He could hear her sniffling. When she didn’t come back with anything, he said, “I’m going to take a shower.”
Once he was in the shower, thoughts of Kathy and her accusations melted in the steam and he returned to the topics that currently preoccupied him— Isabel and the porcelain bottle.
All day, all this crummy day, Isabel and the bottle had faded in and out of Harry’s consciousness. He wondered whether Isabel had taken the bottle to show Miss Merriam, as she’d said she would, and what Miss Merriam had said. According to Isabel, Miss Merriam’s father had given her the bottle in 1922. How had he come by it? That was what Harry wanted to know. It could have washed up on the beach, maybe, but Harry had not found one unbroken piece of porcelain out at the wreck. If the bottle had bumped along on the sea bottom and was finally tossed ashore by a wave, how had it stayed whole, not even nicked?
It could be that this was all a coincidence and John James Anders had bought the bottle at the dime store. It could be, but Harry didn’t think so. He wasn’t ready yet to speculate about what the answer was. He had debated telling Scooter but had decided not to tell him quite yet.
Harry stepped out of the shower and dried off. When he came out of the bathroom, the towel around his waist, he had actually forgotten all about the scene with Kathy and was surprised to see her sitting on the bed.
Kathy gave him a tragic look. She whispered, “I’m so sorry, Harry.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
She got up and came close to him, putting her arms around him, resting her face on the damp hair on his chest. Harry forced his arms to slide around her shoulders.
“Do you forgive me?” she said.
“Sure.”
Harry knew they’d have to make love later. He prepared himself mentally, and it went all right. After Kathy was asleep beside him, he didn’t drift off for a long time.
The next day Harry had an early-morning dive trip with some people from Atlanta. He had planned to drop by Isabel’s place in the evening, when they could have a chat and he could take another look at the bottle. When he saw her on the dock as they pulled in about noon, Harry felt cheated, as if she had shown up on purpose to deprive him.
She was on a bench by the bait tanks, drawing in her sketchbook, her hair tucked under a beaten-up straw hat. He helped the Atlantans off the boat and waved them good-bye, then crossed the warm tar-smelling boards to where she was sitting.
“I came to tell you I talked to Merriam yesterday about the bottle,” she said. Her face was covered with bright specks from the sun shining through the weave of her hat. Damp squiggles of hair were plastered to her forehead.
“You did?” Harry was uncomfortably aware of Scooter, on the deck of the Miss Kathy, coiling lines and getting the equipment ready for their trip to the wreck this afternoon. Despite the sloshing of the waves under the dock and the faint drumming of the jukebox in the restaurant, Harry thought Scooter could probably hear at least some of what they were saying.
“The story was pretty much as I remembered it,” Isabel said. “Merriam’s father— my grandfather John James— gave her the bottle in 1922. It was the last time she ever saw him.”
If Harry asked her to move away to somewhere Scooter couldn’t hear, Scooter would want to know why. “What happened to John James?”
“I guess he drowned. There had been a bad storm, and he insisted on getting in his boat and taking off for St. Elmo. No sign of him was ever found.”
“Miss Merriam didn’t say where he got the bottle?”
“I don’t think she knows.”
“Hm.” Harry rubbed his cheek. “There had been a storm, you said?”
“From the way she described it, it must have been close to a hurricane— big tides, trees knocked down.”
“Sounds bad.” Bad enough to pulverize a porcelain bottle.
She squinted up at him. “Now can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Why are you so interested?”
Damn. “I don’t know. The bottle sort of… caught my eye.”
He could tell she didn’t believe him, and he didn’t blame her, but he wasn’t going to say any more.
She didn’t press. She closed her sketchbook and got to her feet. “That’s it, then.”
He wasn’t ready for her to go yet. “Hang on a minute. How’s Miss Merriam doing?”
“She’s a lot better than she was. Some of her memory is coming back.” She turned to go and raised a hand in farewell. The bright specks danced across her face like spangles on a fancy veil. The rest of his questions withered in his throat and he let her walk away.
