A Show of Hands

by David Crossman

  “I suppose not,” Matty said with a sigh. She stroked Crisp’s forehead, something she’d never done before, though she’d always wanted to, especially after his dreams. Comas had their advantages. His flesh was cool and damp. She brushed his thin white hair back toward the pillow. “He’ll need a haircut soon,” she said to herself.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow morning,” said Pagitt as he collected his things and put them in his bag. “Let me know if—”

  “. . . there’s any change,” Matty concluded. “Of course I will.” She folded her hands and stood looking down at her charge. Her lower lip was trembling. Pagitt noticed.

  “You’re doing a good job, Matty,” he said.

  As she looked at him, tears welled in her eyes. She mouthed the words “thank you,” but nothing came out. She turned away. Pagitt tiptoed out of the room and closed the door.

  After a moment standing, staring, and praying, Matty’s nesting instincts overwhelmed her and she began tidying up the room. As she dusted the nightstand, she brushed something that fell to the floor—a small green loose-leaf notebook, no bigger than a man’s hand. She picked it up and, supposing it was a book of poetry, began to read.

  “ ‘Beach sand. Sweater. Bikini.’ ”

  “Sounds like that awful modern stuff,” Matty critiqued. She couldn’t imagine that Crisp had sunk so low in his desperate desire to be published. She read on.

  “ ‘Lead-based makeup. Why the bottom hole? Amanda Murphy has started to appear in my dreams.’ Amanda Murphy!” said Matty. “This isn’t poetry. It’s a journal!” Undeterred, and with a reassuring look at Crisp, she made herself comfortable on the edge of the bed and began reading in earnest.

  “ ‘Remember the bicycle seat. Show Hanson photo. Exhume either Calderwood. Andy no musician.’ What on earth?” said Matty. She scratched her head in an unconscious effort to stimulate her brain enough to make some sense of the enigmatic sentences. At least the handwriting was neat. She was proud of Winston for that. She read on aloud. “ ‘Murderer was too short to reach top hole. Calderwood boys both over six feet. How tall is McKenniston? Where is blazer? Murderer had knowledge of/access to makeup kit. Someone on the estate.’ ” It went on in a similar vein for several pages.

  She closed the book and held it for a moment pressed between her palms. “Oh, my dear,” she said. She placed the book on the bedside table and softly patted the back of Crisp’s left hand. “He was worse than I thought.” She cast a wary glance at the door and the windows, then bent down and kissed his forehead, as gently as if it was a soap bubble. “Poor thing. You just rest,” she whispered. She stood up, went to the door, and, casting a last glance at him before she closed the door behind her, repeated, “You just rest.”

  “Did you see the paper!” Leeman Russell blurted as he burst into the hardware store. There was a full house. Perfect.

  “Can’t you ever just say hello, Leeman?” said Pharty, punctuating this critique with a near miss at the spittoon.

  “You won’t worry about hello once you read this,” Leeman exulted, waving the paper in the smoke-stained air. “Just cast your peepers over that and tell me ‘hello.’ ” He dropped the paper into Pharty’s lap.

  Pharty McPhearson was a man in the mold of Stuffy Hutchin and wasn’t about to be alarmed by any news to which he didn’t hold the exclusive copyright. He shelled a peanut into the paper. “Don’t have my glasses,” he said.

  Leeman grabbed the paper, letting the shells fall where they may, unfolded it, and began to read the front-page story: ‘ “Ned McKenniston Questioned About Island Deaths.’ ”

  “What deaths?” said Pharty, groping for his glasses. He really had left them home. He swore under his breath.

  “Go on ahead,” said Stump. He presided from his seat nearest the stove. There was no fire burning now. “You got our attention.”

  Drew stood up and motioned Leeman to his seat. Leeman sat with his heart beating hard in this place of honor among the inner circle. The sanctum sanctorum. He read loudly, fully aware that his audience had fewer than three good ears among them.

  “ ‘Authorities have subpoenaed Ned McKenniston, twenty-five-year-old son of the Massachusetts senator, to appear before a coroner’s inquest in Rockland next week.’ ”

  “What’s that?” said Petey, fondling a wrapped butterscotch excitedly. “Who’s he talkin’ about?”

