Requiem for Ashes

by David Crossman

  "Did Daphne kill Glenly?" said Albert.

  Those were the words that breached Lane's tottering wall of reserve. He fell against the side of the house, massaging his temples distractedly in an effort to stem the tears. Finally he nodded.

  Miss Bjork was stunned. "Daphne?!"

  "I'm sorry," said Albert.

  "You're sure of this?" said Miss Bjork.

  Lane nodded. "It all adds up."

  Daphne Knowlton's last words rung clearly in Miss Bjork's memory. She clambered over a fence and fell into the same pasture. "That's why you hit Naples!"

  "I figured she was in the apartment. your place, Albert. I went up the stairs, Naples had knocked on the door already. The phone rang inside, there was some kind of commotion, so he didn't pay any attention to me.

  "I pretended to start up the second flight. I didn't know what to do. Then I saw the flowerpot." Lane hung his head. "All I could think was . . . what if they locked her away? After all she's been through?"

  Mentally, Miss Bjork dragged herself to a sitting position and brushed herself off. "Of course! The hatred that must have been building up inside her all that time. The resentment and hurt. She had plenty of time to think about it . . . toplan.” She was already orchestrating the defense; it couldn't be justifiable homicide, or temporary insanity, too premeditated, too much time. But when Albert told Lane to fill her in on Daphne Knowlton's background, the case solidified. Insanity. Plain and simple.

  Why hadn't Daphne Knowlton mentioned Strickland? Albert thought. He knew she had met him the day of Glenly's murder. They'd driven away together in the little red sports car; Tewksbury saw them.

  "Tewksbury!" Albert blurted involuntarily.

  It hit Miss Bjork at the same time. "He really is innocent."

  That thought had another snapping at its heels. Albert turned to Lane. "You knew."

  "Not at first. I thought he was guilty." Lane sat down again. "Everybody did. I still hadn't put the pieces together . . . with Daphne, I mean. The case against Tewks seemed cut and dried."

  "Yes. It did," said Miss Bjork in her own defense. She wished she hadn't.

  Lane's words had made a hole in the road of reason. He stepped to the edge and looked in. "Then, a piece at a time, everything came together. It couldn't be anything else. But Tewksbury'd been tried and convicted by that time.

  "I didn't know what to do. Then I read somewhere that he could get out, pardoned, in seven years, maybe less. Seven years." He looked from one to the other of his bookends. "He didn't have any family to speak of. No wife or kids. He could start over again." He paused. "That's the first time I've said that out loud. It sounds pretty heartless, doesn’t it?" He folded his hands and rested his forehead against them. "But, Daphne . . . she'd just wither away and die if she was put away.

  "I liked Tewks."

  They left Lane on his front step, a middle-aged man living out of boxes, clutching his bag of groceries like a lifeline.

  "You did it, Albert!" Miss Bjork proclaimed once they were in the car. "You did it!"

  Albert didn't say anything.

  "You proved Tewksbury innocent."

  "No, I didn't," said Albert. "I proved Daphne Knowlton guilty."

  "Same thing."

  Albert didn't think so.

  "Anyway once she's ready to talk, we’ll get a confession from her and Tewksbury's home free."

  "What about the escape?"

  "Oh, he'll still have to answer for that, but . . . in light of the evidence, compared to murder? It'll be a slap on the wrist. Suspended sentence, if that."

  Albert wanted to ask what would happen to someone who had helped Tewksbury escape, but he decided not to. Miss Bjork wanted to ask if Albert knew where Tewksbury was. She did, but retracted the question before he had a chance to answer.

  "No, never mind. We'll find him once we have the confession. Once he's cleared. That's safer," she said. "For everyone."

  "How long will that take?" asked Albert. He wondered if it took as long to find a man innocent as it did to find him guilty.

  "Not long. Not long." Miss Bjork was on an adrenaline high, her entire persona radiated an enthusiasm, an excitement that Albert would have found contagious if not for Daphne Knowlton; if not for the aching intuition that something still wasn't quite right. That is, things seemed even more wrong than usual.

