Come to Dust

by Emma Lathen

  When Sally arrived under the clock in a crowd of college students, men meeting business associates, and married couples foregathering for an evening on the town, she did not seem on the edge of a breakdown. On the other hand, there was no denying that she lacked all-enveloping calm that characterized her in her home. She dropped her bag while Ralph was pushing in her chair. Then she fiddled nervously with her gloves as he gave their order. Ralph was not a sensitive man but he realized that this was due, in part, to the absence of her normal background. In Rye she was monarch of all she surveyed; here in a suit and hat she was a stranger to him and probably to herself. And no woman can play the role of wife and mother when meeting a casual male acquaintance for a drink. Not the least of Sally’s problems was a loss of familiarity with any other role.

  Ralph suppressed a smile. He was not as innocent as she was about the delinquencies so thrillingly portrayed in ladies’ magazines. Sally was decorously interviewing her insurance broker. But from the next take she might well look like a suburban matron debating whether to plunge into her first affair. Well, he knew how to deal with that.

  “Drink up Sally. It will do you good and you probably need it. This isn’t easy an easy time for you.” He restrained himself with an effort from patting her hand.

  To his surprise Sally downed half her glass in one gulp. “I needed that,” she said tightly. “I’ve been rushing around the city all day.”

  “And you’ve probably had trouble with the police to boot,” he said, carefully synching his talk with Consett. “They’ve got some crazy idea that Elliot was up at Dartmouth over Reunion weekend.”

  Even narrow vigilance could discern nothing but impatience in her response. “Oh, never mind that. Sometimes I think the police are insane,” she said dismissively. “Elliot didn’t spend a year planning to leave me in order to go to a college reunion.”

  The brittleness in her reference to her husband was new, but under the circumstances scarcely surprising.

  “I always said it was a lot of nonsense,” Ralph lied. He had been one of the first to pick up the rumor of Patterson’s presence. Now was not the time to say so.

  “Anyway that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about,” Sally said as she finished off her drink. “It is about Elliot’s insurance policies. I want to cash them in.”

  “All of them?”

  “That’s right. You said Elliot arranged it so I could,” Sally reminded him. “Just six weeks before he left.”

  Ralph did not need the reminder. Doubtfully he looked across the table. Sally’s hands were clenched into tight fists. She had wrought herself up to this announcement. But he was darned if he was going to let it go without a question. He decided to put his faith in the civilizing influence of the Biltmore.

  “Now Sally,” he started out gently, “you don’t want to make hasty decisions. If it is a question of reinvestment, you need some time to look around and see if you can do better. But if you are in a bind for cash there’s no need to think about converting. You can borrow on the policies, you know.”

  “Oh no. I’m afraid that wouldn’t do,” she replied with a return to her usual manner. Either the drink or getting the question out in the open had restored the gently certainty of Rye.

  Kindly she turned aside has advice as she had in Rye. Kindly she rebuffed his questions and refused another drink. With growing firmness she reinforced her point.

  She wanted the cash now.

  After she left Ralph stayed on, his mind a swirl of speculation. Over a second drink and then a third he reviewed the situation. Sally had put the house up for sale. Sally had spent hours with her broker. Sally was selling out all her insurance policies. Only a fool could miss the obvious. The Patterson assets were all being turned into cash. Then what?

  Thoughtfully he paddled his swizzle stick around his glass. One logical conclusion was that Sally had known Elliot’s whereabouts all the time. Now she was preparing to join him. Had her new brutality toward him be a camouflage? Was she trying to dispel suspicion that the Pattersons had been united all along?

  It sounded reasonable, but, in heaven’s name, why? There had never been anything to prevent the Pattersons’ packing their bags and taking off for Timbuktu together.

  Ralph groaned. Everything brought him back to the same starting point. The Patterson behavior could be explained so easily in terms of large-scale theft from Target. It virtually defied rational explanation on any other level. For a full five minutes Ralph actually considered the possibility of a mistake. Patterson was just the man to mess up a piece of major larceny. He had, after all, confused two folders at the Dartmouth Club, leaving a list of his bolt holes and taking SAT scores instead. Was it conceivable he could have done the same thing at Target? Leaving a million dollars he had planned to steal and taking some plan for a blood bank drive instead? No. Things like that just don’t happen. Also of course, he could have come back and tried again. People don’t disrupt their lives, turn their wives into accomplices, plan mysterious disappearances, and then casually mislay their ill-gotten gains.

  Ralph’s last drink brought thoughts even more unwelcome. Everybody had been sidetracked at the very beginning by that car accident in Putnam County. But after all what could be more reasonable that that Patterson had returned to Rye on the usual train, been picked up by Sally, and then disappeared? The world was now filled with people finding it reasonable that Patterson should have skipped after an undiluted 14 years of Sally.

  But look at it the other way. Patterson couldn’t have been any picnic either. And Ralph had just been amused at Sally’s resemblance to a woman in her first brush with adult passion. Was it so impossible? Now that he came to think of it, only the missing $50,000 bond had prevented the immediate emergence of this point of view. And, of course, the bond could be nicely explained as a mere accident of timing. But …

  There was always Sprague to be accounted for. The boy who noticed more than he should have. Ralph was still surprised about that. He could have sworn the kid was too wrapped up in narcissistic admiration to notice anything not pertaining to himself. Ralph shook his head. He was, he decided at last, not very good at predicting people’s behavior and really never had been. He needed help on this. But one way or the other he would have a last try at finding out what Sally was up to.

  “Ralph just called,” Lou Dunlop told her husband while taking his key out of the lock. “He tried your office but you had already left.”

  Dunlop was not enthusiastic. “What did he want?”

  “He’s worried about Sally. She’s selling everything she owns and he thinks she may be joining her husband somewhere.”

  “Well, why ask me about it? Why not ask Sally?”

  “He did. She won’t tell him anything.” Lou hesitated for a second then slid on smoothly. “I might be able to get something out of her, woman to woman. Oops, there’s the timer on the oven.”

  Dunlop followed his wife to the small kitchen and leaned against the door post as men are wont to do.

  “Never mind what Sally is likely to tell you. Listen, Lou. I don’t want you getting mixed up in this thing. It is bad enough that I’m in it up to my neck.”

  Lou made a great business of donning padded oven mittens and removing a casserole to the counter. She did not look directly at Jim. “I am already in it,” she reminded him.

  His mouth became a horizontal line. “You mean you’ve had to provide me with an alibi?” he concluded.

  “That, among other things,” she said shortly.

  “I don’t know why you couldn’t keep your mouth shut instead of blurting out that story about seeing Carter going upstairs.”

  “One of us had to do something. And I seemed to be elected.”

  “Not by me.”

  “Oh no, not you. You think it is undignified for me to meddle in murder. Let me tell you, I think it is more undignified to have my husband in jail.”

  “Anyone would think you saw me sink the knife into that kid,” J
im challenged bluntly.

  Finally Lou abandoned the casserole and let her eyes slide sideways toward her husband.

  “I saw Sprague go upstairs alive just before we got you to the car,” she said stubbornly. “That’s my story and as they say, I’m sticking to it.”

  “The perfect little helpmate,” Jim mocked. “You think should be falling all over myself with gratitude I suppose.”

  “Gratitude is the last thing I’d expect from you,” she flashed.

  Motionless they stared at each other, two clenched jaws, two white faces, and two pairs of blazing eyes.

  Jim saw a stranger on the other side of their round kitchen table. They were growing up, all right, he realized with a sudden sense of great loss. Unfortunately they seemed to be growing up in opposite directions.

  The hostile silence was broken by the sudden peal of the doorbell. They stood frozen; then as if on signal, they relaxed.

