Family Vault

by Charlotte MacLeod

  This particular photograph was one of Sarah’s favorites. It showed a single branch of a gnarled pear tree just coming into blossom against the wall of the Secret Garden. Alexander and his mother had laid the bricks to an intricate pattern of their own devising back when Aunt Caroline could still see well enough for such projects. They’d done a beautiful job, using some delightful, smallish bricks of an unusual orangey-red color they’d unearthed in a deserted brickyard up along the Maine coast and carted back home to Massachusetts in a wood-paneled Ford beachwagon they used to have. Aunt Caroline had told the story many times. There couldn’t be another wall exactly like this anywhere.

  There had been one, though, this morning. Sarah tried to tell herself she was seeing things, but how could she be mistaken? She’d stared at that wall long enough. She still had that one leftover brick in her big shoulder bag upstairs, along with the sketch she’d made while they were waiting for the man to come back with the pickax to tear it down. She’d been so careful to draw in every single brick to exact proportion. Now what was she going to do?

  Make Alexander his milk toast and keep her mouth shut. Nobody was ever going to know except herself. Cousin Dolph wasn’t likely to notice. He’d been too resentful of the wall, too eager to get it down, to pay any attention to the way it was laid. Thank God there’d been nothing left but rubble when the photographers arrived.

  But what if by some freak Dolph did remember? He’d be here tomorrow; what if he should come wandering out here, catch sight of the photograph and notice the similarity? Dolph was obtuse enough to go whooping back to the drawing room with his discovery, not stopping to think of the consequence.

  Then Sarah would just have to lie and say he was wrong. If had came to worse, she could fudge up a copy of the sketch with the details altered. As to the brick, she’d claim to have dropped it into somebody’s trash can along the way. She wished to God she had!

  She might take down the photograph and hide it, but Edith would notice the gap and raise a great hue and cry. The safest course was to leave it alone and pray. With her heart in her shoes, Sarah went to make milk toast.

  5

  “ALEXANDER, I’M NOT GOING to the funeral.” The way she felt this morning, it might have been her own funeral Sarah was talking about. What little sleep she’d got had been filled with nightmares, bones dancing in gowns of rotted satin, skulls that grinned and twinkled, Alexander doing things she’d rather not try to remember. He looked more dead than alive right now. She felt a qualm to be sending him off without her, but she couldn’t cope, and that was that.

  Her husband looked up from the boiled egg he was decapitating for his mother with the deftness that characterized all his hand movements. “Are you sure you don’t want to? Uncle Fred was always fond of you.”

  “I don’t believe he cared two hoots for me or anybody else, except perhaps you and Dolph, but that’s beside the point. The thing is,” she stirred her coffee with one of the old coin-silver spoons, trying to choose the right words, “Dolph says everybody will want to come here after the service. That means cleaning and food and sherry and so forth, and we’ve nothing ready.”

  “Dolph is taking rather a lot on himself, isn’t he?”

  “Putting a lot on us, you mean. I know, but they’d come anyway because we’re the nearest except for Uncle Jem, and you can imagine the sort of welcome they’d get from him. It’s because of the last-minute change from Mount Auburn, otherwise Aunt Appie would get stuck as usual, I suppose. Last night I was so rattled that I never gave the funeral a thought, and of course we had to gallop off to the Lackridges’.”

  There, she’d done it and she hadn’t meant to. He thought she was holding a grudge.

  “I know, Sarah. I was wrong, and I apologize.”

  “What are you two talking about?” demanded his mother.

  Alexander had to explain about the upcoming reception, and that led to a good deal of futile discussion.

  “I don’t see why Edith can’t do it,” was Aunt Caroline’s contribution.

  “Neither do I,” Sarah replied crossly, “but you know perfectly well she won’t raise a hand unless somebody stands over her with a blacksnake whip.”

  “Sarah, that’s hardly fair, is it?” said her husband.

  “Not to me it isn’t.”

  She pushed back her chair and began gathering up the breakfast dishes. “Why you’ve let her pull the wool over your eyes all these years is beyond me, and don’t start about loyalty because I don’t want to hear it. Make my apologies to anybody who asks for me at the church and tell them I’ll see them here about half-past two. I’ll need some money for shopping.”