  No sooner had Daphne Knowlton recovered from her fall than she began confessing to the murder of Justin Glenly. "I killed Professor Glenly. I poisoned him because I hated him. I hated him." She repeated the refrain over and over, to anyone who would listen. Nothing added. Nothing amended. In fact. she said nothing else.

  Miss Moodie's theory of gender tactics was borne out. ‘If it's poison, you may be sure a woman done the deed. Read your Christie.’

  Nobody questioned the girl's motive. Nor could anyone truly silence the angel of their conscience that whispered there was justice in the act.

  Miss Bjork relied heavily on the details of Daphne Knowlton's past to argue innocence by reason of insanity. The jury agreed, committing her to Bridgewater State Mental Hospital, there to remain until such time as her doctors were assured that her madness did not exceed that of the public in general.

  Tewksbury was exonerated in absentia, and Miss Bjork argued the remaining charges against him down to thirty days, applicable retroactively, and a five-hundred-dollar fine, waived.

  "What are you thinking?" Miss Bjork hadn't said much for the first hour of the drive. What was he thinking?

  "Everything," Albert said. "Glenly, Daphne Knowlton. Tewksbury. None of it had to happen."

  "Seldom does," said Miss Bjork. She should know. "When are you going to tell me where we're going?"

  "North," said Albert with an impish smile.

  "Maine?"

  Albert gestured north through the windshield.

  "I love Maine."

  Miss Bjork couldn't follow where Albert's thoughts were heading him, so she drove in silence. It was enough like spring so she let the window down a crack and made believe the tingle-ridden wind was just a brisk breeze. Besides, she had thoughts enough of her own. Thoughts that were kindled and rekindled by stolen glances at Albert in his worlds away. Thoughts that had nothing to do with the life she'd set in order like alphabet blocks.

  Albert had no use for the alphabet beyond "G."

  They drove over the bridge that staples Maine to the rest of the country. It was mid-afternoon when they turned off 95 on 29 West.

  It was past mid-afternoon when they passed through Sanford and Alfred in quick succession without having to apply the brakes. It was late mid-afternoon when they turned up a narrow dirt road through thick woods, bordered on either side by bright-orange-on-blackNo Hunting signs.

  "Where are you taking me?"

  He was taking her to his childhood. "My mother's."

  Miss Bjork was genuinely surprised; she hadn't imagined Albert having a mother; of course it was an absurd notion, still . . . .

  "She's not here."

  They rounded a bend in the road and the thick woods instantly broke away on either side, reaching out with aged arms to embrace a huge field that rose in orderly swells to a small hill placed at the foot of an unpretentious mountain. On the hill, like a thoughtful offering, was a graceful white farmhouse that had grown there.

  The car slowed reverently. "Albert! This is beautiful."

  He was hoping she'd say that. He still didn't know why, for sure, but he needed her to say things like that. Especially about this place.

  Between the hill and the mountain was a small hollow where nature had put a perfect red barn for contrast. Obviously the place had once been a working farm, but had long since given itself over to perfection. It was the kind of place only a calendar photographer finds; the earthly remains of a place and time that was no more. They stopped beside the house.

  Miss Bjork did what all people do when something tugs at the spirit, she breathed deeply and didn't exhale for a long time. Albert'
s mystique was at once complete and comprehensible; he hadn't been raised in the real world.

  Albert had unloaded the suitcases and tucked them under his arms. He lowered his head to window level. "Do you want to come inside?"

  She got out and walked beside him. "I feel like I've died and gone to heaven." She slipped her arm in among the suitcases.

  Suddenly the porch door burst open and Tewksbury issued forth.

  Miss Bjork's descent to reality was abrupt and profound. "Tewksbury!" Her mind told her body to react somehow, but it didn't.

  "Albert, are you crazy? Why did you bring her here?"

  Albert calmly handed a suitcase to Tewksbury and climbed the porch steps. "You're innocent. It's all right," he said, holding the screen door open for Miss Bjork, who negotiated the steps without bending her knees. Her eyes were fastened on Tewksbury like staples.

  "Innocent? What do you mean?" Tewksbury's silly-putty eyebrows vaulted as if propped by exclamation points.

  "Somebody else killed Professor Glenly. She confessed. They had another trial and . . . somebody else did it. Miss Bjork got them to drop the charges against you."

