“No,” Florence Wainright said. “We’ll tell you when we do, boy.”
The waiter looked to Lyle to be in his late fifties. Mrs. Wainright drank from her glass, and drank quite a bit from it.
“You started to tell me something,” Florence Wainright said, and put her glass down on the table with a slight thump. “Something this policeman said.”
“I don’t—” Lyle said, and found that she did remember. “That whoever put this ad in the paper was a crackpot,” she said.
“Dear,” Florence Wainright said, “you didn’t tell this policeman about—about the advertisement somebody put in your paper? Because my husband says he asked you not to.”
“No,” Lyle said. “He asked me not to print anything about it. And I said I’d tell Mr. Wallis how he felt but that it was up to Mr. Wallis.”
With which she took a sip from her glass. It was a good martini. Harold made good drinks.
“Mr. Wainright said he told you it wouldn’t do any good to go to the police,” Florence said and shook her head and raised her glass again and drank again. “That there wasn’t anything the police could do about it.”
“Mr. Wallis thought we should,” Lyle said. “Because he feels the Citizen was used. But Inspector Heimrich agrees with your husband. Says there’s nothing he can do about it. Unless this —whoever this person was—does something else to hurt you and Mr. Wainright.”
“Spite,” Mrs. Wainright said. “It was just spite, honey. Why would anybody feel that way about us?”
“I don’t know.”
“On the anniversary of the dreadful accident,” Florence Wainright said and lifted her glass again. But this time she put it down without drinking from it. “To—to remind us of it. Why?”
Again Lyle Mercer said she did not know. And then she saw that there were tears in Florence Wainright’s rather large blue eyes.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Wainright,” Lyle said. “So terribly sorry.”
“She was so young,” Florence said. “So young and happy. With everything to look forward to. And to die like that. Like that.”
“Yes,” Lyle said. Then, a little to her own surprise, she reached across the table and put a slim brown hand on Mrs. Wainright’s chubby white one. She left it there a moment.
“You’re sweet,” Florence Wainright said. “You must be about the age she was—my child was. Boblee and I had only the one child, you know.”
The “Boblee” puzzled Lyle for an instant. Then she remembered that the father of the dead girl had been Robert Lee something. Of course, Robert Lee Gant. She said. “I didn’t know, Mrs. Wainright.”
“From the time she was a little girl,” Florence Wainright said, “she rode well. Very well. And whatever Paul thought, Alex was a good horse. Mettlesome, maybe, but not with Ginnie. I still can’t believe it. I still can’t.”
Lyle felt there must be something she could say—something that might offer a little comfort. She could not think what there was to say. That there are finalities, things which must be believed even if they are not accepted? That with time grief fades a little? But there was no point in saying that. Saying that would be an impertinence.
“It had begun to dim a little,” Florence said, almost as if Lyle had made the trite assurance about the healing power of time. “Then I read that—that advertisement about the wedding dress, and it all came back. Why would anybody want that?”
She finished her drink and looked around and held her glass up and beckoned with it. The waiter came. He said, “The same, ma’am?” and looked at Lyle’s glass, which was still almost full, and said, “Miss?” Lyle shook her head and the waiter went away with Florence Wainright’s glass.
“Mrs. Wainright,” Lyle said, “you’d seen the advertisement before I showed it to you this afternoon?”
“Thursday. I’d almost forgotten when you came to the house,” Florence Wainright said. “I was in the Center picking up some things and saw the paper and took it along, because Paul likes to read it. But he hadn’t got home yet and I read it. Even the want ads.” She shook her head slightly. “People do want to buy and sell the strangest things,” she said. “And we do need a gardener. I just happened to see this advertisement about the wedding dress and it—it brought things back. It—it was as if somebody had hit me.”
And again the blue eyes clouded a little with tears.
“Of course,” Florence Wainright said, “I didn’t know then it had anything to do with us. But—it’s being the same date and everything. And Ginnie having planned to marry this nice boy and—and everything.”
“Did you show it to your husband?” Lyle asked.
