Читать книгу The Ladies Killing Circle Anthology 4-Book Bundle - Barbara Fradkin - Страница 19

LIZ PALMER

Excuse me?” Alice tapped gently on the counter in Richardson Falls police station.

Constable Blain looked up from the comics on the back of The Falls Fare. “Miss Hartley.” It came out as a groan. “What can we do for you today?”

“I’d like to report a murder.”

Constable Blain folded his paper and laid it on the desk. “Where did it happen this time?”

“Up by the new development.” Alice mumbled, not meeting his eyes.

“The road construction site?”

Alice nodded.

The constable stood up and came to the counter. “Do you know there are laws against wasting police time, Miss Hartley? If there were as many bodies as you’ve reported, it wouldn’t be a road they’re building, it would be a bloody cemetery.” He took a deep breath. Alice thought if she hadn’t been a cripple, he would be shouting at her by now. “I don’t have the manpower to send people off on wild goose chases, Miss Hartley.”

“But I saw the body. A woman. I couldn’t tell who she was because she was lying face down. Grey hair, red sweater, grey skirt and one shoe…”

“Here. Hold on.” Constable Blain slipped round the end of the counter and steadied her. “You’ve gone pale. Come and sit down.” He helped her limp to a chair. “I’ll get you a coffee.”

Alice waited, hands clenched, fighting down the bile which threatened to rise into her throat. She could still picture the stockinged, shoeless foot.

A minute later, Constable Blain came into the waiting room, a styrofoam cup in hand. “Why didn’t you telephone? It’s too far for you to come.” He handed her the coffee.

“You know it’s a party line.” Alice heard the quaver in her voice. “And the police should be first to know.”

“Don’t you worry about that.” He reassured her in the false tone some people use for children. “Just for the record, where were you when you saw the body?”

“In my living room.” Her hand trembled, and the tea slopped over the rim of the cup onto her white glove. She winced as the hot liquid hit her skin. “It entered into my head shortly before lunch this morning.”

One shoe. One shoe. Limping towards the bus stop, the words pounded in Alice’s head, keeping time with her steps. She felt sick with dread. She could not wait to reach the safety of her house.

The tree-lined lane to the old farmhouse curved sharply away from the main road. Her churchgoing clients, not wanting to be seen visiting a psychic, had been grateful for this feature. Today, stepping down from the bus, Alice wished the lane were shorter, wished she had left her bike at the corner. She must not hurry; it would be out of character. One mistake was already one too many.

“Jean Mayhew ate some stew, fell asleep and lost her shoe.” The rhyme sprang, ready-made into her mind. Alice sniggered, then pressed a hand to her mouth. She was becoming hysterical, a sure path to disaster.

“Discipline, discipline.” Edie-Rose’s voice whispered from the past, and Alice, breathing slowly, heeded the words.

Unlocking the house, she slipped in, pushed the door shut with her shoulder and slotted the chain into place. She stood for a moment in the dark of the windowless hall, thinking back. She was sure no one had seen Jean arrive. She had come at dusk, walking along the abandoned logging road which ran behind the farmhouse. Alice sighed, took off her heavy-rimmed glasses and tucked them into her skirt pocket. She went into the lace-curtained parlour and sat down on the sofa. Folding her gloved hands on her lap, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the events of the previous evening.

“Miss Hartley. I’m here.” Jean Mayhew called from outside the kitchen door.

Alice let her in. “Miss Mayhew. You will join me for a little supper first, won’t you?” She watched Jean’s eyes glance first at the scrubbed wooden table set for two, then alight eagerly on the Tarot cards waiting on the pine dresser.

“I hadn’t really—”

“Please,” Alice interrupted. “I missed lunch and I can’t concentrate when I’m hungry.” She pulled a chair out for Jean and went over to the stove. “I hope you like beef casserole.” Lifting the dish from the oven she carried it to the table. “There. Fresh bread and butter, and a glass of wine.”

Jean Mayhew didn’t argue, but then Alice hadn’t expected her to. Clients never wittingly upset Alice in case it affected her ability to see their future.

