The Pariah (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “Mother?” As she said it, Gloria was squeezing her hand. Just as she’d squeezed Gloria’s hand when Gloria had been a child and her attention had wandered.

  “Yes—” Wearily, she knew, she returned the pressure.

  “Are you all right?”

  For a moment she didn’t reply. As she sat in silence, she realized that she, too, was staring at the bottle of vodka.

  Was the bottle still her friend?

  Or her enemy now?

  She must speak, must ask the question: “Where is he, Gloria? Where’s Elton?”

  “He’s at a funeral home, Mother. Paly’s Funeral Home.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “No, not at—” Gloria broke off, drew a short, agonized breath. “Not at the funeral home.”

  “You saw him at the morgue.”

  “I—I had to identify him, this morning.”

  “I want to see him.”

  “Mother, I—” Reaching out to grasp her other hand, holding both her hands now, Gloria was looking at her intently, her face anxiously drawn. “I don’t think you should see him so soon. I really don’t.”

  “I’d like you to go with me, Gloria. But if you won’t, I’ll go alone. I don’t want to see him with someone else, with strangers. I want to see him with you. Just with you.”

  “Let me talk to Dad. Maybe he can—”

  “No.” Doggedly, vehemently, she shook her head. Repeating: “No.”

  For a last long, silent moment they sat facing each other, hands clasped, eyes locked. Then, slowly, plainly reluctant, Gloria nodded. “All right. I’ll phone down for a car.”

  Consternation twisted the man’s primly pursed mouth, pinched at his nostrils, chilled his eyes.

  “The, ah, deceased isn’t really ready yet for viewing. We were told—we spoke to Mr. Flournoy, and we agreed—that nine o’clock this evening would be time enough.”

  Gloria turned to Marvella, took her elbow, guided her to an elaborately carved chair placed beside an elaborately carved table. The air was oppressive, heavy with the cloying fragrance of funereal flowers. A dirge was playing on the speaker system.

  When Marvella was seated, Gloria turned abruptly, beckoned for the man in the dark gray double-breasted suit to follow her as she walked into the hallway, out of earshot. She turned, spoke softly, intently:

  “What’s your name again?”

  “Sigler. William Sigler.”

  “Are you the manager here?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I am.”

  “Do you know who I am, who my mother is?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I do.” He was a tall man, expert at the dolorous role he played. But now, plainly, he was losing his place in the script, running out of lines.

  “Have you started to work on my brother’s body?”

  “Well, ah, yes, ma’am, we have. But it’s only six-thirty. And Mr. Flournoy and I agreed that—”

  “What I want you to do,” she said, “is get him ready for my mother to look at. I saw him at the morgue. I know the condition of his body. And I understand that—” She broke off, bit her lip. “I understand that his head is—damaged. But I want you to get him ready for my mother to look at. Now. Right now. He doesn’t have to be in a casket, and he doesn’t have to be dressed. You can drape him, like they did at the morgue. You can drape something over his head, his skull. And you can—”

  “Yes, ma’am. I understand what you’re saying. But my problem is, you see, that we’ll be delayed. And I promised Mr. Flournoy that—”

  She stepped close, spoke in a low, furious voice: “Mr. Flournoy works for my father. He’s an employee. Do you understand that, Mr. Sigler? Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “I—ah—”

  “The only promise you have to worry about is the promise I made my mother. Do you also understand that, Mr. Sigler?”

  Slowly, sadly, he nodded, resigned. “Yes, ma’am,” he answered. “I understand that.”

  “In here, ladies …” Sigler opened a carved oak door, stepped aside, gestured for them to enter a small, sparsely furnished, dimly lit room that smelled of something thick and sweet. A long table had been placed against the far wall. The table had been draped in black velvet. Except for the face, the body on the table was completely covered with white sheeting.

  “I’ll be in the office if you need me,” Sigler said, speaking to Gloria.

