Who Killed Mr. Garland's Mistress?

by Forrest, Richard;

The plate glass window of The Pen and Pencil Cocktail Lounge reflected the passing traffic. She paused to look at her image and straightened the hemline of her dress. The tight hair and little make-up made her look younger than she was, she thought. Her arms were a little too thin, but the waist nip of the dress did show off her small waist and her legs were long and nice.

  She couldn’t go through with it.

  It had been hard enough to come this far, but to actually step into the lounge and talk to a strange man about her suspicions filled her with dread. Her dread was alleviated by a workman, wearing a hard-hat and brogans, who held the door open for her with a mock bow.

  Although only a block from the Hartford Register, the bar hardly had a literary atmosphere. Most of the men hunched over the bar wore tee shirts and grasped large mugs of beer. One man, in a dirty sport shirt, hunched in a corner, and, as she watched, downed two shots of liquor in quick succession while gulping beer frantically.

  The barmaid was a woman of indeterminate age, long black hair, and large red lips. She leaned intimately across the bar as one of the customers whispered in her ear, and then turned away with a raucous laugh.

  “Man,” the barmaid laughed, “the day you have twelve inches is the day I take you on.”

  Several of the men chuckled. “Hey, Laura, how about my three inches four times?” another customer yelled.

  “Fuck off, buster,” Laura retorted.

  Will Haversham was playing liar’s poker at the end of the bar. His hair hung over his collar and his rumpled sports coat and slacks might have been expensive when purchased five years ago. His face was deeply lined for a man of thirty-four. She stood silently behind him for a moment as he squinted intently at a dollar bill in the palm of his hand.

  “Eight nines,” Will said.

  “I call,” the man next to him said.

  “Screw it,” retorted Will. He handed the other man the dollar bill and turned to appraise Tavie.

  “Mr. Haversham?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m Octavia Garland. Oliver Bentley called you about me.”

  “He didn’t tell me how attractive you were, baby. That’s just like Oliver to forget the best part … unless it rhymes. Then, he’s probably over the hill. Do you think Oliver can cut the mustard? How about Eulogy for an Emeritus, or subtitled, my teach don’t tingle no more.”

  “Oliver said you could provide me with some information.”

  “Do you know, you’re the first chick I’ve seen wearing white gloves in the summertime since I had my hernia operation?”

  “I suppose they are a little passé. If you’re busy …”

  “Nope. I looked at the morgue stuff and reread my own crap. I remember her. We’ll grab a booth, whatcha drinking?”

  “I’d like a pink lady, please.”

  “Are you kidding? Laura thinks a pink lady is a high-priced madam. Have a beer.”

  “A beer would be fine.”

  They sat in a far booth which slightly reduced the din of the bar’s babble. Will carried two steins of beer, salted his, and slid hers across the table. She caught the mug before it spilled.

  “Thank you,” Tavie said.

  “Why thank me? I’m treating you like a cheap broad.”

  “I’m afraid I’m a little out of training for this, sort of thing.”

  “I seriously doubt you ever were in training for this sort of thing.”

  “If I’m imposing, Mr. Haversham … I didn’t mean this to be an ordeal for you.”

  “No ordeal. The bimbos here will think I’ve finally lucked out. I’ve got the time. What do you want to know?”

  “About Helen Fraser. What sort of person is she? What is she capable of, some insight into her personality? I thought that since you covered the trial and interviewed her you might have some sort of insight into her.”

  “Old Helen. Oh, I remember her well. One in a million, and if the truth be known, my favorite murderess. What happened to her?”

  “She was working for Connecticut Casualty, but the other day she just disappeared.”

  “Well, she probably wouldn’t be hard to find, but I don’t know why anyone would want to. Connecticut Casualty, good Christ! I can’t imagine Helen Fraser working in that cemetery. I’ll bet she had them on their ears. What’s your interest in her?”

  “I’m doing some research on female murderers.”

  “Oh, Christ. Not that.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “In the first place you’re probably the least qualified individual to perform such a task since Clara Barton. Octavia Garland, West Hartford girl poetess. Good Lord, Reflections on Autumn. I think you write the same fucking poem every year and just change the meter.”

  She stood up. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Haversham.”

  He grasped her wrist. “Hold it, Miss Octavia. Did you go to Miss Porter’s?”

  “No. Winston Academy.”

  “That’s just as bad. Sit down. Come on, sit down, I’ve already paid for the beers.”

  She sat reluctantly. “I didn’t come here for lessons in insult. If my research is ludicrous to you, we shan’t waste each other’s time.”

  His voice softened. “I understand you’re a good friend of Oliver’s, but if you want my information, be honest with me. I hate phonies. Christ, do I hate phonies.”

  “I am not a phony.”

  “That crap about research. Lady, if that’s the real reason, you’re wasting time. You want to find out about Helen Fraser? Well, Hon, you have to climb into the sewer of a human soul. Murderers kill people, do away with them for real. It’s not like movies or plays. Afterwards the victims do not stand up and take a bow. They’re dead. That’s D-E-A-D.”

  “I’m not as naïve as I appear.”

  “Go back to your poems. Write something revolutionary like ‘Reflections on Spring.’”

  “My poems were burned in a fire set by Helen Fraser, Mr. Haversham.”

  Will leaned back in the booth, ordered another beer, and appraised her silently. When he finally spoke his voice had changed. “Well. Mrs. Garland Perhaps we’re a little closer to the truth. Would you mind explaining?”

  “You don’t think I’m writing a book?”

  “Not at all, Miss Reflections.”

  She took her notes from her handbag and handed them across the table. “I think this might explain.”

  He glanced through them quickly, and then aligned them neatly at the edge of the table. Donning a pair of reading glasses he went through the material again, this time slowly and carefully. Finished, he put his glasses back in his jacket and leaned back.

  “You’re the type of researcher I could occasionally use myself,” he said. “Except you’ve left out something important.”

  “Is she capable of doing those things?”

  “I still want to know what you left out?”

  The humiliation of revealing Rob’s affair and the desire to have this man take her seriously fought within her. “My husband had an affair with her.”

  “That explains it.”

  “Would Helen Fraser do those things to me?”

  “The answer to could she is yes. She’s perfectly capable of carrying out a crazy plan like that. Would she? That I don’t know.”

  “What about her brother?”

  “A few of us wondered about that at the time. We knew she was bitter as hell, but she had an ironclad alibi. The day her brother disappeared she wasn’t even in the state.”

  “The pattern’s the same. Airline hopping, a rented boat. Did anyone check?”

  “Without real suspicion there would have been no reason in checking further than proving she actually was on a trip to California. I learned a long time ago that the police have a problem with the gap between what’s possible and what they can issue a warrant for. Hell, all kinds of things are possible.”

  “Mr. Haversham … what kind of person is she?”

  He made a pattern of concentric rings on the tab
le with the wet bottom of the beer mug. “Alas, poor Helen, I knew her well … and didn’t know her. I don’t think anyone ever knew her. Her mother sat through the trial with a completely bewildered look. Maybe that’s why the case fascinated me. On the outside, she’s a voluptuous and attractive woman, always assured and self-contained. After the brother testified and the defense made a plea on the basis of crime of passion, a lot of us laughed. Hell, she never expected to get caught. The court believed it, or said they did.

  “You know, I almost fell in love with her—until she began to frighten me.

  “She has a quality that I could never get into my articles. A certain aura around her that’s … perhaps it’s more of a missing ingredient than a quality.”

  “Now what do I do?”

  “Have another drink with a shot on the side. You need all the solace you can get.”

  During the next three hours Will Haversham proceeded to get very drunk. There was a direct connection between his alcoholic intake and the rise of a bitter bile. His initial conversation concerning the facts of Helen’s case, most of which Tavie already knew, disintegrated into a scathing denunciation of judges, city editors, cab drivers and his first wife.

  She gathered that he’d been divorced from his wife for several years, and that there was a constant battle over visitation rights with his little girl. “She calls me a sewer rat,” he said. “She’s right. I’ve been down in the sewers with creeps so long that I’m one of them. The whole goddamn world’s a sewer, Miss Reflections. It ain’t like you try and say it is, the whole surface is covered with slime, the only difference is that some are bigger turds than others. You’re a lulu, Octavia, let’s go to bed.”

  “Only on leap years.”

  “I’ll let Helen Fraser get you.”

  “Will, you’re drunk.”

  “A state I try and constantly maintain. Besides, it’s now cocktail hour.”

  “How can you tell, you’ve been drinking all afternoon.”

  “One increases one’s velocity during cocktail hour. Are you any good in the hay?”

  “I thought you wanted to help me, not make love to me.”

  “I’ll think of something. Meanwhile, I think better satiated.”

  When she stood up he grabbed her hand and tried to kiss her, but turning away she only received an alcoholic buss on the cheek. “Goodnight, Mr. Haversham.”

  “Call me Will, Hon.”

  The next morning the phone rang while she was still getting the children off to day camp. She answered hesitantly. “Yes?”

  “Good morning, Hon. Will here.”

  “I didn’t expect you to regain consciousness for three days.”

  “I’m in training. Are you still interested in Helen Fraser?”

  “Yes.”

  “Meet me at The Pen and Pencil at noon.”

  He hung up before she had a chance to reply. She stood holding the phone as Rob entered the kitchen.

  “Was that your buddy?” Rob asked.

  “Yes. He seems to think he knows how to find Helen.”

  Rob walked over and poured a cup of coffee. “Why don’t you drop it?”

  “Good-by, Mom.” The children raced out the door and up the street. She fixed her own coffee and sat across the table from Rob. His face was a mixture of sleep and pout.

  “He’s the only one who believes me,” she said.

  “He’s also a drunken sot. You were in pretty crummy condition when you came in last night.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “I know that, Tavie. God only knows, I trust you. But this whole situation is getting out of hand.”

  “I have to find her.”

  “And then what?”

  “I’m not quite sure.”

  He looked across the breakfast table with concern. “I have a better plan even for so early in the morning. Let’s go away for a week. Make arrangements for the children to go to your mother’s. You realize how long it’s been since we’ve been away together?”

  “Three years.”

  “If you’re still worried when we return, we’ll take protective steps. I don’t believe they’re necessary, but if you feel better.”

  “What sort of steps?”

  “A burglar alarm system. A home smoke-sensing device, floods outside, a hell of a big dog.”

  “I don’t expect to be attacked by the 82nd Airborne. A car accident in a supermarket parking lot would be more her style.”

  “Your mother can come here for a visit. Look at the logic of that—if what you think is true, she’ll certainly get discouraged in a month or two.”

  “Let me pursue it in my own way for a few days.”

  “No vacation?”

  “Give me a week to work with Will.”

  He stood up impatiently. “I’ve got to go to work. One week. No more.”

  She looked at her watch as she pulled into the small parking lot behind The Pen and Pencil—it was exactly noon. She had considered her dress of yesterday gauche and now wore a more appropriate, bright summer pant-suit.

  A bevy of tee-shirted construction workers surrounded her as she entered the bar. One held the door for her with a, “Hey, Honey. Buy you a beer?”

  She didn’t answer and spotted Will on his stool at the end of the bar. He waved and motioned her toward a booth. As Tavie sat down, Laura the barmaid came over with a pitcher of cocktails.

  “Jesus,” Laura said. “When Will ordered pink ladies I thought they was whores.”

  Will’s hand trembled as he poured and tasted the cocktail. “Excellent, Laura. No doubt, an old family recipe.”

  “No doubt you just told me how to make them.”