Obviously eager to start the session, Jean ate quickly, pausing only to praise the meal. Alice deliberately slowed herself. She needed Jean to drink more wine.

By the time Alice laid down her fork, Jean had finished her second glass and looked ready for more. Three would be too many. “I’m done,” Alice said quickly. “Another spoonful for you?”

“No, no. Quite delicious. Let me help.” Jean stood up and carried the plates and glasses to the sink. She stopped and leaned against the counter. “I…I feel a little funny, Miss Hartley.”

Alice rose and limped over to her. “Perhaps you drank the wine too quickly. Take my arm.” She led Jean back to the table. “Sit down. I’ll fetch the cards.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t.” Jean shook her head. “It was a mistake coming here. Reverend Stevenson would be so disappointed in me.” She started to rise.

Alice put a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t really need to use the cards, Miss Mayhew.” She put them down on the table. “I can see both your past and your future without them.”

Jean sank back into the chair, staring up at Alice. “What do you mean?” Her eyes held a look of uncertainty.

“I’ll tell you a story, and you’ll see what I mean.” Alice returned to her chair and looked across the table. “There once lived a little girl and her widowed mother. Elizabeth was spoiled and liked to show off, but she wasn’t a bad child. When she was eleven, her mother married a divorced man with a fourteen-year-old daughter. This girl, Leslie, hadn’t had such a soft life. Rejected by her mother, she had come to live with her father in Westing not long before he remarried.”

Jean’s hands clutched the edge of the table.

“I see you recognize the story, Miss Mayhew. Everyone in Westing knew about it. Some thought Ruth Sullivan foolish to marry Eric Mills. She with all that money and he a salesman with a troublesome teenager. Others thought it would be good for Elizabeth to have a father. No one consulted Elizabeth Sullivan or Leslie Mills.

“Elizabeth learned a lot from Leslie. How to shoplift. How to lie convincingly. She experimented with marijuana and she got to know the local criminals. She didn’t become addicted to drugs, but she did become a moody, difficult teenager.”

“Terrible girl. Thought she was so clever.” Jean’s words slurred.

“Yes. You didn’t like her, I know. What did she used to call you? Miss Make Spew.” Alice laughed. “You weren’t alone in your opinion. Most adults found her a pain then, while Leslie…Leslie settled down, grew out of her difficult ways. She became soft-spoken and polite. People thought well of her—except those whom she had blackmailed. No, Jean. May I call you Jean? Don’t try to stand. Your legs won’t hold you.” Alice reached across the table and patted Jean’s hand.

Jean jerked away. “The wine! You put something in it.” She tried again to push herself up from the table. “Let me go.”

Alice watched her struggle. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been wanting to tell you this story for a long time. Sit still and listen.” She leaned forward. “What secret did Leslie discover about you, Westing’s respected librarian?” She waited for an answer. “Not going to tell me? You were lucky Elizabeth and Leslie had that fight the day you went to confront Leslie, weren’t you? All the world heard Elizabeth yelling ‘I’ll fix you for good’ when she slammed out of Leslie’s place.” Alice got up and filled a glass with water. “I’m not used to so much talking.”

Jean didn’t move. Blue veins stood out against the pallor of her skin.

“Back to the story. Naturally, when the body of Leslie was discovered and Miss Mayhew, staunch pillar of the church, claimed to have seen Elizabeth leaving the house at the crucial time, everyone believed her. Especially since you described seeing Elizabeth’s prized possession, her black racing bike, leaning against the hedge. No one believed Elizabeth when she said she’d been asleep in bed. Elizabeth Sullivan in bed before eleven! The police laughed.”

Putting her head on one side, Alice studied Jean. “You killed three people that day,” she said softly. “Leslie, Elizabeth and her mother.”

“No.” Jean swallowed, then licked her lips. “No. Only Leslie. Had to kill her.”

“I can understand you killing Leslie. Blackmail’s despicable. But why blame Elizabeth? Did you think being rude to you, the librarian, warranted a lifetime in jail? Imagine the different path her life might have taken if you had helped her. You had the chance. Remember that? It was before she became so unmanageable.”

