Fadeaway Girl

by Martha Grimes

  “Niece Rhoda.”

  “And this one’s—?”

  “Mr. Perrin.”

  “Go on.”

  Then I took Artist Geroge from my other pocket. “This one’s the tube I found over at Crystal Spring. It was behind the tin cup in a kind of stone alcove. It was missing from Mary-Evelyn Devereau’s Mr. Ree game.” I leaned in closer to him so no one else would hear. “It was missing from mine too. My Mr. Ree game. And so’s my Niece Rhoda tube. Like the one you found. What I’m wondering is: was that the one you found?”

  “And somebody stole it and tossed it on the path? Is this the insane part of the story?”

  Nervously, I nodded. “Was it me? Could I have done that and not remembered?”

  “No.” Dwayne was turning Mr. Perrin in his fingers. “You never forget anything. Better if you did.”

  “But the point is if I was insane—” I whispered the word, not wanting to give it too much life.

  “If you were insane, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You wouldn’t be sane enough to wonder if you weren’t.” He drank his coffee.

  “Huh?”

  “What about that ditzy brother of yours?”

  Will? Ditzy?

  “He could’ve taken those game pieces.”

  “But he didn’t know I was going to Brokedown House.”

  “He was over at Mirror Pond, you told me. Where that murder happened.”

  “Oh, Will’s too busy with their production to be playing tricks.”

  Dwayne guffawed. “From all I’ve heard, I’d say your brother is never too busy to be playing tricks.”

  I considered that, knowing it was probably true.

  He said, “Besides you, who else knew what was in the toy chest?”

  “In mine?”

  “Yours and what’s-her-name’s. The little drowned girl?”

  “Mary-Evelyn Devereau. I don’t know about hers. But mine, I think Ree-Jane’s been into mine, from something she said.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  “You think it was her?”

  “Could be. After all, she’s jealous of you, so it would seem likely she’d want to mess with your mind.”

  “Jealous? Of me?”

  Dwayne turned upon me a look of surprise. “You tellin’ me you don’t know that? For God’s sakes, you’re a ton smarter than she is, and she knows it; you’ve practically got yourself a whole career in reporting going, which must really get her goat; and you’re prettier. Of course she’s jealous.” He was getting out some money.

  I sat there, gape-mouthed.

  “Come on, I gotta get back to that Mercedes.” He left a tip on the counter. “Some of us have to work for a living.”

  I slid off my stool, complaining. “I work for a living.”

  “Oh yeah. Sure you do.”

  And we argued back and forth across the tracks and the highway about working for a living.

  I really wanted to discuss my being prettier than Ree-Jane.

  11

  “No’d bye nd neep nold—”

  I was on the Britten’s Market bench, listening to Ulub practice his elocution.

  “First thing people notice is how you say your words. For instance, ‘ask,’ not ‘ast.’ ”

  Somehow I felt “ask” was light-years behind Ulub’s problem; I don’t think he needed to worry about mispronouncing words.

  I had come here after visiting Dwayne. Not to put myself in the way of Ulub’s elocution lesson, I sat patiently, trying to understand his words before Mr. Root barged in and translated. It was a particular point of pride with Mr. Root that he was the only one of us who could understand Ulub.

  Ubub could understand his brother, but that came from a lifetime of listening. Ubub’s speech wasn’t exactly like FDR’s or Winston Churchill’s, but it wasn’t as bad as Ulub’s.

  Mr. Root was reciting, “ ‘Keep cold, young orchard. Good-by and keep cold.’ ” He turned to me. “That still sounds like dumb advice.”

  Dumb advice? What was he talking about?

  Back to Ulub: “Now, you say that, Ulub.” Mr. Root held up his hands as if he had a symphony orchestra he was trying to conduct.

  “Ong . . .”

  “‘Young, young, orchard—’ ”

  “no-or—”

  Mr. Root shook his head. “Well, ‘orchard’ is a pretty hard word. Let’s take it from ‘Dread fifty above more than fifty below.’ Okay? ‘Dread,’ ‘Dread fifty . . .’ ” and down came his hand on the beat.

