"Might not be so bad." The visual world faded about me. I concentrated all my senses on the tools, feeling the remaining pins to judge how much pressure the rake needed for the next pass. Not much, it seemed, and I raked again lightly. Another one picked into place.
"Any success?"
"Yes, actually." Again I assessed the remaining pins. Number two felt light, but number five was stiff. I tried light pressure again, but it took four tries before number two picked. "Whoever invented these locks should be hanged. And gutted."
"And where would the challenge be in your life if these locks hadn't been invented?"
"Finding a good sloppy hamburger in this health-happy town since Gerard's closed."
"You ate at that dive?"
"I loved that dive. I hate this number five pin. It's being a pain." There was nothing for it. I loosened the pressure on the tension tool, hoping the pins wouldn't slide out of place, and raked again. Nothing. I tightened the tension tool and tried again. Still nothing. I jiggled the rake in the keyway. More nothing.
This was the part of raking I hated: that last ruddy pin. I almost wished I'd tried reverse-picking the lock but came to my senses reasonably quickly. Oh, that would have impressed Caren no end, watching me re-pick the same pins over and over as they determinedly slid out of their little chambers with the shifting tension. I gritted my teeth and kept raking. It took almost a full minute more, passing the rake along that last pin while varying the pressure on the tension tool.
But suddenly it began to turn. I applied more pressure; the plug rotated. A good push, and the door swung open.
My usual victorious elation swept through me. I glanced at Caren. Her eyes brightened and my head swelled.
"A determined man."
Yes indeed, I liked this. "I generally get my way."
"Oh, Charles."
Neither of us said that. We glanced down the staircase. Patricia stood at the bottom. Her feline face was stiff and her arms were crossed; she must have been there a long time, watching my all-too-professional demonstration.
"Patty—"
"No." She turned her back and walked away. The look she threw Caren in passing was frankly accusatory, as if blaming her for my bad behavior.
I made certain the door was open — Patty's feelings hurt or not, I had no intention of raking that bloody lock again — then scrambled down the stairs in her wake, back across Aunt Edith's bedroom, and out into the upper hall. I caught up with her in time for her bedroom door to close in my face.
"Patty!"
She opened the door but didn't wait to see me in. An overnight case yawned open on the floral-patterned spread of her double bed. As I entered, she yanked out a dresser drawer, grabbed a package of stockings, and hurled them across the room into the case.
I knew as well as anyone it was too late to apologize. "Good aim."
"Look, Charles, I'm not going to ask questions because I know I won't like the answers." A bra and slip, both white lacy innocence, followed the hose, then a cartoon sleep shirt. She intended an overnight stay somewhere else and my pulse picked up speed at the thought. "There's too much else going on for me to deal with this, too." She crossed the room to her dressing table, brushing past without looking, and began shoving little bottles into her makeup bag.
"Patty, I don't see why you're making such a big deal—"
"—because you lied to me!" She slammed the last bottle into the bag, leaned both fists on the table, and glared.
This was unlike the mousy Patricia I knew and adored. "I never—"
"There is such a thing as a lie of omission." The windows behind her outlined her head and now-fluffy bun in a hydra-like silhouette, but I didn't need to see her face to know she was angrier than I'd ever seen her before. "Your brother called you a thief for years, did you know that? Of course you know it. There's a reason you two don't speak. But it's not the reason you led me to believe. Is it, Charles?"
The emotional chasm yawned before me again, even deeper and broader than before. Now it represented not only life without Aunt Edith, but also life without Patricia. I couldn't possibly face it. I listened to my heart pound for the umpteenth time that day and tried to whip my numbed brain into action. There had to be something I could say that would register through her anger.
"I wanted you to think well of me." Honesty was the best I could come up with. "Not many people did."
She looked down at her hands on the table. Then she zipped her makeup bag and tossed it, more gently, into the case, adding her brush and curling iron. "For years I wondered what was behind William's attitude toward you. He's too intelligent to hold such a grudge for no reason. But whenever I asked my parents, they always shushed me. And I never worked up the nerve to ask your father."
