The chuckling fingers (19 page)

But the people’s enmity was too heavily entrenched; instead of lightening it seemed to swell and grow. I wanted to stand and scream at those people, but something was tightening around my wrist—Jean Nobbelin squeezing so hard my hand beyond his hold was dark red, purpling.

“Don’t make it open, you idiot,” he was whispering. “Don’t you see that’s the worst thing you could do?”

He was right; the case against Jacqueline had to go unacknowledged.

One by one after Jacqueline the others testified, Myra telling not only her story but also Octavia’s.

“It is absolutely impossible for my sister to have been out of her room that night,” she insisted. “She knows nothing of what has occurred.”

After Myra, Aakonen passed along to the jurymen the harebells, the shawl, my bathrobe, telling about each one. The jurymen handled them as if they were alive and crawling. The last object he passed was small, misshapen, leaden—the bullet that had killed Fred.

“That bullet’s been to Minneapolis and back. I asked the police there to run it under their microscopes.”

He handed over another misshapen ticketed nodule. “There was just one other gun around the Fingers or the resort or Auden, and that was Ed Corvo’s gun. I sent that in too. The Minneapolis police say there isn’t a chance the bullet that killed Fred Heaton came from Ed Corvo’s gun.”

In the row ahead of us Ed Corvo turned to sweep us with a malignant, triumphant glance.

* * *

So there ‘d been more than one reason why Ed Corvo had been released. Ella and Lottie, too, felt newly absolved. Their drawn-up, formless bodies expressed the justification of the righteous.

Aakonen passed, last, the sheets of paper on which we’d printed the word “monarch,” but there was no excitement in him; the jurymen stared stolidly at each sheet but said nothing.

When he had finished Dr Rush said, “That completes the evidence.” Swiftly, concisely he summed it and dismissed the jury to consider its verdict.

The jury returned after only a few minutes, the first man picked remaining on his feet.

“We find that Frederick Heaton met an unnatural death at the hands of an unknown person or persons.”

His eyes as he said it, the eyes of all the jurymen, were fixed soberly, almost sorrowfully on Jacqueline.

And strongly in the people around me, too, I found belief strengthening that Jacqueline was the one from whom they must recoil.

I knew, going out of that town hall, that something needed to be done. Fast. .

* * *

Yet what was there I could do? No more clues, no more apparent motives than at first. Wherever I turned blank walls met me. I seemed bound by mummy wrappings of futility.

Jean, Jacqueline and I made again for the hospital, waiting for Dr Rush to see Bill. He came out of Bill’s room with no emotion whatsoever on his face.

“Mr Heaton’s still coughing. There’s a little more fever.” He hesitated. “It won’t be necessary for you to stay.”

Jacqueline didn’t want to go, but I knew what she’d do if she stayed—stand endlessly by Bill’s door, pouring her strength into vicarious battle. And the Fingers repelled and drew me —repelled because that was where death walked, but drew me because that was where the answer must be.

So I prevailed upon Jacqueline to leave. At least at the Fingers she could get dinner, and we could barricade ourselves again and sleep.

“I suppose you know,” Jean said on the way, “that Aakonen found some fresh traces of blue chalk behind the Fingers Sunday morning after Bill was shot.”

Attention leaped. “No! Does that mean—?”

“It could mean that, as Jacqueline says, someone did dodge behind the Fingers when she ran out.”

He stopped the car almost where Bill had stopped that first day I came. The brown paper was gone from the middle rock now; the chalked “monarch” still showed faintly. I supposed the jurymen must have studied there any similarities in the same word on the sheets of paper. But I had little time for that thought, or to note that the rocks were again unguarded. Almost directly behind the middle Finger, ground in among the dark lentil-smooth pebbles, were a few blue slivers and particles of dust, as if a chalk had been dropped there and perhaps stepped on, and the rest picked up.

Jean said, “I figure maybe the murderer intended writing another word on the rock but didn’t have time.”

I exulted, “That chalk dust fits exactly. Bears out Jacqueline.”

But she said slowly, “You forget I might have dropped the chalk there.”

Silence, with the chuckle underground for punctuation. Was everything I grasped always to turn out unsubstantial?

Jean said solidly, “It’s still corroboration. What gets me is this. Jacqui, you say you came running here as Bill was shot. The murderer hadn’t yet made sure that Bill was dead but he—”

He didn’t finish. Phillips came—running—from the lodge.

