Requiem for Ashes

by David Crossman

Every cupboard, cabinet, and drawer had been opened and its contents tossed out.

  "In the kitchen cabinets and sofa cushions?" Tewksbury started to take his gloves off.

  "No! Keep them on," said Albert. "Fingerprints."

  They cleared spaces to sit while waiting for the water to boil.

  "Ah, hot!" said Tewksbury. He cradled his cup in both hands and sipped with his eyes closed, as if he were taking communion.

  Albert shuddered to see coffee taken black. He lost count of the sugars he'd added to his own. He added one more. Better safe.

  "She used to work here, at the school," Tewksbury said finally. "Daphne," he added in response to Albert's quizzical look. He studied the augury in his coffee cup. "I remember one night in the teacher's lounge . . . Glenly . . ."

  "I know about it," Albert interrupted. He didn't want to hear it again. Nevertheless, Tewksbury elaborated in graphic detail.

  Albert was embarrassed again. His heart broke for the girl. Quite other fires were stirred in Tewksbury's eyes.

  "Poor kid," he said in summation, having poured the pox of his own memory into Albert's unwilling ears. He drained his cup.

  "I saw her once after that. Where was it? . . . oh, I remember. She was talking to Strickland, downtown. She was walking down the sidewalk . . . by the village green . . . he pulled up in his fancy little car and called her. They talked a few seconds, then she got in and they drove away. Haven't seen her since."

  What would Naples say now? Albert wondered. "Are you sure it was Strickland?" That sounded right.

  "Oh, no doubt." Tewksbury held out his cup. Albert took it and went to the kitchen. "It was no surprise. That night at the school? . . . Strick was the one who rescued her in the end . . . put his coat over her, collected her clothes, took her home. It was him, all right. Besides, his car is pretty conspicuous."

  Something troubled Albert. Something was glaringly out of tune. "But I thought she'd left town after . . . all that," he said. "Didn’t someone say she went to New Hampshire. Home."

  Tewksbury took a long, loud sip from the cup Albert handed him. "I hadn't thought of that. Now you mention it that's what I heard. I don't know." He got up and went to the kitchen.

  "Maybe she came back . . . for some reason."

  "What reason?"

  "I don't know. To get something; see someone . . . Kill someone . . . " The words pushed their way into the open on the wings of a heartbeat.

  Tewksbury had gotten up and gone to the refrigerator. The words froze him in mid-motion. Medusa would have been proud. A beat or two later he seized a St. Pauli Girl about the waist and liberated her from the yoke which bound her to her sisters. "You mean . . . " he stammered.

  "When was it?"

  "What?"

  "When did you see her . . . with Strickland?"

  Tewksbury sipped and thought, as if the acts were reciprocal.

  Suddenly he stopped sipping. His face turned white and he lowered the can. "I'll be . . . "

  "What?"

  "It was that day . . . the day Glenly died!"

  "Are you sure?" Albert was on the edge of his seat. He'd never been on the edge of his seat before.

  "Positive." Tewksbury's eyes darted blindly around the room. "Positive. It was before I came to see you. Remember?" Albert remembered. "I was coming out of the town library. That's when I saw Strickland pull up across the green. At first I thought he'd seen me . . . that was why he . . . but then I saw her. They talked.”

  "And she got in," Albert concluded.

  "Then I went somewhere. Probably the drugstore or the bookstore to get my paper. That's it! I rummaged around there for half an hour then I ran into Lane. That's when I found out about Glenly. Lane told me. Then I came to see you."

  "You wanted a cigarette."

  Tewksbury smiled and lit a cigarette. "You think there's any chance of it?" he said. "I mean, she had the motive, that's for sure. But . . . No. I can't believe it of her. She's not capable of it. "

  "They say she was . . . " Albert tapped his temple.

  "Crazy? Oh, no." Tewksbury thought a second. "I remember hearing something about her past emotional problems. Maybe she had a breakdown or something. Who knows? But that's not crazy. Not that I ever noticed."

  "You knew her?"

  "Well, no. Not really." The cigarette was dangling from the corner of Tewksbury's mouth. It reminded Albert that he'd left a saxophone at the repair shop. "I mean, we talked. 'Hello' in the halls, the weather, the Dean’s haircut, you know. That type of thing.

