Requiem for Ashes

by David Crossman

  Strickland appeared. For a moment Albert forgot which side of the door he stood on. "Yes?" he said.

  "Professor?" said Strickland, genuinely surprised. Something about Albert's appearance apparently amused him. "This is unexpected." He hesitated. "Please, come in, won't you?"

  Albert was in. The door closed behind him.

  "You look cold, Professor. Can I get you some coffee, tea?"

  “No."

  It was warm in the house. There was an immensely uncomfortable silence as Albert began to thaw.

  "Well . . . what can I do for you?" said Strickland at last.

  Albert had been confident he'd never get this far. He had no idea what to say or where to begin. The torch-bearing throng of gray cells that had initiated the uprising, that had passed him over their heads and deposited him at the door of the monster's castle, fell silent when the beast appeared and now abandoned him altogether. "I know about you," he said at last.

  "How's that?"

  "I know what you've done."

  Strickland smiled with half his mouth but not his eyes. He gestured toward the living room. "Oh,” he hung his head. “You must have been talking to Tewksbury. Why don't we go in where it's comfortable."

  "You killed Professor Glenly."

  Strickland tossed a nervous glance toward the top of the stairs. He was looking for shadows, too. "I beg your pardon? What on earth are you talking about? Are you all right, Professor?" He put a patronizing hand on Albert's shoulder. "How long have you been out wandering in this weather? You're half frozen."

  "You framed Tewksbury," Albert continued. "You called him and told him to go to Glenly's office. Then you called the police so they'd find him there. And when he got out of jail, you tried to shoot him with a .410."

  The words were sanding through the glossy veneer. Bare wood was beginning to show through at the corners of Strickland's eyes. "Perhaps you'd better leave, Albert," he said coldly. "I don't know what you're on . . . but you don't know what you're saying. I don't even own the weapon to which you refer."

  "You parked in the little turn-off just beyond my mother's driveway. You were in your sports car . . . the one you ran over the beer bottle with that day in front of the bank. Part of the glass was still in the tire when you parked there. G-to-D. I saw it. You climbed over the fence, made your way to the edge of the meadow, and shot at Tewksbury. But Miss Bjork got in the way."

  A predatory gleam trickled into the eyes which Strickland fixed upon Albert with deadly intent.

  "And last night . . . you set fire to Tewksbury's apartment. You killed him, too. You could have killed all those people."

  Again Strickland jerked a sidelong glance at the top of the stairs. He tried on his condescending face again, but it no longer fit. "Are you on medication of some kind, Professor?" He reached for the phone. "What's your doctor's name?"

  "All those people," Albert repeated.

  Strickland put the phone back on the cradle. "Why, do you imagine, would I do such a thing? What possible reason could I have . . . "

  "The stone," Albert interrupted.

  "Stone?"

  "Tewksbury told me everything," said Albert. "He called me last night. After you left. He told me everything."

  Strickland lowered his eyes to the parquet and, folding his arms behind his back, began to pace in a semicircle around Albert. "Perhaps it would have been better . . . if he hadn't said anything."

  The idea that he was putting himself in personal danger had never occurred to Albert—he’d be embarrassed, of course, that went without saying—but it appeared now, sponsored by the look in Strickland's eyes when he raised them to underscore his words. But there was no terror, or whatever feeling danger is supposed to elicit. It didn't matter. He didn't care anymore.

  "I'm not afraid."

  "Well, perhaps you should be. If I've done everything you say. I should think you'd have every right to be." A forced little smile spread across his face like butter on hot bricks. "But the fact is, you have a wonderfully vivid imagination, Professor.

  "I understand your being shaken after . . . what happened to Tewks. We all are. I mean, he was one of my closest friends. We worked side-by-side for years. Everyone's taking it hard . . . they closed the school early.

  "That's what got you going; a lot of coincidences." He patted Albert reassuringly and turned him toward the door. "You’re distressed. No hard feelings, I understand."

  If not for the badger at the bottom of Strickland's eyes Albert's resolve might have been shaken. As it was, he began to comprehend the nature of the beast he was up against, and to realize he was no match. He spun around and threw his back against the door which Strickland had opened. It slammed shut.

  "Shh! Professor!" Strickland cried in a harsh whisper.

  "You killed Miss Bjork! You killed Glenly! You killed Tewksbury!"

  Again the eyes flashed to the top of the stairs. Strickland grabbed Albert by the collar and dragged him into the hall leading to the kitchen. "Shut up!" He struck Albert across the mouth with the back of his hand. "You're delirious!

