Vermilion

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “Her suitcase was in his car,” Brian said tightly. “They were off for a weekend together. A lot of good it did for him to be sorry afterwards. Sure, he was sorry enough—so what?”

  Alice put a calming hand on his arm. “Sometimes I think the old idea of not speaking badly of the dead is a good one. It’s easier for the living if we can give them the benefit of our doubts. For all we really know, he might have been taking her to a train.”

  Brian snorted derisively. “You’re right about one thing. She would never tell me much about her family. She couldn’t remember her father, and said he had died when she was small. She loved and hated her mother, but she would never open up and talk about her. She said it hurt too much, and perhaps she would tell me someday. So you tell me now, Alice. There’ll never be a better time.”

  “There’s no reason not to—now,” Alice agreed. “Celia’s mother was in prison. She was accused of killing a man when Celia was small. Someone who had used her badly. She claimed she was innocent, but the State took a dim view, and she was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment. She died in prison—of pneumonia. Celia said her mother didn’t want to live. She visited her two or three times and always came back broken up. Brooks was a name Celia chose, of course. She didn’t want any connection with her real name and her mother’s past. I was her friend and adviser, so she talked to me. But she was afraid to have anyone else know.”

  “She might have trusted me a little,” Brian said. When he rose from the table abruptly and walked out of the café, his expression frightened me. I had the feeling that he had been pushed to some extreme.

  “I’m sorry,” Alice said. “It was time for him to hear these things, no matter how much they hurt. Shall we go back to Sedona now? I have my car, Rick, if you want to take Lindsay. There are some things I need to do in Sedona.”

  It seemed to me that she and Rick exchanged a look that carried some meaning I didn’t understand. I would be only too glad to go back with Rick. I touched the lump on my head lightly, and found it hadn’t gone down much as yet. I still felt a little groggy at times.

  We parted with Alice. When we were in the car driving toward home, we had little to say to each other. He mentioned that he was to see the police in Flagstaff again this afternoon, and after that he was silent. Too much still lay between us, holding us apart. Once I tried to put my uneasiness about Brian into words.

  “He’s been holding all this back about Celia, but it’s been churning inside him ever since her death. He must have hated Jed more than almost anyone else. Do you suppose—”

  Rick cut in. “It’s too easy to speculate. If he’d killed Jed, wouldn’t that have vented a lot of his rage?”

  I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything.

  When the red rocks were near, Rick turned off down a road I didn’t recognize.

  “There’s a place I want to show you,” he said. “A quiet place I think you’ll like. Maybe we both need it now.”

  14

  As we drove across a flat area of valley, Rick pointed. “Look up there.”

  Above us a narrow structure of white stone grew out of a red mountain, a great white cross supporting the roof and sides. Behind it, red cliffs towered hundreds of feet, and at its feet golden aspens rustled.

  “The Chapel of the Holy Cross,” Rick said. “We’re going up there.”

  It was awesome to see the great slabs of aggregate stone that sloped narrowly downward from the top of the cross, to be rooted in rock. A cross that celebrated a younger faith than the giants behind it had known. The chapel stood like an exclamation mark, a challenge flung down against the forces of evil.

  “It was built as a memorial,” Rick said, “and it’s there on the mountain for anyone who has need.”

  The road curled up from the valley, cutting through rock, circling as it rose. High up, we found a place where we could leave the car and walk the rest of the way. The approach was from the rear and over a curving, steel-supported ramp of concrete. Red rocks encroached all around, enfolding what men had built, so that only the chapel stood free, dominated by its white cross.

  At the top, the pavement widened into a spread of gravel, with rails and low stone benching. But it was still the chapel that held my full attention. At the rear it came down from the ninety-foot cross and widened into a curving wall of glass panes that reflected red mountains of rock. The flat roof slanted upward away from us, and it too narrowed at the top of that challenging cross which faced out across the country, to be seen for miles around.

