by E. Joan Sims
“What the hell is that?”
Horatio frowned briefly at my lack of sensitivity and took his time examining the skin of Millicent’s scarred and damaged abdomen before he answered.
“I can’t be sure, of course, and I hate to make such an assumption because of the psychological ramifications and the social stigma attached…”
“Horatio,” I blurted, “is that what I think it is?”
He sighed, a sad and gentle sigh. “Yes, Paisley, I fear our Millicent practiced self-mutilation, probably because of some deep-seated and unresolved problems from childhood. I’ve read about it, but this is the first time I’ve had occasion to see it for myself. Poor, dear Millicent, what pain she must have endured. Some of these scars are very old. She must have started cutting herself at a very early age.”
“Sick! It’s just sick! Yuck!”
Horatio looked up, and I could read the sorrow in his eyes. It was something I had never seen before. I realized for the first time why he had gladly turned over the business to his nephew. He must have seen the physical remnants of many tragedies in his time. For a moment his solemn gaze chided me without words before he responded.
“When you get to be my age, my dear, perhaps you’ll be more reluctant to pass judgment on the frailties of others.”
“How did she do it, do you think?” I asked in a whisper. “Pen knife, potato peeler, or what?”
Horatio managed a tiny smile. “Certainly not a potato peeler. Something, I think, with a very sharp point—something used over and over again until these deep marks were made.”
“Damnation! It must have hurt like a bitch!”
“Somewhat inelegantly put—but quite true nonetheless. The pain must have been considerable, but I imagine that was part and parcel of the whole package.”
“Her dementia, you mean?”
“The Millicent Grazziani I knew was not suffering from dementia. She was eccentric, possibly—no, probably—very immature, selfish and certainly neurotic—but not crazy.”
“Then why the tic-tac-toe on her tummy?”
“Self-mutilation is usually an act of self-punishment—brought on by an overwhelming sense of guilt. Although some mental specialists think that it’s caused by a desire to feel something—anything, by women, who have sublimated their feelings because of some severe emotional trauma in the past.”
I leaned in closer to examine the ugly network of scars. “Women?”
“Almost always.”
“Looks like letters.”
“I doubt it, Paisley. That doesn’t fit the pattern.”
“Pattern, smattern! Look at this one. That’s either an ‘m’ or a ‘w.’”
Horatio adjusted the overhead light as I pointed to the vertical lines surrounding Millicent’s wrinkled navel.
“Humm.” He walked away from the circle of bright light for a moment and came back with a large magnifying glass with a wide metal rim. He held it this way and that trying to focus on the confluent lines without touching the old woman’s skin.
“Look, you’ve got to pull her skin out so it’s smooth and then you can see it better.” I reached out, but he grabbed my hand before I touched the body.
“Wait!” he commanded. “Don’t ever touch a corpse without putting on gloves.”
“Wow! That’s a bit of wisdom I’ll store away,” I laughed nervously. “Just hope I don’t have to unpack it very often.”
Horatio handed the magnifying glass to me as he turned around to find the box of latex gloves. As the glass passed underneath the light I caught a momentary glimpse of something odd reflected in the metal rim.
“Horatio do you have a mirror handy?”
He turned, puzzled, a slight frown on his face. “She’s quite dead, I assure you. No need to hold a mirror under her nose.”
“Nah, it’s not that. I just thought I saw something strange.” I held the metal rim over the pale sagging tissue of what was once a young and vibrant body and saw it again.
“Words!” I stammered. “She used her skin for a notepad!”
Horatio wheeled around as he handed me the gloves. “Coincidence,” he guessed. “Nothing more than sheer happenstance.”
I tugged on the gloves and pushed my unruly hair out of my eyes. “I don’t think so. These marks were deliberate—deep and repetitive. You said so yourself.” The goose bumps on my own arms tingled with repulsion as I reached down and pulled carefully upwards on the loose abdominal skin. I was rewarded immediately for my efforts as the markings took on a whole new look.
