Rough Cider

by Peter Lovesey

  I nodded.

  “Regular guy,” said Harry. “Too bad.”

  I waited for more, and when it came, it was as sensational as anything Sally had said.

  “He should be alive today.”

  “What do you mean?” demanded Alice in a whisper. She was wound up to the snapping point.

  “Just that, sweetheart. Duke was innocent. I could have saved him.” Harry picked a cigar out of a ceramic pot on the mantelpiece and made us wait while he went through the ritual of lighting it.

  Making it obvious that I’d need plenty of convincing, I commented, “You say you could have saved him but you didn’t.”

  Harry glared at me through the smoke. “How could I? Where was I in 1945 when they put him on trial? Somewhere this side of Berlin, mopping up. I didn’t see Duke after Normandy. Our units were separated after the landing. The first I heard of it was August ’45, a piece of gossip over a beer. This padre from way back says to me, ‘remember Duke Donovan, the tall New Yorker who wrote songs?’ Did I know they took him back to England and hanged him for murder? Did I, hell!”

  Skeptically, I said, “You think you should have been the star witness for the defense?”

  “Am I getting through to you now?” said Harry, trading sarcasm.

  Alice was hunched forward on the edge of the chair, pressing her whitened knuckles against her jaw. “How do you know that my daddy was innocent?”

  So much for our ground rules, but who could have blamed her? The precise words she used weren’t planned. She was so keyed up that the mention of her daddy was automatic.

  Harry was on to it like a terrier. “Just who are you?”

  Alice stared at him in a petrified silence. I doubt if she was capable of speech.

  I answered for her. “She’s the daughter of Duke and Eleanor Donovan.”

  He gave a quick, nervous laugh. “You don’t say! Elly’s child? This is Elly’s child? Why didn’t you tell me, for Christ’s sake?”

  I said truthfully, “We didn’t know how you’d react.”

  He was busy adjusting, torn between anger and, I think, a residue of sentiment. “Can you beat that? I married her mother, did you know that? I’m her stepfather.” He took a couple of steps towards Alice in recognition that some paternal gesture was wanted and actually put out a hand towards her shoulder without quite making contact. He let it down slowly and asked, “Tell me, is Elly still-”

  I spoke for Alice again. “She died.”

  “No,” said Harry with the awkwardness of an ex-husband with a nonexistent record of concern, “That’s terrible. How?”

  “A car crash earlier this year.”

  He rolled his eyes upwards. “Nobody told me.”

  I said unsparingly, “Is that surprising after you abandoned them?”

  He turned away from me. “Alice, honey, if there’s anything you need…”

  She said without looking up, “Just tell me about my daddy.”

  Harry nodded, picked up his glass, and said, “First I need another drink. Anyone else?”

  He left us alone.

  I offered my Scotch and soda to Alice. “Want a sip of this?”

  She shook her head.

  I warned her, “Don’t expect too much from Harry. He could be stringing us along.”

  I don’t know if he heard my opinion, but he was back in the room a second after I’d given it, ready to go, like an actor on a second take. This time with more attack. “Okay, if you want to know the truth about your daddy, Alice, you picked the right guy. He and I were buddies from way back. We belonged to a boys’ baseball club in Queens. Does that surprise you?” He mimed the pitcher’s action. “And your mom used to come and watch. She was in high school with Duke. Eleanor Beech. Blonde like you and just as pretty. Well, almost. I could show you pictures.”

  I said acidly, “The words will do.”

  “Whatever you want. Elly Beech was Duke’s girl, and I used to date her sometimes.” He smiled at the memory. “Date her? I mean buy her an ice-cream soda at the drugstore and walk her home after. Duke was bigger than me, better-looking, a lean, dark Irish look that impressed girls.” Harry paused to let us appreciate how golden-hearted he was, then added, “But I was a couple of years older. A man of the world. I could do voices and make her laugh, I may be shorter than average, but I never had problems relating to women.”

  No, I thought, you never had problems, you bastard, but you gave your wives plenty.