Behind him, Scooter’s feet hit the dock as he jumped from the boat. The next minute, Scooter was saying, “What bottle, Harry?”
Isabel was walking through the breezeway that separated the dock from the parking lot. “Nothing. Just a bottle I noticed at her place.”
“Don’t give me that shit.”
Scooter’s mouth was close to Harry’s ear. Harry could feel Scooter’s breath. It was no use. Harry said, “She’s got a porcelain bottle. Blue and white, mint condition. Same pattern as those shards we’ve been taking from the wreck. I was trying to find out where it came from.”
“You weren’t going to tell me?” Scooter’s tone was dead flat.
Harry let it go. “She said she would ask the old lady about it, and she did. Since you were listening so hard, I don’t reckon I have to repeat what the old lady told her.”
Scooter didn’t answer. Harry turned and saw him looking toward the breezeway. Isabel was no longer in sight.
14
The diver crouched in the garage, his eyes on the house. He had been waiting for an hour or more, letting the feel of his surroundings sink in. He had walked along the alley, a rutted track bordered by unkempt bushes and an occasional sagging wire fence. A dog barked occasionally, but dogs always barked every now and then. In his progress, the diver had made no more noise than a cat.
The garage smelled musty, and the space was filled with junk— plastic-swathed furniture, sheets of plywood, an air-conditioner with the front panel missing. The car was parked in the driveway, convenient for the diver to use as cover when he approached the house. The right time would come. He would know when it arrived, would feel it inside him like a latch unfastening.
He flexed his fingers in the tight rubber gloves, shook his shoulders out. He emptied his mind, leaving himself open to the fugitive stirring of the air, the smell of mown grass, the gradations of shadow between his hiding place and the window that was his goal. He took a deep breath and then he was moving.
If anybody was watching, he knew he would feel their eyes. He crouched low beside the car, his steps cautious but not tentative. He lingered there only a couple of seconds, adjusting to the new angle, before crossing to the house.
The back door had an awning of white metal slats. He stood beneath it, breathing shallowly through his mouth. Almost there.
He left the back stoop and slid along the side of the house to the windows at the corner. The sills were little more than waist-high. The closer window was half-obscured by a camellia bush. The diver stepped over the lower branches, ducked, and carefully straightened his body. Now, his face was close, almost pressed against the window screen.
A mirror above a dresser shimmered on the far wall, like the surface of moonlit water. The bedroom door was closed. The foot of the bed, an expanse of gray, was on his right. A ceiling fan circled overhead. Louder than its drone was the sound of hoarse snoring.
The window screen was fastened with a simple hook-and-eye latch. He unclasped a diving knife from a sheath snapped to his belt loop. Maneuvering as gently as he could, he worked the blade between the sill and the screen. After only a few passes, the screen was unhooked. He refastened the knife in its sheath.
He waited a minute or two. The snoring continued. He pulled the screen out just far enough to allow himself to slip under it. Easily, he hoisted himself to the windowsil
l and lifted one foot and then the other over into the room. Standing next to the bedside table, he could see her now, a bundle of bedclothes, a few spikes of white hair, a curved nose. He couldn’t see her face.
Three steps and he was beside her. The fan stirred the air. He could smell perspiration and a medicinal odor, like mouthwash.
He allowed himself a moment to look around. There was a second pillow, lying on the floor beside the bed. He wouldn’t have to use the one she was lying on.
His fingers closed on the extra pillow. Soft. Real feathers, probably. Swiftly now, no more hesitating, he bent forward and pressed it against the old woman’s face.
She barely struggled. Sedated. Her arms and legs twitched in feeble protest, but there was no sound. As he pressed down, the diver got an image of a ship bucking in the waves, shuddering, foundering, succumbing to the sea at last. He removed the pillow, shook it out, then dropped it to the floor again.
Somewhere in the house, a toilet flushed.