  “Senator McKenniston’s boy’s been called to court,” Drew explained loudly.

  “It ain’t really court,” Leeman corrected, lowering the paper a millimeter or two.

  “Just as good as,” Drew said beneath his breath. “If I had to explain what a coroner’s inquest is, I’d go hoarse.”

  “Get on with it!” Pharty commanded. “We’ll bring Petey up to date after we’ve got the story. What’s he wanted for?”

  Leeman inspected the story. “Says: ‘When investigators exhumed the body of island native Andy Calderwood earlier this year, they discovered fingerprints on the burial clothing. After long analysis, they proved to belong to Ned McKenniston.’ ” Leeman lowered the paper with a vengeance. “That’s what they took off him that night they opened the grave! Buttons! I knew it!”

  “Sure you did,” said Petey.

  “I did. You can even ask . . .” Then it occurred to him that Crisp was in no condition to ask.

  “Buttons with Neddy McKenniston’s fingerprints on ’em?” Drew said incredulously. He leaned over Leeman’s shoulder and lifted the paper for personal inspection. “ ‘The coroner’s office will not speculate about the fingerprints or why the buttons don’t match those on the sleeves, since, according to funeral director Charles Young, the jacket was new. “The buttons matched when I put him in there,” said Young. “I’d notice something like that.” ’ He would, too. How’d you suppose they got there?”

  “Good question,” said Pharty. His expression reiterated the question. “How’d they get there?”

  Drew continued. “ ‘It is also expected that McKenniston will be questioned about the presence of fingerprints, apparently those of Andy Calderwood, on the neck of Amanda Murphy, a summer visitor to the McKenniston estate who was found frozen in ice early this spring. Calderwood had been dead two days the last time Murphy was seen alive.’ ”

  “You don’t s’pose there was any funny business, do you?”

  “Well, I guess that’s pretty obvious, ain’t it?” said Stump.

  Petey squinted to hear better. “What’d he say? Why’re you mumblin’? Speak up so somebody can hear, will ya.”

  “No, I don’t mean about all this fingerprint business. I mean about the Calderwood boys. That’s the one thing we all figured was just an accident. What if it wasn’t?” Pharty suggested. The question draped itself on the pendulum of the old clock and meas-ured the silence for a few moments.

  “You mean you think McKenniston had somethin’ to do with that?” said Drew.

  Pharty removed the cellophane wrapper from a saltwater taffy one handed. “That’s what we’re talkin’ about, ain’t it?”

  “What you’re sayin’ is, what if young McKenniston was involved with it somehow?” said Stump.

  “That’s right!” Leeman chimed in. “What if that boat didn’t blow up by accident?”

  Drew had been picking the empty candy wrappers from the cast-iron skillet. He opened the woodstove door and tossed them in. They’d make nice kindling in the fall. “Why would he do that?”

  “Who knows?” said Leeman. “Could be lots of reasons.”

  “Only takes one,” said Pharty.

  “Still,” said Leeman, “that don’t answer how Andy’s prints got on that girl’s neck.”

  “Evidence got mixed up,” Drew proclaimed. Leeman had risen preparatory to his departure. The pool hall was his next stop. Drew resumed his seat.

  “They already double-checked,” Leeman protested.

  “Then they got it wrong twice,” Pharty said matter-of-factly. Skepticism was his strong suit. “Andy Calderwood d
idn’t kill nobody. He was dead. Dead people don’t kill people. Plain and simple. And Andy’s dead, ain’t he? That was him in that casket, wasn’t it?”

  Leeman half nodded and half mumbled. “I s’pose it was,” he said. If it was left up to people like Pharty McPhearson, there wouldn’t be any mystery or romance in the world. What was life without the broad spectrum of possibilities nurtured by speculation?

  “That’s all foolishness,” Pharty pronounced.

  “Still,” Drew philosophized, “you’ve got to admit it’s some queer, all this business. The Calderwood boys, that could’ve been an accident. Maybe we’ll never know. But the girl wasn’t. Neither was Mostly Sanborn.”

