(LB2) Shakespeare's Landlord

by Charlaine Harris

  “Anything I can help you with?” he continued as I looked up, trying to read the broad face.

  “God Almighty, where were you?” I asked ferociously, angry at myself that I hadn’t heard him, angry at him for the fear he’d made me feel.

  “In Pardon’s apartment.”

  “Just skulking?”

  I was not going to be able to provoke him into anger so he’d forget to ask me again, I saw.

  “Examining the scene of the crime,” he said genially. “And wondering, as I suspect you are, how come one person sees a body on the couch at four-thirty after someone else saw an empty couch at three o’clock, though at three o’clock the apartment looked like someone’d had a fight.”

  “Pardon could’ve survived for a while,” I said, surprising myself by simply telling the policeman what was on my mind.

  He looked equally surprised, and rather pleased.

  “Yes, indeed, if it’d been another kind of wound.”

  Friedrich nodded his head of thick graying hair slowly. “But with that blow to the neck, he would have suffocated pretty quick.”

  And he looked down at my hands, empty now, since I’d put down the cleaning caddy when I opened the door. My hands looked thin and bony and strong.

  “I could have killed him,” I said, “but I didn’t. I had no reason to.”

  “What if Pardon had said he was going to spread the story of your bad time all over town?”

  “He didn’t know.” I’d come to that conclusion early this morning. “You know what Pardon was like. He loved knowing all about everyone, and he’d bust a gut to tell whoever it was that he’d found out something about them. He’d have loved to sympathize with me about what happened. No one knew until you called Memphis and left that report lying around.” That was something else I’d have to do on my own—find out who in the police department had been talking, and to whom. I thought it quite likely that whoever had planted the cuffs and gun on the Drinkwaters’ stairs had learned the significance of those items from a loose-mouthed police department employee.

  “Probably you’re right on that,” Friedrich admitted, giving me a pleasant surprise in return for the one I’d given him, “and I’m looking into it. So you’re checking out the closet to see if that’s where he was stowed?”

  I blinked at the change of subject. Friedrich was touchy about my reference to the poor security at the police department, as well he might be.

  “Yes.” I explained how I came to have the key.

  “Well, let’s look,” Friedrich suggested, with a geniality I distrusted.

  “You’ve already looked,” I said.

  “Actually, no. Pardon’s key ring hasn’t turned up. We didn’t want to break down the door. A locksmith was coming this morning to open it up, but now you’ve saved the city of Shakespeare a little money. I never thought of asking you if you had a key.”

  It didn’t seem a good time to tell him that I had keys to the front and back doors of the building, too.

  “Why didn’t you ask Norvel Whitbread?” I asked. “He was supposed to be working for Pardon one morning a week.”

  “He said he didn’t have a key. And it seemed likely to me that Pardon wouldn’t trust him enough to give him one, that Pardon would unlock the closet for him if Norvel needed to get in.”

  I tucked the puzzle of Pardon’s missing key ring in with all the other elements involved in the strange death of the landlord.

  Friedrich stepped past me, reached up to pull the string, and scanned the closet when the light flooded into every corner. Pardon, whatever his faults, had not been stingy with wattage.

  “Does it look like it always does, as far as you can tell?” Friedrich asked after we’d both taken a good look.

  “Yes,” I said, a little disappointed. The shelves to the rear and left side of the closet were neatly lined with necessities—garbage bags, lightbulbs, cleaning materials—and odds and ends that Pardon had thought might be useful someday—mousetraps, vases, a doorknob, the big doorstop Pardon used to hold the front door when he got the hall carpet cleaned, and it was still damp. The big vacuum cleaner took up the right side of the closet. It was ancient, huge, and parked neatly, with its cord wrapped in a precise coil. That proved Norvel hadn’t vacuumed last; Norvel would never wind a cord that pretty, I thought admiringly.

  But Norvel was supposed to be doing the janitorial work.

  Friedrich was looking over the shelves carefully and thoughtfully, apparently doing an item-by-item inventory.

