All But a Pleasure

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “You also checked the hands,” Lestrade observed.

  “Many, perhaps most people hold their pens and pencils squnched so…may I borrow a pen?”

  Clayton supplied the pencil that fit in the spine of his notebook. Davison took it and demonstrated how many or perhaps most people curled their fingers into a fist and held the pen clamped down beneath crooked thumb and forefinger, resting hard on the first joint of the middle finger.

  “A few years of this forms a pronounced callous here, on the knuckle of the middle finger.” As if unwilling to touch the corpse’s hand again, he pointed at it, resting where he had let it fall on the sheet. “There the callous is, on the left hand… Yes…the left hand. This poor woman must have been left-handed. Angela lacks such a callous—our penmanship instructor was a martinet in making us hold our pens and pencils so…” He demonstrated holding Clayton’s pencil in a looser hand, using only the tips of forefinger and middle finger to guide it…“but if she had one, it would be on her right hand. No, this must be…Angela’s doppelganger—whom she told me—God! only last week!—of meeting in town.” His own hand started shaking again as he passed the pencil back to Clayton.

  Lestrade felt like making some comment about recruiting Davison as a detective; but not here, not now. It wasn’t the time or place for any such comment. Instead she fell back on formality. “Thank you, M. Davison. You’ve been a great help. We almost made a misidentification here.”

  “Wait! Perhaps I can help you further…Angela mentioned the name… Oh, God! She even told Angela she had been planning for a necklace-style tattoo—it would have rendered them easier to tell apart… But her name…” He closed his eyes, murmuring, “A world globe, anthropomorphized…a bottle of cola in one hand, a lute in the other…Gaia Soderstrum!” he cried aloud with a half-sob.

  “Gaia…G-A-I-A…Soderstrum?” But even as Clayton was writing it down in his notebook, Desk Officer Hogan opened the door and said, “Dave, telephone.”

  “Go take it, Detective Clayton,” Lestrade told him. “I think we’re finished here, anyway.”

  Clayton left with Hogan. Lestrade started to shove the slab back into its locker, but Davison caught her hand, pointed at the stamped tattoo above Soderstrum’s third rib on the left side, and whispered, “Sergeant Lestrade, I know that symbol!”

  “Yes, I thought you blinked at it.” She had been going to press the point as soon as her junior partner came back. “What can you tell us about it?”

  “It is the…the badge, the equivalent of a membership card…for a group calling itself Dante’s Delight Purgatorio. A group which I…have been invited to join.”

  “Lady God, don’t!”

  “But am I not uniquely placed to…to help you gather information concerning this group…from the inside?”

  “M. Davison. Don’t. Even. Think. About. It. You want to risk ending up lying on a slab in here and putting Angela through what you just went through yourself? Just tell me who’s in this group. I assume you must know at least some of them.”

  He seemed to hesitate a couple of nanoseconds before replying. “It is quite a small membership, as I understand. M.’s Samuel Imani, Paul Osaka, and Curly Friedman—I assume ‘Curly’ to be a nickname, but cannot remember ever hearing her called by any other.”

  “Samuel Imani, Paul Osaka, Curly Friedman. Anyone else?”

  Davison shut his eyes and then shook his head. “Not to the best of my knowledge.”

  “Hmm,” said Lestrade. She might have said something else, but at that moment Dave Clayton thrust open the door.

  “Okay, here you are,” he announced. “Still. The floater she’s really calling for is you, Cor —” He suddenly remembered to be formal inside the station—“M. Davison.”

  “‘She’?” Davison pushed past him and out the door at a run.

  * * * *

  It had all been so hectic…and then that horrible news—Angela had caught just a little of it on the television someone had left on in the hospital visitors’ lounge, when she went there to collapse for a few minutes. Another murder in Forest Green! And it looked like the work of the same sick person who had committed the one two weeks ago.

