Mother Shadow

by Melodie Johnson Howe

  We moved down the corridor. The wind whipped through, slamming and opening doors as if the hotel were filled with ghostly, angry guests. Each time a door banged against its frame, Boulton whirled around and pointed his gun, like a cop gone berserk. Claire stopped. The light glowed beneath carved double doors. The flashlight caught a tarnished brass nameplate. The Kenilworth name was engraved on it.

  She put her hand on the doorknob and quietly opened the door.

  The room smelled of gasoline mixed with a sour, rancid odor. Two lanterns, placed on a wooden box, lit the shabby, foul-smelling room with an absurdly intimate dinner-for-two glow. A large can of gasoline lay on its side. Eleanor sat in a chair that had one arm missing. Sutton and Alt whirled around, facing us. Alt held a can of gasoline in his hand. Sutton held a gun.

  “Drop it,” he said to Boulton.

  “For God’s sake, do as he says!” Alt cried.

  Claire looked at Boulton and nodded.

  “Kick it across the floor near my feet,” Sutton said firmly. Boulton did. The gun gave Sutton the authority he always lacked.

  “Continue your work,” Eleanor said to Bobby.

  “The smell…I’m going to be sick,” he whined.

  I followed his furtive glances to a pile of canvas tarps on a wood-framed bed shaped like a sleigh. Dirty white stuffing gushed from the mattress—except it wasn’t mattress stuffing. It was long blond hair. Matted. Filthy. Lifeless. A nest for spiders. A little something for the rats to nibble on. It was all the pretty things little girls…Bobby poured gasoline over it. He started to move away.

  “Stay where you are,” Eleanor commanded. “Now, the rest of you stand next to him.”

  “Do as Mother says.”

  We moved next to Bobby. I could feel gasoline soaking through the bottoms of my shoes.

  “Haven’t you destroyed enough people?” Claire stared at Eleanor.

  “I’ve destroyed no one.” Aquamarine eyes shone maliciously. “Patricia and her child did not belong. All these years and Victoria comes back into my life. I’d watch Ellis play with her in the garden day after day.” She leaned forward, gnarled hands shaking. “Now take out the matches I gave you, Bobby, and light one.”

  “We’re too close. We’ll burn up with—”

  “That’s right, dear.”

  “No…no! I won’t!” He lunged toward the door. Sutton fired once. Bobby turned; his desperate virgin eyes came to rest on me. “I didn’t do anything,” he gasped, blood spurting from his mouth. He crumpled to the floor, head flopping to one side. Lifeless virgin eyes continued to stare at me. I looked at Sutton. He was smiling. It was a beautiful, youthful smile.

  “The codicil,” Eleanor said. “I would like to know where it is.”

  “Miss Hill has it,” Claire said. “In her purse.”

  I looked at Claire. I didn’t have it. It was locked in her safe in the cottage. She knew that.

  “I want to see it,” Eleanor said.

  I looked at Claire, then at Boulton. “Show it to her, Miss Hill,” Claire said in a hard, firm voice.

  “Go on, Maggie,” Boulton urged.

  “Carefully, Maggie,” Sutton said.

  “Yes. Carefully, Maggie.” Boulton’s eyes met mine. And I knew what he and Claire wanted me to do.

  I reached slowly into my purse. My hand was damp and shaking. I felt the pearl handle of his mother’s gun. My hand gripped it. I curved my finger around the trigger.

  “What are you doing, Maggie?” Sutton’s eyes studied me.

  “You know me…I carry everything…Madame Bovary, Filofax…” I released the safety catch with my thumb. “Tampax…rosary…it’s in here somewhere…here it is.”

  “Slowly!” Sutton said.

  I slowly pulled my hand out of the bag. As I came up with the gun, Boulton yelled. Sutton’s eyes darted to Boulton. I fired. I missed. I fired again. So did Sutton. I could hear the smack of a bullet in the wall near my head. Sutton’s gun fell from his hand. He grabbed his stomach and went down on his knees as if he were going to pray. He slumped onto his side. Boulton and Claire rushed to him. Eleanor stood.

