by Brian Hodge
“How should I know?” he said. “I haven’t got X-ray vision.”
She held it up to the light. “Would you believe it’s the note I wrote for my folks that same night, the night of the fire? I must have …” She turned the paper over, back … and her hand froze. A long second later Ed slipped the paper from her fingers and she barely felt the loss, barely heard his curse when he read what she had.
“It’s a joke,” he said. “What else can it be?” Cyd was not sure; she wasn’t sure of anything anymore. If it was a joke, it was one in exceedingly poor taste. And if not … it was meaningless.
“It’s …”
“I know,” he said. “I know what it is. I’ve seen plenty of them. In fact, it’s from Oxrun, though I don’t know how he got hold of one.”
“Ridiculous,” she said, trying to rally. “What would he be doing with a damned death certificate?”
The date on the form was June 23; the name on the form was Barton Quincy Yarrow.
Chapter 8
The evening moved slowly. Voices droned as from a rundown Victrola while the air grew gel-thick and extraordinarily warm. Several times Cyd caught Iris looking at her strangely, her expression clouded with an unformed question not her place to ask. There were customers, many of them and buying, and she fought to keep her smile so not to frighten them away. Ed was gone, returned to his office to close it for the night. And by the time he had returned and was chattering with Paul, the first day of her dream had finally ended.
At nine o’clock the door shade was pulled down.
At nine-thirty, the Lennons left with flowers and congratulations and a kiss each for her cheek.
And as soon as the door closed, Cyd slumped against the counter and spread the certificate beneath her hands. Stared at it, examined it, twisted it around until she was sure it would not change.
“If you thought I was confused before,” she said with a false, high laugh, “you ought to see inside me now.”
“Hey,” Ed said softly, standing beside her, one elbow on the register, a palm to his cheek. “Hey, Cyd, you know it’s a gag. I mean, your father’s home right now, recovering from a heart attack.”
“It says here that’s what he died from.”
Ed closed his eyes, slowly. “Cyd, I don’t know what your problem is—”
“Then you haven’t been listening.”
“—but this,” and he slapped at the paper, “is a joke, okay? A lousy, miserable joke. And if you don’t mind me saying so, it sounds like something your brothers would cook up.”
Cyd denied it instantly. Evan and Rob, though they had their light moments, were far too conservative, bound far too deeply in the staid world of finance to consider even remotely something that was too evidently in such poor taste. Yet, when Ed insisted, she reluctantly admitted that if it had to be one of them it would probably be Evan. Rob, too much like her father, didn’t even know a limerick, and scarcely knew how to smile. Again, however, she dismissed the notion, moved to the nearest rack and picked up a book, flipped idly through the pages before replacing it, upside down. She reached then for another, but Ed took hold of her shoulders, turned her around and sat her on the stool. She did not protest.
“We do this logically and slowly,” he said through a deep breath. “Good Lord, you’re going to drive yourself into hysteria if you’re not careful.” He waited. She said nothing. “Good. Now then, let’s go back to the beginning, from what you told me before.
“First, we know you got the paper from your father’s room, right? Right. Exactly where did you find it?” He held up a cautioning finger. “Slowly, understand.”
“All right.” Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, broke apart and began toying with the buttons on her blouse. “They were sleeping, Mother and Father, and when you called I didn’t want them to worry if they woke and found no one in the house. I don’t know where Evan and Rob were. So I grabbed something out of Father’s dresser, wrote the note on it and left. The next morning I was straightening up—they were still sleeping—and I must have shoved the paper into my coat. I—” She stared at him, trying to read his expression. “Oh my God, it was Father.”
Ed shrugged, “It had to be. He got the form from somewhere, and for him it would be easy, and probably thought it would be funny to fill it out. Obviously, nobody was supposed to find it. He probably didn’t even remember he had it.”
“But why June 23?”
Ed picked up a ball-point and began to doodling in the margins. “Beats me. When … when was he ill?”
