by Ed Ifkovic
As I said the horrible word dead yet again, I saw Carlotta wince, clutch at her throat, turn around, confused. She seemed not to understand. Still holding onto the door, her face ashen, she looked as though she’d slip to the floor.
And then, startling me yet again, there came from Carlotta’s throat such a loud wailing, some delirious animal moaning, that the house seemed to shake to its foundation. It went on and on, a staggering display, and I considered embracing her, comforting her. But something told me no: stay away, especially as Carlotta started flailing those arms, twisting that head, jerking her body as though it were a rag doll torn asunder. She fled into the parlor where she collapsed on the settee, staying there until her doctor, summoned by Julia who’d been upstairs making the beds, came and gave her a sedative.
Later, I had to admit, I found it peculiar that Carlotta had not run to Millicent’s, anxious to see for herself. And, I duly noted, Carlotta asked no questions. But then, neither did I—then. Martha was dead. So be it. I sat in the kitchen, alone, and then for a while with Julia, and later with other souls who wandered over from Millicent’s yard.
I wanted to get up and return to Millicent, visibly shaken within her own house, just a few paces away from the death. But I found myself staying at the Inn.
During that long hour I vaguely distinguished sounds coming from Millicent’s yard, but I paid scant attention. The sirens, the unnecessary ambulance, the fire engine, a cacophony of din and disaster. I heard the harsh, angry voice of Johnny Marks, now called to perform a duty no one expected. A local constable’s nightmare, outside his aunt’s door, no less. Other voices, gruff and loud male energy violating that quiet overgrown yard. So I stayed put. Oddly, I didn’t want to know any more of the story, and I wasn’t certain why. The peripatetic novelist, a wanderer into lives led in disparate and distant parts of America, well, this time I stayed put. Peculiarly uncurious, this time. Another premonition, perhaps, some fleeing shadow sweeping over me, some suggestion that all was not well in this land of steady habits.
I sat there, quiet.
Late in the afternoon, the body removed, the yard again quiet, Johnny Marks and a young state trooper walked in, but all I could focus on was the keening of Stanley’s confused dog, tethered now by Stanley’s house but still sending forth its lonesome cries. The two men stood there, hats in hand. Suddenly Carlotta appeared, eyes glazed, and she sank into a chair next to me. Both of us watched, waiting. The two men looked from Carlotta to me and then sat down across from us. Johnny was looking at Carlotta, his expression oddly accusatory, something that bothered me.
“I’m Edna Ferber,” I stated firmly, looking at the trooper, and he nodded at me.
I sized up the trooper. You saw a young man, barely thirty, over six feet tall perhaps, broad in the shoulder, with a narrow waist exaggerated by the snug-fitting uniform. An oval, clean-cut face, with a hue of the slightest pink in the cheeks, giving a bold, boyish look to his striking features. He had close-cropped hair so light he could be considered bald in some lighting, shiny azure eyes, a little too close together in the long face, and faint, almost transparent eyelids and eyebrows. Lips almost feminine, full and fleshy, wide, over teeth so white they seemed, well, to my eye, the color of wind-blown sheets on a clothesline. A shock of a young man. Virile, to be sure, but only an hour away from being a teenaged boy skimming pebbles across a distant country pond, a boy born to fields and pasture, where sinew and brashness ruled. There was a no-nonsense feel about him, but I felt as though he’d been told to assume such a necessary physiognomy, else the tantalizing ah-shucks simplicity of his good and healthy looks might deliver the wrong message to any suspect he was questioning. So the manufactured stare, the resolute chiseled chin, the clipped and evenly spaced words—all seemed a little premeditated. But, at the same time, the whole package definitely worked, a sense of male sureness filling the kitchen, obliterating the shallow Johnny Marks. I found myself liking him, but at the same time was a little unnerved by his obvious distance, his calculated wariness.
He introduced himself. “I’m Trooper Stas Wolniak.”
I learned, summarily, that the rural farm towns outside of Danbury, tiny villages like Rawley’s Depot, had Resident State Troopers assigned to them, and this young man was, for all intents and purposes, the resident law provider in town. Of course, he was shadowed by the obsequious and oily Johnny Marks, already enthroned in my pantheon of unfavored souls.
