When Emmalynn Remembers

by Jennifer Wilde

  Billie came out on the veranda and stood on the steps. She was wearing an orange and white shift and her hair was pulled back in a pony tail, tied with an orange ribbon.

  “Lunch!” she called gaily. “I’ve brought it out here. The dining room is much too grim!”

  “Marvelous,” I called, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  “Why, Em—” she said. “You’re pale. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. The heat—”

  “It’s not hot.”

  “Isn’t it? The—the gardens are so grim.”

  “Spooky is the word,” she replied lightly. “The whole place is spooky, if you ask me. I’ve been exploring this morning while you’ve been on your mysterious errands. Both the wings are absolutely layered with dust, all the furniture covered with white sheets and cobwebs stretching from corner to corner. Come on—” She led me up the steps and onto the veranda. “There are cucumber sandwiches, if you wish to believe it! And iced tea. Why he bought cucumbers is beyond me!”

  The veranda was cool and shady, heavy vines dangling from the eaves of its roof and shielding us from most of the sun. There was a wooden table and three chairs painted orange and an old porch rocker covered with worn brown velvet, its plump cushions smelling of dust and camphor. A yellow paperback French novel had been left on the rocker, its pages limp and crumbling, and a bouquet of white roses had been dropped behind it, long since withered. A tea tray set on the table.

  I sat down on the rocker and examined the book. Billie poured the tea and handed me a sandwich.

  “Just think,” she said, “you might have been reading that novel, and you might have left it out here—you do read French, don’t you?—and someone might have given you the roses. Perhaps Boyd Devlon.”

  “He doesn’t strike me as the type who’d give a girl flowers. He’s more likely to hit her over the head and drag her to his lair.”

  “You think so?” she inquired, delighted with the idea.

  “This is Henrietta’s book. She loved these sexy things. I would read the classics to her, and she’d read these on the sly. She loved roses, always had them around.”

  “It’s a creepy feeling, isn’t it? Sitting here, knowing she was here just a few months ago. Thank God I don’t believe in ghosts—not really, I mean. It’s strange to go through rooms and know she was there, to step out on the front veranda and know that’s where it happened—”

  “I know,” I replied quietly.

  “It must be even worse for you, Em. Have you remembered anything?”

  “No. It’s all still hazy.”

  “Hazy? But that’s marvelous! There was nothing before, a blank, and now it’s hazy. Oh, Em, I just know you’re going to start remembering before long. You’ve been acting so strangely.”

  “Strangely?”

  “Last night—prowling around in the dark And a few minutes ago. When I first came out you looked—well, terrified, in broad daylight, and you were pale, dear. What happened?”

  “Nothing—really. Just—just a child.”

  “A child?”

  “She was in the boathouse. A little girl—Betty Murphy.”

  “What on earth was she doing in the boathouse?”

  “Spying,” I replied.

  Billie put down her sandwich and stared at me, one brow lifted. She was wearing a pale orange lipstick, and her lids were delicately shadowed with brown. Her nails were painted bright orange, and she wore several gold bangle bracelets on one wrist.

  “Would you care to explain that?” she said.

  I told her about Betty Murphy. I told her everything the child said, leaving out only the reference to the mysterious man I was supposed to have kissed on the beach. I spoke slowly, trying to remember the exact words the child had used, and Billie listened with a serious expression on her face. She nodded once or twice, her enormous brown eyes sparkling, and I could tell she wanted to interrupt me. When I finished she sipped her tea, looking down at the table, a slight frown creasing her brows.

  “It scares me,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “I’m serious. It scares me.”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve read everything about the case, Em. You know that. Some girls work crossword puzzles, I play Sherlock Holmes and try to solve baffling crimes. It’s been a game—great fun, looking at the bloodstains, being pleasantly frightened, reading all the articles and forming my own theory. It’s been a lark, like visiting a haunted house, but—it’s not a game anymore.”

  I didn’t say anything. I sat back on the dusty brown velvet cushions and looked out at the gardens. The sunlight was no longer quite so bright. Small clouds were forming in the sky, and the sky was slowly turning gray. The wind rattled the vines that hung from the eaves.

  “You could be in serious danger,” Billie said quietly.

  “I don’t really think so, Billie.”

  “I have something to show you,” she said.

  “Do you? What?”

  “I’ll run get it.”

  She went inside the house and returned a few minutes later, bringing a pulpy magazine which looked like a supplement of a Sunday newspaper. The papers were crumpled and were turning yellow at the edges. Billie opened it and folded it back at an article. She handed it to me.

  “Read it,” she said.

  A HOMICIDAL MANIAC? The title was two inches high, seizing the reader’s attention with brazen effectiveness. There was a picture of Burt Reed. His face was weathered and wrinkled, but the thick lips were grinning, and the eyes seemed to sparkle with mischief. It was an innocent face, almost childlike, the lines pleasant, the kind of face most people would trust immediately. The article began with a blow-by-blow description of the murder, sparing no details, and then gave a short history of the man’s life, showing the incongruity of such a life with such a crime. Next there were comments by people who had known Reed. All of them expressed shock and disbelief that he could have done such a thing. They mentioned his salty wit, his fondness of children, his love of the sea. There followed brief accounts of famous crimes committed by seemingly normal people who would never have been suspected of such heinous behavior. The article ended by saying that the police had dropped the case, although Reed had never been officially convicted of the crime. DID HE DO IT? the author asked in bold black letters. At the bottom of the page there was a sketch of an axe, red ink splattered all over the margins of the paper.

