49
“It’s some mental condition,” said my mother the next morning, lifting my perfectly done eggs over easy with a spatula from an iron skillet.
“We all have some mental condition, don’t we?”
“Don’t be amusing.” She put the cast-iron skillet back on the stove with more force than seemed necessary and took up the flat one with its three pecan pancakes and slid them onto my plate. “I can tell you it’s thrown my morning into a cocked hat.”
I assumed she was talking about Lola Davidow’s nonstop telephoning, mostly to the Tri-State Hospital outside of Cloverly, before and after her own sturdy breakfast. Ree-Jane’s condition hadn’t had much effect on her appetite. But then, it was my mother’s cooking after all. People would eat it on the way to a hanging.
I ate my eggs and pancakes in the company of Walter, who was drowning a stack of cakes in maple syrup. Walter looked less crazy by the minute.
Following that, I called Axel’s Taxis and asked for Axel to pick me up and waited on the porch, rocking away, until Delbert came.
You would not think of madness, murder, and kidnapped infants if you drove along the main street of La Porte; or if you walked around Spirit Lake; or stood in the old train station of Cold Flat Junction. Yet that is what has happened in these tragic places.
Mr. Gumbrel was reading aloud what I’d written for my next piece in the paper.
You have already read in this paper about the drowning of Mary-Evelyn Devereau in Spirit Lake forty years ago. This was always counted an “accident.” But accident is not what it was. No, it was a cold-blooded murder. Mary-Evelyn was drowned by her own sisters who were also insane.
Mr. Gumbrel stopped reading, made an “um-hmm” sort of sound, and said, “You mean all of them? All three of them were insane? And drowned that little girl?”
“I wanted to avoid calling attention to any one of them.” No I didn’t. I wanted to avoid writing any more than I had to. “According to Isabel, when she was pointing that gun at me, ‘Elizabeth was the first.’ Meaning, the first one to hold her under, I guess. The only sister I’m not sure about was Iris. She might have been pretty sane.”
“I’ll tell you one thing that’s real good about this, Emma: it’s leisurely.”
Leisurely. That didn’t sound too good to me. “Do you think that’s good when I’m telling about three murders and a kidnapping? And an attempted murder?” I kept forgetting my own hairbreadth escape.
“Of course I do. If you’ve got all that in the story, you wouldn’t want the reader to be hurried along, forced along like a train wreck.”
I pursed my lips. I wished there had been a train wreck. “Well, okay. I just don’t want to get in the habit of being overwordy. Sometimes I’m afraid I go on. . . .”
“No, sir. You’re creating context, that’s all. And atmosphere. Now, listen, this is really good: Police Pursue the Wrong Person. That grabs you right off. For the reader to find out that baby was a boy, not a girl! My God, you really do have sources, girl!”
It happened one warm summer night at the Belle Rouen hotel, popularly known as the Belle Ruin.
There was music. There was moonlight. There was dancing. There was a ladder placed up against a window.
Mr. Gumbrel was not reading aloud; I was reading over his shoulder. If I say so myself, I really liked the music-moonlight-dancing-ladder construction. It all sounded dreamy. And sinister. What was that ladder doing there? Well, I know now: nothing.
I had not named Gloria Spiker as the babysitter, thinking she certainly didn’t need the bad publicity. Anyway, everyone knew who the babysitter was.
And I did not name Carl Mooma as my source, for the same reason.
50
She was back.
Less than twenty-four hours later and here she was.
When I returned around 1 P.M. from my visit to the Conservative, Ree-Jane was sitting on the front porch, rocking away, smiling in her huge, vacant way at nothing unless it was me getting out of the cab.
Only now the smile was beating down on me with a kind of victory over anything that stood in her path. If you could put lipstick on a steamroller, that was what it would be like, that smile bearing down.
After I slammed the cab door on Delbert’s monologue, I climbed the steps. “You’re up early,” I said, flopping down in the chair beside her.
That kind of threw her. “What?”
I yawned as if she’d never been away.