  “Ed. Ed ifny.”

  I heard no improvement, though Mr. Root apparently did, or pretended he did, for he slapped Ulub on the back and told him he was getting much better. There was a small notebook on the bench; Mr. Root picked it up and made some kind of note with a pencil. “You get good marks today, Ulub.”

  I hoped he wasn’t actually giving Ulub grades. “What’s the poem, Mr. Root?” I asked.

  He took the book from Ulub. It was a paperback, not very thick. I saw it was the poetry of Robert Frost. “But I thought you didn’t like Robert Frost. You were all against ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.’ Remember?”

  “That one, yeah. But he’s wrote a couple good ones. I kind of put’em in between Emily’s, you know, to give Ulub a rest.” Mr. Root cleared his throat and intoned in a singsong fashion:This saying good-by on the edge of the dark—

  It shut my eyes, that line did, as sure as a hand passing over them. “Oh,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  He read on, although I was still back there on the edge of the dark.

  Then he came to:I wish I could promise to lie in the night

  And think of an orchard’s ar-bor-e-al plight

  When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)

  Its heart sinks lower under the sod.

  My eyes snapped shut again. I had never heard anything so fearfully sad. I bit my lip to keep from crying. I could almost see it, the trees too young to be left alone, waiting for someone or something to come, and finally knowing no one ever would.

  “Yep,” said Mr. Root. “Some of his, well, I’d say he knows what he’s talking about. Straight talk. That’s what Frost was really good at, none of those namby-pamby poems about your Greek urns and stuff. Nope”—he held up the book—“just your plainspoken, to-the-point words about nature and stuff.” He handed the book back to Ulub.

  Ulub did not look happy to receive it.

  “Mr. Root,” I said, “I don’t think he’s plainspoken. He means a lot more than what he seems to be saying.”

  Mr. Root pushed his feed cap back on his head and scratched his forehead.

  Ulub bobbed his head up and down, briskly. I thought he wanted to agree with me because I might be a way out for him.

  “What do you mean by that?” His eyes narrowed as if I might be insulting him.

  I didn’t really want to talk about it; I don’t know why I had to open my big mouth. “Well, I think he means something different from what he’s saying. Or seems to be saying.”

  Ulub felt free enough now to come and sit beside me on the bench.

  Ubub was coming out of Britten’s with a Grape Crush. He asked me, in his way, if I wanted one, and I said no, thanks. I asked Mr. Root if I could just borrow the book for a minute, and he handed it to me.

  “And could I have a piece of paper and use your pencil?”

  He tore off a little sheet and handed that to me too, along with his pencil. “Whatcha doin’?”

  “Just copying.”

  I wrote the last lines on the paper and folded it up and stuck it in my change purse.

  12

  My mother told me I was late (which I already knew) and that Miss Bertha and Mrs. Fulbright were already in the dining room waiting for their lunch.

  I asked what they were having and when my mother said Ham Pinwheels I perked up; a lot of the sadness left me. Ham Pinwheels might be the only thing that could compete with Robert Frost.

 
Yes, the day was getting heady with the luxury of having me in it: me, prettier than Ree-Jane, about to eat Ham Pinwheels for lunch. And about to serve this to Miss Bertha, who hated Ham Pinwheels and the last time she’d been served them scraped off the cheese sauce and rolled the pinwheel across the floor. It had collided with a chair leg.

  Mrs. Fulbright was mortified. I was gleeful, except she’d put a perfectly good pinwheel out of commission. Depending on how dirty it was, of course.

  “You know she doesn’t like these,” I said to my mother, happily unhelpful.

  “The old fool. Well, if she wants something else you can tell her we have one serving of chicken pot pie from last night’s dinner. I’m sure she doesn’t like leftovers, either.”

  Miss Bertha and Mrs. Fulbright have been coming here summers since I was born. They could be a hundred but are probably in their eighties. Mrs. Fulbright is one of those old women with a complexion as luminous as crushed pearls. Her disposition matches: never a complaint, always a compliment.

