That evening, when everyone else was in bed, she crept downstairs to the pay phone and dialed Ina Jackson’s number in San Francisco. Wally answered after two rings.
“I just wanted to hear your voice,” she said, realizing that her own voice was trembling.
“Claire, what is it?” He sounded alarmed.
She bit her lip, furious with herself for letting her emotions spill over like this. “I—I think someone tried to kill me today.”
There was a silence on the other end, and when he spoke, his voice was tight with fury. “That’s it. I’m taking the first plane out there tomorrow.”
“No, no; there’s nothing you can do, really. The police are around here constantly—really.”
“I’m coming, no matter what you say. This is ridiculous; they should have caught him by now!”
“Wally, it’s not that easy. He—or she—has left very few clues—”
“But isn’t it someone in the house?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s Evelyn, or Roger—or even Marcel.” Claire tried to imagine big, goofy Marcel strangling Maya, or cutting Terry’s throat, but she couldn’t. “It could even be someone no one has thought of yet, someone we don’t even know.”
Wally sighed heavily. “My God, Claire, why don’t you just go back to New York? They can’t keep you up there forever.”
“No, I guess not . . . but I want to do everything to help them catch the killer.”
“But that shouldn’t include getting killed yourself.” There was a pause, and then he said, “Do they suspect you?”
Claire swallowed. “I’m not sure . . . I don’t think so.”
She watched as a pale sliver of moonlight fell upon the windowsill, slicing across the floor of the alcove and trailing off into the dining room, a thin blue line of light falling jaggedly on the tables and chairs. “I’ve decided to send Meredith back to Connecticut.”
“Good; it doesn’t sound like it’s very safe there now.”
“I haven’t told her yet.”
“Well, she’ll just have to live with your decision.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to tell her.” She had left Meredith snoring loudly, lying on her side, her face obscured by a thick mass of orange hair. Claire planned to call Ted Lawrence first thing in the morning and ask him to come up and get Meredith. Any doubt in her mind as to the girl’s safety was now removed: Ravenscroft was not a safe place to be right now, especially for Meredith, with her nosy ways and her constant bragging about “solving the crime.” She didn’t know if anyone else took the girl’s boasting seriously, but she wasn’t going to wait to find out.
“Well, I’ll book the first flight I can tomorrow,” Wally said.
“But your mother—”
“Don’t argue. It’s settled.” Wally’s voice took on an authoritative edge, and Claire could hear in it the college professor he once was—imperious, a little stuffy, used to having the last word.
“Look,” she said slowly, “I’ll go back to New York as soon as I get Meredith off to Connecticut. Why don’t you at least wait until then. It’s a long way up to Woodstock,” she added. “It’ll add at least half a day to your trip.”
There was a pause on the other end and then she heard him sigh. “Okay,” he said. “But don’t do anything foolish before then; just sit tight and try to stay out of trouble.”
Claire laughed. “Okay. But you’re barking up the wrong tree. It’s Meredith who needs that advice.”
“Well, you tell her for me.”
“Will do.”
“I miss you.”
“Me, too.” There was a pause between them. Claire thought she heard a door open somewhere in the house, then the old floorboards above her creaked with the sound of footsteps. “I’ve got to go check on Meredith,” she said. “She’s upstairs asleep.” Claire had left the bedroom door ajar, and she suddenly had a vision of Meredith sound asleep, unprotected, in the open bedroom.
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
Claire hung the phone up gently and crept quietly into the dining room. The same shaft of moonlight fell across the empty tables, and in the pale light the room looked even more deserted and ghostly than usual. She shivered and walked across the bare floorboards, cold and hard under her bare feet. As she ascended the stairs she heard a door close quietly upstairs. But all was quiet as she walked down the long hallway to her room. A narrow band of yellow light glowed softly from underneath Camille’s door. As Claire approached the room she thought she heard whispering coming from inside, but then it stopped. She heard the creak of bedsprings, and then the yellow light went off, leaving the hallway in darkness except for the red exit sign at the end, over the back staircase.
