“You were in the house?” Hannah said.
“Not me. A lot of people were, though. Isn’t it awful what some people’ll do? And her lying in there. You should of heard the sheriff blaming Chief Matheson. Poor Matt.”
“Really,” Hannah said.
“Don’t take the custard, Miss Blake. It’s got lumps. A jackass he called him right in front of all them people.”
“I’ve never thought Matheson stupid,” she said. In fact, she had never really thought about the Cove police chief at all.
“What could he do—shoot people? There was swarms of them all over the place. That’s the sheriff blowing his own horn. Elections this fall.” She nudged Hannah’s arm.
“And Mrs. Verlaine is dead,” Hannah said.
“Yeah. Strangled. She was a queer duck. All right in her own way I guess. But I’ll tell you, Miss Blake, if anybody was ever to say to me—before this happened even—if they’d of asked me to name one person in the Cove who was the kind to get themselves murdered, I’d of said right off—Mrs. Verlaine. Now isn’t that a coincidence?”
“Yes,” Hannah said. “That’s a coincidence.”
“Something about her, you know, and living alone like that in a big house—”
“I live alone—and in a big house,” Hannah said.
The girl giggled, a silly, intimate ha-ha. “Sure, but you know how to take care of yourself.”
I’ve got a conscience, Hannah thought. I can do right by myself.
19
“YOU’RE MISS BLAKE?” SHE met the eyes of the young man at her desk. All afternoon she had waited for his coming, him or someone like him. He stood before her, his hands on her desk, but behind them a cartridge belt shone with the nubbed heads of bullets.
“I’m George Schenk, deputy sheriff. I’ve got a warrant—” He straightened up and put his hand in his blouse pocket.
And she had even anticipated his first words, and steeled herself to the easy manner with which she would accept them, take her hat and purse, and walk from the bank in his custody.
“It’s to open Mrs. Verlaine’s safety box,” he explained when he had the paper in hand.
Hannah controlled her mouth, making a shape out of her lipstick, one lip smoothing the other. She spread the paper on her desk, free of her trembling hand. What it said beyond Odenah County she would never know.
“Come with me, Mr. Schenk,” She walked before him in stiff dignity, and at the vault bade the custodian bring him Maria’s box. She herself selected the key from the tray of duplicates and gave it to the deputy. “You will return it to my desk.”
She waited then, again alone in her office with the clock. Nothing in the way of direct clues had appeared, by the indication of this visit. Or was this the routine of duty? Of investigation? It was forty minutes later that the deputy brought the key, a notebook in his hand which he pocketed at her desk. Apparently, he had noted and described everything in the box, from securities to will, if Maria had left one. He looked very sour, she thought.
“Tedious,” she murmured solicitously.
“Not a damned thing in it except paper. Thank you, ma’am.”
She realized what he had been sent to look for. “You were looking for her jewels?”
“Yes’m.”
“They belonged here certainly,” she said.
What a fantastic turn! Her mind leaped to the implications of it—the pursuit of robbers, the delays, the questioning of all sorts of people. But the jewels should be in the house—right there before their eyes, in a place so simple they were blind to it in their search of dark corners.
“More than once, I recommended it,” she added.
“It seems like half the people in Campbell’s Cove recommended it, Miss Blake. Too bad she didn’t take some advice.”
Hannah looked at him. “And this, you think, cost her her life?”
“I couldn’t say that, ma’am, but it could be.”
“Doesn’t the sheriff want to see me, Mr. Schenk? I was a friend of Mrs. Verlaine’s.”
He smiled patronizingly. “I’ll tell him that, Miss Blake. He’s real busy now, but I’ll mention it. Thanks for your co-operation.”
Hannah rose from her desk as he started off. “Do tell him,” she called after him from the office door. “It might be important.”
It would not have been out of character for Maria to have shipped the jewels back to where they came from, she mused, returning to her desk. Having won them, she was quite capable of flinging them in the faces of her French in-laws. It was very much in character. That, too, would come out in time if it were so, and people would say: “Just like Maria.”
