Vermilion

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “Orva Montgomery sent me a note that brought me here. She felt Sybil knew something about my father’s death that she wasn’t telling.”

  Atkins looked at the sheriff, who nodded. “I know Orva Montgomery well. A good solid woman.”

  “Then we’ll talk to her.”

  Good solid Orva wasn’t going to like that, I thought, and wondered how far she would go to protect her son, if that seemed indicated.

  “There’s one other thing,” I said, and once more took the key from my handkerchief. “I found this in that—that place today. Near where I saw Sybil lying.”

  Rick said, “That key belonged originally to my wife’s father, though it’s a key to this house. Jed always filed his keys with special notches, so he could pull them out by touch. I don’t see how Sybil happened to have it—if she did have it.”

  “We’ll look into that,” Atkins said, and placed the key in an envelope. “Now then, Miss Phillips, is there anything else you can tell us? Has anything come out at this dinner tonight?”

  “There’s nothing sensible I can tell you,” I said, “but if you want to know what I think, it’s that whoever murdered my father also caused Sybil’s death.”

  “Anything you can give us to back that up?”

  “Only the key. That is, if the person who killed Jed took it from him in Las Vegas.”

  Rick and I walked with them to the door and Detective Atkins turned to me again before he left.

  “I knew your father, Miss Phillips. Everyone liked him, though sometimes he worried us a little. He was given to doing the unexpected at times—and not always wisely. However, no one seems to have turned up who had a grudge against him. Or at least no serious grudge. I worked on the case at the time with the Vegas police. I still want to solve it.” He told us good night and went quietly away.

  I stood beside Rick and looked up at stars that were beginning to appear in the sky. How bright and close they seemed in Sedona. I longed to touch him and to be comforted, but for all that he stood so close, he was miles away.

  “You’ve got to get out of this, Lindsay,” he told me curtly. “If it’s all right with the police for you to leave, I want to see you on a plane as soon as possible!”

  “I’m not going,” I said.

  “Right after the funeral, you’ll go,” he repeated. “You can’t stay here any longer.”

  I spoke with stiff courtesy. “Do you mind if I remain in the guesthouse for a few more days? After that, I’ll find a room somewhere. Perhaps Orva can put me up.”

  Rick seemed to explode. “Stay away from Orva and from that son of hers! You can live in the guesthouse for now. But not for long.”

  “Rick,” I said, “stop being angry with me. I want to help. And I need help.” To my distress, my voice cracked as I went on. “How I wish I could have been older when you came to New York that first time!”

  For a moment, I thought he’d softened toward me. Then he stiffened again. “I want you to stay alive—and uninvolved. You said something pretty foolish at the table tonight—that you had some idea who it was that used the cane on Jed.”

  “But I don’t know!” I cried. “I’m not even sure why I said that—except perhaps to stir someone into revealing something.”

  “Anyway, you did say it. I’m going to send Alice over to stay with you tonight. I don’t want you to be alone.”

  I wasn’t anxious to stay alone either, and I knew Rick couldn’t come to me now. Perhaps he never would—not ever again.

  I tried another question. “Do you know what it was about the mention of Jerome that seemed to upset everyone tonight? And why did Alice cry?”

  “I’m not sure, but I am very sure that Sybil was asking for trouble when she went to Jerome. She always believed that arrogance and authority would get her by. Well, it didn’t.”

  I hated the way he sounded. It was as though all his long restrained anger with Sybil had surfaced out of the evening’s tensions, so that he wasn’t hiding it anymore. Even though she was gone, his anger was alive, and I remembered what Orva had said about Sybil’s not changing just because she was dead. Unhappily, I found myself thinking of the truck in Rick’s garage, with its telltale tires, and I shivered.

  “Shall we go back to our guests?” Rick asked.

  The only comfort I could take was that he had said “our.” He was concerned about me—and I about him—yet I wanted more than that. So much more.

