“Why can’t you tell me why you’re upset?” he said, pressing his point. Maya swept back a chunk of her blond hair with her hand. It looked to Claire as if this was a conversation she didn’t want to have, but he was insistent.
“I just don’t understand what the problem is,” he said, and again Claire was struck by the intensity of the man: with his deep-set dark eyes and thick black hair, she decided he really was very attractive, and more than a little sad. She didn’t know why Maya didn’t seem to want to talk to him, but since she hadn’t come in on the conversation from the beginning, it was hard to figure out.
Claire looked around the living room. A few people had gathered at the far end of the room over by the piano. Gary Robinson, lean and dark, dressed in an elegant green Harris-tweed jacket, was leaning against the piano talking to Billy Trimble. With his wire-rim glasses perched on his long, thin nose, Gary looked the part of the stern and studious college professor. Claire suddenly realized something: Gary rarely smiled. Right now his brows were knitted in concentration, one hand in his pocket, the other resting on the statue of Diana.
Claire’s attention was suddenly caught by the sound of tense, raised voices—not really loud, but loud enough to stand out from the low hum of conversation in the room. She looked around and saw that the voices were coming from the library. The door was partially open, and from where she sat she could hear quite clearly what was being said. The first voice was Liza’s, and the other was Sherry’s.
“Look, all I’m asking is that you be honest with me,” Liza was saying.
“But there’s nothing to tell!” Sherry replied, her voice high and whiny.
“Shh! The others might hear you!”
“I don’t care; let them! I’m tired of the way you treat me, as though I’m a bad child!” Sherry said.
“Well, sometimes you act like one!”
“Look, there’s nothing I can say if you insist on being jealous all the time!”
“All I want to know is: Did you come onto her or not?”
“Why don’t you ask your spies; they’ll tell you!”
“What are you talking about?” Liza sounded genuinely confused.
“Oh, don’t act so innocent; I know you’re keeping an eye on me!”
Claire looked at the other people in the room to see if they were listening, but everyone seemed too involved in their own conversations. She was the closest one to the library, and not wanting to eavesdrop on her friend, she got up to get more coffee from the kitchen. As she did, the library door opened and Sherry emerged, red-faced. She glanced at Claire but then averted her eyes and walked quickly through the room and out the front door. A moment later Liza emerged, hands in her pockets, a sheepish expression on her face. Claire headed for the kitchen, where she lingered for several minutes. She refilled Ralph’s water bowl, tidied up the counters, and put away some dishes from the rack. When she returned to the living room, she saw with relief that Liza was gone. Maya and Tahir were gone, too; only Billy and Gary remained, locked in conversation at the far end of the room.
They were talking in low voices, but Claire had excellent hearing and was able to make out what they were saying. She pretended to tidy up the living room, collecting stray coffee cups, while she listened to their words.
‘‘You can tell me these things,” Gary was saying. “There’s no reason to keep secrets from me.”
Billy’s handsome face darkened. A lock of his sandy hair fell over one side of his forehead. “Look, I never promised you anything.” His usual sleepy ironic tone of voice was gone, and there was an intensity to his voice.
“I’m not saying you did,” Gary replied. “I’m just pointing out that if you are in love with her, maybe I have a right to know.”
Billy shook his head, more in confusion than denial, Claire thought. “Look,” he said slowly, “I don’t know the answer to that.”
He did look miserable, Claire thought. She could only assume they were talking about Maya. At that moment Gary glanced over at her, and not wanting to arouse suspicion, Claire decided it was time for her to make an exit.
She looked at her watch; it was past eleven. Normally, she was a night owl, but here in Woodstock she felt sleepy by ten o’clock. She finished her coffee, rinsed out the cup, and went upstairs.
Ralph was lying on the bed, and when he saw her he did his stretch-and-yawn routine, then rolled over onto his back, feet in the air.
“You look very silly, do you know that?” she said, scratching his stomach.
A rumble came from his throat that was halfway between a meow and a growl. Claire changed into her pajamas and slipped under the covers, the sheets cold and clean on her skin. She lay in bed reading for a while, until the rest of the house grew still and silent. Then she got up to brush her teeth, and remembered she had left her toothbrush in the downstairs bathroom where she had taken her bath the night before.
“Damn,” she said, reaching for her robe. Slipping on a pair of sandals, Claire padded down the hall. The house was quiet, and she tiptoed down the stairs and through the east wing, toward the door. Pushing it open gently, she crept out onto the wooden catwalk that led to the artists’ studios. The clicking of crickets mingled with soft twittering, cooing, and rustling, the night sounds of creatures who shared this mountain with the people who lived here. Claire stood for a moment in the cool evening air, enveloped by the nocturnal murmurings. Shivering, she stepped forward into the night.
On the right she saw the door to the bathroom. To her surprise, it was ajar. Seeping out through the thin crack, falling across the catwalk, was a horizontal bar of yellow light. The tip of it crossed Claire’s feet as she stood there, neatly dissecting her toes where they protruded from her sandals. She took a step toward the door and knocked on it. There was no answer. She took another step and gently pushed the door open. A wave of steam brushed across her face, carrying with it the scent of apricot soap. Someone had taken a bath recently. Thinking they might still be there and hadn’t heard her knock, Claire called out softly.
“Hello—anybody there?”
The only response was a dimming of the sounds of the night creatures, as if they, too, were awaiting a response. Claire pushed the door all the way open and stepped into the room.
At first her mind told her that the person lying in the tub simply had not heard her enter. From the back, she recognized Maya Sorenson’s blond hair. Maya lay on her back in the tub, her head resting on the porcelain edge, her legs stretched out in front of her. A knot forming in her stomach, Claire approached the tub, waiting for some sign of life from the still white form.
“Maya?” she called out softly, taking a step farther into the room. It was only when she saw the wide-open, staring eyes that she realized Maya was dead.
Her blond hair radiating out from her head, floating gently like yellow water weeds in a pond, Maya Sorenson lay on her back in the water. Beautiful even in death, not a mark on her perfect pale skin, she lay there like the doomed Ophelia, drowned by her passion for a madman. Still, Claire could not believe what she was seeing, and she stood waiting for Maya to breathe, move, to speak. But the only movement in the room was a tiny ripple across the surface of the bathwater caused by the breeze through the open door.
Claire’s knees began to tremble and buckle.
I must sit down, she thought, but before she could move, the light from the single overhead bulb began spinning crazily. Then her vision went dark around the edges, and blackness enveloped her like a shroud.
Chapter 7
“Can you hear me?”
Stay here; stay here in the dark where no one can see you.
“Are you all right?”
It’s so cool and quiet here . . . why would you want to leave?
“Redbird, open your eyes!”
Finally, reluctantly, Claire obeyed. The darkness gradually gave way to a dim brown color, and she saw Two Joe standing over her.
“Are you injured?” His face was grave, concerne
d.
“No, I—I was just—shocked, I guess.” For the first time in her life, Claire realized, she had fainted. Why, though? She couldn’t remember what had caused her to faint. Struggling to sit up, she felt Two Joe’s huge hands pressing into her shoulders, forcing her to remain where she was.
“Not so fast; slowly, take it easy. Just breathe, nice and deep. Go on; just breathe for a minute.”
She took a deep breath. The smell of apricot soap stung her eyes, and then she remembered.
“Maya’s dead!” she cried out suddenly, looking desperately at Two Joe, waiting for him to contradict her.
Two Joe’s expression did not change. “Yes,” he said simply, “she is dead.” His eyes softened, and his voice was kind. “Poor Redbird,” he said. “You have never seen death before, have you?”
Claire shook her head, suddenly feeling nauseous.
“Come outside.” Two Joe lifted her gently by the shoulders. “I will help you. We must get help.”
Slowly, feebly, as if she were a hundred years old, Claire got to her feet. Leaning on Two Joe, she walked unsteadily back out into the night. She avoided looking at the tub with its horrible sight, averting her eyes until she was outside. Once outdoors, she felt better. The cool air made her shiver, but she no longer felt nauseous.
“What—what should we do?” she said.
“We must call the police,” Two Joe replied, and together they went back into the main house.
“That’s right,” she said, feeling as though a fog had descended over her brain. “The police—we have to call them.” She felt comforted by the idea. The police would come, and they would know what to do.
“Do you want to lie on the couch?” Two Joe said when they reached the living room, but Claire shook her head.
“No, I’m all right.” The truth was that she was terrified of being alone, even for a moment. Two Joe studied her for a moment, then he nodded.
“Come; we will call them together.”
Together they walked through the dining room to the pay phone, nestled in its cranny next to the laundry room. Claire stood next to Two Joe and watched him dial, grateful for his calm, his size, his reassuring hand on hers while they both waited for the police to pick up . . . and then the words, when they came, sounded so bald, so bleak:
“Tell the sheriff there’s been an accident.”
After he hung up, Claire put a hand on his muscular arm. She could feel the heat through his flannel shirt. Two Joe was a furnace, she thought; he must have the metabolism of a bear.
“What were you doing downstairs?” she said. “I mean, you just—”
“Just happened to be there when you fainted?” Two Joe finished for her. He shook his massive head. “I could not sleep, and I was on my way to the woods to consult my spirit guides.”
“Consult them? About what?”
Two Joe crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Remember I told you I come from a line of medicine men?”
“Yes.”
“And I told you that I sensed something bad would happen, something involving water?”
“That’s right; you did.” Two Joe’s prediction by the banks of the Hudson didn’t look so silly now. If anything, she thought, it was a little spooky.
“Well I wanted to consult my spirit guides to find out more. But I was too late,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “But come; we must wake up the others.”
The police arrived so quickly that Claire and Two Joe had just barely finished waking up the other residents, knocking softly on doors one by one, breaking the news as gently as possible. Some took it better than others. Billy and Camille were surprisingly calm, while remote Gary, as well as Tahir—who had already seen so much killing—were both very upset. When they told Terry, he kept repeating over and over, “No, that can’t be, it can’t be.”
When the police arrived, the residents were gathered in solemn little groups in the living room. Someone had made coffee, and people were standing around sipping from their mugs or just clutching them, as if trying to absorb their warmth. Terry sat in the corner sobbing quietly; others talked in low, hushed tones or just stood staring at the floor in disbelief. A thick rain had begun to fall outside, and Claire could hear the heavy drops splashing from the eaves.
Claire had overcome her initial shock and was now one of the more competent people in the room, so when she saw the flashing lights outside, she went to the door. Two patrol cars and an ambulance sat in the driveway. As she stood on the porch, a plain black sedan pulled up next to one of the patrol cars. A tall man in a trench coat got out of the black sedan.
Claire went down the steps to greet him.
“Hello, I’m Detective Hansom.”
Detective Hansom was so much the opposite of his name that Claire found herself staring at him. He was tall and bony, with big hands jutting out from the sleeves of his raincoat like unpruned tree limbs. His enormous head was set upon a neck that looked too long and thin to support it, and his face was dominated by a heavy, overhanging forehead and thick dark eyebrows that met in the center, forming a single line of black moss above dark, deep-set eyes, which were his most attractive feature. He resembled not a man so much as a geological formation, hulking and craggy as granite, like something hewn out of the earth millennia ago. In the blunt glare of the porch light, his heavy brow and massive head reminded Claire of Frankenstein’s monster.
In spite of his forbidding appearance, Claire liked him immediately. His voice was as gentle as his body was ungainly, with a surprisingly light timbre for such a large man.
“Are you the one who discovered the body?”
“Yes.”
“I hope you won’t mind answering a few questions,” he said, sounding genuinely apologetic.
“Not at all,” Claire replied. “Would you like to come inside? Everyone else has gathered in the living room.”
Detective Hansom cocked his head, reminding Claire of a large bird dog.
“First I want to see the body.” He turned and called over his shoulder. “Sergeant Rollins.”
A short, pink-faced young man appeared at this elbow. He was clean-shaven and also clad in a trench coat. A red wool scarf was wrapped tightly around his throat.
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you to start taking statements from people.”
“Yes, sir.”
Detective Hansom turned to Claire. “You said everyone is in the living room?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head and sighed as he walked across the porch. “Things like this just don’t happen around here. Any chance it was an accident, you think?”
“I doubt it,” Claire replied, thinking of Maya’s open, staring eyes. She ushered him into the living room, and as they entered, everyone immediately became quiet.
“Good evening; I’m Detective Hansom,” he said. “I’m going in to take a look at the body; meanwhile Sergeant Rollins here will be taking statements from everybody. Normally, we would ask you to come down to the station, but since there are so many of you and the weather is bad, we’re going to do it here. If we can just have your cooperation, we’ll try to do this as quickly as possible. I will ask that you all remain in this area until we have finished. Sergeant Rollins?” he said, turning to the pink-faced young man, who sneezed in reply.
“Sorry, sir; it’s this damn head cold,” he said sheepishly. “All right, folks,” he continued, his tone suddenly authoritative, “if you will just line up, I’ll speak to you one by one.” He turned to Claire. “Is there a room we can use? How about this room here?” he said, indicating the library.
“Uh . . .” Claire looked around for Liza, thinking that she should really be in charge. She hadn’t seen Liza yet; Sherry had answered the door at their cabin, and Claire had hurried back to Ravenscroft before she could tell Liza in person. Since Liza wasn’t anywhere to be seen, Claire turned to the sergeant. “I guess that’ll be fine.”
As Claire led Detective Hansom through the living
room and toward the library, Two Joe appeared at her side.
“Are you all right, Redbird?” he said, laying a hand gently on her shoulder.
“Yes, much better, thank you. Thank you for all your help.”
As they walked down the hallway, Detective Hansom turned to Claire, his voice low. “What were you thanking him for?”
Claire explained how she had found the body, and as she did, she felt her face reddening. She worried that her account was casting a suspicious light on Two Joe’s role in Maya’s death. She looked anxiously at Detective Hansom to see his reaction, but his big face was inscrutable, dull as a tree stump.
“Can you show me how you found the body?” he said gently.
“Yes—out this way,” Claire replied, leading him down the hall toward the side door. She pushed the door open slowly and stepped out onto the catwalk. Rain poured down from the eaves into the puddles already forming on the lawn.
When they reached the bathroom, the faint odor of apricots was still in the air. Claire’s legs began to tremble. She took a deep breath.
Detective Hansom looked at her. “That’s all right,” he said in a sympathetic voice. “Why don’t you go back inside? I can handle it from here on in.”
Claire turned to find herself face-to-face with two uniformed policemen and two paramedics in white. “Excuse me,” she said, stepping out of their way.
When she arrived back in the living room, she saw Liza talking to Sergeant Rollins. He said something to her and she shook her head in response, then they both went into the library. The first of the suspects to be interviewed. As the phrase popped into her head, Claire realized that she herself was probably a suspect.
There was a knock on the front door, and since she was standing nearest to it, Claire went to open it, expecting to see another policeman.
Just then a clap of thunder sounded nearby, rattling the windowpanes, and Claire jumped, her heart pounding. At that moment her hand found the doorknob, and she opened the door. There, soaking wet, illuminated by a flash of lightning, pale as an apparition in the white light, stood Meredith Lawrence.
Who Killed Dorian Gray? Page 8
