Читать книгу Polly Deacon Mysteries 4-Book Bundle - H. Mel Malton - Страница 30

Who’s she? How’d she get to be so old?

What’s she done that’s good?

—Shepherd’s Pie

In all the whodunits I’ve ever read, the detective always gets a flash of insight right near the end and goes charging off alone to confront the killer. They always end up in grave danger, and the murderer confesses all in a coldblooded way while sharpening a knife to chop the hero up into little bits.

I’ve always hated that. Not the knife part—that’s exciting, because you know somebody’ll be along at the last second to foil the villain—but the going off alone part. I could never figure out how the detective, who was always so clever, so brave and so calm, would actually be so stupid at the same time.

Stupid isn’t hard. It’s easy. I know.

I told George I wanted to talk to Samson about Eddie, and I’d show up at Rico’s later.

“What are you up to?” George said.

“I’m just worried about Eddie,” I said. “Carla doesn’t seem to realize the danger he’s in. I just want to make sure Samson knows what’s going on, that’s all.”

“You want the truck?”

“No, thanks. I’ll get Samson to drive to Laingford to check on Eddie, and he can drop me off at Rico’s on the way. Either that or I’ll take the bush road home and grab my bike. I need the exercise anyway. You go along, George. I’ll be there later.”

I waited around until everyone had left. The Schreiers and Mrs. Delaney and the preacher were still inside. It was getting chilly and I regretted not bringing my Cedar Falls dinner jacket with me—the plaid flannel coat the locals wear with pride to everything but a funeral. When they came out onto the front steps, the sun went in behind a cloud. I was standing in the middle of the parking lot and it felt like the last showdown at the OK corral.

I moved toward the group slowly, with what I hoped was a friendly expression on my face. The preacher was holding up one side of Mrs. Delaney, who could barely walk, and Carla was on the other, still wearing that weird euphoric expression. Samson looked troubled when he saw me, as if he couldn’t quite remember who I was. He came to meet me.

“Can I help you?” he said.

“Mr. Schreier, you don’t know me, but—”

“Of course I know you. You’re that woman lives with George Hoito, aren’t you? Carla’s told me all about you.”

“Nothing bad, I hope,” I said, laughing to show it was a joke. He didn’t get it. “Look,” I continued, “sorry to be a nuisance, but I don’t know if you realize that the police were at the funeral. When Eddie ran out after Freddy Einarson said, uh, what he said, they took the boy away to the station in Laingford.”

“Carla has told me that,” he said. “What’s your point?”

“Well, aren’t you the least bit worried?”

“Why should I be? Eddie’s done no wrong that I know of, so the police can’t do him any harm. They’ll bring him back as soon as they figure that out. If he has done wrong, then he’ll get what he deserves. I’ve got no call to be chasing off after him like a nursemaid. He’s a big boy.”

“He’s not that big.”

“Bigger than me, anyway. About as big as Freddy Einarson, you might say. Ever since he found out that Einarson was his real father, he hasn’t spoken a word to me. If I went down there, he’d just clam up, and the police would get the idea he had something to hide. He hasn’t, has he?” He fixed me with an eye and waited.

“How should I know?” I said.

“Seems you know a lot about this business, Miss Deacon. More than you should, maybe.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“What’s your interest in Eddie, anyway?”

“He’s a friend of mine,” I said. “I’m worried about him.”

“You stay away from him. He’s had enough trouble with older women. Look where Francine got him, once she got hooked by Satan. You’re the same. If Eddie hadn’t got himself involved with people like you, none of this would have happened.” I guessed then that it was Samson who told Mrs. Delaney I was a witch. Nice guy.

“What do you mean ‘none of this’? None of what? You mean Francy wouldn’t be dead? John would still be alive?”

“Don’t go putting words into my mouth. Eddie wouldn’t be dealing with the police if he’d stayed away from those two to begin with, that’s all.”

“How could he stay away from her?” I said. “She was his nanny, wasn’t she? He didn’t have any choice. Anyway, you said in there, she was the best thing to happen to him.”

“I didn’t say that,” Samson hissed. By this time, Carla and the preacher had settled Mrs. Delaney into the Schreier’s car and were looking over at us. “It was Freddy Einarson said it. She was good for Eddie, only until she met Travers. She turned her face away from the Lord after that and poured poison into Eddie’s ears. Nothing but poison after that.”

Carla started to walk over to us.

“I have to get these ladies home,” he said. “We have guests waiting.” He clearly had no intention of inviting me to join the party.