The diver stood by the bed, rigid, listening. Within seconds, footsteps approached the door. In two steps, he was across the room, kneeling beside the dresser. He heard the knob turn, the door open. The ceiling fan whirred, drying the perspiration on his face. He heard a cough.
Another cough, another second or two, and the door closed. The footsteps receded. The diver waited several minutes before he stood. The motionless figure on the bed was in deep shadow. He strode to the window, swung his feet out, and lowered himself beside the camellia bush, pushing the unlatched screen closed behind him.
His senses were almost painfully acute. He knew how these glossy camellia leaves would taste, bitter and woody and bracing. He could feel the pressure of his feet on the ground, was aware of the hillock of fine dirt at the tree’s base, the knobby surface of a fallen twig.
When he pushed his way out of the bush, the air seemed to rush and engulf him, causing an almost painful pressure in his ears, clogging his nostrils with dust and vegetable matter, coating the back of his throat with a thin layer of salt. The dark lawn billowed around him, and before he could founder, he pushed off, surging forward.
Part II
15
Buddy Burke couldn’t sleep. Too much light. If it were dark, sweet black dark, Buddy would lie back on this pillow, thin and bad-smelling as it was, and be asleep in two seconds.
Buddy turned over, his back to the light, but he knew by now that didn’t work. He stared at the pockmarked surface of the wall. The wall surface reminded him of a bad case of acne. Buddy had found that idea kind of amusing when it first occurred to him. He didn’t find anything about this place amusing now.
His daughter, Kimmie Dee, wanted boots, had sat down and written him a letter to ask for them. Daddy, can I have boots? Please. I don’t like Mr. S. It just about killed Buddy to think about it. What the hell was Joy doing that Kimmie Dee couldn’t ask her own mother for boots? Joy hadn’t written the address on the letter, either. It was in a hand Buddy didn’t recognize.
Buddy sat up, swinging his bare feet to the concrete floor. He rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head. Whose fault was it all, anyway? It wasn’t Joy Burke’s fault. She hadn’t told Buddy to haul marijuana when he already had a couple of convictions and would have to go away for sure this time. That episode had been Buddy’s bright idea.
This line of work had been unlucky for Buddy. He could see that now, and he should have seen it before.
In the meantime, here Buddy was. He was serving thirty months, which meant eight or nine months in real time. Joy had cried and hung on his neck like she couldn’t live without him for one night, let alone eight months. Now, she wouldn’t even buy their daughter a pair of boots.
Anger was working in Buddy, making his hands shake. Because it wasn’t just the boots. The boots were number one, but Buddy hadn’t forgotten item number two: I don’t like Mr. S.
Not having that many interesting activities to take up his time, Buddy had racked his brain over Mr. S. The initial didn’t fit any of the men he could think of who had a good reason to be around Kimmie Dee. It didn’t fit Buddy’s no-account lawyer, or Kimmie Dee’s school principal, or any friends Buddy could think of. Kimmie Dee was a smart girl— Buddy was as proud of her as he could be— and she wouldn’t write that for no reason. So Buddy was thinking a good deal about Mr. S.
Buddy scratched his jawline. He didn’t hear much from Joy these days. She hadn’t been to visit in a while. Which was probably good, because if she showed up right now, Buddy would be tempted to whip her ass.
After a while, Buddy lay down again. He didn’t close his eyes, but stared up at the pattern the light made on the ceiling of his cell. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t let this pass.
16
“Heart gave out. It happens,” said Dr. McIntosh. Outside, the ambulance pulled away from Bernice’s front yard, taking Merriam’s body to the funeral home.
“She seemed stronger. She was getting better,” Isabel protested. But Merriam was dead, and that was that. Unfinished business would be left unfinished; instead of a final rounding-out, there remained rough edges, forever jagged and unpolished.
