Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes

by Marcia Muller

  Another reason to disbelieve Lis Benedict’s claim of innocence. “Okay, you found the ring in the box . . .”

  She nodded, staring at the flickering candle flames. “I took it downstairs to show my parents. I knew Cordy had been killed, although I wasn’t too clear on the details, and I realized the ring shouldn’t be in our attic. When Mama saw it . . . I’ll never forget her face.”

  “Describe her reaction.”

  “Shocked at first. Then she got really quiet, scared. Daddy made me take him upstairs and show him where I’d found the ring. When we came back down, Mama had shut herself in the kitchen, and . . . everybody else was whispering, looking funny.”

  Judy’s voice had risen to a childish pitch. The second time she called Lis “Mama,” I glanced at Jack. He’d notice the change, too: frown lines were etched between his brows. His eyes met mine, clearly uneasy.

  Judy, he’d once told me, had a tendency toward the melodramatic—not surprising, given that she’d been an actress. But this abrupt shift felt a bit eerie.

  “What happened then?” I asked, aware my own voice was unusually hushed.

  “Daddy was . . . He went into the kitchen and started shouting at Mama. I don’t remember what he said. Mama shouted back. And then he hit her. She screamed. He kept hitting her and she kept screaming until Dr. Eyestone and Dr. Sheridan went out there and made him stop. And then the police came.”

  “Who called them?”

  Her face grew very still; she seemed to be momentarily mesmerized by the candle flames. She drew a shuddering breath.

  Jack put his hand on hers shoulder. “Judy?”

  She shrugged his hand off. “My God,” she said, “I did. I called the police!”

  “Why?” I asked. “To protect your mother?”

  She shook her head, clearly confused. “I guess so, but I’d never done that before when my father beat her.

  “Did that happen often?”

  “When he drank. And he drank often.”

  Jack said, “You never told me any of that.”

  She pursed her lips in irritation. He noticed, drew back. I’d seen them behave this way a couple of times: she’d project emotional neediness; he’d become solicitous; then she’d seem to reach a saturation point and turn on him in annoyance, and he’d withdraw.

  Into the awkward silence, I said, “Had the drinking and physical abuse been going on long?”

  Judy didn’t reply immediately; she seemed to be trying to get her temper under control. “For as long as I can remember. My parents were married in ‘forty-three, when he was still in graduate school. He’d never done anything but go to school, and I think he felt trapped in the marriage. And in his job; he was the junior staff member at the Institute, and people stuck him with routine work. Plus he was good-looking and could be charming when he had to, so they were always using him for P.R. purposes.” She paused. “I guess he felt trapped by me, too. He sure got rid of me in a hurry when Mama was arrested.”

  She turned to Jack, lips curling down in a way that begged forgiveness for her earlier annoyance. “The reason I never mentioned the abuse to you is that I only remembered it recently. And I only remembered about calling the police right now.” She glanced at me. “Lately that’s been happening a lot. Lis will say something, or I’ll see something that reminds me of my childhood, and—bingo!—I’m right back in the past, and it’s all so clear.”

  I asked, “What else have you remembered?”

  “Nothing like this. Just the way a place looked or something a person said. I don’t know why it happens—or why it happened just now.”

  I looked at the candle flames, where she’d been staring as she spoke of that long-ago night. They flickered in a draft, colors shading from gold at their tips, through red and purple, to cobalt at their bases. “You were talking about Cordy’s ring. Maybe the amethyst in the flames triggered the memory.”

  “Maybe. But why so many years later?”

  “Lis is back in your life.”

  “She’s been in my life sine I turned twenty-one and got in touch with her in prison.”

  “But not on a day-to-day basis. Not living under the same roof.”

  “I guess that’s why.” He face fell into weary lines. She reached for Jack’s hand, entwined her fingers with his. He squeezed them comfortingly; the pattern was entering another cycle.

  After a bit she said, “My God, what else do you suppose I’m going to remember? What else did I do to my mother?”

