Requiem for Ashes

by David Crossman

  As they were about to leave the men's room, Lane placed his heavy hand on Albert's shoulder. "Albert . . . about the inspector . . . "

  "He's going to be all right," Albert said. "They're pretty sure."

  ‘What papers would Tewksbury have had that Strickland would have wanted?’ The question had been revolving in Albert's consciousness all the way to Miss Bjork's. He was surprised not to find her home. He was even more surprised when, after reviewing his conversation with Lane, he realized he still didn't knowwhy Inspector Naples had been hit with the flowerpot.

  He didn't know if Lane had done it to protect Daphne Knowlton or himself. He did know that he would not wish to be on Lane's wrong side . . . and if Glenly had been . . .

  Miss Bjork arrived in her lawyer suit and three-piece demeanor.

  She greeted him as she would the custodian, opened her apartment door and invited him in. Maybe she expected him to fix something. He should have brought some tools. He'd have to buy some.

  "Have a seat, Professor," she said as she breezed down the hallway toward her bedroom, doffing the lawyer in bits and pieces along the way. "I'll be out in a minute, then you and I are going shopping."

  A minute later, Albert heard the water running in the shower.

  He tried to think of some music with a raindrop motif but he couldn't. Involuntarily he pictured Venus de Milo in the rain. He paced the room.

  Within thirty minutes Miss Bjork emerged from her cocoon.

  The transformation from lawyer to woman was complete. She hadn't showered; she'd been sandblasted. All the jagged edges had been smoothed to whole notes.

  "How's that?" she said, spinning in a circle, holding the hem of her skirt out like Shirley Temple. Albert noticed the dress this time. It was black, or navy blue, and very . . . floaty. With little polka dots, or squares, and some kind of trim. Or the other way around.

  He beamed, and blushed, and nodded like an arctic fowl. Before he could clear the steam off his glasses, they were at the mall. Albert hadn’t even known therewas a mall. It was a different world. The most uninspiring place he'd ever been. It was art by committee, music by a newspaper critic. Hollywood in a concrete box.

  For two hours Miss Bjork fussed over him like he'd never been fussed over. She bought him two suits, two shirts, two pairs of shoes, a pair of sneakers, two ties. It was like Noah's ark, everything came in two's: two belts. She tried to buy colored underwear but Albert's dignity forbade. He also drew the line at having his hair cropped a uniform length. His head was not socialist.

  Nevertheless, it was a new Albert who strode self-consciously into the light of day, chaffing from neck to ankle, but as Miss Bjork slid her arm through the crook of his elbow, he decided it was a pain he could endure. He stood a little straighter, carried his chin a little higher as they walked to the car. For the first time in his life, Albert wanted to be noticed. He wanted the world to see the woman on his arm.

  Albert had never felt like the center of the universe before. He'd hardly feltconnected to the universe. He was simply a comet that raced about in opposition to accepted laws. But now he had fallen into orbit around a heavenly body: Miss Bjork.

  She knew everything. She knew about prices, designers, and advertising. She even talked about the lives of dead composers. He'd never thought about them as people; living beings with egos and imperfections. The more she told him, the less he felt he had in common with them.

  "Now we're going out to dinner," she declared.

  "At a restaurant?"

  "The best in town."

  Albert hated restaurants, except Dunkin' Donuts, especially since they had started serving soup and sandwiches. He hated menus. He hated words in French likesoup du jour, andà la carte. He never had those. His mother had said the French will eat anything. You never know.

  Most of all, Albert hated headwaiters. They represented the uppermost branches of that family tree that had City Hall bureaucrats among its lower members.

  "Do you like Chinese?"

  None came to mind except Professor Ping at the business school. He seemed nice enough. "I don't know many," Albert said.

  Miss Bjork laughed as if he'd made a joke. She looked at him and saw that he hadn't, so she stopped laughing and almost hurt herself. "I'm sorry, Albert." He loved it when she called him that. "I mean, Chinese food. I should have said."

  Albert hadn't had rice in years. "Yes," he said. "With butter and salt."