“It happens,” Dr. McIntosh repeated. He walked out on the front porch and lit a cigarette. On the living room sofa, Bernice Chatham wept, her broad shoulders jiggling. Isabel was dry-eyed. To romanticize her relationship with Merriam now that Merriam was gone would have been hypocrisy. Yet she felt as if something had gone terribly wrong.
“You have to consider her age,” said Clem Davenant. Clem, looking ravaged, was wandering restlessly around Bernice’s living room. Bernice had called the doctor and Clem; Clem had called Isabel. Clem crossed the floor once again and said, “I’m going to get myself a glass of water, Bernice.”
Bernice, her face buried in a handkerchief, did not reply. Isabel followed him to the kitchen. She said, “You don’t have to stay, Clem.”
He filled a glass from the tap, drank, leaned on the sink. “It’s all right.”
“I know this is disturbing for you.”
She saw the cords in his neck move. He said, “Isabel, if I can’t perform my duties in life, I might as well lie down and not get up, all right?”
Startled by his vehemence, she said, “I just thought—”
“She was my client, and in some ways my responsibility, and I’m here because I’m going to do right by her.”
Isabel started back to the living room. Halfway there, she heard him call after her, “Sorry. Sorry.”
Dr. McIntosh had returned, and Bernice was talking to him in a choked voice. This was at least the third time Isabel had heard her version of events. “I went to get her up for breakfast, poor soul,” Bernice was saying. “I shut her door at night because I was afraid she’d wander. I knocked and poked my head in and said, ‘Time for breakfast, sugar!’ and then when she didn’t move at all…” Her voice trailed off and her face went back into the handkerchief.
Isabel walked down the short hall to Merriam’s bedroom. The ceiling fan whirled. The bedclothes on the narrow bed were disarranged, the pillows on the floor. On the bedside table, along with Merriam’s pill bottles, were her glasses and the well-worn black Bible Isabel had memorized verses from as a child.
She should get Merriam’s things together. She opened the closet and took out Merriam’s suitcase. Bernice’s voice drifted from the living room: “I thought she was stirring around in there last night, but I looked in and she was quiet. I used to worry so much, because you couldn’t tell what she would do, and—”
Isabel closed the closet door. The task of gathering Merriam’s possessions suddenly seemed beyond her. She put the suitcase down and walked to the window. Beyond the burgeoning leaves of a camellia bush, the green lawn glistened with dew. Across the way was Bernice’s open garage.
In a minute, Isabel would start filling the suitcase. Clem would know what Merriam had wanted done with her effects. For the first time, it occurred to Isabel that she didn’t know what would happen to
the house and property. Or the trailer. She could find herself evicted shortly. My goods and chattels are none of yours, Merriam had written.
Isabel was going to pick up the suitcase, open it, and start folding Merriam’s clothes.
The window screen was unlatched.
She felt a spurt of annoyance at Bernice. There Bernice sat in the living room, crying, and she hadn’t even made sure the room was minimally secure. Merriam could have leaned against the screen and fallen out. Isabel pushed it. It opened quietly and easily.
She was closing it when she noticed a splintered place on the windowsill, a three-inch scrape in the white paint in line with the metal eye of the latch. Isabel fingered the scar. A few small splinters stuck out. It was not discolored by weathering or worn smooth by use and time. She checked the bottom of the black-painted screen frame and found a corresponding scrape, deep enough so the pale wood showed through.
“I wondered where you went,” Clem said from the doorway.
She was startled. She let go of the screen, which fell closed with a gentle bump.
“I’m sorry I was rude,” he went on. He joined her at the window. “What are you doing?”
“The screen was unlatched.” She pushed it open again, demonstrating. “I was thinking Bernice should have been more careful.”
He inspected it. “Miss Merriam might have done it herself, somehow.”
“Maybe.” She wiggled the hook. It slid easily in and out of the metal eye. Below the level of the sill, she saw a broken twig on the camellia bush. Several fresh green leaves lay on the carpet of pine needles on the ground around the roots. Could somebody have broken in? The idea seemed bizarre.
The Complete Mystery Collection Page 126