  Harry was on to his service career. He’d enlisted in December 1941, the day after America entered the war. “I was smart. The first volunteers took quick promotion. Inside eighteen months I was made up to sergeant. I told Duke, and he signed on as soon as he reached the age, in ’42. He needed the pay to marry Elly, which he did, sometime in ’43.”

  Alice supplied the date: “April fifth.”

  Harry flashed her a broad smile. “Thanks, sweetheart. You must be right, because they weren’t married more than a couple of months before it was June and we were drafted to Shepton Mallet, England. Great name, crummy place. A stone cross, a prison, and five thousand GIs bored out of their skulls. Is it any wonder that I got reduced to the ranks for bringing girls onto the base at night?”

  I couldn’t trust myself to answer, so I said, “I’ve never been to Shepton Mallet.”

  “Don’t bother,” said Harry, and moved on. “So I was a private soldier, and naturally I linked up with my buddy, Duke. We’d borrow a jeep and go for rides. There was a lot of sympathy for me in the MT section.”

  “And Duke?” I put in quickly. “What was his standing?”

  “A regular guy. Popular. Good musician. Wrote his own songs. Anyone who could entertain us was made, believe me.

  I nodded. “Barbara told me about the Columbus Day concert at the base. She was highly impressed with Duke’s singing.”

  “Is that a fact? Yeah, I guess he could have made it as a songwriter. Country and western more than pop. He was working on a way of using the Somerset dialect in his songs. The way they talked down here amused him.”

  “I know. I used to collect words and phrases for him. He made lists.”

  Harry drew on his cigar and looked at me with a shade more respect. “That’s right. He did. Matter of fact, Duke and his lists of words came in handy when I was dating Sally.”

  “You couldn’t understand her?”

  He pulled a face. “Christ, no, she wasn’t a total hick. What I mean is, she was strictly brought up. Her parents didn’t like her walking out with a GI, but a foursome was okay, so I persuaded Duke to make up the numbers with Barbara.” He grinned complacently. “I told him it was a great way to get more Somerset words, and he bought it.”

  I grinned back. “Never.”

  “Straight up. I’m not kidding.”

  This simply didn’t square with what I knew about Barbara. She’d walked up the lane almost every evening that autumn, telling her parents she was meeting Sally, when she was actually meeting Duke. She’d looked into my room sometimes at the end of an evening, flushed with love, her lips swollen from kissing. I knew, and I’d been punished for keeping her secret. I wouldn’t have endured a beating from Mrs. Lockwood for nothing.

  I told Harry, “Maybe he was kidding you”

  Harry conceded a little. “Sure, he was doing me a favor. He was a great buddy.”

  I spelled it out for him. “Duke and Barbara were lovers.”

  I heard a sharp intake of breath from Alice.

  Harry said, “No chance.”

  “For Christ’s sake, she was expecting his child!”

  Alice made a shrill, protesting cry. I avoided looking at her. I wanted this between Harry and me.

  Harry slung his half-smoked cigar into the fireplace and stepped towards my chair, jowls quivery, red-faced with outrage. “Stand up and say that.”

  I replied through the fumes, “Read the postmortem report. She was two months’ pregnant.”

  He grabbed my sweater and tried to hau
l me upwards, but I gripped his forearm and resisted. My arms and shoulders are strong. I use them more than most people.

  We might have stayed locked for some time if Alice hadn’t snatched up my stick and jabbed it hard into Harry’s ribs. He let go and staggered back, knocking over a glass-topped table and my drink as he went.

  Alice was a revelation, eyes flashing behind the gold frames. She told her stepfather, “Quit it, will you?”

  Massaging his side, Harry said thickly, “He insulted my buddy.”

  Alice glared at him and said, “Loyalty isn’t your strong suit, Harry.” Then, to my surprise and extreme annoyance, she wheeled on me and said, “Quit bugging him with stupid crap like that. We came here to listen, not start a fight. This is my show, and I’m not letting anyone foul it up.”

  It was a kick in the teeth. All my animosity came surging back. For this headstrong, father-fixated girl I’d sacrificed my weekend, missing my sleep, seen off the press, driven all the way to Somerset, faced a hostile farmer with a shotgun, and ruined a set of clothes.