  “Or the Professor,” said Leeman.

  “That was an accident, wasn’t it?” said Petey. “Somebody got the pills mixed up.”

  “I ain’t talkin’ about this time,” said Leeman. “I mean when he was locked in that freezer.”

  “Somebody’s behind it,” said Drew.

  Petey disagreed. “One thing might not have anything to do with the other.”

  “I’d hate to think there could be more than one person on this island could do things like that,” said Drew. “Almost makes you want to start lockin’ your doors at night.”

  Pharty turned to Leeman, who was already at the door. “You seen the professor?”

  Leeman released his grip on the doorknob. “Sure I did,” he said. “I saw him that same day he went into the coma. I was right there with him, talkin’ to him the afternoon before that.”

  “I thought you said it was the same day,” said Stump.

  Leeman recanted. “Well, the day before. Same thing.”

  “I mean since,” said Pharty. “You been up there to see how he’s doin’?”

  Leeman was incredulous. “What for?” he said. “He’s in a coma.” Leeman departed. The door rattled closed behind him.

  Once again the clock took up the narrative alone until joined, at length, by Pharty. “Always was somethin’ strange about that young fella, though.”

  “Leeman?” said Drew.

  “No! Young McKenniston.”

  Stump nodded. So did Petey, but, like Crisp, he nodded a lot. It didn’t necessarily signify agreement. Drew stretched out his legs and continued reading aloud from the paper that Leeman had left behind in his haste. “Listen to this: ‘Forensic specialists must also grapple with the fact that makeup nearly forty years old was found on the twenty-four-year-old girl when she was pulled from the quarry. Said Assistant Coroner Jaret Polkey, “There are a number of things that make this the most baffling case, or series of cases, in my experience.” Pressed for details, however, Polkey had no further comment.’ ”

  Nor did the men at the hardware store. Drew folded the paper and set it on the window ledge, where Leeman could find it easily when he came back for it.

  The story was unsettling. It illustrated a kind of madness that had always been peculiar to the mainland. The island was a place apart. A place where stoic reason had always prevailed. These things didn’t happen here.

  Until now.

  The men all gazed at the woodstove.

  In the days that followed, the gentle thrill of an island summer was overwhelmed by members of the popular media who latched onto the story and trod the thin line between fact, fancy, and fiction into oblivion in their efforts to outscoop one another. After all, one never knew what might be true. At any rate, what began as a remote possibility became a full-grown likelihood: Neddy McKenniston had killed Amanda Murphy, probably because she’d threatened to tell his wife about his infidelities.

  “The way it happened was like this,” said Irma Louise to the lady whose hair she was turning blue, a summer resident but newly arrived and, therefore, greatly in need of being brought up to date. It hadn’t been a sleepy winter. “The McKenniston boy strangled his girlfriend about Labor Day last summer, up at the beach on their property.”

  “I thought you said they found her in the quarry,” protested the customer, who should have been protesting what was being done to her hair.

  “Just a minute, Marydale,” Irma Louise admonished. “You just won’t believe what they say. By the way, you’re not going to want it over like that are you?” she indicated a hairdo in the magazine Marydale was looking at. “Don’t you think that’d make you look too old?”

  “I s’pose you’re right,” said Marydale, and she continued flipping through the pages. “I just thought I’d like to try something different.”

  “That’s what gets us presidents like the one we got now,” said Irma Louise. She cast another in an endless series of glances at herself in the mirror, primped her jet-black bouffant hairdo, and redistributed a pocket of rouge on her cheek with the little finger of her right hand. Her other hand remained in Marydale’s hair. Irma Louise was a professional. “Anyways,” she continued, “I couldn’t believe this when I heard it, but I’m not crazy. You can ask Therma. Isn’t that right, Therma?”

  “That’s right,” said Therma, a heavyset lady with an affinity for stretch polyester in contrasting bright colors. “You mean about him draggin’ her body up to the funeral parlor?” It was important to make sure they were talking about the same thing. She poured herself some coffee.

  “What!” Marydale exclaimed, nearly wrenching her neck due to the contrary effect of having Irma Louise’s hand embedded in her hair when she spun to face Therma. “Ow, Irma!”

