, we discussed with Pastor Charters about the baptism and a date was fixed.Just as we were about to leave, he suddenly asked me, "Are you assisting Sheriff Lens in investigating Grossman's murder?" "We did discuss it together," I said bluntly. "You know Scott too?" "I know all the family, and I'll preside over Wednesday's funeral. And Hugh and Vicky are Christians, but I don't see them often." When I got home, I called the sheriff and was told the autopsy was all over and Scott's body had been turned over to the funeral home. "The murder weapon was a machete," he told me. "Most likely a kitchen knife, but we haven't found it yet. The knife was in the center of the mouth. When we found the body, he had been dead for about two hours." "I'd better go see their house," I told the sheriff. That night, Hugh and Vicky's home was enveloped in a gloomy atmosphere, and the family anxiously waited for the police to come to their door.Mitch kept telling everyone stories of what had happened in the Pacific to keep the conversation going.Todd listened with great interest, and kept asking this and that.Mickey is a handsome guy who at first glance looks more like a student than a soldier on a distant battlefield. "I left Saipan on a transport boat in June," he told us. "After this vacation is over, I have to go back to San Diego to accept a new mission." At my age, I can neither be a soldier nor have any experience in the army, so it is difficult to imagine the scene he described.However, from his description, even if we have not personally experienced the diving enemy plane and the submarine in the dark, we are still frightened enough. "When I grow up, I'm going to fight too." Todd said seriously after hearing his brother's adventure story. I pray that day does not come. Annabelle and I went to the funeral home that night.In our day, it was normal for the body of the deceased to be viewed for two or three days before being buried.As we came out of the funeral home, Vicky and my wife were talking about the deceased's cat: "It's called Mio," she said, "Do you know anyone who would take him? home, but the kids have cat fur allergies..." Annabelle looked at me inquiringly, and said, "You can keep it in our house for a while, and send it over when I know there is a suitable family. It's a beautiful little guy." Having said that, I worry that this "some time" may be a long, long time, especially when Samantha gets older.Still, I readily agree. "We'd love to keep it, where is it now?" Vicky called to her sister, "Is Mio with you, Ethel?" Ethel Norris came up and said, "No, have you found any kind people?" "Doctor Sam and Annabelle are willing to take care of Mio temporarily." "Great. It's staying with us now, but we don't leave here until nine o'clock, and you can come and pick it up after that if it's convenient." It was twenty-five minutes before nine o'clock, so we decided to wait at the funeral home.During this period the Reverend Charters came to preside over several prayer services, and just before nine o'clock, Janet Feathers came in quietly. "Amy's at home with her dad," she told us, "but I thought it was worth checking on him. Scott's a good neighbor." "Did he ever take Amy to the house?" "No, I don't let her go to the neighbor's house alone. But every time he sees Amy playing in the yard, he is very happy to say hello." Todd was young, so he stayed home and escaped the grueling funeral arrangements, but his older brother Mitch, who wore a blue navy uniform, helped greet the mourners. "When are you going back to the army?" I asked him. "We'll talk about it after the funeral. The transport boat that will pick me up won't set sail from San Diego until next week," he grinned. "But I couldn't tell you about these military secrets." "Don't worry." I assured him. His father, Hugh, came to us at some point: "My son looks good in uniform, right? My son and I are so fucking proud of him. But this case ruined his vacation, it's bad luck." "What do you think about your brother?" I asked him. "I guess it was a robber who did it. He is very popular, and no one would be so cruel." "All the doors are locked from the inside of the room, and the inside of the screens are also very secure. It is possible that he himself let the murderer in. The problem is that we can't find the way for the murderer to leave." I think it is too late for the He knows the clues to the Yeti. "Although I don't want to say it, is it possible that it was suicide?" "Has he ever hinted at the idea of ​​committing suicide?" "Not really, but sometimes he's pretty depressed." "What does your sister think?" He said with contempt, "Ethel would like everyone to know Pete was out of town when it happened." "We are going to her house to pick Mio back. Annabelle and I plan to take care of it for a while, until someone else is willing to adopt it." "You are so