Murder Misread

by P. M. Carlson

  “What did you talk about?” Maggie asked brightly.

  “Nothing important.”

  There was a brief pause. Bart fingered the pipe in his pocket. Finally Anne said, “You and Bernie aren’t exactly chums.”

  “You think he—?” A short harsh laugh. “No. I can see him framing me, all right. But Charlie’s always been his fair-haired boy. And Tal—God, I keep hitting that, Anne. Everybody liked Tal!”

  Wounded, Anne snapped, “In that case someone who liked him shot him. Be logical, Bart!”

  “Yes.” Chastised, he looked away. Such a big man, un bouboule, but so easy to hurt.

  “While we’re being logical,” Maggie said, “let me ask if your pipe could have fallen from your pocket.”

  “No. Well, maybe it’s possible. A couple of times in the past I’ve leaned over and it’s fallen out. But it’s unlikely—oh, hell, the whole thing is unlikely, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Maggie’s arms were folded across her flame-red shirt, and her brows had pulled into a small thoughtful frown. “Well, if you do think of something, be sure to let the police know. But don’t let us keep you any longer. I know you’re running an experiment now.”

  “Yes.” He smiled at Anne. “Still trying to find out how creative children can be.”

  “Is this a follow-up to that study you ran two years ago?” Anne asked.

  “That was just a pilot study. Had some interesting things in it. But our follow-up study last year didn’t work out. The stories were so different the coders couldn’t agree on categories. So now we’re constraining the kids’ stories more, giving them a topic instead of letting them choose. Oh, hell, Anne, you don’t want to hear me babble about this!”

  Maggie’s voice held lively interest. “Anne was telling me that Tal was very impressed by one of the kids in that pilot study. The young Jules Verne, remember, Anne?”

  “Jill Baker,” Anne said.

  Bart nodded. “Yes. That’s a good example of the coding problem I was talking about. Jill Baker told some interesting animal stories. I thought they were pretty creative. But one of the coders thought all animal stories were derivative.”

  “So by giving the kids topics, you’ll get your coders to look for creativity in areas other than subject matter?” Maggie asked.

  “That’s right. Though I hate to limit the children’s imagination that way.”

  “This Jill Baker—did she have brothers and sisters?”

  “Let’s see.” He looked into space again, thinking. “I met the mother. Bobbie Baker, something like that. Seems to me she was divorced and Jill was the only child. Why do you ask?”

  Maggie shrugged, the red shirt rising and falling. “Just curiosity. I see my daughter telling stories to her little brother and wonder if it’s developing her imagination. Well, Anne, let’s go. I have to find Charlie and tell him that the computer’s down, with his number in it.”

  “Too bad,” said Bart. “Anne, you call us if we can do anything, okay?”

  “Okay. See you, Bart.”

  Maggie picked up her briefcase and they went back down the hall and around the corner. She stopped by an open door. Anne saw that Charlie was in the room, bent over a disassembled machine. He was humming “Over the Rainbow” and gave a start when Maggie spoke. “How’s it going?”

  “Oh, Maggie! And Anne. Hello.” He straightened and pushed his glasses up on his nose.

  Maggie put her briefcase on the table next to the apparatus. “Have you found the problem?”

  “I’ve got it narrowed down to two possibilities,” Charlie said. “As soon as I check those out I can fix it.”

  “Good. I figured you must be doing all right if you were humming.”

  “Yeah.” Charlie looked at Anne almost apologetically. “I get absorbed in equipment like this. Forget the real world sometimes.”

  Anne nodded. Nice of him to apologize, as though he too knew the world should be in mourning. She reached for a cigarette but then hesitated, remembering the signs in the computer room. So much equipment these days needed a smoke-free environment. Including humans, apparently. Well, she’d quit one of these days, but this was hardly the time.

  Maggie was telling Charlie about the computer printout problem. “Will you still be around a couple of hours from now?”

  “Yes, of course. This contraption will take me another hour at least, and I haven’t even checked my mail today.”

  “Well, I’ll stop by again later. Maybe we can go over the results today after all.” She picked up her briefcase again. “Good luck with that printer.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Next stop, phone booth,” said Maggie when they were back in the hall.

