She hadn’t an appetite for the job at hand, Amy decided. Or her instructions had not been explicit, and she was to make up her mind as to a course of action. Had Cunninghan sent her here to search for Tzegeti’s diary? Amy frowned to herself. The girl’s position in the office had seemed that of a robotlike subordinate. For this job, Neece, with his smooth manners, his ability to carry off a situation pleasantly, would seem a more logical choice.
The girl walked over to the window beside the bed and stood looking out, tapping one toe. The pup squirmed and wiggled in Amy’s arms; she was sure that shortly there would be some noise from him and that Cunninghan’s secretary would turn around and see them, stiff as scarecrows in the shadowy corner. Amy’s cheeks burned in anticipation.
Then she forgot the expected embarrassment in her interest at what the girl was doing.
The girl had sat down on the edge of the bed, on the rim of the gutted mattress, and was taking off her shoes.
When the gold pumps were off, she put them neatly side by side on the floor. Her right side was toward them now, and more of her profile. Her expression seemed placid and concentrated. She paused now to jerk off the gloves; she tucked them into one of the shoes. The shoes were the containers necessary for them, her attitude indicated, a place safe from the soil of this dim house. Then her hands went to the hem of her skirt, pulling it up. She began to unfasten her garters.
There was something crazy about the scene—like a charade, Amy thought, before you guess its meaning. She wanted to rub her eyes, to drive away the crazy vision of the immaculate girl undressing herself on the edge of a Polack four-poster. She needed to pinch herself, to make sure that this was real. Beside her Fogarty drew a breath between his teeth, almost a whistle. Well, no doubt he was interested in the view. Amy didn’t look at him, but she imagined the wise green eyes, the cynical expression around his mouth.
The girl on the bed lifted the hose, letting them hang in the light from the window, inspecting them. They seemed cobweb things, frail, gossamer, but something about them seemed to displease Cunninghan’s secretary. She dropped them into the lap of her skirt and ran her hand into one, examining it critically. Or rather, Amy surmised, she studied her hand through the silk. The procedure made no more sense than the rest of the incident.
With an air of final decision, the girl opened her suède bag on the bed and drew out a nail file. Then she held one of the stockings taut between her pressed knees and her free hand, and jabbed at it with the file. There was no sound in the room and no movement beyond that of the girl, jabbing and jabbing at the thin silk.
When the stocking seemed sufficiently torn, the girl put it to her face and appeared to fit the hole over her eye. This seemed the final insanity. The girl was nuts. No man of Cunninghan’s shrewdness would have sent her here to indulge in such shenanigans.
Against her arm, Amy felt Fogarty shudder.
It surprised her, a reaction having as little connection with common sense as the scene before them. She stole a sidewise look, expecting that the motion she’d felt had been involuntary, a release from tension, and that she’d find him gazing avidly at the girl. Instead, his eyes met hers. He seemed washed-out, his face unnaturally white, the freckles enormous. His tongue stole out to lick his lips. Amy realized then that he wasn’t seeing her, that she was part of a vacuum into which he looked while his mind painted other pictures.
The girl on the bed laid aside the stocking she had damaged. She took her gloves out of the shoes and slipped the shoes on her feet. She stood up, the gloves and the two stockings in her fingers, and walked to the heap of bedding. She laid the damaged stocking on the fold of a blanket, then kicked a pillow sidewise to cover it. Then she walked out of the room.
Her steps went on, fading through the house to the back door. The door opened and closed; the latch clicked.
“Of all the—” Amy had her mouth open; Fogarty put a hand over it.
“Be quiet!”
She waited to listen. There was no sound anywhere. “Don’t you think she came alone?”
“Yes.” He was moving out of the corner. He went over to the heap of bedding and looked at it without touching it. “Who was she?”
“Cunninghan’s secretary. I saw her in his office.”
“Do you know her name?” Fogarty was chewing his lip. The pallor stayed in his face like the reflection of shock.