  “Sorry,” said Irma, glancing in the mirror. There was that one eyelash that kept coming in white. She couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t hold mascara. She couldn’t pull it out though; that would be worse. She turned from the mirror and resumed construction. “That’s right. I wish you could’ve heard the gossip around town after that.”

  “After what?” Marydale pleaded. She’d missed something. “What about dragging a body?”

  “The girl’s body,” Irma Louise said matter-of-factly. Inside, however, she was thrilled to have a new pair of ears to pour the story into, unsullied by the inaccuracies inherent in lesser tellings. Hers was the King James version. “Turns out he killed her up at the beach—”

  “Strangled her with a wire,” Therma interjected between sips of coffee. She helped herself to one of the powdered doughnut holes that were neatly arrayed on a Chinet plate alongside the coffee maker.

  “That’s right.”

  “With a wire!” said Marydale breathlessly. “Are those doughnut holes fresh, Therma?”

  “Ought to be,” said Therma a little defensively. “Just got ’em over at the IGA this morning.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose one would ruin my diet,” Marydale determined. She held out her hand. “Just one of those little chocolate ones, please.”

  Therma picked one from the pile and handed it to Marydale. “Oh, my goodness, Therma. You had to pick the biggest one in there, didn’t you?”

  “Well, I’ll see if I can find a smaller one,” said Therma, bending over the doughnuts with the focused concentration of a gem cutter.

  “Never mind,” said Marydale, consuming the doughnut hole in one bite. “Already had my fingers all over it,” she explained with her mouth full.

  “I like the ones with cinnamon,” said Irma Louise. “Are there any more of those, Therm?” Therma shook her head. She’d eaten the last one several minutes ago. “Oh, well, prob’ly for the best. Anyway, what they figure is that he killed her and then smeared all this old makeup on her from his grandmother’s trunk.”

  “More than forty years old, it was,” said Eleanor Ripley. “She was in the theater.” Eleanor had just come back from the powder room but had heard enough of the conversation to know where to jump in. “You’re almost out of paper in there, Irm.”

  “What was forty years old?” Marydale inquired. “The girl?”

  “No!” Irma laughed. “The makeup.”

  “He put forty-year-old makeup on her?”

  “She was nearly naked,” Eleanor volunteered, betraying some relation, howe
ver distant, to Waymond Webber. Her timing was a little off.

  “Naked?” said Marydale, playing catch-up.

  “When they pulled her out of the quarry,” said Therma.

  Marydale was determined to understand the sequence of events. “Okay everybody. Wait a minute. You just said he strangled her up at the estate, on the beach.” She pointed at Irma.

  “That’s right,” said Irma. This was just too delicious.

  “But you said they found her in the quarry.” She pointed at Therma.

  “That’s right,” said Therma. “She was frozen in the ice.”

  Blue dye was running down Marydale’s neck as she stared from one to the other of the hairdressers. Irma Louise laughed. “Now, that’s what you get for interrupting. If you just listen, you’ll get the picture.”

  Marydale sat back, folded her hands in her lap, and lifted her head regally. “I’m not going to say another word. I am woman; hear me shut up.”

  “Good,” said Irma Louise with a pleasant laugh. “He covered her with makeup so the fingerprints would show up better.” Marydale was about to respond reflexively, but Irma Louise held up a restraining finger. “He had to use the old stuff because it had lead in it.”

  “I remember that,” said Eleanor, to whom the injunction to silence did not extend. “My mother used to use it. Made her break out in blotches. So she’d use more to cover it up.”

  “They say that’s what happened to the Roman Empire,” said Therma. “Lead poisoning. Nero and that crowd, you know.”

  “Anyway,” said Irma with another glance in the mirror. She wanted to see the expression on Marydale’s face as she told the rest of the story. “He used that because it wouldn’t wash off in the quarry, which is where he took the body.”

  “But not before—” Therma began.

  “Let me finish,” said Irma. “But first, he took her up to the funeral parlor, where the Calderwood boys was laid out. You heard about that, didn’t you?”