  Her reason said, “There are more than thirty-five thousand people there!” But she had caught just the tail end of the report, barely more than the “further details as they come in” part. If they’d even mentioned this new victim’s gender…but the first one had been a man, Harry Jackson. And those smasters—however they tried to pretty it up with religious-sounding excuses—had been after Corwin. And she still couldn’t reach him, and they kept calling her back to the intensive care ward…

  Finally, the next chance she got, well into the morning, she asked Information for the number of the Forest Green Police Station and tried there. What was the name of the pollydeck they’d set her up with on that double date? Dave…Dave… She heard the receiver lifted at the other end, the officer asking her, “Hello? Forest Green Police Department.” She had to say something.

  “Do you have a…a detective there named Dave…something?”

  Dave Clayton. Yes, he was there, the officer thought he was still back in the morgue helping… “Well, I guess maybe you’ve heard the news, M.? We have a body to identify.”

  Of course she had known that, but…that Dave was back there… Yes, he was a police detective, but she couldn’t help thinking of him more as a friendly acquaintance, after the way they’d met on a date…the body…the body…

  She was nearly frantic by the time he got to the phone.

  “Dave! Oh, Dave, I can’t get in touch with Corwin! Busy signals all night long—and this morning, when he should be home sleeping, it just goes on chiming and chiming —”

  “Angela, calm down. He’s safe. We have him right here —”

  “Oh, thank Mother Mary! But—under arrest?”

  Dave’s sigh was audible even over the phone. “Why does everybody always jump to that conclusion? Like that was the one and only reason we ever had civilians in here? In fact, he’s been helping us out.”

  “Oh, Dave!” No—she was weak with relief—shaky—how long since she had slept?—and Dad and Barb were still in intensive care—but she would not babble. “Dave…can I speak with him? Can you put him on the phone?”

  “Right away. And, Angela…lady…we’ve been sick with worry about you. You really are in Florida, after all?”

  “Yes—Boca Raton. Dave —?”

  “Yeah, just like I had it pegged yesterday. Only Boca Raton, not Miami. Okay, on my way back to get him right now.”

  Sick with worry about her? But she’d been perfectly safe… She shook her head, trying to clear it. It seemed so long since the last time she had slept… No, that’s right—how could he have known she and Aunt Sally were perfectly safe, when she hadn’t been able to get in touch with him till now?…

  And then he was on the line. “Ange…Angela?”

  “Cory, oh, Cory, it’s so good to hear your voice!”

  “Angela, it is…it is manna from Heaven to hear yours!”

  “I kept calling and calling, every time I could, but every time yesterday you must have been out—and I wanted to try Sam’s house but I couldn’t quite remember his last name for Information—and then last night, nothing but busy signals—I finally thought your phone must be out of its cradle—and then this morning…”

  “All easily explained. Your family emergency?”

  She drew a deep, shaky breath. “Accident. A terrible accident! They were all together in the car, on their way to Gumbo Nature Park—when a truck…speeding, they think…hit a tree or something and slewed around and crashed into them head-on—it’s ‘under investigation’—truck driver’s okay—Dad and Barb almost killed —”

  “My God! No wonder you… Will they live?”

  “They’re still in intensive care. The doctors
say Dad is ‘stabilized,’ and they think Barb’s out of danger now. Charley was in the back seat, they were able to move him direct from emergency to a regular hospital room.”

  “Your whole… Oh, God, Angela!”

  The prayer and empathy in his voice helped her pull herself together. “Now you. Why couldn’t I get in touch with you?”

  “The busy signals—I was trying to get in touch with you. When your father’s telephone number drew no response, I bedeviled Information for the numbers of every hospital and police station in the greater Miami area —”

  “You didn’t know we were in Boca Raton! How could you have known? Faith Lutheran—it was the closest big hospital to where the accident happened. But there wasn’t any direct flight from Forest Green to Boca Raton till Sunday evening. Our quickest way was direct to Miami and then catch an intercity tubetrain.”

