Dead in D Minor

by David Crossman

  Albert cringed. He didn’t like peas. He preferred corn.

  “You’re stupefied by noise. You’re stupefied by silence. You’re stupefied by life in general. How can a man achieve international prominence – win every prize but Miss America – and be stupefied by . . . by light bulbs, and . . . ” he looked around the apartment for another noun, “detergent. Honestly, Albert. I don’t see how the School can let you walk around loose with a clear conscience.”

  What was wrong with a clear conscience? Albert wondered.

  Albert had been looking blankly at the wall and nodding. People liked it when he nodded. Of course, he was nodding in time with a piece of music his muse was debuting for his brain, but nobody else had to know that.

  “I don’t know who she is,” said Standish, intruding on Albert’s mental foray into the past. “But the real Heather Proverb died in a car crash two years ago last February.”

  Albert was really stupefied. He felt it. If only Tewksbury could see him now. It was as if someone had suddenly removed all the coat hooks that held information in his brain. Everything came crashing down in a chaotic jumble, and there was nowhere to hang this bit of news. Nor did he know how to react, so his face just hung blankly outside his head, awaiting further instructions.

  “In England,” Standish continued.

  “England,” said Albert’s mouth. Your lips don’t have to move when you say ‘England’.

  Standish nodded. “Cornwall. You know where that is?”

  “Cornwall,” said Albert. His eyes were drying out, but he’d forgotten how to blink.

  “That’s the way it goes, sometimes,” said Standish. He ground out his cigarette. “You never know what will turn up when you start poking around. Everyone has secrets.”

  Albert didn’t, apart from the cigarettes.

  “Even you.”

  “Me?” said Albert. He blinked and swallowed as his body started up again. He didn’t have any secrets.

  “I don’t have any secrets.”

  “Sure, you do.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Oh no, Mr. Elmo?”

  Oh, that. Everyone knew that, except the press. It was sort of a well-known secret.

  “That’s different,” said Albert, who thought it was. “Pretending to be someone who’s dead . . . ” he looked at Standish who was looking toward the Judge’s house. “Why?”

  “Good question,” said Standish. “I wonder.”

  So did Albert. Not the same thing, probably, but he wondered. His eyes, too, strayed next door. An idea was taking shape, and it was so unpleasant he had to get it out. “You don’t think she had anything to do with . . . with the Judge’s . . . you don’t think . . . ”

  Standish rotated his eyes toward Albert without moving his head, raised his eyebrows and said “Hm,” deep in his throat. Then he looked back at the Judge’s house. Everything was still. The windows were open and curtains were lured into the open by the hypnotic fingers of the sultry breeze. The whole street seemed to be napping heavily in the heat of the day. The leaves shuffled lazily, maneuvering for shade in one another. “You never know,” he said.

  There were those words again. Albert’s anthem. Truer words were never spoken. If they weren’t the last words in the Bible, they should be.

  “But I’ll tell you this,” said Standish. “The Judge didn’t kill himself.”

  “He didn’t?” said Albert with a start. What if he had? After all, a room that was probably locked . . . with no other way in . . . no signs of a fight. What if the Judge had committed suicide?! “What if he did!”

  He got up and began to pace back and forth, leaving Standish at an odd angle on the porch swing.

  “With DuShane’s knife?”

  “Maybe he’s the one who stole it!” said Albert, warming to the idea of finding no one guilty. “Maybe he wanted people to think Marchant had killed him!”

  “You mean he committed suicide just to incriminate DuShane? That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”

  It was. Albert stopped pacing.

  “Besides,” Standish continued, “someone was seen leaving the scene of the crime.”

  “Who says?” said Albert, to whom the thought had already occurred, oddly enough. He knew the answer.

  “Heather Proverb,” Standish replied instantly, without thinking. Albert let the name drift awhile on the magnolia-scented silence. “Heather Proverb,” said Standish slowly, with his ears open.

  “Who isn’t Heather Proverb,” said Albert, whose next question was going to be ‘then who is she?’, but he was too late.

