“Who indeed?” agreed Mark. “You had charge of the second floor, didn’t you?”
“Front half, both sides. Suttons, Sheffield, Kirby, and Haskells with the pink sheets. All suites.”
“Where’s Miss Rayner?”
“Fourth. All small rooms, singles. Mostly week-enders. You work like a dog on the fourth and the tips are terrible. They always start the new girls there but if you’re smart, like me, you complain. Then you get moved.” She emptied her glass and shuddered again, happily.
“Have another,” Mark insinuated.
George came out of his reverie. “No,” he said. He studied an ornate wristwatch. “We just got time to catch the beginning. Come on, Mabe, if you think you can stand up. And thank you very much, sir. We’ll do the same for you next time.”
He helped his lady friend to her feet and roared approval when she rolled her eyes and staggered gracefully. He tried it himself and was approved in return. It struck them both as a nice way to show appreciation, so they kept it up until they reached the sidewalk; once there, they straightened up and moved sedately out of sight.
Mark paid for the drinks and sauntered out into the sun. It was three-thirty. Perley’s? Not yet. Crestwood? Too hot. He moved on down Main Street with half-closed eyes and walked into a hunch that soon developed into more than that.
CHAPTER SIX
MAIN Street sweltered. Creeping pedestrians hugged the narrow line of shade cast by hot brick walls. The usual custom of greeting friends, locally known as “passing the time of day,” was suspended. Two dogs, father and son, snarled at each other when they came face to face, and halfway down the block a man with an ice-cream cart sank to the curbstone and devoured his livelihood.
The drugstore on the corner sent out a wave of warm soapsuds, malted milk, and peanut brittle. A printed sign in the window pleaded for ice. Mark walked on, grinding the dust between his teeth. A few yards ahead a familiar awning hung like a rag from its rusty pole; it was a far cry from fiesta bunting, but it quickened his steps. Mr. Spangler’s shop might smell like a cellar abandoned to mice, but it probably was cool.
He gave a hasty glance at the unwashed window, blinked, and moved closer. His scowl changed to a look of thoughtful wonder as he studied the burlap screen. He went inside.
Over in a dim corner Mr. Spangler sat at an old-fashioned desk, his bald head cradled in a nest of cracked plates, newspapers, and broken cardboard boxes. His rhythmic snoring rose and fell.
Mark walked quietly to the window, removed the screen and stood it on a table. Then he sat down and carefully examined every inch of it, telling himself he was a superstitious fool and only half believing it.
He saw the empty space, the dark brown patch that had lately held the picture of a known murderer. He saw the Polish wedding group, like an ode on a Grecian urn, the stiff necked bridegroom with his fadeless boutonnière, the rosy-tinted bride, forever fair. He passed on grimly to the other smiling faces; the boys and girls with dogs and bicycles, the beaming men with rod and creel, the women primly posed against a wall. The cemetery wall. He saw them all with frightening clarity, and his eyes went back to the hand-lettered sign that had no business to be there: THERE IS THE PICTURE OF A MURDERER IN THIS WINDOW. GUESS WHO?
He groped in his pocket for the notebook and the handcuffs fell to the floor with a challenging ring. Mr. Spangler gave a guttural cry and woke up.
“Come over here,” Mark said. “I’m not asking you why you didn’t take that sign out when I told you to. God moves in a mysterious way.”
“Amen,” said Mr. Spangler in confusion. “What’s the matter with you, Mr. East?”
“Do you know all these people?” Mark pointed to the screen.
“I do that. . . . I’m certainly glad you dropped in, Mr. East. I want to thank you for throwing that business my way. The doctor had me over to the undertaking parlor last night, taking pictures. I did some beautiful work, side views and front looking down. He should of asked me out to the well too, but nobody thinks of the old man these days. Except you.”
“I didn’t throw any business your way. Somebody else did that. Sit down.” He turned a page in his book. “Check me on these pictures; the light’s bad on some of them. Now, Miss Sheffield and Mr. Kirby with the horses. Right? Miss Rayner and the buggy. Old Sutton and Miss Rayner again, also with buggy.”
“It does me good to watch those two,” Mr. Spangler sighed. “It makes you think.”