“The hospital’s calling. They want Jacqueline to come.”

“I SHOULDN’T have left—I knew it!” That was Jacqueline on the hurtling journey back. She was willing it should be Aakonen arresting her, willing it should be Bill conscious and accusing her of having shot him—anything but that Bill should be dying.

Men in groups on the sidewalk again, quickly gathered. Withdrawal on the fact of Miss Fleet at the door.

“Doctor Rush and Mr Aakonen are expecting you.” Her heels tapped a quick muted rhythm, leading us down the hall. I could notice at a time like that that the floor was brown battleship linoleum and the day so late that lights already glowed fuzzily overhead.

When Bill’s door opened Bill’s voice immediately became audible—loud, toneless, insensible.

“Jacqui, Jacqui …”

Aakonen’s bulk almost filled the door opening, but beyond him Dr Rush was visible, bending over the bed—Nurse Bolles at the foot.

Aakonen said, “Only Mrs Heaton, please.” He took Jacqueline’s arm, leading her in. Dr Rush stepped back from the bed.

I saw Bill then for the first time since Saturday night. He lay staring upward at the ceiling, his eyes wide, his face thinned to the bone. Stone quiet.

“Jacqui …”

“I’m here. Darling …” Aakonen let her come close, let her sink to the chair at the bedside, let her reach for Bill’s hand.

“Jacqui …” No awareness that she had come, no change in the loud monotone of the voice.

“I’m here, Bill.” She bent forward to put her cheek against his shoulder, but Aakonen snatched her back.

“Stay where you are, please.”

Dr Rush nodded at the nurse, came out.

“You can’t go in, of course,” he told me, and shut the door. He went off down the hall, the doorkeeping Miss Fleet following.

Even with the door closed, Bill’s voice was audible, repeating Jacqueline’s name. When Jean spoke it was so unexpected I jumped; I’d forgotten he was there, too, that he’d driven us in. His head was thrust forward in an intensity of listening.

“Aakonen must be trying to hear if Bill means he wants Jacqui there or if he means it was Jacqui who shot him.”

“Do you have to make that a question?”

He seemed as startled by my presence as I’d been by his.

“Oh, Ann. Here, let’s talk to this woman.” He went rapidly back down the hall to Miss Fleet.

“Mr Heaton’s talking—does that mean a change in his condition?”

She said coolly, “No great change.”

His face loosened. “I wasn’t sure.”

He turned to me then, his head gesturing toward the cubbyhole of the waiting room. “Come on in here. If anything happens we’ll know.”

But when I mechanically followed he changed his mind. “No, it’s late, and you haven’t eaten.” Again he turned to Miss Fleet. “We’ll be at Hanson’s. If Mrs Heaton comes out tell her where we are, please. Or if we’re wanted for anything you can call us.”

“But we can’t leave!” It seemed disloyal to go, leaving Jacqueline there alone.

“Jacqueline can call us. I want to talk over some things we might do to figure this business out.”

I hesitated, torn between the loyalty of staying and the necessity I’d seen that afternoon—that something must be done, and soon. In the end I went—at the hospital I could really do nothing but wait.

So it was at Hanson’s that those next blundering efforts to think through the crimes were made—efforts in which there were many errors but which, like the few discoveries made after Fred’s death, were to find their places in the final answer.

I said, “Aakonen and the jury couldn’t have been able to tell from those sheets of paper who’d printed the ‘monarch.’ If they had they’d have indicated it.”

He nodded. “The rock’s too rough.” We were sitting in a booth, both of us bent over the table, Jean turning a water glass between thumb and forefinger. “I’ve come to the conclusion that, as far as Fred’s death is concerned, we’re sunk. We’ve got to start over again. With Bill.”

Facing that prospect, I didn’t think I could eat much, but Jean ordered chicken soup, hot, and after I’d eaten it I was suddenly weak with hunger and fatigue.

“If I’m this way, how must Jacqui be?”

“She’s got something holding her up.” But he ordered a sandwich and a thermos of coffee sent to her at the hospital at the same time he ordered dinner for us. The steaks and coffee were good. Some strength came back.