  “No doubt you’ll make us another batch.”

  Laura went back behind the bar as Will poured a second drink and freshened hers. “I’m not used to drinking during the day,” she said.

  “Good. Get a better effect. And don’t worry about your reputation, you’re safe in here. I told everyone I was doing a series on high-priced call girls.”

  “Hey, thanks.”

  “They believed it and that’s a compliment. Not every girl can pass for a high-priced whore.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “I’m not completely reprobate. Got a little information here somewhere.” He searched through his pockets and put several scraps of paper on the table. “In the meanwhile you can consider an appropriate method of repayment. Here they are.” He pulled glossy photographs from his jacket pocket and handed them across the table.

  Three Helen Frasers stared unseeingly at Tavie. She had a montage of feelings about the woman in the photographs. A murderer, her husband’s mistress, her adversary—an attractive blonde her own age that she’d expect to see at a Junior League dance.

  “Not bad, huh?” Will said.

  “She’s rather pretty.”

  “Photos don’t do justice to her bod. No wonder your husband was jumping her.”

  “It’s hard to believe she’s a killer.”

  “The State had a damn good murder-one case against her, but felt the jury might feel the same as you, that’s the only reason they took her lesser plea. It’s probably why your husband doesn’t believe you.”

  “And yet you do.”

  “I’ve been a sewer dweller too long. A lily in the rubble does not a garden make. There’s more, look at these.” He shoved the cramped notes toward her.

  Tavie looked at long lists of numbers with an occasional scrawl next to one. “What’s this?”

  “A drinking buddy at the phone company dug them up for me. Those are all the long distance phone calls Helen made from her apartment during the last three months.”

  “This could be my proof,” she said with excitement.

  “’Fraid not. She may have botched the murder of her husband, but she’s not a stupid person—there are no calls to any marinas in Maine. The airline reservations would be local calls and there’s no way to trace those.”

  “It
doesn’t prove anything,” she said with disappointment.

  “There’s a pattern. Here’s a number that appears every week for a whole three months.” Will handed her a slip with a phone number and a scrawled name.

  “Which Murphy?” she said.

  “Her mother. That’s a Springfield, Massachusetts exchange. The address is on the other side. I can’t imagine Helen filled with filial respect, so it must be because of the kid.”

  “That’s right, they had a child.”

  “The mother took the kid when Helen went to prison, and must still have it. Since most of those calls occur on Tuesdays, it’s possible Helen goes up there around the middle of each week to see the kid.”

  “We’ll go up there.”

  “Right, Hon.”

  “When do we go?”

  “Soon as we finish this batch of ladies.”

  “What about your job?”

  He laughed. “I’ve talked the editor into a new series. A follow-up on paroled prisoners, it ought to be sociologically very significant. You don’t think I’d dumb enough to tell anyone about your crazy theory?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  What was she doing driving to Springfield with a half-drunk who had his hand on her thigh? Patterns. My God, what had happened to the patterns of her days? Only a week ago on the island she looked forward to half the summer. Now, the speed of her life was quickening in an uncontrollable manner.

  Her foot increased its pressure on the accelerator and with a tug of the wheel she passed a car in front of her. Will looked at her sharply as the abrupt movement slanted him sideways on the seat. He quietly sulked against the far door.

  “Do you know where this place is?” she asked him.

  “Yeah. I used to work in Springfield.”

  “Aren’t you the moody one.”

  “Not if I get my own way.”

  “Do you usually?”

  “No, that’s why I’m usually moody.”

  Tavie followed Will’s directions into the outskirts of Springfield. He directed her through a labyrinth of depressing back streets. The neighborhoods deteriorated more the further they went until they reached an area of three-family, wood-and-frame homes, almost all of which were in dire need of paint.

  “Slow down,” Will said. “I want to check the numbers.” He peered intently out the window. “Cheap bastards are too crummy to number their houses. Hold it. There’s 1001. It should be two blocks on the right.”