  “But, no. Not really. Still," he added, "she seemed pretty normal to me. Normal as anyone. Of course, those are the ones you have to worry about; the ones who seem normal."

  No one had to worry about Albert.

  "Did you ever see her with Walter Lane?"

  "Lane?" said Tewksbury, leveraging his entire face with his eyebrows. "Now it's funny you should mention that. It just came to mind that instant. I didn't see them together, personally . . . but Strick said once that they'd well, nothing serious apparently, but Lane had an interest in the girl. I'd assumed it was just that father-daughter fondness, you know. I mean, considering her story and Lane's background man's a born social worker . . . well. Why did you mention her?"

  "Just something I noticed. I wondered if he liked her," said Albert. "I don't know what it has to do with anything. It's like a puzzle." The analogy had just sprung to Albert's mind. He was surprised by its clarity. The Pure Force of Reason. "Like a puzzle where one piece may not seem to have anything to do with another, until they're all together." It didn't sound as profound as it felt, but it was still good.

  Tewksbury belched long and hard. "What's for supper?"

  Albert's first analogy; pearls before swine.

  The phone rang.

  "What on earth happened?" It was Miss Bjork. Albert didn't know what on earth happened. He said hello. "What did you do to my place!?"

  She must have moved the furniture.

  "Albert?" Pause. No response. "Professor!"

  "I tried to put everything back . . . " said Albert. The words got slow and frail toward the end. Hollow as a political promise, "the best I could."

  Albert reminded Tewksbury of Alfred E. Newman as he withstood the verbal blast that followed. His knees seemed to knock audibly. His stupid, dazed expression teetered on the brink between a smile and tears. Miss Bjork was a tornado, Albert was a trailer park.

  "I'm sorry," Albert whispered softly at last. No buts. No excuses. No explanations. "I'll pay for all the damage. I have a lot of money in the bank." Hurricane Bjork dissipated inland, but damage to the shoreline was extensive.

  However deserving of it, no one had ever spoken to Albert like that . . . ever. "I'm sorry," he said, almost in tears, and hung up the phone.

  "Our Miss Bjork?" Tewksbury said in a way that was supposed to make Albert feel better. It didn't. "Not happy with our housekeeping, I take it."

  "Women notice things," said Albert, who didn't. His tone was almost reverential. His knees settled down eventually. He could feel the color returning to his cheeks. "I guess it was a bad idea."

  "Maybe so," said Tewksbury, whose brief, unjust incarceration had inured him to guilt. "I had to go somewhere. Seemed a good idea at the time. What's for supper?"

  "I've got to go see her," said Albert.

  "Bjork?! She'll have your head."

  Albert threw on his coat and left.

  Tewksbury listened as his protector's footsteps tripled down the stairs and out of the building. "Don’t mind me,” he said to the clutter. “I'll get my own supper."

  Chapter Twelve

  “Ah, Professor." Albert was arrested in his tracks by the greeting, which preceded the inspector from the darkness. "What a coincidence. I was just coming up to see you."

  "I've got to go somewhere." said Albert with all the firmness he could muster. "It's important."

  "This will only take a second," said the inspector. He blew into his gloved hands. "Why don't we go
inside? It's cold out here."

  Albert wondered how long Naples had been standing in the cold shadows.

  "I can't," said Albert. His heart seemed, all of a sudden, to have given up and left his chest, leaving behind it an aching hollow that trembled with the echo of its beating. "Someone's expecting me." He struck off down the sidewalk. He couldn't resist the notion there was a gun pointed at his back.

  "Professor!" The inspector fired. Albert stopped and turned.

  "You left your light on." A near miss.

  "I'll be back," said Albert. He struck off again, through the streetlight's halo, almost to the safety of darkness on the other side. Once again the verbal harpoon was leveled at his back and twanged through the silence. "I wonder what I'd find if I went up there."

  Direct hit. Albert's knees buckled. He stopped, staring through the steam of his breath into the shadows that might have saved him. Something had to be done about the Inspector.