  “Speaking of Heather,” said Sarah, whose hearing had preceded her by a word or two onto the porch, “have you seen her lately? She was going to come over and help me wash the screens.” Her fingers were playing the air, looking for something to do. “I can’t undo those screws by myself.”

  Maylene, barefoot in a t-shirt and overalls, came out onto the porch, sat at Albert’s feet, and wrapped herself around his leg. She was hummingThe Volga Boatman, emphasizing the ‘ho’ rather than the ‘heave’. They’d have to work on that. She could play it though – with both hands. Cindy would show her off at every opportunity. ‘PlayThe Vulgar Boatman, Maylene. Go on, hon. Show ‘em how you do it. Both hands, now.’ Then she’d sit bolt upright with her arms crossed and her face on fire with pride as Maylene played. That was the part Albert liked. He smiled, now, to think of it.

  Suddenly the sound of voices raised in anger poked a jagged hole in the mid-afternoon stillness. All eyes turned toward the Judge’s house.

  “That’s Heather!” said Sarah, already halfway down the steps. “And DuShane. What on earth are they up to?”

  By the time she finished the sentence, the argument had replaced the stillness altogether. The sleepy street came alive with faces at the doors and windows. Neighbors called out in hoarse whispers, directing one another’s attention to the Judge’s house.

  Sarah led a little parade – Maylene, Standish, and Mrs. Abernathy from across the street – at the double over the hedge and across the lawn eastward toward the front. Albert, who hadn’t had time to reset his mental breakers, could do nothing but watch.

  In the distance, a siren screamed out in alarm, apparently angry at having been awaken from its siesta.

  The parade was just making its way up the Judge’s walk when the screen door on the front porch flew open and Heather burst out, a suitcase in each hand and a bag over her shoulder. Her face was flushed and her eyes brimmed with tears.

  Sarah drew up short. “Heather, my dear! What on earth!” But it was too late. Heather huffed something unintelligible and fled down the street in a torrent of tears. The sight was more than Albert could bear. He tumbled down the steps, unchained Agnes from the magnolia, jumped on, twisted the throttle, step on the starter pedal, and tootled after her trailing a cloud of chainsaw-blue smoke.

  “My goodness, gracious,” Sarah exclaimed, “where do you suppose she’s . . . “

  “Sarah! Sarah!” The voice, straining the upper end of its range, belonged to Alice, who had emerged from Sarah’s house as if it was on fire. Her eyes descended on the little parade with a resounding thud, and she hastened toward it as the crone flies.

  Sarah, caught at the vortex of events, was spinning, figuratively and literally. Should she follow Heather who was now being followed by Albert on his moped? or should she go in the house and try to ascertain from Kitty what had happened? And what was the meaning of the police siren downtown? And what on earth was Alice’s problem?

  Mrs. Abernathy had attained a vigorous boil waiting her cue from the conductor, and was trying her best to look three ways at once. Maylene, was having a wonderful time dancing around them both and shouting ‘yoho heave ho!’ for all she was worth.

  Appreciating the fact that events are less confusing when observed at a distance, Standish leaned against the porch, in the wings of the tableaux, with his legs and arms crossed. He watched, and waited.

&
nbsp; “There’s been a breakout!” said Alice as soon as she was close enough so none of the words would be wasted. Having effectively stuck her finger in the hub of things, all attention resolved upon her, except Maylene’s. “Tanjore Trelawney’s broken out of the jail!”

  Sarah responded the same way five billion of her fellow earthlings – armed with both perfect hearing and adequate understanding – would have responded in various tongues, dialects, and colloquialisms. “What?”

  Alice repeated the alarm.

  “Bro-ken out-of-jail,” sang Maylene, weaving the words into the tune that had become her life’s theme song. “Yo-ho heave ho!”

  “My goodness!” said Sarah, placing an arm atop her bosom. She was too overwhelmed to add ‘gracious.’

  “Gracious,” added Mrs. Abernathy.

  “Angela Marie just called!” said Alice, breathlessly.

  “That must be what all the noise downtown is about,” Sarah deduced.

  The little knot of people tacked toward the siren.