“And Eddie?” I said.

Samson suddenly went all paternal on me. He put a heavy hand on my shoulder and smiled in what he probably thought was a caring way.

“He’ll be brought back when the time is right. Don’t you worry about him. You just go back to your goats and your friends and keep out of our business. It’ll be the best for all of us if you do as I say.” I felt my insides go cold. Stick to your goats. Gosh.

Carla had arrived at his side and took his arm possessively, smiling at me as if in apology.

“Samson, I’m so tired, dear. I need to rest, to lie down. The baby, you know. Can we go?” Samson’s face softened as he looked at her. A kind of wonder filled his eyes at the word “baby” and he put one of his large hands over her small one.

“Carla,” I said, in a last-ditch attempt to get through. She looked up with a surprised expression on her face, as if she had forgotten I was there.

“Carla, where did you get that crucifix?”

“Excuse me?” she said. She was wearing a coat, but I knew it was there, underneath, hanging significantly around her neck.

“The crucifix. The one you have around your neck. I noticed it earlier. It’s lovely. Where did you get it?”

“You’re mistaken,” she said. “I would never wear an image of our suffering Lord as an ornament.” She opened her coat to show me her unadorned neck, then she smiled, very sweetly.

“Carla was brought up Catholic,” Samson explained, indulgently, “but she’s put all that idolatry behind her, haven’t you, little one?”

Carla snuggled into him like a kitten. “Please can we go?” she said. Her little-girl voice was starting to get to me. It made me feel big and dumb. I also wondered if I had been hallucinating, earlier. I was sure I’d seen Poe’s cross around her neck. All this death was making me crazy. Carla gave me a little, waggle-fingered wave, then they turned their backs on me and walked to their car, got in and drove away. I stood for a moment, thinking, then walked briskly over to where the preacher was mounting the steps to go back into the Chapel.

“Mr. Er—pardon me. Sir?” He turned as if surprised to find me there, which was odd, seeing as I was the only other human being around, and I’d been there as long as he had.

“Ma’am?” If he had been wearing a hat, I swear he would have raised it.

“Do you think I could talk to you for a minute?”

“Of course, sister. I always have time for talk. Come on in.” He opened the door for me and lead the way purposefully past the chapel, where Francy’s body in its closed casket lay in state below the ugly window. I followed him into a small office, presumably his, which was no different from any church office in the world. Not to say that I’ve been in many, but they are all, it seems to me, furnished by the same company, who make blonde wood desks and chairs padded in burnt orange nubby stuff. There were pictures of Christ in various gentle poses hung on the walls and the bookshelves were full of theological texts and stacks of pamphlets. The carpet was beige. The air smelled melancholy—a mixture of furniture polish and dusty bibles. He waved me to a chair, opened the window a crack, then opened a drawer from which he extracted a cigar and an ash-tray.

“Do you mind?” he said. “I always like to smoke after a testimonial. It clears the air, so to speak.” I drew my cigarettes from my pocket and held them up, grinning. We understood each other and lit up, no words being necessary.

“What can I do for you?” he asked, blowing a scented smoke-ring.

“Well, it’s kind of complicated. I’m not really sure.” I wasn’t. I was feeling very odd—mostly because I hadn’t set foot in a religious establishment for a long time and it brought back uncomfortable feelings I had thought were long-buried. I liked this man, although I didn’t know him. I’d heard him speak at the funeral, using all the God-words I had come to distrust, but the way he said them somehow made them all right, as if it were a language he was comfortable using, but wouldn’t force it on anybody who didn’t speak it. Strange that some of his congregation (Carla, at least) felt it necessary to seek recruits, but he didn’t seem to. Maybe, as the leader, he was exempt from that obligation.

I didn’t know why I was there. It had something to do with the fact that I had seen a crucifix around Carla Schreier’s neck one minute and she had denied its existence in the next. It had something to do with my own grief, as well, which was building up like a migraine behind my eyes. But why I was sitting in the office of the guy in charge of the Chapel of the Holy Lamb, watching him puff on a cigar as he waited patiently for me to say something—that in itself was a mystery. The silence grew until he cleared his throat.

“By the way, I’m Pastor Garnet Larkin,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced.”

“I’m sorry. I should have told you my name right at the beginning.” This was not good. I was feeling inadequate already. The churchy atmosphere made me feel guilty. As if I were to blame for something. I was regressing rapidly, back to when I was ten.

“I’m Pauline Deacon,” I said and reached a hand across the desk. He shook it firmly.