  "Tewksbury died in a fire. Accident. Bjork was shot by a hunter. Accident. Glenly was killed by Daphne Knowlton. Vengeance. Accidents! Vengeance! No mystery. Do you understand? All accidents!" He shook Albert on each "accident" for emphasis and punctuated the sentence by throwing him back against the wall where he landed on the doorframe and bounced to the floor, halfway into the living room.

  "You made Daphne Knowlton think you loved her," said Albert through the blood that puddled in his mouth. "You took advantage of her that night, after what Glenly did in the lounge. She told Lane.

  "You turned her hurt into hate. And when you wanted Glenly out of the way, you just kept pushing her and pushing her, until she did it."

  "Why would I want Glenly out of the way?"

  "So you could direct the dig this summer. You were going to smuggle that stone back to Crete . . . and find it all over again . . . and get credit for it. You used Daphne Knowlton to kill Glenly . . . just in case something went wrong. Then you framed Tewksbury for it."

  Strickland, in the hallway, couldn't see the motionless shadow at the top of the stairs as Albert could. A tense silence followed the accusations. Albert braced himself to be pounced upon at any second, but suddenly Strickland relaxed. "You can't prove any of this, can you?"

  Albert didn't reply.

  "Of course you can't, or you'd have gone to the police." He smiled. "You don't have a thing."

  Albert wiped his lip. "I know."

  "You?" Strickland scoffed. "Who cares what you know? Without proof, you've got nothing. Zip. You go around spreading stories like this . . . you could end up with a lawsuit for defamation. Might get someone in trouble."

  "Another accident?"

  Strickland shrugged. "I was thinking about other innocent people. That .410, for instance? What if police start digging around in that business again, and find out the gun belonged to somebody like . . . Terry Alter? What then? People start putting two and two together, you never know what they might come up with."

  "You used Terry Alter's gun to . . . " Albert got to his feet.

  "Don't get carried away, Professor. I'm speaking hypothetically. There are other things, too. Accidents, like you said. Could happen anytime. Someone gets hit by a car while they're crossing the street. Someone falls down the stairs."

  Albert started. "Daphne Knowlton."

  "Daphne Knowlton?"

  "We heard the front door that night, at Lane's . . . I thought it was Lane coming back." He paused, the truth of his words striking home as he said them. "It was you, leaving."

  Strickland shrugged, and smiled. "It's amazing how devoted a girl can be. If I'd only known, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble."

  "You pushed her."

  "Proof, Professor."

  "You did everything!" Albert cried, shaking his finger defiantly. Strickland shot another glance at the top of the stairs. But the shadow was gone.


  "Proof," he repeated, pushing Albert across the hall. "Proof." He opened the door. "Proof!" With a final blow to the side of the face, he sent him sprawling down the steps into the mud and dirt. "You should watch your step, Professor. You've just made yourself a loose end." He slammed the door shut.

  Albert was abandoned to the cold, the night, and the rain. He'd landed on his hip and pain shot through his legs as he struggled to his feet. He'd hit his head, too, and his cheek smarted from the blow. Still, he was alive.

  But what had he accomplished? Strickland was right, as Tewksbury had been, there wasn't a breath of proof. Nothing. Strickland had committed not one, but a series of perfect crimes, and if Albert started making waves, other people would be implicated. People who had enough problems of their own, like Terry Alter whose .4I0 Strickland had used to kill Miss Bjork.

  He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and scuffed homeward. Tears welled in his eyes and the rain came down in torrents. As he reached the end of the street, the brooding night was shattered by two distinct but almost simultaneous blasts, one weak the other deep and percussive. In an instant he pictured Strickland standing on his porch, musket to his shoulder, the look of evil triumphant in his eyes. How long would it take before the bullet hit? Or had it hit already? Maybe he was dead. If so, it wasn't as painful as he'd imagined; not even a very jarring transformation, seeing as nothing had changed. Then he realized he was still cold. His head and face and hips still hurt. If this was death, it wasn't a significant improvement. He turned around.

  The doorstep was barely visible through the deluge, but no one was there. Slowly, thoughtlessly, he walked back to the house and up the steps. He peered through the dining-room window into a room thick with blue smoke. He could smell its sulfurous aroma even outside. And dressed in the smoke, like a queen of ashes, stood Catherine Glenly. She looked up at him as if she knew he was there. But she didn't flinch when their eyes met. Her expression didn't change. Her eyes, set in bloody-blue caverns, betrayed no horror, begged no mercy. They were hollow . . . almost as dead as Strickland's. The musket stock rested against her shoulder. The barrel pointed toward the floor.

  She knew how to use it.

  Albert turned from the window and walked home. There was nothing to sort out. No judgments to make. No one to call. Justice had been done. He was wet and cold.

  Somewhere in the reaches of himself he felt the distant cries of music again. It would come, eventually, whether he wanted it or not. But it would never be the same, because it echoed through a broken heart.