If Alice closed her eyes she could see Elizabeth, bright with enthusiasm, skipping up the steps to the old brick library, dark braids bouncing against her back. See her at the desk. “Hi, Miss Mayhew. I need some books on speed cycling. I want to race.” See that brightness fade at the look of distaste on the librarian’s face. “That’s not the sort of thing your mother would like, Elizabeth. Nice girls play tennis and go horseback riding. Anyway, bicycle racing is only for men.”

Alice picked up the cards again. “Racing would have given her a goal, and losing would have been good for her.”

Jean raised her head. “She always wanted to win. Show everyone how clever she was.” Jean spoke like someone whose mouth had been frozen by the dentist. “Anyway, it didn’t stop her. She failed Grade Ten because she skipped classes to ride her bike.”

“That’s true. She loved the freedom, the speed and the feel of the wind in her hair. Did you ever wonder what it felt like to be nineteen and have that freedom taken away? To be sentenced to twenty-five years? Be deprived of a chance to marry and have a family? Would it surprise you to learn Elizabeth became a model prisoner and holds two degrees? It was hard at first, of course…” Alice’s thoughts veered to her turbulent early years in prison and to her saviour, Edie-Rose.

Edie-Rose, staring at her with compassionate brown eyes set in a scarred face.

“Ain’t no use fighting the system, little girl,” she’d said. “We’re all here for a reason. Maybe you didn’t commit no murder, but if’n you’d been a nice p’lite girl no one would’ve fingered you.” She’d stroked the bruises on Elizabeth’s arms. “You make a plan for what you’re gonna do when you get out. Me, I’m gonna do murder, and ain’t no one gonna guess who done it.”

It had been the goad Elizabeth needed. How to take revenge and get away with it? Under the wing of Edie-Rose, her life in prison had changed. Inmates didn’t dare touch her. She was Edie-Rose’s protege. Never a lover, although some thought they were. Edie-Rose had become her mentor, teacher and comforter.

Twenty years they had worked together on plans for the perfect murder. Along with courses in French language and literature, Elizabeth had soaked up Edie-Rose’s knowledge of the underworld. In the mornings, Elizabeth studied French verbs. In the whispered quiet of the night she learned where to get false identities and the art of simple disguises. They’d created “Alice” together. No one, Edie-Rose had asserted, really looks at a cripple.

Edie-Rose had favoured a Ford pick-up for a get-away vehicle, but she never got the chance to use it. She had died of a heart attack three weeks before her release. Elizabeth owed it to her to succeed.

But right now she was Alice. She spread the cards face down on the table and looked directly into Jean’s dulled eyes. “Ruth Sullivan always believed her daughter innocent. It broke up her marriage, and she spent all those lonely years waiting for Elizabeth’s release. But Elizabeth always kept track of you. Elizabeth wanted to know where to find you. Ruth died at sixty-six. The year after Elizabeth came out. It doesn’t seem right you should live longer than she did.”

Alice chose a card. “It’s time to read your future.” She turned the card over. “A skeleton in black armour astride a white horse, Miss Mayhew. The Death card.” But Jean Mayhew wasn’t listening. She sat with her head slumped against her chest.

Alice studied her own feelings. Edie-Rose had thought getting back at those who had destroyed them would exorcise the anger and the hatred boiling within them. Looking at Jean, Alice felt no sense of triumph, only the realization that this was something she had to finish in order to start her own life.

She fetched the wheelchair from the hall. Spreading open a plastic bag from the mattress she’d bought, she laid it on the chair. Manhandling Jean’s sleeping form into the chair wasn’t easy, but she and Edie-Rose had practised this manoeuvre using a prison chair. Getting rid of the body couldn’t be planned; it depended on the circumstances. Alice wished she could tell Edie-Rose how cleverly she’d arranged it.

Leaning down, she zipped the bag up as far as Jean’s waist and tucked a blanket around her. If anyone were to see them, Jean would look like a sleeping woman. Alice would close it completely before she slid Jean into the big sewage pipe laid to service the new development.