  Miss Bertha just looks, well, crushed, period. She is bent over, her head getting closer and closer to the polished floor of the dining room every summer. Her hump certainly doesn’t help the situation, and, of course, she needs a cane, which comes down on the floor like a drill. She never married and I wonder if she ever had a boyfriend and if she always had that hump. Was she a humpbacked baby? Just a tiny hump, no bigger than a knuckle?

  The luncheon plates also held a shimmering tomato aspic cupped in a lettuce leaf with a dab of mayonnaise on the side and a couple of radish curls. The cheese sauce poured over the Ham Pinwheel was thick and golden, with a dusting of paprika across its top.

  The plate looked so pretty I thought it criminal to serve it to someone bent on hating it. I raised the tray like Father Freeman raised the communion cup (which I had never tasted, as I was not a Catholic) and marched the food into the dining room.

  “You know I don’t eat these things!” She gave the pinwheel a little push and left a fingerprint in the cheese sauce. “Bring something else.” She sat back, or as far back as her hump allowed.

  Mrs. Fulbright, of course, received her plate with a pleasantly surprised look.

  I said to Miss Bertha, “Well, there’s one serving left of leek and eel pie.”

  “What? Eel pie? Don’t be ridiculous. Jen Graham never cooked an eel in her life.”

  Said Mrs. Fulbright, “Bertha, now you don’t know that.”

  “Of course I know it! Don’t be a fool.”

  Mrs. Fulbright took a bite of her pinwheel and pronounced it delicious. “You do like the cheese sauce, Bertha.”

  You’d have to have had your taste buds burned out of your mouth to not like it.

  Miss Bertha demanded something else with cheese sauce.

  “You can have it over the eels.” It was the most disgusting way of putting it I could think of off hand.

  She made a face, although you could say Miss Bertha’s face was always making one.

  I looked at the paprika sprinkled across the cheese sauce and smiled. I had, for once, the perfect solution. “Welsh Rarebit,” I said.

  Miss Bertha looked at me with suspicion, but my face was as clear as a glass bell, and my voice was carefully modulated to match it. I was all sympathy. “White or whole-wheat toast, Miss Bertha?” I fluttered my eyelashes a little.

  “White. And I want an egg, a hard-boiled egg sliced up on the toast, and then the sauce over everything.”

  “Coming up!” I said cheerily.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” said my mother, slapping down her chef’s knife, then marching to the refrigerator and hauling out a dish of hard-boiled eggs. “Walter, shell one of these under running water. The shell comes off more easily.”

  Walter loped over and took the egg and did as instructed. I took the ground red pepper from the little shelf of spices and held it behind my back and hummed, watching my mother slice up the egg. Waiting, I turned (shifting the red pepper to my front) and saw through the kitchen window over the distance to the back door on the other wing of the hotel. There was a man walking out and up toward the cocktail garden. I could not make out whether he was old or young.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Who?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know or I wouldn’t be asking.” The toast popped about a mile high and my mother slapped it down and started trimming off the crust as she looked off more or less in the direction of the back door. “I don’t see anyone.”

  “Not now you don’t. It’s a fellow in shirtsleeves who came out and walked up the back. He’s light-haired.”

  “Oh, that’s Ralph.” She arranged the sliced egg on the toast and reached for the cheese sauce.

  Oh, that’s Ralph? As if “Ralph” had been her sous chef for years, in addition to managing the books and making martinis. “Well? Who’s Ralph?” I had the small canister of pepper ready, holding it below the counter. I had the paprika in my other hand up on the counter. “I’ve never come across any Ralph around here.”

  “Ralph Diggs. He calls himself ‘Rafe.’ That’s the way the English pronounce Ralph. To rhyme with ‘safe.’” She poured the cheese sauce and I held up the paprika, showily. “I can’t say I care for him much.”

  Although I was nearly drowning in impatience, I managed to give the cayenne pepper several shakes over the sauce when my mother turned her back. As she turned around I placed the innocent paprika on the counter. “Well, I probably wouldn’t care for him either if I knew who he was. Who is he?”

  “Mrs. Davidow hired him to carry bags and help out generally.”

