Pushing Murder (12 page)

I nodded wearily. “Yes. To track a person who may be male or female, who may be living or dead, who may or may not—oh, the heck with it.”

She stood up and pulled the walker to me. “Let's see you walk down to your room.”

I had the uncomfortable feeling that my family was watching my wobbly progress, and that Dr. Cullen was doing this on purpose to reinforce her point. No question, the hall looked unbearably long. I thought of that wonderful scene in
The Barretts of Wimpole Street
in which Charles Laughton, everybody's favorite sadist, challenges the invalid Norma Shearer to ascend the stairs. Well, if Norma could do it, I could, but I wished there was a Fredric March to scoop me up in his arms. I plodded grimly on, Dr. Cullen strolling beside me chatting about her daughter's forthcoming wedding. I asked a few polite questions to show her I had the breath, but my morale was cascading. As we came abreast of the elevator, the door opened and Dan and Kit emerged.

They were smiling, but Kit said, “Now, don't get your hopes up.”

My morale did a U-turn. “Tell me! Tell me!” I all but trotted to the door of my room, and Dr. Cullen said, “Let me not stand in the path of justice. I'll see you tomorrow, Mrs. Gamadge, and remember—straight home.”

As I turned to wave to her, I noticed that Dan and Kit were accompanied by a little boy with very dark hair and a little woman with very orange hair.

Kit said, “This is my Mom, Mrs. Kitenski, and Danny. We were hoping Hen might be here.”

“I am!” Hen and his parents had converged on us, and I gaily beckoned everyone into my room as I told Mrs. Kitenski what a great daughter she had.

She said, in a wonderful Brooklyn accent, “Here's the reason we came. There's this Christmas party in the kids' wing tomorrow—Gail knows all the nurses—they told her—and she thought I could take Danny and—what's your name again, honey?—over there to help decorate the place with the usual junk.”

We all said great, terrific, et cetera, and I clumped toward the bed, then stopped, grateful they were all engaged in parental instructions for behavior, because I didn't want them to see what I saw. It was red and flat and lay on my pillow. I grabbed it—a plastic bag with the Pushing Murder logo, something—paper?—crackling inside. I shoved it in the pocket of my robe as Kit and Tina came to help me into bed.

“Don't you want to take your robe off?” asked Tina.

“Not for the moment.” I clutched the thing, trying to decide if I should show it at once or first hear about what I mustn't get my hopes up about—what syntax! Sadd would expire. They were all peeling off coats and Henry was opening wine, and there was a general air of anticipation and progress. But the thing was like a live coal in my pocket, and I knew it would prevent me from concentrating. I accepted a glass of wine from Henry and said, “I hate to upstage you guys, but we better see what this is first. It was on my pillow.”

I pulled it out, red and crumpled. Dan leaped to his feet and grabbed it. He took out a sheet of paper and read the handwritten scrawl. “‘Dear Clara, You and Sadd are having such a nice visit at the end of the hall that I hate to butt in. Besides—'”

“My God!” I cried. “He had to have walked out of that elevator, and I never had my eyes off it!”

“No, there are stairs,” said Kit.

“‘—besides, I was afraid of tiring you, and nothing must do that. Which reminds me, Clara, don't get in touch again with that boring pair of old-timers up in Fairfield. They might tire you
to death.
Dwight.'”

14

So sated were we with the man's venality that everyone was more curious than outraged.

How did he know they had come here?

Henry said, “You told Vaughan and Father Folsom not to say anything—”

“And I'm positive they didn't,” I said.

We agreed on this. Then Sadd said, “Perhaps inadvertently? Let's say he calls them as Mr. Anybody making a charitable appeal for the hospital, and this leads them to innocently reveal…” We were all shaking our heads. He shrugged. “I rather like my scenario.”

Tina stated it flatly. “Somebody had to tell him.”

We seemed to realize with one accord that Dan and Kit hadn't spoken. All eyes focused on them, and I said, “Do you know who?”

“We can guess,” said Kit.

We all jabbered at them to speak! speak! as the door opened and D.N. appeared with my medicine.

“No more of those things!” I said in exasperation.

“But the doctor hasn't discontinued—”

“I have. I've discontinued as of this moment.”

