The Horse You Came in On (36 page)

“Are you saying that so are Philip Calvert and John-Joy?” Jury shook his head. “Impossible.”

“Not at all. If these records mean anything, Philip Calvert and Pat Muldare are some degree of cousins. And John-Joy, actually John Joiner Calvert, is some sort of uncle. The precise relationship I don't know. Beverly Brown might have.” He turned the two books toward Jury, open. “This shows that Anne Joiner married one Charles Calvert. Issue, at least one son, Garrett John Joiner.”

“This is much too far back for the son to be John-Joy.”

“Yes, of course. But the birth certificate—” He took it from the place where he'd wedged it in the accounts book—“indicates that John-Joy was in the line of male descendants. This is the implication, certainly.”

Jury frowned. “But, my God, that would mean John-Joy would have been—” Jury gazed at Melrose; he would have laughed, had the implications
of what Plant was saying not been so awful—“would have been
Lord Baltimore?
”

“That's the idea, yes.”

Wiggins said, “But John-Joy died DSMP.”

Melrose nodded. “Consequently, if there's a relationship between him and Philip Calvert's
father,
the title would pass to him, to Calvert's father, and consequently to Philip Calvert; and again, if a relationship can be shown between Calvert and Muldare, thence to Patrick Muldare. I think Beverly Brown discovered these old records, and possibly more to show that there was another son—that Charles had other issue. And eventually, Calvert, Philip, and Calvert-Muldare, Patrick, were the result. And my guess is that Philip was next in line, after John-Joy.”

Jury frowned. “And why is that your guess?”

“Well, that's pretty simple, Superintendent.” He paused, and added, “Because they're both
dead
.”

Jury got up. “Excuse me for a minute.” He held up the empty pitcher. “I need a drink.”

 • • • 

No,
thought Jury.

He leaned against the bar, looking blindly up at the TV screen while the guitarist whined nasally about friends and betrayal.

There were many times in his work when he'd been surprised, even one or two times when he'd hated being faced with a particular person's being the guilty one. But this was the first time he found himself adamantly refusing to believe it.

He pictured the two of them, sitting there in Oriole Park, beneath that glazed blue sky. And Jury supposed that darkness fell even there.

I never grew up
.

 • • • 

Jury set the fresh pitcher on the table, and said, “Pat Muldare couldn't have killed them. Not the type.”

Wiggins's mouth dropped open. “The
type,
sir?”

Jury ignored this. “Beverly Brown was murdered because she came across this information? Is that what you think?”

“Not necessarily.”

Jury looked a question.

“Anyone who could execute such an elaborate forgery as an entire—or near-entire—
story
could surely do something as simple as a birth certificate and fiddle an old ledger.”

“But
why?
” asked Wiggins.

Jury said, “Given what I've heard about Beverly Brown—for revenge. Or even, God help us, as a joke. What if she convinced poor old John-Joy
he was one of the barons Baltimore and gave him this certificate to prove it?”

“Revenge?”

Jury shook his head. “Patrick Muldare. I think she got dumped, frankly. I don't think a man would dump Beverly without taking a big chance. And knowing he would give his eye teeth for
something,
as he put it, ‘glittery, stagy, Hollywood' . . .”

There was a long silence while they thought this over. Minutes passed. Finally Melrose asked, “Where's Ellen?”

“At Hopkins, sir,” said Wiggins. “She said you took up so much of her writing time today that she had to go in tonight to make up for it.”

“Oh, certainly,
certainly
. I'm to blame for all of her writing problems.”

“Pretty much,” said Wiggins, smiling broadly. Then he returned to his study of the ledger.

“You found these books in John-Joy's cart, right? And the cart was still there when the cops found the body.”

“Apparently, yes.”

“Then why didn't the killer take them? In the first place, such stuff would be incriminating, if anyone is clever enough to work it out, like you are. But more than that, he'd need what's in them to help to make his claim. I mean, what the hell do you present to the House of Lords if you're trying to prove your ancestors were the barons of Baltimore?”

