by Jane Langton
Mary looked at him pitilessly, and explained about the recurring mystery of the face on Annie’s wall. “It keeps coming back. At first they thought it was just a blotch. You know, mildew or something, but now it’s clearly a face. Somebody’s been getting into her house and painting weird faces on her wall.”
Homer showed no interest in the face on Annie’s wall. “Well, so what? What difference does it make, one face more or less on Annie’s wall, compared with a missing woman and two hundred student papers and the abandonment of a truly significant book and the plight of six poor guys serving mandatory minimum sentences in the Concord prison?” Homer picked up his briefcase, slammed it on the table, and began stuffing it with books.
“And there’s something else,” said Mary ruthlessly. “Homer, listen, this is important. Annie’s little neighbor, Eddy Gast, Annie thinks his parents are trying to get rid of him.”
“They want to send him away?”
“No, no. Worse than that. He keeps having accidents. She thinks it’s more than just carelessness on their part. She thinks it’s deliberate.”
Homer couldn’t handle it. “Oh, God, I don’t know. Don’t you think she’s just being melodramatic?”
“Well, possibly, but don’t you think somebody should—?”
“Listen, I’ve got to go.” Homer looked at his wife despairingly and zipped up his briefcase. “Later, we’ll talk about it later.” With a guilty harrumph he went out and slammed the front door. His feet pounded heavily down the porch stairs.
Mary tried to remind herself of Homer’s good qualities, and couldn’t think of any. Sighing, she gathered up her own books and papers, put on her coat and followed him out the door. It was time for her weekly class as Historian in Residence at Weston Country Day.
For half an hour the house was empty. The phone rang and rang in the presence of curtains and rugs, tables and chairs, then stopped ringing. But when Homer roared back down the driveway in a rage, catapulted up the porch steps, and snatched up his forgotten lecture notes, it rang again.
Angrily he grabbed it, dropped it, picked it up, juggled it, and shouted, “HELLO.”
There was a pause, while the caller recovered his hearing. “Homer, this is Bill Kennebunk.”
“Oh, God, Bill, I’m sorry. How’s Rollo McNutt today? Is he within earshot? Listening for compliments” Homer raised his voice. “Hey there, McNutt, you’re a sleazeball and an asshole.”
Sergeant Kennebunk snickered. “No, no, it’s okay. He’s shut himself in his office to write reports. Actually, he goes in there every morning to take a nap. Listen, Professor Kelly, I mean Homer, I called that hotel in Albany. The name Pearl Small appears on the register, single room, number 609, April eighth and ninth.”
“No kidding?” Homer pondered. “Of course, it doesn’t mean—”
“That’s right. Anybody could use a false name. The hotel people aren’t about to ask for a birth certificate. So I asked for a description. Blonde, the guy said. Cute blonde, maybe thirty, thirty-five.”
“Cute blonde? Does that sound like a princess? Remember, Bill, I told you Princess was her nickname, because she looked like one. You know, in a fairy story. Mary puts a lot of stress on her long golden hair. I like brunettes myself.”
“The point is, somebody should go there. Right away.”
“Go there! Oh, right. Go to Albany and interview the staff before they forget which guest was which.” Homer winced, feeling the questioning glance of Kennebunk’s brown eyes across fifteen miles of Massachusetts landscape—highways, fields, strip malls, and the miscellaneous sprawl of suburban Boston. “Well, I’m afraid it can’t be me. I can’t possibly get away. Couldn’t you get McNutt to assign you to Albany to look into the whole thing?” This suggestion was answered by ironic laughter, and at once Homer saw the impossibility of his suggestion. “Well, no, I suppose you couldn’t. But—oh, God, Bill—if you knew my schedule. I’ve just been explaining it to my wife. Oh, Jesus, Bill, I’ll think about it. I know, I know, it’s got to be done right away. Hey, I’ve got an idea. My wife will go.” Homer rolled his eyes at the ceiling, imagining the domestic strife to come.
“Your wife?”
“Certainly. Mary’s a good sport. She’ll go. You’ll see.”
Chapter 26
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall….
