Whatchamacallit

Whatchamacallit is an ordinary, inherited yard tool with an extraordinary connection to the murder of Carolyn Polhemus: Rusty later recognizes that it was used to kill her. Its return to view in a domestic setting, and his attempt to clean it after the trial, join a practical household object to a crime whose consequences remain present in the home.

Appearance and Origin

Whatchamacallit is made of black iron and shaped somewhere between a hammer’s claw and a crowbar. Rusty describes it as useful for almost anything, a tool whose unremarkable versatility makes it at home among ordinary yard equipment.

It came to Rusty as an inheritance of sorts from Barbara’s father. After his death, Barbara’s mother brought his household and yard equipment to the Sabich home, where the tool became part of the family’s belongings. Its domestic provenance stands in stark contrast to its later role in Carolyn’s death.

Connection to Carolyn’s Murder

While working in the yard one October, Rusty pauses over the tool and recalls that it was used to kill Carolyn on April 1. He is repairing the fence, removing posts, setting new ones in cement, and nailing on the beeftail when the recognition stirs. The recollection interrupts a routine task: the instrument before him is both inherited equipment and the object connected to the central crime.

The tool’s identity is not presented as a new discovery during the trial. Rather, after the trial Rusty had already noticed a crust of blood and a blond hair clinging to the edge of one of its two teeth. Those remnants connect the tool materially to the killing, while his later attention to it makes that connection newly immediate in an otherwise ordinary October afternoon.

After the Trial

Immediately after the trial, Rusty stared at Whatchamacallit for a long time, then carried it to the basement and washed it in the laundry tub. The sequence moves from recognition to concealment-like domestic action: the evidence is noticed, considered, and cleaned, but the narrative does not state what became of it afterward.

Barbara came downstairs while Rusty was washing the tool and stopped on the stairway when she saw him. Rusty tried to appear jovial, reached for the hot water, and began to whistle. The contrast between his casual performance and the object’s known history leaves the scene charged with unspoken knowledge. Whatchamacallit thus recurs not merely as a weapon but as a physical reminder of the murder within the couple’s shared home.