And what was like Hannah, she wondered then; who knew her well enough to say of anything she did: “Just like Hannah.” Half the town thought they did. The clerks beyond her office had confided in their glances a smug understanding of her when she had called after the sheriff’s deputy. Not in a hundred years would they suspect her of so profound an accomplishment as—murder. There was the word, the word for the deed, the deed done. Only Hannah knew Hannah. But the deed undone, not in a hundred years, would she suspect Hannah either.
20
HANNAH TOUCHED THE DOORBELL and waited. Through the screen door she saw the big yellow-and-black cat raise his head from where he was sleeping on the hall bench. He looked at her and then tucked his head again into his stomach. She heard slow footsteps overhead, and Mrs. Merritt called down from the top of the stairs, “What is it?”
Her voice was dull; sleep, perhaps, Hannah thought. Asleep on the day her son’s engagement was announced.
“It’s Hannah Blake, Mrs. Merritt,” she called out. “If you’re resting I’ll call another time.”
“I’m not resting, Miss Blake. Make yourself at home. I’ll be right down.”
It was a cold, or tears, not weariness in her voice, Hannah thought. She went in, playing her fingers over the sleeping cat as she passed on her way to the living-room. There was no joy here, she decided, no frenzy of preparation for the marriage feast. The room was as neat as a star, but Elizabeth and Tom, smiling, from their confirmation pictures, were the brightest things in it. It had always been a house she envied, despite its poverty. She had rarely visited here, whether to bring charity or to have a dress fitted, when half the neighborhood wasn’t crowding it. And among the warmest moments she recollected was Mrs. Merritt’s greeting. It always seemed to tell a newcomer that he was the most welcome of all. Now she heard her on the stairs, one footfall following another in heavy measure. Whatever it was oppressing this woman should not have been allowed, she thought. She moved back to the doorway and held both her hands out.
“How nice to see you, Miss Hannah.” Mrs. Merritt gave her the one hand free, and then the other when she let go of the railing.
Her legs couldn’t keep pace with her spirit, Hannah thought. But her smile still told its marvelous welcome, drawing every line in her face into it.
“I came to wish you joy,” Hannah said, choosing the best of words she could find. “I saw the notice in the paper this morning.”
“The marriage notice?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Merritt said. “Please sit down. I’ll put on the kettle.”
“No, don’t trouble, Mrs. Merritt. I can’t stay. Too much has happened.”
“Yes. That was a terrible thing.” She went to the window and raised the blinds. “The sun fades the carpet and it hurts my eyes a little.” She rubbed them, as though to prove it. “Elizabeth says I don’t have enough light to sew by. Maybe it’s time I listened to her. How are you, Miss Hannah?” The woman was slow in choosing her words, slow in her movements.
“I’m well, thank you.”
“Land’s sakes, sit down a minute at least.”
Hannah obeyed her, but waited until Mrs. Merritt herself had chosen a chair away from the light. Then she sat beside her.
“There’s so much to be done, but I just don’t seem to be able to ge
t at it, and now this terrible business.”
“Has the sheriff been to see Elizabeth?”
“Yes. He was to see her at the library, and he was here.”
“Why here?”
Mrs. Merritt stroked the arm of the chair already worn smooth. “He wanted to know where she was last night. He wanted to see her jewelry box. Elizabeth doesn’t have a jewelry box, except the one the pearls Tom gave her came in.”
The fool, Hannah thought, the stupid fool, with a sheriff’s badge and a politician’s arrogance.
“I don’t know where Elizabeth was last night,” the old woman continued listlessly. “Tom drove me up to Jefferson City. Elizabeth wouldn’t come with us.”
“She was working,” Hannah said.
“Yes. And then she came home. Tom called her from the drugstore in Jefferson City.”
That was a lie, Hannah realized, and anyone could guess it from the way the old woman had said it by rote.