  Over dinner Albert acquired a new understanding of Chinese cuisine. Meanwhile, he brought Miss Bjork up to date on Lane, and Naples, and Jeremy Ash, and Dr. Strickland and safety-posit boxes.

  "Do you have one?" he asked.

  "A safe-deposit box? Hardly. I don't have anything worth putting in one."

  Tewksbury would have disagreed.

  Albert smiled and rearranged chicken bones in a little pile on his plate. "Neither do I," he said. "What would you keep in one . . . if you did?"

  "Oh, they're very good for important papers, wills, stock certificates, that kind of thing. Anything one considered precious or valuable. Some women keep their jewelry in them."

  "What if they wanted to wear it?"

  "They'd go get it."

  "To the bank?"

  Miss Bjork nodded over her teacup. "That's not the important thing, though, Albert. The important thing is Lane. Somebody like that would have to be pretty desperate to hit a policeman over the head. And you're right, he must have done it to keep the Inspector from finding out something; something Daphne Knowlton knows. Now, we've got to do one of two things."

  "Find Daphne Knowlton," said Albert.

  "Or get the truth from Lane . . . if he killed Glenly." Albert looked surprised "Don't look surprised. Albert. You've thought as much yourself. If he killed Glenly and Daphne Knowlton knows about it, she could be in deep trouble . . . if she's not already."

  Such a scenario, common in Miss Bjork's profession, was completely alien to Albert. He couldn't reconcile the manner in which she proposed them, matter-of-factly, almost callously, with the way he felt about her.

  "Where could she be?"

  "Who knows?"

  ‘Who knows?’ He'd heard that before recently. ‘Who knows?’ Lane had said it, when he turned away. That made him realize something. "She's all right.”

  "How do you know?"

  Albert remembered the look in Lane's eyes when he'd told the story of the kidnapping. The sound of his voice. She was safe with him, safe as a leopard cub. "I know where she is."

  "Where?"

  "I'll show you," said Albert, who wanted proof himself.

  Miss Bjork paid the bill while Albert looked up Lane’s address in the phone book. Within minutes they were parked in the shadows across the street from Lane’s two-story duplex. His car was in the driveway.

  "We wait?" said Miss Bjork, both the question and its answer. Albert nodded.

  Lane’s shades were drawn. A few lights were on. Now and then a window shade would blink with his unmistakable silhouette. There was no Daphne-shaped shadow.

  Two hours later Albert had stepped out of the car for another cigarette. He was leaning on the roof of the car, watching the house, trying to trace his thoughts among the threads of smoke that wisped up in the still spring air. Suddenly Lane's door squeaked loudly open. Albert dropped his cigarette through Miss Bjork's open sunroof.

  By the time they'd found the smoldering ash, Lane had driven away. The smell of burnt Corinthian leather filled the air. Miss Bjork's eyes were closed. She seemed to be praying.

  "I'm sorry," said Albert in his new clothes. He crossed the street and walked up to the front door of Frank's house.

  "Albert!" Miss Bjork cried as she scrambled out of the car. She tripped over the lead suspended between a man and his dog, who had taken one another out for a stroll. The man helped her off the grass. The dog licked her ankles. "Excuse me. I'm sorry, I didn't see you."

  The man and his dog had nonspeaking parts in Miss Bjork's life, and went about th
eir business with a tear and a smile.

  "Albert!" she whispered sharply. "What are you doing?"

  But he'd already done it. The gentle rap echoed up and down the street. There was no reply from within.

  "If she’s in there, you’re going to scare her off."

  "I'll go to the back door. You stay here and keep knocking."

  At the rear of the house, Albert climbed the few steps to the kitchen door. The light was on. The kitchen was very clean. The dishes had been done and stood in the drainer. The floor was shining and a little basket of fruit stood on the table. On one side of the refrigerator a doorway led to a small darkened room and then the living room beyond. On the other side was an open door revealing a narrow stairway and, at the place where the steps made a sharp turn up and out of sight, all curled up in a wide-eyed ball, was Daphne Knowlton.

  Albert tapped softly on the window. The girl started, the fear in her eyes sent shockwaves through Albert. He wanted to take her in his arms and soothe her. He smiled and waved.

