Broken Strings

by Nancy Means Wright

  “Grimes? Who’s he?”

  “The skull man we’ve been chasing down. The one who slit my tires, I’m sure of it. He didn’t want me sneaking around. I saw him and Sammy in the Stowe hotel.”

  “You did? But Cedric bought one of his paintings in Vergennes. Cedric and Mademoiselle, I told you I saw them.” Chance was slicing away the mold on a hunk of old cheddar, slapping it on a Triscuit. The girl would eat rubber if you gave it to her on a cracker.

  “I know you did. And I saw a portrait Skull Man did of Mademoiselle. So we’ve got a love triangle here. Maybe they’ll do each other in.”

  “We can’t wait for that,” Chance said. “I went back just now to see Billy, and the gas can’s gone. He said the gas was for his motorcycle. But the rags and candles? And he’s so agitated he could hardly talk. Said his stomach hurt. But I know it was his head. Something burning up inside and it might be Cedric. I left, I couldn’t take it any longer. I wanted to find out what you know. You wouldn’t tell me when I asked, you’re always in a hurry.” Chance shoved the whole cracker into her mouth, and chewed.

  “I just told you what I know, dammit. And Cedric’s somebody’s target, that’s for sure. All we can do is warn him.”

  “No! I don’t want Billy caught in something like this!”

  “But we’ve got to warn Cedric,” Fay said. “We think somebody’s going to torch his house, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Not somebody – Billy!”

  “Okay, Billy. But we can’t tell Cedric?”

  “No!”

  “No. So we just tell him to keep the doors locked?”

  “Locked doors won’t keep out fire.”

  “Then what else can we do?” The girl was being irrational. “I’m sorry for Billy if he’s caught up in this but we have to warn Cedric. He’s a human being, after all.”

  “I’ll go over.”

  “No! I’ll go. I’ll stop over this evening. There’s another puppet he’s been holding back that I need for my new ending. The Ganesha puppet. It was in Marion’s inventory but I never found it. It’ll give me an excuse.”

  “Then I’ll go with you,” Chance said. “And Billy has the Ganesha. Marion gave it to him.”

  “Ah. The plot thickens. Well, suit yourself.”

  “I usually do.”

  “So I’ve noticed.”

  And, at last, Chance smiled.

  * * *

  Fay peered through Cedric’s front window before she knocked. He was in the living room with Mademoiselle, their heads facing one another, seemingly locked in earnest dialogue that kept him from hearing their knock. Chance was ready to walk in unannounced, but Fay held her back. She knocked again, twice, and Mademoiselle came over to peer through the window curtain. Fay smiled at her. After all, the woman was Ethan’s French teacher. She wasn’t going to keep Fay out. But she was obviously nervous – glanced twice at her watch and of course it was after ten – late to be paying a social visit.

  Fay looked at her own watch when the door opened. “Oh, I’m sorry, it is late. Chance and I were visiting a friend in your neighborhood and I thought I’d stop by to pick up the Ganesha puppet. It wasn’t in that last box Cedric brought over.” The woman looked at her blankly. She was dressed in an electric-blue pants suit and a revealing silvery camisole. “We’ve another show Saturday. We need the Ganesha to liven up the crowd, you know, introduce the play as it were.”

  Cedric looked skeptical and took her arm to pull her aside. “I gave you all the damn puppets I had. Don’t know anything about a Gan – whatever. What is this, anyway? What’re you up to now, barging in this time of night? When I’ve a… guest. A man needs some privacy, for Christ’s sake.”

  “A man needs safety,” Fay told him. “Haven’t you been warned enough? A bomb, a poisoned dog? My psychic saw your bed on fire.”

  “That phony psychic of yours! So that’s what brought you here at midnight?”

  “Ten-twenty,” Fay said, glancing at her watch. “That’s all. But it’s more than the psychic this time. It’s someone else, maybe planning a fire for real. I’m just warning you. If you’re not concerned, so be it.” She turned on her heel, and lifted an eyebrow at Chance, who’d sat down beside the French teacher.

  “I was just telling this girl,” Mademoiselle said, “that I’m offering private lessons in French. Think about it. You might want to go to Paris one day. It’s a magnificent city.” She smiled her Gallic-American smile at Chance. Her lips were rich and pink, with only a trace of lipstick.

