Another tale well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.
Today, the Infanticide, the story of a father and his sons,
dramatized by Alan Sloan from a story written by Eliezer Lipsky.
The Infanticide
Catman, do you live on this floor, friend?
Just down the end of the hall.
Thank you.
Yes, sir?
Mrs. Catman, Wilfred Catman?
Yes, sir.
My name is Veely. I spoke to your husband about insurance on the children.
Oh, that's my son. Wilfred's my son.
My daughter-in-law's gone to work. So's Wilfred.
Oh, I see. Well...
But he told me about it. Wilfred told me about it.
Mind if I come in? I could sign the papers for you to sign.
Yes, ma'am.
Seems a good thing. And cheese.
Oh, yes, ma'am. Sure.
Come in. Come in.
Don't mind the mess with kids. It's follow and pick up, follow and pick up.
Yes, ma'am. Now, I understand there's Willie and Chauncey.
Willie and Chauncey. That's right.
Chauncey, he's going on six, and Willie, he's just past seven.
Uh-huh.
Had them close together, you know. And two's easy to take care of as one.
Yes, ma'am. Now, if you and your son have agreed on this insurance,
you can just sign right down there where the little x is.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
That's it.
Alrighty. Down by the little x, right?
That's it.
I got the arthritis, you know. I don't write so fast.
Yes, ma'am. Three copies, please, there.
That seems funny, though, insuring little fellas like that.
And there.
Pain as if they invented the bug powerful enough to carry them off.
Healthy little guys, eh?
Well, you just look out the window and the big husky little redhead
pushing all the others around. That's there's Chauncey.
Oh, yeah, I noticed him when I come in the tenement.
Takes after his dad, eh? And which one's Wilford Jr.?
Oh, he's sleeping. This muggy weather, the asthma takes him in the night
sometimes, so we let him sleep late.
Oh.
We all had the asthma. We all outgrew it.
Nobody never died of it in the family.
Yeah, yeah, Mr. Catman told me about the asthma.
It's the humidity these nights bothers him, I guess.
Yes, sir, but he's a real fine boy.
Not as big as his little brother, but strong and wiry.
Long bones. Come 15, 16, why, he'll just shoot right up.
Sure, that's the way it is.
Now, you have Mr. Catman's sign, though.
I take it Mrs. Catman's at where... Oh, yes, you said that.
Yes, she's gone up at 6.30 and you just missed my sign.
He's off by eight.
But you come on in, take a look at Willie.
I want you to see he's just a fine, healthy boy, just the asthma.
Oh, no, I don't think so.
Now, I'll take you just a minute.
He ought to be up and playing in the sunshine anyway.
Bad nights Willie sleeps with his daddy and mommy.
Their room's got the wind.
Uh-huh.
Lord, don't you wish you could sleep like a child sleeps.
Uh-huh.
Willie, rise and shine. Get up, big boy.
Come on.
Oh, now let him sleep. I know how my kids get when they...
Now, come on, Willie.
Grandma got to shake you awake.
Willie.
Wilford, Jr.
What's the matter?
Something wrong?
Boy's stone cold. Cold as the clay.
What?
Willie boy.
Mr.
He's dead. Get the police.
Police? Let me call the doctor. Maybe he's sick.
He's dead. Stone cold, dead.
Poor baby.
Get the law, Mr. Dodge.
She done it this time, don't you?
She finally got it done.
What do you mean?
His mother, his own natural mother.
Get the law.
In just a moment, we will return for the second act of...
Suspense.
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Ed, the father's outside.
The dead boy's father, Kathman.
How's he taking it?
I don't think he knows where he is, what he's doing.
It was his first born, Ed.
Nothing on the mother yet?
No.
All right, send him in.
Mr. Kathman.
Coming.
Coming.
Mr. Kathman, this is Mr. Morgan.
I told you about at the precinct.
Assistant district attorney.
I remember. Yes, sir.
Mr. Morgan will want to ask you a few questions about the boy.
Investigation, you see.
Wilford Jr.
Yes, sir.
Oh, Lord.
Dear Lord.
Take your chair, Mr. Kathman.
You can smoke if you like.
Lord, Lord.
He come and told me the boy's dead, sir.
Yes, that's right.
Now, can you pull yourself together for just a few questions?
I guess so.
What is it?
Your mother told the insurance man your wife had finally done it, was the way she put it.
My wife?
Yes.
Had your wife ever tried to do the boy harm in any way?
No, sir.