kind, Mio is Scott's only companion." We left the funeral home after Ethel and Pete, and headed for their modest cottage north of town. "The rest of the family is coming over," she told us. "Vicky has to pick up Todd from a neighbor first." After the whole family arrived, Annabel concentrated on cultivating feelings with Mio, and I came to chat with Little Todd. "Did you enjoy the birthday party?" I asked casually. "I think it's all right, but I'm sorry Uncle Scott isn't here." "Do you see him often?" "Of course. Sometimes he takes care of me when Mom and Dad are out." "Do you like uncle?" He nodded: "Let's play games together." "Have you received many fun gifts for your birthday this year?" "Mum and Dad gave me a bicycle, and Aunt Ethel and Uncle Pete gave me a construction set." "Do you like to make snowmen in winter?" He smiled happily: "Of course, there must be a lot of snow." "Have you ever seen a snowman in summer?" I asked. "Of course not! They'll melt away!" "Do you know the little girl next door to Uncle Scott? Her name is Amy." "I don't hang out with girls much," he told me. "I saw her a few times at my uncle's." It didn't take long for Annabelle and I to leave with Mio. "What a cute little guy," she said, holding the kitten in front of her eyes and looking at it carefully, "but we can consider giving it a better name." On Monday, the good weather was gone, the sky was overcast, and it seemed that a heavy rain was inevitable.When I woke up that morning, the idea of ​​yeti killing people popped up, and it was like a seed that kept sprouting and growing, and I couldn't eat it all breakfast time.I called Aibo and told her I might be late at the office today. Annabelle and Samantha had gone out to the "Ark" before I headed to Dakota Street again.My main purpose of the trip wasn't Scott Grossman's house, but the backyard trash cans, though I was disappointed to find that most of the trash cans belonged to neighbors.Just as I was checking out the area closest to his home, Janet Feathers appeared. "Oh, it's you, Dr. Hawthorne. I saw someone digging through the trash, and I wondered what was the matter." "Sorry, Janet. I should have said hi to you beforehand. Why are all these trash cans empty?" "It's normal, there are regular cleanings every Saturday afternoon." "I see, I forgot even that." "Would you like to come over to my house for a cup of coffee?" "I'm afraid not today, there are too many things, thank you." With a glimmer of hope in my arms, I rushed to the town garbage dump without stopping.My Buick is already starting to growl old and I just hope it lasts another year.As a doctor, I have the first right to buy a new car, but then some people who really need a car may lose the opportunity, and I don't like that. At the dump, I asked the workers how I could find Saturday's trash. "Did you throw something away?" one of them asked. "It's so hard to see such a big pile of garbage." "It should be a flat packet, wrapped in white paper." "Which block of trash is it?" "Near Dakota Street." "Is it Saturday trash?" "That's right." He took me to an area on the right side of the dump: "It should be in this area. We didn't come to work yesterday, so Saturday's garbage is piled on top." I rummaged through the stinking garbage for a quarter of an hour, and when I was about to despair, I saw a small piece of white paper, similar to the kind of paper that butchers use to wrap meat.I held my breath and picked it up. "Have you found it?" The worker saw me unfolding the paper carefully and asked from the side. "Well," I was so excited that I was almost speechless, "it is it, thank you very much." In the evening, Sergeant Len Si and I went to the funeral home again.Downstairs there is a resting smoking room for family members and friends upstairs to relax their tense nerves. In this small room, we found Mitch Grossman in his navy uniform.He covered his face with both hands, I know, the truth of the Xia Tian snowman has been known. "Mitch, is there anything you want to tell us?" I asked quietly, taking a seat beside him. "What do you mean, doctor?" I opened the medical bag and took out the small package wrapped in white paper. "We found this," I said, "do you want to explain it?" He was petrified, waving his hands as if trying to drive away some unspeakable fear: "How did you find it? How is it possible?" "I went to the town dump and dug it up." I spread out the white paper, and inside was a white Navy summer uniform—he wore it on Saturday.A streak of dried blood on the front of the suit said it all. "Why kill, Mitch?" "God forbid, I have no choice." "Tell us what's going on," Chief Lan Si urged. "When I was eleven or twelve years old, he started... I don't know what to say, and it's all obscene things to me. He never tires of it." "Didn't you tell your parents?" the sheriff asked. "How can that be? He's my uncle, and