Alan found them all in the parlor. They looked around as he came in, faces showing surprise.
“Who got killed?” Alan asked.
Betty Lessup shook her head. “Nothing for you to worry about, Alan Kirby. Look at your tie.”
Alan had forgotten to clip his tie. He struggled, with his book under his arm, to button his collar and replace the tie. “But who did Mr. Jefferson kill?”
John took the book from him. “Nobody, son. At least, we don’t know anything for sure. A woman died last night, and Mrs. Islip says the police are questioning Mr. Jefferson, that’s all.”
“But who?”
“Some colored girl who worked for him,” Mrs. Islip said.
“Aggie,” warned Alan’s aunt.
“Well, it was,” Agatha insisted. “She lived down in Possum Town somewhere, and that’s where they found her. All cut to ribbons she was.”
Alan succeeded in his struggle. Possum Town — Niggertown to Reese Donalds and his friends — was the poor black section to the south and east of Gaither, a unit in name only. “You said Mr. Jefferson tried to kill himself.”
“I heard he cut himself up with a razor,” Agatha said with a definitive nod of her head. She was an incongruous doll of a woman, all curly hair and dimples and a round little chin, but her voice gave Aunt Betty’s some real competition.
“That’s enough of that,” Aunt Betty said firmly. “Here I’ve got chicken on the stove and biscuits in the oven and you want to talk blood and massacre. Aggie Islip, if you want to have lunch with us like a Christian, you’re more than welcome, but don’t say another word about murder and mayhem, if you please.”
“Thank you, Betts, but I have to go,” Mrs. Islip said, just as if she had really been invited. “Mr. Jefferson’s sister lives out on the Cumming Highway, and I thought I’d drop by to see if I can help her any.”
Mrs. Islip fluttered and fluted out the door. Alan’s father rubbed the back of his neck. “Murder in Gaither,” he said. “Who would have believed it?”
Betty Lessup whirled on him. He was a good foot taller than she, but in her anger she was like a hen with its feathers up and she seemed somehow larger than John. “John Kirby, one more word and out you go. Some people in this family can behave like Christians, I hope.”
John grinned, behind Betty’s back. “Yes, ma’am,” he said in an abashed tone.
“You come set the table.”
Alan helped, but as he put the plates and glasses on the table, he thought about the murder. He had never heard of one in Gaither, and he burned to ask his father more about it. But, he thought, as his aunt set a blue platter of golden, sizzling chicken on the table, that could wait.
For the next half hour, murder was the farthest thing from his mind.
5
Dr. Lloyd Gordon had some trouble with the tape recorder.
It was the size of a small suitcase and had some god-awful German name, Wollensak or some such, and there were four speeds to choose from, and the microphone was terribly unhandy for someone poking his way around a devastated body. He solved the problem finally by using adhesive tape to hang the mike from a solution stand beside the autopsy table. He started the seven-inch tape reels spinning at the slowest speed and told the machine about the damage done to Mollie Avery.
“This is the body of a Negro woman, approximately five feet six inches tall, weight in life approximately one hundred twenty pounds. Age is estimated at — oh, I’d say thirty. Complexion is light, eyes dark brown, hair black. Body has been tentatively identified as that of Mollie Avery of Gaither.
“Superficial examination reveals numerous stab or slash wounds. The left breast is partially severed; I’d say three-quarters severed, connected to the body only by a thin layer of tissue on the upper left side. This appears to have been done with a single cut from a sharp instrument, piercing the skin, connective tissues, and pectoralis major, exposing short lengths of the fourth and fifth ribs.
“The abdomen has been opened by three long slash wounds, commencing just below the sternum. The first severs the rectus abdominis and the external abdominal muscles, following the rib line to the right ilium. A second crosses that and proceeds downward from a point two inches above the ilium to the pubic bone. A third crosses that two inches above the pubis and terminates in the middle of the left rib cage. All cuts penetrate the peritoneum.
