Vermilion

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Before I left the guesthouse I picked up the object I must take with me, and then stood for a moment watching the house across the bridge.

  The evening was too cool for a table to be set on the terrace. Through the great glass windows I could see Consuela arranging a centerpiece of chrysanthemums in a ceramic bowl. When she went out of the room, I hurried across. As I dropped what I carried into the shadow of a bush just beyond the rail, a faint sound of inner laughter echoed through me.

  I tried not to listen. It seemed as though Vermilion grew more tangible as a presence with the crises deepening around me, and I didn’t like that. When fantasies grow so strong that they can be confused with what’s real, so that the dreamer loses a sense of the difference, it can be dangerous. I tried to persuade myself that I still knew the difference very well. And I had rejected her more than once lately.

  We sat down to dinner promptly at six-thirty, with everyone there except Brian. Orva said she’d left a note asking him to join us when he could. Marilla was visiting a little girl next door, so Orva must leave early to pick her up. Clearly, she didn’t want to be here at all, in spite of her enormous curiosity. Probably she could weave fantasies as skillfully as Jed—or I—but I suspected that she didn’t always know how to live with them.

  We were solemn and subdued that night. Rick seemed more distantly removed than ever. Though the only empty chair at the table was Brian’s, we all sensed another empty place. The questions about Sybil hung ominously over us, and the shock of her sudden death weighed upon us all.

  Clara spoke into a long silence. “What is this going to be tonight? Are we holding a séance?”

  What we were doing might not be so far removed from just that. I wondered whether Sybil, and perhaps Jed too, might not hover near us in the shadows.

  At least, Clara’s question had broken the first restraint, and now both Orva and Clara asked questions of Rick. He answered curtly at first, then began to resent the questioning about Sybil’s death, so that when Clara pushed him too hard, he grew increasingly sharp.

  “Lindsay will tell you, since she was there.”

  Consuela had served our watercress soup, while Parker hovered between table and kitchen, an eye on his broiling steaks. Everyone looked at me. I could only shake my head helplessly.

  “You all know about as much as I do,” I said, and wondered silently if someone at this table knew a great deal more.

  It was Clara who challenged me. “About as much? What do you mean by that?”

  She looked quite stunning tonight in moss green, long and flowing, with a belt of hammered silver medallions, her thick, graying braid looped about her head in a style of her own. I’d never seen her look like this before, and I found myself watching her with new eyes. Now she and Rick were merely business associates and friends, yet I sensed that Parker didn’t like Rick. I wondered if jealousy might be part of that feeling. When he was at the table, his eyes seemed to follow his wife in a strangely watchful way.

  When I didn’t answer, Clara repeated her question. “What aren’t you telling us, Lindsay? You’re the one who wanted us here tonight—so why don’t you go ahead with whatever you have in mind?”

  I was all too sharply aware of Rick’s sardonic look—as though he dared me to bring something out of this dinner. I couldn’t very well say, “Vermilion wanted me to do this.” Having pushed me, she had subsided, and I was left with little to go on. So I played the only card I had—except one. Rick had returned the key I had found, showing no inclination to turn it over to the police, and I’d brought it to the table with me, wrapped in a handkerchief. Now I took it out and placed it beyond my soup plate.

  There was a sudden silence, while all attention centered on the key.

  “I found this today,” I told them. “I found it near the spot where Sybil fell. Rick says it belonged to Jed. He doesn’t know how she would happen to have it. Do any of you?”

  Orva reached across the table and picked up the key. “That’s right. Jed used to mark his keys like this. So what?”

  She passed it along to Parker. He turned it over once or twice, then handed it to Alice. He was clearly more interested in the dinner that was his responsibility than in what we were discussing. He had not shown any sorrow over the death of Sybil Adams.

  Alice, too, confirmed the marking on the key, and it was passed around the table, returning at last to me.

