Chris looked up, but said nothing.
When I’d finished helping Nona, and Chris had risen from his place, I spoke to him.
“Can you show me where the utility rooms are? Your father put David’s things down there and I must look through them.”
Suddenly he was eager to do anything he could for me. His mother’s attack and my defense had moved him in my direction as nothing else had done.
He showed me the door to the basement stairs and ran down ahead. When he’d led the way into the storage room, he perched on a trunk, watching me.
The room was neatly antiseptic, with pale gray walls and a minimum of disorder. Apparently Nona’s generalship reached everywhere, even into rooms it would be difficult for her to visit.
Two suitcases had been placed upon a long table and I stopped before them, hesitating because there was a reluctance in me to touch what had belonged to David. Something must have shown in my face—something that reached Chris.
“Do you want me to go away?” he asked.
“No—please stay. Perhaps it will help if you’ll keep me company.”
Long lashes came down over intensely blue eyes and he spoke so softly I could barely hear him. “You aren’t like Uncle David at all, Karen.”
It was an offering of friendship, the words spoken with more conviction this time than when he’d first said them to me.
I managed my own uncertain smile and spoke over a lump in my throat. “I understand, Chris. I don’t blame you for the way you felt. But David wasn’t always the way you think. Not when I knew him at first before he went away to war. Not in the beginning.” I needed to believe that myself.
“When he wanted something a lot he knew how to pretend,” Chris said with surprising wisdom. “Sometimes he could be nice, if it suited him. But he hurt my mother. He made her—different. Dad talked to me about it once. He wanted Uncle David to go away—so my mother could be like she was before.”
“I know,” I said.
But I didn’t know, because Chris’s expression had changed, as though his own words had alarmed him.
“I mean Dad wanted him to go away. Just to go away.”
“Of course,” I said. “He must have wanted him to leave.”
My calm, accepting tone seemed to reassure him, and I turned to my task, wishing there were some way to help him let down his guard and pour out whatever was troubling him. As something of an outsider, I might offer a less concerned, listening presence, should he ever be able to accept it.
Now, however, the suitcases waited for me and reluctantly I raised the lid of the larger one. Shirts and slacks and jackets had been carelessly folded after many hands must have examined them. They hadn’t been repacked with the slightly foppish care David gave to his possessions. I lifted out one familiar garment after another, shook them out, examined the pockets and placed them on the table beside me. In a strange sense what I was doing seemed an invasion of David’s privacy. As though I had no right to touch these things that had belonged to him.
As he watched me, Chris seemed to be tightening up again. The same fierce tension was rising in him that I’d seen before—clearly evident in his expressive young face. I guessed that he was still thinking of David’s death and its possible connection with his father.
I spoke to him gently. “Sometime I wish you’d tell me what is worrying you, Chris. Maybe if we could talk about it, it would help to clear things up. Whatever it is you’re thinking, you may be wrong. There may not be anything to worry about.”
He shook his head, his eyes fixed in unhappy fascination upon David’s clothing as I unpacked the case.
“What will you do with all that stuff?” he asked at last.
“Your Aunt Nona will know of some charity it can be given to. I just want to go through it first, in case—”
In case what? What could I hope to find among David’s possessions that the police hadn’t already noted and dismissed? Certainly nothing in this first suitcase. I lifted out the last pair of slacks, and felt through the side pockets of the case, where handkerchiefs and other small articles had been packed. There was nothing of interest, and I turned my attention to the second bag.
It was smaller than the first and it contained underwear, shoes and ties, toilet articles, his zippered shaving kit. I opened the leather case and took out an electric razor and a few other small objects, my reluctance growing. These things seemed even more personally a part of David than his clothes had been. Objects that he had handled every day. Among them was something small and lumpy wrapped in a wad of white paper that crackled open in my fingers.
“What’s that?” Chris asked.
What I held in my hand was some sort of small metal figure. A seated figure—perhaps a Buddha, though I wasn’t sure because the metal had been blackened and twisted beyond clear recognition. Chris reached out to take it from my hand and turned it about in his own slim fingers.
“You can still see the face,” Chris said. “It’s sitting in a sort of lotus position—like a Chinese god.”
“I think that’s what it is,” I agreed and took it back from him.
Once more there was soot on my fingers, though the smell of fire had long been dissipated from the metal. This wasn’t like a chunk of wood that would smell of char until it crumbled to ashes.
“Why would he have it in his shaving case?” Chris asked.
“I don’t know. Perhaps for safekeeping. David had a weird sort of collection at home—souvenirs from some of the fires he worked on.”
“A collection of what?”
“Oh—rather sad things, I always thought. A burned book, a baby’s shoe, a broken china doll—things that had been only partly destroyed. He must have had a dozen or more objects that he’d picked out of ruins after a fire—things nobody would want. This could be something he meant to add to that collection.”
“Down here? But there wouldn’t be any furnishings or ornaments in the houses at Belle Isle.”
“You’re probably right. I remember there was a bad fire in an Oriental import house in New York a few months before David came to Tennessee. It was a store that carried all sorts of really fine objects from the Orient.”
“Was it an arson fire?”