  I could have pointed out that if I’d left her to do the talking, we’d still be standing on the doorstep.

  Instead I controlled my anger. I gave her the look of a man who has run through his fund of sympathy. “Your show? Run it the way you want.”

  Let’s give her credit: She didn’t falter. The flurry of action had taken the edge off her nerves. She tossed her hair back from her forehead, tucked the walking stick under her arm like a drill sergeant, and told Harry, “Pick up the table.”

  He obeyed without a murmur.

  FOURTEEN

  “Why don’t you sit down?” When her suggestion had been acted on, Alice gave Harry a cool, unfilial look. “You said you could have put the court right on a few things. This is your chance.?m going to take you through the crucial days of 1943.”

  With an air of authority that wouldn’t have disgraced a learned counsel examining a witness, she drew Harry’s story from him: how he and Duke had met me in Mrs. Mumford’s and driven out to Gifford Farm; how they’d met Barbara and offered to help gather the apples.

  “Why?” asked Alice.

  Harry’s eyebrows lifted, but he gave no answer. All the bounce had gone out of him.

  “Why did you offer to help?”

  ‘Two bored GIs looking for free drinks and friendship, I guess.”

  “So, was Barbara the attraction?”

  “Sure, she was pretty. She had the whitest skin you ever saw. Rosy cheeks. Fine black hair. She was a sweet kid but kind of remote.” To this touching eulogy he added the footnote, “I didn’t expect to score with her.”

  “Did Duke?” asked Alice. If proof were wanted of her self-control, it was here in the way she put the question, as if the daddy she’d never mentioned before without a tremor in her voice was suddenly a cipher.

  Harry shook his head. “He was a married man.”

  “So were hundreds of other GIs who went with English girls,” said Alice. “You can be frank with me.”

  “All the time he was over here, Duke never looked at a woman.”

  She said in the same reasonable tone, “That’s not true, is it? He escorted Barbara to the Columbus Day concert.”

  None of Alice’s composure rubbed off on Harry. His voice rose to a protesting squeak. “He did it to help me out.” Then his words came in a rush. “This was twenty years ago. Nice girls moved in pairs, safety in numbers from studs like me, understand? I couldn’t date Sally without finding someone for her friend. So Duke came along. He drove the jeep, hands on the wheel, Barbara beside him clutching her handbag. They didn’t even talk much. All the action happened in the rear seat.”

  “And after that evening?”

  Harry looked vacant.

  “Didn’t they meet secretly?” Alice asked.

  “Where was this, for God’s sake?”

  “In the lanes around the farm. Barbara would go for evening walks. Duke would be waiting with the jeep.”

  “Sweetheart, who gave you this crap?”

  Alice didn’t answer. She didn’t even look in my direction.

  Harry said, “Listen, Duke spent most evenings writing to Elly. Take it from me, if he’d been going out nights in the jeep, I’d have known. Jesus, I’d have been with him.”

  “Maybe he didn’t tell you.”

  “Nuts.”

  Still unruffled, Alice said, “Let’s backtrack, shall we? You did some shooting on the farm with Mr. Lockwood and his son?”

  Harry nodded. “Joke. The only gun we could lay our hands on was a.45. That’s a pistol, an automatic. We shot nothing. And before you ask, Barbara wasn’t in the party.”

  “But on another occasion you took her with you.”

  “That was different. Duke had promised to give the boy a turn with the.45.” Harry’s eyes fastened on me. “Am 1 right?”

  I confirmed it.

  He continued, “Barbara just tagged along, as I recall. We took a few shots at an oilcan.”

  “And afterwards?”

  “We put the gun in the hallstand where old Lockwood kept his shotguns.” He gave a sly grin. “That.45 was like a bottle of Coke-nonreturnable.”

  “So anyone could have taken it from there on the day of the murder?”

  Harry passed no comment.

  Alice moved on. “Let’s come to the cider pressing. While it was going on, you and Duke drove out to the farm several times, didn’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  “You watched Mr. Lockwood put mutton in the casks?”

  “Yup.”

  “And you heard Bernard mention that he’d spotted Cliff Morton’s bicycle in a ditch on the farm?”