Wiggins turned to Melrose Plant. “My question precisely.”

“I'm not sure. More than is here, I'd imagine. But the point wasn't to convince the House of Lords, was it? It was to convince Patrick Muldare.”

For another minute or two they sat there, each looking in turn at the documents. “Hell,” said Jury. “These have got to be forged. It stands to reason . . . But I don't see any internal evidence of it.”

“There's one thing, sir,” said Wiggins.

“What?”

“This person who totted up these columns couldn't add.”

Jury looked down at the accounts book, ran his finger down the columns, mouthing items: “. . . Rug for Charles . . . clothes for baby Garrett . . . uh-huh.” Jury did some simple addition. “This column comes to two shillings, eight pence. But that doesn't square with the ten pennies here for so-called baby Garrett. Look.” He turned the book toward Melrose. “If you subtract those two items from these two columns,
then
the sum is correct.”

Wiggins and Melrose looked down at the page.

“Meaning that someone
else
probably entered the goods for Charles
and baby Garrett, together with their names. This account book is supposed to prove such people existed. Charles and Garrett must be the links to the present generation of Calverts.

“Except,” Jury added, “that there were no such people.”

How was she ever to get Sweetie out of this predicament? Sweetie sat, as she had left her, staring down into the empty white box. Ellen wrote.

Sweetie clasped the box carefully, holding it as if it were terribly fragile and might shatter. She lifted her eyes to the letter slot
.

Ellen lifted her eyes and stared at the blank wall above her desk. She kept it blank—empty of pictures, of notice boards, fixtures, messages—all the mental stuffing which helped one to embrace the illusion that there was a chronological flow to things. “Ellen: lunch Thursday? Cafeteria?” The message wasn't there, of course, up on the wall. The wall was in limbo (the human condition). Thursday was a concept no more reliable than chocolates in a chocolate box. No wonder Sweetie had to label things: sugar, pitcher, plate. In Sweetie's house nothing was dependable. Time was fractured, lurching around like some Frankenstein monster, dragging, stumbling, broken up into body parts.

Sweetie did not know how long she had been holding the box. She did not know whether it was Day or Night
.

Ellen turned to look out of the window. Night, all right. Black as pitch. Then she looked behind her at the clock on the wall.
She
certainly knew how long
she'd
been sitting here at this desk: one hour and thirty-seven minutes. Thirty-seven and one-half. The minute hand swept. Thirty-eight. Twenty-two more minutes to sit here. Surely she could last for twenty-two more minutes.

Oh,
God!
Ellen clenched her fists and pounded on the desk. Then she put her head in her hands. Oh,
she
knew what Maxim was up to, but she didn't know
why
. Air. She needed air.

She got up and moved over to the window, the bike chain dragging at her ankle. She opened the window and leaned out. Freezing air knifed her skin and she was glad for it; it might wake up her mind. She looked
down and, for lack of any worthier mental occupation, decided to calculate, should she jump, how far the chain would reach and leave her dangling. She looked back at the chain, measured it with her eye. Five feet of play, perhaps. Then she leaned out further and figured she was not all that far from the ground, or at least that bush down there that would break her fall. Probably the chain would stop her about eight or nine feet from the ground before it broke. . . .

Oh, for God's sake! She'd do absolutely anything to keep from writing! Ellen slammed the window down.

Dragging back to the desk, she glanced (guiltily) at the clock and saw that she'd spent a full four minutes at the window. Well, damn it! (she argued with her guilt). Can't a person even stop for a breath of shitty
air?

Oh, but you weren't doing that, were you?
You
were hanging out the window and measuring off the chain. Weren't you? You should really reset the alarm and add on another five minutes. Ten, to be honest. You spent another five minutes back there filing your na—

Shut up shut up SHUT UP! Then she thought smugly, Well, I
can't
reset it, can I? Because I can't
reach
it, not with this chain around my ankle.