  Alexander looked up at her haggardly. “How much?”

  “Twenty dollars ought to do it. A gallon of sherry will be adequate, won’t it?”

  “I suppose so.”

  He dragged out his wallet as though the effort were almost too much for him, and handed her two tens. “Are you sure you can manage?”

  “I always do, don’t I?”

  He looked so woebegone that she felt ashamed of herself for giving way to her feelings. She went around the table and dropped a kiss on the hair that was turning so quietly and unobtrusively to gray.

  “Thank you, darling. We’ll both feel better when this is over.”

  “Oh, Sarah!”

  Most uncharacteristically, her husband swung around in his chair, pulled her close, and buried his face in her cardigan. Edith, with perfect timing, poked her head through the swinging door and whined, “Want me to clear now?”

  “Yes,” snapped Sarah. “Then get down every sherry glass in the house and rinse them out. Bring them into the drawing room after you’ve cleaned and dusted. Try to hit more than the high spots for a change.”

  Alexander, now bolt upright and slightly pink in the face, found it necessary to add, “There’s been a last-minute change of plans. The family will be coming here for tea after the funeral.“

  “Oh?” sniffed the old retainer. “I was sort of hoping to go myself. I’d known him so long.”

  “I’m sorry, Edith, but I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Miss Sarah needs you to help get ready, so please do as she says.”

  He stood up and held the chair for his mother. “Does Dolph still expect Mother and me to go out to Chestnut Hill and be with the family this morning?”

  “Yes, and the earlier you get started the better.” Sarah replied. “Cousin Mabel and heaven knows who else will be there. If you’re not around to keep them away from each other’s throats, nobody will be speaking to anybody by the time they get here, and it will be plain, unmitigated hell. You know what Dolph’s like when it comes to tact.”

  “I do,” sighed her husband. “Perhaps you’re wise to keep out of it. I’ll never forgive myself for letting you get stuck with him yesterday.”

  “Darling, what is there to forgive? You couldn’t know what was going to happen, and Dolph did make up for dragging me over there by standing me a marvelous lunch at the Copley afterward, which I forgot to tell you about. Now get cracking before your mother throws a conniption. Can’t you see she’s champing at the bit for a good old family knock-down-and-drag-out? Have a lovely time.”

  “The occasion is hardly conducive to revelry.”

  “Bah, humbug. You adore being head of the clan.”

  She gave him another kiss and pushed him lightly toward the door. Dear Alexander! Blessed were the peacemakers for they, God willing, would see peace somewhere this side of the grave. She wished she could get her mind off graves and off that wall so damnably identical to the wall that only Alexander would know how to build. She wished desperately that her husband had not been looking and acting so stricken ever since he heard about Ruby Redd. Was it possible, was it even thinkable that a man so gentle, a man so dedicated to keeping up the dignity of the Kellings could beat a striptease dancer’s brains out, then wall up her body in his own family vault?

  How did she know what was possible in thi
s world? When had she ever been given a chance to find out? The irritation she’d been fighting down returned full force. Sarah grabbed up her coat, shouted to Edith that she was going down to Charles Street, and slammed the door.

  Grocery shopping with Alexander was a process of deliberation, comparison, and anxious consideration as to whether Brand X was in truth a wiser choice than Brand Y. For Sarah it was a matter of finding what she wanted and getting out of the store. She’d make a lot of cheese puffs, she decided. They were cheap and filling and looked impressive. Also, they had to be served hot from the oven, which would give her an excuse to dodge the relatives and spend most of her time in the kitchen.

  She bought a large sandwich loaf of the least squashy kind, a pound of cheese—half swiss and half cheddar—a quart of milk and a dozen eggs along with fresh vegetables and a few other oddments. By now, Sarah had catered enough committee meetings and political teas for Aunt Caroline and Leila to be clever about making a show of bounty at small expense. When she paid for her groceries, she had almost ten dollars left. She needn’t buy the cheapest sherry after all. A gallon would have to suffice, it was all she could possibly carry.

  Laden with her purchases, she climbed back up the hill and let herself in at the basement door. From above came the whine of a thirty-year-old Hoover. Edith was at least going through the motions.

  They didn’t use the huge old downstairs kitchen any more. Around the time it became impossible to get immigrant housemaids for five dollars a month and their keep, a small room at the back of the first floor had been fitted up with a gas stove, sink, and a few cupboards. Sarah took her bundles there, set the jug of wine on the counter and the perishables in the high-domed fridge, and stood hesitating.

  What next? There really wasn’t a great deal to do, except wash the breakfast dishes so she’d have the sink clear to prepare her vegetables. She dumped everything into the dishpan, squirted detergent, ran water. Five minutes later the sink was empty and the drainer full. Edith would have taken upward of an hour, moaning the while about being overworked.

  Sarah washed and separated a cauliflower with equal speed, got carrot and celery sticks ready, and set them to crisp in cold salt water. Then she pulled a sheet off the memo pad she always left notes on so that Edith couldn’t claim nobody had told her to do whatever she’d left undone, and printed in large, clear capitals, “Doing errands. Will be back in time to finish fixing refreshments. Edith, set out tea tray and all cups along with wine glasses.”

  She didn’t have to add, “Make sure the silver is polished.” The old retainer could be counted on to do those things that would best impress the company. Edith adored having people gush, “However do you keep everything shining and still do so much for our dear Callie?”—as if Sarah and Alexander sat around on their hands all day and didn’t hire a kind lady to come in once a week and do all the chores Edith ought to but wouldn’t do. Tomorrow was Mariposa’s day, thank goodness. They’d leave the cleaning up to her. Sarah had more urgent business on hand.

  The trouble was, she didn’t know where to start, though she had to do something. It seemed rotten to go snooping behind her husband’s back, yet one could hardly march up to him and ask point-blank, “Did you murder Ruby Redd?”

  What she’d do when she found out was another question, one that could be answered later. Not to know would be worse than anything else. While the life she now led with Alexander was one long frustration, at least she loved and trusted him as she always had. How could she go on trusting, with this hanging between them, and what would she do if she ever lost faith in Alexander Kelling?

  Harry might know something, but it was useless to expect he’d betray his best friend to the young wife he didn’t like much anyway. Her best and perhaps her only hope was that rather sweet old man who’d tended bar for the college boys and thought Ruby Redd was a mean woman.

  How could she find him? Today was even more inclement than yesterday, so it wasn’t likely he’d be hanging about the cemetery again. Nevertheless, she walked over. He wasn’t there but a policeman was stationed at the locked gate to keep out spectators who were still coming to gawk at the place where the bizarre find had been made. Great-uncle Frederick’s funeral would get on the news tonight, perhaps, and wouldn’t the Kelling clan love that!

  One of the sightseers evidently recognized Sarah from the previous newscast, and started to say something to her. She turned up her collar and walked away, fuming. If that pest hadn’t butted in, she might have described her old man to the policeman and found out if he’d been around again.

  Now, there was a thought. Perhaps some of the older policemen who’d been stationed around Scollay Square when it still existed might remember who tended bar for Danny Rate. It wouldn’t hurt to go and ask. Better still, why not try Uncle Jem? Jeremy Kelling had been haunting Boston’s hot spots for upward of seventy years, or claimed he had. If she went over to Pinckney Street right now, she’d catch the retired rake at breakfast, no doubt with his vintage wind-up gramophone blaring bawdy songs of the twenties.

  She went, and she did. Jeremy Kelling was eating sausages and bellowing at his long-suffering houseman, Egbert. Egbert was delighted to see Miss Sarah, the elderly bachelor less so.

  “Look here, young woman, if you’ve come trying to drag me to Fred’s funeral—”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it, Uncle Jem. You two always did hate each other’s guts.”

  “Hunh. Nice talk from a young lady, I don’t think.”

  Sarah sat down at the table without being invited and helped herself to a piece of toast. Her own father was one of the few Kellings who’d been able to stay on speaking terms with Jeremy, and she’d been in and out of this flat all her life.

