Sympathy for the Devil

by Jerrilyn Farmer

  My hair more or less in place, my shoes wiped down, my face freshly washed, I opened the door into the silent second-floor hallway. Only the distant ticking of a clock could be heard. I padded to the landing, my feet sinking into carpet that was certainly luxurious, if a little difficult to walk on.

  At the top of the staircase was a large oil portrait of Bruno. I hadn’t noticed it when I was dashing up the stairs, but now I stopped and looked at the man. He must have urged the artist to play up his resemblance to Clint Eastwood.

  What did you do with your glass, Bruno? Where is that brandy snifter?

  And then I was seized by a memory. Bruno had invited me to share a drink with him many years ago. The two of us sat on a sofa that was placed in the atrium off the kitchen. The Armagnac was nice, but certainly not as spectacular as he seemed to think. When we finished, Bruno insisted we throw the empty brandy snifters into the fireplace.

  “These are expensive,” I replied, studying the Baccarat crystal, figuring them to be at least a hundred bucks.

  “One hundred and seventy-five dollars per stem,” Bruno informed me, smiling. “But who really gives a damn? It’s fun to break something that costs a lot. You should try it.”

  He stood up. And with a grunt, he threw the glass into the fireplace. The droplets of Armagnac caught fire and flared as the fine crystal shattered, then tinkled against the stone hearth.

  “Come on, sport. I dare you!” Bruno was amused at my resistance to wanton destruction, even on this mild upper-middle-class level. I could see it in his eyes. He knew I never would.

  So I tossed my glass into the fire.

  Laughing, he yelled, “Bravo! I didn’t think you had the balls.”

  I flushed with pride and rejoiced in the freedom of my new spirit. And then he demanded that I pay him the $175.

  Looking now at Bruno’s portrait, I wondered if he had felt like breaking things the night of his Halloween party?

  As I descended the stairs, the door to the powder room opened and Carmen Huntley, her makeup perfect, stepped out. Either this was another coincidence, or Carmen spends a whole lot of time in powder rooms, well, powdering.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “I was just getting ready to leave. Mother should have been here by now.” She sounded annoyed.

  “The roads are pretty bad tonight. You know, I was just remembering the way Bruno threw his brandy glass at the fireplace one time. Was he still doing that?”

  “He liked the power,” she said. “When we were first together, he’d break those expensive glasses of his all the time. Why?”

  “I was thinking about the night of his murder…”

  “Oh, Madeline. I really don’t want to talk about that anymore. Okay?”

  “No one can find the glass that Bruno was drinking from and I wondered…did he throw his glass against a wall that night?”

  She looked down, her thick black lashes almost touching her cheeks. Then she looked straight at me.

  “I think he did throw it. He was angry after our talk. So he gulped the liquor and tossed the glass.”

  “Where was this?”

  “On the path where it curves past the guest house and goes on to the tennis court. It was about halfway down that path, near the statue of the old man by the little bench.”

  There was a sharp tap. Carmen opened the front door to find her mother standing on the porch. She was half-opening and closing her umbrella, as if to rid it of the rain.

  Carmen zipped her leather jacket and said, “Let’s go.”

  “Is that all you are wearing? What’s the matter with you? It’s a storm outside. You’ll get sick!”

  “Mother. Isn’t your car parked nearby?”

  Just then, Graydon walked into the entrance hall. “You’re leaving? Weren’t you going to say goodbye?” He seemed to be suffering and trying to spread it around.

  “Who’s leaving?” Bru, Jr. walked back into the entry. “Madeline what are you still doing here? Go home!”

  “My Carmen is leaving, young man. She is coming back to her family where she belongs.”

  “Mother!” Carmen spoke loudly, catching all of us by surprise.

  “Yes, my little girl?”

  “I’m not your little girl.” Carmen looked at the assembled group. Bru, Jr., leaning against the newel post, haughty, mocking; Graydon, forlorn; her mother, half-opening and shutting her umbrella in nervous impatience; and me.