  I leaned against the wall, shaking. The room was quiet. Only the wind banging at doors made any noise. Then Eleanor began to scream and moan. I shut my eyes. I felt something brush against me. I opened my eyes. Eleanor was standing next to me, staring down at the decayed hulk on the sleigh bed. The lantern in her hand tipped dangerously.

  “I am so cold.” She swung the lantern and smashed it against the bed frame. The gasoline-soaked tarpaulin exploded. I leaped away. She didn’t. Flames crawled up her back. She never cried out.

  “Get the bloody hell out of here!” Boulton yelled.

  The fire greedily lapped at the paths of gasoline and up the walls. I couldn’t move. I stared, transfixed, at the funeral pyre. I smelled burning female flesh.

  “Miss Hill!” Claire said. “Miss Hill! Please, come with me!”

  The flames licked and grabbed at the long blond hair. It curled up as if trying to escape.

  “Miss Hill! I do not want to burn to death in a hotel room!”

  I looked into Claire’s steady, dark eyes. “I don’t either.”

  “Then why don’t we get the hell out of here?”

  Boulton grabbed my arm. We ran down the long corridor. It glowed a sickly yellow. The building creaked and moaned, as if it could feel the pain of the growing flames.

  23

  THREE DAYS LATER, NEIL stood in the living room of Conrad Cottage, going over his report with us.

  Claire and I had spent most of the last two days talking to the Pasadena police, explaining how the deaths of Waingrove, Patricia, Bobby Alt, Sutton, and Eleanor were all connected to the reappearance and disappearance of a retarded young woman. Judith was interviewed and corroborated our story. Erwin had skipped town. The poor souls were returned to Rosewood. Claire was making arrangements to give the coin collection to the Pasadena Museum.

  She would not talk to reporters. She asked me to do the same. Somehow the story of incest surfaced in the newspapers. There were breathless hints of Ellis Kenilworth and his famous actress daughter. Never a mention of the other daughter.

  This was the first day we’d had with no police sniffing around—that is, until Neil showed up—so I had been packing my belongings and putting them in the Honda. Claire wasn’t talking. She just sat in her Queen Anne, legs extended, staring languidly at the tips of her black shoes. Now she stared at Neil with the same lack of curiosity. I sat on one of the sofas. Boulton stood next to Claire.

  “Where’s the proof that Sutton killed Valcovich?” Neil asked her.

  “It was the way he shot Bobby. He did it too easily. I knew it wasn’t the first time he had killed,” she answered in a bored voice. “Have ballistics run a check. They’ll find that the bullets in Sutton’s gun match the one found in Valcovich.”

  “They’re checking right now. That fire was pretty intense. I was a little surprised the gun was in perfect condition.”

  “You really should talk to the Pasadena police. They have all this information.”

  “I have. They don’t say why the gun was in such good condition. I want to hear it from you.”

  “The fire destroyed the Kenilworth suite and a few surrounding rooms, but not the entire building.” She gestured toward the windows. “As you can see. It still stands—a perfect façade. I think the gun would’ve survived the fire, but I couldn’t take that chance. I picked it up with one of my gloves and put it in my pocket. I knew it was the only connection we had between Sutton and Valcovich.”

  “Something bothers me…bothers me deeply.” His dark, calculating eyes came to rest on me. Then, slowly, he looked at Boulton. “What about this other gun that Sutton was killed with?” He made an elaborate search of his notes. “Here it is—a Navy Colt with a pearl handle. Small. Two-and-a-half-inch barrel.”

  “What is so troublesome about that?” Claire asked.

  “Says here your butler shot
him.” He smiled at Boulton. “Butler did it.” The smile disappeared. “You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who uses pearl-handled guns.” Boulton remained impassive.

  The one thing we had not told the police was that I had killed Sutton. Claire decided that since I didn’t have a license to detect or to carry a gun, we would get bogged down in “bureaucratic pomposity.” She decided Boulton would take the responsibility. After all, that was what he was paid for.

  “It was my mother’s gun,” Boulton said. He sounded a little too proper.

  “And you just happened to have it on you.”

  “Very fortunate. Since I was forced to give up my other gun.”

  “Where did you hide this gun?”