  “Does anyone know why Sybil had such a disturbed feeling about the Fire People?” I asked. “She seemed really frightened when that carving was left on her doorstep. I don’t think she’d have gone out to those cliffs of her own free will.”

  Only silence met my question, and Rick watched me coldly. I tried a further challenge.

  “Do you all know about the high-heeled sandals she was wearing? She’d actually been walking out there in those unsuitable shoes. They were stone-scuffed and powdered with red dust when she was found. So who brought her there? And how?”

  Again no one answered.

  “You have a theory?” Rick asked. Tonight he was a man I hardly knew, and wasn’t sure I wanted to know, in spite of the aching void inside me. Somewhere I had lost him, and I didn’t know how or why.

  Of them all, Alice Rainsong sensed my discomfort the most keenly. She drew attention gently away by speaking to Orva.

  “Did Brian say where he was going when he left this afternoon?”

  Orva seemed startled, but she didn’t evade a question that no one else had thought of asking. “He said he had to go to Jerome.”

  I could hear the whisper in my mind: Watch them, and I looked quickly at each in turn.

  Alice’s head came up as though the name of Brian’s destination had startled her. Parker was looking only at Clara, and he seemed more sad and thoughtful than anything else. Clara stared at her empty soup plate. Of them all, Rick seemed the most surprised.

  “Jerome!” he echoed. “That’s where Sybil went a few days ago.”

  “I know,” Orva agreed. “Brian drove her there.” She spoke calmly, yet I heard uncertainty in her voice, as though her son’s actions had puzzled her.

  “What is this about Jerome?” I asked. “Why does the idea of Brian going to Jerome seem upsetting?”

  “Maybe I can answer that.” Brian himself had come around the house by way of the outside walk and stood at the terrace door, watching us. He still wore his jacket with the Search and Rescue insignia on the pocket. His hair was tousled from driving in the open. As always, his curly beard seemed to hide any real expression of what he might be thinking. Only his eyes regarded us in challenge as he came through the door to our table.

  “I drove back to Jerome today, because Sybil told me to go,” he said.

  Everyone was silent, and he went on, outwardly calm. “Lindsay, your sister told me that if any sudden accident overtook her I was to go to Jerome and start asking questions.”

  “But you already went there!” There was a wail in Orva’s voice, as though something had frightened her. “You told me that you drove her there just a couple of days ago!”

  “That’s right—I did. I played chauffeur, the way I always would when she snapped her fingers. Do you care if I sit down?” He came to the empty chair next to me, dropped into it and glared around the table. Now he was letting his anger show. “How poisonous can you get—throwing a party at a time like this? Her party!”

  “We’re trying to sort out whatever we know that might help us find the truth about her death,” I said.

  “My steaks!” Parker cried, and jumped up to race for the kitchen.

  “Well—go on!” Orva said to her son. Her long face looked drawn and thin.

  Consuela, observant as always, served soup to Brian, then brought our salads.

  “There’s nothing to tell, Ma,” he said. “I took Sybil to one of those old houses, where miners used to live, and I left her there. She didn’t ask me to come in with her. I walked around for a while and had a look at the museum. When I went back she
was waiting for me in the car. She seemed excited—or maybe it was elated—but she didn’t tell me anything. She only repeated what she’d said before—that if anything ever happened to her, I should go back to that house and ask questions. So that’s what I did today.”

  There was an interruption as Parker returned bearing a platter of sizzling steaks and placed them before Rick.

  Orva’s voice cut through the distraction. “Never mind the food! What did you find out?”

  Brian scowled. “I found out—nada. Zilch. An old woman lives in that house—a Mrs. Jessup. One of the few old-timers left in Jerome. When I got there today she had a doctor in her room, and he wouldn’t let me talk to her. She’s probably dying, by the look of her. I don’t think you’ll get much at that end. I couldn’t.”

  Rick sent plates of steak down the table and I picked up my knife and fork with no eagerness for food. As we began to eat, Orva suddenly sputtered and put down her fork.