The numbness had infected my hands and feet and it crawled deeper into my body like something terminal. I could think of nothing to say.
She closed the case and hefted it off the bed. "I called Dad a few minutes ago; that's why I was looking for you. Trés is out of surgery and doing better. The family's at the hospital and I'm going to join them. And my sister Miriam wants me to stay with her tonight at the bed and breakfast." She snagged a garment bag from behind the door, then led the way out of her bedroom and down the stairs. "I said no at first, I wanted to stay here and make certain you would be all right, but that's changed. Caren seems to be doing just fine." Her voice when she added that comment was spiteful. "All right?"
No, it wasn't all right. My protectiveness raced into high gear at the thought of Patricia out alone with Aunt Edith's killer on the loose. But nothing I said would have any effect. I followed her tamely and wondered if this was what marriage felt like. "Patty, for pity's sake, you asked me to stay here with you and it's the only reason I came. And none of this is Caren's fault."
She didn't pause. "I know. But I'm at the end of my rope."
I sighed and gave up, which hurt almost as much as the accusation. "Then just be careful, won't you?"
"I promise." Her reply was automatic. "Oh, and I put a casserole in the oven. It should be ready in ten minutes. Don't forget it."
"Won't you stay long enough for lunch?" I could attempt an explanation and apology during the meal. I hadn't realized how much time I'd spent in examining the house and dealing with various locks, but more light streamed through the western windows than the eastern ones.
"No." She flipped the lever on the deadbolt and walked onto the porch, then spun back around as if remembering something important. "You are coming to the gallery party tonight, aren't you?"
It was an emotionally loaded request and for her to make it at that argumentative moment was the dirtiest of foul play. She knew I hated fighting with her. On the other hand, our entire family would be at the gallery, including my brother William, and he held the same attraction for me as a flea infestation. Besides, Aunt Edith died there. Just being near the place would hurt. And if Patricia was at the end of her rope, she had to know I was approaching my own terminus at Grand Prix speed.
"I don't want to." It was an understatement.
"As if I didn't know that." She had the nerve to say it.
We shared an ugly stare. Her gaze dropped first. "Promise me you'll come."
"Give me one good reason why I should."
Patty lifted her chin and resumed the glare. "Because I want you to."
During our final, unfriendly dinner, Aunt Edith asked me to attend the gallery party. She died disappointed in me. In that moment, I realized I couldn't bear to disappoint Patty any further.
"Will this serve as an apology?"
She thought about it. "Perhaps."
Suddenly furious, I shoved my hands in my pockets. "I hate losing."
"I know that, too. So thank you." She paused and I thought she was going to kiss my cheek. But she turned away and walked to the Taurus, leaving me standing.
Caren awaited me at the top of the garret stairs. The door yawned open behind her.
"Where were we?" I
asked as I climbed.
"Charles, do you really want to do this right now?"
That didn't sound good. I'd spent a minute with my back to the front door, counting to ten and breathing deeply as the Army shrink had taught me, then relaxing the muscles in my body from top to bottom. But the bloody exercises never seemed to work. "What's in there? Skeletons?"
Her smile was brief. "Nothing, actually, from what little I can see. It's you I'm concerned about. Are you too stressed for this?"
"No, I'm all right." After all that work and the slap of Patty's rejection, nothing was going to keep me out of the garret, not even my own squirming conscience. "Well, you might want to keep that skillet handy."
I took one last deep breath. It seemed to shudder going in. Then I stepped into the unrelieved dark beyond the garret door.
A wall was directly ahead, a few feet away. The garret itself opened to the right, above Aunt Edith's bedroom suite, and it was cloaked in a blackness broken only by the little light filtering up the dim stairwell. I fumbled on the near walls, felt rough boards but couldn't locate a switch, so I turned to fetch the penlight and Caren slapped it into my palm. Of course; she couldn't have seen to glance around without it. By its narrow cone I located a string dangling from the ceiling. A tug, and a high-watt naked bulb lit overhead.