  “Taped to my ankle.”

  “So this guy’s holding a gun on you and you lean over and rip off the tape and come up with your gun and he doesn’t bother to shoot you.”

  “I distracted Sutton, giving Boulton time to get his gun.” Claire stifled a yawn.

  “I’m real good at detecting bullshit. And right now I think I’m up to my ass in it.”

  “How very graphic,” Claire sighed.

  He turned to me. “You’re unusually quiet.”

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  The eyes narrowed. “On what?”

  “Getting married.”

  “Oh, yeah. Thanks.”

  “Quick honeymoon.”

  He ignored me and studied his notes. When he looked up, it was at Boulton. “You must’ve worried about Maggie running around unprotected. I would’ve. I probably would’ve given her a little gun. Like my mother’s. If my mother had one.”

  “The death of Sutton Kenilworth is not in your jurisdiction,” Claire said.

  “If he murdered Valcovich it is. I’d like to know who really shot this Sutton. They say here the first bullet missed.” He eyed Boulton. “I have the feeling you don’t miss. And you,” he turned on Claire, “I bet you never get your hands dirty. Hey, I don’t have to put this in my report. I just want to know what Maggie’s capable of.”

  “Then why don’t you ask me?”

  He turned slowly toward me. He nodded his head, looking very sage. “Killing a man must make you feel real liberated.”

  “That’s right, Neil, I feel real liberated. A woman either has to fuck a man or kill him to be truly free.”

  “You said it. I didn’t.”

  I shot up off the sofa. “Listen, you son of a bitch—”

  “That’s right, Maggie. I’m the villain. Maybe I should be careful. You might have a gun on you.”

  Claire rapped her walking stick on the floor. “I will not have this eternal bickering between the male and female species in my house! Show him out, Boulton.”

  “Don’t bother.” Neil sauntered toward the door. “Honeymoon starts tomorrow, Maggie,” he said, without looking back at me.

  I went to my room and grabbed my phone machine, slammed it on top of the monitor, and lugged them out to the car. It was back to perfect weather again. My soul couldn’t take it. Boulton leaned against the Honda.

  “Thank you, Maggie,” he said, taking my monitor and placing it on top of my suitcase.

  “For what?”

  “Saving my life. Miss Conrad’s life.” He took the phone machine and placed it in the car.

  Tears formed. What the hell was I crying for?

  The brown eyes studied me. He brushed my cheek with his fingertips. His thumb followed the curve of my lips. I stepped back out of his reach. No. No more big shoulders for me.

  “What’s wrong with Claire?” I asked, changing the subject. “She’s not speaking to anyone.”

  “Languors,” he replied.

  “What?”

  “Languors. She has them after every case. I’m surprised she’s not in bed.”

  “Why can’t she just be depressed like the rest of us?”

  Gerta ran up the steps, apron fluttering. “Please,” she panted with the effort of the stairs, “you think again about leaving.”

  “Gerta, I told you. I told her. I have my own life!”

  “What is your own life?”

  I decided not to answer that—mainly because I didn’t have an answer. I went down the steps and into the house.

  She was back in the Queen Anne, poking aimlessly at the floor with her black walking stick.

  “I’m all packed and ready to go.”

  “Oh, yes. You have your own life to live. It’s an adolescent response, Miss Hill. How could you not want to write about me? What are you afraid of? Being a writer? Or me?”

  “You may not understand this, but one morning I woke up and my radio told me that virginity was making a comeback. Ever since then I have bribed people, hit people, stolen from people, lied to people, and…yes…killed. Now, for some silly reason I thought it just might be possible for virginity—”

  “Miss Hill, I’m sure where you are concerned there are more obtainable goals.”

  “Oh, hell, never mind.”

  Gerta came in and began to put sheets over the furniture.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I’ve decided to go to London. But first I will stop in New York to see a man who always wears bow ties. He usually has a financially rewarding job for me, if not a stimulating one. I need money.”

  “You could’ve had four million dollars.”

  She raised herself from the chair and stood facing me. “I didn’t want it. I hope you have what you want—a very safe life. Of course, you will have to say no to many opportunities to assure that safety. But you will. You’re very stubborn.” She extended her hand. “It has been a pleasure knowing you, Miss Hill.”