  “He kicked us out,” said someone behind them. Ducking just in time to avoid the boom, they scrambled across the deck and up the opposite gunwale. Kitty Odum had quietly exited the house and was standing on the porch amid her worldly belongings.

  “Who?” said Sarah.

  “Marchant DuShane. He’s kicked us out. Just like that.” She would have snapped her fingers, but her hands were full of everything she owned.

  “He can’t do that,” Mrs. Abernathy protested. “Can he, Sarah?” Half-deaf Mrs. Williams and her housekeeper Octavia had tied themselves to the edge of the group like helium balloons and Octavia was loudly repeating everything for her employer’s benefit. Mrs. Abernathy turned to the new arrivals. “He booted them out of the house.”

  “Who did?” said Octavia.

  “Marchant DuShane,” said Sarah. It was an open question, anyone could answer.

  “What happened?” said Mrs. Williams.

  “He kicked them out,” said Octavia.

  “Who?” said Mrs. Williams.

  “Mr. DuShane,” Octavia replied.

  “Mr. DuShane kicked somebody?”

  “Kicked them out,” Octavia corrected. “Miss Heather and Kitty.”

  “Mr. DuShane kicked a woman?!” said Mrs. Williams. This is what comes of too little rod and too much television.

  That end of the conversation would take care of itself. Sarah turned again to Kitty. “You mean he just came in here and gave you the boot?”

  Kitty affirmed the assertion in a rapid, nervous succession of nods and sighs and ‘my-oh-my’s.

  “What does he think gives him the right ?”

  “Oh, we’ve been through all that,” said Kitty. “Him and Miss Heather had such a set-to. It’s the will, you see. It was read this morning. He’s got everything, now. This house included.

  “It’s all his.”

  “But why would he kick you out? He’s going to need a housekeeper, isn’t he?”

  Kitty raised her head slightly. “If that man came to a funeral with a dirty nose, I wouldn’t wipe it for him.”

  “Where is he now? Inside?” said Sarah, with a move toward the steps.

  “No,” said Kitty. “There’s nothing you can do. He slipped out the back door when he saw everyone out here.”

  “Mr. Standish,” said Sarah, turning, but he was gone. “Now, where do you suppose he got to? He was here a second ago.”

  “Who kicked him?” said Mrs. Williams.

  “Bro-ken out-of jail,” sang Maylene.

  “But where will you go?” Albert asked, patting Heather on the shoulders. He’d intercepted her at the little triangular park at the end of the street. At his approach, she dissolved into tears, dropped her suitcases, fell into his arms, and sobbed her story into his shirt. Awkward, since he was still astride Agnes.

  She looked up with her eyes full. “I don’t know,” she said angrily. “I don’t care. I can’t believe he’d do such a thing, especially to Kitty – after all her years of service!”

  “The Judge didn’t leave her anything?” asked Albert.

  Heather dug a tissue from her pockets and blew her nose. “Turns out she knew him better than I did.” Twice her breath caught on sighs, like hiccups. “He left her twenty-five hundred dollars.”

  “That’s not good?” asked Albert, who didn’t know. Twenty-five hundred dollars would buy a lot of cigarettes.

  “Little more than a hundred for each year of service to him,” she said contemptuously. “I should think not!” She’d been glaring up the street. She turned back to him, saw that his shoulder was covered with tears. She wiped at them and laughed distractedly. “I’m sorry,” she said, pulling gently away. “Thank you.” She looked at her suitcases. “I feel so stupid. I don’t know where I was going. I was – I just had to get out of that house. Away from him. But not before I gave him a piece of my mind.” She hung her head. “You probably heard. Everyone probably heard.”

  A question occurred to Albert’s mind and his mouth at the same time. “What did the Judge leave you?”

  “Oh, I wasn’t expecting anything,” Heather replied.

  That wasn’t an answer. Albert waited.

  “The family albums, together with the family tree we’d been working on. No money or real estate, if that’s what you mean. A little bundle of his grandmother’s letters and some jewelry she collected over the years. I have no idea if it’s worth anything.”

  “He left it to you . . . by name . . . Heather Proverb?” said Albert.