  Like a frightened bird, Daphne Knowlton was grounded by her fear, halfway between flight and fainting. Albert waved again, smiled a little broader, and mouthed the words, "It's me."

  The recognition showed on her face. She got up slowly, upsetting the wellspring of tears that overflowed her eyes. She descended the last two of three steps and tentatively began to cross the kitchen. "You see anything?" said Miss Bjork, as she rounded the corner. "I don't think she's here."

  Albert had no time to react. He was taken off guard, as was Miss Bjork, at the sight of Daphne Knowlton frozen in suspended animation halfway across the kitchen.

  The paralyzing effect of Miss Bjork's appearance in the window next to the smiling, waving music teacher, wore off almost instantly and Daphne bolted up the darkened stairs.

  Miss Bjork tried the screen door. It opened, compressing Albert against the railing.

  "Sorry," she said as she tried the interior door. It swung inward.

  Suddenly, there was a series of dull, heavy thuds, and Daphne Knowlton reappeared at the bottom of the staris in a tangle of arms, legs, and red hair.

  "She's fallen!" Miss Bjork screamed. She raced to the girl's side with Albert at her heels.

  "Is she . . . ?"

  "Call the hospital!"

  Albert jumped up and, taking a quick inventory of the room, located the phone over the microwave. As he reached for it, he heard the heavy squeak of the front door.

  "That must be Lane!"

  Miss Bjork cradled Daphne's head in her arms.

  Albert dialed "0," throwing caution to the wind. The operator was helpful. She didn't scold him, but she did ask a lot of questions.

  Fortunately Miss Bjork was there to help with the answers.

  Momentarily the ambulance was on its way.

  "Albert!" Miss Bjork whispered as soon as he'd hung up the phone. "She's saying something! I can't make it out, can you?"

  Daphne Knowlton's eyes were closed. Her lips moved slightly, trying to form words from whispers. Albert put his ear close to her mouth.

  The sounds had a pattern. She was repeating the same thing over and over. One word at a time. Albert pieced most of the refrain together.

  "’I killed him. I killed him’," he repeated. "That's what it sounds like."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Her lips moved in the same pattern as the attendants lifted her onto the stretcher and rolled her into the ambulance, but there were lights, and sirens, and radios. No one could hear her.

  Lane's car screeched into the driveway just as the ambulance drove away, wailing like a banshee. He jumped out of the car clutching a bag of groceries. He glanced from the ambulance to Albert and Miss Bjork.

  "What's happened!?" he said. "What are you people doing here?"

  Albert nodded in the direction of the receding ambulance.

  "Daphne Knowlton . . . is in there."

  "What!?" Lane took a step in the direction of the ambulance, then stopped. "What?"

  "They say she'll be all right," Miss Bjork added quickly. "She just had a mild concussion, and probably a broken collarbone."

  "A concussion?"

  For the second time Lane had that snowball-in-the-groin look. "I just left twenty minutes ago. She was fine. What happened?" He rounded the car, clutching the groceries reflexively. "How did you know?"

  "I knew if she was still in town someone would have to be taking care of her," said Albert.

  "We knew that if Albert was right . . . if Miss Knowlton was here . . . you'd never admit it, much less let us speak to her," said Miss Bjork. "So we waited for you to leave."

  "I knocked on the door," Albert explained. "But she didn't answer."

  "So he went around back to the kitchen door and saw her sitting on the stairs."

  "She recognized me," said Albert. "She was going to let me in . . . then . . . "

  "Then she saw me, and bolted up the stairs," said Miss Bjork. "She must have tripped."

  Lane hadn't blinked. His knees gave out beneath him, and Albert and Miss Bjork helped him to the front steps. "I thought I was being so clever," he said. "Andyou read me like a cheap magazine."

  The piano player and Miss Bjork bookended him on the step.

  "Why don't you tell us everything, Professor Lane," said Miss Bjork. Albert detected a hint of courtroom coolness in her voice.

  The ambulance had gone, but Lane's tear-filled eyes followed. "I've got to go with her. She'll need me."

  Miss Bjork put her hand on his shoulder. "Tell us, first, Professor. Why?"

  "Why what? Why did I keep her here? Why didn't I tell anyone?"