  “As long as I can smoke,” said Anne. “But I thought we were going to look at Cindy’s files and return them.”

  “Yes, if we can. But something else has come up.” Maggie shoved open the main doors of the basement and led the way to a bank of outdoor phone booths. Anne lit a Gauloise while Maggie opened the directory. “A lot of Bakers. Do you know where Jill lives, Anne?”

  “Jill Baker? I don’t know.”

  “Lives with her mother, Bart said. A name like Bobbie. Roberta, maybe. How about R.M. Baker, 401 Stafford—no, that’s on campus, probably a student. Well, we’ll try B.E. Baker then. 1731 Pinetree Lane.” She slapped the book closed and rejoined Anne.

  “So we’re going to try to find Jill Baker?”

  “We’ll just buzz by, then come back here.” She replaced the directory and started around the corner toward the parking lot. “Why don’t we take my car? That is, if you want to come.”

  “Sure. But why this sudden interest in Jill Baker?”

  “You said her story bothered Tal. And it occurred to me that she’d be home from school by now. School’s still in session here, right?”

  “Until next week.” Anne climbed into the Camaro. Children’s toys were scattered across the backseat.

  “Okay, let’s go. Pinetree Lane is part of that new subdivision on the west hill, right? Forest Park?” Maggie snapped her seatbelt on and turned the ignition.

  “Yes. All the streets have names like that. Pinetree, Cherrywood, Oakland. Tal used to call it Parquet Park.”

  Maggie laughed. “Off to Parquet Park we go. It’s not that far from here, if we cut over by Minerva Creek.”

  “That’s right. You know your way around here.”

  “When I was a grad here I had a lovely rusty old Ford. Springs popping out of the upholstery but it ran well. God, I loved that car. My first. I was always tuning it up, relining the brakes, all that stuff. Drove it all over these hills.” Maggie sighed. “The frame finally rusted through and I sold it to a guy for the parts. I was moving to New York about then anyway.”

  “First car, first apartment,” said Anne. “Strange how friendly you feel toward them even when they wouldn’t do at all anymore. Or first trip abroad. God, I was dumb! But at the time I felt so sophisticated.”

  “Same here.” The blue eyes smiled at Anne. “I was this hick kid from Ohio, thinking, Watch out, Paris, here I come! So greedy. Fifteen years old and I wanted to gobble the whole city, everything it had to offer. Art, music, theatre, sports, literature. Love.”

  “Same with me. I was fourteen. Maybe at that age it’s a healthy attitude.”

  “Maybe.” Maggie’s voice was serious now. “But you can sure take a bad fall if you aren’t careful.”

  “That can happen anywhere. And you recover from things that happen at fifteen.”

  “Recover. Well, maybe sometimes.” That sidelong glance again, sober this time. “In any case you go on.”

  “Yes. You go on, you grow.” Anne looked out the window. They had descended into the valley from the university hill and were crossing the town toward the road that led up the west hill. “The French understand about going on. They’re a lot more forgiving of wild oats than Americans. They’ve never been Puritans. But of course they expect people to settle down later, make commi
tments.”

  “To be sérieux.” There was a thread of bitterness in Maggie’s voice.

  Anne looked at her sharply. “Yes. Sérieux.” Untranslatable. It meant serious, yes, but with the emphasis on being a responsible, solid citizen. “But if you were just fifteen, they couldn’t have expected that of you.”

  “No.” Maggie took a deep breath and turned into the subdivision, a set of low-slung fifties houses that varied only in paint color and plantings. “Here’s Pinetree.”

  The Baker house was painted yellow, with a rough lawn and overgrown bushes. A well-worn Pinto and a bike sat in the open garage. Anne followed Maggie to the front door.

  The woman who answered was a tired-looking thirty-five, blonde, in jeans and a pink sweatshirt. “Mrs. Baker?” Maggie asked.

  “Yes?” She brushed a wisp of hair from her forehead.

  “I’m Maggie Ryan. You’re Jill Baker’s mother?”

  “That’s right.” She stood very still. “Is there a problem?”