Lewis Carroll,
Through the Looking Glass
Annie’s broker was on the phone, her old boyfriend Burgess. He had walked out on Annie a long time ago, but he made up for it by giving her investment tips from time to time. Annie trusted him. Burgess wasn’t your typical suit-and-tie corporate kind of stockbroker, he was a sporting adventurer in business for himself, but his insane speculations usually paid off. “Listen, Annie, I’m going to take every single cent out of those mutual funds of yours. I’ve got a really hot tip.”
“Well, fine, Burgess. Anything you say.”
Annie had forgotten about Minnie Peck’s giant hubcap woman. She didn’t think of her again until she brought a bag of garbage to the compost heap and stumbled over a heap of junk. Good God, it was Millennial Woman stretched out on a pile of oak leaves. Annie called Flimnap and he came to look. He had been away—it was yet another of his mysterious absences—but now he was back.
“We’ve got to get that thing out of here before the vegetation closes in,” said Flimnap. “Why don’t I rent a flatbed trucks?”
“Sure,” said Annie, laughing. “And you’d better hurry. That vine crawling up her arm is poison ivy.”
They didn’t warn Minnie Peck that Millennial Woman was coming, not until they had dumped Min’s giant work of art onto the bed of the rented truck with a clatter of colliding hubcaps. Only then, as Flimnap climbed into the driver’s seat, did Annie phone Minnie to say her colossal sculpture was on its way home.
Minnie was furious, but there was nothing she could do. She had to clear a space in the middle of her studio, where she was welding together another enormous work of art.
As they backed up to her loading platform, she turned off her blowtorch and took off her welder’s mask. “Hi there,” she said, cheering up at once when she saw Flimnap O’Dougherty. “Come on up. Meet Millennial Man.”
Annie gaped. Feebly she said, “Wow.” Millennial Man was a construction of identical TV sets tuned to the same boxing match. All seventeen televisions had been glued and screwed together into a vague suggestion of the human body. Halfway down between the legs dangled a remote control and a couple of sponge-rubber balls. Minnie was launching herself fearlessly into the next thousand years.
Flimnap studied the seventeen screens, as blow after blow landed on bleeding flesh and the bloodthirsty crowd roared. “They’re on a loop, right? So it plays the same thing over and over?”
Minnie had taken a fancy to Flimnap. “O’Dougherty, I need you,” she said boldly. “Why don’t you stay and give me a hand? I’m great on the creative side, but the engineering follow-through gives me a hard time.” She glanced at Annie and said slyly, “Surely Annie doesn’t need you anymore, and anyway housepainting isn’t worthy of you at all. My stuff is art.”
There could be two opinions about that, thought Annie, as they got to work removing Millennial Woman from the truck. With a racket of dingdonging hubcaps, they soon had her standing erect next to Millennial Man.
“Oh, don’t they look darling together!” screamed Minnie.
When Annie got home again she found Eddy Gast high up on her scaffolding, smiling down at her. He said a cheerful, “Hello, Annie!” and bounced on the wooden boards, which boomed and slid a little sideways.
She was dismayed. “Oh, Eddy, how did you get in? Come on down. Here, let me help you.”
He had a picture in his hand. Clutching it, he was clumsy on the ladder. Annie supported him, and set him safely on the floor, and scolded him for coming in when she wasn’t there.
But she couldn’t be mad at Eddy for long. Joyfully he beamed at her and showed her the picture. It was Mo
ther Goose astride a majestic bird, its wings spread wide over constellations of stars.
“Oh, Eddy,” she said, “how marvelous.”
Chapter 27
“I will sing to you of the happy ones and of those that suffer. I will sing about the good and the evil, which are kept hidden from you.”
Hans Christian Andersen, “The Nightingale”
Cissie Aufsesser was astonished when Charlene Gast spoke to her in school. Normally Charlene looked right through her, as though she were invisible, when actually Cissie was a solid mound of a girl, twenty-five pounds overweight.
“That’s cool,” Charlene said, staring at the brand-new camera hanging on a strap around Cissie’s neck. “Is it automatic?”