  Tewksbury looked from Albert, who was smiling, to Miss Bjork, who still hadn't blinked. "Is it true?" he said, almost fearful to hear the answer.

  With a sudden, violent effort Miss Bjork shook herself loose from the suitcases and took an involuntary step backward, as if to get a better footing in reality. "You’ve been here all this time?" She didn't say the words. Didn't shout them. They escaped her. But she never got an answer. A muffled explosion suddenly rent the peace of the valley and applauded itself through the trees. Miss Bjork fell toward Albert, her eyes fixed wide in terror.

  "She's been shot!" Tewksbury cried.

  Albert dropped the suitcases and tried to grab her listless body as it slid down his own. She ran through his fingers like water, drawing him down with her.

  "She's been shot. My God!" Tewksbury cried again. His eyes ransacked the nearby woods for signs of a gunman.

  Silence closed in once more, like water around a pebble.

  "Albert?" said Miss Bjork. She grabbed at his collar and held fast. "What happened? Albert?"

  "I'll get the doctor!" said Tewksbury. "Where are the keys? Never mind, they're in the car. You stay here. You stay with her. I'll get the doctor . . . and the police. She'll be all right, Albert. She'll be okay. You should have a phone up here, Albert."

  "Have I been shot, really?"

  Albert couldn't see for the tears in his eyes. He wiped at them furiously. He wanted to see her clearly.

  "Did Tewksbury do it?"

  "No," he said softly. "No. He's gone to get a doctor."

  "Then who . . . ?" Suddenly her muscles spasmed and she winced in pain. Blood was pooling on the porch, running down through the cracks between the boards. Albert's tears fell on her face. "I'm going to die," she said.

  "No!" said Albert. But it was all he could say for some time without crying outright. He scanned the forest from where the shot had seemed to come. The thick woods, though leafless, consisted mostly of evergreens and revealed nothing. His mother had always warned him of the hunters—armed drunks who roamed the Maine woods driven by the lust for blood.

  Miss Bjork seemed to be asleep. She was breathing; the pained expression had left her face. Albert didn't know what to do. He held her closely and gently cradled her head in his lap.

  Finally she opened her eyes. "I love you."

  An inexpressible fire swept through every atom of Albert's being. "I love you!" he cried, clutching at her as if he was a drowning man.

  "I thought so," she said. She turned her head and looked out over the fields. "I'm going to die."

  It was true. There was too much blood. Albert knew it. He nodded.

  "I wonder who did it," she said. She fell silent once more. “Albert! Albert, are you there?" She clutched at him.

  He squeezed her. "I'm here," he whispered. He couldn't say anything else without bursting into tears. That's not what she needed now.

  "I had a dream about us," she said. "We were married. Did you ever think about getting married?" she said. She sounded sleepy.

  He hadn’t dared think such a thing. "Yes."

  There was another spasm and a long silence during which he stared at her, as if to fix every particle of her expression in his memory.

  Her breathing settled down. She opened her eyes again. "Albert?"

  "Yes?"

  She smiled. "I feel like . . . I've got so much to do. I can't die now. I've got to do my will. Everything's a mess." She coughed.

  "Albert?"

  "What?"

  "I’d like to be buried here."

  Albert broke down and cried, for the second time in his life. He clung to her all the harder. She didn't mind the pain as he squeezed; something in it reached through her flesh and caressed her soul.

  "There's more to me than this, Albert," she said. Suddenly the muscles on her face relaxed. She sighed as if the pain had stopped. "Somebody shot the baggage, that's all. I'll go on."

  Albert had never thought about death in the first person.

  "I wonder what comes next?" said Miss Bjork weakly.

  There was only one response. "You never know." Maybe he said it aloud. Maybe not. He never knew.

  By the time the ambulance arrived it was dark. Miss Bjork had been dead in Albert's arms half an hour. She was becoming cold and rigid.

  Her eyelids didn't flinch when his tears landed on them.