Leaving the parlour, Alice went to the kitchen. She knew the shoe wasn’t there. She’d scrubbed the place after she got back from the construction site. There would be no trace of Jean Mayhew and no fingerprints from Elizabeth Sullivan.

It must have fallen off, gotten caught between the plastic bag and the footrest and dropped somewhere en route. It wasn’t on Jean’s foot when Alice had pushed her into the pipe. She could picture the body perfectly as it lay face down in the clear plastic bag, could remember thinking Jean would have a peaceful death, suffocating long before the sleeping draught wore off. Why hadn’t she registered the missing shoe then?

Alice looked out of the window. Daylight was fading. She could at least check that it hadn’t fallen somewhere between the house and the old logging road at the back.

Head down, searching through grass grown long in the wet spring, Alice suddenly heard voices coming from the front of the house. She had time to reach the shed, duck under the cobwebs and scoot behind the door before the voices got closer.

“She may be out doing a reading, Andy.” Alice recognized Constable Blain’s voice.

“Reading?” That must be Andy.

“Yes. She tells fortunes. Has done ever since she rented this house. Makes a good place for the church ladies who don’t want to be seen.” Constable Blain laughed. “Keeps the place spotless, doesn’t she?”

Alice imagined them standing, faces pressed against the window.

“Odd how she went white when she described the body. She hasn’t done that before. That’s why I want to see her face when I ask her what the shoe looked like.”

Goose bumps rose on Alice’s arms. She listened intently.

“Yeah. You often see old sneakers lying about, but a woman’s brown leather shoe…how would that suddenly appear on a road construction site?” Andy asked. “Any missing women reported?”

“Not yet.”

“What’s the background of this Hartley woman anyway?”

“That is something I’m about to look into.” The voices fading. “I’ll run a check before I return.”

God, how stupid she’d been. Why hadn’t she listened to Edie-Rose? “Girl, you got a talent for bringing attention to yourself. Keep quiet, and ain’t no cop gonna think ’bout you.” And what had she done? Been in and out of the police station all year.

Jean was supposed to have gone on holiday today, so she wouldn’t be missed yet. And they were unlikely to come across the body. That section of the road had been covered with six feet of fill before she’d reported the murder. But as soon as they started looking into Alice Hartley’s background, they would discover she didn’t have one. She waited in the shed until she heard the car turn onto the main road.

In the house, Alice climbed the stairs to her room. Going to the closet she knelt down, moved her winter boots and pulled out a cardboard box. From it she took a black nylon fanny-pack and a pair of black leather running shoes. She didn’t need to look into the fanny-pack; it had been ready from the moment she arrived. Now she would stow it with her get-away vehicle. Then she would clean the house and be ready to leave in the morning. She had no fear that Blain would discover her non-existence before then. Alice Hartley had no police record, and all bureaucrats would have gone home by now.

The phone rang, and Alice paused. Should she answer it? It could be Blain. Better to talk on the phone than have him come round. She went down to the parlour and lifted the receiver.

“Is that Miss Hartley? Jack Lee here.”

“Hello, Mr. Lee.” Why would he be calling? A warden of the Anglican Church wasn’t likely to be wanting his cards read. “How can I help you?”

“I’m worried about Jean Mayhew.”

Alice froze. No words would come out of her mouth.

“Hello? Are you there?”

Trying to gather her wits, Alice managed to make a response.

“Did Jean come and see you yesterday?” Mr. Lee asked. “She said she was going to.”

Damn her. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.

“No, no. She never arrived. I think she’s gone on holiday.” Alice knew she sounded flustered.

“There was a problem. She postponed it until this evening. I was supposed to drive her to the station, but she isn’t home.”

“Perhaps she forgot and took a cab.”

“Her luggage is in the hall. I could see it through the window.” He paused, then “You’re sure she didn’t come?”

“Could she have fallen when walking over? Oh, Mr. Lee,” Alice’s voice trembled, “I did have a dreadful vision this morning. I went to the police, but I don’t think they believed me.”