Back in her room, Claire crawled under the covers and pulled her knees up to her chest. She listened as the house creaked and settled around her, then looked down at Meredith. Even asleep, the girl radiated the careless confidence of youth, the guileless egocentricity that is granted only to the young. In spite of her amazing intellect and her interest in crime, there was so much Meredith didn’t know. There was a difference, Claire thought, between understanding and knowing. She wished Meredith many years of freedom from such knowledge.
Chapter 21
“Well, I finally got through to that Times reporter,” Meredith said at breakfast, slathering a thick layer of butter on her bagel. It was already after ten o’clock, but Liza, Sherry, and Camille were the only other residents on the porch.
“Meredith, do you think you need quite that much butter on your bagel?” said Claire.
“Yes,” Meredith replied firmly. “In Connecticut, I am systematically deprived of animal fat. My stepmother believes in a low-fat diet; her eating habits resemble those of grazing animals, say, on the Serengeti Plain. A few tufts of wild grasses, dried fruits, and scattered tree leaves. Therefore, I try to make up for it when I am away from her evil influence by stuffing my young body with as much saturated fat as I can possibly stand.”
Claire couldn’t help smiling at this, and Camille laughed out loud.
“Oh, please,” she said. “Don’t let us prevent you from enjoying your butter.” She punctuated this with a loud sneeze.
Sherry looked at her slyly. “I see someone has caught Sergeant Rollins’s cold.”
Camille stared at Sherry. “I have a cold; I don’t know that it’s necessarily his.”
Meredith reached across the table for the peach jam. “So,” she said, smearing a thick orange layer of jam on top of the butter, “it seems that Maya worked as a foreign correspondent for the Times in Europe a few years ago. This guy Jeff Miller knew her from that time period; he didn’t know what she was calling him about, though. I suggested to Detective Hansom that he look at some more of Maya’s old articles.”
“How would that help, do you think?” said Camille.
Meredith shrugged. “It might not. But it might turn up a clue or two as to why someone would want to kill her.”
“You mean you think it’s someone from her past as a reporter?” said Sherry.
“Could be. Or it could be that Maya’s call to this guy Miller had nothing to do with her death. Time will tell,” she said mysteriously. “Time will—”
Just then Camille’s coffee cup slipped from her hand and fell to the table, where it rolled over onto its side, the black liquid spilling out, staining the checkered tablecloth, spreading like a dark jagged shadow over the red and white material.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, snatching the cup up again. “That was so clumsy of me. I guess I’m a little tired today,” she said as she sponged up the coffee with her napkin. “I hope it won’t stain the cloth.”
“No harm done,” said Liza. “I’ll just pop it in the laundry with my things later.”
“Cold water,” said Sherry, scooping the cloth up from the table. “We need to put cold water on it. Coffee’s a protein stain.”
“Like blood,” Meredith remarked.
&n
bsp; At that moment Velcro appeared at the side of the porch, his eyes wide, head lowered in a stalking position. He sniffed the air—looking for his nemesis, Ralph, perhaps—and continued on his way, slinking silently into the bushes. Claire watched his black-and-white form glide quietly through the dusty azaleas, belly low to the ground. She hadn’t seen much of Velcro since the night he and Ralph had their run-in. She was sorry the two cats hadn’t made friends, but at least they seemed to be keeping away from each other.
Later, when they were alone, Meredith said to Claire, “I’m asking Jeff Miller to send me as many of Maya’s articles as he can get his hands on.”
Claire nodded. She could postpone no longer telling Meredith that she was sending her back to Connecticut. She had expected a scene when she told the girl the news, but she was not prepared for a full-blown tantrum.
“What, are you crazy?” was the first thing Meredith said when Claire told her that she had arranged to have her father pick her up the next day. When Claire made it clear that she was not going to back down, Meredith threw herself into such a fit that Claire feared for her sanity. She stood looking at Claire without speaking, her face getting redder and redder, while tears collected in her blue eyes. Her body began to tremble, and a loud sob erupted from her, a volcanic expression of grief that Claire thought was about more than just leaving Ravenscroft; still, it was frightening to see her in such a state.