“No. I knew it would hurt him, too. He was so very fond of Ginnie. Almost as if she were his own daughter. Anyway, he didn’t get home for a long time. He has to go to the city almost every day, you know. And the—the reminder of that awful thing—brought on one of my headaches.”
The waiter returned with a filled glass and put it down in front of Florence Wainright. He looked again at Lyle’s glass, and again Lyle shook her head.
“It’s almost,” Florence said, “as if somebody was trying to hint that what happened to my girl wasn’t an accident. Do you see what I mean, dear?”
“There’s nothing in the ad to imply that,” Lyle said. “Mrs. Wainright, it’s bad enough for you without your imagining things.”
“That’s what Paul says,” Mrs. Wainright said. “That I’ve got to get ahold of myself. Of course he says that lots of times.” She drank from her refilled glass. “He’s so strong,” she said. “In such a lot of ways. You know, dear, before we were married he’d hardly ridden at all. And now he’s almost as good as anybody. Anybody, I mean, who hasn’t ridden since they were children. The way I did. And my little girl.”
And again her eyes filled with tears.
She wants to talk to somebody, Lyle thought. Wants something from somebody—some sympathy spoken, some reassurance. And I am too young to know the words, if there are any words.
“You’re a dear child,” Florence said. “And I do know I’m blubbering, honey. But all at once everything seemed so—so empty. With Paul having to go into the city to talk to this client. About a house he wants Paul to build for him. Your drink’ll get warm, child.”
Obediently, Lyle sipped from her glass. The martini wasn’t as cold as it had been. Lyle said, “Build a house?”
“Design,” Florence said. “I didn’t use the right word. Paul says I get things mixed up all the time. He’s an architect, you know, dear. And does things about planning things. But mostly people tell him about homes they want and he makes plans for them. He keeps too busy, dear. And he’s away so much. And he doesn’t really need to work so hard.”
She drank again, and emptied her glass. She was, Lyle thought briefly, going to bring on another headache. I’m flippant, she thought. But the old are so hard to understand. Even my own parents, who are dear people and sweet people, are hard to understand.
“Particularly,” Florence said, “the way things are now.”
The words jarred into Lyle’s thoughts. There, they didn’t mean anything. She said, “Now, Mrs. Wainright?”
“Florence, dear. It’s Florence. And you’re Lyle.”
“Florence,” Lyle said, again obedient. “I just meant I didn’t know what you meant. About the way things are now.”
“There’s so much money now,” Florence Wainright said. “There’s no reason for Paul to work so hard. Have to be away so much. Because my baby wouldn’t have been twenty-one for months. Waiter!”
The waiter said, “Yes, lady,” and looked at the glass which had held bourbon and water—not too much water. “The same again?”
“Of course,” Florence said. “Of course, waiter.”
The waiter looked at Lyle Mercer’s glass. Lyle shook her head again. It would have been better to go to the Petersons. Reggie didn’t paw the mind.
6
By a quarter of nine the three imported waiters and Ma
ry and Agnes, the local girls who served the Inn’s dining room during the quiet between weekends, were bringing checks instead of food, and tables were emptying. The waiters from the city were hovering, with the natural anxiety of waiters, while men added and took bills out of wallets. They were going out to consult Mrs. Oliphant about signatures of locals with charge accounts. They were taking credit cards away and bringing them back and hovering. Some people tip in cash, others write in the tips. There was always the outside chance that some mildly muddled diner might do both.
Near the table at which Florence Wainright drank and Lyle Mercer waited, the man whose uniform jacket bunched at the shoulders picked up menus and put them down again.
For half an hour, Florence had said nothing. She had merely sipped, more slowly, from her glass. Lyle was not certain how many times, by then, the glass had been taken away empty and brought back full. She had finished her own martini; several times she had again shaken her head when the waiter looked at her empty glass. The evening had stalled—in boredom and in embarrassment. Also, she was getting hungry. Also, the kitchen closed at nine.
Florence Wainright had her elbows on the table and the tips of her fingers pressed against her cheeks. She looked down at her glass. There was no indication that she any longer knew that Lyle Mercer sat across the table from her.
