Family Vault (18 page)

“And the sun’s trying to break through,” said Alexander. “Perhaps it’s an omen, Sadiebelle.”

T
HEY WERE SURPRISED TO
realize how long they’d been out. By the time Sarah and her husband got back to the house, Aunt Caroline was wondering in aggrieved tones if they were ever to get any lunch.

Alexander pacified his mother with the promise of a ride in the Milburn, then went to get the electric out of its winter wraps while Sarah broiled a fresh halibut steak she’d found, by a miracle, at the fish shack. They had it with grilled tomatoes and hot corn bread, and were thoroughly enjoying the meal when Alexander suddenly exclaimed, “Sarah, I can’t leave you here alone. What if that trespasser’s still around?”

“Peeping Tom?” She shrugged. “We didn’t see anybody on the beach, and your mother stayed here alone all morning without being bothered. I’ll lock the doors and windows, but I’m honestly not a bit frightened to be by myself for half an hour or so. You don’t intend to be gone long, do you?”

“No, darling, just down the road and back. You’re quite sure you don’t want to come?”

“You know Aunt Caroline hates it if we all squeeze in together. Alexander, we mustn’t let this situation get to us. I may simply have imagined that man last night. Go ahead and play with your precious toy. I’ll be fine.”

“Then lock the door behind us, and if you get the urge to do some more investigating, wait till I get back. Promise?”

“I promise. Have fun.”

She kissed him good-bye and watched him help Aunt Caroline down the drive. They kept the Milburn in a shed not far up from the road, to spare her aged axles the torture of the climb. Sarah waited at the door until the dip of the grade hid them from sight, then she dutifully turned the key in the lock and went to peel onions and chop salt pork.

Preparing a genuine New England clam chowder is not a task to be taken lightly. Intent on what she was doing, Sarah again lost track of the time. It wasn’t until she was adding the milk to the cooked onions and potatoes that it occurred to her Alexander and his mother ought to have returned some time ago. Even if temptation to go a bit farther than he’d planned got the better of him, he wouldn’t dare keep the Milburn out very long for fear its batteries would run down.

Maybe they had. It might not be a bad idea to take the Studebaker and go out looking for the Milburn. Sarah knew the route they’d be most apt to take. Aunt Caroline always liked to be driven up along the cliff road, although she could no longer admire the view of the ocean.

That wasn’t far, though, and there were a couple of year-round houses along the way. Alexander couldn’t call his wife if they got stuck because the telephone had been shut off for the winter, but he’d surely be able to find somebody willing to bring Aunt Caroline back and explain about the delay. Everybody knew the Kellings and their crazy old cars.

The early dusk began to gather. Now Sarah was really scared. She was putting on her coat when she heard a car churning up the drive. That wasn’t the Milburn; the little electric was virtually noiseless. They must have had to be towed. Alexander would be heartbroken. She went to offer condolences, and was confronted by a policeman in uniform.

“Mrs.—er—Miss Kelling?”

“Mrs. Kelling, yes. What is it, officer? Something’s happened to the Milburn, hasn’t it? Is my husband all right?”

“Your husband? I’d have thought—no, Mrs. Kelling, I’m afraid he’s not. He and his—the lady that was with him—”

“His mother. Where are they?”

“They went over the cliff,” the policeman said doggedly. “A young fellow happened to be down on the rocks and saw the car go over the seawall into the water. He tried to reach them, but there was nothing anybody could have done. You know what it’s like, a thirty-foot drop and all those big jagged rocks standing up out of the water.”

“Like teeth. When I was little, Alexander used to tell me they were giants’ teeth.”

Automatically, Sarah stepped back from the door to let him in. She didn’t seem to be very steady on her feet.

“Hey, you’re not going to faint on me?” The policeman caught her by the arm and steered her over to the sofa. “Is anybody else in the house?”

“I—no, just myself.”

“Okay, Mrs. Kelling, take it easy. Anything to drink around the place? Brandy? Whiskey?”

“There’s some sherry in the pantry. On a tray with three glasses. I was going to—I thought they’d like—”

Sarah twisted both fists into the ribbing around the bottom of her baggy green sweater. “Are you sure it was Alexander?”

“Mrs. Kelling, do you think I’d be here if I weren’t?”

What a kind face the policeman had, she thought, kind and tired, as though he’d had to do this sort of thing too many times.