  “What a foul piece of journalism,” I said.

  “It’s grisly, but it does pose a question.”

  “Not seriously, Billie. It was written to cater to the minds of uneducated people who’d get a vicarious thrill out of believing a maniac was still on the loose. I—I’m convinced Burt Reed did it.”

  “Really, Em? Do you really believe that?”

  “The—the police arrested him. They found the axe. It had his fingerprints on it. They were sure he did it.”

  “But he died before they could prove it.”

  “Em, they’re underpaid and overworked. They had what appeared to be an open and shut case. The public was satisfied. No one complained besides Reed’s son and that was perfectly natural. They dropped the case because everything seemed to fit so well and there didn’t seem to be any reason to keep on with it. They searched the house. They found no clues. Burt Reed fit perfectly. He had a strong motive. He had threatened to kill her. The axe was found behind his cottage. The threat and the axe were the only two concrete things they had against him.”

  “Rather enough, I think. After all—”

  “Burt Reed was an amiable man who liked to drink, and when he drank he talked big. He had too many one night and was shooting off his mouth, and said he was going to kill the old witch. Was that really a threat, or was it merely an old man letting off steam after he’d had too much? I know I have said some pretty cutting things in anger that would certainly put me in a suspicious light if the person I was talking about was suddenly murdered. I think the police put too much
emphasis on the threat.”

  “What about the axe?”

  “Simple. He kept it in his shed. Naturally it would have his fingerprints on it. Someone with gloves on could steal it, use it and then hide it under the shrubbery. When it was found, it would have her blood on it and his fingerprints—but not the prints of the real murderer. Anyone who has read a few detective stories could figure that one out.”

  “You’re very convincing.”

  “Em—this particular murder was done by someone out of their mind. It was the crime of a madman, a maniac. Look at Reed’s picture. Do you really believe he could have done it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That child—”

  “She could have been lying,” I said.

  “She could have, but if she wasn’t—she may know something vastly important.”

  “She’s just a child.”

  “That’s, right. No one would pay any real attention to her. You are the only one who knows for sure. That’s what scares me, Em.”

  “If—if Reed didn’t do it, then—”

  “Who did?” she asked flatly.

  We were silent for a moment. Billie seemed to be on the verge of saying something. She glanced at me, frowned, then tapped her fingernail on the table top. Her brown eyes were filled with worry. She was much more subdued than she ordinarily was, and I could tell that something was on her mind, something she was keeping from me. She crossed her legs. Her gold bangle bracelets jangled noisily as she moved her hand. She finally sighed deeply, hesitated for a second and then spoke.

  “Em—”

  “Yes?”

  “I—I have something to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know if I should. I don’t want to worry you—Em”

  “Tell me.”

  “I found that magazine in one of the rooms this morning.”

  “Why should that worry me?”

  “The room was closed up, dusty, but there were three cigarette butts on the floor and the magazine. It—it’s dated two months after the murder. Whoever had it, whoever was reading it had no business in the house. The place was shut up, waiting to be turned over to whoever inherited it. Someone was in that room—someone who had no business being there.”

  “Perhaps it was Boyd Devlon,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought at first, but then I saw the cigarette butts. Boyd Devlon doesn’t smoke. He mentioned it last night. Em, it was frightening. There I was in that room with all the dust and cobwebs and the white sheets over all the furniture, and I had the strangest feeling that someone had just left, that someone had walked out just before I came in. I could almost feel someone watching me.”

  I looked away from her. The sky was darkening rapidly now.

  “Billie,” I said seriously, “do you want to leave?”

  “I—don’t know. I don’t think I’m a coward.”

  “We can, you know. We can go back to London this afternoon.”

  “I hate to give up,” she replied. “Em, I feel that somewhere in this house there’s a clue—something that will point to the real murderer. Of course, Burt Reed probably did it and we’re probably being hysterical women and acting like idiots, but I’ve never had the kind of feeling I had this morning in that room. Do you want to leave?”

  “I think not,” I said calmly. “I ran away once. I don’t want to run away again. If I left now, I might never remember. But—Billie, I think you should leave. You can take Clive’s car and go back to London. If there is some kind of danger, I don’t want you involved.”

  “You want me to leave?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. My eyes were grave.

  “And leave you here alone? Not on your life.”

  “But—”

  “We’re in this together, Em,” she said.

  I took her hand. I squeezed it. After a moment we smiled.

  “Just the same,” Billie said. “I’m glad Boyd Devlon’s around.”

  “Me, too,” I said. I glanced at my watch. “He’s supposed to be around front at one. It’s almost that time. He’s going to drive me to the store in the Rolls. It’s mine, incidently.”

  “A Rolls Royce?”

  “The genuine article.”

