Town of Masks (17 page)

Matheson. At odds with the sheriff, he was dangerous, and the sheriff at odds with him was more dangerous, but Matheson was an honest man—
So are they all honorable men.

I will not wait,
she thought.
I will not be kept waiting. I shall go back to the office and he can come to me, for me
—

She returned to the books, another stack of them, taken by the armful from the shelf. One at the bottom caught her attention: an elegant, gilt-edged volume, red leather, gold embossed—
L’Opera Grand v. 4.
A title in French, one Maria had not turned over to the Verlaine collection. Volume four. She leaned farther to see the rest of the set. Not in sight. She stared at the one book, her heartbeat quickening. It was large enough, quite large enough—to be a dummy. She dared not touch it. They had taken the books out in clumps. They might put them back that way, if at all. She took the nearest book within reach, just to have something in hand. Thomas Mann. She held it before her, should the sheriff walk in without warning.

The Magic Mountain.
She tried then to concentrate on that, but her mind slipped away—
I fell from a high mountain … how love fled and paced the mountains overhead
—She flung the book from her, tumbling the pile from which it had come. She must not be alone like this; she must not be idle.

“Forgive me, Miss Blake. I didn’t think you’d get here so soon.”

“Nor did I expect to be kept waiting, Mr. Walker. I was getting into a nasty temper.”

“So I noticed. Are you always that violent?”

“Only under circumstances such as these. You’re doing a fine job on the house.”

The sheriff lit a cigarette. “Considering the job that was done on her, I don’t think the heirs should object. That empty silver tray turned out a bust, by the way. All spoons. They’re in the factory getting replated.”

Why, she wondered, did he tell her that? Expecting her to offer suggestions on other places to look? She said nothing.

He tossed the match into the grate. “Quite a shindig you had at the town hall last night. I hear you saved the night.” He blew smoke into the reflection of his own face in the mirror. “Quite a trick.”

“It was not a trick.”

“I could show you a lot of them,” he said over her words. He blew dust from the mantel, dust or ashes. “Come here.”

Despite her resentment, she obeyed.

He tapped the mantelpiece. “Here’s one. You can’t see it with the naked eye, but the boys picked up a beautiful set of fingerprints, right here.” He indicated the place, wiggling his forefinger over it.

“Mine?”

He nodded.

“I remember,” she said. “I remember on Monday standing right here. I was examining this scratch in the mirror.” She put her finger to her face and away quickly that the tremble of it might be concealed. “You can hardly see it now.”

“I can see it,” he said. He brushed her away and strode between her and the mantel. “And here’s where the bell cord hung. For twenty-five years. Fifty maybe, and nobody ever laid eyes on it except Annie Tully.”

“Forty years is closer,” Hannah said. “I remember when it was installed. Of course, I remember it.”

“That’s better. It isn’t always smart to say no to everything.”

“You described it as the cord from a bathrobe,” she said.

“And you’ve got no imagination at all.”

“Are you implying that I murdered Maria?”

“When it comes to murder, I don’t imply. I charge. I want to drive home something to you, Miss Blake. Don’t pick and choose what you tell me. You tell me, and let me do the picking and the choosing. There’s something very pretty about this case, from the point of view of the police; take away the jewels, and it’s very interesting.”

“Indeed,” she murmured.

“Indeed. Sit down and I’ll tell you about it.”

“I don’t mind standing.”

“Isn’t it hard on that ankle of yours?”

“You’re very solicitous,” she said, wanting to match his sarcasm.

He righted a chair and slammed it on the floor beside her as though his next move would be to force her into it. It was foolish to anger him over so slight an issue. Obviously he liked to stand above his victims, to look down on them, and when they were both on their feet he was no taller than Hannah. To show a measure of independence, however, she sat in the chair she had previously taken out of the heap. Walker dragged the other chair beside her and put his foot on it. He was a policeman, after all.

He tossed the cigarette into the grate. “You and Mrs. Verlaine were lifelong friends, right?”

“Not as close as some people, but friends,” Hannah said.

“On occasion, you took her to task—say for smoking too much, ah, for neglecting church—things of that sort?”

“On occasion.” God knew, she had tried, she thought.

