The Master Butcher's Singing Club (23 page)

“Are you going to give him a whipping?”

“Why should I?” said Fidelis, then raised his eyes and looked full on
at Delphine. Even through the blast of sun she could feel the power of his pale gaze. As on the first day she met him, she felt a jolt of strangeness. Not fear, just an instinct that there was more, much more, happening in that moment than she could grasp. He was withholding an energy composed of menace and promise. Tons of power were behind his slightest gesture and she thought of a great smooth-faced dam.

“Come in, take a load off, and I’ll pour you some iced tea. Roy and Markus are down at the river, but I think it’s too hot for the fish to bite. They’ll be back any minute.”

She was stalling, trying to find a diplomatic way not to send Markus back. Fidelis came into the house, still darkly cool as she’d kept the windows shut against the growing heat. She now opened the windows, sensing that undertone of cellar rot that crept in elusively and smelled to her of despair. There were six green ash trees outside that changed the air around in the late afternoon. The rooms would cool. The place was clean, scrubbed to a finish. Earlier, she’d cut a lemon into a jug of clear brown tea and stirred in the sugar, then set it right next to the ice block. Now she poured the tea into the glass beer mugs. The sides of the glasses filmed over and sweat. Fidelis looked at the tea a little sadly.

“I don’t have beer,” said Delphine.

Fidelis took a long drink, and Delphine refilled. Then he put his mug down and asked, “When are you coming back?”

Delphine mulled that one over, and then thought, Here’s my bargaining point. “That’s a hell of a question,” she said.

Fidelis leaned forward and hunched his shoulders as though he was going to say something very difficult, but all he said was, “Tante can’t run things alone.”

Delphine realized that it was a form of betrayal for him to make even the mildest critical statement regarding his sister. That was the way of those old German families. Tante was the only family he had over here. She wrote descriptions of whatever he did in endless script letters. Tante was always mailing off a stack, foreign postage. It was said that Tante wanted to go back to their pretty town in Germany, Ludwigsruhe,
if only it weren’t for Fidelis. She couldn’t just leave him in this country, especially now, with those boys. Still, his troubled frown, and obvious discomfort, annoyed Delphine.

“I suppose I could think about coming back to help out—that is, if you’d tell her to pack her bags and get.”

Fidelis looked like he’d been knocked on the head with a sheep mallet. Such a thing must not have occurred to him, and Delphine had to laugh.

“She can’t cook. You’re losing business because she’s snotty to the customers. Your clothes look like hell. Your boys are running wild. And I won’t come back if she’s there, you can bet!”

Fidelis gave a cool nod and closed up. He wasn’t going any further with that, Delphine could tell. Maybe she should have been amazed that for such a big man he was such a coward before his sister, but she understood a lot more about him now.

“Look,” she said, pretending to soften. “I guess it’s tough. I like your boys, so I’ll think about it. Just leave Markus with us another couple weeks. He can start school from here. Cyprian can drive him in. He’s too much trouble for Tante, and he’s good help to us.”

Fidelis agreed to that, and when Markus came back Delphine watched very closely to see how he acted with his father, whether he was eager to return. But Markus was wary when he saw his father’s truck in the yard, and he seemed relieved to stay on with Delphine. She brought a lemon pound cake to the table, and tension eased up quickly. Fidelis ate the cake with great attention. Eva’s recipe, he knew. He experienced a wave of feeling when he gathered the last crumbs, and he made a ceremony of putting down his fork, slowly lowering it to the table. Delphine felt his sorrow, then, as a current of energy. Leaving, Fidelis nodded in approval at the good-size fish his boy had caught despite the heat, and took the fish as a gift. Markus put his shoulders back and strutted a little, which made Delphine laugh because he was such a skinny, unassuming boy. Yes, he had to stay. There was no doubt about it. She had to teach him a few things before she let him face Tante, and she had plans how to do it.

