A Woman’s Eye

by Sara Paretsky

  The stick swished through the air. “A dependency, of course. Small. Cramped, Cold floors in the winter, Constance had no use for her own creature comforts. Never gave them a thought. Sixty years she took care of the poor and the helpless here in Chastain, Everybody welcome here.” The rasp muted to a whisper. “And may her murderer burn in hell,”

  The hair prickled on the back of Annie’s neck. She looked around the dimly lit, linoleum-floored hallway. Worn straight chairs lined both sides of the hall. Near the door, turned sideways to allow passageway, sat a yellow pine desk.

  The stick pointed at the desk. “Manned by volunteers, ten A.M. to four P.M., every day but Sunday, Emma Louise Rammert yesterday. You’ll talk to her.”

  The calm assumption irritated Annie, “Look, Miss Dora, you’re taking a lot for granted. I only came over here because you hung up before I could say no. Now, I’ve got things on my mind-”

  “Murder?”

  Annie fervently hoped not. Surely Max and Laurel were safe! Max had promised to be careful He was going to hire a mercenary, fly in to the secret airstrip, hijack Laurel from her captors (a potful of money always worked wonders, whatever the political persuasion), and fly right back out. Oh, hell, she should have gone! What if he needed her?

  “Oh, who knows?” Annie moaned.

  “Don’t be a weak sister,” the old lady scolded. “Asinine to fret. He’ll cope, despite his upbringing.” A thoughtful pause. “Perhaps because of it. Any event, you’ve work to do here.” The cane pointed at a closed door. “There’s where it happened.” The rasp was back, implacable, ice hard, vindictive.

  The old lady, moving painfully, stumped to the door, threw it open, turned on the light.

  “Her blood’s still there. I’m on the board. Gave instructions nothing to be disturbed.”

  Annie edged reluctantly into the room. She couldn’t avoid seeing the desktop and the darkish-brown splotches on the scattered sheets of paper. The low-beamed ceiling and rough-hewn unpainted board walls indicated an old, lean-to room. No rugs graced the warped floorboards. An unadorned wooden chair sat behind the scarred and nicked desk. In one corner, a small metal typewriter table held a Remington-circa 1930.

  Gloved fingers gripped Annie’s elbow like talons. The walking stick pointed across the room.

  “Her chair. That’s the way the police found it.”

  Propelled by the viselike grip, Annie crossed the few feet to the desk and stared at the chair. The very unremarkable oak chair. Old, yes. But so was everything in the room. Old, with a slat missing.

  The ivory stick clicked against the chair seat. “No pillow. Constance always sat on a pillow. Bad hip. Never complained, of course. Now, you tell me, young miss, Where’s that pillow? Right at four o’clock and no pillow!”

  Annie was so busy wondering if Miss Dora had finally gone around the bend-which would be no surprise to her, that was for sure-that it took her a moment to realize she was “young miss.”

  Annie slanted a sideways glance.

  Miss Dora hunched over her stick now, her gloved hands tight on the knob. She stared at the empty chair, her lined face sorrowful. “Sixty years I knew Constance. Always doing good works. Didn’t simper around with a pious whine or a holier-than-thou manner. Came here every day, and every day the poor in Chastain came to her for help. No electricity. They came here. Husband beat you, son stole your money, they came here. A sick child and no food. They came here.”

  A tear edged down the ancient sallow cheek. “I used to tell her, ‘Constance, the world’s full of sorrow. Always has been. Always will be. You’re like the little Dutch boy at the dike.’”

  The old lady reached out a gloved hand and gently touched the straight chair. Then the reptilian eyes glittered at Annie. “Know what Constance said?”

  “No,” The dark little room and the blood-spattered desk held no echo of its former tenant. This was just a cold and dreary place, touched by violence.

  “Constance said, ‘Why, Dora, love, it’s so simple. “I was hungry and you gave me meat, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you took me in. Naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison and you came unto me.” ’ ”

  Beyond the dry whisper was an echo of a light and musical voice.

  Miss Dora’s stick cracked sharply against the wooden floor. She stared at Annie with dark and burning eyes. “A woman,” she rasped, hard as stone against stone, “who saw her duty and did it. A woman who would never”-the cane struck-“never”-the cane struck-“never”-the cane struck-“quit the course.”

