Who Killed Mr. Garland's Mistress?

by Forrest, Richard;

  “Quicker—cuts out the middleman.”

  “Will?”

  “Hmm.”

  “If you were going to kill someone, how’d you do it?”

  “Like Helen Fraser for instance?”

  “For instance.”

  “I’d screw her to death with a bottle of booze.”

  “Seriously … well, half-seriously.”

  He lay back in bed and contemplated the ceiling for a moment. “You know, I’ve covered a lot of murder, manslaughter and aggravated assault cases. Eighty percent of the cases involve one family member trying to do in another, the other twenty percent are robberies. In robbery, it’s usually the handgun; in family fights, I’ve heard of everything from garden shears to dynamite. Still, guns seem to lead the popularity contest. I guess I’d take a gun.”

  “Guns are hard to get and can be traced.”

  “Handguns are hard to get in this state for everyone but the guy who wants to knock over a liquor store. Anyway, too unreliable. Now, a shotgun is easily obtainable, no ballistics evidence, and at ten feet you could hardly miss. Forget it, Missy. It’s not your cup of tea. You’d have to beat her to death with a volume of Robert Browning.”

  “Not heavy enough.”

  He laughed. “Hey, what time do you have to be home?”

  “Anytime. Rob’s away on a business trip and my mother’s with the children. I’m covered.”

  “You’re becoming a real pro.”

  “Did you know that I made it?”

  “Delightful.” He half-drained his glass.

  “Listen to me. I mean really made it. For the first time.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No.”

  “Bet you say that to all your lovers, Baby. You aren’t thinking of cleaning up the place, are you?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “That’s good. When the broads start the mother bit—picking the butts off the floor, I’m in for trouble … that’s when they go.”

  “It’s a fine pigpen. I love to wallow here, but I wouldn’t want to live here.”

  He reached over and began to fondle her breast. She felt warmth between her thighs as her nipples hardened. “I like your breasts,” he said.

  “They’re too small. I’ve always been self-conscious about them.”

  “Maybe that’s why you never made it. How many lovers have you had?”

  “Well now, let’s see. You, my husband, my father, and the third battalion of the U.S. Marines.”

  “Cut the shit. How many? I need research for my book.”

  “What book?”

  “The one about you. I’ve already got the title, ‘The Lady’s Not for Screwing.’”

  “From you that’s practically a compliment.”

  “How many?”

  “Seriously?”

  “No, not seriously. I always babble like this.”

  “All right. You, my husband, and the first time.”

  “Tell me about the first time.”

  “It was lousy. I was twenty-two years old and had never been screwed. He was in my class, we were both seniors, and we made it on the back seat of his car. It was crummy.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Believe it or not, no one had ever asked me before that.”

  “You were hardly the aggressive type.”

  “Hardly. And you—do you always rape your conquests?”

  “You were hardly raped tonight.”

  “Is that right?” she said. Her hands began to move across his body, over his chest and stomach, and down across his thighs. “Tell me.”

  “I’m the breaking horse of the newspaper. All new girl reporters, secretaries, anything under fifty and below 300 pounds, is exposed to Will Haversham. After their initiation they’re thrown into the pool of general consumption.”

  “How romantic.”

  She bent over his thighs and her mouth closed over him. His hands gently caressed the back of her head as she began to move over him. He groaned and she increased the tempo.

  “Christ, that’s good,” he said.

  She looked up at him. “This is the whore in me; maybe you’d prefer the woman in white gloves.”

  “Screw the gloves, don’t stop.”

  “Do something for me?”

  “Anything, come on, will you?”

  She bent over him again for a few moments and then lifted her head. “Find Helen for me, Will. Find Helen as soon as you can.”

  Oliver and Tavie were having tea in her living room. She felt that somehow Oliver was out of place here, that he didn’t really exist except in the confines of his own study. Even now, as he sat in Rob’s easy chair, he seemed somewhat uncomfortable, as if the room were more attuned to Rob’s laughter than Oliver’s contemplative moods.

  “Thank you so much for coming, Oliver.”

  “I’ve been worrying about you, Octavia.”

  “I’m fine, really I am. They’ve got my psyche straightened out and everything put back together.”

  “Good, I’m glad.”

  He examined her and drank his tea slowly. To break the moment she got to her feet and started to the kitchen. “I’ll be right back,” she said. “I have something I want you to read.” In the kitchen she took her latest poem from the desk and returned to the living room.

  He put on his reading glasses and read the poem slowly. He seemed to go back and read it again. After finishing the poem a second time, Oliver looked over the rim of his glasses in a disapproving and professorial manner. “I can’t use this, Octavia. ‘Reflections from a Mad-house,’ that’s not your style.”

  “My recent experiences have changed me.”

  “The bent is disturbing.”

  “What do you mean by that, Oliver?”

  “It’s … it’s almost irrational. Your work has always been characterized by a clear and precise style. This … this is chaos. Disorderly, unclear, and chaotic.”

  “Don’t you sometimes think life is chaotic, Oliver? The best laid plans and all that sort of thing. There are too many variables—it’s hard to plan.”