  “Let’s sit down for a moment,” Rick said.

  There was no one about. We sat on an outside bench, close, not touching. I felt a new awareness of everything around me. I was especially conscious of the cliffs that stood like great red statues, frowning and stark. Aware, too, of the glowing panes of the chapel, and above all, aware of the man beside me, warm and alive in a world where there was so much death. This was a moment to cherish, no matter what happened.

  “This afternoon when I go to Flagstaff,” Rick said quietly, “I’m going to give them the motive they’re searching for. It’s better to offer the truth than to have them digging to find something they think I’m hiding. They know by now that Sybil and I were breaking up. So I mean to tell them we’d eventually have been divorced.”

  I waited tensely and he went on.

  “I’ll also tell them that when this is over and a decent time has passed, I’ll ask you to marry me.”

  I slipped my hand through the crook of his arm and held on tightly for a moment. But for Rick’s sake, I couldn’t approve what he meant to do.

  “You mustn’t go through with this,” I said. “It could count against you too strongly.”

  “Perhaps. I have to persuade the police to look into other possibilities. They need to look for someone who has something to hide—and I’m not hiding anything.”

  Before I could speak again, he stood up and drew me with him. “Let’s go inside,” he said, and we walked together through the door of the chapel.

  Stone walls slanted inward and upward toward a rear version of the great outside cross. It stood against panes of blue glass that reflected the sky. Under our feet the carpet was a soft desert brown, and benches had been set on either side of the central aisle. The altar, set a few steps up from the aisle, was small and covered with white linen.

  It was a place for prayer or meditation, a place where one might ask silently for help—from whatever outer or inner source there might be. The quiet seemed intense and peaceful, and it held off the clamor of the world, offering that gift that was peculiar to man alone—hope. I closed my eyes and asked for help against those forces the cross had challenged. I asked forgiveness for Sybil, for Jed, for me. I asked for Rick’s safety. And I gave thanks for life itself.

  In a little while we rose and went again into sunshine. After this small space of time set apart, I could feel renewed, strengthened. Whatever was to come, I could face it with more courage now.

  “We’ll stop at Orva’s and pick up Marilla,” Rick said when we were in the car again and heading toward town. “She’ll stay out of school for a few days. The funeral will be quiet, private, of course.”

  When we reached Orva’s, we found her in a state of nerves, and the moment we stepped into the house we heard the drum. It came from the outdoor patio at the back. Brian was using a heavy beat followed by two light quick ones, over and over. It was a quickened version of the beat I’d repeated for myself—a beat that still stirred the pulses and demanded action, that built toward some explosive climax.

  Orva shook her head despairingly. “He came bursting in a little while ago and went straight out there. Come and look.”

  She led the way to a glass door at the rear, and we stood staring at the strange tableau out on the patio. Brian knelt with his back toward us, the drum before him, the beater in his right hand. He was totally unaware of us, oblivious to anything but the drum.

  “I don’t know what he’s trying
to do,” Orva whispered.

  Marilla came running from her room, wearing a paintsmeared smock that was too big for her, a crimson smudge on her chin. The puzzle of what drove Brian was nothing we could solve, and when we turned to greet Marilla, she once more clung to her father. Rick said it was past lunchtime, and if she wanted to hurry and clean up he would take us into Sedona for a quick lunch. He hadn’t much time left before he must start for Flagstaff.

  Marilla hurried, and when Rick had thanked Orva we left her to her concern for Brian and drove downtown.

  The restaurant was Mexican in atmosphere, name, and menu, with whitewashed walls, a dark, beamed ceiling, and tiled floor. We talked about anything and nothing as we ate, skirting dangerous territory as if by mutual consent.

  Now and then Marilla’s eyes widened, as though she still held horror away. She knew, as we knew, that nothing was finished, and that we didn’t know what might step out of the shadows around us.