  Annie reached for the telephone, then yanked her hand back. Dammit, she dreaded making this call. Miss Dora had almost persuaded her yesterday afternoon. Indeed, Constance Bolton’s life did argue against her death. Annie studied the picture Miss Dora had provided of a slender, white-haired woman in a navy silk dress. Constance Bolton looked serious, capable, and resourceful, a woman accustomed to facing problems and solving them. Her wide-set brown eyes were knowledgeable but not cynical; her mouth was firm but not unpleasant. Stalwart, steady, thoughtful-yes, she had obviously been all of these and more. Yet-Annie glanced down at the poorly reproduced copy of the autopsy report on Constance Maude Bolton, white, female, age seventy-two-the answer seemed inescapable, however unpalatable to Constance Bolton’s friends. Annie hated to destroy Miss Dora’s faith. But facts were facts.

  She dialed in a rush.

  “Here.”

  “Miss Dora, this is Annie. I’m at the store. Listen, I got a copy of the autopsy report on Miss Bolton.” Annie took a deep breath. “She was sick, Miss Dora. Dying. Bone cancer. She hadn’t told many people, but she knew. Her doctor said so. And there were powder burns on her hand.”

  Gusts of polar wind could not have been colder than Miss Dora’s initial silence. Then she growled, “Doesn’t matter, young miss. Get to work. Think.” The receiver thudded with the same force as the cane had struck the floor in that dingy office. “Never-never-never quit the course.”

  Annie slammed down her own receiver and glared at the phone, then jumped as it rang again.

  “Death on Demand.”

  “The pillow,” Miss Dora intoned. “The pillow, young miss. The pillow!” And the receiver banged again.

  Annie jumped to her feet and paced across the coffee area. Agatha, the bookstore’s elegant and imperious black cat, watched with sleepy amber eyes.

  “Dammit, Agatha, the old bat’s going to drive me crazy!”

  Agatha yawned,

  “Unreasonable, ill-tempered, stubborn”-Annie stopped at the coffee bar and reached for her mug-“but not stupid, Agatha.”

  As she drank the delicious French roast brew, Annie stroked Agatha’s silky fur and thought about Miss Dora. Irascible, yes. Imperious, yes. Stupid, no. “And about as sentimental as an alligator. So if she knows in the depth of her creaky bones that Constance Bolton wasn’t a quitter, where does that leave us?”

  If it wasn’t suicide, it had to be murder.

  How could it be?

  Powder burns on her right hand. Constance Bolton was right-handed. A contact wound-star-shaped-to the right temple. Bone cancer. And the gun-Annie returned to her table and riffled through the police report-the gun had been identified by Miss Bolton’s housekeeper, Sammie Calhoun. A .32 caliber revolver, it had belonged to Constance Bolton’s late brother, Everett. It had, as long as Sammie worked there, lain in the bottom drawer of the walnut secretary in the library. She had seen the gun as recently as late last week.

  The fact that this gun had been brought from Miss Constance’s home was another pointer to suicide.

  But-if she had been murdered-the use of that gun sharply circumscribed the list of possible killers.

  It had to be someone with access to the bottom drawer of that walnut secretary.

  Suicide? Or murder?

  On the one hand, terminal illness, powder marks, a contact wound, a gun brought from home.

  On the other hand,
Miss Dora’s unyielding faith in her friend’s character and a missing pillow.

  Annie sipped at her coffee. A pillow. There didn’t seem to be any reason-She thumped the mug on the counter and clapped her hands. Of course, of course. It could only have been done with a pillow. And that explains why the murder had to occur at four o’clock when the carillons sounded It wouldn’t have been necessary to mask a single shot But it was essential to mask two shots. Oh, my God, the old devil was smart as hell!

  Annie pictured the dingy room and Constance sitting behind the desk. A visitor-someone Constance knew well, surely-standing beside the desk. The movement would have been snake-quick, a hand yanking the pistol from a pocket, pressing it against her temple and firing. That would have been the moment demanding swiftness, agility. Then it would have been a simple matter, edging the pillow from beneath her, pressing her hand against the gun and firing into the pillow. That would assure the requisite powder residue on her hand. The stage then was set for suicide, and it remained only to slip away, taking the pillow, and, once home, to wash with soap and water to remove the powder marks upon the killer’s hand.

