by Peter Straub
We returned to the back wall, where Suki pointed out a fierce young woman with straight, center-parted black hair, athletic shoulders, and lioness eyes. A man of twenty-five or twenty-six with matinee-idol cheekbones and close-cut blond hair had his arm draped around her neck.
“Who’s the guy?” I asked.
“Don Messmer,” Suki said.
Messmer smiled at the camera with the self-consciousness of a man who knows that he is simultaneously out of his depth and onto a good thing. At the other end of the group, a dark-haired man with a cigarette in his mouth leaned against Sammie Schwartz. “Who’s the other guy?”
“He taught English at Albertus,” Rachel said. She raised her half-empty glass to her mouth and drained it. “His name was Erwin Leake.”
I saw Piney Woods sitting on a bench in Merchants Park. Follow a shadow, it still flies you;/Seem to fly it, it will pursue.
“Why isn’t Edward Rinehart in that picture?”
Rachel said, “Edward hated having his picture taken. Suki, remember that time—”
Around a mouthful of hamburger, Suki said, “Sure do.” She held up a finger and swallowed. “The other time, too.”
“Why were we so stupid? Someone takes his picture, and he smashes the camera. Three months later, Sujit takes his picture on the street, and he grabs her camera and rips out the film. Shouldn’t we have been suspicious?”
“We thought suspicion was bourgeois,” Suki said. “How are you doing, Rachel?”
Rachel Milton finished her second Manhattan. “Not all that well, actually. It’s rotten that Star died. And my husband decided that he needed something new in his life, namely a thirty-five-year-old iceberg who is a whiz at estate planning. He has his heart set on marrying this iceberg.”
“How old is the guy?” Suki asked.
“Seventy-two, but that doesn’t bother him. He’s in love. If Grennie hadn’t fallen in love, he’d be selfish, but of course this way everything’s all right. Have you ever been married?”
“Officially, once,” Suki said. “Unofficially, two and a half times. Rachel, you forgot I married Roger Lathrop!”
“The harpsichordist who wiggled his fanny when he played. I remembered as soon as you told me. I want another drink, but not a Manhattan. A glass of white wine.”
“I’ll have another Manhattan.”
I waved at Bob Brennan.
Suki turned to me. “I told you about Roger. We went to Popham College, and six years later the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor made him artist in residence. Both of us were happy to get out of Popham, believe me. And then.”
“Fatal words,” Rachel said.
“And then, Roger told me I was inhibiting his artistic progress, although I was not to take it personally.”
“What was the bitch’s name?” Rachel asked. “I bet she was a student.”
“His prize pupil, Sonia Skeffington. She went to Michigan instead of me, and I came back here. I’d rather not talk about the unofficial husbands. One of them was really great, but he died while he was out on his daily five-mile run, and the other two turned out to be human fortune cookies.”
Twenty minutes later, Suki said, “When I saw Star in the hospital, I thought my heart was going to break in half.”
“Me, too,” Rachel said.
“You didn’t go to the hospital, Rachel.”
“Oh! You’re right. I was horrible that day. I was nasty to everyone.” She did her best to focus on me. “I was nasty to you, too, wasn’t I?”
“Semi-nasty,” I said.
“Grennie had just reminded me that my services would no longer be required. Suki, I have a tremendous idea. We should both get married to Ned.”
“That would be adventurous,” I said.
“He maybe looks too much like Edward,” said Suki. “He’s much nicer, though.”
“Edward wasn’t nice at all. That’s what we liked about him.”
“Edward didn’t care about anybody. Not even Star. But you know who did? Don Messmer.”
“Forget him,” Rachel said. “You know how some men are too handsome for their own good? Because all they have to do is coast along? Don Messmer.”
“I wonder what Don is doing now,” Suki said.
“He owns a bar in Mountry,” I said.
They burst into laughter.
“Rachel, that means …” Suki dissolved again. “That means he has to steal from himself.”
“We should probably get going,” I said.
“You have to forgive us,” Rachel said. “Suki and I haven’t seen each other in a long time. We’re in a funny state of mind.”
