Now he was married, about to become a father; and far, far away from Lowfield, Mississippi. Los Angeles, hadn’t Miss Molly said?
Catherine was craftily preparing a lead-in to the subject of Josh, aware that little would be required of her if she could get Mr. Perkins launched, when Mr. Perkins himself jumped the conversational gun.
“I went to the Lion’s Club meeting today,” he observed. “Sure am glad I’m not running that outfit anymore. It’s nice to take a back seat and let somebody else do the work.”
But you have to mention that you were the president, Catherine commented silently. She remembered that after the inaugural party for the Perkins mansion, her mother had said with despair, “Self-made men are the proudest men on earth!”
“How was the lieutenant governor’s speech?” asked Catherine brightly.
“He’s campaigning now, so it was pretty agreeable,” Mr. Perkins replied, smiling.
“What did he have to say?” Catherine murmured, relieved to have found such an innocuous topic.
“If he had had a lot to say, he wouldn’t be lieutenant governor!” answered Mr. Perkins cheerfully.
Catherine laughed without much effort. Mrs. Perkins gave the tolerant smile of someone who had heard the same remark before.
The older woman had finally relaxed. She picked up her knitting and began to work on it expertly. Catherine saw that it was something tiny.
“For your grandchild?” she asked.
“Yes,” Miss Molly admitted with a proud smile.
“Josh and his wife say it’ll be here in December,” said Mr. Perkins eagerly, and Catherine had only to smile and nod for the next ten minutes.
“Of course, I had counted on Josh living here with us,” he wound down. “Now Molly and me are just rattling around in this big house like peas in a hollow pod. I got all these businesses here, and no one to run ’em after I’m gone.”
Catherine felt sorry for the aging man, who had come to Lowfield practically penniless, her father had told her. Now there was no one to share the comfort of the easy years. The dynasty he had wanted to found had taken off for the golden coast.
Catherine rose awkwardly and evaded the obligatory urgings to stay, have more coffee, talk longer.
On her way out, she passed a bank of photographs on a wall. She stopped to comment on a wedding portrait of Josh’s wife, whom she had never met.
“Very fine family,” Carl Perkins said with satisfaction. “Been in Natchez forever.”
After Catherine agreed that “Josh’s wife” was lovely (what is the girl’s name, Catherine wondered, or do they just call her “J.W.”?), she was obliged to look at the rest of the pictures. Josh at all ages, in all varieties of sports uniform; Mrs. Perkins with a prize-winning flower arrangement; Mr. Perkins being sworn in to several offices.
One of the pictures had a duplicate in the files at the Gazette. Whatever past reporter had snapped it must have presented Mr. Perkins with an enlargement. In the framed copy before her, Catherine saw him breaking ground for a new store. Heavy dark brows gave his rough face distinction, and upright shoulders lent an impression of vigor.
She looked at the man beside her now, and for a moment the hand of time lay heavy on her shoulder. Carl Perkins’s skin had a curious patched look, his hair was thinning, and his eyebrows were almost nonexistent. His sleeve, rolled up for the bandage over the burn, revealed an arm marked by irregular dark spots. This pleasant, hearty, proud man was going, bit by bit.
Miss Molly, in her own yellowed wedding portrait before Catherine on the wall, was small and smiling in her old-fashioned veil. Now her face was tracked with fine wrinkles. Instead of a wedding bouquet, she was clutching a bundle of knitting intended for a grandchild.
For a rotten moment, Catherine thought of the single gray hair she had pulled from her own dark head that morning, and remembered the tiny lines she had spotted at the corners of her eyes. She thought of Leona Gaites, grimly independent and dignified, performing cheap abortions in her little house and listening carefully for other peoples’ cheap secrets, in order to finance an old age that would never come.
Then the room, gracious and overdone, came into focus again, and Carl and Molly Perkins were a kind couple with many years left to them—years that promised the pleasure of seeing in babies’ faces traces of their own genes.