  “Madeline, can you give me a ride?” she asked.

  “Well…”

  Both mother and husband wailed protests.

  “I’m tired. Madeline will drive me. Now everybody, please leave me alone.”

  “Wait for me in my car.” I offered her the keys. “It’s the black Grand Wagoneer on the street. I won’t be more than a few minutes.”

  Carmen swept past her mother on the front step, and walked out into the wind and rain. Without so much as a scarf, she disappeared down the driveway as I turned from the muddled group and made my way back towards the kitchen.

  I just had to tell Lily about the sperm, and then I had one little idea to check out, and then, once and for all, I was out of there.

  Chapter 33

  “I’ve got to talk to you.”

  I was speaking to Lily’s back as she sat motionless on the cushioned window seat, pressing her cheek against the cold glass. The large family room was wallpapered in an intricate green ivy pattern and filled with leather sofas and dark wood. It took Lily a while to speak.

  “Can it wait, do you think?” she asked, without moving.

  I turned to leave, but just then, Lily looked up at me, her head in profile against the black window. The dim light from a shaded lamp picked up the wetness of her face.

  “Madeline, I know something.”

  “What do you know?” I asked gently.

  “About the poison. About the strychnine.” Her long blonde hair was in a thick and intricate braid down her back. She turned again to the window, talking more to the blank darkness outside than to me.

  “I know where the poison must have come from.”

  It was hard to hear her, what with the clatter of the rain hitting the windows and Lily’s naturally soft voice. I moved in closer and sat down next to her on the deep window seat. Her legs were drawn up under her long wool skirt, her cheek was still flush against the window. I sat the opposite way, my feet on the floor, but with my ear now close enough to pick up every word.

  “Where did the strychnine come from?”

  “Bruno bought it himself,” she said. I was close enough to watch each tear as it clung to her light lashes. “We have this miserable problem with mice and rats. We have four acres of landscaped property and another forty acres that are pretty much wild. So the rats can be horrid. We kept finding them in the house and I told Bruno I couldn’t have that.”

  I didn’t interrupt, hoping she’d continue talking.

  “Bruno was planning to soak loaves of bread in a solution of strychnine and spread them over the property when we were away next week. The gardeners would have had plenty of time to sweep up the bodies.”

  A nasty image, but I said nothing.

  “When he’d been a boy, they’d had rats at their vacation cottage in Colorado and his dad had done the same thing.”

  She had come to a halt, not wanting to go further. I nudged her along.

  “So did Bruno buy the poison?”

  “Well, yes. But of course he never got to use it. He kept it locked up,” she said, virtuously.

  “Locked up where?”

  “In the liquor cabinet.”

  Oh boy. Whoever had access to the brandy also had access to the strychnine.

  “Lily, the police came to the house and got the decanter of Armagnac on Sunday. They should have found the strychnine then. Why didn’t they?”

  “I moved it,” Lily mumbled. “When the police said they were going to search the liquor cabinet, suddenly everything looked so bad. Why hadn’t I told the detec
tive about the poison right after the party? I was sure they’d arrest me!”

  Fresh tears made twin streaks down her face.

  “Besides, I wasn’t sure who…” She stopped.

  “Who else knew Bruno had strychnine locked up in the liquor cabinet?”

  She still wouldn’t look at me. Her voice was now only a whisper. “I thought to myself, how would Bruno handle this? And then I decided to move the strychnine someplace where no one would find it.”

  “Where’d you put it?”

  “In our bedroom safe. But when the police found a half-pound of strychnine in your friend’s house, it seemed like too much of a coincidence. And when I checked my safe this morning, the bag was gone.”

  Why will no one ever listen to me? Didn’t I tell them Wesley was framed! And now, finally, some proof.

  In as calm a voice as I could muster, I asked, “Who has the combination to your private safe, Lily?”

  “Just me.” She thought. “And the family.” She paused. “Oh, and a few people at Bruno’s company, and the housekeeper.” She stopped. “And some former employees.”

  Goodbye simple proof.

