Albert read the name tag on the woman’s uniform as she picked up a battered gray microphone with a heavy stand and blew into it twice. ‘Connie Perk.’ Labels were a wonderful invention. Bob had one. Cindy had one. The unhelpful young man with the broken heart had one; everything that was a noun should have one. “Matt, please call the front desk. Matt Harvey.” She put down the microphone. “He’s in the garage, I believe, Professor. Why don’t you take a seat?”
“Thank you, Connie . . . Ms. Perk,” said Albert as he sat.
“Miss, if you please,” said Miss Perk. He knew it was one or the other, but could never remember which.
The phone rang. “Matt? You, in the garage?” Pause. Wink. Blink. Nod. “Good . . . the Professor’s here; wants to see you.” Pause. “The Professor.” Nod. Nod. “That’s right. Mm-hm. Mm-hm. No. He didn’t say. You want I should ask? Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Alright.” She hung up. “He’ll be right in, Professor. He’s working on one of the cars. Can I get you some coffee?” she offered, rising.
She could.
Albert watched her as she went about it. She was very short, not much more than five feet, and most of her was stuffed into her pants, from which point downward she blossomed like a species of river-dwelling herbivore. She wore delicate earrings and a necklace, all gold, as well as several bracelets and rings, but none on her ring finger. Single. Her accent was very thick, much more up in the nose than was common in Tryon. Middle Appalachian. Eastern Tennessee or Kentucky. Probably Tennessee. Her hair was jet-black and her skin dark. Indian? Not a hundred percent, but some.
“Cream and sugar?”
“Cherokee,” said Albert, his face registering the familiar mixture of consternation and surprise it always did when his mouth gave voice to his thoughts.
“Beg pardon?”
“Please,” said Albert.
“One or two?”
“One cup of coffee,” said Albert. “With five sugars in it.” He was becoming meticulous in particulars. She smiled as she counted them out. She liked her work.
Her earrings were crosses. Maybe she was religious. Maybe not. He scanned her desk and its environs. Two hand-colored pictures were taped to the wall, one on blue construction paper, the other on white lined paper. The first was captioned: ‘To Aunt Connie, by your nefew Kirk.’ The other was signed by a child less given to prose. ‘TO: Aunt Connie, FROM: Katie Crow.’ Kirk’s artwork was hasty, and betrayed few signs of the true craftsman devoted to his work.
Katie’s was a red barn.
A photograph on the desk, next to a vase of large white flowers, was of a family. The woman looked a lot like Connie. Probably her sister. The boy and girl, Kirk and Katie? The man was a soldier.
A framed diploma on the wall proclaimed ‘Constance Perk has successfully completed the course of study in Criminology at Greenville Vocational Technical College’ and the date. It was signed by someone whose handwriting he couldn’t read.
“Here you go, Professor,” she said, handing him a Styrofoam cup. Her fingers were long and elegant.
“Do you play the cello?”
“Cello?” she said with a laugh. “I think not, Professor. I have a hard enough time playing the radio.” She laughed again.
“You have very nice fingers,” Albert said by way of explanation. “Cello players have nice fingers.”
Connie regarded the digits in question as if she’d never seen them before. A door opened at the rear of the room, and Matt Harvey came in. Sweat was beaded on his forehead, and he was either wiping grease off his hands onto a greasy towel, or vice versa. It was hard to tell. “Afternoon, Professor,” he said. “I’d shake, but . . . “ He displayed his hands and shrugged. “What can I do for you?”
“I have some questions,” said Albert.
“Well,” Harvey replied with a glance at Connie, who smiled again. She resembled her sister even more at that moment. “I can’t say I’m the best place to look for answers, but I’ll do what I can. Do you mind if I keep on working while we talk? I’ve just rebuilt the carburetor, and I’d like to get it back in before the next shift.”
Albert followed Harvey out the back door, across the small parking space into the garage opposite. The patrol car was waiting patiently with its mouth open. Harvey stuck his head in and started poking around. “What do you need to know, Professor?”
