As the last of Miss Constance’s friends trod away across the spongy ground of the graveyard, Annie left the oyster-shell path. Skirting behind a stand of pines, she moved into the oldest part of the cemetery, stopping in the shadow of a crumbling mausoleum some twenty-five yards distant from the new grave site.
Bolton waved away the undertaker with the umbrella.
Had any of the mourners looked back, they would have glimpsed his figure, head again bowed, lingering for a last moment with his sister.
But Annie could see his face. It was for a singular, heart-stopping instant transformed. His lips curved up in satisfaction.
Annie knew, as clearly as if he’d shouted, that James Bolton was exulting. A murderer twice over, safe, secure, successful. A rich and powerful man.
“James.”
His face re-formed into sad repose as he turned toward Miss Dora.
The old lady took her time, each step obviously a painful task.
Annie slipped free of her raincoat, unfurled a navy umbrella-Sammie Calhoun had quite willingly given her mistress’s umbrella to Miss Dora-and undid the scarf covering the curly white wig.
Miss Dora, her wizened face contorted in a worried frown, peered up at James Bolton.
“James, I’ve had the oddest”-the raspy voice wavered-“communication. The ouija board. Last night. Never been a believer in that sort-”
“James …” Annie held a high, light, musical tone than let her voice waver and drop like the sigh of a winter wind. In her own ears, it didn’t sound enough like the recorded interview the local radio station had found of Constance Bolton speaking out in a League of Women Voters forum on abortion. She tried again, a little louder, “James …”
It must have been better than she’d thought.
James Bolton’s head whipped around, seeking out the sound. His face was suddenly gray, too, the color of old putty.
Annie glided from behind the cover of the mausoleum, one hand outstretched. “James …” Then she backed away, just as a dimly seen figure might drift forth, then disappear. Once out of Bolton’s sight, she darted in a crouch from stone to stone until she gained the street. Quickly pulling on the scarf and raincoat, she hurried to Miss Dora’s.
“Heh. Heh. Heh.” Miss Dora’s satisfied cackle would chill the devil. She poured a cup of steaming tea.
Annie sneezed. The heat against her fingers helped a little, but she didn’t feel that her bones would ever warm from the graveyard cold.
Miss Dora glowered. “No time to flag. Young people today too puny.”
“I’m fine,” Annie retorted crisply and knew she was catching a cold. But she couldn’t afford to sneeze tonight. She and Miss Dora weren’t finished with James Bolton.
“Scared him to death,” Miss Dora gloated, “He looked like bleached bones.” Her raisin-dark eyes glittered, “Mouth open, whites of his eyes big as a platter. And when I pretended I hadn’t seen or heard a thing, thought he was going to faint. That’s when I told him about the ouija message: Pillow. Find pillow.” She cackled again.
Annie took a big gulp of tea and voiced her concern. “Miss Dora, how can we be sure he didn’t destroy the pillow?”
Miss Dora’s disdainful look infuriated Annie.
“Classical education taught people how to think!” the old lady muttered. “Crystal clear, young miss. He dared not leave it behind. He had to take it with him. Then what? He couldn’t keep it in his house. Old Beulah Willen’s his housekeeper. Not a single spot safe from her eyes. So, not hidden in his house. No incinerators permitted in the city. Besides it’s too bulky to burn well. Joe Bill Tompkins drives James. So, not in his car. I talked here and there. He’s not been out to any of the plantations since Constance died. So where is it? Somewhere not too far, young miss.” Another malicious cackle. “James thinks he’s so smart. We’ll see, won’t we?”
The rain had eased to a drizzle. Annie was warm enough. A black wool cap, thermal underwear, a rainproof jacket over a wool sweater, rainproof pants, sturdy black Reeboks. The nylon hose over her face made it hard to breathe, but it sure kept her toasty. From her vantage point she could see both the front and rear doors to James Bolton’s house. She had taken up her station at nine thirty. Miss Dora was to make her phone call at nine thirty-five and play the recording Annie had made and remade until Annie’s whispered, “James … I’m … coming … for … the … pillow,” sounded sufficiently like Constance Bolton to satisfy Miss Dora.