  "That'll do for starters."

  Lane still stared into the hollow of the tree-lined road as if he could see them taking her away. "Poor kid," he said. "Poor, poor kid."

  "Do you love her?" Miss Bjork said in church tones.

  He looked at her from the bottom of dark pools of sadness. "Not in the way you think . . . the way they all think."

  Lane sighed long and deep. "My wife . . . " Sigh. "My wife and I had a daughter . . . Debbie. She was only sixteen when she . . . " His dignity gave way beneath the weight of his grief, he dropped his head to his hands and sobbed. "It was six years ago," he continued. "Before we came here."

  "I'm so sorry," said Miss Bjork quietly, laying her hand on his elbow. "I didn't know."

  Know what? thought Albert. What did she say? What did he say? He'd missed something; again.

  "No one knows," said Lane. "We moved here to forget. Ran away, I guess. Away from the pain of it. She was all we had."

  He raised his eyes to the merciful night. "It didn't help. We hung on for six years. Six long years. But it finally ate away at the foundations of the marriage. The sorrow. Emptiness. We finally just . . . well, I got this place and just stopped going home."

  Tears slid silently down his cheeks.

  Albert didn't look up.

  "What happened?" said Miss Bjork.

  "Drunk driver." The weight of the words was more than Lane could support in a sitting position. He sprang to his feet and paced the yard in a small semicircle. "Drunk driver." He laughed at a private irony. "Got off with a fine and a suspended sentence . . . for killing my daughter. Debbie! My baby girl!"

  The truth hit Albert like a stone.

  With supreme effort, Lane finally got himself together enough to continue. "It left a hole in me the size of . . . "

  "Daphne Knowlton," said Albert.

  Lane stopped in front of Albert and stared at him. Albert looked up.

  "Daphne Knowlton," Lane said. "Just the size of Daphne Knowlton. She needed me. I needed her. It just happened that way. I had a daughter again."

  "Everyone thought she went home, back to New Hampshire," said Miss Bjork. "Why is she here?"

  "Like I told Albert, she stayed with me a few days after that night in the lounge after Strickland took her home. She needed time. That's when it all began.

  "I'd just moved out on my own. I
thought I was comforting her, but I guess I needed her just as much as she did me. I didn't rush her to go.

  "She did, though. After a week or so. I was relieved in a way. All she talked about the whole time was how ashamed she was. How she hated Glenly. How she wanted to . . . "

  "Kill him?" said Miss Bjork.

  Lane hesitated, then nodded. "Not in so many words but . . . and how wonderful she thought Strickland was. I could see she was falling in love with him. Mind you, Strickland was supposed to have been dating Glenly's daughter at the time, but . . .

  "She finally went home, though. Like I said. There was nothing else she could do. She couldn't show her face on campus. She'd already resigned. I thought that was the end of it." Lane fell silent.

  "But she showed up again?" Miss Bjork prompted.

  "Three times. The first time about a week before Glenly died. The second time, about three weeks ago. Then again a few days ago. Each time she stayed about a week. Didn't say much of anything, just that she wanted my company. Didn't even mention Strickland. Still, I was curious about her feelings for him, so I mentioned him. She acted as if she'd forgotten who he was. At first I was relieved, then I got suspicious.

  "This last time, she went out at night. She often did. I was sure she was going to meet him. so I followed. I wanted to have it out with him. I wanted her to see him for the snake he is."

  "But she came to my house," said Albert.

  "I couldn't understand it," said Lane. "I didn't even know itwas your house, then I saw you come out. You met Naples, talked with him, then you went away and he went inside."

  "You thought he was after Daphne?" said Albert.

  "I guess so. I don't know, really. I didn't know what was going on. I just wanted everything to stop until I could figure it out, before Daphne, before she said something foolish." He paused. "I told you about her, Albert. She's not well. She doesn't know what she's saying half the time." He paused again.

  Albert let him collect his thoughts. "I don't think she knows what she's doing."

  "What did you do?" Albert asked gently. He knew, but he had to hear it from Lane.

  Lane looked at Albert as if he was unable to form the words. Miss Bjork was still some steps behind.