Caren was right. It was a utilitarian, working office beneath the roof, sloping toward the rear of the house, walls of unfinished pine on the other three sides. The air conditioning system hummed behind the interior wall, so I supposed that one was merely a partition. Pushed up against it were a large armoire and an ancient steamer trunk. In the room's center, with its back to the slant of the roof and facing the other furniture, was a rolltop desk. It looked very old in the unflattering light of that naked bulb, and the cracked leather of the rolling chair seemed no younger.
"Patty said lunch is in the oven and it's almost ready." My voice sounded monotone, drained and flat. "You know, I almost did expect skeletons, or something."
"If you've been having nightmares about this room since you were thirteen," Caren said, "I can only imagine."
The rolltop was not locked. Inside were the usual nooks and cubby holes, pencils and Aunt Edith's embossed stationery, even an old ink well and fountain pen, both dried. Nothing looked as if it required a six-pin tumbler with serrated top pins and the anticlimax flattened me. It was so uninspiring, I didn't bother looking in the drawers.
Caren opened the creaking door of the carved armoire and light spilled over a line of clothing on hangers. I admit the Lewisian possibilities of a wardrobe transfixed me and I reached through the clothing to touch the back panel. But it was solid, neither snow nor pine needles within arm's length, so, feeling foolish and disappointed, I turned my attention to the contents. Among the out-of-date silks and brocades, glittery bolero jackets and shirts with removable collars, I found a garment bag and when I unzipped it I finally saw Aunt Edith's wedding dress: cathedral-length white silk, still pure, with purple-slashed princess sleeves and tiny, glistening seed pearls hand-sewn everywhere.
"Charles, this is priceless."
"In her will, Aunt Edith leaves it to Patricia."
Caren caressed the bodice. "As soon as she sees this, she'll find a man to marry and abandon you to your fate."
I scoffed. "Not Patty." Although there were days.
"I guarantee it." She tugged at the garment bag. Something within the armoire shifted. "What's that?"
I crouched down and felt through the dazzling materials. "Shoes." I set them out, matching the pairs of dyed satin and cracked leather.
"What are they, a size two? I couldn't fit my big toe in there."
"Tiny, tiny woman. Have you ever noticed, she always seems larger than she really is?"
There was something else behind the shoes, in the armoire's deepest shadows, a box of some sort. Whatever was in it rattled at my touch.
"Something else?" she asked.
I got a grip on it and pulled it out. It was an old pasteboard hat box.
"Charles, I smell something burning." Caren ran.
Ladies' hats, to the best of my knowledge, don't rattle. I flipped the lid off. Then I stared.
I carried the hat box downstairs and set it on the butcher block table in the kitchen, reveling in the light, cheerful yellow expanse. I hadn't realized the dingy garret was depressing me until I left it behind. "You have to see this."
Caren had rescued the casserole and it didn't look burnt to me as she ladled chicken lasagna onto plates. "Show me, then."
At the sight of food, my stomach reminded me in no uncertain terms I hadn't eaten all day. I settled on a stool, dumped the box's contents onto the table, and grabbed a knife and fork.
"Careful, it's really hot." Caren fingered the jumbled items, one vertical line between her puzzled eyes. "I thought you said Edith never wore jewelry."
"That's why I can't believe she has this stuff. Tasteless, isn't it?"
The metals hadn't tarnished, but the necklaces, earrings, and bracelets seemed dull and lifeless. The paste gems adorning them were huge, conspicuous, embarrassing — the polar opposite of Aunt Edith. Dropped in amongst them were an old-fashioned masculine scent flask, emptied long since, a tiny lace handkerchief, and a carved meerschaum pipe.
"More love gifts, perhaps?" I asked. "And perhaps mementos of Uncle Hubert? I never saw him light up, but it's possible he quit so as not to show me such an example, or only smoked upstairs out of my sight."
"Well. . . ." Caren lifted the largest necklace, blue graduated teardrops culminating in a real cleavage-dangler. "This has dried mud on it."
I tested the lasagna, but it was still too hot to eat. I'd have to disappoint my stomach for a bit longer.