She was wearing a bunch of silver bangles, and she ran them up and down her arm. “It was just temporary.”
“What was?” Her life, I hoped.
She was really frustrated. “My . . . fugue state.”
Whatever “fugue” meant, it wasn’t Ree-Jane’s state.
She leaned her head back and smiled up at the porch light or at the collection of moths at its bottom, dead or in a fugue state. “Rafe is wonderful, isn’t he?”
“No,” I said.
“What? What do you mean, ‘No’?”
“No, he isn’t wonderful.”
Now she leaned, as if in confidence sharing, over the arm of her chair, close to me. “We wouldn’t be just a teensy bit jealous, would we?” Back on track.
“Why would I be jealous of Ralph?”
“Rafe, not Ralph.”
“Why would I be jealous of Ray?”
“Rafe, for God’s sake. Rafe.”
“Why would I?”
Her flushed face was what Emily Dickinson might have found “hectic.” “I don’t mean of him. I mean jealous of us!”
I feigned puzzlement. “Why would I be jealous of us?” I could have kept this up all afternoon if I hadn’t been due in the kitchen ten minutes before.
Now she brought a fist down on the chair arm. “Not you and me! Me and Ralph.”
“Rafe.”
She flew up, sending her chair back on its rockers. “Oh, you think you’re so smart!”
Back on track.
As she slammed the screen door, I set my hand on her vacated chair, rocking crazily—me, the great calmer.
I was, of course, avidly interested in what had happened and made a beeline for the kitchen, where my mother used her most guilt-inducing tone.
“I’d think you’d manage to get here on time to serve Mr. Muggs.”
Mr. Muggs was the Poor Soul whom I had glimpsed through the dining room window above the wooden walk that ran from the side door to the kitchen.
“He’s been waiting for nearly a quarter of an hour and so have Miss Bertha and Mrs. Fulbright.”
I leaned stiff-armed on the counter. “I was stopped on the porch. Ree-Jane’s back.”
My mother tapped her wooden spoon against a double boiler containing what smelled divinely of her creamed chicken. “I know. A nurse at Tri-State called her mother this morning. Ralph went to get her.”
I waited but there was no further comment. Of course not, as there was food to be served. She had split buttermilk biscuits and arranged them on plates, and now was pouring the creamed chicken over one, adorning it with a little pimiento strip and parsley sprig. To the plate she added her vivid green peas and a broiled tomato. Carefully, she wiped a tiny overflow of gravy from the rim of the plate. It looked, as always, artful. Sometimes she sifted a mixture of ground peanuts, paprika, and a mystery spice over the top of this dish, but not today.
I swept up the tray, barged into the dining room right past Miss Bertha as she barked at me. Or snarled. It came out less “Emma” than “Rummma.”
But I just sailed past and set the tray on a serving table next to Mr. Muggs’s table for two.
“My, that looks delicious, Emma.” He tucked his napkin into his collar and rubbed his hands. I filled his water glass and asked him if he’d like coffee now or later. He said later, and I peeled away.
“Ruuummmmma!”
I turned and fluted, “Yes, Miss Bertha, I’ll have your lunches up directly.” I held my empty tray up on my fingers and swanned back into the
kitchen, ignoring whatever question she was about to ask.
Their lunches were ready and I set them on the tray. Then, seeing my mother busy over at the pastry table, I replaced the pimiento on Miss Bertha’s plate with a little strip of habanero pepper (which my pepper research had told me was the hottest member of the family). I picked up the tray and asked, “What’s for dessert?” I was backing into the dining room.
“Floating Island.”
“Oh!” I nearly swooned with delight before I carried the tray to their table and set plates before them. Miss Bertha poked her food around and Mrs. Fulbright murmured her approval of the meal.
I went to Mr. Muggs, who had nearly finished his chicken. “Floating Island for dessert,” I whispered.
His “Oh!” sounded much the same as mine had.
“Be back in a jiff!” I said.