  Albert spun defiantly on his heels and marched back to Naples, who stood in his aura, knee-deep in lamplight. "Here are the keys," he said. "I've got to go somewhere. You go ahead and look around and just leave the door unlocked. Put the keys . . . down somewhere I can find them."

  The inspector stared deeply into each of Albert's eyes in turn, then smiled broadly. "I'll do that, Professor."

  Albert's first bluff debuted with the same success as his first analogy. He had no choice but to play it out. His heart was back and beating furiously. He trudged off toward Miss Bjork's. He didn't turn to see the inspector enter the building. He walked blindly on with a quickened pace. He didn't turn when he heard the faint salute of the inspector's footsteps on the bare wood stair treads. The sight of a phone booth gave him a last, desperate hope. He got his number from directory assistance, (if this business kept up much longer, he’d have to remember it, or write it down somewhere), while he rifled his pockets for twenty cents. He deposited a quarter and dialed. The phone rang several times. Had it all happened so quickly? Was it over already?

  The code! Albert hung up. The quarter dropped into the little metal tray. Having memorized the pattern of his number on the push-button pad, he dialed again, let it ring twice, hung up and repeated the process.

  "Hello?" It was Tewksbury. "Albert?"

  "The inspector's coming. He's got a key."

  Albert heard a crash over the phone. "What was that? Is he breaking in?"

  "No," Tewksbury whispered. "Something broke out on the landing."

  "You've got to hide!"

  "No! Wait."

  In the breathless silence, Albert imagined more terrible possibilities than he thought himself capable of. "What?" he said at last.

  There was no answer. "What is it?" Still no reply. "Tewksbury!"

  "Shut up!" Tewksbury rasped harshly. He put the phone down and the tense bowstrings of silence shivered to stillness again.

  Albert cradled the phone under his chin. His eyes watered and his hands shook in the pockets of his overcoat. Finally Tewksbury was back on the line.

  "There was somebody out there.”

  "I know. Inspector Naples."

  "Then he left."

  "Left?" Instantly Albert imagined Naples sneaking up behind him, asking who he was talking to. Had he heard the phone ring?

  Tewksbury continued. "There were footsteps . . . just as the phone rang. Then this crack."

  "I heard."

  "Then there was some shuffling around. I couldn't tell what was happening from the sound that's when I told you to be quiet."

  "To shut up," Albert corrected.

  "Then these footsteps went down the stairs . . . " Albert looked around quickly, fully expecting to see Naples staring him in the eye. "I'm going to see what happened."

  "No!" Albert cried, but he heard the phone thud and rock on the table.

  The series of sounds that followed painted a clear picture of Tewksbury crossing to the door, undoing the chain, turning the lock, and opening the door just a crack. A rush of footsteps followed.

  "Caesar's ghost!" said Tewksbury, returning to the phone. "He's been knocked out cold!"

  Who was knocked out cold? "Who!?"

  "Naples!" said Tewksbury. "Wait a second!"

  Again there was a thud and rock of the phone. Tewksbury closed and locked the door, came back and picked it up again.

  "I heard some people on the stairs. Must've heard the noise."

  "Inspector Naples?" said Albert in disbelief.

  "Out cold," said Tewksbury. "Propped up against the wall on the first step of the next flight up."

  "He's not . . . "

  "Not what? Dead? No, no. Just out cold. I felt his pulse. Somebody hit him with a flowerpot."

  "A flowerpot?" Albert would have to find a new place to keep his keys.

  "Must have. It's all over the place . . . in a million pieces. I just heard some lady scream. They'll call the police, Albert. I've got to get out of here."

  "Yes, you do," Albert agreed. "He was looking for you."

  "For me? How do you know?" Tewksbury immediately sensed betrayal.

  Albert explained. "It was all I could do."

  Tewksbury saw that it was, but continued to nurse the threat of betrayal for the perverse comfort it offered. Suddenly he became aware of a sound in the distance, one that presented a real threat.

  "Sirens."

  Albert heard them, too. "You've got to go!"

  "Where?"

  Back to the hospital? Or Miss Bjork's? To school? To Crete? Albert's overburdened brain swam with possibilities. It was a big world. "Go out the back way. I'll meet you by the fountain."

