“Because I need to talk to him now. Have you no telephone number where he could be reached?”
“No, he didn’t leave one. You want to leave a message?”
So she would have to handle it alone after all.
She looked resentfully at the telephone as if it were at fault. “All right. Please ask him to call Tatiana Perkins at 742-6539 when he comes in.”
A taxi took her to the garage she used in town. When she drove out, the sun was low in the west, casting a liquid, golden light over roof tops, leaving streets below in a blue dusk.
She crossed the main thoroughfare, turned left, and was soon on the long, winding road to Fox Run.
PART V
Further Lane
17
WHEN SHE CAME to the place in the road where woods gave way to open meadow, she stopped the car.
It was the same hour of late afternoon when she first saw this house, the day she and Hilary had been surprised on the lawn by Jeremy and Carlos just back from Sotavento.
How strange that the past, so vivid in memory, no longer existed in fact. Where did the past go? Why couldn’t she find her way back to it?
It had been Jeremy’s fancy that this lane was called Further Lane, instead of Farther Lane, because it led somewhere in time rather than space. If only it did . . .
She started the car again and turned down the driveway toward the tall, angular house, sitting on its grassy knoll among shade trees, surrounded by fields.
The first change she noticed was an ugly wire-mesh fence between the road and the house, probably electrified. The second was the fact that the sentry didn’t recognize her. A stranger in uniform examined her press card and driver’s license, and telephoned to the guard room before he finally let her pass.
A new chief usher greeted her politely enough at the door and showed her into one of the reception rooms on the north side of the house, away from the garden.
All signs of Jeremy’s personal presence were gone. This was Job Jackman’s house once more, simple, solid, unimaginative.
Jo Beth was the first to put in an appearance.
“Tash, dear, it’s been so long!” A double handclasp, a quick, dry kiss on one cheek. “But you’re looking well!” Jo Beth stood back and surveyed the suntan with a touch of envy. “Sotavento agreed with you. What will you have now? Tea or a drink?”
“Tea, please.”
“Just what I’d like myself.”
As she touched a bell, one of her boys came into the room.
“You know Greg, don’t you?”
“I don’t believe I do.” Tash smiled at him. “But I’ve heard so much about you from your mother, I feel as if we were old friends.”
He smiled with a touch of shyness, but he wasn’t too shy. He talked freely and pleasantly. Whatever was eccentric in Job had not come down to him. Given enough time, genes would always tend to pull back to the norm of the species.
Job came in as they were finishing tea, and the boy had the tact to excuse himself. Job did not look like a governor now, any more than he ever had, but he was behaving like one.
“Your papers are still in your desk, Tash, just as you left them,” he said. “I didn’t know what you wanted to do with them.”
“There’s nothing important,” she answered. “If someone will throw them all in a carton and send them over to my apartment, I can sort them out there.”
“Are you home for good?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I’ll have the carton delivered right away.”
“Before long, we’ll have to start our own packing,” said Jo Beth. “I’d much rather stay here in our own home, but Job feels we should move into Leafy Way as soon as we can.”
“When will Leafy Way be ready?”
“They say a month now. Knowing contractors, that probably means two or three months.”
Tash turned back to Job. “There’s something I’d like to ask you: Are the police satisfied, now, that Halcon is the man responsible for Jeremy’s death?”
“Of course. Do you doubt it?”
“Captain Wilkes came down to Sotavento.”
“That troublemaker! He’s driven by his sense of guilt. It was his job to protect Jeremy, and he failed.”
“It may not have been solely his fault.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has some new ideas about all this. I came here today because I thought I ought to pass them along to the police through you.”
“And what are they?” Job smiled indulgently as one smiles at a precocious, but pre-logical child.
“He doesn’t believe that Vivian’s death was an accident. He believes that someone deliberately short-circuited the fire alarm and replaced the burnt-out fuse half an hour later, so the alarm wouldn’t go off until the fire was out of control.”
Job was no longer smiling.
“That could only be done by someone inside the house.”
“That’s just what Captain Wilkes says. He believes Jeremy was betrayed by someone he trusted in his own household.”
“Can he prove it?”
“I don’t know.”
Job was no longer smiling.
“Not a nice thought. When will Wilkes be back?”
“Tomorrow.”
“What would you think about my appointing him as a special prosecutor? He’s a lawyer as well as a policeman.”
“That’s a good idea. He’d give anything to solve this case, just because he feels guilty.”
“Then why did he resign?”
“Didn’t you ask him to?”
“No.”
“He seemed to think you expected it.”
“I didn’t.”
“He must have misunderstood something you said.” Job and Jo Beth walked with Tash as far as the hall. “What became of that Chinese painting, Dragon Playing with a Pearl?” she asked.
“Carlos gave orders before he left for Sotavento that all Jeremy’s personal things should be packed and stored until his heirs could get here.”
“Who are his heirs?”
“Some distant cousins, I believe. Sad, isn’t it? Jeremy should have had children.”
“Yes.” Tash repeated the words. “Jeremy should have had children. And now, I must say good-bye.”
