Murder and Blueberry Pie

by Frances

  “Doctor,” Shapiro said, “it’s all very tenuous. A vague sort of theory. We have to—chase wisps of vapor.”

  “Poetic type, aren’t you? In other words, none of my business? I’m supposed to give, not receive. Be accused of not knowing my job and—” He stopped, abruptly. “Don’t look so damn’ sad about it,” he told Shapiro.

  “I didn’t accuse you of anything,” Shapiro said, sadly.

  “The condition of the body,” Young said, “was entirely consonant with the time I’ve given you. She might have died twenty-five minutes before I saw the body.”

  “Then—” Shapiro said, and sighed.

  “Or,” Dr. Young said, “an hour and twenty-five minutes before I saw her, assuming Ella was lying. Conceivably—two hours before I saw her. She was wrapped up in a shawl, and had some sort of woolen dress under that. It was hot—even in that house it was hot. Seemed chilly after the outside, but that was dampness, as much as anything. Also, I didn’t take the body temperature. If it had been more than a couple of hours, I’d probably have noticed the cooling when I touched her. I had no reason to think Ella was lying. I still haven’t.”

  “As much as three hours?”

  “I doubt it. But—it’s possible. Individual variations— But, you’re a policeman. Don’t they teach you these things?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then—never mind. Only—she signed her will sometime around five-thirty. Quarter of six. I was there about half past. So she died around six. According to what Ella says. But—she was certainly alive at a quarter of or thereabouts. Don’t have to take Ella’s word for that. Man named Graham—lawyer—was there. And this young woman—don’t remember her name—widow of one of these pilots—”

  “Williams,” Shapiro said.

  “Whatever you say. Independent testimony. Town lawyer. This girl. Somebody else, wasn’t there? Aside from Ella?”

  “A boy who cuts grass,” Shapiro said. “And Mrs. Harbrook’s nephew, a man named Keating.”

  “What more do you want?”

  “Doctor, could Mrs. Montfort have been in a coma before her death?”

  “And signed her will in it? Medically—of course she could have been in a coma. As a matter of fact, I’d have expected it. Only, it’s pretty obvious she wasn’t.”

  “Because she signed the will?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Otherwise—leaving that out—how long in a coma?”

  “Hours. Even a couple of days. All I can tell you, nobody called me about it if she was. Or any of the other medical men in town.”

  “Would she go into a coma suddenly?”

  “Might. Not as if she’d been hit over the head, precisely. But- bright enough one minute. Pretty much in a coma a few minutes later. After that, in and out, probably. As time went on, more in than out.”

  Detective Shapiro nodded his head gloomily. He moved to stand up.

  “Not what you hoped for, from the way you look,” Young said.

  “From the way I—oh. I didn’t have any special hopes, doctor. Good of you to take the trouble.”

  “Without reward,” Dr. Young said, and stood behind his desk, as Shapiro—long and morose, sad-eyed—stood in front of it. “Curiosity left unsatisfied, for all my services.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Shapiro said, and sounded it. He turned and started out. He stopped and looked sadder than ever, and uncertain in addition.

  “No harm in telling you this,” he said. “The young woman who was killed. She was a small-time actress. Specialized, they say, in old women’s parts.”

  He went, with that. He went back the way he had come, and off Main Street, and up a hill, walking the shoulder of a winding blacktop, to the State Police barracks. He introduced himself to a uniformed sergeant, who said, “Yes. They gave us a ring” and then, “Anything we can do to help?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Shapiro said. “Not yet, anyway. Nothing much to go on. Yet.”

  After that, he used a telephone provided. He talked for some moments and listened for fewer and said, gloomily, “If you say so, Bill.” After that, he used the telephone again—reversing charges, as was only proper—and called a number in Brooklyn.

  “A nice dentist I should have married,” Rose Shapiro said, on hearing. “A nice grocery clerk even. Tomorrow, maybe?”

  “I hope so,” Detective Shapiro said, in a tone without hope.