“The Judge was killed,” said Albert, dispensing with small talk. “First you arrested Marchant DuShane, but you let him go. And now you’ve arrested Tanjore Trelawney.”
“That about says it,” said Harvey with a grunt as he tightened a nut. “Pass that ether, will you, Professor?”
Ether. Albert had had ether once in the hospital. It came in a mask with a tank attached to it. He saw nothing in the display of tools and cans before him that fit that description. “Ether?” he said. His hand hovered about looking for a place to land.
“The blue and yellow can,” Harvey directed. “Just to the left, there.”
“This?” said Albert, Vanah-Whiting the can in question.
“The very same,” said Harvey as he received it. “Thanks. Now, what’s you’re question?”
Hadn’t he already asked it? “Why did you let Marchant DuShane go?”
“Well, Professor,” said Harvey – he didn’t have much patience with the curious and second-guessers, Lord knows he’d been second-guessed enough lately – “his housekeeper came back and supported his alibi, just like he said she would.”
“Then, why did you arrest him?”
Harvey stopped working for a minute and looked up. “What do you mean?”
“Why did you arrest him in the first place, if he was innocent?” Albert really wanted to know. This seemed to happen all the time.
Harvey was nonplussed. “Because he looked guilty at the time,” he said. “That’s why.”
Who didn’t? “You arrest everyone who looks guilty?”
“Well, I sure do if their knife is found the victim.” Truth be told, this was Harvey’s first murder case. Hopefully his last.
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Albert bluntly. “If you were going to murder someone, you wouldn’t leave your own knife in them. Would you?”
“Well, of course not, but . . . ”
“Even I wouldn’t do that,” said Albert. Practically conclusive proof. “You’d use someone else’s knife.” The latter sentence came out all by itself and surprised him. It was true. He listened to it again as it bounced off the walls. “Someone stole Marchant DuShane’s knife, and used it to kill the Judge.”
We hold these truths to be self-evident.
“That may be,” said Harvey, returning to the carburetor, “for you and me, but people do strange things in the heat of passion.”
“The murderer brought the knife with him,” Albert observed.
“Meaning?”
“He wasn’t heated. He’d thought about it.”
Harvey stopped screwing whatever he was screwing. “You mean it was premeditated.”
“If that means it was planned,” said Albert. “Yes. Especially if Marchant DuShane didn’t do it. Someone wanted it to seem like he did. Didn’t they?”
Harvey crossed his arms on the fender and thought into the bowels of the patrol car. “Well, that’s how it looks now, but at the time – like I said – the evidence was pretty convincing. He was the likely candidate, that’s for sure,” he said. “It wasn’t no secret him and the Judge had problems.”
“So he was the first one people would suspect,” said Albert. He’d meant it as a question, but it came out as a statement.
“I hated that,” said Harvey. He sighed deeply and looked up at Albert. “Hated arresting March, like that. Me and him was kids together. Been buddies, off and on.”
“Off and on?”
“Well, that’s how it is with March.” He lowered his eyes again. “He’s hot and cold. Real emotional, you know? Like a woman. Best friends one minute, the next – you don’t know where you are.” He sighed again. “Y
ou get used to it.
“But there wasn’t nothin’ else I could do. I mean, when they found his knife in the Judge . . . ”
“Heather found him,” Albert clarified. Heather was singular. Very singular.
“Right,” said Harvey. “Right. And Kitty. Then when it come out the Judge was changing his will, cuttin’ Heather in and March out – down, anyways – well, you see? Those things get a person suspected, guilty or not.”
“I saw you arrest him,” said Albert. He felt Harvey wanted to talk, and he wanted to listen.
“You and half God’s creation,” Harvey replied. “One of the worst days of my life. I didn’t know how he’d take it. Half expected him to fly off the handle.” Pause. Tighten the wrench. Loosen the wrench. “Like I said, you never know with March. Anyway, he took it real good, all things considered.