  Harry’s response was more assertive this time. He wagged a fat finger in the air. “That’s another thing. Duke hardly met the guy he’s supposed to have shot. The first time we came to pick apples-this is back in September-there was some kind of incident. I believe Morton was caught trying it on with Barbara. He was given the bum’s rush. We didn’t see him again.”

  At this point in the exchange I interrupted. Harry was so wide of the mark that I couldn’t prevent myself. I said, “Whether Duke knew the man is immaterial. The motive wasn’t jealousy. He killed him because of the savage attack he made on Barbara.”

  I was rewarded with a cold stare from Alice. “Will you let me continue?” she asked in a tone that left no doubt that she would. She returned to Harry. “On that afternoon you drove out to the farm with Duke to invite the girls to a party.”

  “Thanksgiving Day,” Harry confirmed. “And before you ask, I was the organizer. I had it down as my benefit night. You may not believe this after what you saw just now, but Sal was hot for me in those days. I knew I was ready to score. All I had to do was set it up, keep the Shoesmith family sweet. So I talked Duke into being Barbara’s escort again. I really had to sell it to him, I can tell you. Finally, the songwriting swung it my way. He was composing these songs in the Somerset dialect, using the words he’d heard. They were three-quarters written, but he was stuck for a few more lines.”

  “Which you told him Barbara could provide?”

  “You got it.”

  “You’re quite certain that there was nothing between them?”

  “Duke and Barbara? Zilch.”

  “On both sides? I mean, how about Barbara? Did she have romantic ideas about Duke?”

  “I doubt it. If you ask me, she was doing Sally a favor.”

  Alice said thoughtfully, “Maybe I should ask Sally.”

  “Sure. Why not?” Harry was all for the spotlight moving to someone else.

  “Let’s finish this. I believe you called for Sally on the way to the farm.”

  “Correct.”

  “And?”

  Resignedly, he wound himself up again. “The party was a surprise. She’d never heard of Thanksgiving, but she was over the moon when I invited her. I told her we’d pick up Barbara on the way. She put on some face and a pretty dress and we were on the
road inside the hour.”

  “And when you got to Gifford Farm?”

  Harry took off his glasses and wiped them, remembering. “There was a holiday atmosphere, not for Thanksgiving but for the cider pressing. They were on the last load of apples, and the machine was going like a steam hammer. Old man Lockwood had treated everyone to extra cider and given the farmhands an early finish. Mrs. Lockwood was offering hot scones and cream, but we wanted to ask Barbara to the party first, so she could get ready.”

  “You told the Lockwoods about the party?”

  “No need. We had Sally with us in a pink chiffon dress.”

  “She must have been cold.”

  “Sitting on my lap? You’re kidding. To answer your question, we told them about the party and they raised no objection, so Duke and I went off to find Barbara. She should be milking, they told us. She wasn’t. She hadn’t been. The cows were still waiting with their udders straining. We went back to see if anyone had a better idea. No dice.” Harry stopped and jerked his head in my direction. “He can tell you the rest.”

  Alice wasn’t letting him off. “I’ve had his account,” she told Harry in a firm, no-nonsense voice. “I came here for yours.”

  “The works?”

  “All of it. Everything.”

  “You’re going to be disappointed,” he warned her.

  “Try me,” said Alice.

  Hearing all this, I was veering between anger and admiration. She’d handled Harry brilliantly, keeping control without seeming to antagonize him. Her grasp of the disjointed and highly subjective story I’d unfolded the previous evening was rock-sure. What’s more, she’d sorted it into its proper sequence. She’d match any computer in processing information. Believe me, I was smarting from the rebukes she’d dealt me, and peeved that she didn’t challenge some of Harry’s wrongheaded assertions, yet I’m forced to admit that she got more from him than I would have done.

  And for all his denials, some of the most interesting details came at the end.

  “I was just a bystander,” he insisted. “I heard about the rape from Sally, and she got it from Mrs. Lockwood.”

  “Aren’t we jumping forward here?” said Alice. “You left us with the cows not milked and no sign of Barbara.”