  When we returned to the table we found everyone getting ready to leave. Parker was in the kitchen, and Orva and Clara came at once to question us. Brian had apparently gone off on his own, and Alice drew aside to another part of the room, more sensitive to Rick’s tension, and mine, and willing to let us be.

  “What did the police want?” Orva demanded of Rick. “Have they figured anything out?”

  I couldn’t bear to listen any longer, and I said, “Good night,” though I doubt if anyone heard me. For once, it was a relief to hurry across the bridge. When I reached the little house it looked all too lonely and empty, and I was glad that Rick would send Alice to stay with me later.

  The door, as usual, was unlocked. I’d just put my hand on the knob to open it when a shadow rose from a chair on the deck.

  “It’s only me again,” Brian said. “Can I come in and talk to you for a minute?”

  I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to talk to anyone else for a long time, but I stepped aside and let him through the door.

  He stood looking around the living room. “I slept in this house once. I came back with Sybil late one night after one of her speaking trips. She said not to go home and wake Orva up and that I should stay right here, since it was empty. So I did. I left early in the morning, and I don’t think Rick even knew I’d stayed overnight.”

  What I wondered, what I questioned, must have showed in my face, for Brian shook his head wryly. “No—it wasn’t anything like that. I was always useful to Sybil, though never part of her life. She was too cold to go in for any philandering.”

  I didn’t want to talk about Sybil. “Why did you want to speak with me?”

  Gently, though firmly, he put his hands on my shoulders and pressed me into a chair. Then he sat down nearby, bending earnestly toward me.

  “Maybe I can help,” he said.

  I glanced at the door and saw that it was closed. “In what way, Brian?”

  “You’ve had a terrible day. And the dinner tonight didn’t help any, did it? There’s too much emotion around—a sort of psychic emotion that affects us all, even when we’re not consciously aware of it. Every possible emotion except grief, I think. I don’t believe anyone, except perhaps Marilla, will grieve for Sybil. There’s a way for you to ease all this, Lindsay.”

  “I’d certainly like to do that,” I said doubtfully, “but how?”

  “All you need do is remember back to when you first stepped through into the place of the Fire People. Go back to that moment when you heard me playing the drum—when you looked up at the Shining One. There’s all the peace the universe holds in that face. There’s some sort of wonderful promise, as well. The Ones-Who-Came-Before knew. Just think about it, see it again in your mind and listen to the drum. Then you’ll be calm. It always works for me, Lindsay.”

  Here was that mysticism of Brian’s emerging again, and I was already shaking my head. “No, it won’t work for me. That face seemed almost too terrible to look into. Not calming at all. Perhaps because whatever it stands for knows about all eternity, and I’m only an earth person. I can’t look out into the sky like that. It would terrify me.”

  Brian seemed sad, almost regretful, as though he really did want to offer me an escape from all that would torment me for a long time to come. “Jed found inspiration in them, a lifting of his spirit. He talked about it once to me. That’s why I wanted to play the drum out there—to see if I could free our spirits.”

  “What do you think Sybil found there?”

  He considered my question as though I�
�d asked something profound. “Perhaps Sybil was a sacrifice,” he said.

  “To the gods? Oh, Brian!”

  “She had to be sacrificed, didn’t she? I could almost see it coming. It was inevitable.” He seemed more eager than ever to convince me.

  “And Jed?” I asked softly.

  Suddenly somber, he stood up. “I expect it’s no use talking to you, Lindsay. You have it in you to feel and understand these things, but you’re not ready yet.”

  As he started toward the door, something caught his eye and he stopped. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing.

  He was indicating the glass-topped coffee table in front of the sofa, and I saw that a film of Sedona’s insidious red dust had collected over its surface. I knew that it was always a continuous battle to keep up with the dust, and now I saw that there were markings on the coffee table—lettering!

  I went quickly to the table and stood looking down. Barely visible, since the film was thin, a name was scrawled: VERMILION. I sat down in the nearest chair with a suddenness that jarred me.