“I guess he was keeping it inside. But when he finally flew off the handle, he did it in a big way!”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m probably talking out of school . . . ” he took inventory of everyone who wasn’t there, “but he was fine up ‘til week before last. Relaxed. Well, as relaxed as you can be in jail.”
Not very, Albert thought.
“Kept telling me I’d be eatin’ crow when Maudanne showed up. Jokin’ with me. Stuff like that.” He absent-mindedly tightened a nut with his fingers. “Then, I brought him his mail one day. Next thing you knew he was . . . he was . . . I don’t know. Like a madman. All of a sudden he started yelling about his right to a speedy trial. Don’t make sense, does it? I mean, he’s waitin’ for Maudanne to get back; the longer they can put it off the better, right? Gives his lawyer more time to make a case. You gotta figure delay’s the best thing, from his point of view.
“But he’s crying for a trial. Demanding it. Had his lawyer petition the Governor.” Harvey took a couple of swipes at the carburetor with the greasy rag. “Not that it did much good. They went ahead and set a date, and the closer it got the more ornery he was. Fit to bite my head off, a couple times. Like it was my fault he couldn’t get an earlier date.”
The finishing touches were applied to the carburetor.
“Anyway, he’s out now. According to Maudanne, he was in bed sick when the Judge was killed, and he never left the house by the front door or the back, ‘cause she had him set up in the front parlor.”
“You said he was in bed.”
“Well, figure of speech,” Harvey replied. “Anyway, Maudanne had set him up downstairs, so she could keep an eye on him while she did the spring cleaning. And from a good hour before the judge was killed, to a good deal after, she was on the telephone to her mother. There’s this little nook by the stairs in the hall – that’s where the phone is – and she’s got a clear view up and down it, front and back.
“She’s not the kind of woman who misses much, I shouldn’t think,” Harvey appraised. “She would’ve seen him if he’d tried to go out.” He buffed the carburetor with the dirty rag.
“I get rung up about six that evening, and Judge McGilvery tells me to let him go. ‘Just let him go?’ I said. ‘Just let him go,’ he said. Then he explained about Maudanne and everything.”
“He must have been happy to get out.”
“That’s just the dangdest part of it, Professor,” rejoined Harvey, flowing freely under the influence of ether and Albert, as if he’d been hoping for someone to share his thoughts with. “He just stood there in his cell looking like I’d hit him with tomato aspic – ‘hell’s wallpaper’ as my Uncle Jock used to say –” the smile that followed was from an earlier time and had only dropped by for a brief visit. “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen March at a lost for words.
“He kind of bubbled and gurgled and when I unlocked the door and tried to pull it to, he held onto the bars like he didn’t want me to open it.” He closed the hood. “I don’t mind tellin’ you, I’ve never had to tell anyone twice they was free.”
“Were free,” said Albert. His mind was elsewhere.
“Were free,” Harvey echoed. “Right. I do know how to talk properly; I’ve just got lazy lips. Anyway,” he said, transferring more grease between his hands and the rag, “it got beyond me in a big hurry.
“I’ve been up twice to say howdy. Mend fences, you know, but he won’t see me. Has Maudanne tell everybody he’s resting.” They started back across the parking lot. “She kind’ve shrugs and rolls her eyes. Not much she can do.”
Nothing else was said until they were inside. Harvey had scooped a handful of orange goo from a can and was smearing it on his hands and forearms.
“Why did you arrest Tanjore?”
“Three reasons,” Harvey replied, dressing the words in as much confidence as they could support. “First, he had motive – the Judge put him away for seven years –and he threatened to kill him. Second, he was released from prison three days before the Judge was murdered.”
“But . . . I was one of the first ones to see him when he came back to town,” Albert protested. “That was . . . afterwards.”
“That’s just it,” said Harvey. “He won’t say where he was between times . . . from when he got out ‘til that day you saw him. Why won’t he, if he’s got nothing to hide?”
“He could have been anywhere,” said Albert a little weakly.
“Could have,” Harvey agreed. “But what if he was skulkin’ around here unknown to anyone? That answers some questions.”
