Who Killed Dorian Gray?

by Carole Elizabeth Buggé

  “Who else uses that path?”

  “Plenty of people.”

  “Like who?”

  “Well, I’ve seen Liza and Sherry go for walks along it . . . and Camille goes into the woods to smoke sometimes. And Two Joe.”

  “Yes, that’s another curious thing,” Meredith mused. “Two Joe’s involvement both times. What did he do, sneak up on you?”

  Claire shook her head. “No, I fainted. But, now that you mention it, did you notice how Jack Mulligan never seems to enter a room—but then you turn around and he’s just there?”

  “Kind of like Judith Anderson in Rebecca?” said Meredith.

  “Judith Anderson?”

  “Yeah. Hitchcock never filmed her entering a room; Joan Fontaine would look up and she’d be there.”

  Claire looked at Meredith and shook her head. Half the time she didn’t know whether to admire the girl or be irritated by her. “Where did you get that?” she said, fighting back an impulse to laugh.

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t read Truffaut’s book on Hitchcock!” Meredith said. A tiny piece of lemon cookie clung tenaciously to the corner of her mouth.

  The piece of the cookie was the last straw. Laughter erupted from Claire’s body like lava from a volcano.

  “Ha-a-aha-a-a!” she exploded, her body shaking with heaving gasps of hysterical laughter. She collapsed back onto the bed, rolling from side to side as the laughs tore through her. She surrendered to the rhythmic, convulsive waves pumping her diaphragm, tears coursing down her cheeks. As she lay on her bed tossing and cackling like a madwoman, she remembered scenes of hysterical giggling with her cousins as a child, laughter so deep that it tore into the center of her body, like the contractions of childbirth.

  Claire was aware of Meredith standing over her, a distasteful expression on her face, but she didn’t care. This felt good, like something she had to do. She didn’t care either if any of the other residents heard her; if they thought she had lost her mind, fine.

  Finally, the convulsions subsided and Claire lay limply on the bed, stomach aching, drained.

  “Well, I’m glad you got that out of your system,” Meredith said tartly, and she sounded so much like Claire’s mother that it set her off again.

  “Haa-a-a!” The sound exploded from her as though set off by a tiny detonator inside her, and again she began rolling and clutching her sore stomach.

  Meredith sighed heavily and sat down in the armchair. She picked at the arm of the chair, studied her nails, and leaned her head back against the headrest to wait it out. When the second wave subsided, Claire wiped her eyes, sat up, and looked at Meredith.

  “I still don’t see what’s so funny,” Meredith said impatiently, pulling one thin white leg up underneath her. The baggy brown cotton shorts she wore made her legs look even thinner.

  “Nothing . . . there’s nothing funny about any of this,” said Claire “I just needed a release. Haven’t you ever gotten hysterical?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well,” Claire said slowly, “maybe that’s one of your problems. Maybe you need to let go, loosen up a little, you know?”

  Meredith regarded her icily. “I don’t see why. Sherlock Holmes was right: emotions just get in the way.”

  “Well, look what happened to him.”

  “What?”

  “He became a cocaine addict.”

  Meredith snorted and was about to reply when someone in the hallway outside sneezed loudly. Claire and Meredith looked at each other, but before they could say anything, there was a knock on the door.

  “Yes?” said Claire.

  “It’s Sergeant Rollins. Uh, we’re ready to see you now.” His voice was thick with phlegm.

  Claire opened the door. Sergeant Rollins stood in the hall, a handkerchief pressed to his nose.

  “Looks like you’ve still got that cold,” Claire said.

  He nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t been able to take any time off, what with—well, it’s been busy down at the station.”

  Meredith poked her head out of the door. “Which one of us does the detective want to see?”

  “Uh, either one.”

  Claire noticed that the sergeant was only an inch or two taller than Meredith. Claire herself was a good three inches taller than he was. He looked overheated in his tight blue uniform and solid, thickly soled shoes; his smooth pink face was shiny with perspiration.

  “Aren’t you doing any of the interviews?” said Meredith.

  “Uh, no; the detective wants to do them all himself this time. I’ve been present for most of them, though,” he added, tucking his handkerchief into his hip pocket.