  IX

  It was ridiculous to sit on her own terrace, with a glass of milk and asandwich on a table beside her, and to need, constantly, to resist an impulse to look over her shoulder—look quickly, furtively, making sure that someone, something, did not stealthily approach to harm her. That she did not, actually, take such quick glances to reassure herself was something. But it was not much. That she wanted to, had to fight not to—

  I’m not like this, Lois Williams told herself, and made the thought firm, forced it to be firm. I’m not a silly woman, given to morbid fears, shrinking from fears. “Little formless fears”—the phrase was suddenly vivid, troublesome. Then it was remembered; not her own certainly—oh yes, O’Neill’s. From—of course, from The Emperor Jones. Stage directions somewhere in the play—shapeless things creeping at the edge of a jungle. Like—was it “grubworms”? And with “little glittering eyes.” That she remembered. Involuntarily, she shivered.

  But—at the edge of a jungle, in darkness. And she sat on a sunny terrace on a sunny day, in an open place. A few miles away the sun lay warm on the main street of the most innocent, the most serene of villages. If she raised her voice—needed to raise her voice—Virginia Painter would hear her, or the Painter children would hear her. Distantly, she could hear the children now—they had a plastic wading pool this year, and the two children were splashing in it, screaming excitement in it. And their dog was yipping participation.

  At night in the city—that would be different; then one might well look anxiously behind, move faster on hearing footsteps. Had Grace Farthing, walking a dim street, passing dark doorways and moving a little more quickly in the dark between street lights, a little more slowly under the lights, not wanting to leave the light—had she heard, too late, a hurry of steps behind her and then felt hands against her throat and—

  Get hold of yourself, Lois told herself. The dark streets of New York are dangerous; such streets are dangerous in all great cities. A man after a purse—that was all it had been. Bad—brutally bad, since he had hurt to get the purse—but only one of the bad things that happen. Not Grace Farthing, as Grace Farthing. Any woman, carrying a purse along a poorly lighted street at night. A coincidence—another coincidence. Like the Purple Panthers—how flamboyant childishness persisted even when youth turned vicious!—and the cutting of tires. Like—of course, a coincidence. Not a warning. Not the ugly outcome of what they, of what she and Bob Oliver, had done a few hours before. Not an attempt to break off, discard, a link proved faulty.

  They—and who were “they”?—did not try to kill her because we blundered into something. Somebody wanted the money in her purse. Hold to that—hold firm to that. And do not look over your shoulder here, on the terrace. Do not feel, inwardly, shaken—nerves tingling, tightening in stomach, stiffening the cords in the back of the neck. If you can’t sit here and get hold of yourself then—then do something; something that will take your mind off it. Busy your hands to stop the fantasy in your mind. Occupational therapy—that’s what you need, my girl.

  I’ll make a pie, Lois Williams told herself. It—it used to work.

  (When a plane was overdue. When a plane circled a field with landing gear jammed. When— All long ago. She had not made a pie to keep hands occupied for many, many months. It had not mattered what hands did.)

  I’ll make a pie. A blueberry pie. And if the big oaf, the sap, ever shows up I’ll give him a piece of pie. Or the whole pie in his face. That’ll teach him to racket off by himself without—

  Making a pie has certain advantages as occupational therapy. Washi
ng stockings and the like, to which many women turn in minor emergencies, does not, admittedly, occupy the mind. Mending things, unless one has the flair—which Lois did not have—can result in the screaming meamies. Rearranging a closet has its usefulness, but can bring back memories. (The last time I wore that dress—I’d forgotten I still had that dress—the last time I wore that dress we went—and when we came home he said—and—and—)

  Making a pie occupies the hands and must be thought about, particularly if one has not made a pie for months. Flour and salt, and cut in the butter (Mother always used lard, in spite of what anyone said. Mother said there was no substitute for lard when you made a pie) with two knives. Granules the size of small peas. Now water, a little at a time; water sprinkled. (Mother always used ice water, but mine is cold enough from the deep well; cold even in August.) Until it can just be handled. As little flour on the board—since I can’t find the wax paper and must write “wax paper” on the list when my hands aren’t so floury—as little flour on the board as possible, and roll gently and I hope it comes up in one piece and—there! Now the berries and—

  It is very engrossing to make a pie. (From scratch; anything else is cheating, really.) There is no worry-room left in the mind. It does not, to be sure, take very long—perhaps not long enough. But while it lasts, there is no occupational therapy better than pie-making.