Johnny, full of importance now, spoke. “Trooper Wolniak is in charge of the investigation, but I’m here to assist.” But he didn’t sound happy, hardly content with the role assigned to him by the state police.
Wolniak added, “Do you ladies mind answering a few questions?” He looked from Carlotta to me.
I spoke up. “Did the coroner suggest how Martha died?”
Both men looked at me with looks that suggested I was being presumptuous. I thought of the battalion of men who had scurried around Millicent’s backyard, talking loudly, snapping photographs, playing parts.
Since neither man spoke, I continued. “Heart attack?”
Wolniak looked surprised, as though I already knew something, but he glared at Johnny whose eyes shined with a sickly horror. It made me grab my throat, alarmed. Somehow, I knew something was wrong, and horribly. Too much activity, too much boisterous talking, too long in the backyard, too much photography, too much rodomontade. I knew it in my gut.
“Ma’am,” Wolniak said in a thick voice while holding eye contact with me, “I’m afraid Martha Small was murdered.”
Involuntarily, I rose from my chair. I’d just assumed it was natural causes, of course, save for that queasy moment of intuition I’d experienced. But Carlotta’s reaction was even more pronounced. She let out an unbelieving howl so plaintive that chills raced up and down my spine. Johnny Marks hiccoughed, then apologized. Carlotta slumped over on the table, head resting on her arms, and began to sob.
“Murder?” I echoed.
“Afraid so,” Wolniak said evenly. He turned to Johnny. “Could you take Miss Small to her room. I’ll talk to her later.”
Carlotta looked up, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Martha was Miss Small,” she babbled, irrationally. Then, a stammered word, “Too.” To herself—“Miss Martha Small.” Everyone, in fact, knew that Carlotta always used her maiden name onstage, and afterwards. Her husbands were too briefly in her life to leave that mark.
Wolniak seemed confused but waited patiently. Johnny, unhappy with the assignment, helped Carlotta, maneuvering her to her bedroom. He was surprisingly gentle, his arm around her waist, holding her arm protectively.
“Miss Ferber,” Wolniak lowered his voice, “could we run over few details?’
“Of course.”
“Could you tell me how you found the body?”
I breathed in, not relishing this. “I’d been sitting with Millicent a bit—I’d entered her house by the front door—and when I left I was intending to walk back by the trees toward the river, and then return to the Inn. But Stanley’s dog kept rushing me, withdrawing, seemed bothered by something, and at one point so startled me that I hurried away, found myself cutting through some bushes at the side of the house and inadvertently kicked the—body. I yelled and Stanley came running into the backyard. I pointed, and he leaned over, said, ‘She’s dead.’” I stopped.
“And then?”
I counted a beat. “Stunned, I followed Stanley into Millicent’s, where he called the police. I stayed with Millicent while he waited outside. When Johnny Marks arrived, I left by the front door and returned here.”
“Why didn’t you stay?”
“What for? I’d be in the way.” I paused. “You knew where to find me.”
I thought I saw a glimmer of a smile on those lips. “True, but most people linger at crime scenes, mesmerized.”
“Sir,” I stressed, “I’m not most people.”
He paused, looked ready to say something else, but instead acknowledged, “I respect
that.”
I thought that a bizarre comment coming from a state trooper. “Well, thank you.”
“Did you move anything when you were outside?”
I got indignant. “Of course not. I leave examinations to the police.”
“Good.” Now he did smile. “You didn’t see anything?”
“Like what?”
“Out of the ordinary.”
“You mean, besides a dead body?”
Now he didn’t smile. “Perhaps if you’d stayed on the path, you might have missed her.”
“But I was afraid of the dog.”
“Lucky thing, then.” He sighed. “Well, it seems to me she was attacked, hit with a blunt object on the left side of her head, probably just as she left the doorway, taken by surprise. There’s blood on the stoop.”
“Then how could she be ten feet away, slumped in the bushes?”
“She either staggered there, losing balance, or she was dragged there. There are scuff marks but with Stanley and your movements there, it’s hard to say.”