Then what was your mother referring to?
Well, there was that time.
What time?
She lost him.
How's that?
She took him out and came home without him.
Asked where Willie was and she said she left him with her folks.
Could I have one of them cigarettes now?
Sure.
She left Willie with her family, you say?
That's right.
One night, two nights.
And I got to missin' the little cuss and I called on the folks to bring him back home.
And he wasn't there.
He never had him.
Where was he?
She left him on a doorstep with some folks in the neighborhood.
Who found him?
After two, three days, they took him to the police.
When was this?
Last week.
Now, wait a minute, how old was Willie, eight?
Eight.
Yes, sir.
Oh, Lord, I'm just dying.
Just let me die.
Left him in the neighborhood and he couldn't find his own way home, an eight-year-old?
Told him to stay put.
Your wife told him?
Yes, sir.
But the police returned him.
Now, who notified them?
I guess I did.
When was this last week?
Around then.
A little longer, I guess.
Around this time last year, seems like.
Mr. Catman, do you know where you are?
Police.
What month is this?
Summertime.
Detective Russell, may I see you for a minute?
Yes, Miss Marvin.
Call the 25th.
Find out if they've got a missing person complaint on the boy or an aided card on his recovery.
Okay, sure.
Mr. Catman.
Mr., I didn't rightly get your name, Mr. Morgan.
Let me ask you.
Could I rest up a bit?
You want me to hold off on the questions for a while?
Yes, sir.
Is it all right if I pray in here?
Well, I...
Yeah, of course.
I haven't called upon the Lord not once yet.
To let the little fellow not be dead.
I'd like to call upon the Lord to let it all not be.
Mr. Catman, get a hold of yourself.
It's very important.
Excuse me.
Morgan.
Ed, on the wife losing the boy, they remembered it down the precinct.
I talked to the detective who investigated.
Did it happen?
Not exactly the way he told it.
She left him with friends, all right, but it was on account of a fight they'd had.
The man and the wife.
Right.
Really, the way the wife was afraid he'd harm the boy.
By the way, the 25th is everybody out looking for her.
She never turned up at work.
What was the fight about?
The boy's father.
What? What were they fighting about?
That's what the fight was about, Ed.
Running fights as the boy was born.
Who was the father?
Catman is.
Mr. Catman, let's get back to Willie.
He wasn't your child, you said.
No, sir.
I was in the army.
He couldn't have.
But it was like he was.
Was what?
My own.
Did you like him?
Not at first.
But when you put out your finger, this little thing like a hand on a little mama doll with deep creases to the wrist, you know.
When it grabs hold like it was all there was in the world, hang on to it for safety and trust.
Yes, go on.
You can't help loving it.
There isn't a man that wouldn't.
No matter whose.
You loved Willie as a baby.
And a boy, too.
Dear Lord, can I see him?
I never got to see him like this.
Later.
Did he ever know you weren't his daddy?
Not unless he heard us arguing over it, you know.
How did he feel about you?
Same way.
Loved me.
I wouldn't trust nobody else.
How did he know that?
Like with the needles.
Hmm?
It was the asthma.
He had to have the needles.
Injection?
Shots.
Yes.
And he wouldn't let the doctor.
Unless I held him.
Only me.
He said, I know it won't hurt.
Because my daddy wouldn't let you.
But let you what?
Hurt him.
I wouldn't let him.
Morgan.
This is Sergeant Bowen, 25th.
Yes, Sergeant.
On that dead boy, we went over the bathroom, Mr. Morgan.
The toilet was stopped up so we took a snake to it.
What did you find?
The necktie.
In a moment, we will return for the third act of...
Suspense.
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El picador, who let that bull out?
He'd have these asthmatic attacks at night, you'd say.
And he'd wheeze and go for breath and couldn't catch it.
And he'd cry out, daddy, I can't breathe.
And we'd take him into our bed.
We had the one time.
Then he'd sleep.
After a bit, he'd make this...
That kind of noise.
Drive you crazy.
What could you do?
Wake him up.
Willie, I'd say.
Willie, you're snorkeling again.
Sleep quiet, boy, I'd say. Sleep quiet.
Man's got to get his rest.
What would he say?
Mostly nothing.
And go back to sleep.
But sometimes just daddy...
Like that.
And go on snorkeling.
All right, now this morning you said he had it pretty severely, the asthma.
Yes, sir.
So your wife gave him a bath.
Yes, sir.
Why did she do that?