“Now you take care of yourself,” said Mr. Perkins with a smile. “Don’t you go getting into any more trouble. Remember, we’re always here when you need us.”
In the face of his kindness and concern, Catherine felt a sharp pang because of the fun she had poked at his ostentatious house. Her goodbyes were guiltily warm. Mr. Perkins offered to walk her home.
Catherine said, “It’s just a few feet. No need to go to all that trouble.”
“Honey,” said Mr. Perkins with sudden gravity, “you, of all people, should know that things aren’t safe around here.”
Without waiting for an answer, he stepped out onto the verandah.
It was fully dark now. No strawberry-juice stains in the sky, but blue darkness. The moon was full. The locusts were still chorusing throughout the quiet town. The streetlight at the corner of Catherine’s lot seemed brighter against the full night.
And suddenly she was glad for the firm feet of Carl Perkins walking beside her, for the easy commonplace observation he was making about the need to repave Linton Street.
Then he said abruptly, “You’ll have to excuse Molly, Catherine. I know you noticed how shaky she is.”
“Is she ill?” Catherine asked gently. He doesn’t need to explain, she thought. Miss Molly believes I killed Leona, somehow. And she’s scared of me.
“No, she’s just plain scared.”
That fit in so neatly with her thoughts that Catherine stopped to stare at Mr. Perkins. Was he going to tell her to her face that Miss Molly feared her?
Mr. Perkins was waiting for Catherine to say, “Of what?” When she didn’t, he stopped too, and looked back at her.
“Why,” he said, just as if she had supplied the expected words, “she’s scared for you.”
“For me?” Catherine asked cautiously. That preposition made a world of difference.
“Well, sure, honey. After all…” and here self-assured Carl Perkins floundered. “I mean…several people close to you have…”
“Been murdered,” Catherine said impassively. I don’t know but what I’d rather be a suspected killer than a potential victim, she reflected.
“Yes,” said Mr. Perkins, as if the sad truth had to be admitted at last. “If you knew why they died, it might be mighty dangerous for you.”
“I wish I knew,” she said slowly. “Sheriff Galton said he thought the motives were separate.” She had no desire to talk about what the sheriff had found in Leona’s house. Leona had been a blackmailer, an abortionist, and Catherine knew her father had been none of those things. She didn’t think anyone who had known him would suspect for one minute that he had been involved in Leona’s evil. No, Leona’s brief life of crime had started after Dr. Linton’s death; and it was for one of those crimes, surely, that Leona had been killed. So the murders must not be related. That was James Galton’s line of reasoning.
And I was halfway convinced of it too, Catherine thought. But the sheriff is wrong. I know he’s wrong.
“I wish I knew,” she repeated, looking up at Mr. Perkins under the streetlight.
He looked unutterably sad. “I know you miss your folks,” he murmured, and touched her shoulder.
They began moving slowly through Catherine’s yard.
“I hate like hell,” he continued, “that Molly and I weren’t able to be at the funeral.”
Stop, Catherine begged him silently. Even now, she couldn’t endure her memory of that gray day.
“We tried to change our reservations, but it was so close to Christmas that it was just impossible,” he said.
“You went to see Josh out in California?” Catherine asked, trying to move
him off the subject.
“Yes. Our plans had been made for so long; the airlines couldn’t find other flights…it was just hopeless. I wish I had been here to help you settle your daddy’s affairs,” he said with regret in his voice. “But by the time we got back, Jerry Selforth had gotten himself all set up. Goddamn, Catherine, I’m sorry about your folks!”
The loss wasn’t just mine, Catherine reflected for the hundredth time. It was everyone’s.
They mounted Catherine’s front steps.
“Thanks for walking me home.”
“Sure, my pleasure,” he said heartily. “Want me to come in and check the house for you?”
“Oh, I don’t think you need to do that.” She had locked the front door behind her when she left, for the first time in her life worried about leaving it open for a brief period. She unlocked it now, and glanced in at the living room. “See, all clear!” She attempted lightness.