I tried to think back. “No, I don’t believe so. I remember David talking about it because a great many expensive articles were lost and the fire cost the insurance company a lot of money.”
“Uncle David said that sometimes owners burned down their stores so as to collect the insurance.”
“That’s true. But he said there wasn’t any evidence of arson in this case. He was called in pretty quickly when it happened.”
“Anyway,” Chris said, “that thing doesn’t look like what would come out of an expensive store, does it?”
I had to agree. The figure wasn’t even brass, or it would have come through fire in better condition. It seemed more like one of the cheap tourist items that I’d sometimes seen in Chinatown.
“I wonder what the police here made of this?” I said. “Perhaps they didn’t take everything out of his shaving kit.”
Chris prodded the figure with one finger. “I’ll bet it does mean something. Uncle David could have brought it with him from home, couldn’t he?”
“I haven’t any idea.”
I put the oddly incongruous little figure back in the case without rewrapping it, and set the open kit aside as I continued my inventory.
When I was nearly through Chris spoke again, hesitantly. “I really didn’t go up on the roof last night and drop anything through your skylight, Karen.”
“Of course you didn’t. I’ve already said that you were sleeping. You couldn’t possibly have been up there.”
“I know. I—I’m glad you stood up for me. My mother’s been mixed up some lately.”
His eyes beseeched me to understand. Even though he was angry with her at times, Chris, like his father, seemed to be ruled by a need to protect Lori from her own follies.
&nb
sp; “The trouble is,” he went on, “I did go up on that roof once when you first came. I—I just wanted to scare you that time.”
“I remember. I thought something moved up there, but I wasn’t sure. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.”
“Mother knew I was there and she scolded me. So maybe that’s why she thought it was me up there again. But I don’t feel like scaring you anymore.”
“I’m glad of that, Chris. Thank you for telling me.”
Once more he gave me his rare, beautiful smile and for the instant of its appearance he ceased to look fiercely determined beyond his years.
“Are you really going away right after the funeral?” he asked. “Mom says your reservations will be for day after tomorrow.”
So Lori was carrying out her promise and urging me on my way. Nor had I an excuse to remain any longer. My naïve conviction that I could learn what no one else had about David’s death had gradually weakened. Too much had happened that was beyond my poor efforts. I must get back to New York quickly and begin to make a new life for myself. I had meant to do that even before David had left, so now I would merely continue what I’d already intended.
Or was that only another futile hope? It was easy enough to tell myself that I had only to go back to the way things were, as though nothing had happened. But everything had happened—everything. And my life was already changed. There were two men in it now—father and son.
“Don’t go away,” Chris said.
I came out of my inner searching and looked at him in surprise. He was no longer smiling, and he stood beside me, tall and thin and once more fiercely intent. His eyes seemed huge in his small face and they never wavered as he returned my own questioning look.
“But, Chris—” I spoke gently, feeling the tug of his appeal, hating to disappoint him, torn because I knew I must.
“Don’t go away,” he repeated.
I managed to smile. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Chris. But I don’t belong here now, and—”
“There’s nobody else who can help me. There’s nobody else I can tell.”
Suddenly the room seemed very quiet. What I might want, what I feared, ceased to matter at that moment. Only Chris’s heed was important, and I knew I mustn’t fail him.
“Tell me what it is, Chris. I’ll help you if I can.”
Perhaps he would have spoken, but we heard a clatter of someone coming down the basement stairs, and the moment was lost as Lori burst into the room. In her arms she carried the big white cat, Commodore, and she came to stand beside the table where David’s possessions were spread.
Clearly her mood had changed again. She flicked a quick, nervous glance over the articles I had unpacked. “I’m glad you’re getting things wound up, Karen. What are you going to do with David’s clothes?”
“Give them away, I suppose,” I said. “Can someone here handle that for me?”
“Yes, of course.” She held the cat out to Chris. “Take him, will you please—he’s getting heavy. The wound is healing just fine and I’ll return him to Belle Isle as soon as I can. Will you carry him upstairs, Chris? I don’t think he likes it down here.”
The big cat gazed at us with his one blue and one yellow eye, the black pirate patch giving him an arrogant look as he squirmed indignantly in Lori’s arms. Chris threw me a quick glance that carried a plea, and I nodded reassurance before he went off, the cat on his shoulder. He knew Lori was getting rid of him, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“Commodore can’t stand it away from Belle Isle,” Lori said idly. She glanced again at the articles of clothing I had spread out on the table. “David always wore good clothes, didn’t he? Of course we’ll find some place to send them. Hey—look at this!”
She pounced and drew the lump of metal that might have been a Buddha from David’s open shaving case.
“Do you know what it is?” I asked.
“I remember he showed it to me once. He got to laughing over it for some reason as though it had a connection with something funny. And yet when I think about it, I don’t know that it was an amused laugh. It was more as though he wanted to get even with somebody.”
“Did he say where it came from?”
“No. Just that it reminded him of something that made him laugh.” Lori dropped the charred figure back in its nest. “Are you ready to leave day after tomorrow, Karen?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “There are a few more things I’d like to do while I’m here.”