  “No, not at all. We’re doing a follow-up interview of children who were in Professor Bickford’s creativity study a couple of years ago. Sorry we weren’t able to reach you in advance. But if Jill’s here, we’d like to talk to her for five or ten minutes.”

  “Oh, yes.” The woman relaxed. “Come on in. I’m Barbara Baker. I just got home myself so everything’s a mess right now. But you work too, obviously. So you know how it is.” She waved them into the kitchen and called down a hall, “Jill! Come here a minute! Visitors!” She rejoined them and asked, “Coffee?”

  “Love some,” said Maggie. She’d taken a pad from her briefcase and looked very much the earnest researcher.

  Barbara Baker poured two mugs from a pot plugged into the range outlet, handed them to Anne and Maggie, and picked up a third mug that was already sitting next to the sink. “What’s this follow-up about?”

  “We’re just checking what the children remember. We’ll do a few sample interviews and if they look interesting there may be another full-fledged study.” Maggie paused to look at the door. A coltish girl of about twelve was entering, wearing jeans and a powder-blue sweatshirt. She was blonde like her mother, with long-lashed blue eyes. She was almost as tall as her mother too, but moved awkwardly, not yet at home in her newly leggy body.

  Barbara Baker was leaning against the sink counter. She said, “These people have come to ask you about that project you helped with a couple of years ago. At the university. You remember, the one where you told crazy stories?”

  “Yeah?” Jill didn’t seem antagonistic, just cautious.

  Maggie said, “I’m Maggie and this is Anne. We just wanted to see what kids remember about their stories after two years. That’s a pretty long time.”

  “Yeah,” Jill agreed. She flopped down in one of the breakfast chairs and drew up one leg. “It’s like a memory test?”

  “More like a game. No grades,” Maggie reassured her.

  “What am I supposed to remember?”

  “The stories you told.”

  “You’ll be sorry,” Barbara Baker warned. She brought her mug to the table and sat in the fourth chair, giving her daughter’s hair an affectionate tousle as she passed. “This one’s got a crazy imagination.”

  “Well, that’s exactly what we’re looking for,” Maggie said. “Jill, can you tell us the stories?”

  “Well, I told one about when I was a clown and had a pet chicken,” Jill began. She was hugging her knee, glancing up occasionally to check Maggie and Anne’s reactions. “We traveled all over the world and came to Laconia. Then we went to the fairgrounds and built a big rocket for the moon. But we didn’t have enough money for gasoline.”

  Barbara laughed. “That part isn’t imagination! We got stuck that way a couple of years ago. Jill’s father bounced a child support check and there we were, overdrawn too.”

  “So what did you and the chicken do?” Maggie asked Jill.

  “We both got jobs at the mall. But nobody wanted to buy coffee from a chicken, you know? So I got out my clown make-up and made the chicken look like an American eagle. And then everybody felt patriotic and bought coffee. And so we got to go to the moon. I forget how.” Jill frowned at the table. “There was some more stuff but I forget.”

  “That’s okay. It’s a great story,” Maggie said. “You’ve got a good memory. That was two years ago.”

  “Tell the other one,” Barbara urged. “About the shark.”

  A shadow crossed Jill’s face. “I don’t like that one.”

  “You know what happened? She went off to see Jaws with her friends and it scared her to death,” her mother explained. “She was, what, nine years old. So she made up a story about it. But she’s never liked it.”

  Maggie said, “You don’t have to tell us, Jill. But I’d love to hear it, if you’re willing.”

  Jill was silent a moment, hugging her leg, mouth pressed against her knee. Then she said rapidly, “I went in a room and there was a man with sunglasses and a mustache and a dark slicker and an orange life jacket. I got in a boat. And the water was splashing outside the boat and a shark came. The man said, quick, you’re wearing pink, that’s what sharks like. So he took my things and showed me how to lie down in the bottom of the boat where the shark couldn’t see me.” Her voice was flat, staccato. “And I wanted to see the shark but I didn’t want to stand up. So he took out my eyeball and held it up over the edge of the boat, and then I could see the water and the shark snapping its teeth. Like looking through the window. And he told me to yell the magic words and the shark would leave. I didn’t like the magic words but I was scared. So I yelled, and the shark went away, and he put my eyeball back in. And I got out of the boat and came home.”