“There is a pattern,” I said. My voice sounded faint and shocked even to me. “Find me a mirror and I’ll prove it to you.”
A discrete knock and a quiet voice interrupted us. Horatio turned and nodded as one of his white-coated assistants beckoned from the doorway.
“Have to go, my dear. The ambulance is here from Nashville to take Millicent to the crematorium. There are some forms I need to sign. I hate to ask, but can you find your way out? That door,” he said pointing to the opposite wall, “leads directly to the parking lot.”
“But,…but…”
“I’m truly sorry to spoil your Sherlockian moment, Paisley, but I don’t have a mirror in here. There’s hardly a reason for one, and besides, I’m afraid we differ on the nature of poor Millicent’s injuries.” He turned and fixed me with a solemn look. “You must promise me that what we have seen will not be broadcast throughout the community. This,” he said, pointing at Millicent’s bare midriff, “is obviously the reason she chose to be cremated. Our accidental discovery of her secret must remain our secret as well. That means Leonard must never find out,” he added sternly.
“Of course, Horatio!” I replied, earnestly. “I wouldn’t dare to…but how about a camera? Could we take some pictures and figure it out later? Just the two of us—on the QT of course!”
Horatio shrugged off his lab coat and slipped on his impeccably tailored grey pinstriped suit jacket before he turned to me with a slight smile on his face. “I know I can trust you, my child, but sometimes you are incorrigible. As for the photographs, we do not have permission from the next-of-kin for that sort of nonsense.”
“But there is no next-of-kin!” I protested. His only answer was the square and determined set to his retreating shoulders.
Cassie had left a disposable camera in the glove case of my car the last time we went for a drive to the lake. I was sure there was enough film left because an unexpected rain shower had cut our trip short. The question that remained was—did I have enough time to grab the camera and take the pictures before Horatio returned?
I hurried to the big double doors and peered out from between the heavy vinyl blinds. The ambulance driver was leaning casually against the hearse. When he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one, I decided to give it a try.
The double doors were heavy and the forced air from the ventilator system made them seem even heavier as I pushed them open. I pulled off my moccasin and stuck it between them so they wouldn’t close all the way and lock me out, and dashed across the parking lot wincing with pain as the asphalt—still holding heat from the sun—punished my one barefoot. I grabbed the camera from the glove compartment and ran back across the parking lot and inside the morgue without even retrieving my shoe.
The little camera had no flash, but fortunately the bright lights over the examining table were more than satisfactory. Remembering Horatio’s concern for Millicent’s sensibilities, I was careful to cover everything but the area of stomach, abdomen, and midriff where the skin was scarred and mutilated. Running around the table like a mad terrier, I took shots from several directions. When I heard the engine of the ambulance start up, I figured my time was up and dashed back over to the door—returning to pull the white sheet back up over Millicent’s body just in the nick of time.
The ambulance driver was backing slowly up to the double doors when I shot out like a bullet and slammed against the side of his polished fender. Ignoring
his vehement oaths, I gave him a weak apologetic smile, slipped on my other shoe, and climbed in my car for a quick getaway. I looked over my shoulder just as the double doors opened all the way and one of Horatio’s minions made ready to tuck Madame Grazziani in for her last ride.
Cackling gleefully, I congratulated myself as I drove out to the highway where the big convenience stores were. One of them was bound to have a speedy developing service. I could have my grisly little photographs in one hour.
The guilt didn’t set in until I was almost settled in the perfect parking spot in front of the Save-Mart. Furiously I fought to sublimate my finer feelings. It didn’t matter, I insisted to the devil within me, that Horatio was one of my best friends and had been in love with my mother for years. Who cared if he would gladly lay down his life for her, or Cassie, or even me? And the answer was—I cared. I cared a whole bunch. I sighed and tucked the camera back in the glove case along with my curiosity, then let a very grateful lady with an enormous black curly wig and too much eye makeup take my parking spot.