  I reached over to touch his sleeve, then thought the better of it. “Excuse me,” I said.

  “Yes’m?” Friedrich said abstractedly.

  “Look at the cord on the vacuum.” I waited till he’d taken a good look. “Someone other than Norvel Whitbread put that vacuum in here, and Norvel was supposed to do it.” I explained why I thought so.

  Friedrich looked mildly amused. “You got any idea who might have put the vacuum in here, based on the way the cord is coiled?” he asked, and I realized he was gently pulling my leg.

  Ho-ho. “Yes, I have. I’ve seen the way Pardon put things away. That’s the way Pardon did it. Every Monday morning, before he went to church, Norvel was supposed to vacuum and clean the glass in the doors, sweep the front walkway, and pick up trash in the parking area in the back. It doesn’t seem he did that on Monday.”

  “That’s a lot to infer from a vacuum cleaner.”

  It was an effort to shrug indifferently.

  I took the key to the closet off my ring and handed it to Friedrich. Before he could say anything, I hoisted my caddy and strode out the front door, evicting Friedrich from my thoughts. I cast around in my mind for any reason I needed to go in my house; all of a sudden, I wasn’t hungry anymore. Maybe I should jump right in the car to go to the Winthrops’ house.

  But there was yet another bump in my path—a car parked, blocking mine, in my driveway, and someone standing in my carport, leaning against my Skylark. My heart lurched when I recognized Marshall. I stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do or say, feeling my cheeks get hot.

  He took the caddy from me and put it on the ground. He drew me farther up under the carport and put his arms around me. After a moment, my arms went around his neck.

  “I couldn’t call you,” he said in my ear. “I didn’t know what to say over the telephone. I don’t know what to say now.”

  If he didn’t, I sure wasn’t going to venture anything. I was managing to enjoy being held, but I didn’t like being in the carport; I didn’t want to be seen. But the intoxication of Marshall’s nearness, his remembered smell and touch, began to chip away at my anxiety. I felt a little dizzy. His tongue touched my lips.

  “Marshall, I have to work,” I managed to say.

  He held me a little away, looked at me sharply.

  “Lily, are you putting me off because you don’t want to be with me? Are you sorry about last night?”

  “No.” I shook my head to reinforce it. “No.”

  “Are you having trouble, remembering what happened to you?”

  “No…” I hesitated. “But you know, having had sex once successfully doesn’t mean I’m never going to live in the shadow of the rape again. The rest of my life, I’ll have to deal with it.”

  I am not a trouble-free woman. I am not always user-friendly. He had to have that brought to his attention, if he was trying to ignore it.

  “But really, and I regret this, I’m late to my next cleaning job,” I finished prosaically.

  “Lily,” he said again, as if he enjoyed saying it. I’d been looking down at the spot where our chests were touching. Now I met his eyes. His mouth came toward mine, and I could feel he was ready.

  “We can’t now,” I whispered apologetically.

  “Tonight, after class?”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t eat first; we’ll fix something at my place.”

  I never ate before calisthenics, anyway. I nodded, and smiled at him. A red
car going by in the street alerted me to the passage of time. I looked at my watch over his shoulder, wishing I could afford to call the Winthrops and tell them I was sick. But Marshall was an anomaly, and my work was the norm.

  I was beginning to hope that with Marshall I could be exactly who I felt like being. The Memphis Lily, the Lily with long brown hair, who puffed and panted after twenty minutes on the treadmill, would never have done what blond strong Lily did to Marshall next. My caress made him shiver all over.

  “You don’t know what it’s been like,” he said when he could speak. I realized that Marshall had a story to tell, too.

  “If you’re sure you don’t have ten extra minutes now,” he went on breathlessly, “I guess I’ll have to wait until tonight. We better not spar together in class!”

  I found myself smiling at the thought of Marshall seething with desire while blocking my kicks, and seeing me smile made him laugh out loud.

  “See you then,” I said, with a sudden resurgence of shyness. I gently extricated myself from his arms and went to my car. As he passed me to go to his Toyota, I had a back view of broad shoulders and tight butt to admire.