  Oh, yes, Annie could see it all, even hear the tiny click as the door closed, leaving death behind.

  But was there anything to this picture? Was this interpretation an illusion born of Miss Dora’s grief or the work of a clever killer?

  Annie could hear the crackly voice and behind it the musical tones of a good woman.

  “I was hungry …”

  By God, nobody was going to get away with the murder of Constance Bolton! Not if Annie could help it!

  * * *

  Annie focused on Miss Constance’s last few days. If it was murder, why now? Why on Saturday, November 18?

  The housekeeper agreed that Miss Constance was sick. “But she paid it no nevermind. Miss Constance, she always kept on keepin’ on. Even after Mr. Peter was killed in that car wreck up north, that broke her heart, but she never gave in. Howsomever, she was dragged down last week. Thursday night, she hardly pecked at her supper.”

  Annie made a mental note about Thursday.

  She compiled a list of Miss Constance’s visitors at Helping Hands the past week.

  The visitors were all-to the volunteers-familiar names, familiar troubles, familiar sorrows.

  Except on Thursday.

  Portia Finley said energetically, “We did have someone new late that afternoon. A young man. Very thin. He looked ill. A Yankee. Wouldn’t tell me what his trouble was, said he had to talk to Miss Constance personally. He wrote out a note and asked me to take it in to her. She read it and said she’d see him immediately. They were still in her office talking when I went home.”

  It took all of Annie’s tact, but she finally persuaded Portia Finley to admit she’d read that short note on lined notepad paper. “I wanted to be sure it wasn’t a threatening note. Or obscene.”

  “Oh, by all means,” Annie said encouragingly.

  “It didn’t amount to much. Just said he was a friend of Peter’s and Peter had told him to come and see her.”

  Friday’s volunteer, Cindy Axton, reluctantly had nothing out of the ordinary to report.

  But Saturday’s volunteer, Emma Louise Rammert, had a sharp nose, inquisitive steel-gray eyes, and a suspicious mind.

  “Don’t believe it was suicide. They could show me a video of it and I still wouldn’t believe it. Oh, yes, I know she was sick. But she never spoke of it. Certainly that wouldn’t be motive enough. Not for Constance. But something upset her that morning and I think it was the paper. The Clarion. She was fine when she came in. Oh, serious enough. Looked somber. But not nervy. She went into her office. I came in just a moment later with the mail and she was staring down at the front page of the Clarion like it had bitten her. Besides, it seems a mighty odd coincidence that on the afternoon she was to die, she’d send me off early on what turned out to be a wild goose chase. Supposed to be a woman with a sick child at the Happy Vale trailer court and there wasn’t anybody of that name. So I think Constance sent me off so she could talk to somebody without me hearing. Otherwise, I’d of been there at four o’clock, just closing up.”

  Was the volunteer’s absence engineered to make way for suicide-or for an appointment? Constance Bolton, had she planned to die, easily could have waited until the volunteer left for the day. But if she wanted to talk to someone without being overheard, what better place than her office at closing time?

  Annie picked up a copy of the Saturday morning Clarion and took it to the Sip and Sup Coffee Shop on Main Street.

  The lead story was about Arafat and another PLO peace offer. The Town Council had met to consider banning beer from the beach. Property owners attacked the newest beach nourishment tax proposals. Island merchants reported excellent holiday sales.

  A story in the bottom right column was headed:

  AUTOPSY REVEALS

  CAR OCCUPANT

  MURDER VICTIM

  Beaufort County authorities announced today that a young man found in a burning car Thursday night, originally thought to have died in a one-car accident on a county road, was a victim of foul play.

  Despite extensive burns, the autopsy revealed, the young man had died as a result of strangulation. The victim was approximately five feet seven inches tall, weighed 130 pounds, was Caucasian, and suffered from AIDS.

  The car was found by a passing motorist late Thursday evening on Culowee Road two miles south of the intersection with Jasper Road.

  The car was rented at the Savannah airport on Thursday by a Richard Davis of New York City.