“Where is Tom?” she asked.
“I think he’s with Elizabeth now. They were going for a drive.”
Hannah felt the anger rising in her. What right had they to leave the old woman alone like this at such a time?
“It’s a fine time for a drive,” she said.
“I’m glad they’re together,” Mrs. Merritt said, unaware of Hannah’s implied criticism. “They were always very close. Too close, maybe. I just don’t know. When I was a girl down on Front Street, we used to have evening prayers together, around the kitchen stove. Then we could go out till bedtime. Or when we got older we could have the parlor. But my father and mother sat in the kitchen till we all went to bed. It’s no good, a woman sitting there alone.”
Hannah was not sure of her meaning, except that perhaps she waited for children who did not come to her.
“Where will Tom and his bride live?” she asked.
“Here. That’s why I should be so busy. I just don’t know where to start.”
Why here? Hannah wondered. The house was small, adequate to three people, but not to four when two of them were just married. Nor was it poverty. Elizabeth could support herself and her mother. Tom could afford a home of his own.
“A few weeks ago I suggested to Tom that he start his own business,” Hannah said. “I told him—maybe not in so many words, but in effect—that I thought the financing of it could be done through the bank. I wish you would remind him of that.”
Mrs. Merritt smiled, her face alive again. “That would be very nice. Tom is a good boy, Miss Blake, and he’s marrying a real nice girl.”
“Has he known her for long?”
“She’s a demonstrator in the Worthy Stores. He’s known her a long time.”
Nothing special in the way of a match, Hannah thought. She pondered a question and then decided to risk it. “What’s Elizabeth’s objection?”
Mrs. Merritt shook her head. “I don’t know. She’s been at him to marry Phyllis for a long time. I was the one who didn’t want it very much. I wanted him to marry a Catholic girl, but she’s turning. I just don’t understand Elizabeth. And now this awful business.”
Hannah leaned back. Tom Merritt had always had the reputation of having an easy way with the girls. It accounted for his long bachelorhood. No doubt Miss Phyllis was one of the easy ones, and Elizabeth, so highly moral, had tried to prod him into marriage with her. It was simple. Now it was quite and horribly simple; there was no end to which Tom Merritt would not go to prevent his sister from her association with Dennis Koegh. He was marrying to that purpose, and bringing his wife here where their presence might be a constant reprimand to Elizabeth. But what was the source of his deep antagonism to Dennis? That he was a poet? A laborer? His youth? The answer was not here, not with Mrs. Merritt.
“Don’t you worry about it, Mrs. Merritt. The sheriff and his deputies are talking to everybody who knew Maria. One of them came to see me this afternoon.”
“Did they want to see your jewelry box, too?” she asked bitterly.
“Not yet, but I expect it.” Hannah got up stiffly. “Sit and rest yourself, Mrs. Merritt.”
“Will you come again, Miss Hannah? We used to have such nice visits together.”
“I’ll try,” she whispered, leaning close to the old woman and brushing her forehead with her lips. “God bless you.”
21
HANNAH KNEW, THE INSTANT she turned into her own driveway, that she had not been neglected by the sheriff. Two county cars were parked there, and at the garage door Deputy Schenk was talking to Dennis. He tipped his hat as she drove up.
“The sheriff’s waiting for you inside, ma’am,” he said.
Dennis, his expression darker than she had ever seen it, looked as though he wanted to speak to her as their eyes met. Schenk, however, insinuated himself between them, making an elaborate business of opening the car door for her and closing it behind her.
“Dennis—”
The deputy interrupted. “Sheriff Walker’s been waiting quite a while, Miss Blake.”
She looked at him boldly. “Then a moment more won’t vex him.” He would have had to forcibly detain her as she brushed by him. “Dennis, at your convenience, and at the deputy’s, please put the car in the garage.” To Schenk she gave the explanation meant for Dennis. “I rarely go out evenings.”
“Yes, Miss Blake,” the boy said.