“Okay,” said Mr. Perkins, satisfied after scanning the undisturbed room.
“Goodbye now,” Catherine said. She stepped inside the house.
“Oh, heck.”
Catherine turned back.
“I been meaning to ask you ever since Christmas. Josh wants his medical records. Does Jerry Selforth have everything of your daddy’s?”
Damn Josh, she thought vehemently. He’s got them wrapped around his finger for life.
This was a confirmation of the train of thought Randall had started in her head Sunday afternoon. In almost the same breath, even Carl Perkins could regret her parents’ eternal absence and then move on to his son’s record of vaccinations and measles.
“No,” she replied, suddenly exhausted and sick. “It’s probably up in the attic at the old office, since there’s been no call for it since Father died. I’ll get it for you.”
“No, no, don’t worry about it now, Catherine.” Perkins seemed to realize the wound he had given. “There’s no hurry in the world.”
“Okay. I’ll get it in a couple of days, maybe.”
He started down the walkway after clumsily patting her shoulder again with his bandaged hand.
She called goodbye after him. Her voice hung heavy in the living humid warmth of the night air.
Mrs. Weilenmann had pointed out Catherine’s isolation. Carl Perkins had pointed out that three people connected with her were dead. Despite her refusal of Mr. Perkins’s offer, she went through every room in the house before she went to bed.
“Thanks a lot, folks,” she muttered, as she locked herself inside her bedroom.
10
T HE MULTITUDE OF Monday’s revelations had worn Catherine down. She slept heavily, despite the Perkins’s coffee, and woke groggy.
Tuesday, like Monday, began off-center. She overslept by ten minutes, an irritating breach of her workday morning routine. To make up the time, she had to scramble into her clothes while the coffee was perking, and skip a cup of that coffee. She promised herself to make up for it at the office, from the big urn kept continuously filled in the production room.
The telephone rang while she was making her bed. She was back on schedule and in a better humor, so instead of assuming that the call would be dire news, she predicted some mild disturbance, which was what it proved to be.
“My damn car’s in the shop,” Tom said without preamble. “Can you give me a ride to work?”
“Sure, come on over,” Catherine replied promptly.
This had happened before. Tom’s ancient Volkswagen, noisy and battle-scarred, was subject to drastic breakdowns and expensive repairs.
Catherine was at the back door to let him in when he knocked.
“I was just about ready to leave, I’m glad you caught me,” she said, checking her purse to make sure she had her keys.
“No telling how much it’s going to cost this time,” Tom said gloomily. “I took it over to Don’s Garage after work yesterday, and he said he’d bring it by this morning. Said it was nothing hard to fix, he could do it in a couple of hours.”
“That’s what Don always says,” Catherine told him.
“Why?” asked Tom, outraged. “If he had just told me he’d have to keep it, I could have called you last night.”
“He just likes people to leave happy,” Catherine said. “That’s the way Don is. I’m surprised you hadn’t caught on to that by now, as much trouble as you’ve had with that car.
“At least,” she added as they walked to her garage, “it’ll be fixed when you do get it back.”
“I have plans for tonight, so he better get his ass in gear,” Tom said, folding himself into Catherine’s front seat. She wondered, not for the first time, how he managed in the Volkswagen.
“I doubt he will,” Catherine warned.
Tom sulked all the way to the office. That was fine with Catherine, who didn’t feel like idle chatter before nine o’clock at the earliest.
Leila was looking out the front window when Catherine pulled into a parking space miraculously open in front of the Gazette office. Usually the courthouse people took all the good spots, arriving early to stake their claims. Her little triumph dissolved into a flat feeling when she saw Leila’s face become woebe-gone at the sight of the two of them arriving together.
By the time Catherine and Tom came in through the glass door that had “Lowfield Gazette” stenciled across it in gothic lettering, Leila was sitting rigidly erect at her typewriter behind the counter, pounding the keys furiously.
What a temper she’s got, Catherine thought, passing through the little reception room without a word. She wanted to go up to Leila and shake her by the shoulders.
