by Kathy
"Huh." Peggy lit another cigarette. "Then I guess it's up to me to provide a romantic ending. Though it's going to look more like Abbott and Costello than Bacall and Bogart."
"You and Simon are going to be married?"
"I guess so." Peggy shrugged. "He's such a stickin-the-mud he won't consider any other arrangement. Wanna be maid of honor?"
"I'd rather be best mensch."
"Fine with me," Peggy said, laughing. "What are you going to do about Bill Meyer?"
"I'll think of something."
"Something with boiling oil in it?"
"Oh, no," Karen said gently. "Nothing as nice as boiling oil."
"He was also the burglar, I suppose."
"I've always believed that. He pushed Dorothea's guilt too hard. I don't think she could have climbed in that window, she's not exactly built like Jane Fonda. And it's easy to spray yourself with perfume. I imagine he lured Dorothea down here so she could be a suspect. The fire scared the hell out of him, though; he thought she set it and he started feeling like Dr. Frankenstein. That's why he's been so incredibly civil and helpful lately."
"Dorothea didn't set the fire."
"Go ahead, astonish me," Karen said. "I suppose it wasn't Bobby either."
"I shall now proceed to force a confession from the culprit," Peggy announced, reaching for the phone. "And finish another little matter I promised myself I'd tend to before I left town."
After she had finished the conversation she turned a self-satisfied smile on Karen. "I thought she'd crumple under pressure. The woman's got no guts."
"You flat-out lied!" Karen exclaimed. "There was no witness. There couldn't have been!"
"She doesn't know that. She was blind drunk. To do the damned woman justice, she thought you weren't there. She was tucked up in bed boozing when I dropped you off, and your car wasn't in the garage." Peggy leaned back, smiling smugly. "I don't think she'll give Cameron any more trouble. Poor guy, he's had more than he deserves. You're sure you don't—"
"I'm sure," Karen said firmly.
Epilogue
The crimson rambler climbing the porch pillar was past its first exuberance of bloom, but a few flowers still shone satin-red among the emerald leaves. Peggy broke off in the middle of a sentence and dashed toward the plant. "Goddamn Japanese beetles!" she shouted, swatting wildly.
Karen pressed a sandaled foot against the porch floor and set the swing swaying. "Relax while you can," she said lazily. "Tomorrow is going to be hectic. How does the guest list stand at the last count?"
"I've lost track." Peggy returned to her chair. "Simon has more friends than anyone I've ever met, and he keeps inviting people without telling me. When I complain he says it doesn't matter, we've ordered enough food and champagne for a regiment anyhow."
"He's right about that. I just hope it doesn't rain so we have to move the ceremony inside."
"So do I. A few tears are appropriate for a wedding, but a maid of honor who is sneezing her head off and weeping copiously may not strike the proper note."
Karen laughed. "Only for you and Simon would I have made the supreme sacrifice of starting those allergy shots. They won't be fully effective for a while longer, though."
"You're a noble woman," Peggy said gravely. "But if you hadn't made the sacrifice, we'd have had to continue entertaining you on the front porch. It gets a little chilly in January."
Karen gave the swing another push. "So you're going to live here?"
"We're still arguing about that," Peggy said cheerfully. "I imagine that in the end we'll be here part of the time and at Simon's place part of the time, and part of the time he'll be there and I'll be here. We're both used to living alone and we both need periods of solitude."
The screen door opened. Simon came out and settled himself in the chair next to Peggy's. He didn't kiss her or take her hand, but the glances they exchanged brought an odd but pleasant lump to Karen's throat.
"Where's Cameron?" she asked, not so inconsequentially.
"He insisted on bringing the tray," Simon replied. "The man is unnaturally well-mannered, Karen. Can't you do something about that?"
"I'm working on it."
Peggy lowered her voice and glanced over her shoulder. "So how's it going? Are you two—"
Simon's exclamation of protest blended with Karen's laughter. "Stop pushing, Peggy. I'm in no hurry, and neither is he. We've both got a lot of emotional baggage to get rid of before we make any decisions."
"How very cool and mature," Peggy said, wrinkling her nose. "All I was going to say was: Are you two having fun?"
"Oh, that." Karen smiled reminiscently. "I am, and I believe I am safe in stating that he—"
She broke off as Cameron backed through the door carrying a tray. Depositing it on the table, he reached for the bottle. "Shall I open it?"
