Who Killed Mr. Garland's Mistress? (9 page)

“Do you know where this place is?” she asked him.

“Yeah. I used to work in Springfield.”

“Aren't you the moody one.”

“Not if I get my own way.”

“Do you usually?”

“No, that's why I'm usually moody.”

Tavie followed Will's directions into the outskirts of Springfield. He directed her through a labyrinth of depressing back streets. The neighborhoods deteriorated more the further they went until they reached an area of three-family, wood-and-frame homes, almost all of which were in dire need of paint.

“Slow down,” Will said. “I want to check the numbers.” He peered intently out the window. “Cheap bastards are too crummy to number their houses. Hold it. There's 1001. It should be two blocks on the right.”

“Do you want me to park in front?”

“Why not? This isn't exactly a heroin bust.”

Her palms were damp with perspiration as she slid the car into an empty parking place in front of 1214, and turned off the ignition. It was a seedy workingman's neighborhood with identical three-family homes as far as they could see. Up the block a group of children were playing dodge ball while a black man hunched under the hood of an old model car. Across the street was a small grocery store with a dirty front window and a grimy bar and grill.

They got out of the car and Will strode briskly up to the door. “The bastards probably live on the top floor,” he said, and examined the rusty name plates. “They do.” He turned briskly to her. “Well, come on.”

Will stopped to wipe his perspiring brow several times as they went up the three flights of steep steps. At the top landing Will searched unsuccessfully for a doorbell and then banged loudly on the door with his fist. The mute organ music of a television soap opera was the only sound from within the apartment and Will banged again. There were scurrying feet and the door cracked open on a chain latch.

A white-haired woman with hollow cheeks peered furtively through the cracked door. “Yes, who is it?” the woman asked.

“Will Haversham from the Hartford
Register
.” Will flashed an impressive photo-credential quickly in front of the woman. “We'd like to ask you a few questions about Helen Fraser.”

“Helen isn't here.”

“We want to talk to you, Mrs. Murphy. You are her mother?”

“Yes.”

“Her child lives with you?”

“He's out playing.”

“Can we come in?”

The woman seemed reluctant to unlatch the door, but then seeing Tavie in the hallway behind Will, closed the door and reopened it with the chain off. It took Tavie a few moments to realize what was wrong with the living room. The furniture was too large and out of place for the small room. The sofa, an expensive piece, had obviously been purchased with a much larger room in mind. The other furnishings were of the same quality she had in her own home, and the drapes along the window were heavily lined.

Mrs. Murphy sat heavily in an easy chair. “Do you have to bother me again? It's so long ago.” She looked up at Will intently. “I remember you. You talked to me during the trial.”

“I covered the trial for the paper,” he replied. “Do you know where Helen is?”

“No.”

“She comes by to see her child?”

“Yes, once in a while she stops by. I don't know where she's living since she left Hartford.”

“Is your husband home?”

“My husband is dead. He had his first heart attack after the trial, and the last one this year.”

“I'm sorry,” Tavie said.

“It doesn't matter,” the woman said. She looked around the room. “We used to have a nice home, you know. We lost that. The trial was very expensive and we wanted Helen to have the best. After my husband couldn't work we only had disability.”

“Didn't Helen get money from her husband's estate?” Will pressed on. All traces of liquor and questionable humor had disappeared as he assumed his professional stance.

“She sends money occasionally.”

“Where do the letters come from?”

“They used to come from Hartford. The one yesterday was from New York. She hasn't been here in two weeks, but could come by anytime.”

Anytime. Tavie's body tensed. “What kind of child was she, Mrs. Murphy?” Tavie asked.

“She was a beautiful child. We always gave her the best. Now, with her brother gone, the child is all I have left.”

“What happened to your son?” said Will's piercing voice.

Mrs. Murphy stood quickly and went into the kitchen. “Would you like some coffee?” she said.

Tavie followed her into the kitchen and grabbed Mrs. Murphy's arm. “Did she do it, Mrs. Murphy? Did your daughter kill your son? Do you know, do you really know?” Her voice spoke the words as if someone else were speaking.