* * *

DELPHINE STILL OCCASIONALLY
dreamed of getting a show together, a large-scale drama production, or of putting the balancing act somewhere in the plot of the thing. To do that, they’d have to take it on the road because the town could not support a cast of professional players. But Delphine no longer wanted to leave. Not with Roy behaving and with Markus near. Losing Eva had taken something out of her, too, and she began to spend more time with Clarisse. Another reason to stay in Argus. Still, the question lingered whether she and Cyprian were still essential to the investigation. Nothing had come of the sheriff’s plan to solve the Chavers’ deaths, nothing that she had heard, anyway. Delphine thought that she would like to know where things stood. She was curious. It struck her that she should pay a visit to the sheriff. So she left Roy napping in the shade one afternoon, and as Cyprian had driven the car up north, she walked to town.

By the time she got there, she was wringing in the unseasonable heat. Usually by now they had a break in the weather. Not this year. Sweat darkened her armpits and her neck was damp, her hair springing out of the pins she’d fastened in wet tendrils. In town, with the wide reflecting streets and the puny trees, the sun shone hotter. The sheriff’s dim office offered some relief. He had a ceiling fan going, and on his desk a little, black, official-looking fan whirred as well. The brick walls were insulating and the inside of his office was cool and peaceful. Sheriff Hock was doing paperwork when she entered, and he looked glad for a diversion.

“So,” said Delphine, after they’d complained to each other about the heat, “what have you found out about the Chavers? Roy and I are wondering.” She didn’t mention Cyprian, for it struck her that Sheriff Hock might ask where Cyprian traveled off to from time to time, and she wanted to avoid the story about his being a brush salesman. But Hock didn’t seem at all interested in Cyprian’s excursions; he was, he said, interested in talking to her. Just lately, he said, he’d been wanting to ask about costumes.

“Costumes?”

“What you and Cyprian wore when doing your shows, your balancing acts. What did you have on?”

“We wore regular clothes. Cyprian said that part of the surprise of what we did was that we looked so normal, then our act was all the more unusual. Besides, at first we couldn’t afford anything fancy, no sequins.”

“Or red beads?” said Hock.

Delphine understood, thinking of the pantry floor. “Oh, now I see what you’re getting at. Are you saying that we could be suspects?”

“Well,” said Hock, “you know the beads. They’re still the odd component. Your dad says that nobody at the wake wore anything like a sequin or a bead or anything fancy that he remembers.”

“Not that he would have noticed, stewed as he got.”

“Likely,” said Sheriff Hock. “So I’ve also gone through the props department of our local company. You probably don’t think I remember!” He wagged a finger at her, twinkling his eyes in a way she didn’t like to see on a sheriff’s face. “I know you and Clarisse had a good time with that witch scene. I have a feeling either one of you’d have made an excellent Lady Macbeth.”

“We just understudied the part,” said Delphine carefully. She didn’t know if Hock was veiling an accusation. She attempted to lighten the moment. “Why don’t we revive”—she was careful not to tempt bad luck by saying the actual title—“the Scottish play!”

“Sadly, I am bound to my profession. I haven’t the time anymore, and anyway, do you think that the people of this town want to see their sheriff as, say, the eponymous murderer? I would lose their confidence.”

“People wouldn’t think . . . or you could always play Banquo.”

“No, no, no, to many, art is life. I am the sheriff, so I must play the sheriff round the clock. To accept any other role while wearing the badge would only confuse people.” Sheriff Hock squeezed his chin in his fist now, frowning. In a low voice he asked, “How
is
Clarisse?”

“She’s busy.” Delphine said this quickly to disguise her jolt of unease.

“Is she really?” Hock said in a light, menacing voice. “Busy? Or is she just avoiding her destiny? I like to think of myself as inevitable.”

His sly self-assurance tripped a wire in Delphine. “Inevitable!” she
cried. “You’re a mental wreck. She hates you. I don’t care if you are the sheriff, you should leave her alone.”

“Caramel?” Hock extended a dish that had lain beneath some papers. He unwrapped one from its waxed paper and slowly fitted it between his lips.

Delphine shook her head and turned to leave. Already she regretted having lost her temper. Insulting Hock was a bad idea.

She stopped by the drugstore and bought a phosphate, drank it quickly to calm herself. Then she walked straight to the funeral home.

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE
Strubs’ establishment was tasteful—painted gray and trimmed in dark maroon; even the awnings on the windows were made of matching, striped canvas. The porch was railed with turned cast iron. The lawn was a perfect swatch of muted green and the flowers in the summer garden were hushed lilac and mauve hollyhocks, white petunias, delicate blue bachelor’s buttons, nothing too colorful. The back door, also painted a calm gray, was fitted with a modern electric bell. Delphine pushed it, heard a pleasant stroke of music from inside. She looked nervously around to see whether she had been followed. When Clarisse came to the door, Delphine gestured at her to quickly let her in.