  “You didn’t do anything,” he told her. “You were a child, not responsible.”

  I glanced at Rae, who was standing behind Judy’s chair, arms folded across her breasts. She wore the expression she gets when she wants to clear the air about something, but all she said was, “I think we could use an after-dinner drink.”

  Jack demurred, but the rest of us opted for sherry. When Rae had served it and sat back down, I asked Judy, “Do you recall how you felt about having to testify against your mother?”

  “Oddly enough, I wanted to—one more thing to feel guilty about. I was angry with her. Because she’d killed Cordy—or so I thought at the time—I’d lost everything.”

  “What happened to you after she was arrested?”

  “For about two weeks my father tried to hold things together. He hired a woman to come in and cook and be there when I got back from theater camp; he came home on time and didn’t drink so much. But then on July twenty-sixth—I remember the exact date because it was the day after the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm collided and everybody was talking about it—he came home . . . well, really plastered. He drank at the kitchen table most of the night until he passed out. And the next afternoon he sent me to stay with the Eyestones. They kept me for a couple of weeks, and then I went to a foster home. And except for a few short visits, I never saw my father again. I lost everything.”

  “What about your mother?” Rae asked. “Did you see her in jail?” Her voice held an edge of emotion; she herself had lost both parents at an early age and had been raised by a grandmother who made it plain she didn’t really want her.

  “A few times.”

  I asked, “What was her reaction to you testifying?”

  “She told me to do what I had to. To tell the truth and never regret it. Even at that time I thought that was strange. I knew if they convicted her, they would kill her.”

  “Have you talked about that since?”

  “All she’ll say is that she didn’t want to make it any harder on me than it already was. But doesn’t that sound kind of flimsy?”

  “Maybe not,” I said, thinking of my own mother. “Some parents can be very selfless where their children are concerned. Who did you first tell about the blood on your mother’s clothing? And when?”

  “Red stains, not blood. I don’t remember.”

  “And when did you first meet Joseph Stameroff?”

  “In the foster home, about a week after I went there, months before the trial. He came to talk with me and brought me a teddy bear. I told him I was too old for stuffed animals, and he said nobody was too old for them, that sometimes you needed something to hug and tell you secrets to. He understood . . . a lot of things.”

  “Lis claims he and his wife tried to turn you against her.”

  Judy’s lips compressed. After a moment she said, “There’s a good deal Lis can’t comprehend about my relationship with my parents . . . adoptive parents.”

  Jack said gently, “But she has good reason to think he might have influenced you. He’s pressured you to have nothing to do with her all along, ever since you first contacted her in prison. He made it clear that he didn’t want her living in your house. And since he heard about the mock trial, he’s virtually badgered you, trying to talk you out of it.”

  She looked at him, face tense with anger. “How do you know about that?”

  “About his feelings about the trial? I can infer it, from things you’ve let slip. And he called me at the office last week, attemp
ting to apply pressure. He also phoned Lis today while you were out running errands—and it’s not the first time.”

  “He did? She told you that?”

  Jack nodded.

  Judy was silent for a moment. Finally she said, “Speaking of Lis, we ought to be getting back to her.”

  Jack didn’t seem surprised at the abrupt switch of subject. He merely checked his watch, said, “Jesus, it’s after midnight,” and stood up. As Judy rose, he asked me, “Will I be hearing from you before Monday?”

  “Possibly. Will you be available tomorrow?”

  “All day. I’m prepping for a trial on Tuesday.”

  “Then maybe I’ll stop by.” I followed them to the door and watched them walk down my narrow, congested street to where Jack had wedged his van. Then I went back inside and joined Rae by the fire.

  Immediately she said, “Don’t ask me to take it on.”

  “I ... How’d you know?”

  “You’ve been trying to hook me since last night. ‘Rae, listen to this! Rae, this case would be such a challenge!’” Her imitation of my rather transparent efforts was unflatteringly accurate.