they'll just take my words as a child's gibberish." "How's it going on Saturday?" "He had a birthday party for Todd, and he asked me to come over early so we could have a private chat before the party started. I should have guessed what he was up to, but I've been away from home for so long. I thought it was time for him to forget about the past. I went with my birthday present for Todd, but he was going to touch me again, as if I was the same kid. I warned him to stop, and we stood In the aisle leading to the kitchen, he said about Todd again in a nonchalant way. He said that in a few years, Todd would be eleven or twelve years old, and by then--I was going crazy when I heard that. He picked up a kitchen knife and stabbed it." After he finished speaking, he began to cry softly.I think it's my turn to speak. "How did you find out about all this, doctor?" asked the sheriff. "There are two main points to this case: the entry and exit of the scene. The entry, apparently witnessed by five-year-old Amy Feathers in the neighborhood. She just had a glimpse and thought she saw a snowman. She even gave We drew the big round head of the snowman. We all know there are no snowmen in August, so I asked myself what that was. Could it be that one of the birthday party guests arrived early with a gift? There are no obvious white orbs in the Turt's house, except for an incongruous twelve-inch globe next to the antique lamp on the desk. It looks like a gift from an older brother returning from an expedition to an eight-year-old boy." "You mean Mickey has a globe on his head?" "Shoulders to be precise, right, Mickey? Just enough to cover your head completely when viewed from the side. The globe is wrapped in white wrapping paper, and with the white uniform, little Amy at first glance, is a People who are white from head to toe. It's natural for a five-year-old to think they're seeing a snowman." "Why did he unroll the wrapping paper?" Sergeant Len Si asked a new question, "He doesn't need this globe." "What he needs is not the globe, but the piece of paper," I said, pointing to the package in front of me. "Scott's blood was spattered on his uniform. He couldn't possibly leave in a bloody suit. After killing someone , he wanted to clean up the scene and hide the corpse." "What about that big puddle of water on the carpet?" I smiled and said, "Did we think it was the place where the snowman melted? It was just that he washed the blood on the carpet with water. Maybe he planned to think of some crazy idea to dispose of the body before it was found. But It was too difficult. He dragged the body to the kitchen, washed the knife, rinsed the blood from the carpet, and finally took off his uniform." "What? Are you trying to say that he left naked?" "Of course not. He wrapped the bloody clothes in white paper, went out through the back door, threw them in a trash can, and took them away when the cleaners came to collect the trash. Then he ran away wearing short sleeves and shorts. Because he He had a baby face, so the neighbors thought they were seeing high school kids on a long-distance running team exercising." "Don't forget that the back door is bolted from the inside," Sergeant Lens reminded me. "The latch wasn't down when he left. Did you forget that Mitch was the first to reach in and open the door after the glass shattered, and he pretended to pull the latch and opened it. This concealed the fact that the door wasn't latched, and Presented us with a conundrum of an impossible crime. He was the only one who could possibly have played a part in it, and once I realized that, the rest was easy to guess. There was also a hint from the cat. Why did Scott lock up the cat two hours before Todd's birthday party? Obviously not because of Todd, the answer is that Mickey is also allergic to cat hair and he was there early." Sergeant Lan Si breathed a sigh of relief: "I'm sorry, Mitch, I have to arrest you." His face was full of pain, and the sheriff and I were also very upset. "Sheriff, can't the case be closed with suicide?" I asked, "If the motive for the murder is revealed, maybe the damage to the family will be greater?" "How to explain the murder weapon?" "We found it under the stove." "But I searched—" He stopped talking halfway through, looking at this childish young man, he continued to ask, "When do you say you will return to the team?" "The troop request is after the funeral on Wednesday." Sergeant Lens looked at me thoughtfully, and then said to Mickey, "You are free, son, and cherish all this." For the townspeople of North Hills, Scott Grossman passed away in the name of suicide.However, God's actions are always unpredictable. Two months later, on October 26, a US transport boat encountered the first suicide attack by a kamikaze off the coast of the Philippines, and Mitch Grossman was killed as a result.

---

Notes: