Who Killed Mona Lisa?

by Carole Elizabeth Buggé

  “What is?” said Claire. “Do you mean the weather?”

  “No,” Meredith replied, wrapping her thin arms around her body. “I was talking about your discovery—the knife. It’s awesome—talk about an important clue!” She covered her mouth with a mittened hand, blowing into it, sending a thick white cloud of breath into the air. Her mittens were red with white snowflake patterns on them, and Claire was reminded once again that Meredith was after all just a child.

  “Well”—Claire dug the toe of her boot into the snow—“there aren’t likely to be any fingerprints on it at this point. And even if there were, it couldn’t really prove anything.”

  “Maybe not,” said Meredith, “but it’s still way cool that you found the murder weapon.”

  “If it is the murder weapon.”

  Claire watched as Hornblower, his legs held by Wally and Detective Murphy, leaned out over the rushing water, attempting to wrest the knife from the gears of the wheel. She was worried he was going to slip and fall into the stream, but Wally had a firm hold around his waist. Finally he succeeded in untangling the knife and was pulled back to safety.

  Detective Hornblower brought the knife over to where they were standing, a solemn expression on his long face.

  “Do you think that’s it; is that the murder weapon?” Meredith asked. Unable to contain her excitement, she hopped up and down a little as she talked, her breath coming in little frozen gusts.

  “Oh, I can’t answer that,” he replied. “Forensics will have to determine that. It looks to be about the right size,” he added, dropping the knife carefully into a clear plastic bag, the kind you might use for storing leftovers. Claire suddenly had an image of the detective’s refrigerator, stuffed with plastic bags full of murder weapons and evidence: here a screwdriver, there a hair sample, a bag of blood-stained fabric in the vegetable bin.

  That led her to wondering if he had a wife at home, someone to look after him. Not that she was particularly attracted to him, but something in him awakened her maternal instincts, so long dormant, now brought to life again by Meredith’s presence in her life. His sad eyes, the distracted, faraway look that he usually disguised with all that New England austerity—all of this pulled at something inside her.

  They walked back to the inn, where they were greeted at the door by Max.

  Detective Hornblower held up the plastic bag. “Is this your missing knife?”

  The chef peered at it. “I think so. It’s a little hard to tell now.” The knife was badly twisted and the tip had broken off. “Yes, that is it,” Max concluded, after studying it. “You can see the manufacturer’s name on the label. I order all knives from them; there is no better to be found.”

  If it was good enough for Max, Claire thought, then perhaps it was good enough for a murderer.

  “Well, we’d better get this down to the lab,” Detective Hornblower said, handing the plastic bag to Detective Murphy. The state trooper took it gingerly, as though it contained nitroglycerin.

  “I can take it to the lab,” he said. “I’m going over there now anyway with these DNA samples.”

  “All right—thank you,” Hornblower answered, adjusting his worn fedora on his head.

  “Do you think you’ll lift any prints from the knife?” Meredith asked as the state trooper left. A big gust of wind blew in as the front door opened and closed, bringing a few stray flakes of snow that swirled about and then settled on the floor.

  The lanky detective shook his head and pulled absently at his little beard. “Probably not. That knife’s been through a lot. And even if we do,” he added with a glance at Max, “they won’t necessarily point us in the right direction.”

  “Oh, I see—right,” said Meredith. “Because if it’s Max’s knife it’ll be sure to have his prints on it—right?”

  “Among other people’s, I would think,” Wally added. “Lots of people have access to the kitchen.”

  “Right,” Hornblower agreed. “Any prints we find are likely to be inconclusive as evidence. Still,” he sighed, “it’s worth a try.” He looked around as though he were looking for someone, then pushed his hat back and scratched his head.

  Just then Frank Wilson entered the hall and approached the detective. “Have you had lunch yet, Rufus?”

  “Well, no, but I don’t think . . .” Hornblower replied wistfully.

  “There’s some chicken soup left over from last night.”

  “Well, I don’t . . .” He licked his lips and shrugged.

  “Come on—you look hungry,” the innkeeper said, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

  Claire thought it was a rather familiar gesture for a potential murder suspect to be making toward the detective in charge of the investigation, but Hornblower didn’t seem to mind. He sighed gratefully.

  “Thanks, Frank. I am a little hungry, I guess.”

  “How is it they know each other?” Meredith whispered as the two men went to the kitchen. Max trotted after them, rubbing his big hands together.

  Wally shrugged. “Small town, I guess.”

  Now that the roads were cleared, curiosity seekers began driving by the inn, drawn no doubt by reports of the murder in the local paper. Some of them took pictures or just stopped their cars and stared, though when they saw the police cars parked in the lot they usually moved on. A reporter from the local paper came to the hotel hoping for quotes from the residents, but Frank Wilson turned her away, saying he didn’t think it would be appropriate, since any of them might be potential suspects. She was a young, intense-looking woman with horn-rim glasses and serious dark eyes, which widened behind the thick lenses when he said this. She held a small tape recorder in one gloved hand, a yellow legal pad under her arm. Claire stood watching from the hall as the young woman, biting her lip, tried to reason with the innkeeper. He was polite but firm, suggesting she speak to Detective Hornblower instead. Finally the woman pocketed her little tape recorder and left, lifting her feet carefully as she negotiated the icy patches on the concrete path to the parking lot.

  Meredith was angry when she heard the woman had been sent away. “Oh, man! I would have talked to her; why didn’t you come get me?” she said, looking up from the book she was reading, Zen in the Art of Archery. She lay on her back on her cot, her shoes in the middle of the floor where she left them, her wool socks hanging loosely on her feet.

  “Maybe Frank’s right,” Claire said. “Maybe it’s best none of us talk to her.”

  “Oh, man!” Meredith repeated, kicking at her pillow with her heel. “I never get to have any fun!”

  Claire sat on the edge of the bed. “Would you rather go back to Connecticut?” It was a low blow, but she wanted the girl to be more appreciative; she needed to shake her out of this adolescent selfishness.

  “No, I don’t,” Meredith replied. “You know I don’t!”

  “Then stop complaining.”

  She wondered if perhaps she should send the girl back to her father; maybe it wasn’t safe here, even with Claire and Wally keeping an eye on her. She left Meredith to her book and went back downstairs, where she found Frank Wilson tearing apart a cardboard liquor box to make a sign, which he hung on the front door: CLOSED. He came back into the hotel, stamping the snow off his feet, and sighed heavily.

  “I don’t want to sound callous or insensitive,” he muttered, “but this couldn’t have been worse timing for business.” He looked at Claire. “Do I sound insensitive?”

  “You’re just being honest,” she answered.

  The innkeeper sighed. “Most people who come here have no idea how difficult it can be to keep a place like this going month to month. They don’t think about overhead.”

  “Is yours very high?”

  “Salaries, real-estate tax, supplies, repairs. Yeah, pretty high. Repairs alone on an old building like this . . .” He shook his head.

  “Oh, right.”

  “And if I go under, not only do all my employees suffer, but the town will lose a lot of out-of-state to
urist dollars. Oh, well . . .” Wilson brushed a few flakes of snow from his shoulder. “Hopefully we’ll be able to reopen soon.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  Wilson shook his head. “Nothing, I guess . . . just a sense of propriety. It doesn’t seem right until . . . well, at least until Mona’s been properly buried.” His face suddenly crumpled and there was a catch in his voice as he said these words. He turned away quickly, but Claire could see that he was on the verge of tears. She remembered seeing him weeping in the kitchen and it was so obvious that she wondered why she hadn’t seen it before: he, too, had cared deeply about Mona Callahan.