  It had been so long since my plans had extended beyond my latest batch of library books or a movie I’d rented that I hardly knew what to think of as I drove the familiar route to my next job. I would be sweaty after class. Could I shower at his house? Would he expect me to stay the night, or would I come home to sleep? Where would I park my car? It was nobody’s business that I would be visiting Marshall’s rental house. I liked my life private.

  AS I SLID out of my car at the Winthrops’ back door, I decided I was excited, and scared. But most of all, I felt unsettled, a feeling I was having trouble enjoying. I’m not used to having so many variables to contend with, I realized.

  But I had to put all that away in the back of my mind and get to work. I let myself in, locked the door behind me, and looked around the kitchen. The cook, Earline Poffard, had been at work; the counter was spotless and there was a full garbage can under the sink. Earline comes in twice a week, and she cooks enough suppers for the Winthrops to eat until she comes again. I had never met Earline face-to-face, but I knew her from her work; Earline labels everything she prepares, all her garbage lands in the bag, and she scours all the dishes herself, drys them, and puts them away. I have only to clean the outside of the microwave and the door of the dishwasher from time to time, and mop, and the kitchen cleaning is done.

  For the first time, it occurred to me that I would like to meet Earline. Perhaps Earline was equally curious about me.

  The habits of years reasserted themselves, and I set to work. I didn’t want to be late to class this night; I looked forward to seeing Marshall my lover, and I didn’t want Marshall my sensei to be shooting me the disapproving look he’d given me last time.

  I’d gotten the dusting done and was getting the mop out of the closet when I heard a key in the lock.

  “Hey, Lily,” called a casual male voice.

  “Hi, Bobo,” I replied, making a mental note to tell Beanie she needed a new mop.

  “Hey, what about that old guy getting killed over by your place?” Bobo said, his voice getting closer.

  I glanced over my shoulder. The boy—the six-foot-two boy—was leaning against the kitchen sink, looking spectacular in cutoffs and an Umbro shirt. His grin betrayed his age, but his body had grown up ahead of him. I answer the phone while I’m working at the Winthrops’, and most of the calls in the summer are inevitably for Bobo. He has his own phone, of course, but he gives only particular friends that number, much to his mother’s irritation.

  “He died,” I said.

  “That’s no answer, Lily! C’mon, you must know all about it.”

  “I’m sure you know as much about it as I do.”

  “Is it true someone called old Claude Friedrich while he was sacked out and told him where the body was?”

  “Yes.”

  “See, now that’s the kind of thing I want you to tell me.”

  “You already knew that, Bobo.” My patience had almost evaporated.

  “Well…give me the inside scoop. You gotta know something that wasn’t in the paper, Lily.”

  “I doubt it.” Bobo loved to talk, and I knew he’d follow me around the house if I gave him the slightest encouragement.

  “How old are you, Bobo?” I asked.

  “Oh, I’m a senior. I’m seventeen,” he said. “That’s why I’m outta class early today. You gonna miss me next year when I go off to college, Lily?”

  “You know it, Bobo.” I got the Mop & Glow from the cupboard, then turned the sink water to hot. “For one thing, I ought to charge your parents less money because I won’t have your mess to clean up.”

  “Oh, by the way, Lily…”

  When he didn’t finish his sentence, I glanced over, to see Bobo was blushing a bright red.

  As I raised my eyebrows to show I was waiting for him to finish his sentence, I squirted some cleaner on the floor. The water was running hot; I squeezed out the excess water and began to mop.

  “When you were cleaning my room the other day, did you happen to find…something…ah, personal?”

  “Like the condom?”

  “Um. Right. Yeah.” Bobo stared at something fascinating by his right foot.

  “Um-hmm.”

  “What’d you do with it?”

  “What do you mean? I threw it away. You think I was going to sleep with it under my pillow?”

  “I mean…did you tell my mom? Or my dad?”