  “I ran into a friend of yours.” Fay couldn’t resist telling the woman.

  “Oh?”

  “Harley Grimes? The artist? I saw one of his paintings in a gallery. Those decorated skulls. Fascinating, but not exactly my cup of tea.”

  “Ah?” Mademoiselle’s face was inscrutable.

  “I told you she knows him, from a long time ago.” Cedric put a warning hand on the teacher’s arm. The Gallic smile was fading. “You have your answer. Nobody setting any bloody fire. Now leave us to enjoy what’s left of the evening.”

  “What’s left to enjoy, oui,” Fay said, making a mock curtsey, and she ushered Chance out in front of her.

  “So he’s been warned,” Fay said as she revved up Glenna’s ancient Ford with a grumble and sputter. “And that’s all I’m going to do. I’m sorry for him, but if anything happens, I can’t help it.”

  “You’re not going back?” Chance said. “After all I’ve told you?”

  “No, I’m not going back—not right away at least. Anyway, he’ll think over what I said. He scoffed at Stormy, but he’s like the rest of us: vulnerable and superstitious. He’ll lock his door.”

  “You already said that about locking the door. He locked it after us, I heard it click. But we agreed, didn’t we, that a locked door won’t keep out a fire? So I’ll go back myself. That is, much later.”

  “What? No! Please don’t.” But Chance was staring stubbornly out the car window. “Promise you won’t go back! You don’t know who might arrive in the heat of the night. Like Skull Man. Maybe he’s our killer.”

  She sighed heavily. Please let it be just one person who did in all three, she thought. It would be so much easier that way. Sergeant Nova had his money on Cedric. He was trying to find evidence. He’d given up on Rudolph – there was no motive there to kill Puss, Nova said. The man was too simple to think of stringing her up like a puppet. But, he told Fay, he wouldn’t be surprised to find that the ex-convict had thumped the woman on the head, had she caught him in the act of robbery.

  “And here we are trying to warn Cedric,” Fay mused, “so he can get off with impunity.” She slowed down for a groundhog, running across the road – for its winter hole, most likely. She wished she had a hole to run into – wake up in spring with this nasty business resolved. “Even now,” she went on, “he and Mademoiselle are probably packing up. He’ll collect insurance on the fire he planned with Sammy and Billy.”

  “What? You’re crazy!” Chance cried. “Billy wouldn’t plan that. He wouldn’t want anyone hurt. It had to be Sammy.”

  “But Billy’s planning to set the place on fire, right?” Fay said.

  “For the insurance, maybe, like you said. Cedric paid him and Sammy, yeah, I bet. Cedric would be long gone before the fire got going. Anyway, I won’t let Billy do it. He could go to jail.”

  “You think Cedric killed Puss, do you?”

  “I don’t think Cedric would kill Puss,” Chance said. “I think he loved Marion. She loved him anyway. I mean, Marion left Billy for Cedric.”

  Ah, Billy, Fay thought. The unrequited love, the angry lover. What would Billy do? First Marion and then, the resentment lingering, kill Cedric? Billy’s handsome face filled the windshield as she drove. Drove home to Flint Road, fast, as if it were Glenna’s house on fire. She didn’t see any flames, but Glenna ran out in her blue robe, waving her arms.

  “One of your goats got through the fence. It started nibbling my yew bush. I w
on’t have it, I tell you! Now it’s eating my holly bush. You’ve got to – ”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Willard stood tall in the doorway. “You go on in, Fay, and have a glass of wine. It’s on the table for you.”

  Already Chance was racing up to her room. The girl had one speed lately, and it was fast. “Nice evening together?” Willard said on his way out. “You and Chance?”

  “Peachy,” she said, gulping the wine. “And it’s not over yet.”

  * * *

  “You got everything set then,” Sammy said. She’d arrived at Billy’s apartment “packed and ready,” in black pants and a mauve satin blouse, looking like a career girl. She was flying out at six-thirty-five a.m., and looking forward to flying over a charred house. “I got my binoculars,” she joked, sitting on the arm of a chair, as if to show she wouldn’t be staying long. “I’ll keep a lookout. Don’t fail me now.”