  “Vermilion?” Brian said. “Oh, I remember. She was your imaginary playmate when you were small, wasn’t she?”

  I couldn’t look at him. I could only stare at the name written in the dust. “How did you know?” I asked.

  “Sybil, of course. She said you often used your friend Vermilion against her. She said you didn’t outgrow her as you got older, and that you’d begun to imagine her as almost real by the time you were in your teens.”

  Then she’d have told others, too.

  “Sybil never understood,” I said bitterly.

  Brian was silent for a moment. When he spoke his tone was gentle. “I think I can understand, Lindsay.”

  “You mean you think I’m a little crazy?”

  “No. I didn’t believe that, even when Sybil hinted at it. I’ve been trying to tell you that there’s a lot more out there than we humans can understand. Maybe we’re nearer to it here in Sedona. There are so many—mysteries. I feel very near them sometimes when I’m hiking through the canyon—as though some sort of revelation might be close. But there’s a danger too.”

  His rapt expression made me uneasy, but I said nothing.

  “The danger lies in the fact that we are human. To come too close—to see through the curtain—might only mean the end of life as we know it.”

  I shook myself back into the real world. “You’re missing the point,” I said. “What I want to know is who scratched a name here in red dust? Who else did Sybil tell about Vermilion?”

  “I suppose she could have told anyone. Aren’t you missing the point? Who else could have written it, except your—Vermilion?”

  Pushing him out of my way almost violently, I ran into the kitchen to get a dampened sponge. Then I returned to kneel before the coffee table and wipe it clean of red dust. Brian didn’t speak until I was through, and the table was free of any trace of lettering.

  Then he said in an ordinary voice, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Do you think I’d stay here, staring at that scrawl all night? I couldn’t stand any more of that!”

  I was still kneeling before the table with the sponge clutched in my fingers when Brian bent over me, drawing it from my grasp. He raised me carefully to my feet and put his arms around me, resting his cheek against my hair.

  “Oh, Lindsay, you have to learn to let go, to relax. Everything will be all right. I can help you, Lindsay, if you’ll let me. I can help you find peace.” He was smoothing my hair as tenderly as though I’d been a child, and I felt more frightened by his intense gentleness than if he’d been rough with me. Somehow I didn’t dare remove myself from his embrace in any sudden way. In the most peace-loving person there could be violence—I had seen hints of it in Rick—but this man frightened me because he was just a little out of touch with reality.

  Sensing my stillness in his arms, he released me and stepped back. “It’s all right, Lindsay. All I want is to help you. I never really wanted to help Sybil, but just to get her to promote something very important, and not only for Sedona. For everywhere today. You’re Jed’s daughter in a better way than she was, and that means a lot to me. When I was a kid, I worshipped him. And the feeling I had for him didn’t change until the last year or so before he died. That was because he changed, and he began to scare me.”

  “What do you mean—changed?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that. Not now. You’re tired, so I’ll go. You’d better think about some of the things I’ve said tonight. Lindsay, if there’s trouble—of any kind—you can count on me. Lock your door tonight. After this you’d better lock it whenever you leave.”

  Locking the door was first in my mind too, and when he’d gone I turned the key with a sharp click, then went into the living room, where I stood looking down at the coffee table, wiped clear of red dust.

  Who could possibly have written that name for me to find? Who had meant me to feel the terror this act had aroused? Not for a moment would I believe that some product of my own mind, my imagination, had taken on corporeal life and traced a name in red dust. Never!

  Somewhere inside my head that familiar laughter seemed to ripple mockingly.

  I was ready for bed, wrapped in a light robe, and sitting in the kitchen drinking hot milk when Alice tapped on the front door and called to me. I went gladly to let her in, and locked it after her. Her expression seemed solemn and concerned as she came out to the kitchen with me.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve kept you up,” she said. “I’ve been talking to Rick.”

  “It’s not really late, though I feel as though it must be past midnight because so much has happened.”