  Authorities are seeking information about Davis’s activities in Chastain. Anyone with any information about him is urged to contact Sheriff Chadwick Porter.

  Annie called Miss Dora. “Tell me about Peter.”

  “Constance’s grandnephew. His father, Morgan, was the son of Everett, her older brother. Everett died about twenty years ago, not long after Morgan was killed in Vietnam. Peter inherited the plantations, but he never worked them. James did that. The other brother. But they went to Peter. The oldest son of the oldest son inherits in the Bolton family. Peter inherited from his mother, too. She was one of the Cinnamon Hill Morleys. Grieved herself into the grave when Morgan was killed in Vietnam. So Constance raised the boy and James ran the plantations. When he was grown, Peter went to New York. A photographer. Didn’t come back much, Then he was killed last winter. A car wreck.”

  One car wreck had masked murder.

  Had another?

  * * *

  Annie wished for Max as she made one phone call after another, but she knew how to do it. When it became clear that Peter Bolton didn’t die in a car wreck-despite that information in his obituary, which had been supplied by his great-uncle James-she redoubled her efforts. She found Peter’s address, his telephone number, and the small magazine where his last photograph had been published and talked to the managing editor.

  But Peter wasn’t murdered.

  Peter died in a New York hospital of AIDS.

  And Richard Davis had been dying of AIDS before he was strangled and left in a burning car in Beaufort County, South Carolina.

  Richard’s note to Constance Bolton claimed he was a friend of Peter’s. More than a friend?

  Maggie Sutton had the apartment above Richard’s in an old Brooklyn brownstone.

  Her voice on the telephone was clipped and unfriendly. “You want to know anything about Richard Davis, you ask-”

  Before she could hang up, destroy Annie’s link to Richard and through him to Peter, Annie interrupted quickly. “Richard’s dead. Murdered. Please talk to me. I want to find his murderer.”

  It took a lot of explaining, then Maggie Sutton said simply, “My God. Poor Richie.”

  “Did you know Richard was coming to South Carolina?”

  “Yes. He was sick-”

  “I know.”

  “-and they fired him. They aren’t supposed to, but they do it anyway. Before most people with A
IDS can appeal, file a lawsuit, they’re dead. Richie was almost out of money. His insurance was gone. They only want to insure healthy people, you know. Nobody with real health problems can get insurance. Richie and Peter lived downstairs from me. Nice guys.” She paused, repeated forcefully. “Nice guys.” A sigh. “God, it’s all so grim. Richie took care of Peter. He died last winter. Last week, Richie told me he was going on a trip and he asked me to feed their cat, Big Boy, while he was gone. Richie said Peter had written a will before he died, leaving everything to Richie, but he didn’t do anything about it then. I mean, he didn’t want Peter’s money. But now he was desperate. And he thought, maybe if he went down there, showed the will to the family …” Her voice trailed off.

  The family.

  The last surviving member of the family stood with his head bowed, his freshly shaved face impassive, his hands clasped loosely behind his back, as mourners dispersed at the conclusion of the graveside service on Tuesday afternoon. A dark-suited employee of the funeral home held a black umbrella to shield James Caldwell Bolton from the rain.

  The day and James Bolton were a study in grays, the metallic gray of Constance Bolton’s casket, resting over the dark pit of her grave, the steel gray of Bolton’s pinstripe suit, the soft gray of weathered stones, the misty gray of the weeping sky, the silver gray of Miss Dora’s rain cape, the flinty gray of the stubby palmettos’ bark, the ash-gray of the rector’s grizzled hair.

  Annie huddled beneath the outspread limbs of a live oak, a thick wool scarf knotted at her throat, her raincoat collar upturned. Rain splashed softly against gravestones as mourners came forth to shake Bolton’s hand and murmur condolences.

  Annie stared at the man who had inherited the Bolton and Morley family plantations.

  James Bolton didn’t look like a murderer.

  He looked-as indeed he was-like a substantial and respectable and wealthy member of the community. There was a resemblance to his dead sister, brown eyes, white hair, a firm chin. But where Constance’s face was memorable for its calm pity and gentle concern, there was an intolerant and arrogant quality to his stolid burgher’s face.