Rose-colored Glasses

by Downing, John

  “We didn’t.”

  “You fought?”

  “Not once.”

  “What, then?”

  “We were scarcely aware of each other’s existence.”

  “Did he mistreat you?”

  “Except once and indirectly, no. My brother is a superior being, superior to you and superior to me‌—‌so he thinks. I think most acts of cruelty are done by inferior people, or people who think they’re inferior, to bring others down to their level. My brother didn’t even know I was alive. If he steam-rolled over me now and then, which he did on occasion, it was because I was in his way, standing between him and something he wanted, and in his eagerness to seize the thing he didn’t even see me, no more than you see the blade of grass you tread under your shoe when you walk across a lawn.”

  “And that didn’t hurt, to be trod on, even accidentally?”

  “Does the blade of grass feel it when you step on it?”

  “Explain about the ‘once and indirectly.’”

  “This happened about four or five months before I packed up and left. Things started going missing around the old homestead. Suspicion fell on Yours Truly, although I was never formally accused.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Objects small enough to fit in the pocket of the person who took them. Pieces of Mrs. DeBrough’s jewelry. Little‌—‌I don’t know what you call them‌—‌objets d’art: jade figurines, that sort of thing; items that could be sold for a few dollars pocket money.”

  “A servant?”

  “No, not a servant. Who are we talking about? My brother took them, or so I suspect. Mrs. DeBrough suspected me.”

  “You said you were never formerly accused.”

  “That’s right.”

  “How do you know she suspected you?”

  “The servants were asked if they had ever seen me in or around her room.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “One of the servants told me.”

  “You must have been on good terms with the staff.”

  “Better than with Mother DeBrough and son.”

  “How did it all come out?”

  “Around this time something happened that couldn’t be pinned on me. My brother took out one of the local society belles, a sweet young thing from one of the Best Families on the Island. In the course of the evening, he got her drunk, drunk enough that she passed out. And while she was unconscious… Well, let’s put it this way: when she fell asleep she was a virgin, and when she woke up again, her cherry was gone. Who took it? Well, since I wasn’t there, I couldn’t be blamed. And so my brother blamed the girl. The girl, as everyone knew, had lost her cherry years ago, had given it away without so much as a scruple. And as for the idea that he would… hell, he wouldn’t touch such a slut with a barge pole.” Burden shook his head. “It wasn’t a very convincing defense. The girl, from what I heard, truly was a sweet young thing, practically a nun. My brother’s accusations were way over the top. Evidently they backfired, causing Mother DeBrough to start asking herself what kind of son she had raised and wondering if he also had within him the capacity to steal from her. All she had to do was think for a minute to see that between my brother and me by far the more likely suspect was her own dearly beloved son. If I had stolen her things and sold them, unless I had hidden the money under the floorboards or given it away to the Little Sisters of the Poor, what had I done with it? Which of the two of us was out on the town every night spending money like there was no tomorrow? While my brother was on an allowance, no allowance would be large enough to pay for his tastes. Anyway,” Burden said, “around this time something happened to persuade Mrs. DeBrough that she should be ashamed of herself for ever having doubted her son.

  “Mrs. DeBrough had this cat. Now I don’t like cats anyway, but even if you like cats you would have hated this one. It was like a ball of white fluff on four legs, one of those inbred things you usually see only at cat shows. But next to her son, that bloody animal was the closest thing to Mrs. DeBrough’s heart. Anyway, one day somebody doused the cat with gasoline and set it on fire.”

  “Who?”

  “Who do you think? If the butler did it, then the whole story is beside the point. My brother did it.”

  “Why would he do it?”

  “Because the truth was beginning to get too large for even Mrs. DeBrough to ignore. Somehow her suspicion had to be deflected from him.”

  Langley didn’t get it. “How does killing the cat help your brother?”

  “Because whoever did the cat was truly sick, and Mrs. DeBrough could no more face that possibility regarding her son than she could her own mortality. And so I became her favorite suspect once more.”

  “Did she accuse you at last?”

  “She never accused me of anything.”

  “Why not, do you think?”

  “I think she was afraid if she did that, I would knock the glasses right off her nose. Remember the rose-colored glasses I told you about. Mrs. DeBrough wore the thickest pair of anybody I ever met.

  “There was another reason. I took some countermeasures of my own. I stole‌—‌wrong word‌—‌I moved two pieces of Mrs. DeBrough’s jewelry. One I put on top of my brother’s socks so that the next time he reached for a fresh pair he was bound to find it. The other I hid behind one of the light switches, sort of keeping it in reserve. It’s probably still there, unless some painter found it and kept it.”

  “What did that accomplish?”

  “It let my brother know that I was on to him. The next time something happened that made me look guilty, the missing piece of jewelry was going to turn up in his scrambled eggs. And he knew it.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “Of course not. During this whole time neither of us said a word to the other about what was going on. It was never referred to, not even obliquely.”

  “Did Mrs. DeBrough ever wise up to her son?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why didn’t you, before you left, knock the glasses off her nose, as a parting shot?”