"I'll do it," Simon said irritably. "Sit down and behave like a guest."
Cameron joined Karen on the swing and took one of her hands in his. Most of the cuts and scrapes had healed; Karen ran a caressing finger along one white scar.
"Champagne?" she asked, as the cork flew into the shrubbery. "Celebrating early, are we?"
"This is a celebration of quite another kind," Simon said, pouring. Cameron jumped up to take two of the glasses from him. Simon handed one to Peggy and then, still on his feet, raised his own glass. "To Ismene," he said solemnly. "May she rest in peace."
Cameron had brought the pathologist's report with him when he arrived that morning. It had taken a while to get it; antique bones did not have a high priority.
Peggy was the first to break the thoughtful silence. "Where are you going to put them—her?"
"In the old cemetery," Cameron said. "We can't be one hundred percent certain of the identification, of course, but it's good enough for me. I thought I'd put up a stone of some kind."
"Absolutely," Peggy said. "Can I suggest an epitaph? It won't be 'rest in peace.' That wasn't her style."
"What did you have in mind?" Simon asked apprehensively.
Peggy grinned at Karen, who grinned back. "Keep on talking," they said in chorus.
"She'll do that, certainly," Cameron said, after Simon's scandalized protests had died away. "How much of her story are you going to include in the introduction, Karen?"
She turned her head to look at him. He was frowning a little. "I wish I could say that's up to you, Cameron," she said gently. "But I can't. I have to tell the truth as I see it."
Cameron's frown deepened. "Of course. Did you think I was suggesting you falsify the facts to spare some sort of meaningless family pride? What kind of a pompous ass do you take me for?"
"I'm sorry," Karen began.
"I thought I'd never see the day!" Peggy exclaimed. "She's apologizing and he's talking back. Are you guys going to have a fight? Can I join in?"
"Depends on whose side you're on," Cameron said.
"Yours."
"Oh, well, in that case . . ."He put an arm around Karen's shoulders and pulled her closer.
"It isn't that simple." Simon was obviously trying to keep the conversation on a sensible plane. "How much of the truth do we know? Legally one cannot slander the dead, but morally one would not wish to make accusations when the accused cannot defend himself."
"Or herself." Karen raised her head from Cameron's shoulder. "I have to present all the evidence, though. Some of the true history of these people is paralleled by the plot of the novel. Ismene's name was Cassandra Cabot—another name from Greek literature, you notice. Her father was born in Boston, but at some point he moved to Charleston, South Carolina, because that was where he died. We know he was a widower, and that he left two daughters. There was no record of a will, so he may have died intestate. We know nothing of what happened to the girls after that, until 1820, when Helena married Frederick Cartright."
"None of that has anything to do with Ismene's—Cassandra's— death," Simon objected. "You can't offer a motive for murder; you don't know the size of Mr. Cabot
's estate, and you've absolutely no reason to suppose that Mrs. Cabot didn't die a natural death in Boston or Charleston."
"I'm not a prosecutor in a court of law," Karen retorted. "Just a poor hard-working scholar. I don't have to produce evidence."
There was one kind of evidence she would not, could not mention, without destroying her reputation. In her own mind however, it was irrefutable. There had been something in the attic of that terrible old house—some thing, or someone, who had suffered and despaired and died without forgiveness or reconciliation. She could never prove it; she did not want to prove it. She could only pray the remnant of that suffering was impersonal, an echo of past pain and not the bodiless survivor of it.
A slight, almost imperceptible shiver ran through her, and Cameron's arm tightened its grasp. He knew about the cold in the attic; it had been a step forward in their relationship when he had been able to admit he had felt it too and had found it so unbearable he had hired workmen to carry the contents of the attic to a lower floor.
"Stop hassling Karen, Simon; she'll do a proper job," Peggy ordered. "Let's talk about something more cheerful. Such as how many more people have you invited since yesterday?"
"Only one but he's not coming," Simon said. "He got back from England three days ago, and he was too—"
"Not Bill Meyer!" Peggy exclaimed. "Simon, how could you?"
"He's not coming, I said. Why shouldn't I have asked him?"
