Cobalt

by Aldyne, Nathan

  “Why didn’t you come by here?” she demanded.

  “It’s taken me this long to get rid of Russ.”

  “What’s happened to your judgment? I’ve come to expect better of you.”

  “The sunburn went to my brain. I wasn’t responsible. So what’s up? What couldn’t you talk to me about in front of Russ?”

  “Not Russ. Matteo. Last night I asked him to let me see the autopsy reports on Jeff King and Ann Richardson.”

  Valentine laughed. “What did Matteo say?”

  “He said no. Then I said, ‘It’s customary for the person who found the body to initial the medical examiner’s report.’”

  “And he said?”

  “He said, ‘You must think I’m a real idiot.’”

  “And you said?”

  “I said, ‘Matteo, if you let me look at those reports, I’ll… I’ll go to bed with you!’”

  “Like you have for the past six nights and last Monday afternoon?”

  “Don’t belittle a woman who has just traded her body for vital information.”

  “What was the information?”

  “Most of it was technical stuff, and measurements in centimeters—”

  “That could be interesting.”

  “But the main thing was that Jeff King was stocking a drugstore in his stomach. All sorts of things.”

  “But it wasn’t the drugs that killed him, was it?”

  “No, and it wasn’t the bump on his head either. It was definitely strangulation. The time of death was placed between two and ten A.M.”

  “What!”

  “That’s what the medical examiner has in the report, despite the fact that the police have my sworn testimony pinning the time down to between three-thirty when I saw him jump into the bay and a quarter to five when I found him on the beach.”

  “I guess the coroner likes to give himself a little leeway.”

  “I’d prefer accuracy. Makes you wonder about the rest of the report.”

  “What about Ann?”

  “That was drugs. Angel dust and MDA—and lots of it. She mixed it with the wine and drank it.”

  “Not much doubt of suicide there. What’s that phrase, Lovelace? I told you so.”

  “We can’t be sure until Margaret shows up.”

  “If we knew her last name…”

  “Nobody knows her last name.”

  “Do you think your uncle might be holding back?”

  “No! If Noah knew, don’t you think he’d tell? I’m sure he doesn’t like the idea of tenants taking death-dives in his pool.”

  “How does he feel about ex-lovers taking death-swims in the bay? When are you going to sit down and clear the air a little?”

  “As a matter of fact, Mr. Valentine, I’m taking my lunch hour at Kiley Court this afternoon. I will seduce Noah into intimacy over cold avocado salad.”

  “You never fix avocado salad for me.”

  “But I do make polite conversation with your battered boyfriends…”

  When she got to Kiley Court, Clarisse skirted the empty swimming pool, and opened the screen door of Noah’s apartment. The interior was quiet and cool. The noon sunlight, filtered through the vines that covered the windows, spangled the newly laid hall carpet. She padded down the passage toward the kitchen but stopped short before the double doors to the front parlor. In an oval mirror on the unwindowed wall of the room she caught the image of Noah sitting, with his back to her, at his desk. He apparently had not heard her enter.

  His posture—tense on the edge of the chair—was so uncharacteristic of Noah’s usual physical ease that Clarisse remained as she was, observing. Noah suddenly raised his head and glanced into the mirror. Clarisse snapped back out of the way. She dared not look into it again—knowing that if she could see him, he could also see her.

  Clarisse realized, with a mixture of amusement and distress, that she was spying on her uncle. She briefly considered the morality and the embarrassing possibility of discovery—then once more peered into the mirror.

  Noah sat back suddenly on the chair, and the alteration of his position allowed Clarisse to see that he had been reading a letter. He folded the single typed sheet, and slipped it into a fresh white envelope, the flap of which he licked and sealed. The envelope in which the letter had arrived lay atop the desk. He ripped this in two, and slid the pieces into his back pocket. He tapped the plain white envelope twice with his forefinger, and then lifted the blotter and placed it beneath. He carefully realigned the blotter, ran his hand over it to see whether the bulk of the envelope could be felt beneath, then stood and walked directly toward the hall.