  Epilogue

  My goodness! Such a year we've had at our little . . . my word. Haven't we though!"

  The entire school was speaking exclusively in exclamations these days, and Miss Moodie, far from being the rule's exception, was its exemplar. Administration had called a meeting to Summarize and Clarify Certain Recent Events Involving the School and Members of Its Faculty. The meeting had been rousingly well attended, leading one administrator to postulate that, while murder was not to be applauded, of course, it certainly did wonders for bringing faculty together. Even the tenured attended.

  The meeting concluded, a number of the faculty repaired to the lounge to discuss it. Not uncommonly, Miss Moodie was the vortex of these little conclaves, as was now the case. "It was in this very room I said 'that man will come to no good; he's in something sinister up to his . . . well. You could see it in the eyes, of course. I believe I was talking to Albert at the time. What, dear? Oh, my goodness, yes. He's Albert to his friends, you know. Plain Albert. Hardly any affectation a'tall apart from his . . . eccentricities. Well, but even I didn't imagine Strickland capable of cold-blooded . . . I mean, Glenly, the young lawyer woman, poor Tewks, then, who knows where it might have ended? . . . but where was I?

  "Oh, yes. Well, she turned herself in, of course. You know that. Not that anyone seriously thinks for a moment they'll convict the poor . . . my word, yes. Such a hard life . . . especially the last few years. Enough to drive anyone to . . . I mean, the way he treated her. It all came out at the trial, didn't it? What? Oh, yes. Justifiable homicide. Temporary insanity. Something to that effect, I'm sure. That's what Professor Clarke of the Law School thinks the verdict will be. Juries are sensible about these things.

  "I beg your pardon? Oh, that's absolutely right. I've said so myself, of course. If it hadn't been for Albert's testimony . . . turning up that artifact in the safe-deposit box . . . well, they might never have found the motive for the whole heinous . . . but there. Oh what a tangled web, eh?

  "Now everyone's got to sort out their lives, I should think. Of course Lane took the exchange, you know. A year in England will do him worlds of good. What? Well, I know he's asked her to join him . . . he told me so. He said she's going to think about it. I wouldn't be surprised if she does, though. For all the difficulty they've had . . . well 'nothing bonds like sorrow,' they say. And with the Knowlton girl in professional care, I think he can put his mind at ease, concentrate on sorting out his own problems, for a change.

  "What did you say, dear? Daphne? Oh, yes. Tragic character, indeed. Tragic. But I shouldn't wonder if she comes through it all right . . . wouldn't seem fair, somehow, seeing her suffer so much, only to be conquered by it in the end, would it? No, I'm sure the poor girl will pull through it all right, if there’s any justice in the universe.

  "How's that? Oh, yes, well, there are rumors to that effect. I heard about the boy moving in to his apartment, a black woman, you say? Well, I can't imagine . . . not that it means anything to him, though. He's not there. Administration is pitching fits to find where he's got to. They would, of course, seeing the amount of revenue he . . . well. That's all they care about, in my opinion. But they've hired private investigators, put ads in the papers. That kind of thing."

  Someone in the rear of the room was carrying on an independent conversation. Moodie fell silent and concentrated the full force of her formidable stare upon the offenders until their tongues clove to the roofs of their mouths. With a majestic toss of her head, she severed the glance and continued.

  "Won't do them any good of course. I think people tend to underestimate that young man. Of course he invites it, still . . . I expect he'll turn up again, in his own good time. Quite remarkable, really."

  THE END

  BOOKS BY DAVID CROSSMAN

  from

  Alibi-Folio

  The Albert Mysteries

  Requiem for Ashes

  Dead in D Minor

  Coda* (2013)

  Winston Crisp Mysteries

  A Show of Hands

  The Dead of Winter

  Justice Once Removed

  Photo Club Mysteries

  Dead and Breakfast

  Bean and Ab Young Adult Mysteries

  The Secret of the Missing Grave

  The Mystery of the Black Moriah

  The Legend of Burial Island

  The Riddle of Misery Light (2013)

  Historical Novel

  Silence the Dead

  Fantasy

  Storyteller

  Thriller

  A Terrible Mercy (2012)

  www.davidcrossman.com

  davidcrossman@comcast.net

  David A. Crossman is a best-selling novelist, an award-winning lyricist and composer, a writer of short stories, screenplays, teleplays, and children’s books, a television producer/director (also award-winning), a video producer, radio/television talent, award-winning graphic, computer graphic artist, advertising copywriter, videographer, publisher, music producer, musician, singer, performer and … well, you get the picture. He’s shiftless. He divides his time between the home he shares with his wife Barbara and the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts.

 

 

 
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