Together Caren and I sorted out the stuff. The well-smoked meerschaum, in shades of yellow and orange, was carved into the head of Jupiter, a copy of the Pheidias statue. It was easily the most valuable piece there, although the scent container was elaborate and could be reworked into a hip flask. The delicate lace hanky was in good shape although the embroidered pansies had faded, several strands of green and purple silk dangling.
But the bits and bobs of jewelry were barking. Besides the huge blue necklace, there was a smaller one of linked mountings, each shaped like a stylized swan with a clear stone on its back. A third was practically a waterfall of intermixed blues, purples, and greens. There were several bracelets, equally as gaudy; yellow and green dangly earrings that reached halfway down the wearer's neck; and other pieces too tasteless to describe. Last of all was a man's ring, again huge, with an oversized blue-glass rectangle.
I angled the ring toward the light. It needed polishing badly but the glass still glimmered at its heart. "Bet it would hurt to be hit with that."
"This doesn't look as if it was selected by the same person who bought the emerald ring. It's a completely different style." Caren sighed and picked up her silverware. "Not all love gifts are selected equally, I suppose. But I can't believe. . . ." Her voice trailed off again.
"You know, Uncle Hubert was fairly oversized himself."
She brightened and tasted a bite. "Mmm. No, I never met him."
"Not a tall man, but stout," I said through a mouthful of cheese. "Do you think he might select jewelry that was too large for his wife because it wouldn't seem so to him in the store?"
"Possibly. And Edith might have selected that little emerald ring herself. Green seems to have been one of her favorite colors. Oh, this is delicious."
"Patty does have her good points. Although some days I must dig to find them."
"Are you going tonight?"
"Have I honestly any choice?"
Archive Four
seventeen years earlier
At school, it took me two days to snuff out Langstrom and figure out what to take from him. For the most part, he had only the ordinary belongings that a first-year would have: uniforms, schoolbooks, a soccer ball. He took no specialized classes such as art, which would
have left a sketchpad lying handily about, and he kept no personal books of any significance. The deeper I delved, the more boring he seemed, and I wondered at my own idiocy in selecting him for a companion.
Only when I had the lid of his chest open did I see the photograph, a posed Langstrom family portrait, the five of them smiling at each other or the camera. The mother, sitting, encircled her two young daughters with her arms and they leaned their blond Fabergé eggheads toward her. Langstrom Senior, standing, draped that long arm casually across his son's shoulders and stared proudly at the camera with an expression I could only regard as sappy, particularly as he seemed to be the original egghead and should have known better than to spread his genes about with such abandon. The photograph was wedged into the underside of the lid, between two slats that formed an impromptu frame, and it drew me like a gravity well.
I looked no further. I slid the photograph free, shut the chest, let myself out the window, and at the greenhouse gathered all my booty together. With my original cache betrayed to Langstrom, a move was necessary. I stuffed my pockets and set out for the small woodland that neighbored the school. During soccer that afternoon, I had spotted what seemed from a distance to be a much better, permanent hiding place.
The rear of Corwald Prep, past the wings and greenhouse, led directly to the soccer field, which was bounded by a rail fence with the little woodland beyond. Once across the stile, I struck off through the underbrush, using the penlight in brief flashes to find my path. Again the forbidden night called to me, and again my soul expanded to meet it. I sucked in deep breaths, pausing twice to close my eyes and revel in the night and its scents. The stars looked like chips of ice nestled above the treetops, close enough to yank from their black-sky drink.
Even at night, the oak tree I had marked in my mind was easy to find, its gnarled roots the only ones curving out of the ground as if it found the open air more desirable than its native environment, or it was reaching for something it couldn't have. For that reason, I decided against using those roots as my hiding place: they stood out too much. Instead, I searched up the trunk until I found a narrow hollow. It was just big enough; the spyglass, penlight, knife, and photo, wrapped in more of the sacking, squeezed inside. I closed up the hole with a bit of bark and returned to the dorm.
Trophies Page 6
