Sorrow's Crown (17 page)

"I see," she repeated. "You feel guilty about the fate of your friend, the
gravekeeper
, and now you seek to incriminate someone else."

"I like the sound of ‘to cast aspersions' a little better.”

“Do you?"

"But you're wrong. I want to find out who killed Teddy, and why."

We continued our standoff and the wind continued its mad caterwauling. Thunder provided a nice contrapuntal cadence, as rhythmic as a backbeat. Jocelyn had much more patience than me and would undoubtedly win our staring match unless she forfeited by falling over dead from boredom.

"What nationality are you?" I asked.

"I was born in Hong Kong."

"I'd like to see Teddy's room."

Without hesitation she said, "All right."

That was too easy, and I wondered why.

She dimmed the lights once more and led me to the staircase. Again she faded into the shadows, reappearing only when she turned her head enough so that I could catch a glimpse of the pale angle of her cheek. She glided so smoothly up the steps that she appeared to be floating.

Maybe it was the darkness, the company, or the leftover edginess from
Panecraft
, but threads of cold sweat trickled down my chest.

I strained my ears hoping to hear Anna's voice or the clatter of silverware, but there was only silence.

"How long have you been with
Harnes
?" I asked.

"Quite some time."

"Did you know Teddy well?"

"No, not especially. No one did. Teddy was quite reclusive. He preferred to remain remote. Solitary. He found solace in philosophy. Theology. Other more cerebral pursuits. He recently took up painting."

"Did he care about his father's business affairs? The factories? After all, eventually he would have inherited it all.”

“Teddy did not care much for possessions and finances.”

“How did his father feel about that?"

"It made no difference whatsoever."

"A multi-millionaire didn't mind that his son followed more aesthetic pursuits and had no interest in taking over a vast family fortune?"

"Not at all. He cherished Teddy and put the highest value on his son's happiness."

She stopped in the darkness and I brushed against her back. A switch clicked and a portion of the second floor ignited as though lightning had struck nearby. On the walls were several Oriental tapestries and paintings, representations of myths and seascapes mixed side by side with family portraits. A number of beautiful women gaped down at us, some poised, and others who looked highly uncomfortable and even angry.

"Which is Marie
Harnes
?"

"I don't know."

To the side, separated from the others and at eye level, a much smaller painting showed the face of Diane
Cruthers
; her shiny luscious lips were turned into an honest but not so pretty smile, gazing out across a mansion she hadn't lived long enough to step foot inside. Her face was slightly turned, like she might be on the verge of laughter, exactly the same way as in the photo in Anna's album. A character trait, then. Her hair was much shorter.

What pregnant woman commits suicide?

We continued down the corridor to Teddy's room.

It hardly looked any different from
Crummler's
shack. Entirely bare except for a bed, dresser, desk, and a small bookshelf with a dozen or so books lying on their sides in stacks. Lowell had been right, if felt like a monk's cell. The stink of polish was overpowering; every surface sparkled. I drew my finger along the shelf and found it totally dust free.

Since we'd already established that I was completely rude, I decided to open a dresser drawer. It slid back too easily on its rollers and slapped me in the knees. There were only two shirts within.

Jocelyn's hand wrapped around my wrist and she squeezed until the tiny bones in my fist started to grind together. It took all my effort not to yelp. I let go of the drawer handle and she let go of me.

"Why do you insist on this type of behavior, Mr. Kendrick? I allowed you access to this room because I don't want you pestering Mr.
Harnes
with these ridiculous antics."

On Teddy's shelf were three books lying on their sides with severely cracked spines, as if he'd taken them down and reread them many times. On top, with a few dust jacket chips, lay
Lao-Tzu Te-Tao
Ching
: A new translation based on the recently discovered Ma-Wang-
Tui
texts
by Robert G. Hendricks. Below rested
Kwo
Da-Wei's
Chinese Brushwork: Its History, Aesthetics, and Techniques
, and an older copy of Ta
T'Ung
Shu's
The One-World Philosophy of
K'ang
Yu-Wei
, published in London by George Allen &
Unwin
in 1958.

I flipped through them and spotted extensive handwritten notes in tiny, clear print on the subject of painting. Beneath the back flap of the Brushwork dust jacket I found several neatly folded papers. I opened a few and saw they were ink drawings of women. He'd even drawn on the end pages and on the inside back cover with pencil: fruit, junk boats, seascapes, and more women.

I recognized the books as fairly uncommon titles. My former assistant Debi
Kiko
Mashima
used to handle a great deal of my foreign first editions and their translations, and took to stocking volumes on Japanese culture and society, as well as other books on Asian thought, craft, and history. Just inside each front cover a cardboard strip poked out: bookmarks. I checked and saw the store stamp.

It was my store.

I would have remembered an online order if I'd mailed it to my home county. There hadn't been any. That meant Teddy had come into my shop sometime in the last few months.

I'd met him and hadn't even known it.

"You look disturbed," Jocelyn said.

“No."

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

"Put those down." She didn't wear a watch and there were no clocks in the room, but as though some silent alarm had gone off Jocelyn stiffened and lifted her chin. "They will be taking desert and drinks in the library soon. Follow if you must."

I looked out the window and saw a figure lurking in the darkness. I took a step closer, peered down, and watched Nick
Crummler
standing on the front lawn in the rain, staring back up at me.

Despite the historical fireplace, dark pine paneling, a huge finely detailed wooden globe of the ancient world, and marble chess pieces set upon a mahogany table-board, the library held all the appeal of a diorama. It lacked any real ambiance, and came off more like a setting in a wax museum.