She went out with an “I shall report this” look, and they all began scolding me and saying I was taking matters into my own hands and was this wise, and I said who cared and Dan and Kit should start talking.

Dan began, “Well, it snowed like you've never seen, and Kit had to do most of the driving, of course. It's a good thing we got to Bryantville before it was buried, which was already happening. St. Camillus had to be at the far end of town, but the guy at the gas station said we'd see a bunch of cars because they were practicing the Christmas pageant and his kid was one of the Wise Men. We got there and pulled into the first available snowdrift, and Kit said what a time to ask anybody to look into their files and they probably wouldn't give us the time of day.”

“But I was wrong,” said Kit. “A big, hefty Sister was directing the show, and when we asked where we could find the pastor, she said across the street, the brick house, and wouldn't we like to stay and watch the rehearsal and her niece was one of the angels. We said we'd love to but we had a long trip back to New York, so we plowed across the street and rang the bell, and this fiftyish priest came to the door and said he was Father Dillon and what could he do for us? Dan showed him our credentials, and he said come on in and would we like some coffee? He warned it would have to be instant because he made lousy coffee and his housekeeper was over at the church watching the rehearsal because her grandson was a shepherd.”

Tina giggled. “Are you two trying to drive us crazy with suspense?”

Sadd said, “I love it. Don't skip a single angel or shepherd.”

“Well, maybe one or two,” I said, my heart beating a bit more quickly.

Dan said, “Well, the coffee was a godsend, and we told him we wanted to check a baptism record, and he said certain ones were confidential and did this have anything to do with an adoption? We said it had to do with tracing somebody in the cause of justice and our middle name was confidentiality. He said the files were in his office, so we went in there and asked him if he remembered St. Elizabeth's Home, and he said no, he'd only been at St. Camillus ten years but he'd heard about St. Elizabeth's and it had been right down the street and it was now a bed and breakfast.”

Janet's dream home … now a bed and breakfast.

“Now me,” said Kit. “He takes this big old registry out of a file and says what year did we want, and we say 1968, and he says whoops—wrong one—this is 1910, when the parish was founded, to 1950—and you think the suspense is killing
you?
—and he takes out another, newer-looking one and puts it on the desk and says what month and day, and we say Sunday, June ninth.”

Dan waved his cast. “We wanted to jump up and look over his shoulder, but we sat tight, and he starts flipping pages and finally he says here we are, Sunday, June ninth, four baptisms, looks like one boy and three girls, which one do you want?”

“Well, that did it.” Kit was on her feet. “Dan said did he mind if we took a look, and Father Dillon said not at all, and he starts to turn the book around and then takes another look and smiles and says—and I remember this exactly—‘Dear old Monsignor Tanner was of the old school—Latin yet.'”

Kit unzipped her fanny pack, took out a piece of paper, and handed it to me. “This is what I wrote down.”

Henry and Tina were on either side of the bed, and Sadd said, “There's no room for me. Read it aloud.”

I murmured, “No glasses. You, Henry.”

He read:

Timothy James, parents Mark and Donna Giordano

Patricia Louise, parents John and Elaine Bluette

Laura Mary, parents Steven and Joan McGovern

Elizabeth Ann, mother Catherine Halcombe, Patre Ignoto

Sadd said into the silence, “Father unknown.”

“But you know what?” said Dan. “I think the Elizabeth would have done it for us.”

Nobody was moving much except for Kit, who was not only moving but almost prancing. Dan was grinning alternately at me and at her. He said, “Okay, go ahead and finish it.”

Kit said, “We asked Father Dillon if he knew anybody who might remember Catherine Halcombe, and he said his housekeeper might because she'd lived in Bryantville all her life. We went across the street, and now the angels and shepherds were out front of the church having a snowball fight, and Father introduced us to a nice older lady, Mrs. Locke, who said sure she remembered Cathy Halcombe. Cathy used to do her hair years ago—her mother owned the beauty shop in Bryantville—and Cathy was a sweet girl who loved kids. In fact, she used to volunteer at St. Elizabeth's Home, which we'd probably never heard of. There'd been a baby, a girl, as Mrs. Locke recalled, but Cathy wasn't married so she'd gone out of town to have it—in those days girls had the decency to do that, said Mrs. Locke—and then Mrs. Folsom, she was the lady who started St. Elizabeth's, was real good to Cathy and later found her a job over in Bridgeport or Stamford or someplace in that area, and after that Mrs. Locke lost track of her, but she did hear that Cathy had died of cancer a few years ago. As for the daughter, sorry, Mrs. Locke didn't have a clue.”