  “But Will’s the bag carrier, the bellhop. Will is.” In case she’d forgotten her son and his hotel role.

  “Will’s just too busy with his theater work.” She shook a cigarette loose from a pack of Kools and lit it and said, “Take the lunch in before it gets cold.”

  I ignored this. “His theater work? Well, what about my newspaper work? Why don’t you hire someone to take my place in the dining room?”

  “You’re indispensable.” She smiled through the smoke, insincerely.

  I smiled back, insincerely. “Why is anyone needed to carry bags, anyway? We hardly get that many guests, and most of them carry their own bags.”

  “Will’s not let off completely. He’s to be hotel concierge. In case guests have questions.”

  Concierge? Will? “The only question he can answer is, ‘where is the Big Garage?’ Where did he come from, this Ralph? We haven’t hired anybody new in years.”

  My mother merely looked grimly at the plate still sitting on the tray. “Lunch.”

  Angrily, I hoisted the tray, marched it into the dining room, and placed the cayenne-peppered-up rarebit in front of Miss Bertha. I walked over to a window to stare out and brood.

  I was so irritated by Will’s being let off his hotel duties, especially by this brand-new Ralph-Rafe person, that I hardly noticed when Miss Bertha cried out, “Water! Water!”

  Let her burn.

  13

  I was out of the dining room and out the side door, hot on the trail of Ralph Diggs.

  As he was no longer in sight in the back, I could only guess he might have gone to the Big Garage to get tips on bellhopping from the Hotel Paradise concierge.

  Unfortunately for Ralph or Rafe, Will’s real work was “charm,” charming the guests, especially if there was trouble.

  Like a few weeks ago, when he’d wanted another kid to join the Hummers in the production of Medea, the Musical. He’d discovered this little girl wandering around the croquet court with a mallet, not knowing where she was or, possibly, who she was. So Will had hauled her up to the Big Garage, not mindful (or at least not caring) that her parents would be anxiously searching for her.

  It turned out that her name was Bessie, and she’d been “missing for hours.” Will and Mill were brought to the front desk with Bessie in tow. The parents were white-faced. Did Will apologize? Of course not. He sidestepped the entire issue by telli
ng Bessie’s mom and dad what a marvelous stage presence she had and how she had a real future in the theater. This was all delivered with a million smiles. Since Bessie, who was only four, had about as much stage presence as Paul, the wonder was how the parents swallowed all of this malarkey.

  Charm, charm, charm, that’s all.

  It really irritated me. Will had it and I didn’t. I was the one who worked; I was the one who deserved it; I was the one who almost got murdered.

  As I crunched along the gravel up to the Big Garage, I noticed a black Chevy coupe parked up on the verge. I didn’t think we had any guests coming today, which was not an unusual event, and wondered whose it was.

  I was astounded to find the garage door open. Open. It was like finding the pearly gates unattended by Saint Peter so that any screw-ball could just walk in. Back there in the shadows were Will, Mill, and the fellow I supposed was Ralph Diggs.

  Ralph was years older than Will and Mill, so no longer in his teens. Some girls I guess would find him “cute”: he had curly blond hair and a straight nose and hazel eyes. He was taller than Will.

  When we were introduced, he as “Rafe,” me as “Emma” (my name resistant to a fancy pronunciation), I said, “Ralph, isn’t it?”

  His smile was lopsided and he gave me a splintered look, as if the irises had broken up into tiny shards of green, blue, and brown.

  Will answered for him. Apparently Ralph Diggs was not to be put to a lot of bother answering questions. “Rafe’s taking over for me as front man,” said Will.

  That was a good description of either of them, I thought, having the strong ring of dishonesty and deceit. “Oh? Where are you going?”

  “Don’t be dumb. Nowhere. I’ll be the hotel concierge. You know, helping guests with problems and questions.”

  “They’ll have to come to the Big Garage to ask them.”

  Will just rolled his eyes. Ralph kept up that smile that I decided was pretty cold.

  “What things? Aside from carrying bags only occasionally, you don’t do anything. Did Mrs. Davidow outline your job? Ralph?”