  “Thank you, Mr. Sigler. We appreciate this.” Gloria waited for her mother to enter the room, then closed the door. They stood side by side for a moment. With her eyes on her son’s face, Marvella placed her purse on a nearby chair. Then she stood motionless, hands clasped at her waist, as if she were on stage, waiting her cue to begin singing. Finally, one slow step at a time, she moved close, standing within a few feet of the body.

  Until now, she’d never seen it: the similarity between her daddy’s face and her son’s face. The shape of the forehead and the line of the jaw were the same. And their noses were similar, too, long and flat.

  But their eyes had been different. And the eyes were the windows of the soul, someone had written. Her daddy’s eyes had been lively; her son’s eyes had been lusterless—dead, before they died.

  Standing before her daddy’s coffin, staring at the dead face profiled against billows of white satin, she’d felt as empty as she felt now, just as helpless, just as lost.

  Both of them, murdered. Both of them with their skulls crushed, lying in their own blood—her father on the path that led across the fields to town, her son lying in an alleyway, a stranger in a strange city.

  Standing before her father’s casket, dry eyed, she’d felt her life lurch, begin to fall away.

  Now, looking down at her son, his body shrouded, she could feel her life ending. Finally, mercifully ending, leaving only the final riddle of death to be solved.

  “It was Mitchell,” she said. “I know it was Mitchell.”

  Standing in the shadows, a witness as well as a victim, Gloria tried to speak, tried to deny it.

  33

  STANDING IN THE CORRIDOR across from the elevators, the security man came to attention as the elevator stopped, the doors opened, and Gloria and Marvella stepped out. Nodding to the security man, Gloria moved with her mother to the door of Marvella’s room.

  “I want to spend some time with the children, Mother, then put them to bed. Are you all right?”

  Marvella nodded. “Yes, Gloria. Thank you.”

  “I’ll tell Susan to sit with you. Are you ready for tomorrow, for The Hour? Is your dress ready? A dark dress?”

  “Susan’s got it ready. She always does, you know. She’s very efficient. Always very efficient.” She spoke in a low, uninflected voice. Her eyes were far away.

  “After I’ve put the children to bed I’ll look in on you. Shall I?” As she spoke, Gloria tried Marvella’s door. The knob turned; the door swung partially open.

  “Where’s Austin?” Marvella asked. “Do you know?”

  “He’s with Herbert, I think, in the conference room. Harlan Collins is with them.”

  “The lawyer?”

  Gloria nodded. “Yes.”

  “But it’s too late for lawyers—too late for everything.”

  Facing Marvella, Gloria looked intently into her mother’s eyes. Should she call the doctor who’d been summoned from Los Angeles, her father’s personal doctor? Should she demand that her mother be sedated? Or would she sedate herself with vodka, as she did every night? Gloria touched her mother on the forearm, ventured a smile, pushed the door open wider. “Let’s go inside, Mother. I’ll call Susan. You should lie down, rest. I think I’ll call Dr. Piernan.”

  As she entered her sitting room, Marvella shook her head, sighed, sank onto the chaise longue, put her handbag on the floor. “No, don’t call the doctor. I don’t need a doctor.”

  “Then I’ll call Susan.” Still with her eyes on her mother’s face, searching for clues, she moved to the phone. “What’s her room number?

/>   “I don’t want Susan, Gloria.” As she said it, she allowed her eyes to close, allowed her head to sink back against the chaise. “I don’t want to see anyone but Austin.”

  “I’ll tell him, then. I’ll tell him you want to see him.”

  “No—” Slowly, as if the movement caused her pain, Marvella shook her head. “No, don’t tell him.”

  “Mother, I—I hate to leave you. But the children, they’re upset. I’ve got to see how they are.”

  “I’m all right, Gloria. Now that I’ve seen Elton, I’ll be all right. Thank you for going with me. It was hard for you, I know.” She spoke without opening her eyes, still lying motionless. In exhausted repose, with sunken eyes and mouth gone slack, the musculature of her face had shrunken on the bones beneath: a death’s-head, its beauty distended by despair.

  “I’ll come back after I’ve put the children to bed.”