  “Not my business,” I said, noting that Howell Winthrop, Jr., came a decided second on the list of people Bobo feared.

  “Thanks, Lily!” Bobo said enthusiastically. He met my eyes briefly, his shoulders relaxed: He was a man looking at blue skies.

  “Just keep using them.”

  “What? Oh. Oh, yeah.”

  And Bobo, if possible, grew redder than before. He left with a great show of nonchalance, jingling his keys and whistling, obviously feeling he’d had an adult conversation about sex with an older woman. I was willing to bet he’d be more careful disposing of personal items in the future, as well he ought.

  I found myself singing as I worked, something I hadn’t done in years. I sing hymns when I’m by myself; I know so many, from the countless Sundays I’d spent sitting with my parents and Varena in church—always in the same pew, fifth from the front on the left. I found myself remembering the mints my mother always had in her purse, my father’s pen and the notepad he produced for me to draw on when I got too restless.

  But thinking of my childhood seldom brings me anything but pain. Back then, my parents hadn’t cast their eyes down when they spoke to me. They’d been able to hold conversations without tiptoeing verbally around anything they thought might distress their ravaged daughter. I’d been able to hug them without bracing myself for the contact.

  From long practice, I was able to block out this unproductive and well-traveled train of thought. I concentrated on the pleasure of singing. It’s always an amazement to me that I have a pretty voice. I’d had lessons for a few years; I used to sing solo in church, and perform at weddings from time to time. Now I sang “Amazing Grace.” I reached up to brush the hair out of my face when I was finished, and it was a shock to find it was short.

  Chapter 8

  I’D ALMOST FORGOTTEN MY SEDENTARY NEIGHBOR’S participation in the Wednesday-night class. It sure hadn’t looked like he was having a good time, so I was surprised to see Carlton warming up when I bowed in the doorway. He was trying to touch his toes. I could tell from the way his mouth twisted that movement was painful.

  “The full soreness has set in, huh?” I said as I sat on the floor to pull off my shoes.

  “Even my hair hurts,” he said through clenched teeth as he strained downward. His fingers just managed to touch the tops of his feet.

  “This is your worst day,” I told him.

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?�
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  “I thought maybe it would help to know that tomorrow won’t be so bad.” I rolled my socks in a neat ball and stuck them in my right shoe. I stood, rotated my neck gently, then bent from my waist and put my hands flat on the floor. I gave a sigh of pleasure as my back stretched and the tension of the day flowed out.

  “Show-off,” Carlton said bitterly.

  I straightened and looked him over. Carlton was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. To the untrained eye, he would have looked pretty good, but I could see the lack of definition and development in his arms and thighs. Overweight, he wasn’t; in shape, he wasn’t.

  Marshall came in and gave me a private smile before one of the other students approached him with a question. I followed him with my eyes for a moment and then considered Carlton, who was on the floor, his legs spraddled to either side, trying to touch his chest to the right leg, then the left. Carlton’s thick black hair, normally gelled and swept behind his ears, was getting wild as he straightened and bent, straightened and bent. I pulled the top of my gi out of my gym bag and slid into it, then tended to the tying of the belt.

  “So, Carlton. Remember the subduing hold we practiced last time?” I asked. Carlton scrambled to his feet.

  “Ah…no. I had so much to learn that one night.”

  Marshall was laughing with a knot of the younger men in the class.

  “Okay. Reach out to grab my gi with your right hand…. That’s right. Now, grip hard.” Apparently scared he’d pull me off balance, Carlton barely took hold of the loose material. “No, Carlton. You really have to hold on, or you’ll think I was able to do this because you weren’t exerting full strength.”

  Carlton, while increasing the force of his grip, looked distinctly anxious. “Oh, I wouldn’t think that!” he protested.

  “Now, remember? I reach up with my right hand, like so…. I sink my thumb into the pit between your thumb and forefinger, to hit the pressure point—I got it, I see—and then I twist your hand so that the outside of it, the side of your little finger, is pointed toward the ceiling…. Of course that rotates your whole arm, right?”