“Oh, yes, Charlene,” said Cissie. “It does everything. You just aim it and click.” She took it off her neck and pushed a button to uncover the lens. “See, you just look through here.” She handed the camera to Charlene, who lifted it to her face. “You don’t even have to decide whether you need the flash or not. If it’s too dark, the flash goes off by itself.”
Charlene turned the camera over in her hand, then gave it back to Cissie. “It’s really cool,” she said again.
“Want me to take your picture?” said Cissie, greatly daring.
“Okay,” said Charlene. She stood smiling while Cissie fumbled with the camera, her fingers trembling.
Charlene did not offer to take Cissie’s picture. “Thanks,” she said, turning away quickly. Wistfully Cissie watched her run away across the playground to Becca and Joanna and Carrie. Should Cissie offer to take everybody’s picture Maybe they would talk to her if she took their picture. Everybody liked to have their picture taken. In fact, although Cissie didn’t know it, her father had hoped his gift of a camera would improve her social standing.
But now she hung back. She was too shy.
“What a nice camera, Cissie,” said Mary Kelly, who had seen her with Charlene. “May I take your picture?”
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Kelly.” Cissie’s doleful face brightened. Mary took a picture of her against a background of oaks and beech trees, the pretty woodland beyond the playground on the north side of the school.
After the last class of the day, Cissie had to stay for remedial help in math. She couldn’t understand the concept of percent. She sat at her desk, bowed over her workbook, alone in the room with Mrs. Rutledge.
The first problem was impenetrable. “Mr. Green’s coffee shop earns $75,000 a year in gross income. If 8 percent goes for rent, 10 percent for part-time help, and 5 percent for supplies, what is Mr. Green’s profit from his shop?”
Cissie didn’t know where to start. Should she divide eight into seventy-five thousand? Oh, it was too hard. Tears ran down her cheeks.
She looked up as Mrs. Rutledge rose from her chair. “Cissie, I have to make a phone call. Please stay until I come back. I’ve left my purse in my desk drawer.”
“Okay, Mrs. Rutledge.”
Mrs. Rutledge was gone. The room was silent. No one was passing in the hall. Mrs. Rutledge’s pocketbook was in her desk drawer.
Quietly and carefully, Cissie heaved herself up from her chair. Her camera swung forward, and thumped against her chest. Her heart thumped against the camera.
At once she found the right drawer. The shiny black patent-leather pocketbook was right there in front. Cissie took it out and opened it. An exotic fragrance billowed up around her nose. There was a dusting of pink powder on Mrs. Rutledge’s billfold.
Someone snorted with laughter. Cissie gave a small shriek. It was Charlene Cast, looking at her from the doorway.
“I’ll tell,” said Charlene.
Bus 2 was nearly empty. A few kids who had been kept after school, like Cissie, sat in front, and three noisy members of the field-hockey team plumped themselves down in the middle. But as usual no one wanted to sit with Cissie. Sunk in gloom, she made her way to the back of the bus.
How was she going to tell her father that her camera was gone? As the bus rumbled in the general direction of her part of town, Cissie bounced up and down, sniffling and trying to think.
Roberta Gast pulled up beside the Hayden Recreation Center in Lexington, where Charlene swam three times a week. Her daughter was waiting for her on the curb.
“Smile, Mummy.”
The camera clicked, recording Roberta’s blank face. “For heaven’s sake, Charlene, give me some warning next time.”
Grinning, Charlene picked up her swim bag and got into the car. “Look, Mummy,” she said, showing her the camera, “it does everything by itself.”
Roberta pulled away from the curb. “Charlene, where on earth did you get an expensive camera like that?”
“One of the kids in swim class gave it to me.” Charlene smiled smugly. “He likes me.”
“Oho!” Roberta laughed, wondering if she should start worrying about the beginnings of a childish interest in sex. “Is he cute?”
“Oh, no.” Charlene giggled. “He’s like really disgusting. You know, really fat and stuff.”
Cissie Aufsesser’s father was a judge in the Superior Court of Massachusetts. Her mother was a nurse at Emerson Hospital. Cissie was their only child.