  “Parker,” she said, “is this the same menu that Sybil told you to prepare for tonight?”

  He looked faintly embarrassed. “Well—almost. I made a few changes because what she asked me to fix was pretty dull. So I made watercress soup, and stuffed the potatoes with chives and cheese. And I’ve made a dessert instead of the ice cream she wanted.”

  “What kind of ice cream?” Orva demanded. “What did she ask for?”

  Parker wrinkled his nose. “Plain vanilla. With store cookies! Not even a sauce.”

  Orva stared around the table. “Don’t you see what she tried to do? This is the very same hotel dinner that was served us that night in Vegas! Except for Parker’s touches, it’s the same. Don’t you see? She wanted to create a mood. Same people, same food!”

  Vermilion came suddenly to life inside my head. Now! she urged. Do it now!

  I wanted to cry, Let me alone! Instead, I found myself speaking the first words that came to my tongue.

  “Orva’s right. Sybil asked you all here tonight because she wanted you to think about Las Vegas. She wanted you to think about Jed, and what happened to him there. I have something that may help you to remember.”

  Rick said, “Don’t, Lindsay!”—though he couldn’t know what I intended.

  “I have to do this,” I said miserably.

  I could feel their eyes upon me as I left the table and went outside to the terrace rail. There I knelt and reached through to pull out what I’d hidden there. I picked up Jed’s ivory-headed cane, carried it to the table, and set it down lengthwise like a macabre centerpiece, with the dragon’s mouth open, ready to emit fire.

  Someone gasped, someone cried, “No!” and when I looked around the table at all those staring faces I saw that only one person was no longer looking at me. Alice was weeping softly into her hands. I had to go on—no matter how dreadful I felt.

  “One of us here knows who picked up Jed’s cane that night,” I said. “Perhaps I can even guess who it was.”

  Rick broke the shocked silence that had enveloped the table. He sprang up and snatched the cane from its place, carried it outside and flung it across the terrace, where it clattered on the tiles and lay like a long black sword upon the terra-cotta. His dark fury seemed to pout out toward me as he returned to us. Yet all the while I knew that something was stirring in one of us at that table. Something horrible, something terrified and dangerous. In a moment there would be a sign.

  Alice raised her tear-stained face and reached across the table to place her hand on Rick’s arm. Some calming power seemed to flow from her into him, and he sat down and was still.

  It was already too late. We could hear the slam of a car door and voices outside. In a moment the chimes rang. Consuela ran to the door. Whatever it was that had begun to rise in desperate hysteria ebbed away. Everyone looked tense, but everyone looked the same as always, and there could be no telling now where danger might lie.

  This time it was the Coconino County sheriff who came into the house. He asked to speak to Rick, requesting that he come outside. I think he was mildly surprised to see us dining there together so soon after Sybil’s death.

  When they’d gone, Parker got up apologetically. “My dessert won’t keep,” he said, and hurried out to the kitchen.

  For the first time the conversation turned general and desultory. I wanted to ask Alice why she had wept, but I didn’t dare. The references to Jerome had meant something to her. I would have to find out what it was later. I knew, however, that I had one more task to perform.

  I excused myself and walked out to where Jed’s cane had skittered across the tile, knowing they were all watching me. Just before I reached it I stopped. Don’t touch it, the voice whispered. Not again. I stared at the cane. It was like a black sword pointing straight at my heart. I shook off the fantasy. I was weary of listening to imaginary voices, and I picked up the cane and carried it across the bridge to the guesthouse, where I placed it once more in the living room closet. For some reason, I wanted to keep it in my possession. Perhaps there was still something I could learn from Jed’s cane, or something I could do with it. Or perhaps it was only that I wanted to defy Vermilion, who was struggling to tell me something.

  Revelation had been very close, before the sheriff had timed his visit so badly.