  When we’d eaten, Rick drove us to the house. Consuela came to the door at once and motioned anxiously with her head. When I looked toward the terrace, I saw that Parker Hale was out there, pacing the tiles.

  “Have you any homework to catch up on?” Rick asked his daughter.

  She sensed that she was being sent away, but she went quietly, and I knew she was afraid.

  Parker heard us coming and whirled around at the far end of the terrace. “God! Where have you been, Rick? I’ve been calling all over for you, and no one knew where you’d gone. You might have left word at a time like this.”

  “You apparently didn’t try the sheriff’s office,” Rick said. “I told them where I’d be. We went to Jerome.”

  “Jerome!” The word rang with disbelief. “Why Jerome?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Rick said. “You wanted to find me, and now I’m here. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Clara,” he told Rick. “You’d better come and talk to her right away. The police have been out to see her, and she’s scared she’ll say the wrong thing. Can you come over to the shop right now?”

  Rick glanced at his watch. “I’ve still got twenty minutes before I go to the sheriff’s office. So let’s go.”

  “I’m coming with you,” I said.

  “All right.” He asked Consuela to keep an eye on Marilla, and I went out with him. Parker had left his car down the road. When we started up he followed us.

  At Tlaquepaque we all went into the shop together. Clara, looking thoroughly distraught, was waiting on a customer. The neat braid she usually wore down her back or around her head had given way to a mass of thick hair caught up carelessly with a barrette. When she saw us, she nodded toward her office and we went straight back. As soon as she could leave the shop to her assistant, she joined us.

  “Do sit down, Parker, you make me nervous,” she snapped at her husband, and he dropped into a chair, where he fidgeted with his sweater. Clara sat behind her desk, while Rick and I took the small sofa. I’d never seen Clara so close to losing control.

  “You shouldn’t have gone off to find Rick,” she told Parker. “You just pop off on impulse sometimes. I needed you here, because the police came back. I’d held off telling them anything, but this time they got it out of me.”

  “Take it easy,” Rick said. “Got what out of you?”

  She made an effort to speak more quietly. “There’s something I hadn’t told anybody till now, because I didn’t want to hurt anyone. That last morning, when Sybil disappeared, she came here after she’d seen Orva. She came to make trouble, and she tried to stir things up. I didn’t say anything about this at first because I thought it was better if the police didn’t know she’d come here, and that I might have been the last person to see her alive—except one, of course. But someone saw her come in here and told a deputy. So I had to admit that she’d been here. At first I didn’t tell them the whole story.”

  It was Parker’s turn to snap. “Get to the point, Clara. Tell us what happened.”

  She raised her hands helplessly, then let them drop back in her lap. “Sybil sat right here in this room and gave me the details of what happened that night in Vegas—the important thing she’d never told the police. She was angry with her father, and they’d had a quarrel earlier in the evening. She wanted to have something out with him. So when it was late enough and no one would see her, she started down the hall to talk to him.

  “That’s when she saw someone hurrying away from his room toward the elevators. His door was ajar, and she walked in to find him lying there dead. Because of the quarrel they’d had, and the long antagonism between them, she went back to her room and told the police nothing when everyone was questioned the next day. Lately, however, she’d begun to worry. She felt there was a threat against her life, and she wanted someone to know what had really happened in Vegas. Though she still wasn’t ready to go to the police. It’s too bad she didn’t—she might be alive now.”

  Clara’s voice broke and she began to cry in great convulsive sobs. Parker put an arm about her, attempting clumsily to soothe and comfort, no longer impatient with her. She pushed him away.

  I heard my own voice cut through the sound of weeping. “Who was it that Sybil saw in the corridor, Clara?”

  She took a great gulping breath and stared at me with swimming eyes. For a moment I thought she wouldn’t answer, and then she seemed to come to a decision. “It was Rick who was running away from Jed’s room.”

  The silence that fell upon us seemed terrifying, as though we all held our breaths, waiting for something awful to happen.