  She would, of course, get flour in her hair. Inevitably, she did, although it was not clear how. Certainly she did not touch her hair while making a pie. And she would get floury prints on the seat of her shorts. She always did that, too. There could be no contention, however, that she did not touch the seat of her shorts at some stage in the process. The evidence was irrefutable.

  Blueberries, sweetened; just a little flour; a teaspoon of butter and—a squeeze of lemon juice? Cultivated blueberries—yes, a squeeze of lemon juice. Now—the top crust—is it going to fit or will I have to patch? Will it br—there. Pinch the edges; hold it up and cut around it. (I dropped one once, in that other life and started to cry and he—) No! That was another life. Why, today, is it easier—a little easier—to think that, realize that? Be cause—of course because—a good many worrisome (but not, heaven knows, dull) things seem to be happening.

  Oven at four-twenty-five. Timer at ten minutes and then lower the heat a little for the fruit to cook and—there! Voilà! Pie! Now—

  “I told you,” he said, with anger—with explosive anger—“I told you to keep your door locked. What kind of half-wit are you?”

  He glared at her. He stood in the kitchen door.

  “Knocked,” he said. “Rang the bell. Your car was there in the port. Thought, ‘By God, she has managed to get that neck of hers in a sling.’ And found the terrace door standing open and—”

  “And walked in,” she said—call it “said.”

  “Just walked in. No invitation, no nothing. Walked in and—began yelling. The bell doesn’t ring.”

  “Have it fixed,” he shouted at her. “Is that too much to ask? You ought to be able to—” He stopped. He moved into the kitchen and glared down at her. “Also,” he said, “you’re all covered with flour. Been taking a flour bath? Not even savvy enough to put an apron on when you bake a cake and—”

  “Cake indeed,” she said. “What makes you say cake? A pie, you blundering ignoramus. You—you half-wit! A pie! Pie! Pie! Pie!”

  She could not remember ever having been so angry. Would not remember ever having been so angry. Because—

  “Nor she said. “No—don’t—I tell you—”

  He held her—he seemed to be trying to crush her. There had been no interval. He was feet away, yelling at her. He was holding her so tight she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t find the breath to go on saying “Don’t,” the breath to tell him to let her go and never—never—touch her again. His hand—how hard it was on her back between halter and shorts, how warm and strong and—and—

  Too strong. That was it. That was all it was. His hand pressed under her chin—lifting her chin—too strong to be resisted, the hand was …

  “You had me scared,” he said. “You had me scared as hell, girl.”

  The timing buzzer sounded loud. That was absurd. She had just set it—set it for ten minutes. Only that very moment, when he had stood in the doorway and begun to shout at her. She’d set it wrong. That was obvious. It couldn’t, conceivably, have been ten minutes.

  “I’ve—” Lois said, tried to say. “Let me say something.”

  He let her say something.

  “I’ve got to turn the oven down,” she said. “There’s no point in ruining the pie.”

  He let her go and she turned the oven down….

  “No,” she said. “Not now, anyway. Because—Bob—the girl we went to see. Grace Farthing. There was a piece in the Times about her being hurt and—”

  He was shaking his head slowly.

  “Dead, Lois,” he said. “Died of it. And the police—I saw them in New York—they’re not so sure it was merely—”

  She was still in shorts and a halter, and she had dusted off some of the flour, but not all of it. They sat on the sunny terrace of a bright house in a peaceful community and talked of conspiracy and, now, of murder. And of blueberry pie. And when he looked at her in a certain way, as he could not keep himself from doing, and did not try to keep himself from doing, she shook her head just perceptibly and once said, quite reasonably, “Don’t do that. You distract me.” It was all very much mixed up; all very incongruous.