  When I returned to the table, Consuela was serving stemmed crystal glasses with Parker’s lemon soufflé. It was as delicate and light as though it had never been in danger of last minute neglect, and its sweetness melted on my tongue. Before I’d eaten more than a mouthful, the woman deputy I’d met at Tlaquepaque came in to ask if I would join them outside.

  I followed her to the big garage, where the doors were open and the sheriff was kneeling to examine the wheels of Rick’s pickup truck. He seemed to be scraping dirt and bits of red stone from the tires, collecting it in an envelope, while another man in plain clothes stood by. The deputy murmured to me that he was Detective Atkins from Flagstaff. So the investigation was under way in earnest.

  The sheriff rose and handed the detective the envelope that held bits of reddish earth and stone.

  “When did you last drive your truck out in the back country, Mr. Adams?” Atkins asked.

  Rick hardly needed to consider. “I haven’t been out there for months. I did make a trip to Oraibi some weeks ago, and I went over some rough side roads. What’s up?”

  It was the sheriff who answered. “We found tire tracks out beyond Steamboat Rock that seem to match the tires on this car. And these scrapings seem to be the same composition as the earth out near where your wife’s body was found. The lab will have to confirm it of course.”

  “I haven’t been out there,” Rick said grimly. “Not today or any time recently. Besides, you’ll get that sort of stuff all around Sedona.”

  Detective Atkins was a tall man, with slightly rounded shoulders—as though he’d spent his time bending over “evidence.” But he looked wiry and strong—unflappable. His voice was low-pitched and deceptively gentle. He spoke courteously now to Rick.

  “Your wife’s car is still in the garage. We have reason to believe that she either drove this truck out to Steamboat Rock or was driven there. Certainly she had a companion with her who drove the truck back here to your garage, without reporting her fall.”

  “My wife never drove this truck,” Rick said. “I don’t think she’d have gone into that rough country on her own. Especially not to a place she feared, unless there was a very strong and urgent reason.”

  “Why do you say urgent?”

  “You’ve seen her shoes. If she’d had time and knew where she was going, she’d have put on something else.”

  “So it’s possible that someone either persuaded her to go out there in a hurry, or else she was taken by force.”

  Rick said nothing, and the detective gestured toward the house. “Is there somewhere we can sit down and talk? There’s no point in taking anyone to the office at present. I’d like to ask this lady some questions.” He looked at me.

  “Sure,”
Rick said. “My study.”

  We went into the house, and he led the way down the long living room. Outdoors on the terrace, the light was fading to a reddish glow. I could see that the mushroom lamps had come on. Everyone still sat at the table near the windows and we didn’t disturb them.

  Rick’s study was a big comfortable room with a desk of polished walnut. All around was a mixed clutter of objects he had collected in his travels throughout the Southwest. The young woman deputy remained at the door, while the rest of us sat around the desk.

  Detective Atkins looked at me. “Miss Phillips, will you tell us why you wanted to go ahead tonight with this dinner your sister had planned?”

  I threw a quick look at Rick and knew he wouldn’t help me. How could I explain? How could I say that I suspected that the same person who had murdered Jed Phillips had killed Sybil? And that I’d engineered this dinner because I’d hoped—perhaps not so futilely—that someone would give himself away. Nevertheless, there was still the key. Perhaps I could now do something with it.

  “I thought we ought to talk over together what had happened,” I said firmly. “Then perhaps we’d have something useful to tell the police.”

  “Not a bad idea,” the detective said. “Will you tell me, Miss Phillips, when you last saw your sister alive?”

  I explained then about the last time, and told of Sybil’s upset over Jed’s sculpture.

  Atkins studied me thoughtfully. “Tell me how you happened to come out here for a visit after all these years?”

  All right, Vermilion, where are you? I said silently. Why aren’t you telling me what to do? But my alter ego was quiet.

  “I came out,” I said, “because I was troubled about my father’s death and wanted to learn more about it firsthand.”

  “After waiting a year?”