The room spread out large as a ballroom, and guests milled as though ready for the countdown to New Year's. Built in shelving ran sixteen-feet high, with two rolling ladders on either side of the library. Instead of rare originals, most of the books were cheap facsimiles, faux-leather-bound sets of the
Masterpieces of Literature
,
World's One Hundred Greatest Novels
, encyclopedias, and a ton of outdated law books, as well as several duplicate series of novels and journals. Haines simply wanted to fill the shelves, and didn't care with what.

Chatter enveloped the room. No one seemed puzzled or surprised as to why they'd been invited here in a time of supposed grief. There was a lot of laughter. Nobody took any notice of me. Jocelyn drew attention, chins snapping up around the room. People turned and watched as she glided past. The smarm factor rose a thousand percent as wealthy single men swarmed and surrounded her. They didn't seem to mind each other. I hoped she might smile, out of courtesy, as she was offered lit cigarettes and snifters of cognac, but the band of grinning attendants couldn't garner so much as a grimace from her.

I walked among them listening to the small talk, gossip and tattling. Anna spoke with
Harnes
off in the farthest corner where nobody bothered them. Clearly they were in deep discussion and had been for some time, perhaps the entire evening.
Harnes
wore an artificial smile, his hands out in front of him hanging emptily in a gesture of unconcern. They had the ease of old friends, or very good new friends, which perhaps they were. My stomach tied into timber-hitch knots.

Sheriff
Broghin
glared and glowered at Oscar
Kinion
among a group of laughing land barons from the southern edge of the county. Oscar appeared to be enjoying the fact that he upset
Broghin
so much, and sat drinking and smirking a little. Still, he kept checking over his shoulder at Anna, and I could tell he was growing more and more disconcerted. Alice Conway stood alone near the globe, forlorn and on the verge of tears, also watching the corner where
Harnes
and my grandmother kept talking. I wondered where Brian Frost could be.
Harnes
hadn't made the mistake of inviting Lowell here tonight.

Others told bad jokes and discussed economics and got drunk and ate desert, and I couldn't see any way to get anything from anyone.

A woman wearing a little French maid outfit wandered among the guests serving drinks. Talk about a thankless job; she wore a
bustiere
and her hair up in a French twist, the little skirt and apron giving an extra-fine inch here and there. She wasn't from Burma. When she got a bit closer I saw it was Daphne
Kupfer
, her lips set so tightly they were colorless.

"Hi, Daphne," I said.

"Jonny," she said, and her eyes narrowed into two short angry wedges. I'd never seen anybody do it quite that way before, her entire face thinning and becoming redefined by the squint. "What are you doing here?"

"Just dropped by."

"You're not on the guest list."

"How long have you worked for Theodore
Harnes
?”

“Every once in a while to make some extra money." She tried to answer naturally enough but the words caught on barbs.
Harnes
made her wear the maid outfit in order to use her as thoroughly and openly as he could, complete with the frilly little headpiece. A punishment of some kind? For talking to me? For causing some kind of stir when he'd passed her over for the embraces of Alice Conway?

Daphne shifted nervously, hoping to recess her cleavage. "What the hell are you after?" she asked, backing away and drifting off. "Whatever it is you're just going to get yourself in trouble."

"I'm sorry," I said softly, and I was.

I could smell Oscar's aftershave from here.

Broghin
and Oscar were both drunk and slurring and miffed, but appeared to have reached a deadlock.
Broghin
could only stick to his juvenile jealousy, and Oscar could do nothing about it but take exception and note a resentful man's grudge. "You've got no call to take that tone with me, Sheriff."

"I'll take whatever tone I want."

"Not with me you won't. I've had enough of your hateful manner."

"You have, eh?"

"You heard me, I think. You have something to say, then let's get out with it."

"I've got nothing to say."

"Hell, that much I already picked up."

"Is that a fact now?"

"It is."

Broghin
mopped his brow with a wadded dirty napkin, the high-priced smooth liquor bringing out two large round red circles on his flushed cheeks. He kept blinking and looked wobbly on his feet, not nearly as angry as I was used to seeing him. He started teetering just enough to get his belly moving, picking up momentum. His heartache was evident, and I knew it wasn't all because of Anna and Oscar. It had cost him something to lock
Crummler
away, the joyous man he'd danced with.

"She's a fine woman," the sheriff said.

"I know it."

"And a good friend of mine."

"So she's told me, though I hardly know why."

Oscar kept glancing around at the walls as though expecting wild animals heads to suddenly appear instead of all these books. He blinked a lot too, and although he didn't teeter, he had a tremble working through his legs, as if an awful chill had grabbed hold of him and he couldn't get free.

"You don't need to know much besides that,"
Broghin
said.

"Is that so?"

"It is."

"You always this damn sociable?"

I walked off. Alice Conway looked even more lost and scared as the night went on. She obviously wanted to talk to
Harnes
and continued to float around him, wafting in and out among the other guests, but she didn't want to impede on his conversation with Anna. I could only guess at what he'd make her wear if she ever made him dissatisfied. Every time Daphne spun by Alice sparks passed between them. I wondered if they had both been
Harnes
' lover at one time or another, and if Daphne had been completely ousted by Alice, intentionally or not, or if they'd both only been after Teddy. For some ugly reason, I also wondered if their mothers had been his lovers as well, and if, in fact, Alice and Daphne were actually his daughters.