  “I’m not sure you can knock off someone else’s glasses. I mixed my metaphors before. I can pile the truth in front of you, but I can’t make you see it. You have to take off your own glasses and look.”

  They had come to the point Langley had been dreading. He said, “That’s what I want you to do, Burden: I want you to take off your glasses and tell me what you see.”

  “I told you what happens to anyone who takes off the glasses.”

  “We’re going to have to take that chance. If we don’t come up with a plausible defense, you’re going to be convicted and executed for Laurel Rose’s murder. Now, you’ve been sitting around your cell for the past month with nothing to do but wonder why Luray killed Laurel. Don’t tell me you haven’t considered the question.”

  “I have,” Burden admitted. “But I haven’t figured it out. I have a feeling I could ponder it for another month or another year or maybe forever and still not figure it out. A piece of the puzzle has been withheld. Unless I get a look at that piece, I haven’t a hope of figuring this out.”

  “Can’t you make a few educated guesses?”

  “It would be like trying to guess how many jelly beans you have in a jar at your house. Bring the jar in and show it to me, and I might be able to figure out the math and take an educated guess. But unless I see the jar…” Burden spread his hands.

  “For a long time you insisted there was a connection between Laurel Rose and Luray.”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Because I told you he’s queer?”

  “Because I can’t make it fit nohow. I can twist it and turn it and bend it and squeeze it, and it still doesn’t fit. At the very heart of all this is the question: Why did Luray frame me for Laurel’s murder? Initially, the only reason I could think of that made sense was that he wanted to deflect suspicion from himself. Why? Because
, without a scapegoat, suspicion would fall on him. Why? Because he knew Laurel and because they’d had some kind of public falling out, one that the police would quickly tumble on to. On reflection, that scenario didn’t make any sense. If there was a connection between Laurel Rose and Luray, logically the last thing he’d want would be to draw me, or anybody associated with him, into it, for fear that suspicion must inevitably reflect back on him. If he knew Laurel and killed her after some kind of falling out, he’d have dumped her body someplace, leaving it to the police to dig out the connection, if they could.”

  “Well, if there’s no connection between Laurel Rose and Luray, then how did he come to meet her and kill her in the park?”

  “Somebody paid him to do it.”

  Burden made the statement as if it were gospel.

  “Who?” Langley asked.

  “Only one person. Still, I can’t make it fit.”

  “Who are we talking about?”

  “My brother.”

  “Your brother! Your brother hired me, remember?”

  “Yes. Why do you think he did that?”

  “He was trying to help you.”

  “Think again. My brother has never helped anyone in his life.”

  “I’m sure there’s a certain amount of self-interest involved,” Langley admitted. “He wants the family’s name protected.”

  “He has the D.A. to do that.”

  Langley was surprised at Burden’s sophistication. “Why do you think he hired me?”

  “Partly for the reason you say. Partly to keep an eye on me, through you.”

  “I told you I would respect your confidence, and I have. Why would your brother want Laurel Rose killed? What makes you think they even knew each other?”

  “If Laurel had one lover,” Burden said, “she had two. And if she had two, she had twenty. Fool that I am, that’s only beginning to sink in now. With his tom-catting habits and her penchant for dropping her panties at the slightest whim, what are the odds they met somewhere along the line? And if not from my brother, how did Laurel find out about me?”

  “You think she learned about you through your brother?”

  “Didn’t I just say so?”

  Had Burden made an educated guess regarding Laurel’s liaison with DeBrough? Or had Laurel told him about it?

  “I’m sorry, but I just can’t imagine him mentioning your name to her.”

  “I can’t, either. He’d probably forgotten altogether that I existed. But it was through her association with him that she was put on to me.”

  “Are you saying she married you to get back at your brother for something he did?”

  “No. That doesn’t make any sense. I’m looking for a logical reason for what’s happened, because that’s my only hope. If there’s a demented reason behind all this, I’m beaten. Laurel had a reason for marrying me. And my brother had a reason for wanting her dead.”

  “Well,” Langley said, “as long as you have your glasses off, let’s play with some possibilities. What if your brother wanted to break off with Laurel but she wouldn’t let him go?”

  “My brother decided when his affairs were over. There’s no such thing as refusing to let him go.”

  “What if Laurel wanted to break it off and your brother didn’t want to let her go?”

  “My brother has had a thousand women. One more or less isn’t going to matter.”

  “Maybe for the first time in his life he fell in love.” The look on Burden’s face stopped Langley from adding, “The way you fell in love with Laurel Rose.” Instead, he said, “Suppose it was your brother’s child she was carrying.”

  “Look, I’ve thought of every one of these things.”

  “What about the idea that she was carrying his child?”

  Burden shook his head. “I can’t make it fit. In that case, what would Laurel have done? She’d have had an abortion and sent my brother the bill.”

  “The fact is, she didn’t have an abortion. Would she have tried to blackmail your brother?”

  “I can’t see Laurel operating like that.”

  “Just for argument’s sake, let’s say she did try to blackmail your brother.”