“And Mrs. Verlaine felt free to return the favor?”

“Yes, I suppose she did.” Only once had she taken that trouble, Hannah thought, that interest.

“All right,” the sheriff said casually. “Do you know I’ve got a very nice case against a kid named Dennis Keogh?”

“Have you?”

“I could make a better one with your co-operation.”

Hannah was startled in spite of herself.

The sheriff smiled. “What I mean is—if you’d been cooperating up to the night she was killed. This is theory, you understand. Let’s say you were giving him money. Don’t interrupt. I said it’s theory, and money’s the easiest terms to talk theory in. Let’s say you were about to give him—a couple of thousand dollars, say for a sailboat. He likes to sail. Maybe you do, too. Or, let’s say it’s to go to college. You’re a champion of education. Anyway, Mrs. Verlaine discovers he’s a charlatan. This is interesting, huh? Because she actually did call him a faker a couple of nights before she died. But to get on with my theory, say she was about to expose him, to you, her friend. Doesn’t that make a nice picture—for murder?”

“It’s the frame,” Hannah said. “Nothing more than the framework.”

Walker smiled. “You aren’t using the word in its slang sense, are you? And then why not?” He shrugged. “It could work that way.”

“You know that I’m the donor of a thousand dollars for the poetry contest?”

He nodded, working another cigarette out of the package.

“Then you must know that Dennis Keogh refused to submit his poetry.”

“And that’s supposed to prove?”

“I should think it pokes a large hole in your theory.”

“No-o-o. Small potatoes, a thousand dollars. In such an operation—we call it the confidence game—the operator would make that gesture, waiting for the big kill.”

More than anything else, his casualness, hiss patronizing intimacy was wearing on her nerves.

“I never gave the boy a thing except his salary; never.”

“And a room on your premises.”

“That was an economy on my part.”

“Of course, and a convenience on his.”

Hannah stared at him. “Do you believe this is what happened?”

“Much more important right now, do
you
think so? You’ve said no. But isn’t there some doubt in your mind? I said this had to take co-operation on your part. Cooperation means a lot of things, a guy leaving a window open co-operates with a thief. See what I mean? You’ve got a nice job in a bank, you’re practical, your mind runs to figures, to politics, to church work. How long have you been interested in poetry?”

“All my life.”

“All right, let’s take it that way. I wouldn’t think you’d know a poem from a pomegranate any more than I would, but let’s take it that way. You’ve spent a lifetime with shopkeepers, clerks, fishermen. And here he is, the most beautiful thing that ever happened to you: six feet of it in his socks. He’s been around. The world’s his oyster, but he’s already looking for pearls, the pearl, and, lady, all of a sudden, you’re it! The pearl of pearls.”

Hannah dug her teeth into her lip. She couldn’t help it. Nothing mattered except that she keep inside of her the churning bile.

He pulled her chin up with his forefinger and let the finger slide off, jarring her head.

“And you take to writing poetry yourself,” he said derisively. “Like taking to drink. Did it go to your head? Love has parted my limbs—is that how it goes?”

Hannah tried to shut her ears to the slur of his voice. Her head bobbed down and she turned her fingers in her hair to keep her head from bouncing with the sobs she could not control.

“That’s quite a picture—for a spinster, Miss Blake—love has parted my limbs.” His face was close to hers.

She flung her hand at it wildly. He danced back nimbly. “That could get you in trouble.”

“‘Unbound my limbs,’” she cried. “Filthy scum.”

The sheriff whistled softly. “Excuse me. There is a difference. I’ve got a filthy mind, but yours is as pure as the snow. Then listen to this, my friend. When you were doing your best to alibi him for the time of the murder, he didn’t need it. He had one. He was keeping a rendezvous with another girl, a pretty girl, the librarian—a friend of yours, too.”

He waited for the effect of the news to sink in, and the relief came over Hannah in hot waves. He was quivering before her eyes in its flood. She was going to be hysterical, she thought. She had to say something, to loosen the congealment about her tongue.

“How could he kill Maria, then?” she managed.

Walker smiled; almost wistfully. “He couldn’t. This is not a case. Until that payoff, it was a swell theory.”