  “You don’t mean it?”

  Billie closed her eyes dramatically.

  “Touch me quick,” she said. “I’ve never known anyone who had a Rolls. Think what a smash it’ll make back in London.”

  We stood up, the moment of tension vanished now. We walked around the veranda to the front of the house. I tried not to look at the place where the floorboards were dark with stain. I stared at the sky. It was gray now, growing darker. Clouds were massing on the horizon, and a mist had rolled over the water. There was a distant rumble of thunder. I knew that sudden changes in the weather were not at all unusual on the coast, but it seemed hard to believe that the sun had been sparkling less then an hour ago. Boyd Devlon wasn’t out front yet. I sat down on the steps, watching the wind torment the water. The waves were choppy, angry, capped with foam.

  “Do you want to go to the store with me?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. I’ll stick around here.”

  “I wonder where Boyd is?”

  “Em, look!”

  She pointed towards the boathouse. A beautiful rust red dog was romping along the beach, prancing in the sand, evidently waiting for someone to catch up with him. He saw us and barked, then loped up the lawn towards us, stopping a few feet away and wagging his long tail, wanting some encouragement before coming closer. His fur was long and glossy, his lines thoroughbred. He looked at me with large brown eyes. I whistled. He charged up to the steps and laid his head in my lap, whining ecstatically.

  “Hello, Nelson,” I said, scratching his head,

  “Em—” Billie said, her voice full of excitement.

  “Yes?” I looked up, startled.

  “You called his name!”

  “Did I?”

  “You called him Nelson. You know him. He knows you—that’s obvious. He came right to you.”

  “Well—”

  “You remembered his name,” she whispered. “It’s happening just the way Dr. Clarkson said it would. Little things would come back first, he said, and then bit by bit you would remember.”

  “Nelson?” I said. “Did I say that? Are you Nelson?” I asked, rubbing the dog behind the ear. He licked my hand and whined, sad and happy at the same time.

  “It’s his dog,” she said. “Remember? It ran out and barked at the car yesterday when we were passing the cottage. It’s his dog, and there he is!” She pointed to where George Reed was walking down the beach, drawing near to the boathouse.

  He stopped and whistled, looking around for the dog. He was of medium height, rather stocky, with powerful legs and arms and enormous shoulders. His hair was dark and he wore glasses, but he was too far away for me to discern any features other than the stocky, athletic build. He wore a pair of tennis shoes without socks and tight white jeans that encased the strong well-molded legs. His white shirt was open at the throat, and the sleeves were rolled up over the immense biceps. From this distance he looked like a Roman gladiator in incongruous modern dress.

  He called the dog’s name, then he turned towards the house and saw us on the veranda. He hesitated for a moment, his fists on his thighs, staring at us. The dog barked once and wagged its tail but made no effort to join its master. I stroked the animal’s fur, watching as George Reed came slowly up the lawn towards us. He stopped perhaps fifteen yards from where I was sitting on the steps, and he glared at us, not speaking.

  His face was crude and Slavic with a square jaw and high, flat cheekbones. His mouth was wide, the lips a little too thick, and his nose was large, slightly crooked. There were dark smudges beneath his brown eyes. They stared from behind the heavy, horn-rimmed glasses with intense belligerence. His dark brown hair was coarse, parted severely to one side, lying flat against the skull. The face was
almost ugly, but strong character was stamped in every line. There was no refinement there, no grace, but there was a fierce, rugged vitality about the man that was apparent in his every gesture, and he emanated strength and vigor to an almost overwhelming degree.

  “So you’ve come back,” he said. His voice was menacing.

  “Yes.” I replied. My own voice quivered nervously.

  “That was a very foolish thing to do,” George Reed said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  HE STOOD THERE with his legs planted wide apart, his fists resting on his thighs, his pose an exaggeration of masculine dominance. His head was lowered, his brows arched, his wide lips turned down at one corner. I thought he resembled an incompetent actor trying to portray a gangster in a cheap film. His posture was a little too melodramatic, his voice just a bit too menacing to ring true. I rose slowly to my feet, my expression challenging him. Billie huddled behind the railing, staring at the man with undisguised fascination. He looked like a truck driver or a blacksmith, but there was an obvious intelligence in the savage brown eyes. The man had been to medical school, and from all reports he had been brilliant. He couldn’t possibly be the coarse peasant he appeared to be.

  “Why shouldn’t I have come back?” I asked crisply.

  “You know very well.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “They’re saying you have amnesia, that you don’t remember being here. Is that true?”

  “Yes, it is.” I retorted.

  “You don’t remember me?”

  “I’m sure the memory would be an unpleasant one if I did,” I said.

  He smiled a little at that in spite of himself, then he grew all grim and menacing again. I was suddenly reminded of an irate little boy defending his rights. In that brief, flickering smile I had seen a charm that, under other circumstances, might be most attractive. I understood why he was studying to be a doctor. There was something of the crusader about the man. He would be passionate and idealistic, ready to save the world, ready to knock down anybody who tried to stop him. He would have mercurial temperment and he would be capable of a whole range of emotions that most men could only simulate.