Cyd nodded quickly. “Yes. Sure. I was in … I don’t know, Italy, I think … and he had to go back to Kraylin’s place because that pneumonia wouldn’t quit on him. As I understand it, he was in and out most of the month. I almost came home, but Mother wouldn’t hear of it.” She pulled her purse from beneath the counter and carefully placed the certificate inside. “Poor Father. It may have been a joke, but I wonder if he was really going to die?”
There was almost a hint of a tear in her eye before she sniffed the possibility back and busied herself with the closing. The day’s receipts she placed in a canvas bank sack, wrapping it tightly with an attached leather-and-metal cord. The change remaining for the next day’s use she locked in a small safe set in the bottom of the office filing cabinet. Then she activated the alarms Ed had installed, switched off the lights and ushered him out with a gentle push. When the street door was secured she stepped back to the sidewalk and looked at the shop carefully, critically, before nodding.
And crying.
No sobs. Her shoulders remained still. But the tears dampened her cheeks unashamedly, and Ed stayed to one side, counting leaves in the gutter.
When she was done she blew her nose noisily, shook her head once and stepped quickly to the bank where she dropped the sack into the night-deposit slot.
From somewhere in the distance, the sound of a carol to remind her of the season.
“You need a ride?”
She looked up the street as if it were the first time she’d seen it. “As a matter of fact, Rob was supposed to pick me up half an hour ago. I guess he forgot.”
Ed’s car was still parked by his office, and they walked there slowly, as slowly as they could, and by the time they reached the corner his arm was around her waist. There was nothing to be said, and nothing needed to be said. It was a moment Cyd knew was all too rare: when friends not necessarily lovers conversed with their silence.
They rode almost as slowly, almost as quietly, Cyd only once making a joke about the car phone and Ed not responding. And when she asked to be let off at the front of the drive he made a swift U-turn and reached across her to open the door. Kissed her lightly, with a grin for congratulations.
“Have a good rest,” he whispered as she slid out, and she stood there watching the taillights wink and disappear as they took the gentle curve back to the Station. Then she launched her shoulders against the night breeze and kicked at a twig. If you’re not more careful, my dear, she told herself as she walked, that kind of man could get to be a habit.
She grinned, lifted her face to the air and whistled; a medley of tunes only a few bars each. And here, in the dark of the lane with the spider leg trees waiting overhead, even the idea of the fire seemed somehow too distant. There was still the conviction that it had been deliberately set, but she refused to allow the thought to dispel her current mood. There were any number of possible explanations for it—from the innocent to the macabre—but they could wait until tomorrow, when she talked with Abe Stockton. She blinked. Until the moment the name popped into her head she had had no thought at all of seeing the chief of police. But it had to be done. No doubt it was too late to do anything about the fire now, but at least her complaint would have been noted in case it happened again.
The trees parted, the house loomed, and she saw the shades drawn in the living room, figures moving behind them sporadically and— she frowned—apparently angry. She hurried to the front door and li
stened a moment before letting herself in.
“I don’t care what you say, damnit! I want the thing found, and I want it found now!”
Her brother’s voice filled the house with thunder, sparked the lamps with lightning. She had not heard such a temper in over a decade, not since the year a California conglomerate had tried to buy the family out with an offer each one of them had considered insulting.
“Now Robert—”
“Now nothing, Mother.” His voice was lower now, and more dangerous. Cyd moved to the doorway and looked in, half expecting to see Rob wearing full armor. Her parents were sitting in armchairs that faced the fireplace television. Evan was standing at the far, darker side of the room studying intently the portraits on the wall. Rob was on the hearth, blocking the screen. When he saw her, he worked at a smile, and Barton rose as soon as she entered, extending a hand that she took firmly to push him back down.
“I don’t know what you’re all yelling about,” she said, glaring at Rob until he moved several paces away, “but you, dear old Dad, are not supposed to be out of bed.”