Amy searched back through her visit to Cunninghan’s office. He hadn’t spoken to his secretary in her hearing. “No, I didn’t get it.”
“Was she in on the conference?”
“No. Only Neece was there.”
He circled the heap of bedding as if it were a bomb, and walked over to the window and looked out as the girl had done, and as if he were trying to re-create some train of thought she might have had. He turned again. “Did Cunninghan seem exceptionally friendly with her—anything beyond a mere business relationship?”
Amy shook her head. The pup was struggling to get down; she put him on the floor. He ran for the bedding and Fogarty was after him in a single jump, scooping him up. Amy said, “There was just one thing that struck me about that secretary. She’d made herself as nearly anonymous as she could get. Her clothes and hair match Cunninghan’s decorating scheme. You all but lost her when she got away a little.”
“How?”
“Dusty black and gold—that’s what Cunninghan has on the walls, and the furniture, and the curtains. She matches it. She’s like a leopard in spotty shadows.” The comparison surprised Amy, its aptness; there was indeed something very quietly catlike about Cunninghan’s girl.
Fogarty listened to her, but at the same time his thoughts were obviously working furiously elsewhere. Amy studied him. He must know that girl, she thought; he’s seen her somewhere, connected her with some other part of the case. That senseless business with the stocking couldn’t account for the impression she got from Fogarty, a stunned astonishment.
She wondered if he could have run into the secretary, working late, when he had gone to try to break into Cunninghan’s office—provided he’d really intended such an expedition and hadn’t just been planting the idea of a burglary in her own head. “If you went to Cunninghan’s office——”
“I didn’t get in.” He flung it at her, cutting off words.
“I thought you might have seen her there.”
He shook his head.
“Why should she leave that ripped stocking here?”
All expression washed out of his face. He stroked the pup, let the little teeth nibble a finger. Amy bent above the heap of bedding and reached down a hand, and Fogarty moved, quickly, as he had done when the pup had run loose—his grip closed over Amy’s wrist. “Let it alone.”
“What does it mean?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Yes, you are.” She backed away from him, so that he had to let go. “You’re keeping a secret.”
For an instant an ironic humor bubbled under the blankness in his face. “We’ll keep our little secrets, you and I, together. Shall we?”
“If you wish.” She took the pup out of his arms and tucked it into the curve of her elbow and went into the other room. Fogarty came after; she saw how his eyes searched the place with a stubborn, anxious look. He still wanted that journal of Tzegeti’s, still had hopes of getting it. But, Amy reflected, if Mrs. Tzegeti’s words had referred to a drawer pull or the handle to a cupboard, the book was gone. Someone had been here in the night, had searched ruthlessly.
There was no use waiting. She walked to the door.
“Don’t come back here, Mrs. Luttrell,” Fogarty said suddenly.
She looked back at him. “Are you advising me, or telling me?”
His mouth got tough, and she sensed that there were some rude things he would like to say. But he didn’t answer; he asked, “What are you going to do about the kid, the Tzegeti kid?”
“Nothing.” She wouldn’t tell him any plans she had. She opened the door. “She’s a nic
e child, a gentle and bewildered little girl. You might give her a break if you write anything about her mother. She thinks her mother couldn’t have killed herself.”
“What do you think?” It was a dare, a jeer.
“I was with Mrs. Tzegeti for a while before she lost consciousness. If someone had murdered her, had forced her to take the poison, I think she would have talked about it.”
“Tzegeti didn’t talk.”
Through Amy’s mind rushed the things Robert Luttrell had said about the trial, about Tzegeti’s strange silence, the stubbornly empty attitude he held toward his own fate. There had been a clamp put on him somehow. Nothing in his attitude had given a clue to self-destruction, and he had known what was happening to him.
But Amy wouldn’t let Fogarty see indecision in her face. “She could hardly have been forced to drink such a brew. Only a great determination to die could have enabled her to endure such pain.”
“Or a great desire to protect someone else,” Fogarty added.