  He took off his glasses and swung them slowly back and forth. “That’s what you and I have always tried to do, Octavia. We’ve tried to put an order into nature.”

  “That’s it, Oliver. We’ve tried to do it with words, with feelings, and all the time we’ve sat in our musty studies the world has swirled around outside.”

  Before he could answer, the phone rang, and her fingers lashed out to pick up the extension. “Hello,” she said.

  “Hanging in there,” Will said.

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “I’ve got my payment.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t need any more magazines.”

  “Cut the crap, Hon. I know where Helen is.”

  “If you insist, I’ll look at your list. Stop by tomorrow.” She hung up quickly and turned back to Oliver. “What I’m saying is that for my whole life I’ve been trodden on. Rob’s affair would never have happened, a lot of things would never have happened, if I hadn’t been such a dodo.”

  “You can’t rail out at the world to get what you want.”

  “You can stand up and fight for it.”

  “In some ways, not like a Helen, not like an animal.”

  Tavie looked out the window to see birds fluttering over their feeder. There must be a dozen varieties out there, she thought. In fact, last year they’d gotten a bird book and identified ten species. “You know,” she said to Oliver, “early this summer we took a cat to Maine with us. Every day, I swear, every single day, that cat came to the front door with a bird in its mouth. You’ve been up there, you remember how delightful it is to wake up in the morning with the birds on all the trees. That cat hadn’t been there a week before they were gone, those he didn’t get wouldn’t come near our house. We got rid of that cat, Oliver. And when he was gone the birds returned.”

  “Don’t carry that analogy too far, Octavia.”

  She laughed. “Of
course not, aren’t analogies always figurative?”

  He agreed with her, and she wondered if he knew she lied. By tomorrow she would know where Helen was, and now she knew how she was going to do it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The highway followed the river gorge with high hills to each side. Tavie drove easily and smoothly. The trees in northwest Connecticut were already beginning to turn to fall foliage. Although they were only a few miles from Hartford, they’d left the plains of the Connecticut River Valley and were now in the rolling foothills of the Berkshires.

  She glanced quickly at Will who sat with his arm around her shoulders. “How come I always have to drive?” she said.

  “To give me two free hands.”

  “Oh, really? Where are we going?”

  “We turn onto her road in a few more miles.” He put his hand under her shirt and began to massage her breast. “Christ, Tavie, don’t you ever wear a brassiere?”

  “Do you really think I need one? Now cut it out, I’m too old for groping in cars.”

  “Bullcrap. No grope, no directions.”

  “I swear to God, Will. I never met anyone more decadent.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

  “I said knock it off.” She hit him in the Adam’s apple with her elbow.

  “Hey, that hurt.”

  “It was meant to.”

  “You’re becoming a tough cookie.”

  “Survival.”

  “Why do you stay with him?” Will said.

  “Who?”

  “Your husband, stupid. Who else?”

  “Why shouldn’t I? We’ve been happily married for twelve years.”

  “I bet he’s screwed around the whole time.”

  “Just this once.” She began to wonder and to doubt Rob.

  “That you know of.”

  “What difference does it make to you?”

  “I’m always interested in the personal lives of my mistresses.”

  “I sleep with you only because you’re useful to me.”

  “I know, but you also like it.”

  “You’re a dirty old man.”

  “Dirty yes, old no.”

  She turned to look at him as he stared morosely out the window. He wasn’t a bad-looking man, she thought. In fact, he even seemed to be taking better care of his clothes, and this morning she’d found his apartment had been cleaned … His yearly cleaning, he’d quipped, but he looked a little sheepish.

  “Did you love your wife, Will?” she said.

  “Crap. There’s no such thing … except maybe for children. People like to screw and kids need parents, society created the rest of the fable.”

  “You can sleep with lots of people, why me?”

  “Because there’s no string with you. Young chicks eventually get the marriage syndrome.”

  “How do you know I won’t get hooked on sex and want to run away to Pango Pango?”

  “Turn to the right here,” he said. “It’s about two miles down the road. You’d be better off with me than that idiot you’re married to.”

  “You’ve never met him, how do you know he’s an idiot?”

  “Any guy who takes Helen over you is a jerk.”

  “I think you’re a romantic.”

  “Bullshit. Slow down, that’s the house on the right.”

  She slowed the car to thirty as they passed the house. The area was heavily wooded, and the next neighboring house was a quarter of a mile down the road. Will was thrown against the door as she noticed a logging road to the left and quickly swerved into it.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” he said.

  “Just wait.” The logging road ran parallel to the main road for a hundred yards before turning into the woods. She drove down the rutted path until opposite Helen’s house and stopped the car. At this point the trail was fifty feet from the road or a hundred feet from Helen’s house. The house could be partially seen through the underbrush.

  She examined every detail—it was a long low ranch house of common design. She imagined that the long room over the garage would be the living room; the room to the right with the large window, the kitchen; the breakfast nook overlooking the front lawn, and the bedroom past that down a rear hall.

  “All right, Hon. You’re here and there it is. Why don’t you knock on the door, maybe she’ll invite you in for tea?”

