The Rainy Season

by James P. Blaylock

  “No, she didn’t,” Mrs. Darwin said. “And we’re not offering to buy it.”

  “Then I’m afraid I’m at a loss. Perhaps if you were to give me more information … ?”

  “I’ll explain. This young lady is my granddaughter. … Betsy, come up here, child. Don’t be afraid. This man will help us.” She turned back to Appleton. “The young woman who was in the store a moment ago, who rushed out, I believe, when she saw me, apparently has obtained the inkwell in question, I’m not sure how. It’s possible that she was given it by a man named Phil Ainsworth. Have you heard the name? I believe the two of them have some sort of … relationship.”

  “I’ve never heard of him. Ainsworth, you say?”

  “Well, I’m not accusing her of anything, mind you. I’m merely saying that the inkwell did not belong to Mr. Ainsworth. Betsy! Come up here now, child! And he had no right to give it away or sell it. It’s an heirloom, an object of great sentimental value, and I insist it be returned. Betsy!”

  Betsy walked back toward the counter. The old man smiled at her and nodded, and although Mrs. Darwin started talking again, he continued to stare at Betsy.

  “The woman apparently works for you,” Mrs. Darwin said. “You won’t deny that?” She rapped her hand on the counter again, as if to compel his attention.

  “No,” he said. “In fact she does work here. She won’t be back today, I’m afraid. If you could give me your telephone number, I’d be happy to call you if I learn anything about this. You said it was an inkwell?”

  “Yes, it was an inkwell. You know very well what it was. I’m just about out of patience, and I warn you that I’ll turn the matter over to the police if I don’t get any satisfaction here. I don’t care who you are, and I don’t care who she is. I suppose half the trash in this shop is stolen anyway.”

  Elizabeth appeared from the hallway then, looking bright and sunny. The old man jerked around, obviously surprised to hear her enter the room. “Is this what you’re looking for?” She held up the inkwell, her hand covered by a plastic glove.

  The old man gaped at her.

  “I wonder if that young lady has something of mine in her cloth bag,” Elizabeth said to Mrs. Darwin. “Mr. Ainsworth did in fact give me this inkwell.”

  “He did not” Betsy said.

  “Honey, your uncle and I are very close friends. He’s given me several gifts.” Elizabeth smiled at Mrs. Darwin now, who scowled back at her.

  “Huh-uh,” Betsy said. “He didn’t even know about it. I hid it in the hollow tree and you stole it.”

  “That’s a serious accusation, young lady.” Elizabeth cocked her head and waved a finger.

  “And I’ll bet it’s the truth, too,” Mrs. Darwin said. “I’ve taught Betsy not to lie, and by golly she doesn’t lie. So you took the inkwell out of the hollow tree!”

  “What the hell do you know about any hollow tree?” Elizabeth asked her.

  “I know something about the law …!”

  “And I’d like to see what’s in that book bag. Betsy found something yesterday in the water tower, didn’t you, Betsy? Something that’s been hidden there a long, long time. Something that Mr. Appleton wants very badly.”

  The old man cast Elizabeth another astonished glance, then stepped out from behind the counter, smiling obsequiously at Betsy. “Let’s have a quick look into the bag,” he said.

  Mrs. Darwin stepped in front of him. “Keep the bag tightly shut, child,” she said. “These people have no right to look into it. We’ll just take that inkwell. That’s all we want.”

  With no warning Elizabeth tossed the inkwell at her, and Mrs. Darwin caught it, gasped, and reeled backward. Elizabeth stepped forward and snatched at the book bag, simultaneously pushing Betsy on the shoulder, trying to wrench the bag out of her hand, but Betsy held onto it, gripping it by both handles, pushing the Pooh animals deeper inside.

  “Take the bag” Appleton said, but then there was the sound of the inkwell hitting the floor, and Mrs. Darwin hauled herself to her feet, leaning heavily against a small hutch full of glassware, which toppled over with a crash. She staggered into Elizabeth, as Betsy buried her hand in her book bag, reached down, and grabbed the inkwell off the floor, her hand covered with canvas fabric. She bolted for the front door.