“The kid called us,” he explained. “Jed Lomax is a volunteer fireman. He heard the sirens and came to see what was up. Soon as he found out what had happened, he knew who it was. He says he’s worked for your folks a long time.”

“That’s right. Ever since—I don’t know when. Since Alexander was a little boy. I’ll get my coat.”

The policeman said something, but Sarah didn’t hear what it was. She put on the scruffy old storm coat, not noticing when her sweater sleeves got wadded up halfway to her elbows inside the coat sleeves, and let him lead her out to the patrol cruiser.

She didn’t know where he took her. She was in a thick gray fog, like the one she and Alexander had gone walking through that morning. She was taken into a room where there were two high, rolling hospital beds with long bumpy ridges on them covered with white sheets. The sheets were damp in spots, and stained watery red-brown. Before anybody could stop her, she went over to the bed that had the longer ridge and pulled away the cover. Half of Alexander’s face was handsome as ever. The other half wasn’t there any more.

A hand put back the sheet. A voice said, “He didn’t have time to suffer, if that’s any consolation?”

Sarah shook her head. How could there be any consolation? “Is—is Aunt Caroline—”

“Jeez, I wouldn’t look if I were you. For the record, maybe you could tell us what she was wearing? It’s a formality we have to go through.”

Sarah wet her lips. “I can’t seem to remember. Her blue tweed suit, I suppose, and a matching cape. And a blue-and-green-print scarf around her head, and her pearls. She always wore her pearls.”

“No other jewelry?”

“Little gold earrings and a plain gold wedding band. On her right hand, not her left, because she was a widow. Is—is that all right?”

“Fine. Thanks for coming. You’d better go on home and try to get some rest. Walt, you want to take her? Maybe those pearls had better go, too. Are they valuable?”

“Yes.”

Sarah didn’t realize she was supposed to take the envelope that was being held out to her. The kind policeman slipped it into her coat pocket and took her by the arm. She pulled the fog back around her and was not aware of anything else until she smelled wood smoke and mildew and knew she was back in the living room of the summer house.

“How about drinking a little more of this wine?” he asked.

Sarah tried to sip at the sherry he was holding to her lips, ashamed that she was making things so difficult for him. “Please have some yourself,” she urged. “I’m sure you need it”

“Thanks, but I’m on duty. I sure could use a cup of coffee, though. Sit still. I can make it, if you don’t mind.”

“No, let me. I’d rather be doing something. Or perhaps I could give you a bowl of chowder. I was making it for my husband.”

That was when she went to pieces. The policeman found a clean tea towel and stood clumsily patting her shoulder while she mopped at her face with it and got the sobbing under some kind of control. At last she was able to talk.

“I do beg your pardon. You’re being so sweet to me, and I’m acting like a fool. It’s just that—I’ve loved him all my life!”

“Sure, sure. I know how it is. Say, isn’t there somebody I can get hold of to come and stay with you? Your mother or your sister?”

“My mother’s dead and I have no sister. I’ll be all right. I need a little time to get used to it, that’s all.”

“But you’ve got somebody,” he persisted. “Friends? Relatives?”

“Oh, yes, scads of relatives.”

Poor man, what a pickle for him to be in, alone in a house with a weepy widow.

“Do let me get you a bowl of chowder,” she sniffled. “Perhaps we’d both feel better if we had some hot food inside us.”

“Sounds great to me, Mrs. Kelling.”

She put on the coffeepot and reheated the chowder, got out bowls and pilot biscuit, relieved to be doing something for somebody. The two of them sat down at the kitchen table and spooned up the hot savory stuff, not trying to make conversation. Sometimes the food got stuck in Sarah’s throat, but she forced herself to swallow and the effort did her good. The policeman’s bowl was empty, though, before she was halfway through.

“Please let me get you some more. And what is your name? You’re being such a friend in need, I can’t simply go on calling you Officer.”

“It’s Jofferty,” he told her, “Sergeant Walter Jofferty.”

“How do you do,” said Sarah mechanically. “My father’s name was Walter. I should have said that I’m Sarah Kelling. My husband is—was—Alexander, and his mother was Caroline. I expect Mr. Lomax told you that”

“Yes, he did. I guess that car was a real old-timer.”