“There’s no one left but the child,” Amy said.
“Yeah. We’ll see how she makes out.” Fogarty began to light a cigarette, and Amy sensed the dare in his manner, still there, egging her on into telling him what he wanted to know. So that he could break the case, make a scoop, write it up, hog the glory . . . He was pretty transparent, for all his toughness.
“The police are taking care of Elizabeth.”
“They were taking care of her father,” said Fogarty, an imp in his tone. “Let’s hope they do a better job this time.”
She shook with the fury that ran through her veins. Words marched in her mind, a reminder that Robert Luttrell had died on the job rather than give up his prisoner. Probably some of it showed on her face. Fogarty seemed to steel himself, to settle some inner equilibrium that had threatened to upset. “Well,” said Amy, “let’s hope they live through it.” She went out of the house and found her car and went home.
A big shiny gray sedan sat by the curb in front of the house. Amy took a second look and decided that it was the chief’s car, his private car, not the one with the city shield on the door. Two women sat in it. They wore summer print dresses with white lacy collars, and little hats full of veiling and flowers. Both were around fifty. When they saw Amy pull into the driveway, they got out of the car, straightened their skirts, and walked over to the front porch to wait for her. They were smiling identical little smiles—softly commiserating, oozing sympathy. Amy felt a great desire to be rude to them.
She came to the front steps and put the pup down. He promptly went to the bathroom on the cement, making a small stream which caused one of the matrons to move. Amy said, “Can I do something for you ladies?” She took out her keys and dangled them.
The woman in the pink print dress said, “Oh, now, Mrs. Luttrell—you remember me. I’m the chief’s wife. Mrs. Barr. We met at the Auxiliary Tea a couple of years ago. You were just married.”
“How do you do?” Amy said, pretending not to recall it. She let her glance settle on the one in blue.
“And this is Mrs. Poggett,” said the chief’s wife. The other woman held out a hand encased in a snow-white linen glove. The name was familiar to Amy. Poggett was high on the force. “We’ve been here a couple of times before, and you weren’t home. We were worried about you.” The tone implied that Amy, if she were decent, would have been at home nursing her grief.
“I’ve had a great deal to do,” said Amy in a voice like steel. The eyes in the nicely powdered face flickered, so she knew that the chief had talked about her behavior and that it was disapproved of.
But the chief’s wife was determined to be a lady. “Of course you have. There is always so much to attend to. We were wondering if you might spare us just a moment or two of your time?”
“Come in.” Amy unlocked the door and took them inside and sat them down. She went off to the kitchen to feed the pup, leaving them to stare at the strange bare room, the homemade rag rug, the barren walls. When she came back she offered cigarettes. Neither of them smoked, so Amy smoked to be different. She sat down and blew smoke into the air and waited. The women exchanged a glance.
The chief’s wife started the preliminaries. “Mrs. Luttrell, please understand that I’m not trying to pry. We have no way of knowing how you’re fixed financially—of course there is the city insurance, and it will be taken care of quickly, but there may be immediate bills and expenses . . . and then there’s the question of the pension.”
“In my case there isn’t any question of a pension. I’m young and I have a way of making a living, a perfectly satisfactory way.”
The chief’s wife nodded as though this were the right answer. “Yes, I thought you might see that. Most of the officers’ widows who do draw it are elderly, or unemployable for some reason. Now, about little bills you might be having difficulty with now, little nagging things——”
“There aren’t any.”
It was abrupt, cutting Mrs. Barr off. A little color came up under the powder. “I see.”
Now Mrs. Poggett put in her say. “Of course the Department will take care of funeral expenses. It’s understood.”
“I don’t wish any help,” Amy said firmly.
“The Department takes care of its own,” Mrs. Poggett reminded.
Amy looked through them. “I figure that the Department has disowned my husband, and that he’d prefer to be buried as Robert Luttrell, private citizen.”