  “You … fat … pig!” she heard Elizabeth shout, and then something else hit the floor. Betsy collided with the door, pushing right through it, out into the gloomy evening. She looked back, saw Appleton in the doorway, where he hesitated, saw Elizabeth and Mrs. Darwin behind him, pushing him on the back. It was raining now, and the sidewalk and street were wet, the sky dark. Betsy ran straight down the sidewalk, rounded a corner, clutching the bag to her chest. She knew she had to hide—from the old man, from Elizabeth, from Mrs. Darwin. All that talk about her living with Mrs. Darwin was a lie. Uncle Phil wouldn’t do that. …

  She crossed the street and ran into a parking lot, but the lot doubled back, onto the same street as the shop itself. Walking fast now, she moved in among parked cars behind some kind of car mechanics shop, looking around to see if anyone was watching her. The place was apparently closing up, though: there was only one man cleaning the floor inside the garage, and he didn’t look up. She hid behind a parked car and looked back down the street, immediately spotting what might be Mrs. Darwin’s white rental car, coming slowly along, traffic piled up behind her. Betsy waited as the car passed, turning right at the corner. It was Mrs. Darwin, looking for her. …

  Betsy waited until the car was far down the block, signaling for another turn, then followed in the same direction. There was an alley, halfway down the block, that led back in the direction of the plaza, and Betsy turned down it, past rickety fences covered in vines and shrubbery. It wasn’t raining hard, but she pulled her jacket up over her head to shelter herself. There was a street again, coming up ahead, empty of cars, no sign of any of them. She darted across, into another alley, this one leading between the high brick walls that were the backs of the downtown stores. She remembered that there was a telephone outside the drugstore where they had eaten. If she could get across the big street and around the plaza without being seen, she could try calling Uncle Phil. At least she could leave a message, and then find some place to wait.

  She kept close to the wall, which was dark and which partly hid her from the rain. The alley was short, only half a block long. Cars passed across the other end. She stopped suddenly and slid in behind a trash bin, crouching in among wooden pallets and cardboard boxes, staying still, listening. She had seen the old man. At least she thought it was him. Had he turned down the alley toward her?

  Betsy held her breath. There it was, the scuffle of feet, coming closer. She knelt on the ground and looked under the low trash bin. She could see his feet! He came closer, slowing down. She got ready to run, but he stopped next to the bin, where he stood unmoving. She leaned forward. She could run straight past him if she had to. No way he could catch her. When she got to the street she could just start screaming. … More footsteps—someone else was coming up the alley.

  “Where’s the woman?” the old man asked.

  “Gone.” It was Elizabeth’s voice. “She got into her car and drove away. I locked up and followed you.”

  “I wish you had been more subtle, Elizabeth. How could you be sure the girl had the crystal in her bag? Rushing at the girl like that has ruined an incredibly lucky beginning. The girl came to us! And now she’s slipped away because you couldn’t stop yourself.”

  “Look,” she said. “I’m sorry. I was fairly certain that she had the crystal, though. I have my reasons. How else were we going to get it besides take it? Offer her the money? Once we had it, she could hardly ask for it back. She knows it’s not hers, the little thief.”

  Betsy was glad that she hadn’t brought the crystal, that she had given it to Jen. Even if they did catch her, they wouldn’t get what they wanted.

  “Even so, next time think things through, Elizabeth. We should separate
now if we’re going to find her. You’ve got a cell phone. We can communicate.”

  There were footsteps now, the two of them walking away. Betsy waited, watching beneath the bin, then slipping out from behind it when the alley was clear in both directions. Which way to go? She walked back the way she’d come, following the old man instead of Elizabeth.

  She could always outrun the old man. She came out at the main street—Chapman Avenue again—which for the moment was empty of evening traffic. She darted across and down the block, another parking lot coming up. There was the smell of coffee and garbage in the air, and the rainy alley between the building ahead was entirely in shadow. She went into it, knowing that it would be dark night soon. She would find a phone, like she had thought of doing before.