They said at the clinic, lukewarm baths wouldn't cut too much for him, calm him down.
Relieve the worry and the fear.
The fear of choking to death.
That's how it is with the asthma, sir.
Calm him down, the bath.
So she gave him one and she got up for work.
This was what time, did you say?
Six o'clock.
Good.
Morgan.
I got two things.
One, the medical examiner's report.
Strangled?
No, no, no.
The neck tie must have been used to tie his wrists.
They were the marks.
Cause of death?
He was drowned.
Good heavens.
What else?
I was talking to the other boy Chauncey when the mother came home.
He corroborated what she said.
Willie was alive in the bed and making hard noises, so daddy, that's Katman.
Katman said, come on, Willie.
I'm going to give you a bath.
In just a moment, we will return for the concluding act of...
Suspense.
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Mr. Catman, if you'll take that same chair. Sam, sit down.
Now, Mr. Catman.
Yes, sir.
Why doesn't anybody let me see my boy?
Chauncey's too young, Mr. Catman. Maybe later.
Chauncey can take care of himself. I want to see Willie.
Willie's dead.
Oh, Lord. Say yes. Say yes. Oh, Lord.
Mr. Catman.
Yes, sir.
I show you this tie. I ask you, is this...
Yes, sir. That's my tie.
When... when did you last see this tie?
Well, I told Willie Daddy was going to bathe him.
He was taking bad with the azimuth and getting frightened of the breath,
and it's so hard to catch, you know.
What did he say?
He said, all right, lifted up his arms, so as to be carried to the tub.
I shut the bathroom door with my elbow. I was carrying Willie, you see.
The tie.
Well, I tied his hands.
What did he say then?
Asked me what for, and I said to play cops and robbers.
It was really so there'd be no splashy.
And then?
I gave him a bath.
Did you...
Tell me, what did you do then?
I looked at him...
With his hair all brown and long.
Not stick up your head like mine and Chauncey's.
That's my real son, Chauncey. He's going on six, you know.
Yes. You thought of Chauncey?
Chauncey, yeah.
And I wished I loved my Chauncey like I loved her, Willie.
I mean, Willie is my own boy, you know.
Did you know that?
There was Willie.
And he wasn't mine.
And I was caring for him and doing for him. I was always doing for him and fretting for him.
Loving him because he was weak, I guess.
He'd have to know someday his daddy wasn't his.
And I loved him so.
All mother naked.
Like a little frog in there.
And loved me back.
He trusted me.
And I knew I didn't love my own child.
That's Chauncey, son.
He didn't at all not have, no less, so much as Willie.
And it all came to this.
It was her son stealing all my love from my own son.
It came right down to that.
I saw it just as clear as clear.
So I told him, duck under.
I'll wash your hair.
Never let him up, I guess.
It was Willie coming between you and your own son.
In what way did Willie come between you, would you tell us?
Oh, only in my mind.
I only wanted to love Chauncey.
It was only in my mind Willie came in the way.
But you loved Willie.
Oh, yes, sir, I do.
Like it was my own, all my own.
And you know, I was thinking about what you said.
What was that, Mr. Cameron?
This is no place for me to see my boy.
I don't want you to bring him here or over to the jail.
When I get out, I'll see him in the proper way.
I'd sure love to take him where those big yellow pairs you're scribbling on.
He just loves to draw airplanes and things, you know.
I'll see him when I get out.
I'll see about bringing Chauncey around to see you, Mr. Cameron.
And you can have a pad for him.
Ha ha ha ha.
Now you keep getting mixed up.
Chauncey's rough and tough.
He's like me.
He could take care of himself.
It's Willie I want to see, that Willie boy.
Wilford Junior, he's named after me.
But he isn't mine, did I tell you that?
He loves me.
He trusts me.
I'd like to bring him home.
Surprises.
Ed, haven't you got enough, can't you?
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Mr. Cameron, go with the man.
I thank you kindly.
You've all been most kind.
Ed, what's the charge?
Infanticide.
What'll happen?
He did it.
Yeah.
Would you find him guilty?
Suspense.
You've been listening to Infanticide,
dramatized for suspense by Alan Sloan,
from a story written by Eliezer Lipsky.
Heard in tonight's story were Santos Ortega as Mr. Catman,
with Nat Polan, Ralph Bell, Ruth McDevitt, Frank Butler, and Danny Occo.
Listen again next week when we return with The Crisis of Dirk Diamond by Sam Locke.
Another tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
On CBS Radio.