  “Pretty obvious, wasn’t I?”

  “You should never try to manipulate people. You’re just not very good at it.”

  “And you really don’t want to take this on?”

  “Not unless you order me to. My caseload, as you well know, is heavy. I don’t want to give our clients short shrift because of this . . . research project of Jack’s.”

  “You don’t approve of it?”

  “No, and probably not for the same reasons you don’t, but that’s my affair.” She poured us more sherry and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the fireplace. “What I don’t understand is why you’re considering it at all.”

  “Well, Jack’s really committed to it. And it could be a challenge. But there’s something that bothers me besides the obvious distasteful aspect. There’s too much emotion swirling around.”

  “You mean between Jack and Judy. And the mother and the adoptive father.”

  “And around the events of the case itself. Even in the trial transcript, I could feel it.”

  “You’ve never been one to back away from emotion.”

  “Maybe I’m learning.” Yesterday afternoon I’d told Jack that I’d gotten over the previous summer’s violent events and put them behind me, but that wasn’t entirely true. And there had been other violent events up at Tufa Lake last fall that had left me newly scarred and tender.

  The truth was, I didn’t want to become involved in yet another case that would make me care; all too often when that happened, people around me got hurt. I’d already felt the pull of his case, in spite of the elapsed decades and the dryness of the court documents, and that made me distinctly uneasy. If I could be sucked in by events so many years in the past, how would I ever be safe from those of the present?

  But I couldn’t explain that to Rae, so I simply added, “Right now I’m not up to anything more than routine investigating.”

  “Isn’t that what historical research is?”

  I shrugged, stared at the dwindling flames in the fireplace. As they licked at the logs, the darker shades of the spectrum flickered: cobalt, emerald, amethyst, blood red . . .

  Blood red and amethyst. The color of murder, the color of memory. Perhaps the depths that harbored such memories as Judy’s were best left unplumbed. Or were they? Which was better—to probe them and risk the pain of unpleasant revelations? Or to keep the lid on and risk the spiritual infection that stems from repressed secrets?

  Similar questions, I realized, applied to my own life. Which was better—to tread a narrow middle ground on noninvolvement and remain safe? Or to let go, give myself to the investigation wholeheartedly, and risk the pain of unpleasant consequences?

  I kept on staring at the fire, feeling my emotional tie lines slacken. Their ends, already raveled, were disentwining, casting me adrift. Anxiety nibbled at me. I resisted, then I let it in. In time it would grow to a low-level fear that would constantly be with me and carry me through whatever lay ahead. Fear was my old companion—the only one, I’d recently had to acknowledge, that made me come fully alive.

  CHAPTER SIX

  On Sunday mornings the Mission district undergoes a brief transformation. Church bells toll. Cars double-park along Dolores Street near the Mission. Neatly dressed families, old women in hats, and workingmen in their only suits crowd the sidewalks after Mass. Children run to corner groceries for loaves of sourdough and thick newspapers; young couples push baby strollers and window-shop at the cheap furniture stores along Valencia. And for a few hours the Mission is once again an old-fashioned place where God’s laws are supreme and no sin is so bad that it can’t be forgiven in the confessional.

  In contrast, the interior of City Amusement Arcade seemed seedier than usual when I entered it at a little after eleven. Stale smoke clogged my nostrils, and the reek of Lysol wasn’t strong enough to mask a stench of vomit. The young men who hunched over the machines might have been the same ones who were there on Friday. Oblivious to their dismal surroundings, they focused on the flickering screens; when stimulated by the images, they responded—rats in an unsanitary laboratory maze. It occurred to me that, for most of them, manipulation of such electronic devices might be the only skill they’d ever acquire, conquering such nonhuman adversaries the only triumph they’d ever claim.

  Unfortunately Tony Nueva wasn’t among them. I hunted up the arcade’s manager, a one-armed Vietnam vet called Buck, and asked if he’d been in yet. He hadn’t, Buck told me. Tony had a “real foxy lady” and likes to take it easy on Sunday mornings, if I knew what he meant.