“Mrs. Wainright,” Lyle said and then, “Florence,” the last word more loudly.
For several seconds, Florence Wainright did not speak, nor did she change her position. Then she said, “What?”
“We’d better order,” Lyle said. “The kitchen closes pretty soon.”
“Order?” Florence said and then, “Oh, yes, order.” She finished what remained in her glass, and looked around. The waiter was very quick. Florence started to lift her empty glass once more, and Lyle said, “If we could have menus?” Florence looked at her glass and moved her head slowly from side to side.
The waiter put menus down on the table. He said, “I’m afraid we haven’t any more roast beef, ladies.”
As at many country inns, roast prime ribs were a specialty of Saturday evenings. They tended to be pre-empted by early diners. The waiter said, “Nice minute steaks, ladies? Broiled chicken? There’s channel sole and filet of sole with a white wine sauce and—”
Florence Wainright waved a slowly impatient hand at him and held her menu rather close to her eyes and read it. She said, “What is the soup of the day?”
“Cream of spinach.”
Florence shuddered, which Lyle found entirely reasonable. Florence said, “Chef’s salad.”
“Anything to start with? Oysters?”
“Chef’s salad,” Florence Wainright said. “And—”
Her plump white fingers touched her empty glass.
“A minute steak, rare,” Lyle said. “If it won’t take too long. I know the kitchen closes—is supposed to close—at nine.”
The waiter said, “Yes’m. Chef’s salad. Minute steak rare.”
He went off. A bus boy in a longish, whitish apron took place plates away and put napkins and silver on the table; he brought bread in a basket with a napkin over it and a small dish of butter squares on ice. He looked at the two empty glasses. He looked at Lyle.
“Please,” Lyle said. The bus boy said, “Yes, Miss Mercer,” and took away the glasses. Florence Wainright put her elbows back on the table and red-tipped fingers again against her cheeks.
Lyle pulled the napkin from “assorted breads.” She held the basket across the table. Florence looked at it thoughtfully and shook her head. She said, “I’m not one for bread, dear,” with something like reproach in her soft voice. And with a little blur in her voice. Lyle spread butter for herself. It bobbed on ice which was turning to water; it was evasive. She broke a roll which wasn’t warm, for all the shielding napkin, and put butter on it. The roll crackled between her teeth and its crackling sound seemed very loud. She thought all those left in the room would hear her chomping the crusty roll and would stare at her. She thought, They’ll think, the poor thing, her mother’s drunk. Or they would think, Who’s that city woman Lyle Mercer is getting drunk with? She thought, It was a mistake to order steak. Steak takes too long. I want to be some place else.
But the food did not take long. The waiter served chef’s salad from a wooden bowl. He put steak in front of Lyle and said, “Very hot plate, miss.” Lyle’s hunger, which had been overlaid, pressed down, by bored embarrassment, revived. The steak was good and almost rare, and the French fries which came with it—as, Lyle suspected, a token of the waiter’s sympathy—were crisp. Put your mind on food and the taste of food, Lyle told herself. She managed it.
Florence Wainright pushed salad back and forth on her plate. Now and then, rather uncertainly, she lifted a forkful of salad to her mouth. Not all of it got there; chef’s salad can be elusive food. After a time, but as Lyle was finishing her steak, Florence put her fork down on the plate and said, “Robert says I eat like a bird.” She looked reproachfully at the place her glass had been. She said, “I mean Paul says that. I keep forgetting things.”
Then she began to cry.
Lyle said meaningless words. She said, “There, dear. There, Mrs. Wainright.” She looked around the room. The waiter was not in sight. But then Agnes was in sight. Blessedly in sight. Lyle gestured, feeling the movement of her hand and arm jerky, awkward. Agnes came and said, “Yes, Miss Mercer?” and Lyle said, “Coffee, please, Agnes.” Agnes said, “Right away, Miss Mercer,” with no overt sympathy in her voice. She went toward the kitchen, walking more rapidly than she usually did. She came back with cups and a metal pot and poured coffee from pot to cups.
