Death at Charity's Point

by William G. Tapply

  He stared at me for a moment, then turned his head to look out the window.

  “Mr. Elliott…?”

  “Actually,” he said slowly, “there is something. It’s—let’s see, it’s ten after five now. I will need to be gone until, oh, say quarter of six. Yes. It’ll take at least that long. I certainly couldn’t be back before then. I trust you can make yourself comfortable in my office until then. I do have some magazines you can read.”

  “And your files—they’re locked, of course. Very secure, safe.”

  “Oh, of course. Securely locked. The keys, they’re in the top drawer of my desk—yes, very secure.” He pushed himself back from his desk and stood up. He hunched his shoulders into his jacket and moved toward the door. “You make yourself comfortable, Mr. Coyne. I’ll just close the door, here, and be back in half an hour or so.”

  The door clicked behind him.

  I didn’t move, at first. I smoked a Winston and stared at the green steel cabinets. Then I reluctantly stubbed out the butt and slid open the top drawer of Bartley Elliott’s desk.

  The two keys were there, where he said they’d be.

  When Elliott returned, he found me sitting in the same place I had been when he left. I was smoking a Winston and flipping through his copy of The Modern Administrator and the Independent School. Fascinating stuff.

  He closed the door behind him with a sigh. “Hope you made yourself at home, Mr. Coyne.”

  “Yes. Yes, I did. Thank you.”

  “Sorry to waste your time like that, running off in the middle of our interview. I know how busy you must be.”

  Elliott’s eyebrows and mouth twitched violently, as if he were fighting the urge to sneeze.

  “Not a waste at all,” I said. “On the contrary.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  We shook hands and I walked out of his office. I kept the radio in my car turned off during the ride home. I had a lot of thinking to do.

  I stopped for a Whopper, small fries, and strawberry shake at the Burger King down the street from my apartment. When I came out with the bag in my hand, I remembered I had some stuff to pick up at the dry cleaner’s. It was located just down the street.

  The girl who worked there, Molly, was a high school drop-out with a baby at home. She lived with her mother in one of the projects. She had received a little too much help with her algebra from one of her mother’s boyfriends one night, hence the child, which she insisted on having and keeping. Her mother worked nights, Molly worked days, and between them they managed, although I didn’t like the dull bruises around Molly’s cheeks and jaw I sometimes saw, which her makeup failed to hide.

  I had offered her legal services when the owner of the dry cleaning shop told me of her plight. I told her about her options, the legal aspects of abortion, the possibility of prosecuting her child’s father, child support payments, welfare, alternative ways of earning her high school diploma.

  There she was, sixteen, pregnant, handing out clean suits to people for eight hours a day, six days a week, shaking her head, smiling, and saying, “No. No thank you. I can manage.”

  So I made it a point to patronize the place regularly. I stopped in weekly. I took better care of my clothes because of Molly than I otherwise would have.

  “How’s the kid, Molly?” I asked as I entered the tiny shop.

  “Oh, he’s terrific, Mr. Coyne. Two big teeth. Right on the bottom.” Molly smiled beautifully. I hoped she’d continue to smile as the years passed. If she did, she’d have defied all the statistics.

  She found the sports jackets I had left earlier. They were shrouded in clear plastic envelopes. She hung them on a hook beside her, unclipped the bill from where it had been pinned, and toted it up on the cash register.

  “That’s seven-fifty, Mr. Coyne. Oh, and you left something in one of the jackets.” She reached under the counter and brought up a small notebook. “You should be more careful. These things can get lost real easy, you know.”

  I took it from her. I frowned. I started to tell her that it wasn’t mine. Then I remembered. It was George Gresham’s. I had slipped it into my jacket pocket the day Florence and I had cleaned out George’s room. I flipped through it. Professional acquaintances, Florence had said. Former students. University professors. Publishers, editors. People at Ruggles. On the last page I saw the list of numbers. I stared at them. What was it we had decided? Safe deposit box numbers? But that didn’t fit George, Florence had said.

  “Mr. Coyne? Your change?”

  “Oh. Thanks, Molly.” I slipped the address book into my pocket.