The back door opened at nine forty. James Bolton, too, was dressed for night in dark clothing. He paused on the top step and looked fearfully around, then hurried to the garage.
Annie smiled grimly.
He reappeared in only a moment, carrying a spade.
Annie followed him across the Bolton property and through a dank and dripping wood. She stepped softly along the path, keeping his shaded flashlight in view, stopping when he stopped, moving when he moved.
Whoo-oo-ooo-ooo.
Annie’s heart somersaulted and she gasped for breath.
Bolton cowered by a live oak.
Annie wasn’t sure which one of them the owl had frightened the most.
Iron hinges squealed, and Bolton stepped through the opened gate to the old graveyard, leaving the gate ajar. He moved more cautiously now, and the beam from his flashlight poked jerkily into shadowy pockets.
Did he fear that his dead sister awaited him?
Annie tiptoed, scarcely daring to breathe. One hand slipped into her jacket pocket and closed around the sausage-thick canister of mace, a relic of the days when she lived in New York. The other hand touched the Leica that hung from a strap around her neck.
Bolton stopped twice to listen.
Annie crouched behind gravestones and waited.
When he reached the oldest section of the cemetery, he moved more boldly, confident now that he was unobserved. He walked directly to a winged angel atop a marble pedestal, stepped five paces to his right, and used the shovel to sweep away a mound of leaves.
Annie was willing to bet the earth beneath those leaves had been recently loosened.
He shoveled quickly, but placing the heaps of moist sandy dirt in a neat pile to one side.
Annie crept closer and closer, the Leica in hand.
She was not more than ten feet away and ready when he reached down and lifted up a soggy newspaper-wrapped oblong.
The flash illuminated the graveyard with its brief brilliant light, capturing forever and always the stricken face of James Bolton.
He made a noise deep in his throat. Wielding the shovel, he lunged blindly toward the source of light. Annie danced sideways to evade him. Now the canister of mace came out and as he flailed the shovel and it crashed against a gravestone, Annie pressed the trigger and mace spewed in a noisome mist.
Annie held her breath, darted close enough to grab up the sodden oblong where he had dropped it, paused just long enough-she couldn’t resist it-to moan, “Jaaammees …” Then she ran faster than she’d ever managed in a 10 K, leaping graves like a fox over water hazards.
The headline in next morning’s Clarion told it all:
JAMES BOLTON CHARGED
IN MURDER OF SISTER
Miss Dora rattled the newspaper with satisfaction, then poured Annie another cup of coffee. The old lady’s raisin-dark eyes glittered. “We showed him, didn’t we? Saved Constance’s good name.”
For once-and it was such an odd feeling-Annie felt total rapport with the ill-tempered, opinionated, impossible creature awaiting her answer.
Annie grinned. “Miss Dora, we sure as hell did!”
Annie bought her own copy of the newspaper before she took the ferry back to the island. She wanted to have it to show to Max. Especially since his telegram had arrived last night:
Retrieval accomplished. No fireworks. Boring, actually. Only action caused by fleas Laurel picked up in jail. Plus tourista tummy (me). Home soon. But not soon enough.
Love, Max.
A Brooklyn-
based attorney, CAROLYN WHEAT naturally has a criminal lawyer, Cass Jameson, as her series detective, Cass has solved cases in at least two wonderful books, Where Nobody Dies and Dead Man’s Thoughts. The latter novel was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award,
GHOST STATION
Carolyn Wheat
If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a woman drunk. The words burned my memory the way Irish whiskey used to burn my throat, only there was no pleasant haze of alcohol to follow. Just bitter heartburn pain.
It was my first night back on the job, back to being Sergeant Maureen Gallagher instead of “the patient.” Wasn’t it hard enough being a transit cop, hurtling beneath the streets of Manhattan on a subway train that should have been in the Transit Museum? Wasn’t it enough that after four weeks of detox I felt empty instead of clean and sober? Did I have to have some rookie’s casually cruel words ricocheting in my brain like a wild-card bullet?
Why couldn’t I remember the good stuff? Why couldn’t I think about O’Hara’s beefy handshake, Greenspan’s “Glad to see ya, Mo,” Ianuzzo’s smiling welcome? Why did I have to run the tape in my head of Manny Delgado asking Captain Lomax for a different partner?