  “Anyone else?”

  “Actually, I don’t think we had the combination changed when we married. Maybe his ex-wives?”

  I stared at her.

  “See we don’t keep anything of real value in it.”

  I rethought the situation and got hopeful again. No matter how many zillions of people had that combination, I was almost certain that Wesley was not one of them.

  I reached out and touched her shoulder. Finally, she looked at me. “Lily, you’ve got to talk to the police. Just tell them the truth. It’ll be okay, and it could help Wes.”

  She nodded and then she actually smiled at me. “I’m glad I told you. You know, you’re just like Bruno. I was feeling horrible and you told me what to do.”

  Just like Bruno. Well. I’m sure she meant it as a compliment.

  Donnie arrived with a tray, a teapot, and two cups.

  “I’d like to check something out in the garden,” I said.

  “Not tonight! Surely it can wait for the storm to pass.”

  “It’s ugly,” Donnie agreed. “When I was in the kitchen, I heard trees coming down, the wind is so strong.”

  “I better not put this off.”

  As I headed for the upstairs bedroom where I’d ditched my jacket, I saw Lily begin to pour the tea. Donnie was turning the key that started the gas jets in the fireplace.

  Back downstairs, the house seemed quiet now, large and warm and snug against the howling of the wind outside. Moving through the halls, I caught a glimpse of Graydon, still here, still moping, in front of a T.V. set in a small office just off the kitchen.

  Outside, the rain lashed down at a forty-five-degree angle, with gusts often whipping it sideways. I abandoned my attempts to hold the hood up over my hair and just moved as quickly as I could. I passed the same familiar cars parked in the drive: Graydon’s BMW, Bru’s Jaguar, and Hirsh’s scratched Bentley, although any trace of the soothsayer was long gone.

  Fumbling under my clothing, I retrieved the envelope that still contained sixty five-hundred-dollar bills. It was warm from being held snug in the waistband of my tan tights. With a pencil from my parka pocket, I wrote “Sorry about the scratches. Hope this covers the repair of your car. M. Bean.” The door was unlocked. I left the package for Perry on the driver’s seat. Ah, well. Never trust a soothsayer when she predicts you’re about to come into a lot of money.

  I trudged around the huge house, and soon found the large marble bust of an elderly man near the bench where Carmen and Bruno had met, she to plead for family unity and he to sip his Armagnac. So what had happened to that glass?

  The path was paved with large, rough-cut stone blocks, perhaps three feet square. They would have provided a suitable surface for a nice smash, but surely the police would have noticed any shattered glass on the night of the party.

  Once I stopped fighting the idea of being cold and wet, I began to feel giddy, like a child playing in puddles. My parka was holding up well, but my legs were getting soaked through their tights and the bottom hem of my cashmere tunic was soggy. Wes gave me the dress last Christmas to celebrate our first profitable year. Now the dress, as well as the business, was probably ruined. Ah, well.

  Water was rolling off my head, springing my curly hair into long wet ringlets, pouring down my face like a vigorous cold shower. Giant puddles had formed where there were depressions in the uneven rock path, and I got down on my knees and put my hands into the muddy water just to make a thorough search. Twigs, rocks, nothing else.

  My ears were becoming accustomed to the language of the storm; the ever-present rush of water, the drumming of rain on the bench, and the harsh clanking of metal against metal as the wind beat the nearby tennis court fencing.

  What was that? I stopped splashing in the muck, startled by an unexpected sound that couldn’t be explained by rain, rushing water, or wind. It sounded like gravel, like when it’s kicked on a path when someone is approaching. In the dark of the storm, I twisted to see who was coming up behind me. I stared into the gloom. No one was there.

  Then, again, another shuffle! Again I reeled around fast, staring into the dark. And, again, no one.

  My senses were hyperalert, straining to see or hear or feel a stranger upon me. And then, once again, I heard the sound of movement. But this time, I was surprised to realize it was coming from the ivy! I stared hard at the hillside. Millions of black-green five-point leaves were dancing and jittering in the deluge of mud and rain.