I looked at him. “Is it possible she slipped, bumped her head?”
He shook his head. “Heavy abrasions, solid impact, lots of blood loss. Obviously a heavy object was used. With severe force.”
“No trail of blood?”
His eyes got wide. “As I say, traces of blood on the stone steps, but also intermittent splotches of blood on the ground, leading to the bushes where she was found. The evidence team is working the spot now.”
“But did you find the object she was hit with?”
“Not yet.” He sat back, sighed. “Miss Ferber, are you aware that you’re asking the questions of me now?”
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I used to be a reporter.”
“Perhaps you should let me do the investigation.”
I started to say something but thought better of it.
“Any idea who would want Miss Small dead?” he asked me.
“Of course not.”
“Murders aren’t common in this small village.”
“Young man, there’s nothing common about murder in general,” I sputtered, a little angry.
He nodded. “True. Sorry. Well, it seems she’s been dead since yesterday. The coroner guesses she was surprised when she left Miss Wright’s last night. The killer hiding in the darkness that had fallen. Took advantage of the heavy brush and clumps of trees.”
“But why?” I wondered aloud.
He almost smiled. “There you go again, Miss Ferber. Asking the questions.”
“It was rhetorical, young man.”
For the next few minutes we reviewed what I’d already addressed, getting nowhere, and Trooper Wolniak mentioned leaving Carlotta for a later interview. “That can wait.” He stood. “I have a favor to ask you, ma’am.”
I waited a second. “Yes?”
“Millicent Wright is a little out of sorts, given this murder outside her doorway. She’s been resting in her room since it happened. The doctor is a little nervous about how she’s dealing with this, and I gather she’s hesitant about being interviewed. All she’s volunteered is that Martha left her last night and seemed in good spirits. But she said she’d talk to me if you were present.”
“Me?”
“Those were her words.” He looked confused. “She seems a little fragile. I don’t want to upset her further.”
“Me?” I declared again, unhappy with the prospect of having to parade back to that tainted yard, to revisit the scene of the crime, as it were. I was content sitting in this kitchen chair until I was able to catch the New York New Haven back to New York City, where people I knew didn’t get gratuitously murdered. Only their hard-wrought novels and plays, slashed to bits by Aleck Woollcott and his newspaper ilk.
Johnny Marks, the diligent constable, had returned to the kitchen and overheard Wolniak’s request, and he looked irritated. His eyes on the trooper, unhappy. “Yes, Auntie’s a little distraught. Says she’ll talk only with you there.” He seemed peeved, as though someone had requested the companionship of the village idiot. Perhaps, I realized, he felt betrayed by Millicent’s lack of family loyalty. Him, the dedicated public servant. She, his aged relative.
I felt a little squeamish crossing the yards, entering the house by the back door. A couple men still lingered there, one obviously a police photographer, but they were occupied, smoking cigarettes, mumbling to each other in low, confidential voices. Of course, I was relieved that the body had been removed. The men nodded at Trooper Wolniak and ignored Constable Marks, who strode ahead of them.
Something strange happened to me as I walked past that dreadful spot: I lost my squeamishness, my hesitancy. Instead, I felt curiously strong, as though I was capable of doing something about this. Now I had no idea where that aberrant notion sprang from, but perhaps it had to do with Millicent’s request that I be present for her questioning, but I felt rise in me a generous sensation, exuberance that, though it alarmed me, strangely I welcomed.
Inside, Millicent was just rising from her nap and apologized for being groggy, but bade us all sit down in the parlor. “Edna,” she began, “forgive me. I hope you are not angry with me. But this—this dreadful thing that happened has taken the wind out of me. I’m still recovering from Stanley’s abrupt charging into this house, with you right behind him, white as a ghost, my dear. Lord, the look on your face. Frankly, it’s a wonder I’m not joining poor Martha.” But Millicent’s voice grew stronger the longer she spoke, becoming rich and full, and I could spot something fierce in her eyes. I couldn’t interpret her look. Verve, force, a blaze of electricity through the spine. Johnny Marks started to babble about her condition, her age, her weak heart, but he paused when Millicent turned a baleful eye on him.