  “All right; I’ll go,” said Meredith. Sergeant Rollins blinked. His eyes were watery, and he looked as if he were about to sneeze again. But the moment passed and he turned and escorted Meredith down the hall. As Claire watched them go she suddenly felt exhausted. She went back inside the room, closed the door, lay down on the bed, and stared at the ceiling. A centipede was carefully making its way across the white painted plaster.

  “Where are you headed?” she asked softly.

  The centipede paused, swiveled its tiny head from side to side as if testing the air, then continued on its way. Claire picked up Meredith’s book from the bedside table: Black Holes and Baby Universes, by Stephen Hawking. The author looked out from the cover of the book, smiling broadly. His smile was lopsided and awkward, his eyes bleary; if you didn’t know he suffered from a debilitating muscle disease, you would think his publisher had done a lousy job on publicity photos. There was something jaunty in the angle of his head, however, and Claire found the picture touching. He knew anyone reading the book would probably know of his condition—and yet there he was, grinning crookedly at his public. Claire opened the book to Chapter Eight, “Einstein’s Dream”:

  In the early years of the twentieth century, two new theories completely changed the way we think about space and time, and about reality itself . . .

  Space and time, and reality itself . . .

  Claire turned the page and came to this sentence: Space-time is not flat, but is curved by the energy and matter in it.

  Space-time is not flat, but curved . . .

  Claire closed her eyes, and saw the earth surrounded by space-time, which looked like a three-dimensional asteroid belt, encircling the planet like a big grey blanket. Space and time, and reality itself . . .

  “Well, that was a waste of time!”

  Claire opened her eyes to see Meredith entering the room, slamming the door behind her. “What?” she said, her eyes heavy with sleep, her mouth brimming with undrooled saliva.

  Meredith flung herself into the oak armchair. “Well, he didn’t begin to ask the right questions, for God’s sake! I mean, how he can call that an investigation I don’t know!”

  “Meredith, you didn’t . . . you wouldn’t say that to him, would you?”

  Meredith looked at Claire as though she were a small, dirty rodent. “Of course not!” she said, her voice dripping with disdain.

  “You know, Meredith,” Claire said icily, “all the other people in the world besides you are not idiots.”

  Meredith threw her hands up in an odd combination of surrender and dismay. “But he didn’t even ask half the right questions!”

  “Well, maybe he’s looking at things from a different angle than you are. Did you think of that?”

  Meredith slumped down in her chair and picked at a scab on her arm. “Maybe . . . I guess.”

  There were so many unanswered questions, Claire thought, so many…the little ones might someday find an answer, but they inevitably led to bigger, more important questions, and those, she thought, probably had no answer…Terry wasn’t the most popular resident at Ravenscroft, but Claire couldn’t imagine anyone wanting him dead.

  Clearly, however, someone did.

  Chapter 12

  By the time Detective Hansom got around to interviewing Claire, it was after the dinner hour. No one really had the
heart to eat, but after much prodding, the detective did accept Liza’s offer of leftover lasagna for Sergeant Rollins and himself. When Claire entered the library, which he had again set up as a makeshift interrogation room, Detective Hansom stood and motioned her to a chair.

  “Hello, Ms. Rawlings. If you’d just take a seat I’ll be right with you,” he said, and went out into the hall to speak to Sergeant Rollins.

  Claire sat on a straight-backed chair with a cane seat and looked around the room. A tape recorder sat on the table next to a half-finished plate of lasagna; piles of papers lay scattered about the floor. She had an impulse to look at them, but instead she went over to the bookshelves and studied the book titles: Anatomy of a Murder, In Cold Blood, Fatal Vision. The books seemed to be arranged loosely by genre, and she was looking at the crime section.

  “Sorry about that, Ms. Rawlings; if you’re ready, we’ll begin.”

  Detective Hansom stood at the door, a mug of coffee in his hand. Something about the slope of his shoulders reminded her of Wally, and her stomach tightened.

  “Please call me Claire.”

  “All right, Claire. Why don’t you start by just telling me everything you can remember, starting with your entry onto the jogging path. Do you mind if I tape this?”

  Claire shook her head. She told him everything she could remember, and when she had finished, Detective Hansom took something out of a bag at his feet.

  “Do you recognize these?”