“You were right,” Suki said. “Let’s marry Ned.”
“Before we get married, let me take the two of you home,” I said.
“In a minute,” Rachel said. “Two questions. The first one is … do you still want your uncle to get into Mount Baldwin?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’ll take care of it. Write down his name for me, or I’ll forget.” She fumbled in her bag and came out with a notebook and a pen. I wrote Clarence’s name and Star’s uncle, placement in Mount Baldwin and added Nettie’s telephone number.
Rachel squinted at the page and put the notebook and pen back in her bag. “Question number two. No, it isn’t a question. Was I going to tell you something?”
“Take your time,” I said.
“I have to go home,” Suki said. “Ned, will you drive me?”
“I’ll drive both of you,” I said.
“If I decide to tell you anything,” Rachel said, “I didn’t. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Rachel put on her sunglasses. I had the feeling she thought she was disguising herself. “My husband is ditching me for a thirty-five-year-old Hong Kong vampire, have I made that clear?”
“A female Hong Kong vampire,” said Suki. “Question for our studio audience: Does she blow, or does she suck?”
“Grennie thinks he can get away with anything. So does his best friend. Who is that, do you know? Don’t say his name, just his initials.”
“S.H.”
“Good. Suki, guess what this best friend used to do when he followed me into the kitchen in the middle of a party?”
“Grab your boobs and rub your hand on his dick,” Suki said. “That was easy.”
“What a pig. Grenville and his friend do business together, right?”
“So I gather,” I said.
“And all of a sudden this best friend gets accused of this and that.”
“Okay,” I said.
“And the best friend’s friend is undoubtedly in trouble if Stewart gets into trouble. We’re not using any names here, are we?”
“I heard two so far,” Suki said.
“I’m not talking to you. Now suppose the wife of the friend’s friend decided that both of them deserved whatever they got. Suppose she managed to protect herself financially while her husband still cared enough about her to put her on the operating table for her birthday.”
“Attaway,” Suki said.
“Now we get to Mr. Edward Rinehart.”
“How?” Suki asked. “Oh, I forgot. You’re not talking to me.”
“Do you think that was his real name?”
“No,” I said.
“Huh?” Suki said.
“I’m co–vice chairperson of the Sesquicentennial Committee. Laurie was the other one before Stewart kicked her off. Listen to me. You have to see the pictures.”
“What pictures?” I asked.
“The photographs.”
“They lost some photographs of my family,” I said, and realized what she was telling me. “Photographs of Edward Rinehart. You saw them at the library, and you recognized him.”
“I never never said that. Did I, Suki?”
“I have to go home now,” Suki said. “Really.”
I asked Rachel if her maid was working that day.
“Lulu’s working today, yes. If you can call that
work.”
“I’ll drive you home in your car, and Lulu can ride back with me while I take care of Suki.”
“You think I’m not going to remember what I said about your uncle,” Rachel said. “But I made a promise.”
I helped Suki get up from her chair. On our way out, I grabbed a matchbook off the bar, thinking I would call Bob Brennan later that afternoon.
101
Rachel’s housekeeper, Lulu White, helped me coax Suki out of the BMW and into the Riverrun gallery, where one of her young assistants promised to get her to bed. I walked back to my car and drove to Grace Street.
A woman behind the checkout desk indicated a door at the back of the reading room. In a gray, institutional hallway I found the words ASSISTANT HEAD LIBRARIAN on a gray, institutional door. I knocked, and Hugh Coventry told me to come in.
Metal shelves crammed with books and folders filled the walls of an office the size of a dormitory room. Half-visible behind the heaps of files and papers on his desk, his eyes squeezed shut and his back to a window, Coventry pressed a telephone to his ear. “I know, I know. I understand that.” He opened his eyes to see who had walked in, and his nice, descendant-of-the-Mayflower complexion pinkened. Hugh waved a greeting and pointed to a chair. Then he made a loose, twirling gesture with his hand, communicating helplessness in the face of unexpected difficulty.
“I wish I could explain it.” He squeezed his eyes shut again. “With all respect, the problem is not my organization. After all, I did get this library into…. No, sir, we are talking about the library. All of that material is here now.”