“I’m going to call them now.” He hung up, taking Alice by surprise.

“You are not going to cheat me, Jean Mayhew.” Alice said. Quickly, she returned to the bedroom and looked around. Not much to do here. She ran into the bathroom. Spraying liquid soap onto her facecloth she wiped taps, toothpaste tube, toothbrush, the sink counter and the toilet seat. Then she unclipped the plastic shower curtain. A wash would remove any fingerprints. The machine was in the mudroom next to the kitchen. Alice sped downstairs and stuffed the curtain in. She could hear Edie-Rose’s voice clearly. “Still wearing your gloves, girl? Good. Now the Pledge, jus’ in case youse forgot sometimes.”

Up the stairs, Pledge in hand, spraying and wiping as she went. First the banisters, then into the bedroom spraying all the fronts, handles, tops. Mentally ticking off the list she and Edie-Rose had memorized, she went around methodically cleaning all surfaces she could have touched without her gloves. The kitchen she had done in the early hours, and in the parlour and entrance hall they would find only the previous tenant’s prints. Alice had never been in them without gloves.

Back in the mudroom, Alice removed the dust cover from her bicycle. Her “get-away vehicle”. Edie-Rose had laughed at the idea, but Alice felt convinced people didn’t notice bikes. Plus it had the advantage of allowing her to wear a helmet.

I’m going to make it, Edie-Rose, she vowed silently. She’d practised this next move many times, fantasizing great getaways. Night after night she’d cycled down the paths in the dark, headlight hooded, relishing the freedom, toning her muscles. She knew every bump and grating on her escape route, but she’d never really expected to have to leave in a hurry.

Into the empty pannier on the bike went the wig, the blouse with the special padding to make her back look crooked, the glasses, watch and skirt. On top of them she placed Alice’s shoes. Wearing a built up shoe had been a brilliant idea. It meant she didn’t have to remember to limp, it happened naturally. From the pannier on the other side came jeans, black ribbed sweater and fleece vest. Taking some baby-wipes she cleaned the beige make-up from her face, checking herself in the mirror behind the door. The dirty wipes went into the pannier too. Running shoes, helmet and fanny-pack completed the change. Only the white gloves stayed.

Folding the dust cover, she placed it on top of her spare clothes in the pannier. It might be useful if she had to sleep in the rough. Then Alice wheeled the bike out of the house, locking the door behind her. She stood and double-checked everything in her mind. There should be nothing to connect Elizabeth Sullivan to Alice Hartley.

A siren sounded in the distance. Time to go.

She patted her fanny-pack. Alice Hartley was dead. Michelle Roubillard was born. French passport, wallet, sunglasses and snapshots of family in France. All the things a tourist might be expected to carry. She smiled to herself. She had received an excellent education in prison.

Michelle tucked the white gloves into her pocket and cycled down the lane to the bike path that ran parallel to the highway. Richardson Falls boasted of its network of trails, and Michelle knew them all. She travelled two hundred yards then took the fork leading away from the road. As she turned, an ambulance flashed by with a police car right behind it. So the siren hadn’t been for her. An accident would occupy Blain for a while. She could imagine his language when he eventually arrived at the farmhouse and found it empty.

The kilometres flew by. Michelle settled into a steady rhythm. She had a long way to go before morning. Thoughts floated in her mind. She’d planned well. Apart from losing Jean’s shoe, she’d made no mistakes. Not bad, considering she’d been playing “Alice” too long for her to wait. Maybe she ought to have heeded Edie-Rose and been unobtrusive. But it wasn’t in her nature.

Wheels humming, Michelle picked up speed. She wanted to be across the Ottawa River into Quebec before morning. Not until the lights of Kanata lit the sky did she remember she hadn’t switched on the washing machine.

LIZ PALMER of Chelsea, Quebec, has recently discovered kayaking. Dividing her time between various volunteer activities, writing and this new addiction is proving difficult. She is currently searching for a waterproof laptop that floats.