The jiff was interrupted by a yelp from Miss Bertha, followed by her bouncing from her chair with cries for “Water, water!”
Gunga Din couldn’t have called for it better.
I sighed. You’d think by this time she’d be familiar with every known pepper on the planet, and know that water was the very worst thing for its heat.
I filled her glass and handed it to her.
Mr. Muggs and Mrs. Fulbright received their Floating Islands—a dessert as magical as its name. Miss Bertha couldn’t eat anything else because she was fanning out her mouth and would be making noises for the next fifteen minutes at least.
After they’d all left, I cleared their plates away. Mr. Muggs’s plate was always cleaned of every morsel, almost as if he’d been eating shadows.
And after my two helpings of Floating Island, I took off for Britten’s.
“Na Ow,” said Ubub.
“Ake Or,” Ulub corrected him.
I had asked them where Morris Slade had gone the night before; had they continued following him? I made out “Lake Noir,” but was stumped by the next detail coming from Ulub: “Nilva Air.” I did not want to spend the rest of the afternoon interpreting the Woods’ dialect. “Where’s Mr. Root?”
“Niside,” said Ulub. He cocked his head toward the store.
I climbed the wooden steps and said hi to the two old-timers chewing tobacco and sitting on crates. I wondered since when did Mr. Britten offer the comfort of crates to his customers.
From him I got my usual lowered-eyebrow reception. Mr. Root was happier to see me. He was buying some Mail Pouch and a package of Twinkies. When I asked him about Morris Slade and what Ulub meant by “Nilva Air” he said, “Yeah, last night, he went out t’ the Silver Pear.”
“He went by himself?”
“Yeah, by himself.”
“What time?”
“Oh, mebbe around seven, seven-thirty. Got to the restaurant about eight.”
“Didn’t he meet anyone there?”
Mr. Root pondered. “Well, he could’ve, I guess. I mean somebody might’ve been in there waiting, or come after.”
This was very vague. “Then where’d he go after the Silver Pear?”
Mr. Root was getting a little defensive. “I don’t know. We couldn’t hardly wait all night. He was in there an hour, hour and a half by the time we left. How long does it take to eat?”
I felt like saying any good private eye would have waited all night. Of course, any good private eye would be getting paid too. “Well, never mind that, Mr. Root. You all are doing a great job.”
“Well. You want a Twinkie?” He’d opened the package and held it out.
“Thank you, but I just ate a big lunch.” That had never kept me away from a Twinkie before.
I whisked myself out of the store, waved to Ulub and Ubub, and hurried back to the hotel to call Axel’s Taxis.
51
Mr. Root or the Wood brothers would have given me a ride, but I wanted to think. Delbert, of course, wanted to talk, but I could ignore him in a way I couldn’t ignore the others.
“Silver Pear? My God, girl, you can afford to eat there?”
The priciness of the restaurant interested him more than that a twelve-year-old was going there by herself.
“I sold my bike,” I said as we drove through La Porte and out the other side to open land.
Delbert said, one, that he’d never seen me on a bike; and, two, that he was surprised I’d sell it. Then he started talking about what was best to do with a person’s money and I tuned him out and watched horses in an otherwise empty field. As if words were water, Delbert’s ran on and on. He might as well have dived into a lake of words, for the talk went down down down.
This might be a trip worth taking or it might not. But I was depending on the curiosity of the people at the Silver Pear. After all, Morris Slade turning up in that fancy sports car would trigger curiosity in a person much less nosy than the owners of the restaurant. They would have wondered, questioned, watched him.
I looked out at two black-and-white cows that had propped their heads on a split-rail fence, chewing and musing. I mused along too until I saw Lake Noir in the middle distance, through a million pine trees.
We turned off onto White’s Bridge Road (called “the Lake Road” by the snobby owners of the luxury houses on Lake Noir). The Silver Pear didn’t sit right on Lake Noir, but it was near enough that you could see it, like a silver plate through the dark trees.