“Can I reach you at your apartment in the next few days?” asked Job.
“Oh, yes, I’ll stay there until Wilkes’ questions are answered.”
“And where will you go then?”
“Anywhere except here.”
Compassion stole into Jo Beth’s eyes, and she ventured a little nearer the edge of all the things they had left unsaid.
“I hope things work out for you. I shall think of you often, and I hope you will always think of me as a friend. We were Jeremy’s people, and we should hang together now he’s gone. We are the only ones who know how many hopes were buried with him.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I’ve talked to Wilkes,” said Job. “I suppose you’re on your way home now?”
“Yes, but I’m going to stop first at the beach.”
“At the beach! Why?”
She couldn’t say, because that’s the place where Jeremy first kissed me. So she simply said: “Good-bye!” and ran down the steps to her car.
Further Lane ended where the last of its macadam rose up a steep incline to the crest of a sandy hill.
Tash stopped the car at the very edge of the macadam, close to three tall, old pine trees with trunks almost as thick as a man’s waist. She shut off the engine, shifted gear, and sat still, listening to the steady pounding of the surf.
Beyond white horses you could see a choppy ocean flecked with foam as far as the horizon. The twilight was gray, the color of dreams; under that bleak sky, the sea was slate-blue. Hard to believe that only a thousand miles or so to the south that same ocean was jade and turquoise.
She glanced at her watch. She had been here ten minutes.
She ought to go now.
> Suppose Bill Brewer was trying to return her call?
Still, she sat without moving and listened to the wild keening of the gulls and watched a sandpiper flicking along the wet edge of the beach.
Why not get out and walk down to the sea that Jeremy had so loved?
She stood still beside the open door of the car, resting one hand on its wide handle while she looked up at the skyscape she had been unable to see from under the roof of the car.
Each cloud was a different shade of gray, from iron to pewter to dove color, all overlapping and all moving, languidly, almost imperceptibly.
She did not hear a sound behind her, but she felt a sudden, gentle nudge from the car door standing open close beside her. The next thing she knew, searing pain darted through her chest. The car had rolled backward a little way downhill, but it had been forced to stop when the heavy, open door pinned her against the huge trunk of the nearest pine tree.
That tree and her body kept the car from rolling farther, the way big stones wedged under the rear wheels will keep a car from rolling backward downhill. Her shoulders and upper arms were clamped and crushed between tree trunk and car door as in a giant vise. She could not move and she did not try to twist herself sidewise into a more comfortable position. If her body took up less room between tree and door, the car might roll again. It needed only a few inches more and she would be crushed to death.
How could the car roll? Hadn’t she set the automatic gear shift on P for park when he got out?
She tried to retrieve a visual memory of the gauge as she had last seen it, but nothing came. That meant she had not looked at the gauge when she got out of the car, so she could have left it in neutral instead of park. She remembered Job scolding her for doing that very thing one morning long ago when her car had rolled in the driveway at Leafy Way.
Was there nothing she could do?
Just stand as still as she possibly could to keep the car from rolling farther, and hang onto sanity somehow until somebody came.
But who would come to a lonely beach in October when night was falling? Did anyone know she was here?
Job and Jo Beth knew, but they would assume she had gone home by now. They would have no reason to search for her until tomorrow, when someone, perhaps Bill, discovered she was missing.
Could she bear it here alone all night? Would the prolonged pain cause permanent injury? What would happen if she fainted during the night and sagged between door and tree? Would the car roll again?
As the minutes ticked by, the temptation to risk turning in the vise to find a more comfortable position became almost irresistible. In another moment she would have yielded if a voice had not spoken.
“Well, Tash. You’ve really got yourself in trouble this time.”
“Oh, Job! Thank God you’re here. Can you release me? Or will you need help?”
She heard footsteps coming around the car, and there he was, a ghost in the deep twilight that was almost night. He stood and looked at her without moving. She began to feel like an insect pinned to a board by a painstaking but unsympathetic entomologist.
At last he spoke, softly.
“Why should I release you?”
18
“DID YOU PUSH the car?”
“No. I was watching you from an upper floor through binoculars, because I was curious to find out what you were going to do at the beach. There was just light enough for me to see what happened, so I walked down by a short cut through the woods to see if you were dead, but you’re not. It’s a pity the car didn’t roll a little farther. We’ll have to do something about that.”
“You killed Jeremy and Vivian.”
“Of course. I always hated them.”
“But Jeremy did so much for you!”
“He did nothing for me. Do you think it’s fun to play second fiddle all the time? Do you think it’s fun to be the power behind the throne and never sit on the throne yourself? Jeremy and Vivian were born to everything I had to struggle for. They took all the rights and privileges I never had for granted. Because they had never known privation, they gambled with opportunities I would have died rather than risk.
“Vivian could have had anything, done anything, gone anywhere. She had everything I ever wanted, and she threw it all away as if it weren’t worth having.”
“Maybe it wasn’t,” said Tash.