  After a moment, Rick spoke quietly. “Sybil was lying, of course. I never went near Jed’s room that night. Sybil and I had separate rooms, so I didn’t know she was out of hers. I didn’t leave mine at all.”

  “I knew it couldn’t have been you who killed Jed—or Sybil!” Clara wailed. “That’s what I had to tell the police. I tried to hold back at first, but they got it out of me. So they’re looking for you now.”

  “Then I’ll go to them,” Rick said quietly. “I’m due there anyway, and I’ve nothing to hide. Don’t worry, Clara, I’m not blaming you. It’s just that Sybil always was a liar. It’s a wonder she didn’t come up with this a long time ago, in order to get me in trouble.”

  “She told me she’d kept still because she was afraid. Nevertheless, she always liked to turn the screws and use her power. I suppose this would give her a power over—whoever it was.”

  “You’re right—it would have been like her,” I broke in bitterly. “This means that she saw the real murderer that night, and this is why she died. Whoever killed my father found out what she knew.”

  Rick got up. “I’m late. I’ll get over to the sheriff’s office right away.”

  He touched a finger to my cheek. “Don’t worry, Lindsay. We’ll come out of this. I may not be home tonight to keep a lookout, as I’d meant to. I’ve had a workman over to put on stouter locks, and Alice will be with you. Take care of Marilla, won’t you?”

  “I will,” I promised. “Of course I will.”

  “I’d like you to do something else now. Go upstairs to the workroom we’ve been planning, Lindsay. Go up there and try not to worry.”

  When he’d gone, Clara made an effort to collect herself. “Rick’s right—you’d better keep busy, Lindsay. We all need to find something to do. Parker, you said you had a special dinner on for tonight, so hadn’t you better get started?”

  He gave her a long look, as though she’d become a stranger to him. Then he nodded to me and went away.

  Perhaps Rick could forgive Clara for talking. I couldn’t. “I’m going to be very busy,” I said, “and I think you’d better help. There’s only one job I’m interested in right now. That’s trying to find out who killed my father and my sister—and tried to kill me.”

  I didn’t wait for her answer but went outside and up the stairs to the second level. Through show windows I could see that several pieces of furniture had been brought into the shop, and that
Alice was inside. So this was why Rick had wanted me to come up here. This was what Alice had wanted to do in Sedona. I could only feel apathetic as I tapped on the glass.

  She came quickly to open the door. “Rick thought it would be a good idea for us to start on some of the things we’d intended.” Then she saw my face. “What’s happened now, Lindsay?”

  There was no one I’d rather talk to. We had come that far in this short time. I dropped into one of the chairs and told her what had happened, while she listened gravely, offering no false words of consolation. Instead, she made an effort to interest me in what she’d been doing in this room.

  “Clara gave me your rough sketches, and I’ve tried to pick up whatever I could find in a hurry on your list. Let’s do what we can today, Lindsay. That’s what Rick would like.”

  So I made an effort too. I tried to remember who I was—who I used to be—even though New York was a thousand light-years away. It seemed strange to realize how fully Arizona had moved in to possess me. My ties were here now, not only because I loved Rick and wanted to be a part of his life, but because of a heritage that must still be explored and realized.

  Trying to orient myself, I checked through the items Alice had been able to find. There were pattern tissue, lightweight unbleached muslin, packets of pins, shears with a bent handle, smaller scissors for trimming. She’d brought me somebody’s yardstick, though its edge was no longer smooth and might snag on cloth. There was even a tomato-shaped pincushion that made me smile.

  “This is fine,” I said, “but since I haven’t a dressmaker’s form to work on, how about using you, Alice?”

  She blinked, suddenly self-conscious. “I don’t know. Will I do?”

  Old habit was instilled in me, I found. My mind clicked into the familiar groove, and I knew that I was still the Lindsay Phillips whose name had become well known on a dress label.

  “Stand up and turn around,” I directed.