Mrs. Murphy broke away. “Sisters don't kill brothers. They don't, and I'm not telling any newspaper people they do.”

“What happened out in the bay?”

The woman pressed her head against the wall. “She was so beautiful, a truly lovely child, and we wanted to give her everything we could. She never seemed to know that the taking had to end, that there wasn't anymore—where did I go wrong?…”

She turned her face to the wall and cried quietly. Tavie put her hand on the woman's shoulder, but it was shrugged off. Tavie moved closer and whispered in the woman's ear.

“She did it. She killed your son,” Tavie said.

“Leave me alone.”

Hands that didn't seem hers shook the woman's shoulders and a distant voice yelled, “I have to know. I must know!”

Will pulled her away and out of the apartment. They went slowly down the long stairs into the fading sunlight. He grasped her arm and led her across the street into the bar. She followed, robotlike, as they sat at a table near the window.

“Well,” Will said. “You've learned what you wanted to know.”

“I … I lost control.”

“You've got everything outside of a signed affidavit, although I'm not sure what in the hell you can do with it.” He handed her a drink.

“What do we do now, Will?”

“We beard Ol' Helen. We've got a good view of the house from here, she's bound to show up sooner or later.”

“So we wait.”

“Of course.”

They sipped their drinks and looked out the window as a light rain began to fall. The diffused light softened the harsh street, and washed away the drabness.

“Is it always like this? I mean, when you talk to them, interview them,” she said.

“This was a mild one.”

“Mild? That anguish—that unhappy woman.”

“Sure. Now, my favorite duo was a mother and son pair. She hustled to support his drug habit, and to return the kindness, he got her hooked. She retaliated by having him hustle guys. That lovely family eventually humped each other until they gave each other the clap.”

“That's revolting.”

“Is it? I've been in the gutter too long. Nothing surprises me.”

“Oscar Wilde said we're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

“He was a pederast. What he thought were stars were actually falling buckets of crap.”

“I couldn't live if I felt like you do.”

“You were born with middle-class blinkers. The cliché writers have it all wrong, silver spoons went out last century. Now, it's technicolor blinkers for the advantaged—see things the way you want them to be. We're all slime, Hon. Born as grasping, crying animals with one motivation—the desire to survive. We'll do anything to survive, trample our brother or kill our mother. Now, society finds this kind of naked aggression a little difficult, so kids are batted around a little bit to give them a semblance of conscience. And that's all it is, civilization's veneer is a one-quarter-inch piece of plywood covering everyone's snake pit. Strip it away and the gutter rushes out.”

“We're the only animal with empathy.”

“Empathy—crap!… That's man's most condescending trait, the epitome of the survival syndrome. All it means is, I'm sorry for you, poor slob, but how glad I am that I'm not in your predicament. I've made it and you haven't—tough cookies.”

“And a woman like Helen?”

“No covering over the pit at all, a direct connection between the rat pit and the rest of the world. What Helen wants, Helen gets. Why wait for the middleman.”

“Without conscience?”

“In her case, none. Most of us have some, we don't want to get caught. The Helens never expect to get caught.”

“That philosophy doesn't seem to allow much reason for living.”

“Fear, Baby. Scared-shitless fear. When you're dead, you're dead. Remember—survival is the key.”

He fell silent and looked morosely into his drink as the evening stretched on. She sorted and categorized what he had said and tried to fit it into her own life.

Her father had been executive vice-president of a medium-sized tool company. Her mother's family was distantly related to the Peabodys, without family fortune, but with that certain type of New England respectability. The large, comfortable house in New Bedford usually had at least one maid and was located on the right street. School had been easy, her natural intelligence and skills in English were sufficient to earn at least minor honors. New York, her marriage to Rob, and years of an orderly and peaceful life. The modicum of success she enjoyed with her poetry was enough to break the tedium of household chores.