  Neither would have admitted it for a moment, but the interruption was most welcome. Not because disagreements were a rarity. Far from it. They were frequent, violent, and satisfying. But thus far their squabbles had been on the first grade level, in the warm cozy atmosphere of children allied against the outside world. This was an adult argument, introducing them to that disquieting abyss across which adults stare at each other, the abyss which can be bridged but never destroy the complete distance.

  One of the things that bridges the abysses of life between intimates is the introduction of an unsympathetic third party. The doorbell was that in this instance followed by Marsden, who topped it off.

  He had been born contemptuous of the little things attempting to combine domesticity, aesthetic individuality, and economy. His ideas on the subject called for pure elegance, top to bottom.

  Unconsciously Jim and Lou grew closer together in his presence.

  “Hello Neil,” said Jim.

  “I know I am interrupting your dinner,” Marsden apologized perfunctorily, “But I’ll only take a minute.”

  Jim nodded coolly. “That’s all right. We haven’t started yet.”

  Neil looked at him sharply. Jim, easily accepting the fact that the caller was an intrusion, making no apologies for a dinner that would not stretch, maintaining polite reserve until found out what his visitor wanted, was a far cry from the deferential youngster who had graced the deliberations of the Committee. It was Marsden’s bad luck to have come at a time when Dunlop had more important things to worry about than his effect on a Gary curator.

  “I’ve been thinking about Sprague’s murder,” Marsden said, living up to his promise of dispatch.

  “We all have,” said his host.

  “Yes but I mean I’ve been thinking not just complaining,” retorted Marsden with vivid memories of a recent conversation with Ralph.

  “Well?”

  “Nobody killed that boy for the fun of it. He knew something.”

  “I thought everyone agreed about that.”

  Lou intervened in an attempt to moderate her husband’s severity. “Nothing else makes sense.”

  “But everyone thinks it is something that happened during Sprague’s 10 minute talk with Patterson,” Marsden persisted. “But we know Patterson was carrying a suitcase with plans to go somewhere. Is it likely he wasted a lot of time? No. He probably listened to Sprague and left as soon as he decently could.”

  “Well, where does that take you,” Jim answered.

  “I think that Sprague picked up something that happened earlier, when all the boys were there,” Marsden emphasized the last point.

  “I suppose it is possible. But then why haven’t the boys spoken up?”

  “You remember those boys, don’t you?” None of them made a hit with Marsden. Even Sprague had not been quite as simpatico as he thought. “Do you imagine for one moment that any of them, with the exception of Sprague, was likely to see the significance of anything?”

  Dunlop refused to be put off by Marden’s waspishness reviewed the boys in his own mind. Hughes was putting in a solid 24 hour working day being a modern adolescent. He scarcely had time for anything else. Basically Younger was the same but being old-fashioned concentrated on football instead of consumer goods. And there was the son of the Maestro. He paused in his review and said, “Fursano?”

  It was possible on a theoretical basis Marsden admitted. But he had an objection.

  “He didn’t notice anything this time. He’s not the kind would sit on something.”

  “Dunlop was wary. “Then what do you want to do about it?”

  “I want to go and question these boys, on the assumption they haven’t recognized the importance of something they saw or heard.”

  “And you think you will get somewhere?”

  “I don’t know. But something’s got to be done. This can’t go on and on. I want you to come with me.”

  The rejection implicit in Dunlop’s entire posture now took the form of words.

  “Now wait a minute. What good would that do? One’s enough for the job.”

  “Take my word for it,” Marsden said grimly. “From now on it isn’t a very good idea for any of us to go near the boys alone. Mrs. Hughes would probably start screaming.”

  Dunlop was startled at the other man’s gravity. But then Marsden had been unlike himself ever since Sprague’s murder, and since before if Ralph could be believed.

  “You want both of us to tackle Fursano?” He was stalling for time here and knew it.