I sat down and tried to look as though I were not listening.
“Mr. Hatch, I have a visitor…. Yes, I am responsible for the actions of my staff…. Well, there has been one other instance…. I think one of the volunteers misplaced a couple of files.”
Coventry craned his neck and placed his free hand over his eyes. “Yes. Mrs. Hatch was here yesterday morning…. No, only for a minute…. Yes, if need be…. All right.”
He put down the receiver, lowered his head, and flattened his hands on his temples. “This is crazy.” He groaned. Then he raised his head, stood up, and extended his hand over the desk. “Hello, Ned. Nice of you to drop in. It’s been like Dunstan Central around here.”
“You met my aunts,” I said.
“Charming women. They came here with Laurie, though I didn’t see any point in saying that to Mr. Hatch. Mrs. Rutledge and Mrs. Huggins seemed impressed with our systems, but they would have been more impressed had I located their photographs. We’re losing family heirlooms right and left.”
“Tell me about your selection process,” I said.
Administrative details made him feel more comfortable. “Your aunts submitted exactly what the committee was looking for. A few studio portraits of each generation, snapshots, a marvelous photograph of Merchants Hotel under construction. What I did not intend to use I returned, and the rest went into a labeled box file for final selection. We were flooded with submissions around that time, and I wanted to guarantee everything could be accounted for. This was when we were still working in City Hall.”
“Who makes the final selections?”
“Then, the co–vice chairmen, or chairpersons, I should say, Laurie and Mrs. Milton. Twice a week, I sent my choices down the hall to their office. They approved my choice of the Dunstan photographs, and Mrs. Rutledge’s pictures were replaced in the box file. Late in September, we ran out of space, and I had everything moved out of City Hall and into the basement here. When I wanted to check the Dunstan file, I found the box, but not the file. And now, as you must have gathered, the same thing has happened to the Hatch file.”
“How long has it been missing?”
“I don’t know! Mr. Hatch sent in his submissions last February. Yesterday morning, he called to say that he wanted to make some changes in his family’s portion of the exhibition, and I made a note to send the file back to him. He called again around noon today, asking for his file. Immediately. I went downstairs, and … you know what happened. He was furious. Stewart Hatch doesn’t have any trouble getting in touch with his anger, let me put it that way.”
“Of all the files to lose,” I said.
“Precisely. Of course, it can’t really be lost. One of the volunteers must have put it in the wrong box during the move. I’ll find it, and I’ll find your family’s material, too, but it’s going to be a tedious job.” He uttered a nearly inaudible sigh. Then his natural courtesy erased the wrinkles from his forehead and brought him upright in his chair. “Why don’t I show you our operation?”
He led me down a metal staircase to what had been a staff cafeteria. Gray tracks on the cement floor marked the locations of the old counters and display cases. The former dining tables had been arranged into a giant U in the middle of the room. Two white-haired women, one in a Greenpeace T-shirt, the other a light blue running suit, and a boy of sixteen or seventeen with pink hair, a nose ring, and black eyeliner were sorting through stacks of manila envelopes.
“Hello, people,” Coventry said. “Let me introduce you to Ned, a friend of Mrs. Hatch’s. Ned, this is Leona Burton, Marjorie Rattazzi, and Spike Lundgren. I have to say that Mr. Hatch is not happy with us.”
“It’ll take a while,” said Spike. He looked at me indignantly and waved a skinny arm at three walls lined with files in boxes. “See all that stuff?”
“I know it won’t be easy, Spike,” said Coventry. “Ned, let me show you where they should have been.”
From a shelf on the inner wall, Coventry pulled down a black archival box. D–E had been typed on the white card in its metal bracket. Beneath the letters, the card read, Dunstan (Mrs. Annette Rutledge), Dorman (Mr. Donald Dorman, Mrs. George Dorman), Eames (Miss Alice Eames, Miss Violet Eames).