She turned toward the house and put one foot before the other in a rhythm calculated to avoid limping. What, she wondered, would Dennis take from the explanation? Twice—on her way from the house that morning and now—she had implied that she was home all evening and that she assumed he had been. That should fall in nicely with his needs also, if he intended to keep his meeting with Elizabeth a secret. The why of that was something else again, of course, and something she could not afford to think about at the moment. Still, it was a cozy arrangement, her accounting for Dennis, and Tom Merritt accounting for Elizabeth. But let it be so.
She closed her mind on it. Behind her, as she turned her head, she saw the deputy walking at his ease about her car, noticing her license number, perhaps. It might have been that the truck driver had observed it last night—a simple combination. No. In that case the state license bureau could have provided her name instantly. It would not wait the lazy observation of a sheriff’s deputy. Nursing such fears she was enemy to herself. No one had seen the car. The Wilkses lived across the street from Maria. They had not seen it. She could not even remember if there had been a light in their house.
Meanwhile, the sheriff was watching from the study window. What crassness, entering her house, and demanding of Sophie the run of it, and getting it. Precious little rein Sophie put upon them. Nor did Sophie have much rein on herself, Hannah observed at first glimpse. The child’s face was working, tear-streaked, and in that second Hannah felt a great compassion for her; there had not been much pleasure in this house for Sophie either, and she had been faithful to Hannah through her own misery over Dennis. Her worship of the boy was not to be made little of because Sophie was a “country girl.”
Lord God, what a torment of crosscuts was her own mind now, Hannah thought. Striking at malefaction, she had herself been stricken with a hundred wounds.
“I tried, Miss Blake,” was all the girl could say as she attempted to follow Hannah through the hall to the study. No one could keep the pace Hannah set, grinding her sore foot on the floor with every step.
“Of course you tried, Sophie,” she said without pausing. “Don’t let them make you cry.”
The sheriff met her at the door. “We don’t aim to make people cry, Miss Blake. We just like ’em to talk.”
“Then you and I shall talk,” Hannah said, feeling more calm in meeting this challenge than she knew to be her right.
“Good. I’ve been waiting quite a while.”
“Not without the hospitality of my house,” Hannah said. That he had been uninhibited in his exploration of it was obvious to her at a glance. A table drawer was not quite closed, the letter
folder on her desk, when she put her hand to it, was backward. “I assume you have a search warrant, Sheriff Walker?”
The sheriff smiled, watching her scan the room for the changes in it. There was little of the county sheriff about him. Rather, he looked like an ambitious lawyer, well-groomed, the cut of his clothes almost dapper. And his smile was handy—to be used instead of words at the propitious moment. Altogether, there was more precision about him than the half-closed drawer and the folder indicated. They were a calculated ruse, she decided, intended for her intimidation.
“May we sit down, Miss Blake?”
“I should like to sit down, yes. It’s been a strenuous day.”
“For you, too?” he said, waiting for her to choose their seats. “No, I don’t have a warrant. Let’s just say I’m a bad-mannered guest. My deputy tells me you were a friend of Mrs. Verlaine’s.”
“I was.”
“Too bad—what happened to her.”
Hannah’s nerves responded badly to his ease. “For whom?”
“For somebody—in good time. I don’t suppose you have any idea where she kept those fancy jewels of hers?”
“None.”
“You saw them?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
Hannah described the occasion and, on his query, the jewels themselves.
He drew a notebook from his pocket, selected the page, and handed it to her. It was Deputy Schenck’s notations from the safety box, that page devoted to a description of the jewels taken apparently from insurance papers. “Did you see all of these pieces that night?”
She scanned the page. “I couldn’t honestly say, sheriff. I didn’t count them.”
He grunted and returned the book to his pocket. It was almost a game, sitting here in her own study, detailing the inconsequential, a dangerous game, should she reveal her awareness of its unimportance. “I was the last one to see them that night,” she added. “And I remember thinking at the time, she took better care of her everyday silver than she did of them.”
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