“My condition is none of anyone’s business,” she shot at him.
Trooper Wolniak began talking over Johnny who seemed to want to control the conversation. Millicent focused on the trooper himself. Within seconds, it was clear to me that she had enormous respect for the one, absolutely none for the other. “We won’t keep you, Miss Wright,” Trooper Wolniak told her.
“Sir, now that I’ve had my nap and fortified myself with a little sherry”—she eyed the trooper, smiling, challenging—”illegal though it be, and I have gotten used to the news, I’m fine. I can talk all night.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“But I really have nothing to tell you.”
“Did Martha say anything unusual?” Wolniak asked.
Millicent just stared. “Frankly, I was surprised to find her in such good humor, chatting on like a barnyard pullet. Usually she’d drop off the food, grunt like Geronimo, and—out the door. I asked where Carlotta was, and she said she was ailing. I thought that peculiar. But for some reason she sat down and chatted, actually seemed hesitant to leave. I told Edna earlier that we talked about her visit, mainly. Very spirited.”
“What else did you talk about?” I asked. “Besides me. Anything else?” Trooper Wolniak looked at me. Not happy.
“Nonsense, really. The weather, I think. She mentioned Peter writing a play. I don’t know why. But mainly about Edna.” She smiled. “I don’t mean that your visit is nonsense, of course. Just the fact that we were talking about this and that. Now Martha and I have never been close . . .”
“Why is that?” Wolniak interrupted.
Millicent seemed ready to put him his place, for I saw her lips press into a straight disapproving line, her eyes darkening. But she sighed heavily. “It’s of no importance. Especially now that the sad, sad woman is gone. Awhile back, when Carlotta returned to the New York stage that second time, Martha and I had a falling out about—well, some conduct I disapproved of. Let’s just say I questioned her moral decisions. It was really none of my business, her conduct, but I’ve never been one to hold my tongue. We had words and ever since then we’ve kept our distance.”
I stared into Millicent’s craggy face, but the old woman glanced back, formed a half smile,
and then changed the subject.
“Finally, I was tiring, and she noticed. ‘Enjoy your supper,’ she said. ‘It’s Julia’s night for pork loin with apple sauce and cranberry jelly.’ And she left.”
“Did she say anything else?” Wolniak asked. “I mean, did she say where she was going?”
Millicent eyed the young man with a scowl. “Home, Trooper Wolniak. Home. Where do you think she was doing? To a dance hall? The circus? A gypsy camp? But I do remember she said something like, ‘Oh my, it’s dark out.’ You see, she had stayed until it was dark. That seemed to bother her. I told her thank you, and she said Carlotta and you”—she looked right at me—“would stop in the next day. I said goodnight.”
“She let herself out the back?” Wolniak asked.
“Of course. I walk so little, and there was no reason to show her the way. She went through the kitchen and out the back. She wasn’t exploring unknown territory for France, young man.”
Wolniak smiled, glanced at me. “Anything after that?”
“Like what?”
“Any sounds from outside?”
Millicent paused. “You know, I was eating my supper, my mind drifting, and I thought I heard a sound, but I paid it no mind.”
“What kind of sound?” I asked.
“A yelp. A throaty gasp. I’m not certain. I chalked it up to some wild animal. Maybe one of the crows that nest in the hemlocks at the side of the house.”
“And then nothing?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Could that have been Martha?” I went on.
“Or an animal. Around here you hear things . . .”
Trooper Wolniak talked a bit more, with interruptions by Johnny Marks, until we could see Millicent tiring. When we were ready to leave, Millicent spoke directly to me. “Edna, a moment, please.” She dismissed the two men, who hesitated, then thought better of it, and went out the back door. Alone, Millicent said confidentially, “I’m sorry I demanded your presence, but I have to ask a favor of you.”
“What is it, Millicent?”
She lowered her voice. “I’m asking you to keep an eye here. My nephew is a vainglorious fool, with a lot of bluster. A man born to make errors. And a man who never liked the Small sisters, even Martha, who tried to be kind to him.” She waved her hand. “No matter the reason. And while I have confidence in that young trooper—I never met him before but I do like what I see—I want you in on this business.”