He set the box on the table and removed the top. Handwritten letters and computer-printed pages half-filled the box. “This is Mrs. Rutledge’s initial letter to us, along with my reply. Then comes a list of the photographs we retained, and a separate sheet coding the photographs to the time-line chart.”
Coventry gestured at a blackboard ruled into sections, some headed by the names of years, others with slogans like “Steamboat Traffic,” “Urban Growth,” and “Increasing Prosperity.” Lists of names and numbers filled three-fourths of most sections. “The Dunstan photographic file should be beneath this material. Unfortunately, it isn’t, so we have to find it.”
He replaced the box on the shelf. “The Hatch material was over here.” We moved down the wall, and Coventry drew out a box labeled H—Hatch Family (Mr. Stewart Hatch). “This is even harder to understand than the Dunstan misfiling. We had two separate folders in here, one with photographs and advertisements related to the fairgrounds and other early business interests of the Hatch family. The second folder contained photographs and studio portraits, plus some class photographs from Edgerton Academy. Worth their weight in gold.”
“That’s what he’s looking for, right?” Spike asked.
Leona Burton and Marjorie Rattazzi stared at him. Spike threw out his arms and leaned toward them. “Ladies, you weren’t even here when that stuff came in. It was just Hughie-baby, me, and Florence Flutter.”
“Fluther,” said Marjorie Rattazzi, the woman in the running suit. “Floo-ther.”
“Whenever Florence Floo-ther wanted to remember if R came before S she had to recite the whole alphabet. I had to check her work about six times a day. If something got balled up, you don’t need a detective to figure it out. One more thing about Florence. She used to hold her breath whenever I came into the room, but she was the one who smelled.”
Coventry looked at me with a mixture of apology and chagrin. “Mrs. Fluther volunteered here at the library for years, and we all appreciated her contribution.”
“Okay,” Spike said, “but he wants the Hatch stuff, doesn’t he? You and Marjorie went through the Dunstan submissions, but I …” Spike swiveled his pink head and gave me a
lengthy scrutiny. An all-encompassing blush rose into his face.
“You thought I was interested in the Hatch photographs?”
“Hugh-baby, you got something else I could do? My eyes aren’t focusing.”
Coventry told him to go upstairs and reshelve books, and he scooted out of the room.
“That boy isn’t nearly as terrible as I thought when I first laid eyes on him,” said Marjorie Rattazzi, “but I don’t think I understand half the things that come out of his mouth.” She smiled at me. “I was here when Mr. Coventry came down with Mrs. Hatch and your aunts. Women like that are so strong, aren’t they?”
“Never lost a match,” I said.
102
Side by side on the davenport, hands clasped over their stomachs, their white-crowned heads bent in ferocious concentration, the aunts drank in the soap opera booming from the television set. Clark slumbered in the rocking chair. “Good thing I’m not a burglar,” I said.
“Well, hello, stranger,” Nettie said.
Clark smacked his lips and took in my presence with a yellow eye. “Happen to pick up a six-pack on the way?”
“Sorry,” I said.
“We still have a few in the fridge. I’d appreciate one. If you’re in the mood, help yourself.”
“There’s tuna casserole on the table,” Nettie said. “Fix yourself a plate.”
“I want to talk to you two ladies.”
“Oh, we heard all about it!” May said.
I took two bottles from the refrigerator, twisted off the caps, and came back into the living room. Clark accepted his beer in the way royalty accepts a chair, without looking at it. “What did you hear?” I asked the aunts.
“Took care of the whole shebang two seconds before you walked in,” Nettie said. “My sisters and I know we are doing the right thing.”
Clark detached the beer bottle from his mouth. “Maybe I should tag along behind Clarence and settle in beside him. A tragedy has the power to make a man think.”
I looked back at Nettie. “You already heard from Mount Baldwin?”
“I spoke to a Mrs. Elizabeth Fanteen,” she said. “Mrs. Fanteen is the executive director at Mount Baldwin. She asked for you, but in your absence Mrs. Fanteen was grateful to speak to me instead. You may be surprised, but that gracious Mrs. Milton called Mount Baldwin and found a place for Clarence. Mrs. Fanteen tells us that Clarence is welcome any time.”