Hannah tried to think, to prepare herself for the next deluge; something was unfinished, there was but one question more. If Dennis did not need her alibi, she needed his.
And where were you, Miss Blake?
She heard the question in her own head, and the answer, the truth was thick in her throat, there to be spurted out. And yet he stood, his elbow on the mantel, his face smiling, his eyes full of the leer telling his satisfaction in her humiliation.

“Rough, huh?”

Hannah drew one deep breath and another, gaining strength, sanity, with each of them.

Walker lit the cigarette he had used as a pointer. “Close to home, wasn’t it?”

She said nothing.

“I’ll take bets on that kid’s record with women. I’ll bet he’s got ’em spotted from here to Pensacola, the latches off a dozen doors for him.”

Hannah rocked in the chair, hugging herself, digging her fingernails into the fat of her arms.

“You aren’t going to forget this day, Miss Blake.” He walked over to her and steadied her with his hand on her shoulder. “Did you hear me?”

She nodded.

“Just remember I did you a good turn.”

S
HE LEFT THE CAR
in the driveway and half-ran, half-stumbled across the lawn fighting the lightness in her head, the illusion of floating, the expectancy that any instant she would depart from reason. Sophie, broom in hand, watched her first steps from the car, openmouthed, and then leaped toward her and caught her arm at the portico steps.

Hannah stood a moment, gasping for more of the air, of which there did not seem to be enough to fill her lungs.

“You’re sick, Miss Blake. You’re awful sick.”

Hannah nodded, feeling green, feeling that everything inside her and about her was the color of bile.

The girl hitched Hannah’s arm over her shoulder, and with the strength of a small, stout ox, took half the big woman’s weight upon herself, and bore her into the house and up the stairs that creaked under the strain.
This healthy child,
Hannah thought,
this honey-faced, innocent, strong-backed child.

She eased Hannah into a chair, a straight chair she must have selected in her mind as they entered the bedroom, for she led the way to it unhesitatingly, and kicked it into position. Her breath hissed through her teeth with the effort.

Don’t be frightened,
Hannah thought, but she could not get any words out at all. Her eyes pleaded the message, but Sophie had no time to look for it. The girl snatched the spread from the bed. She glanced at Hannah, saw her shivering and got a wool blanket from the cedar chest. Without question or consultation, she began to undress the big woman, making all the time consoling, mothering noises, and the dress removed she draped the blanket around Hannah’s shoulders. She unfastened her hose and thrust her hand beneath the foundation garment, the quicker to open it. Hannah moaned at the rough touch of her hand.

“I’m sorry, Miss Blake. I’m not very good at this. I never done it before.”

“Wonderful. You’re wonderful,” Hannah managed.

The child smiled, her whole face vivid with it. She wrapped the blanket around Hannah and hugged her in it, a quick, rough hug against her full soft breast. “I was afraid you was having a stroke.”

She pulled Hannah to the bed and rolled her, blanket-clad, into it. Hannah caught her hand and held it. The girl withdrew it gently, and smoothed the hair back from Hannah’s forehead. Hannah turned to the wall and began to sob. She wanted to hold the tears back, but they would not be stemmed. The torment poured out of her in racking, shuddering waves. Sophie flung herself on the bed beside her and tried to hold her, patting awkwardly at her arm, her back, the girl’s head bowed against her in sympathy.

“Don’t cry, Miss Blake,” she crooned. “Don’t cry—It’s going to be all right.”

When Hannah was still at last the girl got up and pulled the blinds. She brought a box of tissue from the dresser and put it on the pillow.

“Miss Blake, should I call Doctor Johnson?”

“No. I’ll be all right,” Hannah said.

“I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

“No. I’ll be all right. Just leave me alone.”

Hannah could hear her move about the room, putting away her clothes, and then go to the door. Hannah turned in the bed.

“Sophie.”

The girl brushed at her cheek quickly and turned. She, too, was crying.

“Come here a minute, Sophie.”

The girl came but with laggard steps, completely awkward now that the emergency was over.

“Why are you crying?”

“I don’t know. I just never seen you like that. It hurt. That’s all.”

“Nobody’s ever seen me like that. Thank you, dear.”

It made the child cry more, and she fled from the room.