  “At least he’s going to be in lively company,” she remarked. “What do you think of this Ruby Redd thing?”

  Jeremy Kelling told her what he thought in sulphurous detail. Sarah sipped Egbert’s coffee, which was pure nectar compared to Edith’s, and waited until he’d run out of swear words. Then she said, “Really? I took it for granted you’d put her there yourself, although of course I didn’t say so to the police.”

  Her uncle took the sally as a compliment, as she’d known he would, and regaled her with several too-familiar anecdotes. Finally, she managed to get in the question she’d come to ask.

  “By the way, here’s a little nugget the reporters didn’t get hold of. There was an old man in the cemetery with me while I was waiting for Dolph. We got to talking—I get my bad habit of picking up odd characters from you, you know—and by the maddest coincidence he turned out to have been the bartender in a place Ruby Redd used to frequent, called Danny Rate’s Pub. Would you happen to know him?”

  “Ah, sweet memory! Many’s the libation I’ve lifted to the buxom beauties of the burleycue over that sudsy oaken timber. Gad, the nights I spent in Danny Rate’s Pub! I could tell you stories—”

  Sarah knew better than to let him get started again. “All I want is for you to tell me that bartender’s name,” she interrupted firmly. “He was actually the first one to identify the body, though Dolph hogged the credit, and he was such a dear to me, lending me money for the telephone which I forgot to give back. He simply faded out of the picture before I had a chance even to thank him. I thought I’d like to return his dime and write a little note of appreciation. He was so—oh, old and seedy-looking and probably living in some poky room—”

  “At the taxpayers’ expense,” snorted Uncle Jem, who had never done a tap of honest work in his life. “What did he look like?”

  “Short and thinnish, and I’d say he may have been fair-haired when he was younger. He had pale blue eyes, I know, unusually pale, with something odd about them.”

  “One eyelid drooped, and the other didn’t?”

  “Yes, that was it!”

  “Funny sort of crack in his voice?”

  “Yes, I thought it was just old age.”

  “No, he always talked that way. Well, well! I
magine his turning up like that. I remember one night—”

  “Never mind,” Sarah broke in relentlessly. She couldn’t spend the whole morning here. “What’s his name? You must remember that, you never forget anything.”

  “Wait, don’t rush me. Let me think. It was a funny sort of name. Not peculiar, amusing. We had a standing joke around the bar. ‘Oh, gee, Tim,’ we’d say. That was it, Tim O’Ghee, with an h. Some corruption of Magee, I daresay, unless his mother made it up, which is not without the realm of possibility. Speaking of names—”

  “Edith will be calling me names,” said his niece, “if I don’t get back and do Edith’s work for her. The hordes are descending on us after the funeral. Sorry you won’t be among them, but I shouldn’t be, either, if I didn’t have to. It’ll only be sherry and cheese, anyway. Thanks for the lovely coffee and the help. I’ll drop over in a day or so and tell you all the nasty things Cousin Mabel says about you.”

  She kissed him good-bye. She’d never minded kissing Uncle Jem because he was plump instead of craggy like the rest of the uncles, didn’t have whiskers, and smelled pleasantly of Bay Rum. Besides, he’d given her what she came for.

  Now that she knew Timothy O’Ghee’s name, she must surely be able to track him down. Sarah hastened over to the pay phones on the Common, found a phone book that hadn’t yet been vandalized, and hunted among the Os. No O’Ghee was listed, which didn’t surprise her. That would be too easy.

  The voting lists would be a likelier place to find him. Sarah knew all about voting lists, she’d plowed through enough of them addressing postcards in the interests of one or another of Aunt Caroline’s causes. She was at City Hall within five minutes.

  Behind its ultra-modern façade, the new City Hall had taken on much the same homey atmosphere as the old. A friendly clerk, who must have been somebody’s favorite aunt, was delighted to leave her typewriter and assist in the search. They found one lone O’Ghee on the list, at an address which was more or less where Sarah had thought it might be. She copied down the information, thanked the clerk profusely, and made a beeline for the subway.