  Clarisse panicked. She turned on her heel, slapped her hand against the screen door so that it opened and slammed with a bang, dropped to her knees and frantically patted the carpet with her outstretched hands.

  “Clarisse!”

  She tossed her hair back and looked up over her shoulder at her uncle standing behind her. She squinted one eye.

  “Oh, hello,” she said and went back to patting the carpet.

  “What are you doing here? Oh, that’s right—we’re supposed to have lunch…did you lose a contact?”

  “I tripped on the doorstep and it popped out. I know it’s right here somewhere.”

  “Don’t let me step on it,” Noah said, retreating carefully into the living room. Clarisse continued to pat the surface of the hall runner. Noah said, “Listen, do you mind if we put off today? Angel needs me at the restaurant. High-level decision making.”

  “No,” said Clarisse looking up with a fake squint. “Of course not.”

  “Well, then I’d better go upstairs and get ready. I’ll leave you to this. I’d help, but I’m afraid…”

  She waved him away. “I’m used to it.”

  Noah went up the stairs. As Clarisse looked after him, she could see the outline of the torn envelope in his pocket. She listened to his footfalls’ progress down the upstairs hallway.

  Clarisse knew that she should leave the house; instead she got to her feet, slipped out of her sandals, and crept into the parlor on the balls of her feet. She took out the envelope and with a letter opener unsealed the still-damp flap. Inside was a single-page letter from the office of Calvin Lark, the lawyer in Boston who represented not only the rental agency where Clarisse had worked but her uncle as well. The letter of intent was addressed to Noah Lovelace and explained in paralegal terms that, following Noah’s instructions, Calvin Lark would alter the names of the beneficiaries of his will and several insurance policies. The name of Jeffrey Martin King would be excised from all documents, to be replaced with that of Clarisse Lovelace. She slipped the letter into a fresh envelope, sealed the flap, and shoved it back under the blotter.

  She softly left the house, crossed the courtyard, and entered her own kitchen. She made some fresh coffee, prepared herself a salad, and began to reflect on the revelation that she had taken the place of Jeff King as her uncle’s principal heir.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  CLARISSE WAS LATE in opening up the Provincetown Crafts Boutique. She stood before the door and fumbled in her bag for the keys. The door swung open to reveal Beatrice standing there smiling.

  Clarisse looked up, took one short breath, and hastily explained, “My baby brother had this terrible accident—he’s twenty-one but I still call him ‘baby brother’—and I had to give blood.”

  “I was walking by and I saw the shop wasn’t open,” said Beatrice. “I looked at my watch, and I said, ‘Oh, my, it’s already a quarter past ten and where is Clarisse?’ I hope your brother is going to be all right. Did he have an accident?”

  “Run down by a fiend on a skateboard, right in front of the Massachusetts Statehouse.”

  Beatrice shook her head in sympathy. “But you know,” she said, as Clarisse swept past her into the shop, “if you’re going to be late like this, you should give me a call. I don’t mind opening up when there’s a real emergency.”

  “I’m sure it won
’t happen again,” Clarisse smiled. She settled herself behind the counter, and plugged in the register.

  “Shall I flip the sign?” said Beatrice. Clarisse sighed and nodded.

  No sooner had the placard been changed from CLOSED to OPEN, than three pre-teenaged girls entered and demanded use of the bathroom.

  “I’m afraid our facilities are not for the use of the public,” smiled Clarisse, and glanced at Beatrice.

  “I got to go,” wailed the smallest of the girls.

  “Then don’t stand near my display cases!” cried Beatrice, and hustled the girls out. She came back in and said, “Clarisse, I’m expecting a shipment from Chicago this morning. Five dozen throw pillows in the shape of oysters. See if you can find a barrel or something in the back we can display them in. Don’t you think that would be cute—a barrelful of cloth oysters?”