Florence looked at the steaming cup. She said, “I drink Sanka at nights, miss.”
“And if you’d get our check,” Lyle said to Agnes and Agnes said, “Right away, Miss Mercer.”
“Sanka,” Florence said. “I don’t sleep very well.”
“That’s Sanka,” Lyle said. “Just drink some of it, dear.”
“What you think is you think I’m drunk,” Florence Wainright said. “That’s what you think, dear.”
“Of course not,” Lyle said. “Drink your coffee. I mean, Sanka.”
Florence lifted her cup and a little of its contents sloshed into the saucer.
“At home,” she said, “they always put little paper doilies under the cups.”
“Yes, dear,” Lyle said. “Drink your coffee, Mrs. Wainright.”
“Florence.”
“Of course,” Lyle said. “Drink your coffee.”
She drank her own. It was hot and good. She hoped that, to Florence Wainright, it would taste like Sanka, whatever Sanka tasted like. She poured more coffee from the pot into her own cup and looked at Florence’s, which was still almost full. She said, “Drink your Sanka while it’s hot, dear.”
Florence drank a little. She said, “I told the girl Sanka. This isn’t Sanka.” But she drank again. She put her cup down. She said, “There ought to be little paper doilies. It’s all messy.”
“Drink your coffee,” Lyle said.
How did I get into this? Lyle thought. How am I going to get her home? She’s not up to driving and if she drank all the coffee in the world she wouldn’t be up to it. If I drive her home, how am I going to get home myself? Oh, damn, damn, damn.
Agnes brought two checks. The bar check was considerably larger than the check for food. “One martini, ex.” That was right. “Five bour.” Really five? It was a wonder Florence Wainright could still sit reasonably upright on her chair. Upright, steadied by elbows on the table and fingers to her cheeks; looking down at a plate with chef’s salad still on it and crying, softly now.
Lyle signed her father’s name to both checks and put her own initials under the signature. She pushed her chair back and stood up and went behind Florence Wainright’s chair and put her hands on the blonde woman’s shoulders, pulling her back. She said, “Come on, dear. It’s time to go home.”
Florence said something, s
o softly and in so blurred a voice that Lyle had to lean down and say, “What, dear?”
“Have to pay,” Florence said.
“It’s all right, dear,” Lyle said. “It’s taken care of.”
“Guest,” Florence said.
“Yes, dear. You can pay me back when—when you’re feeling better.”
“Headache. Dreadful headache,” Florence said. “Worse than this afternoon.”
“Yes, dear. Time to go home.”
She pulled up on the bent shoulders and, to her relief, Florence put both hands on the table and pushed herself up. Standing, she swayed a little, and Lyle kept both hands on the plump shoulders. Agnes, who had picked up the signed checks but not gone away with them, said, “Help you, Miss Mercer?”
Florence Wainright said, “Who are you, miss?” Lyle said, “She’s just got a bad headache.” Agnes said, “Yes, Miss Mercer. Headaches can be bad things.”
Turned in the direction they must go—turned toward the impossibly long way across the big room—Florence began to walk. She walked very carefully; looked very carefully at the floor. But she walked. Lyle kept an arm about her waist and thought that all the people left in the room must be looking at them. She did not look at anybody.
They reached the door into the lobby. Mrs. Oliphant was using a little adding machine. She looked up and said, “Oh. Good night, Miss Mercer. Mrs. Wainright. I hope you enjoyed—”
She stopped and started to get up.
“She has a bad headache,” Lyle said. “Good night, Mrs. Oliphant. It was a fine dinner, as always.”
“Saturday nights,” Mrs. Oliphant said. “And these waiters they send up from the agency. I have to add everything over again.”
Florence turned toward the main entrance door. It would be longer that way; that way one half circled the long building. Across the lobby, through the taproom, out the taproom door to the parking lot. (And then, obviously, drive Mrs. Paul Wainright home and trust there would be someone in the big hilltop house to drive her back again to the Volks.)
Risky Way to Kill Page 6