  The sun was setting earlier each day now, and a little after five o’clock Claire sat alone in the bar, working on a crossword puzzle. Wally and Meredith had both fallen asleep upstairs, Meredith snoring away on her cot, Wally sprawled out on the bed, a pillow over his head to drown out the sound of Meredith’s snoring. Claire took a sip from her mug of Sam Adams. Alcohol loosened something inside her, making her more responsive to life as it was, not as she felt it ought to be. Her need to judge things carefully disappeared under its influence and she was content merely to observe; to watch the world flow by in all its disturbing sound and color.

  She took a sip of the beer, cold and sharp on her tongue. No wonder Protestants reputedly drank so much, she thought: it was the only way they could loosen their relentless grip on themselves, letting go for a little while of the damnable need to do, do, do—this drive for achievement that Claire had always bought into but which lately made her a little dizzy . . . she wondered if she would ever be able to stop tormenting herself for all the things she hadn’t done—or, worse yet, for the things she would probably never do.

  A candle burned on the table in front of her. Claire stared at the calm, still point of the flame, undisturbed by any breeze. She gazed into the blue center of the wick, surrounded by the yellow flame, which cast a circular pool of light all around.

  Claire watched as the candle shuddered and flickered momentarily, blown by an unseen draft. Mona Callahan had died as a result of someone else’s passion—the fire that destroys, even as her body contained within it the seed of life. Had that person also been trying to stem the flow of life from her womb? Meredith could be right—the stabbing in her abdomen would be guaranteed to snuff out not only the mother’s life but also the life of her unborn child.

  Fire in the belly.

  Claire sighed. Poor Mona Callahan had sacrificed her life, perhaps—her candle put out by an unseen hand, just as this one was at the mercy of an invisible wind. The hand was unseen as yet, though sooner or later, she believed, every hand will reveal itself to the right observer. Claire only hoped when it happened, the observer would know what to look for.

  As she left the bar, Claire walked past the small dining room adjacent to it and heard the sound of voices inside. It was two men talking, but that wasn’t what caught her attention. What made her stop and listen was that they were speaking German.

  “Ich bin böse, aber du bist auch böse.”

  Claire recognized Max’s voice. German had been her second major in college, and though she had lost some of it, the words were simple and she was able to translate: “I’m evil, but you’re evil, too.”

  The other man answered, his voice low and urgent. “Vielleich, aber was noch kann ich tun?” (“Maybe, but what else can I do?”)

  Max sighed. “Es ist gerade schade.” (“It’s really too bad.”)

  There was the sound of a chair scraping against the floor, and Claire sprang away from the door and tiptoed quickly around the corner. She started up the stairs, but halfway up, bent down to peer through the slat in the banister at the two men as they left the room. As she had thought, one was Max von Schlegel. The other was Frank Wilson.

  Chapter 13

  After dinner Claire and Meredith were lying on the bed playing To Hell and Back with a deck of cards Claire had borrowed from Frank Wilson. The cards were dog-eared, with tattered edges, their surface sticky from years of handling. The jokers lay discarded in a pile, grinning up at them wickedly.

  “Ha—gotcha,” said Meredith, picking up the pile of cards she had won.

  Wally entered the room; he and James Pewter had been out helping Frank Wilson dig his car out from under a snowdrift. “What kind of person would kill a pregnant woman?” he said, shaking his head as he closed the door.

  “Well, the question is, did they know she was pregnant?” Claire said.

  “Bet they did,” Meredith remarked, shuffling the cards. “I mean, look where she was stabbed—verrry Freudian, if you ask me.”

  Claire tended to agree with Meredith; the placement of the stabbing did not appear to be accidental, but still, the wrong assumption could lead to fingering the wrong suspect.

  “What was it that author of yours said about coincidence?” said Wally.

  “Oh, you mean Willard?” Claire answered. Willard Hughes was full of little jewels of wisdom about life and art. “He said that coincidence is far more prevalent in real life than in fiction. In fiction, readers will not easily overlook your use of coincidence; in life, no one questions it.”

  “Right,” Wally said, sitting in the green armchair by the window. “And the human brain is always looking for a way to impose order on the chaos that is life.”

  Meredith shook her head. “Maybe . . . but what if this killer is a case of life imitating art?”

  Wally nodded thoughtfully. “I had an instructor once at the academy who said that if you smell a rat, it means there’s a rat.”

  “Hmm,” said Meredith. “And how exactly does that apply here, do you think?”

  Wally leaned back and crossed his arms. “Let me put it this way: the scent of rodent is strong in the air.”

  “But we’ll know more when the DNA tests come in,” Claire pointed out.

  Wally shrugged. “Maybe. But they may not be able to draw any useful conclusions from them either—who knows?”

  “The Mona Lisa smile,” Meredith muttered as she picked up her cards. “Very mysterious and alluring. Someone fell for that smile big time—and then killed for it.”

  Later, in bed, Claire looked out the window at the maple tree, a dark form in the darkness. She lay awake for some time watching Wally sleeping next to her, captured by the gentle rhythm of his chest rising and falling. She watched his face, so peaceful in repose, the worry lines on his forehead smoothed away by the soft hand of sleep.

  She snuggled deeper under the covers and rubbed her toes together under the blankets, feeling the softness of the flannel sheets. Her toes were always cold, little icicles Wally called them. She wrapped them around his feet, which were always warm. She watched the snow drifting down outside the window, the flakes settling on the branches of the maple tree, soft as cats’ paws. Even as a child, she loved the sight of falling snow, and lying awake listening to her parents moving about below her was the most comforting and peaceful feeling she knew. She would lie tucked away tightly in bed, safe under the covers, with her parents downstairs keeping watch over her, going about their business, the floorboards of the Cape Cod house creaking under their feet.

  She would hear the soothing sounds of their voices through the pine-paneled walls in her second-floor bedroom, where she lay in bed, still and silent, listening. She would listen for the clink of ice in a tumbler as her father poured himself a drink, or the sound of her mother’s laughter as she joined in with the audience watching Johnny do his monologue. Her mother had a boisterous, unfettered way of laughing, and her father always said it was contagious. As a small child Claire used to wonder how laughter could be contagious, like a disease. She imagined little floating spores of contagious laughter infiltrating other people’s lungs, causing them to suddenly break out in the same boisterous braying as her mother.

  She wondered what Meredith’s memories of her mother were. Did she hear her laughter when she lay in bed at night? Was there an unbridgeable gap of sorrow between her and her m
emories of her mother? Claire’s parents had been gone now for ten years, and she was only now beginning to bridge that gap.

  Claire remembered Meredith’s mother very well from their days at school together. What stuck in her mind even now was her friend’s extraordinary magnetism. She could not imagine Katherine without her “acolytes,” her faithful little band of followers, all a little jealous of each other, all jockeying for position, for the spot closest to the fire—nearest to her. She did give off a kind of fire, a heat; you felt warmer in her presence. She was so full of purpose, direction, passion, and the force of her personality pulled others along in her wake. Meredith had inherited some of this fire, only in her case she had turned out to be a loner, an odd, ungainly child without her mother’s grace.

  Wally sighed and turned over in his sleep, his shoulder jutting into the half-light like the silhouette of a mountain. And what of his loss—his wife—how could Claire ever hope to understand what that must feel like? Sometimes she thought that what really united the three of them—her, Meredith, and Wally—was their sense of loss, of being left standing, stunned and dazed, suddenly without the people who mattered to them most.

  One of the koans from Meredith’s book on Zen Buddhism sprang into her mind: What is the sound of one hand clapping?

  A koan, Meredith explained to her, is a seemingly insoluble puzzle that can only be deciphered by giving one’s self over to the mystical, sometimes obtuse, apparently contradictory tenants of Zen Buddhism. The riddle of the clapping hand was a famous one, and Claire had heard it before. But now another phrase took its place in her mind.

  What is the sound of one hand stabbing?

  When Claire came down to breakfast the next morning, Chris and Jack Callahan were just finishing up. As usual, they were the first ones up in the morning, it seemed. Meredith was upstairs taking a shower, with Wally in line after her.