Delbert had stopped talking and I hadn’t registered this until we were bumping along a rough section of road. He was as silent as if he’d drowned in the lake, and I hoped that wasn’t a drowned man driving.
Gaby and Ron were the owners of the big Victorian house that they’d turned into this expensive restaurant. The first time I was here, I tried to give the impression an adult just might show up and we’d have lunch. I had studied the menu with a kind of horror, seeing dishes like Lobster Thermidor and Filet Mignon à la carte for four times what the hotel charged for an entire meal.
I’d been here a couple of times since, and I hoped they wouldn’t remember me and grow suspicious as to why a twelve-year-old was here again, empty-handed, no money in sight.
But I’d forgotten that I wasn’t empty-handed! I had fame to spend. I kept forgetting I was by way of being a celebrity now, gaining more with each new installment I wrote.
“Really,” said Gaby or Ron, hard to tell apart, both of them posted by the dining room door, hugging menus. His voice was high and breathy as he said it again. “Really, that was so brave of you!”
He was referring to my walk at gunpoint and being forced into a rowboat. “Not really,” I replied. I asked them what was brave about going where a gun told me to go. (Of course I thought it was brave, but I “eschewed”—another favorite word—bravery in favor of a kind of jaunty, jaded attitude toward danger.) I said if I’d grabbed the gun, or yanked Miss Devereau into Spirit Lake after me, instead of just doing what she wanted, that would have been brave.
They naturally thought I was being modest and that was okay with me. I said, “If you read the Conservative—”
They nodded, Yes, yes . . .
“—then maybe you read my account—”
Yes, yes . . .
I thought they might go into a tap dance in their polished shoes and seersucker suits. “Now, do you happen to recall a man driving up in a red sports car last night?”
“I certainly do. An Alfa Romeo two-seater. Just gorgeous!”
Alfa Romeo. Here might be another word my mind could taste that would go with “poinciana,” “bougainvillea,” and “Tamiami.” I shook my head a little to get the words out of it. “He had dinner here?”
“Of course,” said Ron or Gaby. “The Lobster Thermidor.” Wouldn’t you know?
The other one said, or whispered, “We heard he’d been involved in a great scandal years ago over near Spirit Lake? At that big hotel that burned down?”
I nodded. I wasn’t about to go into detail about the scandal. “Did he meet anyone here?”
“No.”
“No.”
“He did
n’t say anything about visiting friends at Lake Noir or anything like that?”
“No,” said Gaby. I knew it was Gaby, for he added, “Ron?”
Ron shook his head.
Of course, why would Morris Slade talk to them about his plans? But then why was Morris Slade here on his own?
I thought for a moment, but could come up with nothing else. “So he just left and went back to the highway.” This seemed obvious, so what Gaby said next surprised me.
“No. As a matter of fact, he drove off toward White’s Bridge.” He pointed not toward the highway, but away from it. The bridge was just a short distance from the restaurant.
My eyes opened wider. That really made me wonder.
Them too. “We couldn’t figure out where he’d be going. No one lives around here except for an old man, down the road from Mirror Pond. That’s where the road just turns to dirt. We’ve never been on it.”
Past Brokedown House and several miles beyond, dwindling and widening and dwindling to hardly more than a path, all the way to the back of Spirit Lake.
Ron said, “Of course, you know about the shooting there.” He nodded toward a point just beyond the bridge. “That was something.” He shivered, it seemed, with delight.
Gaby whispered, “Business was better than usual. I expect people are a bit ghoulish.” He flapped his hand. “Don’t quote me.”
They were speaking of Fern Queen’s murder. I said, “I won’t. But he would have to have come back by the restaurant here. Did he?”
“Not unless it was after we turned in, and that wasn’t till around one, one-thirty.”
Ron bit his lip. “Well, there is that old man. . . . Could he be a friend or relation of some kind?” He switched the menus to his other arm. “I never thought about that until now, that the car didn’t come back.”
“Maybe you just didn’t see it, I mean, with all of your guests.”
Fadeaway Girl Page 23