  “Same here,” I said, taking her hand. It felt like a dead fish in mine. “That’s the limpest handshake I’ve ever received.”

  “It’s all I can offer at the moment.” She turned and went into her bedroom and closed the door.

  “Goodbye, Gerta.”

  She looked like my mother had when I left for Los Angeles eight years ago. I waved quickly and got out of the house. God, women give women a bad name!

  Boulton opened my car door for me.

  “Are you mad at me, too?” I asked.

  “Never, Maggie.” He took my hand and kissed it.

  I could’ve sworn I felt his tongue slide over my knuckle and gently probe between two of my fingers.

  “What was that?”

  “I beg your pardon, madam?” The discreet butler was back.

  “My mistake, I’m sure,” I said, smiling.

  “Does madam make mistakes?”

  I spent the afternoon looking for an apartment. I found nothing but depression. My own. Thinking temporary work was what I needed, I drove over to the New Woman Agency to see Phyllis and Corinne.

  Corinne was at her desk talking to a young, purple-haired woman. “Maggie! Phyllis, Maggie’s here!”

  “I don’t have to know what I want to do,” the purple hair said defiantly.

  “It would help us to place you,” Corinne said sweetly.

  I waved and walked back to Phyllis’s office. In the clutter of her desk was a portable TV. She was blond this week—Victoria Moor blond. Her nails were fake and blue-red. She was missing the thumbnail. I sat down in the chair and saw the fake nail lying on the floor.

  “You looking for this?” I picked it up.

  “Oh, God, yes! Isn’t it awful?”

  “What?”

  “Victoria Moor.”

  “Terrible. Do you have anything for me?”

  “A job in Downey. I mean, to be abused by your father…Can you imagine doing it with your father?! Yecchh!—It’s back on. Shhh!” She turned the television louder.

  I got up and took a look at it. Victoria Moor, dressed in black, sat in a chair, facing an audience of mostly women. Phil leaned close to her.

  “We know this is a very difficult subject to be discussing on national television.”

  “If it will help another young woman…well�
�that makes it less difficult.” She was the woman of unimpaired morality.

  Applause.

  “Now, Ellis Kenilworth,” Phil said in an insinuating voice, “was straight-line Pasadena. I mean…we don’t think this can happen…in those places.”

  “Where’s the truth?” I said out loud.

  “What?”

  “Where the hell is Downey?!”

  “I don’t know. Listen!”

  I headed out the door. “See you later, Phyllis.”

  She never looked up from the television.

  As I said goodbye to Corinne, I heard Phyllis yell in recognition, “Ellis Kenilworth! He’s in our files! You worked for him!”

  Going down the hall, I thought about a hank of blond hair. Matted. Dirty. I thought about a weak man who killed himself…a man who wanted a detective to straighten out his life for him. I thought about Victoria Moor. She was only acting. It was all she knew. It was all she had left. I thought about Patricia Kenilworth saying, “She can never grow up, she can only grow old.” I thought about the blond hair curling away from the flames. I thought about the truth. Oh, hell, I’ll let television take care of the truth. It was going to anyway.

  The girl with purple hair was in the elevator.

  “Are they going to get you work?” I asked.

  “Look, I didn’t come out here to be a frigging typist for some jerk. I got my own life to live.”

  “Yes.”

  I sat in my car in the parking lot, searching through my purse for my keys. I pulled out the dove-gray envelope. My name was written on it in Ellis Kenilworth’s handwriting. I opened the envelope and took out a first-class airline ticket to New York. The departure time was four thirty. I stared at the ticket, thinking that maybe virginity had made a comeback after all—in the form of a tall woman who on every other day wore black.

  I put the car in gear and made my way down Hollywood Boulevard to the freeway. I might just make it.

  But what about my car?! My possessions? My life!

  Oh, hell.

  Acknowledgments

  I WOULD LIKE TO THANK Arnold Peyser for the recommendation and the lunches; Elaine Markson and Christi Phillips for turning a no into a yes; and John Rechy for teaching me the craft.