“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Deacon. You knew Mrs. Travers personally, didn’t you?”

“Yes. She was a close friend of mine. I found her, you know. In her kitchen. I was—kind of involved in the murder investigation up until then, but after that…” A large, fistsized knot was working its way up into my throat. My head felt hot, and my eyes started burning. He shoved a box of kleenex across the desk at me.

“Cry,” he said. “It helps.” I did. In fact, I cried totally and horribly in a very messy, non-communicative way for quite a long time. Pastor Larkin just sat there, smoking his cigar and gazing off into space. None of that “there, there” stuff for Larkin. I liked that. He just waited until I was finished.

I blew my nose and tossed the soggy mess into his wastebasket.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t mention it. Tears clarify things pretty good, I find.” He leaned forward. “Now. Did you want to talk to me about something?”

“Well, actually, I just wanted to ask you if I could see Francy. The body, I mean. I know the coffin is closed and all that, but you see, the last time I saw her, she was hanging in her kitchen and I guess the image is haunting me a bit. I was going to ask her mother if I could, but she doesn’t like me much.” I was making it up as I went along, but it felt right. It fit the way I was feeling. I did want to see her, although the thought hadn’t occurred to me until the request popped out of my mouth.

“I can’t see why Mrs. Delaney wouldn’t like you,” the Pastor said. “Seeing as you were a close friend and all.”

“Well, I suppose someone might have told her some things,” I said. I didn’t want to accuse Samson of slander, although I was pretty sure it had been him. “I’m not much of a church-goer. Mrs. Delaney called me a witch.”

“And are you?”

“Not that I know of. Unless living alone in the woods counts.”

“It might. Are you Godless, Ms. Deacon?” Oh, boy. Here it comes, I thought. The pitch.

“Not really. I keep my mind open, that’s all,” I said.

“That’s the first place He’ll come knocking, then,” the Pastor said and smiled gently.

“So I hear.” We sat and smoked in silence for a minute. Having decided to pay my last respects to Francy, alone in the Chapel of the Holy Lamb, I felt calm and strangely peaceful. I hadn’t felt like that for a long time.

“Well,” the Pastor said, “I don’t see why I can’t let you take a look at her. She hasn’t been prettied-up much, seeing as it was a closed coffin and all, but I saw her just a short while ago and she certainly doesn’t look as bad as how she probably looks in your mind. She’ll be buried tomorrow. We usually do it right away, but her mother wanted her to stay in the Chapel for one night. Mrs. Delaney will be back to sit with her, she said.”

“She didn’t seem to be in any shape to sit up all night,” I said, following him down the corridor.

“Well, if she doesn’t come, I guess the job will be mine. She wanted someone to pray over her, you see. A few prayers. Some thinking. No harm in that.”

He opened the chapel door and we walked together up the aisle to the casket. I tugged at the ring on my finger—an opal that my mother had given me for my eighth birthday, which, as I had grown, I had had re-set several times to fit. I had worn it always, but in that short walk to Francy’s casket, I decided, in a catch-all, ritualistic sort of way, to give it to Francy. The Pastor opened the lid for me and then discreetly stepped aside.

Somebody had fixed her up a bit—maybe the police, or whoever had done the post-mortem. The Pastor was right, she certainly did look better than she had swinging from the rafter in her kitchen. Because the funeral hadn’t included a public viewing, she wasn’t slathered in horrible pancake makeup the way bodies sometimes are, but neither was she green and wormy, the way I was expecting. She was very dead, though, and her face was still too dark.

No blood pumped through those veins, nor ever would again. No muscle would jump again to open those eyes, which by now were probably dull and opaque. Francy’s face, alive, had sparkled with mischief. No mischief now. I resisted the temptation to lift the eyelids and peer in. A kind of corpseoriented vertigo took hold of me. I wanted to sweep her up in my arms and dance with her. I reached out to touch her hand. It was cold and stiff. Rigid, in fact. Putting my ring on her finger was going to be tricky.

I felt the Pastor behind me.

“She looks peaceful, any road,” he said.

“She does,” I said. I showed him the ring. “I wanted to give her this. Can I put it on her finger?”

He sighed gently and smiled a bit. “Seems to be a trend,” he said, and, reaching out, opened the stiff fingers of her right hand. “Samson Schreier had the same idea. Took it off his wife’s neck and said a little prayer over it.”

From those dead fingers fell a gold crucifix, on a chain, which slithered quickly out of sight into the satin folds of the coffin.