Barton scowled, pushing himself deeper into the cushions like a scolded child. “Fools for children, fools for partners,” he muttered with a jerk of his thumb toward his eldest son. “Fifteen years he works for me, I taught him everything I know, and he dares blame me for misplacing a contract. One lousy contract,” he said, louder.
“It is important,” Rob said, watching his brother approach them almost cautiously.
“Damnit—”
“Enough, the both of you!” Cyd said. “You’re both being silly.”
“Your father’s upset, dear,” Myrtle said, a glass in her hand. “He wouldn’t stay in bed, so I let him come down to watch the basketball game. Just for a minute. I didn’t think it would do any harm. Then your brother came home, and he and your father …” She spread her hands as though the rest were obvious.
“You have a television in your bedroom,” Cyd reminded him with a poke to his shoulder.
“Screen’s bigger down here,” Barton muttered.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Father, do you want to kill yourself?”
She started to laugh, cut herself off when she saw the look on her mother’s face—shock, disbelief; and for one curious moment she thought she had seen that expression before. She shook it off quickly with a false, high cough, and wondered aloud if anyone cared how her first day had gone. Immediately, gratefully, she was surrounded, inundated with questions she tried to answer as best she could. In the middle of the storm Rob vanished for several minutes, returned with a pewter tray, glasses of champagne, and a wedge of Barton’s favorite Dutch cheese. Cyd laughed, felt the tears again, but this time wiped at them quickly with the backs of her hands. Then they toasted her boisterously, and Barton launched into a history of his own commercial start, the competitors he faced and defeated, the competitors he faced and absorbed. Myrtle corrected him on several occasions, but did it so gently that no one paid her any mind.
The cheese was consumed. Another wedge. More wine, until Rob sliced through the heel of his thumb and the sight of the blood on the cutting board quieted them, eventually sent them all to bed.
Midnight, and Cyd sat on the edge of her mattress, sorry she had drunk so much, reminding herself mock-sternly that she was a working woman now and needed to keep reasonably decent hours.
But it had been glorious, the only word for it.
All the panic, the upset, the fears and the errors had all been worth it because it did not matter now whether she made it or not. For once in her life she had taken a major step without Barton’s tall shadow covering hers, and the money ready to cushion her fall, and the excuses ready for the press if they were needed. She had done it. On her own. She had survived the first day without falling apart.
She applauded herself and giggled, hiccoughed, giggled again and decided it was time to revive an old custom. Before she lost her nerve she slipped into a robe and hurried out of her rooms. Stumbled over her shadow and covered her mouth with one hand. You’re drunk, my dear, she told herself as she collided with the wall; you’re drunk and you don’t care, do you?
By the time she had worked her way around the staircase to the front, she thought she had made enough noise to wake the whole house, but there were no lights glowing, no sounds beyond the doors when she pressed an ear to them.
Something.
She grabbed hold of the railing around the stairwell and stared into the dark.
Something.
She closed her eyes, hoping to clear her head, succeeding only in making herself dizzy. Her legs trembled, her arms quivered, and she swallowed in a panic to keep herself from vomiting.
But there was something in the house, something in the hallway that alerted her to a sensation quite close to danger.
She wanted to call out, changed her mind and hand over hand pulled herself to the rear of the house where she stopped in the center of the corridor and looked ahead, looked behind, half expecting one of her brothers to come lurching out of his room, as drunk as she and twice as full of mischief.
She hiccoughed. Belched. Felt acid rise in her throat, and a feeling of disgust that made her grimace.
There was no danger. There was no something. There was only the wine and the bubbles and the emotional letdown from the high of the shop’s opening day. She sagged. Slumped. Looked over her shoulder quickly, just to be sure, then used the wall for a brace and pulled herself to her feet.
“F-fool,” she muttered as she nearly fell into her parlor, tripped over a chair leg and slammed her shoulder against the jamb. “Idiot,” she snapped, wandered into the bathroom where she splashed cold water on her face, the back of her neck, until the shivering cleared her mind somewhat and she stumbled into bed.