  “Darling!” cried Clarisse vehemently. “Precious! They’ll probably all be sold the first day!”

  Beatrice hesitated in the door of the shop, then turned and came close to the counter. “Let me ask you something—as long as there’s nobody else around.”

  “Yes?”

  “How do you like working here?”

  Clarisse glanced around the shop. “I’m overwhelmed,” she said after a moment.

  “Good,” said Beatrice. “I wasn’t sure at first. There was so much breakage, I thought that perhaps you were subconsciously expressing your unhappiness by destroying my merchandise. I remember when I used to work on my grandmother’s chicken farm every summer, I’d break half the eggs getting them out of the nests.”

  “I’m more used to the place now,” said Clarisse.

  “That’s good,” said Beatrice vaguely. “Now, the reason I ask is this: I’ve been offered the opportunity to open a branch store in Boston, down near the Waterfront–Quincy Market area, and I just wanted to know if you’d like to manage it for me.”

  Clarisse stammered, “I…I’m not sure I know what to say.”

  “Well, I think you could handle it—you’re doing just fine with this place. I’d do all the buying, so you wouldn’t have to worry about that. You’d just have to take care of hiring, and making sure the employees show up on time and so forth. I keep this place open all year—I wouldn’t miss a Provincetown winter for anything—so I don’t want to have to spend two months setting the place up in Boston. Since you’re going back in September anyway, I thought you might as well…” Beatrice paused significantly.

  “Let me talk it over with Val,” said Clarisse at last.

  “I’ve already spoken to him,” said Beatrice.

  “You have?”

  “This morning. I ran into him at the Portuguese bakery. He said he thought it was a great idea. He said he had overheard you on the telephone talking to your mother, telling her that this was the best job you had ever had in your entire life and you just wish you could keep it for always.”

  “I see,” said Clarisse.

  “Well,” said Beatrice with a wide smile, “here’s your chance.”

  A pair of middle-aged female twins in identical yellow pantsuits walked through the door, and Beatrice took her leave.

  Clarisse dialed the number at home, and the telephone rang fifteen times—Valentine wasn’t there. She called the Throne and Scepter, and the day manager took a message that Valentine was to call as soon as he got in.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  AS SOON AS SHE saw the doors of the Throne and Scepter open for business that day, Clarisse exclaimed loudly to the half dozen customers she had in the shop that she thought she smelled smoke. When they had hurried out, fearful of their safety, Clarisse turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED and ran across the way. Valentine was just plugging in his cash register.

  “I could kill you for what you told Beatrice,” she said evenly.

  “I had to tell her something.”

  “Now she wants me to manage a branch store in Boston. Can you imagine? The Boston Guardians of Taste will throw bricks through the window.”

  “Then turn down the offer. Politely. Tell her you’re going to be too busy with your first year at Portia Law.”

  “I will be busy.”

  “The perfect excuse, see? So now why are you so upset? You get to keep the job for the summer, and after Labor Day you can tell Beatrice what you think of her merchandise.”

  “I’d never do that,” whispered Clarisse. “Anyway, I’m upset about something else.”

  “What?”

  Clarisse told him what she had discovered that morning in Noah’s desk.

  “So,” said Valentine, “you’re an heiress now.”

  “That’s not the point,” replied Clarisse.

  “What am I missing? There’s something else to Noah’s changing the will then?” He shoved a congratulatory drink at her across the bar.

  “Haven’t you made the obvious connection yet?”

  “What obvious connection?” asked Valentine.

  “Remember the story Angel Smith told us about Jeff King, and the man who lived below her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that was Noah.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Remember? Angel said that Jeff King stole six place settings of Rosenthal china from the man who lived downstairs from her.”

  “It was eight. But so what?”

  “So that struck a bell. The Lovelaces have never bought anything but Rosenthal.”

  “So do a few others.”

  “But Angel was hedgy about telling us the man’s name.”