  “Yes …”

  For a moment Gloria stood in silence beside the chaise. Then she bent over her mother, kissed her lightly on the forehead. The acknowledgment was a soft, sleepy sigh, nothing more. Gloria straightened, stood irresolutely for a moment before she went to the door. With her hand on the knob, she looked at the bar. The bottle of vodka was still unopened, its seal intact, its clear liquid reflecting the mirrored surfaces of the small bar. In the quiet room, the bottle was the third presence, the ultimate enigma.

  As the door clicked closed, Marvella opened her eyes. Her gaze was on the bar, on the bottle.

  Four steps, and a twist of the top, to break the seal. The ice cubes were in the tiny refrigerator, together with the tonic water and the limes. Or, if she chose, she could eliminate the tonic, and instead pour the vodka over the ice, and add a dash of bitters. She would return to the chaise, stretch out, lift the crystal glass to her lips, take the first swallow. Instantly, with that first swallow, the world beyond the room would begin to soften. The pain of the past would subside; only pleasurable memories would remain, suffusing her, bearing her back to those days of sunlight, those nights of limpid expectation, of forbidden ecstasy. Until finally sensation ceased, setting her free.

  But what of the body beneath the shroud?

  What of her father’s body, long ago returned to dust?

  What of their shattered skulls? Could vodka liberate her from the phantasms that followed upon these images, these terrible, terrible memories?

  They were dead, the two of them. Liberated, finally free, all sensation ceased, all torture stilled. Praise the Lord, Austin would intone tomorrow. And the echoes would come back: Praise the Lord.

  They were free, but she was still enslaved, still his prisoner. Until now, her nightly bottle of vodka had been enough to numb the pain.

  Until now, but no longer.

  If only death had liberated her father, and only death had liberated her son, then only death would liberate her, finally set her free, really free.

  Amen.

  Outside, in the corridor, one of the security men looked at her expectantly. His eyes were sympathetically solicitous, his voice soft: “Can I help you, Mrs. Holloway?”

  “Yes. I’ve got to get into my husband’s suite, to get some things. He’s not there. Do you have a passkey?”

  “I—ah—” Consternation shadowed his eyes, puckered his forehead. She knew what he was thinking, could calculate his dilemma. He needed Mitchell’s approval to open Austin’s door, even to her. And Mitchell was dead.

  “Do you have a key?”

  Slowly, reluctantly, he nodded. She nodded in return, then began walking toward her husband’s door. Behind her, the security man’s footsteps obediently followed. She heard the jingle of his keys, coming free from his pocket.

  Would he be blamed for what would happen, this nice young man with the sympathetic eyes, whose name she could never remember? She hoped not.

  Yes, it was there, as deadly as a snake: a blue-steeled snake, concealed beneath the socks and underwear. God, how she hated them, feared the guns they kept, both her father and her husband.

  Until now, she’d hated them. Until this very moment, when the cold steel pressed to her belly beneath her blouse produced an obscenely erotic thrill, a long-forgotten rush of forbidden excitement.

  34

  “WHAT WE SHOULD DO tonight,” Ann said, “is go out for dinner and then see a movie.” Seated beside Hastings on their living room sofa, she leaned forward, took a copy of the Sentinel from the coffee table, opened it to the entertainment section. “You have no idea how much good it’ll do you, to see a movie.”

  Hastings sighed, then nodded. “Fine.” He kept his gaze straight ahead, focused somewhere just beyond the room’s far wall. With the newspaper on her lap, Ann let a long moment of silence pass as she looked at him.

  “And over dinner,” she said finally, “you should tell me about it. Just this once. I know how you feel about bringing worries home from the office. But rules are meant to be broken. It’s a cliché, but it’s true. We should—”

  In the hallway, the phone rang.

  “Shall I get it?” she asked.