The Dairy Queen was on my way home, it was way past suppertime, and I was hungry despite the macabre exercise I had just participated in. I cheered up considerably as I contemplated the choice of cheeseburger versus slaw dog, then deciding that I had used enough will power in the last few minutes to last all week, I added a hot fudge sundae to my wish list.
Chapter Six
It poured all day, every single day of the next week. Mother and Cassie were constantly engaged in their rainy-day argument about where and when Aggie was—as mother called it—to “relieve” herself. The squeamish little puppy adamantly refused to venture outside when the grass was wet. My sympathies were with the dog. Her little pink tummy was almost hairless and it was totally vulnerable when she squatted to pee.
I stayed out of the fray as I had many times before by pretending to be hard at work in the library. I did try to write, but my mind kept flipping back to the memory of another tummy—Millicent’s wrinkled and ancient abdominal wall and the cryptic markings hidden in the folds of that fragile, almost transparent skin. I yearned to solve the mystery of those epidermal hieroglyphics and tried in vain to forget the forbidden camera in the glove case of my car—the camera that was loaded with the answers to all my questions.
I imagined how easy it would be to take the processed photos and scan them into my computer then zoom in on Millicent’s scars. I could use the fancy software I had bought on a whim, to enlarge, shadow, highlight, or even turn inside out any suspicious areas. It would be so easy, so intriguing—and so much fun.
I got up from my father’s big leather chair and chided myself for thinking about the entertainment I would derive from inspecting Millicent’s ancient flesh under a microscope. I should be sorry that the frail little old lady was dead. What was I, a ghoul? Yes, I freely admitted to myself. Every mystery writer is a ghoul to some extent. We’re the worst kind of rubber-neckers on the highway after an accident. We see evil in every motive and foul play in every tragedy. Our refrigerators have little magnets with daggers and pistols instead of muffin pans and jelly jars. And under those magnets, more often than not, are lists of undetectable poisons and different types of firearms. We’re a bloodthirsty lot, no doubt about it, and I was one of the worst.
My “Leonard” was of the old school—a hard drinking, rowdy man’s man who would collar his best friend, bed his wife, and snuff his parakeet, but never ever cheat at cards.
Leonard looked like the anti-hero on every film noir poster. He wore his fedora pulled down over his eyes and a cigarette on the edge of his lip. There was always a faint sneer on his face under the thin, ironic slash of a mustache, and his hair was on the wrong end of visit to the barber. He used Bogie’s vocabulary, and solved Chandler’s crimes. He was despised by every policeman and politician, and beloved by every waitress and hooker in Manhattan.
Mother very often forgot that he was fictitious and hated him with a passion—blaming him for my casual manner of dress and sometimes raw and colorful use of language. I had to remind her quite often that this wasn’t a case of the chicken and the egg: I had indeed come first, and no matter how much she complained—as long as he paid the bills—Leonard wasn’t going anywhere.
It was still raining outside and wasn’t really very cold, but there was no denying the damp chill in the air. I punched the magic plunger on the gas logs in the big fireplace and watched as they burst into flames. It was something to behold. I shook my head in awe, thinking of all the winter evenings in the past when we had taken turns huffing and puffing over sticks of kindling and twisted bits of paper trying to coax them into a relatively decent fire. We had always spent a great deal of time in this room and my father had finally decided to have the gas logs installed. Too bad he died before he could really enjoy them.
I looked around at the photographs of family and friends—enjoying as I always did the feeling of being secure in my roots. Our family had been in Kentucky for generations. My great-great-great grandfather built the house that’s serenaded at the Kentucky Derby every year. Some even swore that our first land grant came from the largess of none other than Catherine Parr, the last and most fortunate wife of Henry the Eighth. I didn’t care how, or when—the where was the only thing that mattered to me. I loved this part of the world and never wanted to leave again. I had done that once—as a new bride—eager to plant my new husband and myself in another country far from home.