  Anne was shaken. No wonder Tal had brooded over this child’s imagination.

  Maggie’s jaw had tightened. “Thanks, Jill,” she said soberly. “I agree with you. The first story is more fun. But I’m really glad you remembered the other one too.”

  “Didn’t forget a thing,” said Barbara proudly. “But you know, she still won’t wear pink. And she looks so pretty in it.”

  “Dumb color,” Jill muttered with a resentful look at her mother.

  “Yeah, she probably made up that story just so she could throw out her pink clothes.” Barbara laughed. “Wish she’d waited till she was my size. I’d take them!”

  Anne could see that Barbara was trying to lighten her daughter’s mood.

  “Were there other stories, Jill?” Maggie asked.

  “No, we only had time for two. There was something else, like a test we took. Lots of questions. But I don’t remember what they were.”

  “That’s okay, we don’t need that. One other thing.” Maggie pulled out the Christmas party photo. “Do you remember any of these people?”

  Jill studied it seriously. “This one’s Bart,” she said, pointing. “I told the stories to him. And this one’s Tal. I saw him after, in the hall, and he wondered why I was crying and I said it was a scary story about sharks. And he said yes, shark stories were very scary. But he said scary stories could be good, if they got us to think about how to be ready if scary things really happened.” She frowned at her upraised knee.

  “Do you know anyone else in the picture?” Maggie asked.

  “No.”

  “The man in the slicker?”

  Jill glanced back at the snapshot. “No.” Then the blue eyes flicked up at Maggie’s in alarm. “I mean, he’s not real.”

  “Right,” said Maggie. “Well, that’s all. Thank you, Jill, you really helped us.”

  “Sure.” They all walked to the door.

  “Oh, Jill!” Maggie was halfway to the driveway, “Could you show me your bike a minute? My daughter wants one and I’d like to know about Raleighs. What you like and what you don’t like.”

  “Okay.” Jill joined her in the garage.

  Anne got out a Gauloise. “Do you want a cigarette?” she asked Barbara.

  “Thanks, no. But y
ou go ahead. Will you tell us the results of this follow-up study?”

  It took Anne a second to remember that they were supposed to be working on a new phase of Bart’s study. “Of course,” she said, and added, “although it may not get very far. This is very preliminary, as you can see.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your daughter is delightful. She must be a joy to you.”

  “Oh, yes.” Barbara Baker smiled. “A joy and an exasperation. She does have a wild imagination. You suppose that’s because her father left?” She looked suddenly vulnerable.

  “Who knows?” Anne said. She wanted to comfort Barbara. Even with an enthusiastic partner like Tal, mothering was filled with doubt and worries. “Probably she’s just a bright girl. Maybe a genius.”

  “Wish her grades showed that!” Barbara smoothed back some stray wisps of blonde hair. “She becomes a teenager next year.”

  “Good luck!” said Anne sincerely. “But she seems a level-headed girl. And it’s possible to survive it. My daughter and I did.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  Maggie had given Jill’s shoulders a friendly squeeze and walked up the driveway. “Hey, let’s go!” she called from the driver’s side of the Camaro. “Thanks again, Barbara!”

  “Sure.”

  Anne climbed into the passenger seat and mashed her cigarette into the ashtray. She waved at Barbara and Jill as they backed out. Turning from the subdivision toward Minerva Creek, she asked, “What did you and Jill have to say to each other back there?”

  Maggie glanced at her briefly, her blue eyes shadowed. “I told her I knew the shark story really happened. But I told her she was right, it was better if her mother and other people thought it was just a story.”

  “The shark story? Are you crazy?” Anne peered at Maggie suspiciously. “Boats inside rooms and removable eyeballs? Jill just saw that awful film and made up a good story for herself. Or had a nightmare and recounted that.”

  Maggie sighed as she turned the Camaro into the narrow creek road. “I hope you’re right, Anne. I hope to God you’re right.”