“Never mind that. Nick Sutton alone. Roberta Beacham and her father. Roberta alone. That one is Roberta, isn’t it?”
“She gives me a feeling of spring. Yes, that’s her. Little sister took it, so it ain’t so good.”
“Franny Peck and stranger.”
“Whoa!” Mr. Spangler chuckled. “That’s no stranger. That’s Mr. Peck after two days’ camping.”
Mark looked closer. “You’re right. Here he is again, with Pee Wee. And that’s Pansy Wilcox with two ladies going to or coming from a picnic that included bathing. Who are the two?”
“Mrs. Briggs and a cousin of Pansy’s. Name of Moresby.”
“I’ve talked to both of them, but I didn’t recognize them. Happiness is a great disguise. . . . And the Reverend Walters, all alone and looking wistful. Is he married, by the way?”
“Not yet, but I’ve heard some talk that—”
“Never mind.” He hesitated over a shadowy print of two figures in a clinch. There was something familiar about it. “Who?” he asked.
“You wouldn’t be likely to know her, Mr. East. No, you wouldn’t know her. But he’s the feller that looks after old Mr. Sutton.”
“George Parmelee. I thought I knew that pose. And the lady, I hope, is Miss Homesdale?”
“That’s her, but I don’t see how you knew. She got him cornered like that and had her cousin take it on the sly. Had the brass to tell me so herself. Ain’t girls the limit?”
Mark closed his book thoughtfully. He leaned forward and examined one of the prints again. “You wouldn’t know who took the one of Pansy, Mrs. Briggs, and Mrs. Moresby, would you? He got his own shadow in.”
“Briggs.”
“Careless. . . . And just for the record, what about the wedding picture? That’s the only nice one in the lot.”
Mr. Spangler glowed. “Name of Bielowsky. Poles. They moved to Connecticut a couple of years ago. That picture’s seven years old, would you believe it? Fresh as the day I took it. They got seven children now.”
So much for the Grecian urn, Mark said to himself. Bold lover never, never canst thou kiss, though winning near the goal—. Still, it had been a pretty thought when he and Keats had it.
What about Miss Cassidy?” he asked. “Was she camera shy?”
Mr. Spangler rubbed his trembling chin. “Now that’s a funny thing, Mr. East. I had a very nice picture of that poor woman, happy as a lark, right beside the Polish wedding. All smiles, she was. But I had to take it out. Right where the trout is now she was.”
“Why did you have to take it out? Come on, Buster, why?”
“Well, she came in here herself, a matter of two, three weeks ago. ‘I’ll give you five dollars if you’ll take that picture out of the window,’ she said. So I did. It was a young-looking picture too. She looked very young in it. Odd, I call it.”
“So do I. When a woman in her late thirties gets a young-looking picture of herself, she buys a dozen and papers the walls. When did you say this happened?”
“Day before she went to New York. Told me she was going. In an awful rush she was. Gave me five dollars and said, ‘Tear it up,’ and off she went.”
“Anybody else ever make any comment on that picture, Buster? Anybody except Miss Cassidy ever show any interest?”
“Now imagine you asking that! Why sure! Same day, as it happens. That afternoon, when I was substituting the trout, in comes the whole kit and boodle. Old customers, new customers, everybody. I had a wonderful business. Well, they all admired the trout, one of Mr. A. Peck’
s, and I told them about Miss Cassidy. Showed them the picture, too. Hadn’t got around to tearing it up. And you know what? They couldn’t understand Miss Cassidy any more than I could. Such a young-looking picture to get upset about. Peculiar, they said.”
“Peculiar I say too.” Mark looked wary. “On the level, Buster, did you finally destroy it? Or did you let it ride, like the sign in the window?”
“Mr. East! You’re nagging me again. I certainly did destroy it. Right before I went to bed I did. I’ve always been a man of my word, and if I’m a little slow about some things it’s only because I’m—”
Mark stemmed the flow. “How about a beer?”
Mr. Spangler moved like palsied lightning. The shop door was locked and they were out on the street in less than a minute. Over his beer, Mr. Spangler grew contrite.