She realized belatedly that Tom had not followed her into the reporters’ room. She heard the whisper of voices behind her. It looked as if Tom and Leila were getting together. Maybe Leila was Tom’s “plans for the evening.”
Catherine made a wry face at her typewriter and then shrugged. The paper would go to press that afternoon, and would be delivered the next morning. There was a lot to do before the noon deadline.
She began checking over what she had written the day before. Jewel had left the proofs on her desk. Catherine had to proofread all her own stories, then pass them back to Production to be reread by Sarah, the paste-up girl, before she placed them on the page. Catherine got out her felt-tipped pen and settled down to work. Tom came in after a moment with a smug look on his thin face.
The feathers are sticking out of your mouth, she told him silently, and then was distracted by a cathedral-length bridal “vail.”
Almost to Catherine’s surprise, and certainly to her relief, the morning passed as quietly as Tuesday mornings ever did at the Gazette. The usual last-minute crises came up, but Catherine was braced for them. A bride’s picture was flipped, so her ring appeared on her right hand. Catherine caught that and set it to rights. The weekly Dr. Croft column was missing, and because of its great popularity with Lowfield subscribers, the search for it was a tense one. It was always pasted up days before the paper was due to come out, since it arrived set at the correct column width and had only to be cut off a sheet containing seven other Dr. Croft columns, each one headed with a line drawing of the handsome and fatherly doctor.
“Dr. Croft’s Corner” had been unpopular with Catherine’s father. Every time she read it, she recalled his indignation and impatience when two or three people came to his office after the appearance of each column, sure they had the disease Dr. Croft had expounded on that week.
Catherine wondered for a moment whether Jerry Selforth had the same problem.
At last sharp-eyed Jewel found the missing column. The wax holding it to the page had weakened, and the fan had blown it under the paste-up table. Catherine, with dirty hands and knees after taking an active part in the search, rose from the floor and repaired immediately to the Gazette’s rather dreadful ladies’ room to clean up.
Leila, she noted sourly, had kept her own golden limbs pristine by promptly recalling some bills that had to be sent out, at the momen
t the column was discovered missing.
Tom was slumped at his desk when Catherine emerged from the ladies’ room.
“I must have called the sheriff ’s office ten times,” he complained, “and I always get the redneck queen, Mary Jane Cory. ‘I’m sorry, Sheriff Galton is out. I’m sorry, Sheriff Galton is with someone right now.’ I keep hearing all these rumors about Leona’s past, and I want a quote from him on that!”
Catherine considered. She was a little pleased to know something Tom didn’t know. She thought, He’d throttle me if he knew I was withholding a tidbit from him.
She almost told Tom to go ask Leila about the truth of what he had heard, but she knew she would never forgive herself if she did. As long as he had heard the rumors, though. She had a mischievous impulse.
“Go talk to Salton Sims,” she said, pokerfaced. “Salton knows something.”
“If I voluntarily talk to Salton, I must be dedicated,” Tom said grimly, and set out, with pad and pencil in hand, to locate the pressman.
Catherine almost laughed out loud. But her little moment of mischief promptly fizzled when she glanced down at her desk and saw a hole for a picture on her sketch of the society page. The space hadn’t been crossed by the large “X” she drew whenever she sent a picture back to the offset darkroom.
“Omigod,” she said guiltily. She had forgotten to call the Barnes house to remind them to deliver their grandchild’s picture for today’s paper. She had picked up the phone to dial, casting a quick glance at the clock on the wall as she did so (it was an hour from the deadline), when Martin Barnes himself came through the front door and into the reception area.
Catherine heard Leila directing him to the reporters’ room—not that he needed much direction, since Catherine was in clear view—and then the planter was advancing across the worn carpet to stand before her desk. Catherine was self-conscious because of the conversation she had had with Jewel the day before. She examined Mr. Barnes covertly for signs of a romantic soul, but there he was: four-square Martin Barnes.
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