  “No. Younger. He is our best bet. He’s got a photographic mind, even if he never thinks about anything much.”

  Despite himself, Dunlop was tempted. It would be a relief to settle once and for all what the three remaining applicants might know. Not that he believed there was anything in all this.

  Sprague had taken with him whatever information he possessed, Dunlop thought.

  “You don’t think maybe you’ve got a bee in your bonnet about these boys?” Dunlop asked outloud.

  “Tell me one other lead,” Marsden retorted.

  “Well Neil, there is one other incident you may not know about. Ralph just called with a surprising story. Apparently Sally is up to something …”

  Chapter 20

  Seminar for Majors Only

  If Americans took marriage as seriously as plumbing, the US divorce rate would plummet. New husbands and wives could be apprenticed under masters. There are, after all, as many arts and skills required to build a good relationship or successful marriage as to unclog sewer pipes.

  For example, it would have done both the Dunlops a world of good to see Lucy in action. The officer who ordered his men to hold their fire until they saw the whites of the enemy’s eyes had nothing on Lucy. She was a great believer in getting the most bang for the buck from whatever ammo was available to her.

  A less experienced wife might have rushed home to crow about the fruits of her afternoon with Target. A less competent one might have seized the opportunity to urge her husband to never underestimate the power of a woman.

  Lucy did neither. She bided her time until the next morning when she again presented herself to Miss Corsa, who knew a pro when she saw one, as her assistant to find Father Martin. John, hurrying into his office to get as much done as possible before being submerged by the claims of Dartmouth and Patterson, accepted her presence with a grunt as he continued his assault on his overflowing In box. The unholy alliance between Miss Corsa and Lucy was enough to make his blood run cold without any further provocation. Since he knew provocation would be forth coming, he could wait for it.

  It came at 11:30 with George’s arrival, gently steaming. “You would think the New York police could take some interest in this murder,” he began.

  “You mean the murder of Sprague,” John asked cautiously.

  George exploded, “Of course I mean Sprague. Who else am I likely to be talking about?”

  John pointed out that George’s recent association with his alma mater had been one felony after another. A whole flock of murd
ers would not now be at all surprising. “And the last time we spoke with Todd,” John continued, “we were considering the possibility of the other boys being murdered. Either in a series or in one grand massacre.”

  “Nobody else has been murdered,” George growled, as if this simple fact was a personal affront. “But Todd just phoned with the latest news. The state police have been active. And guess what they have come up with? The Knightley place isn’t by the seaside or anything. It seems to be quite near Dartmouth.”

  His ace was immediately trumped. “27 miles away,” Lucy supplied sweetly.

  George wheeled in astonishment. “In the town of Saxe, New Hampshire. What’s more the Knightleys were up there for the weekend and Gabe says he joined them after he left Dartmouth.”

  “Gabe?” George was incredulous. “Are you sure?”

  John cut to the chase, “Lucy you hellion. What have you been up to?”

  Lucy with great satisfaction surveyed the debacle she had created. George was totally deflated. John could barely conceal his amusement with his severe tone. Rose Corsa in the background was really to supply an approving chorus. Sternly George put down the temptation to recriminate and instead asked, “Lucy, are you sure about Gabe?”

  “No. I’m not sure at all, George. I ran into Target at a charity function yesterday,” skating over details that would merely exacerbate her deflated husband, “and mentioned that the search for Baxter had led to friends in New Hampshire. Marian immediately spoke up and said that she and her husband routinely go up there and were at Saxe over your reunion weekend, together with a guest. Then she kept dancing around the subject, until finally Gabe said that he had been the guest. But he wasn’t happy about it at all. Really you might say she dragged it out of him or pulled the card so he would say he was the guest when in fact someone else was. I’m not sure.”

  “That’s all logical,” John interjected. “Gabe doesn’t want to be involved in a murder and has reasons to protect Marian if he felt she needed it. Why is Gabe’s presence such a body blow, George?