“You can’t do this to me,” she wailed, “you can’t!”
“Meredith,” Claire said softly, “please calm down.” They were standing in the kitchen and Claire didn’t want to disturb the other residents. She imagined them running in from all directions, wondering if Meredith was the next murder victim.
“Noooooo!” Meredith moaned. “Please, please, please don’t do this!”
“Look, Meredith, it’s for your own safety,” Claire began, but just then Sergeant Rollins appeared at the door, his normally ruddy face even redder than usual.
“Is everything all right?” he said meekly when he saw Meredith’s tear-stained face.
“No, everything is not all right!” Meredith snapped, and ran from the room. Claire started to go after her, but changed her mind. Meredith would have to work this out on her own, she decided; she couldn’t hold her hand through every disappointment. Claire knew that what she was doing was best for the girl, and yet she, too, felt disappointment over her decision.
Sergeant Rollins stood there awkwardly, looking after Meredith. The front screen door banged loudly, then all was quiet.
“She knows to stay away from the woods, doesn’t she?” he said.
Claire nodded. “Yes.” She had told Meredith that if she so much as set foot in the woods, Claire would confine her to the house. Suddenly worried that Meredith would go off to the woods to spite her, Claire tiptoed to the front door and looked out. Meredith sat on the porch steps, a stick in her hand, poking at the dusty flagstone path leading up to the house. Claire decided to leave her to her sulking for the time being. She returned to the kitchen, where Sergeant Rollins stood waiting for her.
“She’s out on the porch,” Claire said in response to his inquiring look.
“Good,” he said. “Can’t be too careful these days, I say.” He sneezed loudly, sending a thin spray of saliva across the room. “Sorry,” he muttered, fishing the perpetually damp handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing at his nose with it. “Can’t seem to shake this damn cold,” he said, pocketing the grisly handkerchief.
“Have you tried zinc and echinacea?”
They turned to see Billy Trimble standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets. He wore a white Brooks Brothers shirt, khakis, and Docksiders without socks. He always looked like a clothing ad out of New England magazine, Claire thought.
“Echi-what?” said Sergeant Rollins, sniffling.
“Echinacea. It’s an herb, supposed to be good for the immune system.”
Sergeant Rollins shook his head. “Nope. Never heard of it.”
“You should be able to find it downtown; in this town, I’ll bet they sell it everywhere.”
Sergeant Rollins nodded dubiously. “Well, maybe I’ll give it a try . . . I’m not big on those herbal things. Tried some herbal tea once, thought it smelled like—” He paused and glanced at Claire. “Well, it was pretty bad, anyway.”
Claire smiled. “It was. It was awful.”
Sergeant Rollins shifted his body uncomfortably in his thick blue uniform. “Well, I just came in to see if everything was okay . . . see you later.”
“Okay.” Claire watched him back out of the room, bumping into the wall as he turned to enter the hallway.
When he was gone Billy turned to Claire, his usual vague manner replaced by a surprising directness. “Have you seen Gary?” he said.
“Not today. He’s not in his studio?”
Billy shook his head. “I looked there first. He usually paints in the mornings…”
“No, I haven’t seen him. If I do, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”
Billy’s eyes wandered about the kitchen as if searching for something. “I guess I’ll get back to work,” he murmured, his vague manner returning. He wandered out of the room without another word, hands in his pockets, looking very preoccupied.
Claire went out to the porch to see how Meredith was getting along, and found her sitting on the daybed, Ralph clutched in her arms, crying softly.
“You don’t want to see me go, do you, Ralph?” she said as she stroked the cat. Ralph had a stoic expression on his face; he was not exactly enjoying this, but was making no dramatic escape attempts. A haze of short white cat hairs, gently airborne, floated around his head like a halo.