“I must’a been nuts!” I scoffed. But I knew the truth. I had been crazy—crazy in love—crazy enough to say goodbye to everything else that mattered to me and follow Rafe to the ends of the Earth. And just for the record—for the brief but beautiful time it lasted, it was worth it. Cassie was proof enough of that.
With some effort, I shook off the past and sat back down at the computer. My hands were poised over the keys and my mind struggling to form a sentence when the phone rang—saving me from the agony of coming up blank.
“Paisley?”
“Horatio?”
“Do we go on with the name game, my dear, or can we discuss something else now?”
I settled back and found a comfortable spot in the chair.
“You first,” I laughed.
He sighed over the phone line, and I felt the first prickling of alarm. It was unusual for Horatio to show any signs of stress or defeat, yet he definitely sounded tired and worn.
“I should have taken your advice, Paisley dear,” he admitted, sighing deeply once again.
“About what? I can’t think of anything that I know more about than you.”
“Millicent’s scars. I should have let you photograph them. We might have been able to save a man from the electric chair.”
“Billy?” I whispered hoarsely.
“Yes, my dear. Billy Arlequin has been arrested for Millicent’s murder. He swears the scars on her abdomen are evidence to his innocence. I will never forgive myself for forbidding you to take those photographs.” He chuckled ironically. “Too bad you’re so respectful and obedient, my child.”
“Uh, well, about that obedient part,” I told him with a grin. “Maybe I have some good news for you.”
There was a moment’s pause and then he laughed. “I thought as much,” he answered, his voice instantly sounding lighter and more energetic. “I hoped as much,” he added almost breathless with barely suppressed excitement. “Have you had them processed yet?”
“No, I…”
“Thank heavens,” he interrupted. “We must make sure no one else sees them.”
“Well, just how do we go about doing that? I mean, it used to be a piece of cake—smelly, but easy. Now, I don’t know how…”
“I have a friend,” confided Horatio.
I laughed. I remembered Horatio’s old gang of ex-spies. “Which nursing home is it this time,” I asked.
I usually enjoyed my infrequent road trips with Horatio. His cushy, “all the bells and whistles” Bentley was such a stark contrast to my new lit
tle economy car. The elegance and comfort of the Bentley seemed to warrant whatever extra maintenance and expense was called for, especially since Horatio was the one footing the bill. But this time was different.
We drove to Nashville in silence—each afraid the photographs wouldn’t come out. Too much, or too little light—a shaky hand—any number of mishaps—and Billy could well be shaking hands with “Old Sparky” on death row in Teddyville.
On the way back home, we were even more silent. Like Montgomery Gentry says, “Ya could’a heard a heart break.”
I was depressed and deep in thought, wondering if I had made a huge mistake—sending us on a wild goose-chase and raising Horatio’s hopes—for nothing. The flat, two-dimensional photographs were difficult to decipher. The marks I had seen so easily on Millicent’s body had disappeared into shadows on the film—leaving only a few lines that could be anything.
And to make matters worse, Horatio had uncovered the sad and bitter secret his photographer friend in the Nashville nursing home was keeping from his buddies.
“He was in the trenches, you know—the foxholes, everywhere—jumping out of planes with the toughest airborne infantry—the 87th. He would willingly go to the ends of the Earth and do anything for that next big photograph. He was fearless.”
“He still is, Horatio,” I reminded quietly.
“I know.”
We resumed our sad and uneasy silence. Terminal pancreatic cancer has that effect on a conversation.
“But we got the pictures,” we both said after a moment, then laughed softly at our synchronicity.
“Wonder what they mean?”
“I only hope we can discover something useful,” he sighed.
“He’ll be all right, Horatio. He’s still a tough old bird.” I patted his gloved hand on the steering wheel. “Just like you.”
Chapter Seven
Horatio cheered up the minute he saw my mother walking the dog down by the raspberry patch. She paused for a moment to free the hem of her skirt from a briar, and I heard him sigh again—this time with contentment.