The truth was, Judge Aufsesser was a little disappointed in his daughter, who was not only fat but slow-witted. But he was a reasonably good father, and he pitied her friendlessness. How did kids live through a painful childhood like Cissie’s? If only the poor kid would lose a little weight.
His gift of the camera had been an attempt to give her an interest, something that would take her out of herself. After supper on the day Cissie lost her camera to Charlene, he spoke to his daughter with false heartiness. “How’s the picture-taking, Cissie? Are you having fun with the camera?”
“Oh—oh, sure, Daddy.”
Judge Aufsesser guessed that something wasn’t right. “What sort of pictures have you been taking?”
“Um—oh, just stuff at school.” Puffing, Cissie leaned over and retied her shoes. Her eyes were hidden.
Something was certainly the matter. “Where is it, Cissie?” her father said quietly. “Where’s the camera?”
It was the question Cissie had dreaded. “Oh, I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said in a small voice. “I left it at school.”
“Now, Cissie, I told you never to do that. Somebody might steal it.”
Cissie’s eyes filled with tears. “I—I’m sorry.” And then she broke down and sobbed. Poor Cissie’s life was so painful, the smallest additional misery sent her over the edge.
“Oh, it’s already happened, has it?” said her father sternly. “I told you, Cissie. I told you!”
“No,” wept Cissie, “I didn’t leave it at school.”
Her father was relentless, and in a few minutes he had the truth. He knew about Mrs. Rutledge’s purse, he knew about the exchange of Cissie’s camera for Charlene’s silence.
“Don’t tell Mrs. Rutledge,” sobbed Cissie. “Oh, please, Daddy, don’t tell Mrs. Rutledge.”
“You’ve got to tell her, Cissie,” said her father. “You’ve got to talk to Mrs. Rutledge if we’re going to do something about that nasty little blackmailer.”
“Blackmailed?”
“Your charming friend, what’s her name? Charlene.”
“Oh, but Daddy, you can’t. You just can’t.”
“Can’t I? We’ll see about that.”
Cissie trembled at what might happen, but she felt better. Her father was on her side.
Chapter 28
But as nothing remains hidden from God, so this black deed also was to come to light.
The Brothers Grimm, “The Singing Bone”
Sergeant Kennebunk could not get permission to go to Albany. Homer Kelly refused to take the time to go to Albany. Mary fumed and fussed, but she went by train to Albany, and took a cab from the station to the Regency Hotel.
In fact, Mary was pleased to see Homer take an interest at last in the disappearance of her missing friend Pearl, wife of
the abominable Frederick Small and once the golden-haired darling of her seminar on women poets. Something terrible had happened to Pearl: And she wasn’t the first of Small’s vanished wives. In the Bluebeard story there was a room crammed with their dead bodies. They hung on hooks around the wall, their clotted blood pooling on the floor. Mary was grimly determined to find the room and the wives and the reason for the disappearance of Pearl Small.
But when she walked into the lobby of the hotel she burst out laughing. It had been decorated by a comedian in the style of the 1930s. The leather chairs had a zooming shape, the sofas were outrageously overstuffed. There were designer bellboys too, tall good-looking kids in pleated black trousers, white shirts, and wire-framed glasses, their hair combed straight back. They strode about the lobby carrying gorgeous pieces of luggage—pigskin and gleaming saddle leather—probably stage props, decided Mary.
Sergeant Kennebunk had typed up an official introduction and faxed it to Mary from the Southtown Pharmacy. When she presented it to the clerk at the registration desk, he cooperated at once.
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Kelly, he called to say you were coming.” The clerk was a dapper young man in a jacket with enormous padded shoulders. “What can I do for you?”
Mary showed him the newspaper image of Pearl Small. “I understand she was registered in this hotel for a few days last week. Can you tell me if this is the same woman?”
The clerk studied the picture and shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t know. It’s hard to say. She was very attractive, with long blond hair.”
Mary opened her mouth to ask if the woman had the air of a fairy princess, then decided against it. “Might I see the room, number 609?”
“Certainly.” The clerk dinged a little bell and raised a white-gloved hand. At once a dashing bellboy appeared at Mary’s side. “Please escort Mrs. Kelly to Room 609.”