They were shocked. They communicated with their eyes, distress coming out of their pores, shaking the little flowers on their hats.
“Oh, but—but your husband died in the line of duty, on his job. An officer. He died because he was a good policeman!”
Amy felt her lips draw back. “According to the view of the Department, he died because he was trying to make a deal for the delivery of a prisoner.”
“That—that viewpoint has been discarded, I’m sure!” Mrs. Barr cried. She fanned herself with the edge of her collar.
“And what’s taken its place? An idiotic idea that Robert was stalling, hemming and hawing, beating around the bush and waiting for someone to come along and help? Nuts. Robert had no illusions about the kind of people who would be after Tzegeti. With one instant’s warning he’d have had his gun out, blasting them down, chewing them into the floor with a rain of lead.” The enraged words filled the room, echoing on the bare walls; Mrs. Barr moved as if to cover her ears for a moment, and Mrs. Poggett choked on a swallow.
After a moment they regained their composure. “We came here to offer our sympathy,” Mrs. Poggett stuttered.
“Do you think I need it?”
She was crouched on her chair. The ferocity on her face must have frightened the two mild ladies; they moved slightly nearer each other on the divan.
The pup wandered in from the kitchen and squatted to make another puddle. “Excuse me,” Amy said. “I have to attend to the floor before it soaks in.” She went out into the kitchen for a cloth. She put the pup in his box. He was going to be a devil to train. When she came back, the two ladies were standing beside the door. There was more that the chief’s wife wanted to say. Amy saw reproofs, already worded, behind her eyes. But she must have sensed that Amy was not in the mood to listen.
When they had gone, Amy went into the bedroom and flung herself across the bed, and waited for the tears to come. Now was the time, she thought; I can’t hold it any more. I’ve got to let go. Tomorrow . . . I can’t break up tomorrow; I have to see Robert decently buried. She beat the pillows with her clenched hands.
But the tears didn’t come. The dry rage beat inside her skull, a drum thrummed by savages, a red light going on and off and leaving its echo behind her eyes.
She must have slept for a short while. She woke up. It was hot now, a hot bright noontime. She thought of the car; it would be better to put it into the garage, then it wouldn’t be such an oven when she used it later to go after food. She crawled off the bed and went wearily out through the bac
k door to the driveway.
When she pushed up the big overhead panel, when the bright light rushed into the garage, a figure stood up from a stack of magazines in the far corner. Amy froze with surprise. Elizabeth Tzegeti tried to smile, a smile that broke at the edges, dying on her face. She took a stumbling step backward, cringing like an animal.
Amy went into the garage and held out her arms. Elizabeth ran to her, and they clung together like the survivors of a shipwreck. It was crazy, of course; Amy’s mind kept telling her the insanity of it. The cop’s widow and the criminal’s child . . . the world would have a lot to say about it, and none of it pleasant.
But it was nice not to be alone.
CHAPTER TEN
THE HOUSE was cool with shadow after the long heat of the afternoon. A breeze had blown up from the beaches, bringing a smell of the sea. Amy opened the back door and walked through to the living room, where she sat down on the divan and pulled at her gloves.
Elizabeth had stopped in the kitchen to see about the pup. Amy could hear the crooning words, the answering whines and yelps.
She let her head sink back against the cushion. It was over, done, finished. It was ended at last. She was really a widow now. Strange that until they had buried him, he’d still seemed half alive. She felt her face twist, her hands clench on her lap. She had let them bury him with that stain, that smut, against his reputation.
Behind her closed eyes, faces swam—the faces of the afternoon, cold, interested, sympathetic, curious, bored, or avid. She recalled the smell of the flowers, the muted quiver of the organ, and Elizabeth’s hand in hers, a quiet touch. The child had wanted to go, though Amy thought funerals not the right place for youngsters. In a strangely adult way, Elizabeth had stood by like the family Amy no longer had. She was an odd girl, old for her years in some ways, scrupulously neat, soft-spoken, quick to sense what needed to be done.
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