  It was a curious question. “What do you mean?” she said, tying off her sorrow with a double sniff. “Of course by name. How else?”

  Albert didn’t know how to phrase what he was thinking, but he had an idea it wasn’t something he should say outright. He’d once told a young mother her baby looked like Winston Churchill. It had been a perfectly innocent statement; he liked Winston Churchill, one of only four historical figures he could identify on sight – the others being George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Jesus Christ. Of course, Jesus changed a lot from one picture to the next, but the halo gave Him away.

  He’d never say that again. People had a way of misinterpreting things. He didn’t want Heather to misunderstand him now.

  “You could stay at Sarah’s,” he said instead.

  Heather looked up the street again. “She’s full, isn’t she?”

  “Mr. Carmody just left,” said Albert. “He won’t be back for three weeks.” He paused. “That’s twenty-one days,” he added to aid in her deliberations.

  “Mm,” she said, with another swipe at her nose. It was a nice nose. A little pointy and turned up at the end, like a fairy’s. “There are two single beds in that room, right?”

  “I don’t know,” said Albert. He’d never been in Carmody’s room. “There’s one big bed in my room.”

  “I was just thinking – if Kitty and I could share the room for a while – just ’til things get sorted out.”

  “I’m sure you could,” said Albert. He patted her shoulder again. “I’m sure you could.” He found that repeating things had a comforting effect on people. “I’m sure you could.” He wanted to be as comforting as possible.

  Albert was awakened by Jebby meowing. In fact, the first dull thoughts of waking were full of cats. He’d been dreaming about them. He couldn’t remember what, in particular. He seldom remembered dreams – other than the one he had about Miss Bjork. But there had been cats. And they didn’t go away when the dream was over. He was awake, and they were still meowing. At least one was.

  The window overlooking the back yard was open. Albert went to it and, raising the screen, looked out. It was dark. “Here, kitty, kitty,” he said softly. His sister had had a cat, once. He knew how to talk to them, providing the conversation went no further. “Here kitty, kitty.” The meowing stopped. He smiled, drew in his head, quietly closed the screen and returned to bed.

  That the mewing began again the moment his head touched the pil
low did not surprise him. Cats did that kind of thing. His sister’s surely had.

  He sat up. “Kitty, kitty,” he whispered sharply. The mewing only stopped for a moment. This cat knew Albert had not yet been thoroughly inconvenienced. It wouldn’t be happy until he went to the window again.

  He got out of bed. He didn’t want to dream about cats anymore. Nothing suggesting a cat took shape in the shadows, no matter how hard he stared. But the mewing continued, not only louder – but closer. It stopped abruptly when he closed the window, as if it had been a guillotine. He went back to bed, drew the sheet up under his chin and closed one eye.

  “Jebby?” said a tiny voice.

  For half a moment Albert thought it was the cat. One replay was sufficient to tell him it was Maylene’s voice. There was a delicate rap at the door. “Jebby?”

  Albert swung his feet to the floor, stood up, wrapped the sheet around his waist, and went to the door. “Maylene?”

  There was a loud pause. “Mr. Elmo?”

  He opened the door, and Maylene drifted in on a weak wash of yellow light cast by the nightlight in the hall. “Jebby?” she said, raising her eyes. “Kitty?”

  “Oh, no,” said Albert. “You just heard . . . there was a cat . . . a kitty outside. He’s gone now.”

  “Jebby,” Maylene said. She looked around the room.

  Of course, it might have been Jebby, but whether it was or not, Maylene had to ‘make the break’ as Cindy had said. It was for her own good. “Jebby’s gone, Maylene.”

  At this point in the proceeding the cat meowed again, louder and closer than ever, in testimony to the fact that it was not among those absent.

  “Jebby!” Maylene sang enthusiastically. She reached up, turned on the light, and renewed her search in earnest . . . leaving a sheet-draped Albert shielding his eyes.

  “Jebby’s not in here, Maylene,” he protested. He knew better. He was the grown up. “He’s gone home to be with Maudanne.” He sounded like Cindy. “She’s his mommy.” Why had it sounded so much more convincing when Cindy said it?