“Then let me help so you can get them out of the way,” she offered sweetly.
I shook my head. I’d had a taste of her help before, and I wanted none of it. The important thing at the moment was to find Chris and persuade him to talk to me. That, at least, must be done before I took any plane to New York.
“Did Nona tell you she’s planning a little dinner for tomorrow night after the funeral?” Lori asked.
“A dinner?”
“Yes. She said there’d been enough of gloom and we ought to cheer you up before you leave. There’ll just be the Catons and us. And we’ll dress up for a change.”
I could only regard her in astonishment. Did Lori Andrews possess the slightest depth of feeling about anything? She lived in this house as though her affair with David had been inconsequential to anyone else, and David’s death—after her first tears and depression—hardly more than an inconvenience. She seemed unaware of Trevor’s tight control over his own feelings, or of his protection of her—as he must always have protected her.
“I shouldn’t think this was the time for a party,” I told her. “I shouldn’t think Trevor—”
“Oh, he’ll hate it, of course. But that’s part of why Nona wants to do it. He needs people in to talk to. Then he’ll have to come out of his office and stop looking like a large thunderstorm about to break.”
“If you don’t mind,” I said, “I’ll stay in my room tomorrow night. I won’t feel like seeing people and trying to keep up a cheerful conversation. Not after everything that’s happened. Don’t you feel the horror, Lori? When you took me down to that burned-out house you were feeling it. Don’t you remember?”
“I don’t want to remember,” she said. “I want to be free of all that. I wish I didn’t ever have to feel anything awful again. Here—I have something for you.”
She reached into her jacket pocket and took out a yellow packet. “I picked up your pictures this morning,” she said, tossing the envelope on the table. She was angry now, and in a whirl of furious movement she hurried out of the room. I had clearly touched some chord in her—even if it was to move her to no more than annoyance with me. Did her seeming frivolity hide something else? I wondered—something more disturbing and dangerous?
Now I too hurried, finishing my task in the storeroom, returning everything to the two bags, except for the blackened figure of the little Buddha. I would show that to Trevor. As I picked it up, the wad of paper I’d discarded as wrapping for the figure crumpled open in my fingers, and words written in ink on one sheet caught my eye. I spread it open.
This was not written by the same semi-illiterate hand that had scrawled the note I had found in Cecily’s room at the octagonal house, but this too was unaddressed and unsigned.
Here’s a present for you. Just a reminder. So you won’t get absent-minded. $40,000 will be okay for now. Joe’s in touch with us. Don’t forget that. If you try anything funny he has his orders. So you better get on the ball.
The storeroom was all too quiet and empty and the note in my hand seemed to shout its threat. Here, perhaps, was the answer to David’s death.
I ran upstairs looking for Trevor, and found him in his office. He saw my face and drew me into a chair, closing the door. I handed him the battered figure and the crumpled wrapping as I’d found them, with the writing displayed.
“The police must have missed this in David’s shaving case. The paper was wrapped around this lump of something taken from a fire. Not a fire down here, I t
hink. I only discovered the note by chance.”
He sat at his desk, reading the words, and when he looked up his expression was grim. “Do you know anything about this, Karen? I mean what might lie behind it?”
“I know that lately David was deeply in debt. But he would never explain why. Oh, Trevor—no matter what he did, he was good at his job. He was respected all around the country. He was an expert.”
“Maybe he was too much of an expert. I can also remember, Karen, that he never hesitated to cheat when he found himself on the losing end. David couldn’t bear to be beaten at any sort of game. Only it looks now as though this is one game that he lost. I’m sorry, Karen, but this will have to be turned over to the sheriff right away. He may want to talk to you again.”
“If David knew Joe Bruen—? Trevor, it may only mean that he’d found the arsonist. Not that he was working with him in any way.”
“I don’t know.” Trevor sounded grave and not very hopeful. “This puts a whole new light on what has happened. Anyway, I’ll have something else now for the police. I had a phone call from David’s company in New York today and they’ve found fingerprints on that note you discovered. Bruen’s prints. He’s been arrested for arson in the past and there was even suspicion in some killing that was never proved. He has served a term in prison. It looks as though he may have carried out orders from whoever’s been giving them.”
“But then why would he stay here? Why would he take the risk of starting another fire?”
“Maybe someone’s been paying him very well for the fires, as David may have discovered, or suspected. My brother could even have been playing both sides of the game, Karen. I’ll have to get going on this right away.”
I felt stunned, bewildered, and Trevor stopped beside me on his way to the door. When his hand touched my shoulder I looked up at him.
“Would you feel any better if you came with me now?”
I shook my head. “No—I’d rather not. You can tell me later what develops.”
His hand touched my cheek for an instant and then he was gone from the room. I rose listlessly and walked through the glass doors that opened on the deck. No one was there and I sat down in a chair, looking out toward Belle Isle. How peaceful the lake looked in morning sunlight. Trees hid most of the new houses, but I could glimpse the tower of Vinnie Fromberg’s octagonal house poking up through foliage, and on the island’s small hill a portion of the open-air theater could be seen. All was calm and the view told me nothing.
The Glass Flame Page 16