It had been a life of uninterrupted summer. That now depressed her. Outside the rain now fell heavily, bouncing from the pavement in small resolute drops, a tapestry for her oncoming depression.

She felt slightly dizzy when they left the Idle Hour Cafe in front of Mrs. Murphy's house. They had watched passing cars for three hours as the rain turned to drizzle and then into a muggy summer evening. There had been no sign of Helen, and that, combined with the rest of the day, forced a headache across her forehead. She asked Will to drive, counting on his built-in radar to get them home safely.

Tavie leaned back and closed her eyes as the car sped down the Interstate highway. The swish of tires on wet pavement repeated over and over—cesspool, cesspool—was he right? Perhaps there was a rotten content in everyone that could spill out and contaminate others. She was tired and didn't want to think, the tension of past days was beginning to take its toll.

She felt disoriented and blinked her eyes open when the car came to a halt. She expected to be in The Pen and Pencil parking lot where they'd left Will's car, but she couldn't make out any familiar landmarks. Moonless sky closed around the darkened car and vague tree shapes swayed slowly overhead.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“On a back road a few miles from Hartford. I wanted to stop a minute.”

“All right.” She closed her eyes again.

She felt the bristles on his cheek as he pressed his lips against hers. He held her tightly as his tongue swirled over her lips and then in the hollow of her neck. She tried to squirm from his grasp, but his arms held her securely.

She was able to whisper in his ear, “Will, stop it. You're drunk.”

“Never too drunk.”

“Stop.”

His fingers curved around her breast as he opened the buttons on her blouse. Since she rarely wore a bra there was nothing to impede him and she felt her nipples tighten as his fingers continued caressing her. “Will, I don't want to. I don't want to,” she said.

He had her blouse completely open and his mouth closed over one breast as his hands gently caressed the other. With her free hand she tried to push his persistent head away. His hands pulled at her pants as her fists pummeled his shoulders. He had her clothes off and pressed her back against the seat. He kissed her again, and she felt their tongues circling each other.

She reached down to his groin and grabbed him. “I'll hurt you. I'll hurt you,” she said.

He released her for a moment and then his gentle hand again felt her breast. “Hon, I get my signals crossed?”

“You're out of your mind.”

She felt him stiffen within her fingers as she caressed him. He held her tightly and she felt a rush of feeling as she guided him into her. Her fingers raked across his bare back and her nails cut into his flesh as she pulled him closer. “Oh, Will …” she said; and wanted him. Her hips moved against his as she held him as tightly as she could.

She walked slowly from the driveway to the back door of the house and let herself in as quietly as she could. She took her shoes off in the kitchen and tiptoed down the dark hall. Rob, a book spread across his chest, was asleep on the sofa in the living room.

In the upstairs bathroom she stared at the unrecognizable face in the mirror. The image returned an unblinking gaze as she ran a basin of cold water and began to scour her face.

Later, she went downstairs and kneeled next to the sleeping Rob. He turned toward her sleepily as she shook him awake. “Take me away, Rob.” She began to cry with her head buried in his chest. “Let's go somewhere, let's go anywhere.”

CHAPTER SIX

There were splotches of dark in the turquoise ocean as the reefs and shallows sloped upwards from the ocean floor to form the island group. With a gull-like sweep the plane circled the islands. They both gave a start as the engine tempo changed dramatically and the fuselage quivered as the landing gear locked in place.

As the plane banked to slide into the gradual descent of the approach pattern she was surprised at the size of the island group. The mainland was completely framed in the small window, a dot in a large ocean. They hardly felt the touchdown as the plane sped along the runway to shudder with the reversal of the engines.

They were really here. They had not been killed on the drive to the airport, the airplane had not plummeted into the ocean, and barring a freakish crash into the terminal building, they had arrived safely. She gave a nervous gasp. It was not so much a fear of dire accidents as nervous anticipation at arriving in a new place. She knew she was not really well traveled. New England to New York, summers in Maine, a honeymoon trip and a trip to Florida were the extent of her prior experience.