“How do you know? You’ve never had to go without anything you really wanted, have you?” Job took silence for consent and went on: “I knew something was wrong with Vivian, but I didn’t know what. It was a shock when I found out she was taking drugs, the kind of thing you associate with kids brutalized by war or the ghetto, not with ladies living at Leafy Way.
“If the newspapers had got hold of that story, it would have destroyed me through Jeremy, WIFE OF GOVERNOR WHO SIGNED BILL SOFT ON ADDICTS TAKES DRUGS HERSELF.
She was blithely risking my future and Jeremy’s, and for what? Kicks. And His Excellency, head in the clouds as usual, didn’t even know what was going on!”
“How did you find out?”
“I saw her coming out of the office of a doctor who has been under suspicion for some time. She couldn’t go to any doctor’s office often without starting rumors of serious illness sure to reach Jeremy eventually. So how did she usually communicate with her source of drugs? She couldn’t go through the switchboard at Leafy Way. She couldn’t use the mails regularly without exciting Hilary’s curiosity. She couldn’t go on such an errand in her own car or a taxi. What could she do? She could ask innocent visitors who came to Leafy Way to mail letters for her.
“I didn’t believe it even then, but I had to find out. I didn’t want private detectives, always worrying about losing their licenses. Set an addict to catch an addict. I wanted someone who knew drugs and the drug racket and took drugs himself. I’ve always had contacts with the fringe of the underworld. They have votes, too, and they understand patronage better than we do. So I found Halcon and hired him and his boys to watch Vivian when she went out and intercept any letters that she might be sending out through visitors, by following them and picking their pockets.
“You were the first victim. That letter you carried out of Leafy Way was addressed to Dr. Grant, the doctor whose office I had seen her leave. She was supposed to be one of his ordinary patients, but she wasn’t. That letter contained cash and instructions for delivering the ‘package’ to her maid, Juana, who would meet his messenger in the old, unguarded right of way, late that night.
“I was afraid to tell Jeremy. Usually, he was the easiest guy in the world to get along with, but if you went against his grain, he could be formidable. I couldn’t tell him, but I could shut off her source of drugs, so she would go into withdrawal symptoms. Then even Jeremy would realize what was wrong.
“Of course, I assumed he’d divorce her quietly and then we’d both be safe. She couldn’t contest the divorce without the whole truth about her coming out. But even after he knew, he didn’t think of divorcing her. I never did understand him.
“Because the letter was intercepted, Vivian did not get the cocaine she expected that night. In a day or so she was frantic enough to risk going to the doctor’s office in person once more. From him, she learned that I had threatened him with arrest if he ever supplied her with drugs again.
“I was afraid to have him arrested because it might involve her, but he didn’t realize that, so the threat worked. To quiet her frenzy, he gave her one last shot of cocaine, telling her never to come back for more. Because of that shot she was merry and bright during your first luncheon at Leafy Way.
“That soon wore off. He hadn’t given her enough. By late afternoon, she was so desperate she took the risk of driving to the doctor’s own home in her own car. He was in a panic then. He didn’t dare give her more cocaine because of my threats. He gave her some sedative. That’s why she came home half-conscious in a half-wrecked car with no memory of what had happened. Jeremy must have begun to distrust Dr. Grant, because he calle
d his own doctor, Henry Clemens, and so learned the truth.
“Of course I was careful to stay away from Leafy Way while all this was going on, but I heard about Vivian’s disappearance on television newscasts. I told Halcdn to send one of his boys to Juana late that night to find out just what had happened.”
So that was why I saw Freaky in the grounds, thought Tash.
“Do you remember His Excellency condescending to tell me that he might not even bother to run for a second term? He knew perfectly well my career would be wrecked if he bowed out, but he was too selfish to care. That was when I first began to wonder if there was any way I could work for myself instead of Jeremy.
“Hilary was always telling me that I could never get elected on my own, that I had no mana, whatever that is, that I would never be the star but always the scene-shifter backstage.
“I had believed her, but then, suddenly, I saw a way out. I didn’t have to get elected again. I was lieutenant governor. Jeremy was governor. If he died in office, I would succeed him automatically as the next governor without any nonsense about elections.”
So it was for this that Jeremy had died. Tash was glad the darkness hid Job’s face. She didn’t want to see him now.
She couldn’t block her ears. His voice went on.
“A governor has more patronage to hand out than any other officer of state. With my knowledge of political back alleys, I needed only a few months to build up the biggest political machine this state has ever seen. Then there would be no limit to what I could do. No limit at all . . .
“Fire is a quick, clean, anonymous way of killing. I thought Juana would be the perfect agent for leaving burning cigarettes on Vivian’s bed. Halcon had got her pretty much under his thumb.”
“How?”
“He tried bribery, but that didn’t work. A few slaps and threats were more effective. She had been tortured before. It was she who switched off the alarm and unlocked a door when Halcon and Freaky searched your office to see if you had any further connection with the drug racket. But after that, something odd happened. She refused to set the fire. When Halcon did it himself, she tried to call for help. He had to kill her.”
Helen McCloy Page 17