“The body shows signs of massive exsanguination. Problem: there is very little blood in evidence on the body itself or on the clothing. Also, initial examination at the site revealed relatively little blood. I cannot account at present for the absence of visible blood. Discoloration is minimal. I would estimate that approximately three-quarters of the subject’s blood has been lost. Where did it go?
“Abdominal cavity has been laid completely open. Some damage to the diaphragm, but apparently no penetration into the thoracic area. Liver has been partially severed. Both small and great intestines have been cut free. Bladder has been cut free and is inside the cavity just below the liver. Left kidney appears to be missing. Pancreas has been severed approximately in half laterally. Pancreas has been cut free and is in the lower right part of the cavity... .”
In his assured voice, a voice that had told mothers their children would get well, a voice that had offered comfort to the dying, Dr. Gordon went through the whole catalog of outrage. The next day, when a court stenographer was given the tape to transcribe, she had no trouble at all following it. She did notice a popping noise partway through that she did not understand.
It was caused by Dr. Gordon’s rewinding and restarting the tape. He didn’t want the stenographer to hear his outraged, “Jesus Christ!” or his retch when he took his first look at what had been done to Mollie Avery’s genitals.
6
Andy McCory woke and stretched. Sunlight streamed through the window, easily penetrating the thin bedroom curtains. He closed his eyes, his face absolutely slack. Bird songs reached him, birds raising a racket in the trees outside the house. Do something about that one of these days. He lazily scratched his stomach, dropped his hand lower to rub his penis and scrotum: he was naked beneath the sheet.
“You want somethin’ to eat?”
Andy frowned and opened his eyes. Lee stood in the door, her hair tied back with a rubber band. Strawberry blond, Lee was, with that pale, pale skin. Her nipples almost as pale as her breasts, look at her in the morning when your eyes were foggy and you couldn’t tell she had any nipples, hardly. He grunted at her.
“Thelma took Little Lee and Danny to church and Sunday school,” Lee said. “They’re gonna eat dinner with them and all.”
Andy rolled his head on the pillow, side to side. He was still in his daze, still felt that strange detachment from everything, as if whatever happened was none of his doing, as if he was only occupant and not operator of his own body. His mouth tasted bad, of sour bile, and on his tongue was a raised welt an inch long. When he stuck out his tongue in front of the mirror, he could see it, a white line on the pink, pebbled surface. The badness seemed to come from there, brush his teeth hard as he wished.
“What time is it?” he heard his voice asking.
“Little after one-thirty.”
“What time’d I get in?”
“It was after midnight.”
“Um.” He stretched, gaped, took a deep breath.
“You hadn’t been drinkin’,” Lee said in a small voice.
He closed his eyes, smacked his lips. He had not been drinking. He could hardly remember when he’d had a drink, even a beer. What was it Badon had promised him? He could stay as drunk as he liked on this job. That was it. But Badon didn’t mention the catch, no. He had no desire to be drunk, or even to drink. Or it was like he was a little drunk all the time anyway, in that remote and aloof stage of drunkenness when one can clearly see oneself as a creature external and separate, when one can be amused at the animal’s capering without feeling responsible for its excesses.
Thoughts like these went incoheren
tly through Andy McCory’s head, making it hurt. He opened his eyes again. Lee still stood there, leaning against the door. “What you waitin’ for?” he asked.
She shrugged. She wore a pink blouse and black pedal pushers. In the muted daylight that illuminated the room she seemed somehow fragile, nearly translucent, like a figure in porcelain. “I thought since the kids were gone... . It’s been a long time, Andy.”
Andy felt himself sweep the sheet away, so that he lay naked on the double bed. He sat up, his back against the cold headboard. “Take off your clothes,” he heard himself say.
“I’ll pull the shades — ”
“Take off your clothes.”
She bit her lower lip, sharp white teeth, soft pink lips, no lipstick on them this morning, no. “All right, if you want — ”
“Go ahead,” he said.