“Honest I meant to take that sign out,” he said. “I did, honest. I took the murderer out, didn’t I? But I must have forgot the sign. I’ll fix it when I go back, honest I will.”
Mark ordered more beer. “No,” he said. “Let it stay. If anybody comes in and asks you about it, you say it’s a new guessing game. And write down the names of the people who ask, will you?”
The old head wobbled in agreement.
It was six o’clock when Mark drove back to the Mountain House. Cora Sheffield hailed him from the veranda, but he didn’t stop. He went directly to his room in the cottage and worked on his notebook. Beacham came in and said they were all dining with the Pecks. Would he join them? He said no, and asked to have his dinner sent in. When it came, he asked the man to serve it on the porch. He sat there until dark and then went for a walk along the road to town. As he walked he made his plans. In the morning he would arrange with Perley for a trip to New York. The evening train. He thought he could safely stay away for two nights and one day.
The moon was a great spotlight turning the dusty world to silver. The mountain behind him was a giant child’s cutout, pasted against the sky. On either side of him the corn rustled. He turned back, almost persuading himself that someone had called his name. But he knew no one had. He knew, or thought he knew, exactly where everybody was.
When he went to bed he took Cassie’s dog with him again. Roberta objected. It was her bed, she reminded him. She didn’t want dogs on it. He returned it to the kennel and then, when everybody was asleep, he went out and brought it back. Not even a twig fell during the night.
It was nearly ten o’clock when he went over to the hotel for his breakfast. The lawns were deserted, and there were only a few people on the veranda, all strangers. When he returned, the veranda was full and quietly expectant and the chairs under the trees were all occupied. The Mountain House had a grapevine that the New York underworld might covet.
Even old Sutton was in his favorite chair, taking small, experimental whiffs of the hot, resinous air.
It looked like a reunion of some far-flung clan grouped about a patriarch. The Pecks were there, the Beachams, Miss Rayner, Cora, and Kirby. Even George hovered in the background with a palm leaf fan and a bottle of smelling salts. He gave Mark a shy grin.
When Mark walked over to join them, Joey, in clean denim shorts and a striped jersey, gave up her chair and sat on the grass. He counted them all again. Only Pee Wee was missing.
Cora and Kirby were in riding clothes, and Miss Rayner wore her small driving hat, an old-fashioned golf cap tied on with a veil. Over in the lot Cora’s black mare pawed the ground and tossed a handsome head. Even Happy Days and Miss Rayner’s fat bay flicked their tails and acted far less than their years. At each fresh whinny Kirby craned a desperate neck in their direction, like a tired cobra forever hearing music. Each time he turned back, he had shrunk a little more.
“Look at him,” Cora said to old Sutton. “He won’t believe I do this for his liver. You’re not afraid of horses, are you, Mr. Sutton?”
“No, no,” murmured Sutton. He squared his shoulders. “I was quite a rider in my youth, and Miss Rayner has kindly introduced me to the buggy in my old age. It has—advantages.”
Roberta avoided Mark’s eye by assiduously hunting four leaf clovers.
Nick spoke suddenly. “I’d like to ride today. Kirby, do you think they can let me have a horse?”
“No.” His grandfather answered for Hank. “We’ll think of something better for you.” His sunken eyes held a derisive look. “Perhaps your other good friends will include you in a less strenuous program. Ask the Pecks and the Beachams what they’re going to do.”
It was a normal question as far as words went, but there was poison running through the old voice. It spread and grew and met another stream, a strong, new current that was almost visible. Some other silent, busy mind was distilling an ugly brew. It turned the hot August morning into a catafalque. It changed the happy laughter on the veranda into a grinning effigy and mocked the homely sounds of garden hose and slamming doors. It stripped away the false security and pointed to the skeleton of something else.
Here it is, Mark said to himself. It’s making signs to me, it’s trying to tell me. It’s coming at me, and I can’t see it.
“Ask the Pecks and the Beachams what they are going to do,” the old man repeated. No one spoke.
Is he trying to put me wise? Mark wondered. Or is he trying to shunt me on to the wrong track? Useless to ask, even privately; useless to do anything but watch. He sat back in his chair and tried to look as if he hadn’t heard. The others followed his example.