As soon as the plates were taken away he started. “The last thing we worked at was the hunt for that gun. Now Aakonen and his men have been fine-combing the country around ever since early Sunday morning. And this time they aren’t just hunting for a small automatic and a bit of chalk—they’re hunting for the cape. Still no go.”

“The murderer must think the cape is necessary—”

“Yeah. He’s had a chance to see how it strikes terror into the rest of us. That chalk business, too—that just looks like decoration to me. I wonder what the word over Bill would have been if there ‘d been time to write it.”

Would we ever know? Weight pressing down, I said, “I wish we had Bill to work with. He seemed to know where to begin.”

He smiled at me crookedly. “You don’t mean that as hard as I do. I’ve worked with Bill eight years. It’s seven eighths of my brains gone. That’s why I hauled you over here—to talk at. I can’t work alone.”

He took a notebook from his coat pocket. “This morning while we waited for Cecile I did a little thinking. Not much, but “

“More than I did. All I’ve done since Saturday is wait.”

“I made a list of everyone who was near Bill when he was shot.” He flipped the notebook to face me. Names ran down the page.

1. Jacqueline

2. Ann

3. Phillips Heaton

4. Myra

5. Jean

6. Bradley Auden

7. Cecile Granat

8. Ella Corvo

9. Lottie

10. Mark

11. Carol

“That leaves out Ed Corvo, who was in jail. It leaves out Marjorie Auden, who can’t walk, and the Auden maid. It leaves out Owens and reporters who may have hidden in the underbrush. I’m sticking to people who were also around when Fred was killed and who can imaginably have any connection.”

I took a deep breath of acceptance, seeing again the small-ness, the closeness of that circle. “Eleven names now. And I know it isn’t me and isn’t Jacqueline. So that leaves nine.”

“Not so fast. We’ve got to do this thoroughly.” His thumb turned a page to more of his thick black handwriting.

“1. Jacqueline. She inherits if Bill dies. Apparently she had the only real motive. Bill’s been a difficult husband—they’ve had a lot of trouble. Case against her, which would include all the queer things that have happened, is that she’s subject to fits of insanity which have become homicidal—motivated by a shrewd sense of gain. Believe this combination of mental shrewdness and emotional instability is possible. Alternative explanation—that the craziness is deliberate and to be used in a plea of insanity to get her off the murder charge.”

Scourging words—horrible, unbearable … They disappeared; what I saw instead was Bill’s thin, flushed face on the pillow, calling for Jacqueline, and Jacqueline telling him she was there, and Bill not hearing.

“It’s not true. It’s not true, and she isn’t—”

He said harshly, “You’re reacting emotionally instead of thinking. Don’t you see, if we’re going to get anywhere we’ve got to look at the thing straight. We’ve got to know what we’re up against. And don’t think I made that up— that is what we’re up against. It’s what is in Aakonen’s mind now. Why do you think he watches her so closely? It’s what the other witnesses are thinking. It’s what was in the mind of the jury today. Didn’t you see those men looking at her? You heard that man in front of the town hall. We won’t get anywhere by shutting our minds.”

True—it was all true, but each word still stung, whiplashed across my mind.

“Here,” he said. “Maybe this will take your mind off that.” He flipped another page, and my own name leaped.

“2. Ann. She’s extremely fond of Jacqueline and Toby. Would she kill Fred because he was an annoyance, kill Bill because he was making her cousin unhappy—because she felt her cousin had to get free—yet keep the Heaton money?”

He’d written across it, “No soap.”

A short laugh shook out of me. “Should I be grateful?”

“No. But that’s why I’ve picked you to work with—any of the others I’d pick might be the wrong one. Go on.”

“3. Phillips Heaton,” on the next page. “There was something about that Heaton fire. First chance I get I’ll tackle Brad Auden on that. Phillips has an alibi for Fred’s murder which I’ve checked and which seems tight. No alibi for Bill’s shooting. Motive—Phillips obviously hated Bill, but Bill always brushed him off like a fly. What bothers me about Phillips, in spite of his alibi, isn’t his general unpleasantness—he’s always been that way—it’s his being a coward. The way I see it, murder is something a coward goes in for, whether it’s one man or a nation. You’re inferior and can’t get what you want in open competition, so you bolster your weakness with weapons to give you the advantage your body, mind and character haven’t. With guns the murderer or the statesman goes out to get what he wants cheaply at the expense of someone else.”