  When she exited the alley, she was just a block up from the plaza, with its fountain and circling traffic. Street lamps blinked on one after another down the block. In that moment she saw Mrs. Darwin again, driving slowly around the traffic circle. Betsy stepped back into the shadows again, looking around her. There was a shop nearby with old toys in the window, still open, and without hesitating she went in, moving out of sight of the open door. She looked around and saw a woman reading behind the counter. The woman looked up at her and smiled. “You like Pooh things?” the woman asked, and Betsy was confused for the moment until she saw that the stuffed animals were visible in her bag. She nodded and walked toward the counter, which was stocked with old Disney toys and ceramics. For a time she pretended to look at the items under the glass, answering the woman’s questions with monosyllables, glancing now and then toward the window and door. She couldn’t stay there forever. …

  “Is there a pay phone?” she asked the woman abruptly.

  The woman told her that there was—right on the circle by the cafe, next to the newspaper vending machines. Betsy thanked her and went back out, searching among the few pedestrians for Elizabeth and the old man while digging in her coin pocket for change. There was no sight of them or of Mrs. Darwin. Across on the other side of the plaza she could see the old man’s shop now, the very door that she had run out of half an hour ago. She put a quarter and a dime into the slot, pushed the buttons on the box, and got a busy signal.

  51

  IT WAS NEARING six o'clock when Phil and Jen drove down the hill toward home. The rainy night was already dark, and he recalled what Mrs. Darwin had said about not wanting to drive home on a strange freeway after the sun went down. They would probably be back by now, he thought hopefully.

  He looked for Mrs. Darwin’s rental car in front of the house when they pulled in, but the yard and drive were empty. No lights had been turned on in the house. They hadn’t come home yet. Hell. … He tried not to make his anxiety too evident.

  “I can’t say anything about your Mrs. Darwin,” Jen told him, resuming the conversation they’d begun a moment ago, “but I can tell you that the inkwell belongs to Betsy if it belongs to anyone. Unless there’s two such inkwells, and I can assure you that there’s not.”

  “Why would someone like Mrs. Darwin want something like that?” Phil asked. “Something so … personal. If it’s what you say it is.”

  “Oh, it is what I say it is. I held it in my own hand.”

  “Is it valuable?” He considered what Jen was telling him. If Betsy had gotten the inkwell from Marianne, who had gotten it from their mother, then Mrs. Darwin had lied about it being hers. Marianne wouldn’t have given it away to Mrs. Darwin, not something as personal as that.

  I can’t say whether it’s valuable. Anything as curious as that must have some value. And frankly, from what I’ve seen today, people have come to place a value on some of the most surprising things. I don’t know that a woman would be primarily interested in the inkwell because of its value, though—not its monetary value. When I held it in my hand, I felt what May felt—the pain, the anticipation, the wonder of childbirth. All of it is there, and not in the abstract, either. It’s an actual living pain and joy.”

  “And you think that Betsy’s felt these same things?” Phil asked uneasily.

  “Almost certainly. Her mother had apparently gotten it from May. It had belonged to May, after all. It was her memory. There’s an incredible sorrow in it, too, that came from May knowing she would have to give the child up. They let May hold the baby for a moment, but it might have been kinder if they hadn’t.”

  “Well,” Phil said, “I’ll be damned. You’ve been in the house two days and you know these mysteries about Betsy and Marianne that I had no notion of. Betsy went straight to you with it instead of to me.”

  “Betsy knew I was a part of it. I was with May when she gave birth. Also, the mysteries of childbirth aren’t the sort of thing that men are entirely at home with. Betsy would have been naturally inclined to share it with a woman.”

  “Just as well, I guess. I wish I hadn’t doubted her, though. Mrs. Darwin seemed so sincere.”

  “I’m sure she is sincere, in her way. It’s full of strong emotion, childbirth is. Very profound. If your Mrs. Darwin is childless, as you say, I can easily imagine that the experience of childbirth would be a remarkably powerful attraction to her, especially if she covets Betsy as much as you say she does. If she knows about the inkwell at all, then I would assume she’s held it in her own hand. She’s had the experience of it, and that isn’t something that she would give up happily. She would want to keep it, and she could easily convince herself that Betsy shouldn’t have it.”