  Tewksbury read the story in Albert's eyes and actions as the paramedics put Miss Bjork in the ambulance. Finally he had something beyond himself to worry about. Suddenly he realized all Albert had done for him; sacrifices for which no amount of thanks could compensate.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The revolving red-and-white lights chased each other through the trees in circles of alarm as the ambulance drove quietly away, crunching gravel under its tires. They didn't use the siren. There was no need.

  When Albert nearly fell asleep in a living-room chair, Tewksbury assisted him to his old bedroom, put him in his pajamas, and there Albert awoke early next morning to the worst day of his life.

  For a moment, it might all have been a dream. His whole adult life might have been one interminable, dull dream. The wallpaper was the same familiar wallpaper he'd awakened to every morning throughout that eternal youth. There were two places where the seams never matched; time hadn't brought them together.

  The curtains were the same. The breeze that came in through the propped-open window might even be the same breeze. His solitary trophy stood on the same doily in the middle of the bureau, beside a bronze Statue of Liberty and a Coke-bottle image of Abraham Lincoln he'd made in the fifth grade.

  He might be a child still.

  Suddenly pale blotches of blue light arched across the walls. Everything came back, clear, hard, and cold. He stepped to the window. In the surreal light of dawn, two police cars stood at the edge of the woods opposite the house.

  Tewksbury was still asleep in his chair. Albert went out in his bare feet, haunting the morning with his chalk-white face.

  He stopped halfway down the hill. There were four or five policemen in uniform crisscrossing the forest edge with flash lights. He could hear their voices, but he couldn't make out what they were saying.

  Another man sat on the hood of the car with a map spread across his knees. His pot belly had filled the promise it had shown in earlier years. His rusty hair had gone white and he'd grown a mustache, but there was no mistaking Charlie Gault. He'd been one of those kids who seemed born for middle age. He wore it well.

  Charlie felt the eyes on him and looked up. At first he furrowed his brow and squinted. He took a couple of serious pulls at his pipe as he reconstructed an old acquaintance from the specter before him.

  "Albert?" he said. "Good Lord in Heaven, Albert?"

  He rolled off the car and propelled himself up the hill like an overweight garden gnome. It was
head-down work and he didn't raise his eyes until Albert's feet hove into view. Even accounting for the passage of time, he was stunned.

  "Well, I was gonna say you ain't changed a bit. But you look like hell." He held out his hand which Albert shook lethargically, not that Charlie expected more of a piano player. "How long's it been, Albert?" he said. "I ain't seen you since, what? Musta been fifteen years or more now."

  Albert wondered how he'd feel in another fifteen years. He wondered if he'd forget; if the pain would stop or just become a part of him.

  "I heard you was up last year, wasn't you?" said Charlie. Albert made no reply. He was watching the policemen. "One of 'em found this." He held up a spent shell casing. ".410 slug."

  There was a silence. Some morning birds had started to sing. A rooster crowed somewhere. The sun was coming up, sifting gold onto the steel blue. "What'n hell happened here, Albert?"

  Albert turned and faced the house. Charlie turned, too. "Miss Bjork died."

  "That her name? Bjork? B-j-o-r-k?"

  Albert had never spelled it. "I don't know."

  "I know a Bjork runs a lumberyard over to Sabbath Day Lake. You 'member Kitty Hopkins? She married him. He spelt his name B-J-O-R-K. Had one a them personal license plates with it on there."

  Albert was looking at the house as the first rays of light ignited the second-story windows and painted the clapboards golden yellow.

  "Your mother's down to Florida, ain't she? With your sister?"

  Albert nodded. There was another silence. Charlie relit his pipe. "It was hunters done it," he declared. "Somebody out shootin' rabbit. Happens all the time. Every year some fool hunter . . . She your girlfriend, Albert?"

  Girlfriend? Albert had never had a girlfriend. How did he want people to think of his relationship with Miss Bjork? "She was my friend," he said. "We were friends." Pause. "Why would a hunter shoot her?"

  "They see somethin' move and they just blast away, then they go find out what it is . . . Wasn't no one 'round here done it, though," said Charlie. "They know better'n to cross your ma's fence."

  "Fence?"

  "She had some barbed wire strung up round the whole property some years ago. Had all them signs put up down by the drive. You know how she hated gunfire ever since they shot that old dog she had. You remember that old dog?"