"After he bribed that moronic Bobby to pretend to run Karen down so he could heroically save her life, and broke into the apartment trying to steal the manuscript—"
"You have absolutely no proof of that," Simon declared. "Professor Meyer's manner was completely open and forthright. He asked me to convey his best wishes and regrets ..." He stopped, his mouth ajar.
"That's about as close to a confession as we'll ever get from Bill Meyer," Peggy declared.
"Good heavens," Simon muttered. "It never occurred to me that ... I thought he was making a tactful and manly reference to his—er—broken heart. He certainly gave me the impression—"
"Oh, I think he was beginning to harbor the delusion that he was in love with me," Karen said calmly. "At least I hope he was. It would add a particularly sweet tang to my revenge."
A smile curved her lips as she told the others of her meeting with Dorothea Angelo.
Angelo had been deeply suspicious but too curious to decline Karen's invitation. They had met at a restaurant in D.C.—neutral ground—and the expedition had taken an entire day of Karen's time. It had been worth it, though.
"I don't suppose you're going to offer me a chance to help you edit the manuscript." Dorothea had opened the conversation with that remark; meaningless courtesies weren't her style.
"No. Would you like a glass of wine? Lunch is on me."
Dorothea's blackened brows lowered. "What are you up to, Holloway?"
"I wish to see justice done," Karen said solemnly.
It had been glorious to watch Dorothea's face as she heard, in the most lurid terms Karen could invent, how Bill Meyer had set her up, and worth every penny of the very expensive lunch Dorothea consumed as she listened. They had shared a carafe of wine. Karen had one glass. At the end of the conversation she raised it. "Shall we drink confusion to a certain person?" she asked.
"Damned right." Dorothea had chewed most of her lipstick off, and her expression would have sent small children howling for their mothers. She refilled her glass. "You're not such a bad sort, Holloway," she said awkwardly. "Thanks."
"What for?"
"For believing me when I said I didn't do those things. And for telling me how that bastard Meyer tried to use me. Don't worry, I'll take care of him."
"And I'm sure she will." Karen finished her story, while the others stared at her in horrified fascination. "She's the worst gossip in the M.L.A. and by the time she gets through embroidering the story it will make Bill look like an even greater horse's behind than he actually is."
Cameron drew a long breath and pretended to flinch away from her. "Remind me never to do anything to irritate you."
"That was brilliant," Peggy declared respectfully. "Absolutely inspired. You deserve a medal."
"I learned from you," Karen said with a fond smile. Then her face sobered. "It was a perfect case of making the punishment fit the crime. Bill didn't try to kill me. Nobody tried to kill me. I kept telling you that. In real life people do commit murder for extraordinary reasons—but cautious, careful, sane academicians don't endanger their reputations and safety for a step up in their careers.
"And yet all the threatening incidents stemmed from a single event: my acquisition of the manuscript. It got Bill and Dorothea on my trail; it took me to Virginia, and my presence there activated animosities that might never have erupted if I hadn't unwittingly acted as a catalyst. Mrs. Fowler wouldn't have dared set the fire if there had not been someone living in the apartment. Destroying the property of someone she detested was an additional incentive, and she believed that, like Peggy, I was a smoker. Cameron's refusal to pay the insurance brought Bobby's resentment to the boiling point . . . The whole intertwined plot had the inevitability if not the dire consequences of a Greek tragedy."
Simon had dissolved into silent laughter. Wiping his eyes he sputtered, "Machiavelli couldn't have done better, my dear. With one stroke you avenged yourself on Meyer and won Dorothea over to your side. You do deserve a prize. We were going to wait until tomorrow to present it, but this seems a more appropriate occasion."
He rose and went into the house. When he came out he was carrying a flat parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.
"You aren't giving me Eliza, are you?" Karen asked, deducing the nature of the gift from the shape of the parcel. "Not that I wouldn't appreciate it, but—"
"You hate it," Peggy said calmly. "I want Eliza for myself. She'll look great in the living room. Go ahead, open it."
Karen's hands were shaking with excitement as she untied the string and stripped off the paper. It had to be a picture. If it wasn't Eliza, it could only be ...
The painting had been beautifully restored and set in a simple frame of softly polished walnut. The faces looked out at her, unmarred by filth or flaked paint. They wore matching blue bows and there was a strong family resemblance between them, particularly in the soft brown eyes. They were the most charming pair of King Charles spaniels Karen had ever seen.