“Hey, I got nothing against a lady sarge, Cap,” he’d said. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s just that if there’s one thing I can’t stand …” Et cetera.
Lomax had done what any standup captain would-kicked Delgado’s ass and told him the assignment stood. What he hadn’t known was that I’d heard the words and couldn’t erase them from my mind.
Even without Delgado, the night hadn’t gotten off to a great start. Swinging in at midnight for a twelve-to-eight, I’d been greeted with the news that I was on Graffiti Patrol, the dirtiest, most mind-numbing assignment in the whole transit police duty roster. I was a sergeant, damn it, on my way to a gold shield, and I wasn’t going to earn it dodging rats in tunnels or going after twelve-year-olds armed with spray paint.
Especially when the rest of the cop world, both under- and aboveground, was working overtime on the torch murders of homeless people. There’d been four human bonfires in the past six weeks, and the cops were determined there wouldn’t be a fifth.
Was Lomax punishing me, or was this assignment his subtle way of easing my entry back into the world? Either way, I resented it. I wanted to be a real cop again, back with Sal Minucci, my old partner. He was assigned to the big one, in the thick of the action, where both of us belonged. I should have been with him. I was Anti-Crime, for God’s sake. I should have been assigned-
Or should I? Did I really want to spend my work nights prowling New York’s underground skid row, trying to get information from men and women too zonked out to take care of legs gone gangrenous, whose lives stretched from one bottle of Cool Breeze to another?
Hell, yes. If it would bring me one step closer to that gold shield, I’d interview all the devils in hell. On my day off.
If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a woman drunk.
What did Lomax think-that mingling with winos would topple me off the wagon? That I’d ask for a hit from some guy’s short dog and pass out in the Bleecker Street station? Was that why he’d kept me off the big one and had me walking a rookie through routine Graffiti Patrol?
Was I getting paranoid, or was lack of alcohol rotting my brain?
Manny and I had gone to our respective locker rooms to suit up. Plain clothes-and I do mean plain. Long Johns first; damp winter had a way of seeping down into the tunnels and into your very blood. Then a pair of denims the Goodwill would have turned down. Thick wool socks, fisherman’s duck boots, a black turtleneck, and a photographer’s vest with lots of pockets. A black knit hat pulled tight over my red hair.
Then the gear: flashlight, more important than a gun on this assignment, handcuffs, ticket book, radio, gun, knife. A slapper, an oversize blackjack, hidden in the rear pouch of the vest. They were against regulations; I’d get at least a command discipline if caught with it, but experience told me I’d rather have it than a gun going against a pack of kids.
I’d forgotten how heavy the stuff was; I felt like a telephone lineman.
I looked like a cat burglar.
Delgado and I met at the door. It was obvious he’d never done vandal duty before. His tan chinos were immaculate, and his hiking boots didn’t look waterproof. His red plaid flannel shirt was neither warm enough nor the right dark color. With his Latin good looks, he would have been stunning in an L.L. Bean catalogue, but after ten minutes in a subway tunnel, he’d pass for a chimney sweep.
“Where are we going?” he asked, his tone a shade short of sullen. And there was no respectful “Sergeant” at the end of the question, either. This boy needed a lesson in manners.
I took a malicious delight in describing our destination. “The Black Hole of Calcutta,” I replied cheerfully, explaining that I meant the unused lower platform of the City Hall station downtown. The oldest, darkest, dankest spot in all Manhattan. If there were any subway alligators, they definitely lurked in the Black Hole.
The expression on Probationary Transit Police Officer Manuel Delgado’s face was all I could have hoped for. I almost-but not quite-took pity on the kid when I added, “And after that, we’ll try one or two of the ghost stations.”
“Ghost stations?” Now he looked really worried. “What are those?”
This kid wasn’t just a rookie; he was a suburbanite. Every New Yorker knew about ghost stations, abandoned platforms where trains no longer stopped. They were still lit, though, and showed up in the windows of passing trains like ghost towns on the prairie. They were ideal canvases for the aspiring artists of the underground city.