  “Don’t leave it there, now, Mr. Coyne,” said Molly.

  I patted the little book where it rested against my chest. “I won’t. Not this time,” I said.

  With my sports jackets hung on my forefinger and my sack from Burger King in my other hand, I shouldered my way out of the store. I decided to do some more thinking when I got home.

  CHAPTER 16

  I TOOK RINA TO a restaurant I knew in Gloucester Harbor. The dining room is a veranda on stilts that sits out over the water. We were led to a corner table. Japanese lanterns provided a dull, orange light under a big canvas canopy. Waves lapped quietly at the pilings under us. The rich, not entirely unpleasant aroma of low tide drifted up to us. From somewhere out beyond the harbor a bell buoy clanged in slow rhythm, and an occasional sailboat chugged by under power, sails furled, running lights dancing on the quiet water. In the summer season this place would have been mobbed, but on a Friday evening in May the veranda was virtually deserted.

  Rina sipped a glass of Chablis and I nursed an Old Fashioned. We both stared out over the tranquil harbor and the purpling sky.

  “It’s pretty here,” she said once, breaking the silence between us.

  I nodded and smiled, and we lapsed again into silence.

  A tuna-rigged party boat crept past us, its powerful engines burbling softly. We could hear the voices of the fishermen float over the water toward us, harsh male sounds. Beer and fish guts and sunburn and bristling chins.

  We both had the baked stuffed filet of sole. We sipped our wine and ate without talking, watching the lights out over the harbor. We agreed the stuffing was a bit too heavy on the breadcrumbs.

  Afterward we wandered aimlessly through the streets of Gloucester Harbor, peering into the windows of the closed shops and walking out on the piers to examine the boats. Rina fumbled for my hand. We found a tiny courtyard at the end of a narrow alley. It was paved with brick. A high, stone wall bordered one side, with potted geraniums and petunias lined up along the bottom and Virginia Creeper draped from the top. We sat on a wooden bench by the wall. To our right the alley opened up to the harbor. Across the narrow patio from where we sat were three tiny art galleries with glass fronts, closed for business. But the paintings inside remained lit by dim spotlights on the floor and ceiling. Our bench, I realized, was intended to provide a place for serious study of the artwork.

  One of the artists specialized in surf, one in clowns, and one in yellow and blue and green globs apparently thrown randomly at the canvas from some distance. Rina said she liked the globs best.

  She sat close to me, her hands folded in her lap, her cheek on my shoulder. I leaned over and parted the short hair at the back of her neck to kiss her. She bowed her head and mumbled something I didn’t understand.

  I sat back and lifted her chin with my forefinger. “What’d you say?”

  “I said, don’t stop.” She stood up. “Let’s hie ourselves to the beach.”

  Rina was quiet in the car beside me. Once I felt her hand touch my leg. It fluttered there for a moment, then moved away. She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. She smiled, her lips parted. On the radio the Beatles were singing “Here Comes the Sun.” Rina hummed along in the back of her throat.

  The orange, three-quarter moon hung low over the horizon as we walked barefoot in its glow along North Cove Beach. At the end hulked Charity’s Po
int from where the crash of surf rolled over the quiet cove toward us.

  I spread the blanket on the sand, then reached out both of my hands to her. She took them in hers and we stood under the night sky at North Cove Beach exploring each other’s faces.

  “My lord…?”

  I urged her close to me. She came into my arms with a little gasp. Both of her arms went around my chest, her hands flat against my back, holding me close to her. I sniffed deeply in her hair. She burrowed her face against my chest.

  I grasped her shoulders and pushed her gently away. She stood facing me, her head cocked to one side, a little frown playing around her eyes. My fingers moved to the buttons of her blouse. Her arms hung at her sides. I stared into her eyes as I moved down, button by button. She shrugged her shoulders, eyes solemn, and I slid the blouse off her arms and dropped it. I reached behind her and found the little hook. I cupped both of her breasts in my hands and rolled my thumbs over her hardening nipples, and she said, “Oh, good sir…”

  I reached for the waist of her skirt. She touched my hands and said, “Let me.”