  Billy didn’t respond. He was on his third Woodchuck. He had to fortify himself for this. “I suppose there’s two of them in Cedric’s house,” he said, standing over her. “I don’t want to be responsible for any female who can’t get out in time.” A wave of nausea washed over him.

  “She won’t be there. The French woman’s the one giving the sedative. She’ll find a way to get him out in time. We’ve promised her – ”

  “What? Half of what I’m supposed to get?”

  “No, no. You get just what I said. She’ll get a little cash. She’ll get Harley back, she thinks. She’s still in love with him – unrequited, I might add. Very. He just tolerates her because of their kid. Harley Grimes is mine. I mean, we’re already married, see?” She stuck out her left hand, a big diamond blazing on it.

  He blew out a breath. “How come you didn’t tell me?”

  “I just got it. We just did it! Justice of the Peace. Right after I saw you this morning. Right in the JP’s living room. We stood in her bay window. We’ll have a real wedding when we get to Britain. In Glastonbury, in a church there. A new life, Billy!”

  She laughed, and Billy could tell she was high on something. She babbled on about the loan she’d taken out for a house, money she’d pay back when she got her own. The honeymoon she and Harley Grimes would take in Europe. “A cruise down the Rhine,” she bubbled.

  He saw his reflection in the glassed painting where the overhead light illumined it, his eyes shining like little lamps. That’s me, he told himself. Me. Billy the Kidde. What did the real Billy the Kid do anyway? How many lives did he snuff out? One of these days he’d Google him. Right now his temples were killing him.

  “Come on, Billykins.” She tried to give him a hug but he stiffened. Sammy could be such a hypocrite. She and Skull man deserved each other.

  Though what if Sammy was wrong and there was no money left in old Valentini’s bank account? And he was torching a man’s house for nothing and she was borrowing money she could never repay? Though she didn’t need it anyhow because she’d be in prison for arson and murder if they found her out.

  And so would he.

  She was on her way out, gathering gloves, purse, a dark chocolate bar he’d bought for himself, and her black leather jacket. “Just this once, Billy. Never again. I’ll never ask anything more of you. I promise. Just this once, little brother. For all we been through, you and me. All we been through and now – salvation. Think of that, Billy.”

  Billy lay back on the couch, thinking, long after Sammy had flown out the door, leaving a trace of excitement and perfume in her wake. Had he fallen asleep? Maybe. He looked at his watch. Christ, it was already past midnight. The torching was planned for two. Everything was ready. That was why she’d come, to see that it was. To remind him why it was in his interest to do this. Why ‘Billykins’ would be sorry if he didn’t.

  Or sorry if he did?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Stamping Out the Flames

  Wednesday, October 10

  Fay’s alarm shrilled at one a.m. She fumbled for the off button, then got up, still in her jeans, and went to the bathroom. She ran into Glenna, who didn’t seem to notice that Fay was dressed. “It’s hell to grow old,” Glenna mumbled. “Nothing works anymore. I can’t hold in the flood.” She flushed the toilet and shuffled off to her room.

  Fay could hear someone on the steps. She kept a night light on in the hall but the figure was downstairs before she could make it out. Then the tell-tale cough. And the tall figure in jeans heading out the door. Chance revved up Glenna’s Ford and crunched down the driveway. And dammit, Fay had already turned in the rental car. With no wheels, there was nothing to do but wake up Willard. What else could she do? She knew where Chance was going. She couldn’t let her go into that nightmare alone.

  Willard was at the house in ten minutes. He looked sleepy, unshaved, lumpy with his overalls pulled on over his green pajamas, smiling. What wouldn’t he do for her, the darling man? “I’ll drive,” he insisted when she came out. “The old girl’s full of veggie oil, so she’ll take us all the way to the coast if we want.”

  “Just as far as Cedric’s house,” she said. “And park down the street by the blue house that’s for sale. I don’t want him hearing.”

  “Anyone awake at this hour is crazy,” Willard said, and they looked at each other and giggled. She’d brought cans of caffeinated Pepsi and handed him one.

  “You can wait here in the car, curl up in the back seat,” she said, knowing he wouldn’t do that. He’d want to come with her, and he did.