  Phil shut off the engine and got out of the car. He saw that the door of the mailbox at the top of the drive stood open, and he walked to it and pulled out the contents. Along with the junk mail and a couple of letters were a handful of crayon drawings, obviously done by a child. There was a small, framed picture of Betsy in among them. After only a moment’s confusion it struck him that these were the mementos that Mrs. Darwin had tried to give to him on the day he and Betsy had flown home from Austin, the stuff that he had refused to take.

  Troubled, he unlocked the house and went in, showing Jen the pictures and explaining what they were. He looked for a note among them, but couldn’t find anything. And then it dawned on him that perhaps there was no need for a note. What if the stuff in the mailbox was the message? What if Mrs. Darwin had made a trade? She had given to Phil what Phil had given to her, and she had taken from him what Phil had taken from her. …

  He saw now that the answering machine light was blinking, and immediately he recalled what she had said about calling to let him know if she had taken Betsy out to Costa Mesa. He was full of faint hope as he punched the message button. But it wasn’t from Mrs. Darwin; it was from George Benner in Austin. He had left his home number as well as his office number.

  Later, Phil thought. He found the telephone number of Mrs. Darwin’s alleged brother in his wallet, and called the number, waiting impatiently through four rings. A man answered. “Is this Bob Hansen?” Phil asked.

  “Who?”

  “Bob Hansen. I’m a friend of Hannah Darwin’s.”

  “There’s no Bob Hansen here, pal,” the man said. “What number did you want?”

  Phil recited the number. He had dialed correctly. It was a Costa Mesa number, but of course there was no Bob Hansen. Bob Hansen was a figment. His worst fears flooded in upon him. All day he had been pretending not to worry, and yet all day he had known that something wasn’t right. He hadn’t misjudged Mrs. Darwin at all; he had been dead right about her in Austin, but he had wanted to be fair about things. Betsy had been right about her, too, and even if he distrusted his own instincts, he shouldn’t have distrusted Betsy’s.

  But why, he wondered, hadn’t Betsy said anything? Because she had the inkwell. She had probably taken it from among Marianne’s things without asking permission. She had hidden it from him, from Mrs. Darwin, had brought it with her from Austin without saying anything about it, even after Phil had asked her. She was afraid of Phil’s knowing, afraid of his thinking that she had lied, that she had stolen it,
like Mrs. Darwin had said. He had botched things incredibly by simply letting things slide.

  He called Benner’s office number and got a recording, immediately hung up, and called his home number. The lawyer picked it up and Phil shut his eyes with anticipation. “This is Phil Ainsworth, calling from California,” he said.

  “Yeah, Phil,” Benner said. “You got a moment?”

  “Just. I’m a little worried about Betsy. I’m afraid I did a hell of a stupid thing, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Okay. You want to ask me something, go ahead.”

  “You wouldn’t believe who showed up on my doorstep today.”

  “I bet I would. Hannah Darwin.”

  “How did you know?” Phil asked.

  “I didn’t, for sure. But that’s why I’m calling. Something’s clearly wrong with the woman. I’ve got no way to say this except to say it plainly, but it looks like Marianne’s death was more complicated than we thought. Someone was giving her medication that she shouldn’t have been taking.

  “You told me about this. The MAO inhibitor. You said they reacted with certain foods?”

  “Worse than that. She had no prescription for MAO inhibitors, but it turns out that Hannah Darwin did. Hannah also had a prescription for Prozac from a different doctor. She was a nurse, you know, and it’s easy as hell to get these things. All you have to do is ask. The combination of these two drugs can be fatal. Hannah filled the prescription for the Prozac a week before Marianne’s death, and she was giving her both these medications at once. It might not be enough to convict her of murder, but I’d bet ten dollars that your sister’s death wasn’t any kind of mistake.”

  “Mrs. Darwin murdered my sister? Why?”

  “I can’t begin to tell you. She was obsessive about Betsy, for one thing. And she had a history of this sort of thing. Marianne wasn’t her first victim.”

  “Who was?”

  “Apparently she killed her husband. He had terminal cancer, and when he got bad she fed him a poisoned apple pie. She made a big issue about it in front of the judge, about the pie and how it was an act of love, a mercy killing. She’s a convincing woman, Phil. She was released on probation.”