  Sighing again, Hastings rose, shaking his head. She watched him as he walked into the hallway. From the first, the first time they went out together for an Italian dinner in North Beach, she’d always liked to watch him move: gracefully, economically, confidently, quietly purposeful. And the movements, she’d later discovered, summarized the man. He was a quiet, purposeful man, more self-confident than most men his age and status, even though his early life had been difficult. Sometimes they talked about it: the ones he’d won, the ones he’d lost. “Some of us get blindsided,” he’d once said. “I guess that’s what happened to me when I was a teenager.”

  In the hallway, she heard him quietly talking on the phone. From the sound of his voice, from its cadence, she knew he was talking to Friedman.

  Blindsided …

  “When you think about it,” her father had once remarked, “you can sum up most people’s lives in a hundred words or less, just like you were entering a boxtop contest.”

  And Frank had once said something similar, telling her about his own life. He’d always been big for his age, and well coordinated. And that, he’d said, pretty much summed him up. Because athletics—football, especially—had been his whole life. Until one Sunday afternoon in Detroit when a defensive tackle had clipped him. The other team had been penalized—and he’d gone to the hospital with a ruined knee.

  He’d grown up in the “middle of the middle class.” His father had been a small-time real-estate broker who ran off with his “girl Friday.” Frank had been fourteen, and had just made the freshman football team at San Francisco’s Washington High. He’d come home from practice to find his mother sitting at the kitchen table, crying, clutching the note his father had left propped on the refrigerator.

  The week after Frank had been elected captain of the varsity football team, his father and his “girl Friday” had been killed in west Texas. It had been a one-car accident, in the wee hours. His father had been drunk, and had been three payments behind on the five-year-old Packard he’d been driving. When he heard about the accident, Frank had gone to his room, locked the door, and tried to cry.

  When he’d told Ann about it, she’d heard his voice thicken, seen his eyes glistening. And somehow she’d known that he’d never told anyone about it, about trying to cry when he’d heard his father had been killed.

  From the hallway, she heard his voice rising. Invariably, at some point in any conversation with Pete Friedman, his voice rose, an expression of that particular level of exasperation with which he expressed his essential fondness for Friedman. Women hugged each other. Men punched each other on the arm. Pete teased Frank, who obligingly bristled.

  From high school, he’d gone to Stanford, on a football scholarship. For Frank, the amiable clichés of the campus football hero hadn’t come true. His yardage-gained statistics were impressive, but he’d never been at ease among the sons and daughters of the rich, probably bec
ause he hadn’t been at ease with himself. His mother, during those years, had sold better dresses at Sears. And Frank had always—

  In the hallway, the sound of his voice had ceased; the phone rattled in its cradle. As he came into the living room, he was smiling: a small, quizzical smile.

  “If you think I’m suffering because of this Holloway thing,” he said, “you should talk to Pete. I’ve been working with him for twelve years. And I’ve never seen him so upset.”

  “Upset? Pete?”

  “Hard to believe, I know.” The smile widened and warmed as he sat beside her, moved closer. With their thighs touching, she felt a sexual quickening. And—yes—he felt it, too. His left arm was around her shoulders, drawing her to him. She turned, looked at him, smiled, then kissed him: a thoughtful, contented, companionable kiss. Answering, his mouth was open, inviting, exploring. His breathing was faster now. His right hand came to the small of her back, urging her body into full contact with his, both of them twisted on the couch. This was the beginning of the jokes passion could play: this straining together, half on the couch and half off, reclining but not reclining, both of them aroused: two awkward, inarticulate teenagers, making out on the living room sofa.

  So, together, they drew back, smiling into each other’s eyes, both of them breathing deeply.

  “Where’re the kids?” he asked.

  “Dan’s out on a date. And Billy’s with his father for the weekend.”

  “Then what would you think about me taking you into the bedroom?”

  “No dinner? No movie?”

  “The late show, maybe.”

  “Hmmm …”

  Lying on his back, staring up at the bedroom ceiling, Hastings drew a deep, drowsy breath. At ten o’clock on a warm September evening, with Ann sleeping contentedly beside him, the world was better than it had been only a few hours ago. Whatever else sex accomplished, the simple act of orgasm was a quick, effective means of reducing tensions, inducing sleep, putting the day into better perspective.