Albert was supposed to say ‘such as?’ But he didn’t.
“Such as,” Harvey continued, “who was it Heather Proverb saw running down the stairs, if not DuShane? Someone close to him in size and height. Tanjore answers to both. Who was it Sarah Grandy saw running across her back yard that night – coming from the direction of the Judge’s house? And who stole DuShane’s knife? And if he stole the knife, like you say, why not the jacket, too? Heather recognized the jacket, remember?
“And third, we found his fingerprints all over the latch on Antrim’s back door.”
“Can I see him?” Albert asked. He didn’t really want to. He’d visited Tewksbury in jail, and it was as bad as being in jail yourself. There was nothing he could do. He didn’t understand the whole situation and would probably only make matters worse, but Tanjore was in jail and Albert didn’t think he should be.
Not that it made any difference.
“See who?” said Harvey. “Him?” He lobbed a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the cells.
“Yes.” Albert nodded. “Is that where he is?”
Harvey looked at Connie Perk. She shrugged. “Well, normally I’d only let him see kin or his lawyer, but since he’s got no family, I don’t reckon there’s much harm in – you don’t have any weapons or anything on you?”
Albert had been frisked before. He held up his arms, turned around and pressed his hands against the wall. Harvey, a little embarrassed, gave him a cursory sweep. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s all. Come on I’ll let you in.”
Frisking had been a much more intimate procedure in Massachusetts; the closest thing to foreplay Albert had ever known. He was happy that, in the South, things seemed to be taken much more on trust.
Harvey removed a ring of keys from a loop on his belt. They clanged noisily as he opened the thick steel door. The jail consisted of a short hall, about six feet wide, with two cells on one side and one cell and a bathroom or closet on the other. There was no waiting room. No guard. None of the things to which Albert’s previous experience had accustomed him. His eyes went instinctively to the ceiling. Solid. No drop tiles.
Trelawney was in the single cell on the left, standing in front of a barred window that overlooked the mountains; a much prettier prospect than the conference room at Tewksbury’s jail had presented. He turned toward them as they entered, his eyes sad and bloodshot.
“Vistor, Tan,” Harvey said. “Not too long, Professor.” He closed the door, leaving Albert in the hall.
“Hello,” said Albert.
“Hello, Professor,” Trelawney replied with a feeble smile. “What brings you here? I don’t have any cigarettes.” He smiled feebly.
“I came to see you.”
“Me? Why?”
“Did you . . . do what they say you did?”
“Hm. Sure looks that way, doesn’t it?” said the prisoner. He walked across the cell, placed his hands on the bars and stared Albert directly in the eye. “No,” he said. “I did not.”
Albert nodded. “I didn’t think so.”
“Great.” Trelawney lowered his arms and his head and sighed. “Now, if we can just convince the rest of the world.”
“Why won’t you tell them where you were . . . those days after you got out of prison?”
Trelawney raised his eyes and glared deeply at Albert for a moment. “That’s my business, Professor. It’s got nothing to do with this,” he snapped angrily.
Albert’s defense system, unable to think of anything else, sent tears to his eyes.
“Sorry,” said Trelawney. “In prison, you don’t ask questions.”
They were only in jail, but the same rule probably applied. “I just . . . if you could tell people . . . “
“Just leave it alone, Professor.”
There wasn’t anything else to say.
“Thanks for coming,” said Trelawney. He turned and walked back to the window. “You know,” he said, more to himself than to his visitor, “there gets to be a time a view don’t seem natural without bars or chicken wire running through it.”
Albert left a different man.
Chapter Sixteen
“Any time you’re not behind that piano, you look stupefied,” Tewksbury had said. What had begun as a complaint that Albert wouldn’t go ‘out to find some women’ with him had degenerated into a diatribe about his housekeeping and broadened to incorporate Albert as a whole. “You look stupefied when you’re walking across the stage. You look stupefied when you eat your chocolate powder and your frozen peas . . . ”
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