  “All very simple.” He gave a shaky little laugh. “All very lucid, when explained.”

  “Cory—Dave said you were there helping the police—How? With what?”

  “Angela…” He hesitated so long she started to panic again. “Angela…this second victim…it is Gaia Soderstrum—your doppelganger.”

  “Oh, Blessed Mother!” She almost dropped the phone. “Oh, no, Cory, no!” The image flooded her mind…him standing there, staring down, maybe thinking…imagining.

  He was asking if she could not have called him Sunday morning before she and Aunt Sally took their departure—had their need for haste…?

  “But it was oh-eight-thirty! You’d have been in bed, fast asleep.”

  As he made no immediate reply, she babbled on,

  “Aunt Sally has been wonderful! I couldn’t have held up without her! She’s been my anchor. She…Cory?”

  “Angela, if any similar circumstances ever—ever—arise—and please God they won’t—but if they should…promise you will telephone me at once, regardless of the hour.”

  She swallowed. “Yes. Yes, of course. I promise.… Now we’re even on promises, aren’t we?”

  “For a moment, but the advantage is about to swing to you as I beg a second promise. Angela—please—please—rest there safe in Florida until whoever is perpetrating these things has been captured!”

  “What about you? Cory, why don’t you come and join us here?”

  Another hesitation before he answered. “There may perhaps be…something further…I must do here.”

  “What, you can worry about my safety and I’m not to worry about yours? There are research libraries and things down here, too, you know. Indiana isn’t the only civilized state in the R.S.A.”

  “The research I could leave behind in less than a heartbeat. This is…”

  “Cory, it has to be just coincidence that it was…was poor Gaia!”

  “Very well, let me reconsider it. Faith Lutheran Hospital in Boca Raton, you said?”

  “And the Good Samaritan Inn next door. That’s where we’re staying. It’s especially for the patients’ families.… Cory, come down right away—you can surely catch a plane tonight or tomorrow morning.”

  “I…may. I cannot promise but…perhaps…I may.”

  “And I can’t promise to stay here until they catch whoever is doing these…these things. Sometimes they never catch them. I couldn’t promise to stay down here for the rest of my life! People go on living in other cities when there are murderers on the loose in them. I can’t leave here while Dad and my sister are still in danger, but I won’t promise to stay away from my own home town until they catch this—this sick creature.”

  “Yes…I…appreciate your argument. The ancients dreaded banishment above all forms of mere bodily death. I cannot blame you for withholding this promise. I —”

  A tap on Angela’s shoulder. She turned and saw the nurse with Caramel skin and green eyes. “M. Garvey?” the nurse said. “Your sister Barbara is awake —”

  “Oh, Cory! Barb’s awake! I have to go now! Come down and join us. Please!”

  “Hurry to her side. Good-bye for now.”

  She blew a quick kiss into the mouthpiece, hoping he heard or at least sensed it. Then she cradled the receiver and hurried back with the nurse to intensive care.

  * * * *

  Julie had watched the ambulance arrive, the corpse bagged, loaded in, and taken away. She had fed Dave a hasty breakfast, burned bacon and all, and he had said, “We’ll want your witness statement as the one who first spotted the body.”

  But she had neither the heart nor the intention to see Corwin brought in to identify his Angela’s body. Dave had understood. He told her she could write her account here at home, or even speak it into one of the wire recorders at Wallace Library, and they’d transcribe it for the files later. One light kiss, and she watched him drive off.

  Then she went back inside to her apartment and conferred with Paul. The police would want a witness statement from him, too; but first he and she had to decide definitely whether or not they should include anything about the stamped tattoo they had seen on the corpse.

  By now Julie had half made up her mind it might look less suspicious, down the road, if they told the police. Besides, wasn’t there the chance it was not identical? Neither she nor Paul had really gotten that good a look at it. But it was a decision that belonged to Dante’s Delight as a whole. Paul took the job of phoning Sam and Curly, while Julie stayed inside her own apartment, waited for Dave’s call, and began drafting her statement.