  “I’m concerned about Rick,” Alice said. “He thinks it’s only a matter of time before he’s picked up as the only suspect. It’s too bad that Sybil must have gone off in his truck yesterday.”

  “Who do you think was driving it? That’s the crucial point.”

  “I wish I knew. Lots of us around here can drive that sort of vehicle. I have one myself. But now Rick is especially worried about you. He wants me to persuade you to go back to New York as soon as possible.”

  New York? That faraway place—lost to me already? How strange to think that only a short while ago all my life had been tied up with New York. I’d talked to Nan today, after we’d found Sybil. Everything was going fine, and she understood that I must stay for a time. I had a feeling, talking with her, that we already belonged to different worlds, and that matters which had been important to me a little while ago and were still important to my partner no longer had much significance in my life. Everything changed in the face of—murder. In the face of love.

  I repeated the words I’d said to Rick. “I’m not going to leave. Not yet.”

  “I know,” Alice sighed. “I didn’t think you would. You’re Jed’s daughter.”

  “What does that mean—being Jed’s daughter?”

  “So many things. I can see Silvercloud in you as well. Such stubbornness in the two of them, and such devotion to what they believed in. Though she was gentle, and sometimes he was not.”

  “What did my father believe in? I’ve always wondered.”

  “I’m not sure of that anymore. Perhaps he believed in helping—when he could. He hadn’t many illusions about himself, about his own appetites—and he didn’t always like the way he lived, or the fascination the next turn of the tables always had for him. The big gamble. He tried to compensate in his own way, and I think he did, some of the time.”

  “Not with your young friend Celia,” I said bitterly.

  “No, not with her.”

  If there had been anger in Alice Rainsong against Jed at one time, it was no longer there, though it was still strong in me.

  “What can we do to help Rick?” I asked. He was the present. I could do nothing about the past.

  “Perhaps we could find out about Jerome,” she said. “Perhaps we could go there.”

  “What do you t
hink can be found in Jerome?”

  For the first time she seemed uneasy. “Your father lived in Jerome for a while, years ago.”

  “Then he knew this Mrs. Jessup, whom Sybil and Brian went to see? Is that what you think?”

  “Yes, he knew her, but I don’t want to bother her, Lindsay. If we go to Jerome, it won’t be to visit her. There may be someone else left who knew Jed, since there aren’t all that many people in the town.”

  I still felt strongly that the mysterious Mrs. Jessup was the connecting link, but I would wait until we reached Jerome before I urged Alice again.

  “Let’s go tomorrow, then,” I suggested. “I have a feeling there isn’t too much time.”

  She nodded gravely. “Shall we leave for Jerome early? I’m usually up by daylight.”

  “Not that early. Let’s say in the morning.” I couldn’t know then that we wouldn’t get to Jerome tomorrow, no matter what we planned. “I want to tell you what happened here tonight,” I went on. “Brian Montgomery was waiting for me when I came back this evening.”

  Alice Rainsong was a woman who could listen, who tried to understand what lay behind spoken words. She paid me quiet attention as I related the details of Brian’s visit, though she offered no comment. Not until I told her of the name, “Vermilion,” being written in dust on the coffee table, did she seem disturbed.

  “I don’t like that. It means that someone not only entered this house maliciously but chose this way of striking out at you.”

  I liked her calm practicality. Just having her understand helped me.

  “It’s a good thing I’m staying here tonight,” she went on. “Two of us will discourage anyone who might try to reach you alone.”

  “I’m glad you came.” I held out my hand and she clasped it in both of hers. Her quiet strength brought me a little of that peace that Brian had talked about so grandiloquently.

  A half hour later we were in our twin beds, and after a little more desultory talk we fell asleep.

  My awakening came in the small hours of the morning. It seemed to me that there had been a muffled sound from the living room, though I couldn’t be sure whether it was in my dreams, or real. When I opened my eyes and stared into what should have been darkness, I saw a shimmer of light beyond the bedroom door.