  Tewksbury hadn't unpacked. He gathered up his brown paper bag, shut the light off, unlocked the door and cracked it open for a peek at the landing. Four or five people were standing about in their pajamas with their arms crossed. A watchpost had been set up at the bottom of the stairs to monitor the progress of the police and all eyes were turned toward the watchman.

  Tewksbury opened the door just enough to get out and closed it quietly. There was a tiny crowd huddled around the top step of the darkened landing. An older lady attended the inspector, mopping his oblivious brow with a cloth. No one was between Tewksbury and the back stairs.

  "It's the ambulance!" cried the watchman. The strings of anticipation tightened to a fine pitch. Tewksbury darted across the landing and pushed the rear stair door open. It squeaked. He turned to see if anyone had noticed. One pair of eyes stared at him from among the knot of spectators; the woman attending Naples.

  He looked at her pleadingly-the innocent supplication of all persecuted humanity evident in his dark eyes.

  "Hey!" the woman said sharply. "Who are you?" The words were directed just as much at her fellow residents as at Tewksbury, who fled down the stairs. "Jim!" the woman cried. "He's getting away!" The words rang in Tewksbury's ears as he tossed himself into the night.

  "We've had it now," said Tewksbury as he beckoned Albert into the shadow of the fountain. His choice of pronouns was not lost on Albert, but this wasn't the time or place to argue. He was probably right.

  "Is Naples all right?"

  "Naples?" Tewksbury puffed, lacing the air with chugs of steam. "I guess he'll be at our heels soon enough, if that's what you mean."

  Albert started walking and Tewksbury followed. It had begun to snow. "Who did it?"

  "Who knows? Who cares!We're the ones that'll get the blame. No fear. Where are we going?"

  "To the bus station."

  Tewksbury didn't resist. Albert's peculiar instincts had seen him this far. "Bus? To where?"

  "Maine."

  "What's in Maine?"

  "My mother's place. She's in Florida."

  They walked across the common in silence.

  "I've always liked Maine," said Tewksbury resignedly. "Where?"

  "Near Sanford," said Albert. "It's out in the country. In the woods. Nobody goes near there except hunters in hunting season."

  "When is that?"

&nbs
p; Albert shrugged.

  "I'll need money. You'll have to wire me some."

  Albert liked it when problems and solutions were voiced in the same breath.

  "We'll have to work out a code. And I'll need an alias. How about . . . Henry Rawlinson. He unearthed Ninevah."

  "Henry Rawlins," said Albert with a distant-eyed finality that told Tewksbury it was Rawlins and not Rawlinson for ever and ever, amen.

  "Rawlins, then," said Tewksbury.

  By the time they reached the bus station they had formulated a simple code, and within forty minutes Tewksbury was safely on his way with twenty-six dollars and change, detailed directions to Albert's family homestead, the location of the key - if it was still where it always had been - and, just in case, a note from Albert giving Mr. Rawlins, nee Rawlinson, permission to use the house.

  "There's no phone," said Albert.

  "No phone!"

  "My mother doesn't like a lot of . . . she goes there for the quiet. There's no TV, either."

  "Great."

  "Or radio."

  "Almost Disneyland," said Tewksbury. "Does it have electricity?"

  Albert thought a moment. "Yes." Pause. "It must."

  Chapter Thirteen

  It remained for Albert to confront the twin terrors of Bjork and Naples. He convinced himself it was too late to drop in on Miss Bjork. As for Naples, there was only one way to find out.

  He turned his weary steps homeward.

  There were no ambulances or police cars. That was a good sign. The house was dark and quiet. He tiptoed up the stairs, avoiding the creaking step, third from the bottom, and stumbling through the clumps of dirt and broken pottery which signified the earthly remains of what was once a flowerpot, opened his door. He winced but at the same time breathed a sigh of relief. Both terrors had been avoided. He collapsed on the bed and slept hard.

  The phone woke him at seven in the morning, but had breathed its last by the time he found his glasses, focused his brain, and tracked it down. He dragged it out into the open and was halfway through his second cup of coffee and third cigarette when it rang again.

  "Hello?"

  "Albert?"

  It was Miss Bjork. Her voice was calm. Even soft.