Really?
said her Dedicated Self. If you can't reach the alarm—

Ellen clapped her hands over her ears, as if a voice were actually speaking to her. She knew what was coming.

—then you can't reach your
key,
either. The tone was simply unbearably smug and self-satisfied.

Somebody will come along.
They
would. Richard Jury said he would come along and take her home. Ha ha ha.

Feeling extremely pleased she'd outwitted herself, she was about to sit down again when she heard the footsteps coming down the hall.

I told you, didn't I? she said to Dedicated Self. And then felt depressed, for she didn't really like winning these arguments with herself.

Well, he'd just have to sit around and wait.

She looked up at the knock on the door frame (the door having been left open) and the simultaneous greeting.

“Hullo.”

Ellen frowned. What was Alan Loser doing up here?

What he was doing, she realized in the next second, was holding a gun in his hand. It appeared to be pointed at her.

“I think you have some papers here that belonged to Beverly Brown.” He smiled engagingly as if for all the world he hadn't actually snicked the safety back on that gun.

At least that's what she thought that tiny, alien sound had been. She stared at the gun and at Alan, open-mouthed. Horrified, she froze.

That is, one part of her froze. Dedicated Self whispered, Now, how the hell long is
this
going to take?

Ellen opened her mouth; nothing came out. Finally she said, “What about her? What're you doing?” She backed up and the chain dragged.

Alan hadn't noticed the chain until now. He actually put his head back and laughed. “The writer at work?”

Drawing herself up, still enough herself to be defensive, she said the usual thing. “It's a scene in my book. I'm acting out. I do it a lot. Please put that gun down.” And a thought glimmered in her mind. “I'm not going anywhere,
obviously
.” She tried to make it sound snotty, as if he were truly stupid.

He laughed again, lowered the gun. “No, I don't suppose you are. But that's not precisely the point, in the end.”

Her momentary relief vanished. In the end? What end? Whose? She swallowed and then asked, trying to sound as argumentative as possible, “What in hell do you want?”

“For starters, I want whatever Beverly Brown gave you.”

“The
Poe
manuscript? But it's a—” Should she tell him it was a forgery? “—questionable. No one knows whether it's even authentic yet.” She started backing towards the window, checking the time. Jesus.

“The manuscript. Of course it's not authentic. One of Beverly's little jokes.”

Some joke! “You
knew
it was a fake?”

“Certainly I knew. Beverly and I were—well, at least before Patrick came along. I want whatever else she gave you.”

Three minutes.

Ellen's glance flicked from the clock to the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. “Down there.”

“Bottom drawer?”

“It's locked.” She dragged the little key from the rear pocket of her jeans. Tossed it to him.

Alan nodded towards the chain. “It won't reach, will it?” Holding the gun, muzzle towards the ceiling, he walked over to her. He yanked on the chain, measured the length with his eyes and smiled. “Cooperative of you to chain yourself to the desk like this.” Then he moved back to the filing cabinet, knelt and put the gun on the floor as he fiddled the key into the lock.

Two minutes ten seconds
.

Ellen stared up at the clock.

She had backed nearly to the window. Keeping her tone idiotically conversational, she asked, first clearing her throat to get the words out:
“What are you looking for?” Her eye was on the gun, right there by his foot. Within his reach, not hers.

“Beverly's notes.” He looked up and smiled brightly. “And a birth certificate.”

One minute fifty seconds
.

“Proof you were born?”

He stared. “Gallows humor? I must say, you have more guts than Beverly did.”

Than Beverly did? Oh, God . . .

He was bending over a thick folder, sitting cross-legged on the floor, like some damned student reading his manuscript. “Thing is, she thought she could blackmail me. She wasn't stupid. It didn't take too much intelligence to figure out what had happened to Philip Calvert.”

“Calvert?”

One minute thirty seconds
.