“Is it Roy?” said Clarisse, in an anxious, knowing way that temporarily unnerved Delphine.

“No!” she cried out.

“I’m sorry,” said Clarisse. “What was I thinking? Come in, come in. How stupid of me.” She put her arms around Delphine and led her into a soothing little back entry room.

“We have to talk now. Where can we talk?” asked Delphine.

“I can take you downstairs,” said Clarisse. “I’m working with Mr. Pletherton.”

Delphine nodded. The basement was a carefully planned space, cool in summer, heated minimally in winter, always just the right temperature for work. There, Clarisse and her uncle and Benta concentrated their attentions on the town’s dead. Delphine knew that she was
privileged to be permitted to enter—no one else, except Doctor Heech and, in a case of suspected foul play, the sheriff, was allowed downstairs. Delphine had never been particularly bothered, and now she found the Strubs’ preparation room much less upsetting than the back cooler of the slaughterhouse. And for sure, anything they said there would go no further. So she went down the back stairs, following her friend, who wore a crisp white coat and now peeled off her gloves with a snap.

“I thought I had a date with a guy from South Dakota, but he stood me up,” Clarisse’s voice floated back. It seemed that her profession was still as unsettling to potential boyfriends as it had been in high school. The boy had quickly made it clear that if she wanted to date him, she’d have to quit. For a while she and Delphine talked the way they used to, exchanging news of the states of their emotions. Clarisse said she wondered how she could respect a man who was afraid of her job.

“He called me an
undertaker
, Delphine. You know how I hate that! He’s like the others. None of them would probably come down here, even if I asked them. They’re chicken.” Her expression shifted to a startling mask, and she hunched and croaked, “They fear I’ll drain them dry as hay.”

Delphine laughed, although Clarisse’s sudden transformation, in the basement surroundings, slightly unsettled her. In one corner, a phonograph record played lovely, swelling opera music. Clarisse played the music not only for herself, but also, she claimed, the notes had a soothing effect upon the flesh of the bodies she was working on, causing them somehow to absorb the fluids she pumped into them more evenly. She swore it was true, but perhaps her current client did not appreciate opera music. The place was brilliantly lit and Mr. Pletherton, whom Clarisse paused to regard critically before she wheeled him back into the cooler, looked gray and actually dead. Perhaps Clarisse was still trying to get the quality of dye right. She was constantly experimenting, trying to choose the exact right mixture of arterial solution for the peculiarities of each body. “They’re all so different.” Clarisse gave his arm a clinical stroke as she put him away and there was a small crackling sound. She frowned and muttered, “Postmortem emphysema.

“I’m having a lot of trouble with him, Delphine. He died of food poisoning. Fargo restaurant.” There was a whisper of distress in her voice. “Tissue gas.”

The north wall was outfitted with glass-fronted cabinets, the top shelves neatly decked with small tubs of lip pins, mouth and eye cement, bandages, and glue. There was a small box of leftover calling cards from visitations. Benta kept the cards to dip in paraffin and she used them instead of cotton to make a durable barrier between the gums and lips. There was Bon Ami, used as a tooth polish, massage cream and lemon juice, vinegar and soap. Piles of clean towels. Hand brushes, hairbrushes, nail files, and clear lacquer. The broad lower shelves were stocked with serviceable gallon bottles of methanol or wood alcohol, ethanol, arsenic solution, formalin, and smaller bottles of oil of cloves, sassafras, wintergreen, benzaldehyde, oil of orange flower, lavender, and rosemary. Aurelius Strub’s original embalmer’s diploma, the first awarded west of Minneapolis and east of Spokane, hung from the wall in an elaborate frame. Although the basement was always cool, the general heat was wreaking havoc with the burials. Amid all of this Clarisse maintained her cheerful curved smile and her graceful prettiness. She suddenly put Delphine in mind of Malcolm’s line,
Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, yet grace must still look so.
She pushed the quote from her head.

There were two nice plush chairs in the corner, and even a tiny electric stove and a pot for brewing coffee.