Dreaming of blood-red cheese and blood-red smiles.
Dreaming of shadows against shadows that prowled the hallways, sniffing, searching, prodding, poking, until they burst into her family’s rooms and smothered them screaming.
Dreaming of cash registers overflowing with money, rooms filled with dimes and nickels and quarters, stores like her own bulging at the seams with grey canvas sacks that held millions of dollars. While Iris and Paul helped her in the counting, and Sandy and Ed danced with her till dawn.
Dreaming.
And waking.
Tuesday, the second day.
Thursday morning she was anxious to get started early. Iris had begun the day before to complain of an impending cold, and she did not want to force the old woman into work if she could help it. At Iris’ age, she thought as she rushed through a breakfast of coffee and tepid toast, the slightest lung problems could mean potential disaster. Better she be first for a change, call Paul and see if she could persuade him to leave his wife home.
When she was done and the dishes piled in the sink, she darted into the hallway struggling into her coat. It was a green cloth affair she had found in her wardrobe, one she had forgotten but one she had decided was much better than the camel’s hair; less pretentious, less blatant, certainly more fitting. She grinned as she shook her head at herself, stopped when her casual glance swept past the library door, reversed itself and made contact.
The door was open. She frowned, wondering if her father had renewed an old habit and had fallen asleep in one of his chairs while reading. She had a feeling that, despite his attack and Kraylin’s orders, no one could keep him still for more than a few days. With a stern expression, then, she stepped into the vast room, a command on her lips that soon died. The French doors to the veranda were open all the way, the morning breeze teasing the white curtains. And on the left-hand wall the six-foot portrait of her paternal grandfather had been shoved to one side on its top-frame hinges, and the wall safe gaped in the first glow of morning.
For several moments she was unable to speak, to breathe, to do more than stare. Then she screamed for her father. For Evan. For Rob. Screamed louder, and was bracing to race upstairs when her parents in
their bathrobes met her at the threshold. Cyd babbled hysterically, then pointed while Barton looked inside, returned grim-faced and was reaching for the wall phone extension by the kitchen door when Rob joined them.
“Rob—”
He pushed through them and stood on the edge of the oriental carpet. Nodded. Walked over to the doors and closed them, opened them, nodded once again. Then he crossed to the safe and peered in.
“Well, isn’t anyone going to say anything?” Cyd demanded, everything inside her telling her to start yelling again. “For God’s sake, do you want me to call the police?”
“No,” Barton said.
Cyd thought she heard him incorrectly. “Father, listen to me: There’s been a robbery. Mother’s jewels,” and she turned to her mother who only took her arm and held on.
“Darling,” she said, “there’s no sense, really. They’re not marked or anything like that, they’re diamonds for the most part.” She nodded toward the doors. “Isn’t it obvious? The thief knew what he was doing. Probably one of my dear friends’ friends we had over the other night. He took a walk around, saw what he wanted and came back while we were sleeping. He’s long gone now. He’ll never be caught.”
“They cut the diamonds and things out of the settings, Cyd,” Evan said, still in his pajamas and coming up behind her. “Then they can sell them and no one knows the difference.”
Cyd yanked her arm free, looked from one face to another. “I don’t believe this,” she said. “I don’t know how many thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff has been taken from your very own house, and all you people can do is tell me that you’re not going to report it.” She glanced into the corridor, turned back and nearly shouted, “Well, if you don’t call Stockton, damnit, then I will!”
Everyone tried speaking at once, no voice dominating until Cyd clamped her hands over her ears, waited until Rob took hold of his mother’s arm as she had her daughter’s. “Cyd’s right, you know,” he said, so quietly they all had to stop in order to hear him. “As usual, she’s right.” He smiled down at his mother. “You’re forgetting something, aren’t you? The insurance. There’s no way we can collect a dime unless it’s reported to Abe.”