“A nineteen-twenty Milburn. Alexander’s grandmother used to drive it”

“How come you—”

“Didn’t get killed with the others?” Sarah made a poor job of smiling at her attempted joke. “I stayed home to make the chowder. The Milburn wasn’t really comfortable for us all to fit in together, and Aunt Caroline enjoyed riding in it much more than I did. She was blind and deaf, you see, so—”

“Oh, sure. You liked to give her what pleasures you could. Pretty helpless, was she?”

“Oh, no, far from that. She was perfectly able to get about and take care of herself so long as she knew where things were. She could read and write Braille and converse if people spelled out words into the palm of her hand. She’s been very active in civic affairs with her friend Mrs. Lackridge, whom you may have heard of. They work as a team. Aunt Caroline writes reports and so on, and Leila does the contact part. Leila’s very good at hand signaling, she and my husband. I’m not fast enough, myself. Aunt Caroline gets impatient. I keep forgetting she’s—”

“That’s only natural, Mrs. Kelling. These things take a while to get used to. How about some more coffee?”

“Not for me, thank you. I seem to have this permanent lump in my throat, as though I’d swallowed an orange whole.”

Sarah pushed away her still-unfinished chowder. “What I don’t understand, Sergeant Jofferty, is how the car went out of control. What was it that child said?”

“It wasn’t a child. It was a young guy maybe twenty-two or three, who seemed to be a credible witness. He told us the car came over the crest of the hill fast, zoomed down the hill like a rocket, failed to make the turn at the bottom and sailed right up over the seawall, flipping upside down when it struck the top of the wall. Both passengers were thrown out on to the rocks.”

“But Alexander would never take that hill fast! He’d have to gun the motor to get up, but the brakes would be on all the way down.”

“We can only assume the brakes failed.”

“They couldn’t have. My husband was an expert mechanic.”

“It was a very old car,” said Jofferty.

“I know. Perhaps the only Milburn in the world still being driven by the family that bought it. He loved the Milburn.”

Sarah was afraid she was going to cry again. She got up and started to clear the table. “I suppose I’ll have to start thinking about—arrangements.”

“If you’ll let them know down at the station who your undertaker is, we’ll handle it with him. You won’t have to worry about a thing.”

That sounded pretty inane. Jofferty went on hastily, “As for the car, I don’t know if there’s enough to salvage, but we can try if you want.”

“No, let the ocean take it. I could never—” Sarah started to tremble again.

“Mrs. Kelling,” said the policeman, “Jed tells me you folks live in Boston and were just here for the weekend. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll get some of your relatives to drive you back there and spend the night with you.”

“I can drive myself. I have another car here. A nineteen fifty Studebaker Starlite coupé.”

Sarah began to laugh too shrilly, caught Jofferty’s worried look, and sobered down. “Please don’t worry about me. I’ll be able to manage now. I know this has been terrible for you, and I’ve behaved dreadfully, but I do want to thank you for your great kindness.”

“That’s okay. You take care of yourself. Give us a call if there’s anything else we can do. Thanks for the chowder.”

He unfolded his length from the kitchen chair and reached for the uniform cap he’d tossed on the counter by the sink.

“By the way, your husband didn’t happen to be upset? About your mother-in-law’s condition, or anything?”

“Upset enough to make him commit murder and suicide, you mean? Why didn’t you ask me that in the first place?”

“Now, Mrs. Kelling, don’t get excited.”

“I’m not excited.”

Sarah was shaking so she could hardly get the words out. “If you think my husband would do a thing like that, you’d better think again. His mother’s condition was no worse than it had been for the past twenty years and he—he loved me very much.”

She had to blow her nose in a hurry. “He’d never do a thing like this to me, never! And he wouldn’t have let any harm come to the Milburn. He was going to leave it to the Larz Anderson Museum. It’s right in his will.”

She blew her nose again. “I suppose you’re thinking any wife would say the same, but it happens to be true. I’ve known Alexander Kelling ever since I was born, and you never knew him at all.”

“We have to ask these things,” sighed Jofferty. “I’m sorry.”

“I hope you are! Furthermore, I don’t believe those brakes failed. Alexander could take the Milburn apart and put it together again in his sleep. He’d know in two minutes if the car wasn’t running quite right. And he’d have come straight home to fix it, not try to tackle that ghastly cliff road.”