Franny Peck leaned over and rubbed her husband’s arm. Archie colored foolishly and said nothing. Beacham continued to stare at the sky. Kirby sent another frightened look in the direction of the horses. Cora Sheffield intercepted the look and leered. Miss Rayner opened her bag and extracted a lump of sugar. Nick Sutton tried to catch Roberta’s eye and failed. It all took only a few seconds, and still no one said a word. Not even old man Sutton. He sat with his eyes closed.
Joey looked uneasily from face to face, saw and felt the tension without understanding it, and began to show off. She seized a hapless grasshopper by the hind legs, forced its head down on the back of her hand, and gave vent to a shrill incantation. “Spit tobacco, spit tobacco, spit, spit, spit!”
At the same instant, George dropped his small bottle and it crashed against the arm of Nick’s chair.
Beacham turned a furious face. “Stop that!” he shouted.
George retrieved the broken bottle and slipped it into his pocket with a muttered apology. Old man Sutton sniffed the air like a lean and hungry fox, and sank deeper into his pillows. Joey stared at her father, aghast.
“Sorry,” Beacham said to George. “I meant Joey. I don’t like to see kids torturing animals. Turn that thing loose, Joey. At once! Now!”
“But he’ll spit tobacco, Mike! Look! He spit some already!” She held up her hand and displayed a small brown stain. Something clean crept back into the atmosphere and stayed for an instant. “I’m not hurting him.”
“Let it go!”
She did, reluctantly, and her lower lip trembled. Cora Sheffield rose briskly. “Come on, kid, and help me. We’ve got to get Hank on Happy Days. You might climb up and show him how it’s done. Come on, Hank.”
“Come on, Hank,” Joey repeated. She strode off manfully in their wake, not once looking at her father. His eyes followed her, and Mark thought he looked anxious.
“Are you driving now, Miss Rayner?” Roberta asked.
Miss Rayner gave a tight little smile. “Presently, presently.”
The eyes of the group under the trees turned to the parking lot as a drowning man turns to a thrown rope. They assumed new postures and exchanged gay, eager looks. They pantomimed their pleasure in such simple fun. Even old Sutton twisted his thin neck in Cora’s direction.
Cora mounted and sat like a valkyrie looking down from an inviolate height. Joey scrambled on and off Happy Days three times, and her demonstrating voice floated back.
“Playing to the gallery,” muttered Roberta.
Franny Peck laughed and snapped open the lorgnette she affected with her tailored clothes. “Cute,” she said brightly to everybody. “She’s cute.”
Hank made it after the third try while Joey stood back and rubbed her hands together like a money lender. Then Cora gave Joey an unmistakable signal and Joey promptly gave Happy Days a sound smack on the rump. Happy Days turned an astonished head, and at the same instant a scrap of something white blew crazily across the lot and completed the damage. Happy Days reared like a stallion and tore down the road in a cloud of dust, followed by Cora.
Miss Rayner covered her eyes, and Mark went after Joey.
“What’s the idea?” he demanded. “Were you trying to kill Kirby?”
“Miss Sheffield told me to,” Joey protested. But she was frightened.
Mark dug into his childhood for a suitable retort. “If she told you to stick your head in the fire I suppose you’d do it,” he retorted. “You ought to be whacked yourself. Don’t you ever do a thing like that again. It’s dangerous.”
Joey tried to explain. “It wasn’t me hitting so much. Happy Days is kind of used to that. He shied at that piece of paper or something. Those yard boys, they’re no good. I bet they left the top of the incinerator off again. What’s the use of cleaning up every morning if you’re going to leave the top off? Time and time again they’ve been told about that.” She went about, bent over double, gathering scraps.
“You talk like a stockholder. And leave that stuff alone. It’s filthy.”
But she liked her role of scavenger. “You leave the top off and it blows all over. Look.” She held out bits of newspaper and a torn envelope, placating. “If that blowed by your face you’d jump too.”
He took the envelope. Was this going to be one of those things? His hand shook. But it was addressed to the management and came from a provision house. He handed it back. “All right, all right, get rid of it. I suppose you want to burn it up yourself.”
She scampered around to the back premises and he returned to the chairs under the trees. He was greeted with animation.
Time to Die Page 14