She fumbled at the buttons of the blouse, opened them one at a time. The garment fell open. She shrugged her left shoulder and arm out, then let it fall from her right arm. It dropped on the foot of the little rollaway bed where Danny usually slept. Lee stood for a moment in brassiere and pedal pushers, as if trying to decide which to remove next. Then she unbuttoned and unzipped the pants, stepped out of her loafers, and pulled the slacks down. Her legs were long, smooth, pink. She reached behind her to unhook the brassiere. The straps came free of her shoulders, and she draped it over the foot of the rollaway.
As if feeling Andy’s eyes sharp on her, she crossed her arms over her breasts, hands spread on her upper arms. “Can I get in bed?” she asked, her voice hardly a whisper.
“Take off all your clothes,” Andy heard himself say.
She nodded, then stooped to roll her panties down over her thighs, her swung breasts moving in a soft pendulum left to right as she stepped out of her last garment. She was so pink: pink skin, pale nipples, even a pinkish tinge to her hair.
“Turn around,” Andy ordered.
Quick hurt came to her eyes, but she did as he asked.
“All the way around. Slow,” he said. “Slower than that.”
She stepped in a delicate, small circle, showing herself to him, front and back. Her eyelids fluttered, not in coquetry, but in an attempt to hold back tears.
Andy grunted. “Come to bed.”
He pulled her against him, felt her soft warmth from his armpit to his hip, crushed her mouth with his. His hands began to play on her skin, slowly.
She stiffened at first — their lovemaking had been quick and frantic before, and sometimes she had reached climax, but more often she had been left wanting when Andy, fulfilled, rolled over to drunken sleep. She was not used to anything slow, anything tender.
Andy, from away in the back of his skull, heard her breath quicken, become a gentle moan, felt her response under his palms, her tautness and her heat. He rolled onto her, took her, and she gasped.
There came a time when he paused in his motion, looking down on her clenched and burning face. “Where was I last night?” he whispered.
Her hands clutched at his buttocks. “In the — the theater,” she panted. “Working.”
“You remember that.”
“Andy... .”
He moved again, bringing her release. Afterward he lay on his back and she cuddled against him, her head on his shoulder. She wept.
“What’s wrong now?” Andy asked.
“I don’t know. I — I don’t know.”
He rubbed her neck, massaging it with his palm, and she sighed. Andy thought how thin her neck was, how thin.
How fragile.
7
Tom Davies was alone in the Advocate darkroom. He had shot a dozen exposures of the body, and before noon he had processed the negatives. Now he used the Olympus enlarger to make eight-by-ten prints, two of each exposure, as Sheriff Quarles had told him.
He worked methodically. Already six prints had been through the dryer, in the order of their taking: three shots of the location, the body barely visible, really unrecognizable, just a dark huddle at the roots of the hedge. Then three full-body shots, the butcher’s-window horror of the exposed organs, the torn flesh, made somehow less gruesome by the black-and-white prints.
Now he had the first close-up, a torso and head shot, in the negative carrier, ready for its second exposure and printing. He took a sheet of paper from the square box the newspaper used instead of a paper safe, put it into the easel, and turned off the amber safe light.
He had settled on an exposure of twelve seconds. He switched on the enlarger, pressed the timer, and waited until the bell rang to switch off the light. For twelve seconds he looked at the projected image, the white hair, the black face, the wounded breast in shades of gray. Then, the enlarger off, he turned the safe light back on and took the paper from the easel.
The darkroom was small, and he had only to turn around to face the counter and the sink. He dropped the paper into the first tray, agitated it, and watched the picture swim into existence beneath the safe light as he counted beneath his breath: “One thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three….”
It took just over a minute before the photo had reached optimum contrast and density. He pulled it from the developer, shook drops back into the tray, and slid it into the vinegary-scented stop bath. Thirty seconds of that, then into the fixer. He let the print fix for about five minutes while he whistled tunelessly between his teeth. Then he took it out, dropped it into the print bath, and turned on the water. He rinsed and dried his hands and turned back to the developer for the next exposure. The negative carrier slid out, the negative came out, and he put in the next one.
He replaced the carrier and turned on the enlarger to adjust the focus. Tom Davies frowned at what he saw. This was the last photo he’d taken, one of the whole area from across the street, showing the corners of both houses, the hedge between. Somehow he’d gotten it out of order.