  I knew what he meant, and the thought of Tony lazing between the sheets while he still hadn’t delivered my information did nothing to improve my mood. But when I went back outside, I saw my informant getting out of a garishly painted low-rider at the curb. The young Latina at is wheel bore about as much resemblance to Buck’s figurative fox as a bedraggled fur boa does to the real animal.

  When he saw me, Tony frowned, then put on a nonchalant grin. “So, McCone,” he said, “what’s happening?”

  The greeting was too hearty. I eyed him thoughtfully. Today he wore a new-looking buttery suede shirt, and on his slender wrist was a silver watch with a turquoise-encrusted band. I’d never seen that watch before; he hadn’t worn it on Friday. And it was a sure thing he hadn’t bought it with my ten dollars.

  He saw me looking at the watch, and his grin faded. Quickly he adjusted his shirt cuff to cover it.

  “How come I haven’t heard from you?” I demanded.

  “Jesus, McCone! A beautiful morning like this. I just got laid and now you want to start on me?”

  “I want either information or my ten bucks.”

  “Look, just give me time.”

  “You’ve had time.”

  “I told you it might be tough to get a line on— “

  “Who’d you sell out to, Tony?”

  It was a guess, but an accurate one. His mouth twitched and his eyes darted from side to side, as if looking for a way out. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  His cuff had ridden up, exposing the watch again. “Somebody must have paid you pretty good money.” I said, motioning at it.

  He yanked at the cuff. “So, I make good money.”

  “By selling out to the highest bidder.”

  “Jesus, McCone!” He took out his wallet, extracted a ten, and thrust it toward me. “Here—you want your money, you take it.”

  That confirmed my suspicion: Tony had never parted willingly with even as small an amount as ten dollars before. I took the bill, said, “You know, you’ve got a pretty decent reputation among the people who use you. Something like this could blow it.”

  “That a threat?”

  “Call it a friendly warning.”

  “Well, you know what you can do with your warning, McCone.” He pushed past me and
slammed through the door to the arcade.

  . . . .

  I had a couple of errands to run in the neighborhood, so by the time I arrived at All Souls it was already ten to one. The Victorian held a sleepy Sunday-afternoon hush; flies buzzed in the front window bay, and the living room was warm and stuffy. I went directly to Jack’s combined office and living space at the rear of the second floor. The door was open, and papers were strewn on his worktable, but he wasn’t there.

  So much for preparing for the upcoming trial, I thought. A few months ago I would have assumed the good weather had lured him out to go rock climbing, but since he met Judy, he’d pretty much abandoned the dangerous sport. He’d only taken it up in order to keep his mind off his divorce, and I supposed that the injuries he’d sustained had taught him that there is worse pain that that of a broken heart.

  Back downstairs, I went to the law library and dragged out the various phone directories that Ted stores there. Some preliminary checking revealed no listings in the area for any of the witnesses at Lis Benedict’s trial. I noted the number and address of the Institute for North America Studies. Then I went back to Jack’s office; apparently he’d gone for the afternoon.

  Well, I didn’t need him to deliver to Lis Benedict the news of my decision to go ahead with the case. I could do that in person. I decided to walk up the hill to Wool Street.

  The residents of Bernal Heights were out in full force: cultivating their gardens, walking their dogs, playing ball with their children, chatting with their neighbors. I spotted one of our clients and stopped to admire his rosebushes; a woman Larry Koslowski occasionally dated was building a picket fence, and I paused to ask her how it was going. Wool Street was relatively deserted, although a friendly black cat bounded up and chattered at me. I talked back as I climbed to the middle of the block.

  My mellow mood soured when I saw the façade of Judy’s house. The whitewash the neighbor had applied only minimally covered the ugly words; they were faded to pink, but still easy to read. When I rang the bell, no one came to the door. I rang again and stood well back so anyone looking out the window could see who was there, but got no answer.