  I felt a sudden rush of unbidden anger. I shook away her touch. “No!” I said in a harsh whisper. Her eyes questioned me, but she let her hands fall. I fumbled roughly for the zipper at her hip, tore it open, and tugged her skirt down over her roundness. She stepped out of it with touching grace, her eyes still wondering. I hooked the band of her silky, pale panties at either side and yanked hard. I heard the elastic give. I knelt and pulled them down.

  When I stood up Rina seemed to have shrunk from me. One arm was raised across her chest in childlike modesty. The other she held half bent toward me, palm raised.

  I began to unbutton my shirt, my eyes fixed on hers. She reached to help me. I pulled back from her, and she sank to her knees on the blanket. I threw my clothes into a pile on the sand, then dropped beside her. Her legs were tucked under her as she sat on her heels. Her head was bowed, and she had folded her hands in her naked lap. She looked like a seventh grader at dancing school waiting demurely to be asked to waltz. Except she had no clothes on, and her pale body glowed in the moonlight. And the ripe maturity of her could never be mistaken for a seventh grader’s.

  When I reached for her she came hard against me, a cry in the back of her throat. I forced her onto her back and rolled onto her, my legs pinning hers. I heard a grunt of protest or surprise, and I silenced it with a hard kiss. My teeth cracked against hers and cut into her lower lip. I could taste her salty blood. I held her arms down with my hands and forced her legs apart with my knees. I moved against her, and when I entered her she cried “Oh!” and when I exploded inside of her I could feel her body shrivel and withdraw from me.

  Her hands moved aimlessly on my back, her fingers wandering, feeling for answers. I lay heavily atop her for a moment, trying to regain control of my breathing. I found that my anger, my unreasoning urge to hurt her, had seeped out of me, and all that was left was an empty, tender, lonely despair. I rolled off her and stared at the sky. She drew away from me, and I sensed that she might be crying. I moved up onto one elbow and looked down at her. She was lying on her side, her back to me. Tentatively, I reached to trace the curve of her hip. Her left hip. I bent to her, my lips pretending kisses as I looked.

  The mantis prayed there. It was etched clearly in the moonlight. As I knew it would be.

  She rolled toward me. Her wet face caught the rays of the moon. Her eyes glittered. She reached one hand timidly toward me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Fie,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”

  I lit a cigarette. She lay flat on her back, her eyes closed, her breasts rising and sinking in rhythm with her breathing. I watched her for a moment, filled with an ineffable sadness. My mind flashed images, like a high-speed slide show. Pipe bombs exploding. A body tumbling through the misty night air. Florence Gresham’s sagging face. Harvey Willard’s blind, staring eyes and gaping mouth. George on a chrome table. The bottom half of Melissa Cashen. A praying mantis snapping the head off its mate.

  I bent and touched Rina’s forehead with my lips, then turned to stare at the sea.

  Her hand touched my back, fingers soft, hesitant.

  “What’s the matter? What’s happened?”

  “Shh,” I said. “Nothing.”

  The receding tide left a splashy white line where the tiny waves broke against the sand. The film of sea water at the water line shone like glass. I felt Rina sit up and move her shoulder against mine.

  “Want to swim?”

  “No,” I said. “I want to walk.”

  She stood wordlessly and gathered up her clothing. We dressed quickly, not looking at each other, and, carrying our shoes, we began to walk along the hard-packed sand toward Charity’s Point. When we got to the rocky part we stopped and slipped on our shoes. The moon, low in the east, lighted our way. The climb was easy. Once atop the great rock, the angry attack of the surf far below sounded clearly in our ears.

  We sat. I smoked another cigarette. We didn’t touch. I snapped my butt over the edge. George Gresham’s route. I began to speak without looking at her.

  “Carla,” I said. “Carla Steinholtz.”

  “So that’s it.”

  I turned to look at her. A smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Yes. That’s it. You find it amusing?”

  She shrugged. “So. My little secret’s out.”

  “It’s been out for some time, hasn’t it? George? Harvey? They found out, too, didn’t they?”

  She nodded and looked straight into my eyes. “Yes.”