Well, might as well print it up. He twiddled the focus minutely, bringing the negative nearer, then a little farther away, as he squinted at the negative image on the white easel. There . . . edges were sharp, definition good.
He reached to turn off the enlarger, but something about the image drew his attention. It could have been a strange shadow cast by the hedge, or —
Or a person, a man, standing over the body.
Davies squeezed his eyes shut, opened them. Yes, it was there: legs and torso and head, all silvery and luminous, which meant that in the print it would be a dark figure. He reached for a magnifying glass.
Still half convinced that it was a trick of shadow, Davies used the glass. It looked more like a man than ever. He was almost positive that he could see a bright suit, black shirt, white tie, all of which would be reversed on printing: a man in black, then, a tall man, a thin man, suited as if he were an undertaker, standing over the corpse.
But there hadn’t been anyone in the last shot. He was sure of that. He had been alone with the body, Doc Gordon gone for the ambulance. Indeed, he had taken the shot mainly as an excuse to get across the street from — from that thing, that body.
His hands trembling a little, Davies turned off the enlarger, dug out a sheet of paper, put it in the easel. He timed the exposure, then moved the sheet to its three baths. As soon as it was out of the fixer and in the water bath, Davies turned on the overhead, its brilliant glare making his eyes water at first. He fished the print out, held it close to his face, his heart thumping.
Disappointment.
Only the hedge after all, irregular, riddled with patterns of light and shade.
No one there at all.
No man.
No ghost.
Frowning, Davies took the negative out of the carrier, though he had done only one of the two prints required. He held it up to the light and used the magnifying glass to check. No, just the hedge. No figure there.
Only —
Only there had been.
Davies suddenly shuddered. It came to him then how quiet the newspaper building was on a Sunday, w
hen no one was around.
So lonely.
So silent.
So threatening.
8
Ballew Jefferson was afraid of his hand.
Stitched and bandaged as it was, it still spoke eloquently, and to Sheriff Sam Quarles, Jefferson knew, it told a tale of guilt.
Sunday was in its long decline by the time Jefferson finally was in shape to view the body. His wound, the cut across his palm, first had to be seen to: hypodermics of Novocain, the sensation of a lump of dead meat and bone at the end of his arm, the curious feeling (more a sound than feeling, really) of sutures through flesh as the emergency-room doctor worked his repairs. Seventeen stitches were required, finally, to close the gash, to begin the healing.
On top of the stitches went a dressing, bulky, mittening his hand. It was well past noon when the doctor finished with him; and then he had to rest and drink orange juice. By the time Quarles had his way and Jefferson moved, under his own power, from the first floor of the Frye County Hospital down to the dead basement, the morgue (the dead, he thought, need no windows), the afternoon had worn almost away to evening.
Quarles, tall, grim, led the way. He opened a door like the vault door in Jefferson’s Trust Bank, a ponderous door (the stone was rolled away, Jefferson thought), and they stepped into freezing cold.
The morgue is an icebox, Jefferson thought. His breath came hard in his throat and chest, and it plumed before him in the darkness. There were two, three, six tables in the room, belly-high, made of steel, standing on castered pedestals. Only one was occupied, by a figure hidden beneath an oilcloth covering. I can’t, he thought.
Quarles snapped a switch, and cruel blue fluorescent tubes flickered to fitful life, then took hold. It was a wrong light, a bad light, for looking at a dead face. “Ready?” Quarles asked, taking hold of a corner of the oilcloth sheet.
Jefferson was shaking. Quarles must have misread his tremor as a nod. Carefully, slowly, he peeled back the dingy white oilcloth.
Her eyes had been closed, and her mouth, but her mouth sagged open now, partway, and there was the thinnest line of white visible between the eyelids, as if she were struggling to wake from this bad dream of death. Jefferson’s breath hitched in his chest. Plumes of vapor rode out on his breath, but her parted lips (so pale!) had no hint of life issuing from them.
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