  “Are you sure it’s the house?”

  “Followed her here myself.”

  “The garage door is open and the car is gone. She’s not home.”

  “Too bad.” Will gently put his hand on her arm, his voice soft. “Cut it out, Tavie. Leave it be—forget it.”

  “Forget what?”

  “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not worth it.”

  “I just like to know where my adversary’s den is.”

  “Please, Tavie.”

  “Why should you care?”

  “I do.”

  He took her in his arms and kissed her softly. “Please.”

  “I didn’t know you knew the meaning of the word, Will.”

  “Shh.” He put his finger over her lips.

  “All right.” She started the car and backed down the logging road, and out onto the highway. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were …”

  He put his finger over her lips again. She began to drive faster, and as they passed Helen’s house she looked down at her watch to time the drive back. “It was interesting,” she said. “Now forgotten.”

  The day was warm until a chilling breeze racked the deck of the ferry as it pulled into the slip at Handle Island. As the gangplank was secured to the dock, a half-dozen passengers quickly disembarked, leaving only Tavie and a mailman aboard. The deck hand pulled the gangplank back on the deck, the ferry reversed its engine, and pulled into the bay channel.

  She moved forward to the bow, her hands clenched the cold steel of the sides. Wind rippled her hair as she saw the island trees already beginning to turn autumn colors. She heard a voice behind her.

  “Ruby Island, Lady?”

  She turned and nodded assent upwards to the pilothouse. The boat moved slowly over the short expanse of water to the small dock on Ruby Island. They passed over what must have been the spot where her runabout had capsized, and Tavie was amazed at how harmless the spot looked on this clear September day.

  Rob had heartily approved her day trip to the island to view the destruction of their house. She’d made quite an effort of convincing him how they could spend long winter evenings planning the rebuilding of their summer home. He seemed greatly relieved that she not only had this new interest, a healthy one, he thought, but also that she lacked her usual fear of making a trip alone.

  They both realized that due to costs and available material, they could not duplicate the Victorian house, but would have to rebuild it in a more modern vein. The ferry engine slowed and reversed as the boat slid gently broadside against the dock. Tavie went amidships as the gangway was pushed onto the dock. She had no sooner run down the gangway and turned to wave good-by than the ferry was heading back into the channel.

  There was a desolation about Ruby Island. All the houses were boarded or shuttered, and the small cove was empty of pleasure boats. A few of the smaller crafts were pulled high above the water line and tied securely to iron posts. She began the slow walk to their house.

  As she approached the site of their burned home she could see, from a distance, the chimney standing erect and alone. The lawn was covered with ash and small pieces of charred lumber, and the fireplace and chimney were the only remaining parts of the structure. At the house itself, scorched lumber lay in haphazard piles like a gigantic game of pick-up sticks. The total loss of the ruins did not even warrant a search for possessions, and she felt hate within her.

  It was unlikely that on a weekday during this time of the year that anyone would be on the island, but she had to make sure. The walk around the island took half an hour, and the well-shuttered homes attested t
o the lack of visitors.

  Her watch showed that it was a little after noon. She had three hours until the ferry returned. She walked to the Gorley cottage and up the porch steps. The window shutters were tightly closed and latched with pieces of wire, and both doors were locked. She unbent the wire from a front window and pushed the creaking shutters aside. The window was locked from the inside.

  She picked up a rock from the front yard and stood holding it in front of the window. A lifelong compunction against harming anyone’s personal property still held a strong instinctual sway within her. She took a deep breath and threw the rock.

  The noise of the breaking glass seemed to reverberate over the whole island. She had to remind herself that there was no one within miles to hear. She reached through the shattered window, undid the latch, pushed the window up, and stepped into the room.

  The dim interior was only slightly illuminated by thin lines of sunlight coming through the shuttered windows. She crossed the room, past the couch where she’d slept her last night there, and to the mantelpiece. What she wanted was over the mantel.

  She had to stand on a small stool to reach the rifle, and even then had some difficulty in getting it off the twin posts that held it on the chimney wall. Holding the rifle she stepped down and was surprised at the gun’s weight. She hadn’t realized they were so heavy.

  It took her twenty minutes to find the box of shells in the kitchen closet. Sitting on a chair next to the shattered window she held the rifle across her knees and placed the shells on the floor beside her feet. She had it—now what to do with it.

  She concentrated in order to recall all she’d ever seen or read about guns. Mr. Gorley had said that this was an older gun, but she knew he kept it in working condition. She could feel a thin layer of oil covering the metal parts and imagined it was there to keep it rust-free. The lever to the side must be the bolt. She pulled the bolt upward and back and saw that the mechanism slid back to reveal the chamber and bore.

  Gingerly she extracted a shell from the box and slid it into the chamber of the rifle. She pushed the bolt forward and down. The trigger was tense, the gun was loaded.

  She found two cans of Campbell’s tomato soup in the kitchen, and took them, the rifle, and shells with her as she climbed back out the window. Walking past the ruins again she entered the strawberry patch. She stepped off a hundred paces, set the two cans of soup on the path and retreated to the spot she had selected as a firing position.