  “Another small piece?” he said, gravely.

  “I didn’t put in too much lemon juice?”

  “Precisely the right amount of everything,” he said, and watched her cross the terrace into the house, toward the kitchen, after another small piece of blueberry pie. “Precisely,” he added, not aloud, and got up and stood in the doorway so that, at an angle, he could see into the kitchen. See that she was all right, that nobody hurt her. Of all the damn fool things to do! And to have felt anxiety, fear, so powerful that it constricted his throat when he found a door open—and to have expressed relief in anger, in shouting—and—

  What it comes to, Bob Oliver thought, quite reasonably, with some surprise, is, I’ve had it. Who wasn’t going to have it again ever.

  He went back and sat down again. She brought pie out. As he put the plate down on the iron table there was a small, clinking noise.

  A certain pattern of air waves forms and that is sound. It can, mechanically, be caught, made permanent. But if it is not caught, in the instant of vibration, it is nothing—a pattern forever ended, a fading memory of the impalpable.

  And a vanished sound, he thought, lifting a forkful of blueberry pie toward his lips, is the most tangible thing we’ve got. Otherwise—a woman named Banks here, a woman named Banks in New York. A slashed automobile tire, one slashed among many. A woman attacked for her purse, where that happens often. No sound from a telephone, when sound was to be expected. A smudge of dust on a terrace. A cigar butt in an apartment; a telephone call to an apartment. All quite ordinary things, proving nothing.

  “You’re not eating the pie,” Lois said. “Why was she wearing a wig, then?”

  It was as if, improbably, she had been occupying his mind, sharing his thoughts. Coincidence, of course—the kind of everyday coincidence which is, every day, accepted without cavil, without surprise.

  “She was an actress,” he said. “She had a new part and a new wig to go with it. The man was her agent. She said, ‘Let’s see how I look in it,’ and put it on and just at that moment I happened to ring the bell and—”

  He shrugged.

  “It’s wonderful pie,” he said, and ate pie.

  “The telephone call? The one she had before she went out?”

  “A friend called up to invite her to a party day after tomorrow. After she’d hung up, she found she was out of cigarettes and went out to buy some. She had two unopened packages in her handbag, incidentally. The police say she had.”


  There was an answer to everything. Except, now, to the way he looked at her—merely sat and looked at her. Across—there was no real appropriateness to anything—the remains of a piece of blueberry pie. There was also a certain blueness about his lips. And probably, Lois thought, about mine. Blueberry pie, while very good, is very staining. And I’ve still got flour on my shorts. Nothing is ready, nothing right—and I had not thought he would be so strong. I had not thought anything like this was going—

  (Then why did he—anger me so? What difference did it make, what difference enough to cause anger? To make me think, vulgarly, of pushing the pie in his face and—?)

  “Don’t,” she said, and wanted to stop with that, be firm with that. “Not now,” she said, and wanted to stop with that, and said, “Not yet.”

  He smiled. It was not the grin which he had, previously, alternated with a glare. It was merely a smile. A gentle smile.

  “The police,” she said. “The police in New York. They seemed to think there might be something in—in any of this?”

  It was a time to speak quickly, a time to change the subject.

  He accepted that, without protest but, she thought, also without commitment. If she wanted it a certain way she could have it that way. For now.

  “They listened,” he said. “Yes—I think they were interested. To a degree. I think they’re not entirely convinced it was merely a mugging. Because of the telephone call. The cigar butt in the apartment. This captain—seems to be more or less in charge there, and it’s Homicide—wasn’t specific. But—”

  “Isn’t it,” she said, “out of our hands, now? Not that it was ever in them. But if the police have been—know what we know.”

  “Let the air out of our hands?” he said. “Yes, I suppose so. They’re interested in what happened in town, of course. In who killed Grace. Not in—anything else there may be. But—”

  He let it hang there. Abstractedly, he finished his pie. He wiped his lips on a paper napkin and looked at it and wiped them again, harder.