  “She figured we didn’t know him anyway, so what was the point of giving his name—or maybe she had forgotten it,” argued Valentine.

  Clarisse ignored him. “So then I called my brother, and asked him where Noah was living eight years ago. He was living on Queensbury Street,” she concluded triumphantly.

  “So why didn’t Angel just say that she used to live upstairs from Noah and Jeff King?”

  “Angel and Noah are partners. She wouldn’t gossip about him.”

  “All right,” said Valentine. “I’m convinced. And it fills in a few gaps.”

  “But what worries me,” said Clarisse, “is when Noah changed the will. He went to Boston the morning that Jeff King was killed—and he left even before I got back from the police station. Word wasn’t out yet. And Cal’s letter says that that was the day that Noah made the changes.”

  Valentine shrugged. “So talk to him. That’s all it takes to clear everything up.”

  “I can’t say anything about that, Val. I’m not supposed to know about the will.”

  “You don’t really think Noah killed Jeff King, do you?”

  “No,” said Clarisse. “But I’ll bet he knows something about it we don’t know. There was something else in the will too.”

  “What?”

  “A special bequest of ten thousand dollars for Victor Leach.”

  “Who’s Victor Leach?”

  “The White Prince, of course,” said Clarisse. “Is it any wonder now we never heard his last name?”

  “Ten thousand dollars,” Valentine mused.

  “That’s right,” said Clarisse. “Considering the extent of Noah’s fortune, ten thousand dollars is nothing more than a polite nod of recognition. It shows us where they stand, doesn’t it?”

  “I wonder…”

  “Wonder what?” demanded Clarisse.

  “Why Noah waited so long to change beneficiaries. If that will included Jeff King, it had to be at least seven or eight years old. If Noah had died, Jeff King would have gotten everything, and you and the Prince would have been out in the cold. Clarisse, I really think you ought to talk to Noah. There’s something strange about all this, and I think you’re right. He does know something we don’t.”

  “Who’s curious now?”

  “It’s a slow day, and I need something to keep my mind off my sunburn. Come back when you get off work, and I’ll tell you who did it.”

  “You’re impossible. F
or weeks you’ve been trying to get me to forget poor little Jeff King, and poor old Ann Richardson, and now that I’m closing in for the kill, you want to share in the credit. Well, Ducky-Lucky, I’m going to do this one all on my own!”

  As the afternoon waned business picked up at the Throne and Scepter. Rain had begun to fall only a few minutes after Clarisse returned to the Provincetown Crafts Boutique. It showed no sign of letting up. On Commercial Street Valentine glimpsed a parade of bobbing multicolored umbrellas and flashes of glistening orange and yellow rain slickers. Inside the bar no one had bothered to drop quarters in the jukebox and Valentine had not yet turned on the tape machine. The patter of the rain, the buzz of conversation, and the hum of the ice machine provided a soothing backdrop of noise. The room smelled of wet clothing.

  A little after four o’clock, Angel Smith, swathed in a full-length lime green poncho, surged into the Throne and Scepter like a Lake Superior barge. She threw back her hood and swung her arms about inside the poncho, again drenching half a dozen young women who had come in mostly for the purpose of drying themselves off. Angel’s hair was braided and she was in full Swiss Miss war paint. Valentine could hear her clogs on the wooden floor.

  Lifting up the tent of green canvas she dropped it over a few stools, and hoisted herself up to the bar. The hem of the poncho hovered above the floor, and soon formed a perfect circle of water beneath her.

  “What’ll you have?” Valentine asked.

  “I have to be at work in a little while, so nothing strong. Just give me a vodka on the rocks—in a small glass.”

  While Valentine was fixing the drink, Angel began to rummage beneath the poncho for money, but this action unleashed so much water that Valentine said: “Don’t bother—on the house. You’ll owe me one sometime.”

  Angel took a sip with contentment. “You mix a good drink, Daniel.”

  “Vodka and ice can be tricky—unless you know exactly what you’re doing.”