Claire opened the door slowly and stepped out onto the porch. As she expected, Meredith ignored her and continued to address the cat. “You’ll miss me, won’t you?” she said pathetically to Ralph. “You may be the only one, but you’ll miss me.”
Claire sat down on one of the director’s chairs. “You know that’s not true, Meredith.”
Meredith continued to ignore her. “No one else will care that I’m gone.” She wiped at the tears that slid across her cheeks.
“Meredith,” Claire said carefully, “I’m not sending you back because I don’t want you here. I’m doing it because it isn’t safe here anymore.”
Meredith looked up at Claire; her upper lip was swollen from crying. “Then why are you staying?” she said in a small voice.
Claire shook her head. “I’d like to leave, too,” she replied. “And by the end of the week, I will, whether the detective has his murderer or not.”
“If I stayed, I could help him,” Meredith said, wrapping her arms around Ralph’s neck and holding him close to her.
“Be careful—not so tight,” Claire warned. “Ralph doesn’t like that.”
“You’re always telling me what to do!” Meredith snapped angrily. She released Ralph and jumped up off the couch. Ralph stood uncertainly on the floor, his tail twitching, confused by his sudden freedom.
“Meredith—” Claire began, but Meredith stomped off into the house. Claire sighed and leaned back in her chair. This time she would let Meredith go; let her brood for a while, get it out of her system. She sat for a few minutes watching the late-morning haze settle over the woods. Just as she was about to go back inside, she saw Detective Hansom’s black sedan winding up the hill toward the house. She sat and watched as he pulled his lean body from the car. A wind had begun to pick up off the side of the mountain, and as Hansom approached the house, his black trench coat flapping about his legs like wings, Claire was suddenly reminded of the Grim Reaper.
Detective Hansom’s face was indeed grim as he ascended the steps to where Claire stood. “We have the report back on your car,” he said. He stood with one foot resting on the top step, holding his battered fedora in one bony hand.
“Yes?” she said.
Detective Hansom wiped a sleeve across his brow and squinted into the haze. “There’
s no easy way to say this. It was sabotaged—the brakes cut clean through—so that the fluid just leaked out.”
Claire felt the heat rise to her head. She was suddenly dizzy. “Are you sure?” she asked, trying to stay focused on his face.
He shook his head. “There’s no doubt about it. I can show it to you, if you like.”
Claire shook her head. “No, I believe you . . . it’s just that . . .” The whole scene suddenly seemed unreal. Everything—the house, the woods, this gawky, gentle man who stood talking to her, one foot perched on the top step—felt unnatural. Patterns swirled before her eyes, and she had to blink to keep everything from dissolving in front of her; the edges of the world around her were fuzzy and blurred as a watercolor. “Well,” she said finally, “what do we do now?”
“We think maybe you should return to New York,” Detective Hansom said gently. “We have increased the police presence here, put more officers on duty, but I don’t feel that will necessarily keep you safe.”
Claire smiled thinly. “So I guess I’m not a suspect anymore?”
The detective looked down at his feet. “We don’t really have any suspects, Ms. Rawlings,” he said slowly. “That’s one of the problems. To tell you the truth, we haven’t even found any reliable leads.”
Claire nodded. “I see.”
“But if you mean are we satisfied that you’re not the killer—well, it’s possible, I suppose, but I never thought it was very likely in the first place.”
“Oh? Why not?”
This time Detective Hansom smiled ever so briefly. “Oh, call it instinct, I guess.”
Just then Claire heard a familiar, urgent pounding of feet descending the front staircase and turned just as the screen door was flung open.
“Ah, Detective Hansom,” Meredith cried, her face still streaked with dried tears, “just the man I wanted to see!”
“Yes?” he replied politely.
“Come with me,” she told him cheerfully, all traces of her former mood vanished. “I have something to show you.”
They followed Meredith upstairs to Claire’s room, where Claire’s laptop computer sat on top of the desk. America Online was opened, the blue-and-white logo glowing dimly in the late-morning haze.
Who Killed Dorian Gray? Page 25