  “Okay, let’s say she did. What would my brother have done? He’d have ignored her. She wouldn’t be the first girl he’s knocked up.”

  “Maybe she’s the first one he’s knocked up since his aspirations for public office have clarified. Even a hint of scandal might be too much.” Langley reflected on the fact that the press still had not connected DeBrough’s name to this affair.

  “In that case he would have offered to pay her off.”

  “And what would Laurel have done?”

  “She’d have taken the money.” Burden was thoughtful. “I suppose she could have priced her demands too high for my brother to meet them.”

  “Is that possible? I mean, as far as what he could afford, the sky’s the limit.”

  “It will be now that Mrs. DeBrough is dead. But a month ago‌—‌a week ago‌—‌my brother’s wealth was more potential than real. Mrs. DeBrough ran DeBrough Enterprises; she held the purse strings to the family fortune. As a young man, my brother was kept on an allowance‌—‌a generous allowance, to be sure, enough to keep him knee deep in wine and women‌—‌but not as much as you might think. My guess is, he was kept on an allowance right up to the end. So is it possible that, naively, Laurel priced herself too high, leaving my brother with no choice but to kill her?” Burden shook his head. “I can’t see it. In the first place, Laurel would have taken what she could get and moved on. In the second place, if she had dug in her heels, I would expect my brother to tell her to do her worst, certainly as an alternative to killing her. In the third place, if in fact he did kill her why try to pin it on me? In the fourth place, all of this depends on my brother hiring Luray to do the killing. And that’s where it falls apart: How would my brother and Luray have known each other? Where would they have met?”

  “In college,” Langley said.

  Burden pinned him with his eyes. “Are we still speculating?”

  “We all went to college together. Your brother, Charles Luray and myself. We were freshmen at Columbia in 1938. It’s where I met your brother.”

  “So you knew Luray all along.”

  “I did not. I never met him until I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago. Your brother claims he didn’t know him, either.”

  Burden was silent.

  “Burden?”

  “I was thinking. That means my brother knows everyone involved in the case: the victim, the witness (me) and the killer (Luray).”

  “We’ve been playing what-if, Burden,” Langley said. “We have no proof that Luray and your brother ever met each other.”

  “Find it,” Burden said.

  “Suppose I did, what would it prove?”

  “It would prove that my brother lied to you when he said he didn’t know Luray.”

  It wouldn’t be the first lie he’s told, Langley thought. He was amazed at the transformation he’d undergone. He had come here half prepared to tell Burden that he was quitting because he’d had enough of his tall stories, and now here he was about to set out to investigate the tallest one yet.

  “Before you go,” Burden said, “I have a question. Suppose someone’s in jail for something he didn’t do and he commits a crime while there. Is he responsible for that crime?”

  “Is this a hypothetical question?” Langley asked. When Burden didn’t respond, he said, “A person’s responsible for any crime he commits, whether he commits it in jail or on the street or in church.”

  “But if he weren’t in jail in the first place, he couldn’t commit the crime.”

  “You mean like breaking out of jail? You can’t break out of jail unless you’re in jail in the first place, and if you’re there falsely‌—‌”

  “I’m not talking about breaking out of jail,” Burden said.

  “W
hat kind of crime are we talking about?”

  “Murder.”

  “Murder is murder, wherever it takes place,” Langley said. “Who are you thinking of killing?”

  Burden didn’t deny it. “A couple of the guards,” he said.

  A couple of the guards. Not one guard, but two. And the way he’d said it: he might have been speaking about plucking two leaves off a branch. Just when Langley had begun to half believe he might be innocent, Burden starts talking about killing people.

  “Is there any particular reason you’re thinking of killing these guys?”

  “They’ve been abusing me.”

  “In what way?”

  “Physically. They’ve hit me with their clubs where it doesn’t show.”

  “Show me.”

  Burden shook his head. “Skip it.”

  “Show me,” Langley said.

  “You don’t believe me,” Burden said.

  “You’re going to have to show the prison officials.”

  “I want to handle this myself.”

  “If you’re innocent of Laurel’s murder, you’ll let the prison officials handle it. If you’re guilty, why then take care of these two guys yourself: they can only fry you once, Burden.”

  Burden stood up. Langley was convinced he was going to turn and walk away. Instead, he lifted his shirt, revealing a stomach the color of an evil rainbow: yellow and black and purple and blue.

  “They also worked me over around the groin. You want to see that too?”

  “What are these fuckers’ names?”

  “What are you going to do, report them?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Langley said. “Unless you want to take care of them yourself and fry for it.”

  Burden gave him the names.

  CHAPTER 12

  After he left Burden Langley returned to his office. It was Friday, December 21. Like most people, he intended to take Monday off. At noon he sent his secretary home with instructions to have the best Christmas ever. Before leaving the office himself, he placed a call to Wickersham.

  “Harry, I want you to look for a link between DeBrough and Luray, a link that postdates the time they spent together at Columbia.”

  “I’d just be wasting my time and your money,” Wickersham said. “O, we don’t know that they spent time together at Columbia.”