  They found Chance in the bushes at the edge of the Cedric’s back yard, the house quiet, garage shut and presumably locked. If there was another car besides Cedric’s Mercedes inside the garage, she wouldn’t know. Chance seemed upset, and at the same time, relieved to see them. Fay and Willard crouched in the bushes, a yard away. They’d give the girl that much privacy. It wouldn’t do for Billy to find them there, but they could leap into the fray if needed.

  They squatted there for ten minutes…twenty…thirty, guzzling Pepsis. She’d offered Chance one but the girl refused – a stoic, that one. The night was quiet for another half hour. An owl hooted, a captured rabbit squealed – the sound was upsetting. She shifted her position, lost her balance and Willard caught her. After that, he kept his arm around her. She put her head on his shoulder. It felt warm, secure. She began to nod off.

  Wheels crunched down the street. They ground slowly past the house, down the road then back again. If it was Billy, wouldn’t he notice two cars parked in front of a vacant house? Maybe not. You couldn’t see the For Sale sign at night unless you put your headlights directly on it. The vehicle might have stopped up the street, or might not have. It was hard to tell with the wind picking up. Clouds flew past the half-moon like witches on their broomsticks – a night from hell. Hell to anyone but her and Willard, she thought, his fingers tightening on her shoulder.

  “Cold?” he whispered. She shook her head but felt him shiver – he’d come without a jacket. She rubbed his arm, wondering if he slept in the nude or always wore pajamas. Pajamas, she decided, he was a pajama kind of guy. And smiled.

  A bicycle squealed along the side of the house, needing oil, and Chance jumped up to accost it. Fay could hear them whispering, Billy’s a protest. Their voices escalated and Fay said “Shhhhh.” Suddenly flames shot out of the kitchen windows.

  “Oh my God!” Chance ran towards the house, Billy close behind.

  “Stop!” Fay cried. “Stay out of there, I’m calling the firemen.” She pulled out her cell and dialed 9-1-1. “201 Seminary Street,” she hissed into the receiver. “It’s on fire.”

  Then she called Nova. “Get help over here, quick!”

  Billy and Cedric ran out of the house, Mademoiselle right behind them. But half-way across the front yard, she turned and ran back towards the house. “My purse,” she cried. “My painting!”

  “Never mind!” Cedric tried to yank her back but she went anyway. Fay saw Chance grab Billy, trying to convince him to run. But Billy resisted.

>   “Bastard!” Cedric bellowed. He caught up to Billy and threw him to the ground, grabbing him in a headlock.

  It was chaos. Neighbors gathered in small groups, anxiously watching the house burn. Black smoke billowed out of the windows. By now the house was partially engulfed.

  The firefighters finally arrived. “Anyone still in the house?” one of them asked. People looked at each other and shrugged. No one knew for sure. Fay got too close and was drenched as the firefighters aimed their hoses at the burning structure. Willard yanked her out of the way and as he put his arm around her, she saw Billy’s bike with the rags and gas can in the wire basket. She dragged it back into the bushes – hoped no one had seen her.

  Just in time, she thought, as three police cruisers pulled up. Nova climbed out of the first one and went to Mademoiselle, who had her purse but was screeching about a painting still behind. A neighbor ran up to say she thought she’d seen someone set the fire. Fay started to go over to Nova when she noticed Ishtar, lit up now in the flash of car lights, in a black cape and pants. What was she doing here? Billy stood beside her, pointing a finger, and Ishtar threw her head back and what? Laughed? Cried? Accused? What were they saying to one another? Why were officers questioning Ishtar and Billy? Billy hadn’t set it, had he? The gas can was still full when she took the bike.

  “It wasn’t him!” Chance cried when Billy punched an irate cop, and a second officer hauled him into a police car. The girl ran after it, screaming, but the car was moving fast. A female officer grabbed her arm and she shoved the woman aside. But the cop prevailed and headed the angry girl towards a second cop car.

  “Don’t let them take her!” Fay cried at Nova. But Nova couldn’t answer – Cedric was pummeling his chest. A screeching Mademoiselle swung her purse at Cedric but hit the back of Nova’s head. Nova marched Cedric and his paramour off to a cop car.

  “We’ll take them in for questioning. Cool them down a bit,” Higgins said, running up. He caught Fay’s sleeve when she tried to go after Chance. “They can’t go around hitting police officers. And what’re you doing here, Fay?”