  I forced myself to break away from her stare. I walked to the rim of the great rock at the tip of Charity’s Point and stared down into the boiling surf below. I saw George Gresham cartwheeling down, and the rocks and water rising up to smash him, and George tossing and twisting, gulping in sea water, grasping for the moss that grew on the rocks, puking into his own lungs, gagging, and the lights flashing their last in his brain before his heart trilled and died. And then Harvey, in an agony of surprise at the sudden explosion of pain, open-mouthed, gasping, eyes wide, as his pulse galloped out of control and his nerves short-circuited in his brain.

  Rina’s fingers. They had traced the outlines of the tight muscles of my shoulders, held my face still so it could be kissed, flitted and fluttered like butterflies around my eyes. They had struck adder-quick into the soft larynx of Harvey Willard.

  And her feet, those sand-walking, surf-kicking path-climbing instruments of ball-crushing, pain-screaming horror.

  She was standing close to me. I felt her hand tentatively touch my shoulder. I shook it away.

  “My lord…”

  “Come on, Rina,” I said wearily. “Don’t Shakespeare me.

  “How did you know?”

  My laugh sounded harsh to my ears. “How did I know?” I turned to look at her. “Sabrina. That’s the name you chose. Rina from Sabrina. Obviously. Sabrina, who saves maidens from drowning in the river Severn. Still the Sewing Circle. You never gave it up, did you?”

  She was shaking her head. “You don’t…”

  “See, it was your initials. S. P. Not for ‘spelling’ at all. S. P. Sabrina Prescott. George told me. On Harvey’s paper. He found you out. He put it all together. Then what? Did you become his lover, so you could get close to him, learn what he knew, until you got the chance to get rid of him? And Harvey—what, the same thing? Were you Harvey’s lover too, for God’s sake, so you’d know when he knew? And me, too. That’s what you did to me, wasn’t it? It took me a while to figure it out. When I was in George’s room. Suddenly, there you were. Checking up. To see what I knew. And after I went back to the school to see Harvey, that must have worried you. Enough to kill him.”

  I walked away from her, away from the edge of the precipice. She followed me. “So what exactly do you think, then?” she said. Her voice was soft, calm.

  “Think? I think you killed them. Both of them. George and Harvey.”

&n
bsp; “I killed George and Harvey? You actually think that I…?”

  “Yeah. That’s what I think.”

  Her laugh startled me. It was a clear, genuine, guiltless, little girl’s laugh.

  “Jesus,” I said. “You’re crazy. Now I understand.”

  “No,” she said. “No, you don’t. I’m not crazy.” She was shaking her head, still smiling. “You’ve got it wrong, sire.”

  “I think I’ve got it right, Rina.”

  She cocked her head at me and shrugged elaborately. “Okay, then. So now what?” she said.

  “Now I’ve got to take you in.”

  Her mouth twisted, transforming her smile into a scornful sneer. “Take me in. Yeah. The lawyer and his justice. Right.” She studied me for a moment. “I could have loved you. You know that?”

  “You can’t bribe me,” I said. I started to reach for her. “Come on, Rina.” She stepped back beyond my grasp. “For Christ’s sake, come on, now.”

  I suddenly sensed the other presence up there atop Charity’s Point, and my body tensed an instant before my knee cracked and the pain burst behind my eyes. A scream stuck in my throat. As I began to topple forward I saw Rina looking calmly at me. Her hands were on her hips, her legs spread apart, as if she were a mother staring her loving disapproval at her misbehaving child.

  A hand grabbed my shoulder and pivoted me around. And then my head exploded, a new and different pain that spread upward from a sharp spike on my jaw to my eye sockets and my ears and the middle of my brain where the deepest pain lives. I felt myself lifted softly on a sweet red cloud, spinning, turning, drifting. I was a feather, rising on warm currents of air through a foggy twilight. And then, abruptly, I plummeted. The ground zoomed up to me and smashed itself against me, and I tumbled into a spinning emptiness.

  I felt hands on my body. The thunder of surf below me seemed to fill my brain. Someone held me under my arms. As my body was lifted, I heard a scream. It was my own. I was being dragged. I knew in a moment I would tumble over the edge of the cliff to my death, and my pain and fear paralyzed me. I felt the sharp edges of the ledge under my back scraping me.