I explained on the subway, heading downtown. The car, which rattled under the city streets like a tin lizzie, was nearly riderless at 1:00 A.M. A typical Monday late tour.
The passengers were one Orthodox Jewish man falling asleep over his Hebrew Bible, two black women, both reading thick paperback romances, the obligatory pair of teenagers making out in the last seat, and an old Chinese woman.
I didn’t want to look at Delgado. More than once I’d seen a fleeting smirk on his face when I glanced his way. It wasn’t enough for insubordination; the best policy was to ignore it.
I let the rhythm of the subway car lull me into a litany of the AA slogans I was trying to work into my life: EASY DOESIT. KEEP IT SIMPLE, SWEETHEART. ONE DAY AT A TIME. I saw them in my mind the way they appeared on the walls at meetings, illuminated, like old Celtic manuscripts.
This night I had to take one hour at a time. Maybe even one minute at a time, My legs felt wobbly. I was a sailor too long from the sea. I’d lost my subway legs. I felt white and thin, as though I’d had several major organs removed.
Then the drunk got on. One of the black women got off, the other one looked up at the station sign and went back to her book, and the drunk got on.
If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a woman drunk.
ONE DAY AT A TIME. EASY DOES FT.
I stiffened. The last thing I wanted was to react in front of Delgado, but I couldn’t help it. The sight of an obviously intoxicated man stumbling into our subway car brought the knowing smirk back to his face.
There was one at every AA meeting. No matter how nice the neighborhood, how well dressed most people attending the meeting were, there was always a drunk. A real drunk, still reeling, still reeking of cheap booze. My sponsor Margie said they were there for a reason, to let us middle-class, recovery-oriented types remember that “there but for the grace of God …”
I cringed whenever I saw them, especially if the object lesson for the day was a woman.
“Hey, kid,” the drunk called out to Delgado, in a voice as inappropriately loud as a deaf man’s, “how old are you?” The doors closed and the car lurched forward; the drunk all but fell into his seat.
“Old enough,” Manny replied, flashing the polite smile a well-brought-up kid saves for his maiden aunt.
The undertone wasn�
��t so pretty. Little sidelong glances at me that said, See how nice I am to this old fart See what a good boy I am. I like drunks, Sergeant Gallagher.
To avoid my partner’s sly face, I concentrated on the subway ads as though they contained all the wisdom of the Big Book. “Here’s to birth defects,” proclaimed a pregnant woman about to down a glass of beer. Two monks looked to heaven, thanking God in Spanish for the fine quality of their brandy.
Weren’t there any signs on this damn train that didn’t involve booze? Finally an ad I could smile at: the moon in black space; on it, someone had scrawled, “Alice Kramden was here, 1959.”
My smile faded as I remembered Sal Minucci’s raised fist, his Jackie Gleason growl. “One a these days, Gallagher, you’re goin’ to the moon. To the moon!”
It wasn’t just the murder case I missed. It was Sal. The easy partnership of the man who’d put up with my hangovers, my depressions, my wild nights out with the boys.
“Y’know how old I am?” the drunk shouted, almost falling over in his seat. He righted himself. “Fifty-four in September,” he announced, an expectant look on his face.
After a quick smirk in my direction, Manny gave the guy what he wanted. “You don’t look it,” he said. No trace of irony appeared on his Spanish altar boy’s face. It was as though he’d never said the words that were eating into me like battery-acid AA coffee.
The sudden jab of anger that stabbed through me took me by surprise, especially since it wasn’t directed at Delgado. No, you don’t look it, I thought. You look more like seventy. White wisps of hair over a bright pink scalp. The face more than pink; a slab of raw calves’ liver. Road maps of broken blood vessels on his nose and cheeks. Thin white arms and matchstick legs under too-big trousers. When he lifted his hand, ropy with bulging blue veins, it fluttered like a pennant in the breeze.
Like Uncle Paul’s hands.
I turned away sharply. I couldn’t look at the old guy anymore. The constant visual digs Delgado kept throwing in my direction were nothing compared to the pain of looking at a man dying before my eyes. I didn’t want to see blue eyes in that near-dead face. As blue as the lakes of Killarney, Uncle Paul used to say in his mock-Irish brogue.
A Woman’s Eye Page 35