  Paul eventually came back and reported that Curly inclined to “No.” Sam seemed to like Julie’s arguments; but long experience had made him very cautious in all things touching the Purgatorio’s privacy, and he preferred to decide the question by consensus at a face to face meeting.

  Julie thought that if they were going to tell, they should do so as soon as possible. The longer they delayed, the more questions would be asked about why they hadn’t come clean sooner. The longer they waited, the likelier their consensus would come out “No.” But Sam was hereditary leader and most senior member, and, besides, he had a strong argument about their need to get together face to face for this.

  She put her head down on the draft of her statement and cried for several minutes, Paul rubbing her shoulders. Dave, Dave! However this came out—would she still have him when it was finally over? Her Dragon Prince, her wonderful, wonderful lover…

  Her phone chimed. She jumped for it, snatched the receiver up in trembling fingers, demanded with thudding heart, “Hello? Dave?”

  “Julie, it isn’t her! It isn’t Angela.”

  “What? Oh, Dave! Dave, is he sure?”

  “Young floater could probably make detective right now. She’s almost a dead ringer for Angela, but he spotted five pretty clear differences, one of ’em a birthmark, and just about the time he finished listing them for us, Angela herself clinched it by phoning from Florida. Boca Raton.”

  While Julie sat and let her breathing slow, her heartbeat steady, and her shaking stop, with Paul listening in over her shoulder, Dave explained why Angela had gone there so suddenly, and how she and Corwin had kept missing or crossing each other’s calls, finally driving Angela frantic enough to phone the Forest Green Police Station.

  After Dave’s call, Julie and Paul hugged each other, laughing and crying in pure relief. They had had a summer of Sundays to get to like their Thesaurus Kid, half a month (if only two Sundays and, for Julie, one double date) to come to love Angela, and no chance at all to meet this double of hers.

  And Dave still hadn’t mentioned a thing about the stamped tattoo. Maybe he really hadn’t noticed. Maybe Julie was safe…at least for now.

  But maybe that would only make it worse whenever he did find out.

  * * * *

  like all cats and a few dogs caterina understands almost every word her human says even if cats act on it only when they choose now he is back from wherever he
goes with those other humans caterina lets him hold her in his lap and pet her and stroke her over and over he is a good human very gentle he puts out nice things for her to eat he strokes her whenever they both want she thinks she stays with him he is saying caterina my reasoning powers are so fatigued and exhausted and i am so puzzled and perplexed and exhausted my thoughts pursue one another around and around these arguments like hamsters on a running wheel like rats in a maze i can no longer cogitate i must let dea fortuna resolve the dilemma for me if angela telephones first then you and i will be with her tomorrow perhaps even tonight in boca raton and evermore will be with our good em esther florsheim but if julie telephones first ching ching ching the telephone makes its sound like the doorchime only three chings in a row then a little silence then three more chings in a row he stands up and goes to the telephone while caterina jumps off his lap wonders boca raton what is boca raton is it the same as heaven and starts washing her face

  CHAPTER 17

  Still Monday October 2

  “Corwin!” Julie began. “We’re so grateful it wasn’t Angela!”

  “Thank you,” he replied in a strange, subdued voice. He must be worn out with emotion and lack of sleep. “Julie,” he went on, “is that invitation still open to me?”

  “What?” For a moment, she felt taken aback. “Yes, yes, it is—I haven’t even had a good chance to say anything to the others about your decision—but what about your promise to Angela?”

  “There may perhaps be matters of…greater importance than mere pride in personal oath-taking. We are in public crisis. Your work, though private, is invaluable. Trusting that now, following this latest tragedy, Angela will come at last to understand, I seek to assist in your efforts with as little delay as possible. If you would be so kind as to furnish me with the consent form, you will have my signature on it at once.”