  In an instant, I became sickeningly certain of what had made those footsteps. Rats. Hundreds of yet-to-be-poisoned, agitated rats. Rats scurrying, excited and frightened by the storm. Rats burrowing under their blanket of wet ivy, not four feet away from where I, deeply disturbed, stood.

  Chapter 34

  It was after some time had passed, with me staring numbly at the infested hillside, that I got the terrible idea. The idea was this: Bruno threw his brandy snifter up against the hill. The idea wouldn’t go away. I hated the idea. The more I hated it, the more I believed it was true.

  I stared at the ivy some more. Perhaps I could go find a rake and just poke around. Sure. And break the evidence. Who was going to get fingerprints off a shard?

  I stared at the ivy some more, and just to make sure I was fully aware of all the horrible possibilities lurking just beneath the leaves, I could swear I saw a long wet tail disappear back into the greenery.

  “Hell.”

  That being said, I walked back to where I presumed Carmen had stood with Bruno when she first brought him his drink. I sat on the soggy wooden bench where they had their chat. I stood up. I picked up a tiny stone from the path, tossed it gently at the hillside just a few feet away, and watched where it landed. I walked up to the very place and stuck my arm, elbow-deep, into the leaves and vines and, for all I knew, a hidden rat’s nest.

  I screamed quite a bit, too. My apprehension was almost unbearable. Would I touch a glass or a rat? Although clearly an octave higher than the prevailing winds, my screams were swallowed in its deep howl as I, now committed to this dreadful task, forced myself to feel around in the roots and vines and mud of the hill.

  When I was eight, I had a friend named Imogene who lived next door to a vacant lot. We used to play in that lot, unconcerned by the tiny field mice and lizards that lived and played there as well. One day we found a baby blue jay, abandoned we thought, since it was far from any tree that might hold its nest. We scooped up the baby bird, aware that its mother would now surely reject it because of our very touch. We warmed it in a blanket made from a red cotton kerchief and built it a little pen out of chicken wire where we vowed to bring it worms and bugs on which to grow. It was the budding of our nascent maternal core.

  When we returned the next morning, bugs in jar, we discovered a sickening little scene. The pen had been overturned. The baby blue jay had b
een attacked in the night. Its sweet head was missing and its tiny feathered body lay there half-eaten. I remember the two of us girls crying in shock and grief, losing our first child to some horrible, heartless marauder.

  Rats, my father said.

  I moved my hand around a few feet to the left, then a few feet to the right, then higher, then lower, my fingers cold and hurting as they scraped the tough roots and stones under the ivy. By the time my hand actually brushed against something rounded and hard, I was so traumatized with disgust and horror, that I almost passed it by. Then, fast, my fingers grabbed hold and pulled out my prize.

  It was a startlingly simple moment. I had Bruno’s brandy snifter. These things shouldn’t work out like this. But sometimes they just do.

  And then, I looked up on the hillside. Dear Lord, something was moving up there. Upset and angry, a line of rats was attempting to escape across a sprinkler pipe from the monster who was rustling and plunging into their homes.

  I backed away from the hillside. Freaked but triumphant, I remembered to hold the glass at the edges, and to shield it beneath my jacket. I was actually laughing from the release of tension. And then a curious thing occurred. My ears, which had moments earlier been so sharp as to detect the rooting around of rats in the ivy, had failed to warn me that someone had walked up on the path from the house.

  Nosing around other people’s secrets, I can’t honestly say why I hadn’t been more concerned about my safety. I figured that a poisoner had to be about the least confrontational type of murderer going. In theory, as long as I didn’t drink anything foolish, I’d be okay. That, of course, was in theory.

  Graydon pulled his collar close. He looked at me with indecision.

  “Lily told me you were looking around out here,” he said, in a normal tone of voice. “Can you give me that?” he asked, gesturing to the small bundle under my jacket.

  “I’d rather not.”

  He seemed to be thinking that over.

  “Are you going to shoot me, Graydon?”