Kit stopped for breath, her cheeks flaming.

I said, “But you do.”

“You tell, honey,” said Kit. “You did it.”

“No, go ahead.” Dan looked happy and magnanimous.

“No, you.”

“For heaven's sake!” cried Henry. “One of you speak—and no angels and shepherds!”

They laughed joyously, and Dan was on his feet. “All the way back in the car it was bugging me—something Loretta Vaughan said when she was here. We'd just hit the Hutch Parkway when it clicked. Kit pulled into that first gas station, and I made the call. A voice said, ‘Mrs. Vaughan's residence, Liza Halcombe speaking.'”

Maybe three seconds, then we broke up. Tina hugged Dan, Kit hugged Henry, they all hugged me, and Sadd said, “Don't
I
get hugged?” Both Tina and Kit descended on him, and he emerged disheveled and crimson with delight.

I gasped, “How much does she know?”

Dan raised his shoulders. “Maybe everything, maybe nothing. But she sure as hell must have been chatting to Dad about how her week went. I didn't dare take it any farther—I was afraid I'd blow it. So I just said sorry, wrong number, and hung up.”

15

It wasn't until about eight o'clock that night that depression began to set in.

We had a plum, but was it too late to use it?

Mrs. Kitenski had returned with the boys, and I'd sent everybody out to supper with instructions to go straight home afterward. No one, I emphasized
no one,
was to come back to the hospital that night. Next day, Christmas Eve, they'd all go—if I promised not to—to Pushing Murder for a few hours in the morning. They'd keep their eyes peeled (another expression Sadd said he must find the derivation of), give Santa a hand, chat, shop, and look for any possibility of spiriting Sal away. It was a very dim hope, tacitly acknowledged so by all. We agreed that they'd return to the hospital for a final conference before I was discharged at noon.

Now I lay in the semidarkness wondering if Liza Halcombe was in league with her father.
Patre Ignoto.
Who had revealed her father's identity to her? A forgiving Catherine? A calculating Allen Quinn? And when? Years ago? Last week? The silent, almost thirty-year gap between that June Sunday in 1968 and Dan's phone call this afternoon maddened me. “Sorry, wrong number” had been the right move on Dan's part, but where did it leave us? To ask the girl to come see me was as good as inviting her father. I shivered as I thought of her describing to him—innocently or not—her drive to the hospital with “the boring pair of old-timers.”

I glanced for solace toward my suitcase. Tina had brought it, and it lay open on a chair, a blessed symbol of my release tomorrow. Was it really less than a week since I went sprawling on the sidewalk in front of Pushing Murder, dimly hearing the siren and wondering, as one always does, what poor wretch the ambulance was speeding to? And was it only a few days since the realization that a pleasant acquaintance was a monster?

The black window was packed with snow, and now it was strains of “Hark! The Herald Angels” that filtered up. I decided to take a turn up and down the room on my walker. Good practice for tomorrow when I still secretly hoped I could cajole my family into … I'd give anything to face Dwight Dunlop behind his flowing fake beard and create the scene of my life.

I groped along the bed rail for the control and brought myself to a sitting position. I swung both legs out of the bed and the cast clunked to the floor. Steadying myself with it, I did a toe search with the other foot and found a slipper. Found the other one. Walker just within reach. Yeah—here we go. Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross,/To see an old lady upon a white horse—read
walker.
Now, what name had been nagging at me?… Ah, yes. Captain Redmond.

Could I trust him to be forbearing if I shared the information about Liza Halcombe with him? I hated to part with my golden nugget if it developed that she was innocent and oblivious, but should Dwight make good his escape the day after tomorrow, and the horrid possibility was fast becoming a horrid probability, then the captain could have anything I had—I'd promised him that. How could I get to the girl obliquely? Through Loretta Vaughan? I cringed at a mental picture of “Retta” staring at me in disbelief, taking another swig, and saying, “My God! Do you mean to tell me that that girl…!”