  It was a pair of round wire-rim spectacles, similar to the ones Liza wore.

  “Uh, not exactly. Where did you find them?”

  “In the woods not far from the body. Do you have any idea of how they might have gotten there?”

  Claire shook her head. “A couple of people here wear glasses similar to these. You might ask if anyone is missing a pair.”

  “Yes, we’re going to do that,” Detective Hansom said a little impatiently, then continued in a kinder voice. “Did you see or hear anything else that was unusual?”

  “Not really . . .” Claire began, but then she remembered hearing Gary’s flute while she was sitting on the porch with her coffee. “Well, there was—I mean, it’s not unusual, but—”

  “What? What is it?” Detective Hansom leaned forward, his big gangly body suddenly tense.

  “Well, just before I went out, I heard Gary playing his flute in the woods, as he does sometimes—”

  “Yes?” The detective’s voice was tight.

  “Well, it—stopped.”

  “It stopped?”

  “Yes; I mean it stopped sort of suddenly, in the middle of a phrase.”

  “And did it resume again?”

  “No . . . no, it didn’t.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Well, after a while I got up and went inside.”

  “And you didn’t hear it again?”

  “No . . . no, I didn’t.”

  “Thank you.” The detective rose from his chair and opened the door for her. She entered the living room to find the rest of the residents all gathered there. Two police officers stood on either side of the front door. Sergeant Rollins was talking to Liza, and when Detective Hansom entered the room behind Claire, the sergeant walked briskly over to him.

  “All here and accounted for, sir.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” the detective said, his voice hoarse with fatigue. “All right, everybody, if I could have your attention now, please,” he continued loudly, clearing his throat. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at him. Claire looked at Meredith, who sat next to Camille on the couch: she was biting her lower lip, her eyes bright.

  “I’m going to ask that nobody leave the premises for at least twenty-four hours,” said Hansom. “I’m going to have a police officer posted here around the clock. If you need something from town, please ask one of my men to arrange it for you. You will notice we’ve placed a yellow crime-scene tape over the entry to the woods on Camelot Road. We ask that you all please stay out of the woods.”

  Meredith’s hand shot up.

  “Yes?”

  “Are we all suspects?”

  Detective Hansom’s face went blank, and Claire could hear air escaping from his lungs. “At this time we have no official suspects—”

  “But—” Meredith protested.

  “That’s all, folks,” he said firmly. “If you remember anything that you forgot to tell me, anything at all, please call me at the station. In the meantime, Sergeant Rollins here will be in charge if you have any questions.” He nodded toward Sergeant Rollins, who sneezed.

  He headed for the door, but Camille intercepted him. “Excuse me, Detective, I wonder if I might have a quick word with you.”

  He looked down at her, his grave dark eyes all but disappearing under his thick eyebrows, the lines in his basset-hound face deep as the crevices of a river valley. He was hard to read; Claire couldn’t tell if he responded to Camille’s evident interest in him—or even if he was aware of it. They went out onto the porch together, standing under the single lightbulb, silhouetted in the mad flittings of minuscule white insects swarming around the light, zigzagging in crazy flight paths like tiny fighter pilots. Hansom was a head taller than Camille, and as he stood over her, the curve of his thin neck catching the light, weight shifted onto one leg, he reminded Claire of a large, ungainly water fowl—a crane, perhaps, or a heron. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but finally he nodded and headed out toward his car. Camille watched after him, and when she came back into the house, her cheeks were glowing.

  Jack Mulligan walked over to her, and Claire expected him to say something sarcastic, but to her surprise he reached out his arms and hugged her.

  “I could use some wine,” said Sherry, heading toward the kitchen. “Anyone else like to join me?”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Tahir, following her.

  There was a pause and then Gary got up abruptly and started for the stairs.

  “Gary?” said Billy, and Gary stopped and looked at him, but then continued up the steps. Billy looked around the room, then got up quickly and followed him.

  “What was that all about, I wonder?” said Jack Mulligan, with a glance at the policeman who stood guard inside the front door. The policeman’s face was impassive, though, stolid and bland as grass. Another policeman stood outside on the porch. Claire was glad for their presence, and wondered if everyone in the house felt the way she did—or if there was someone who would like very much to see them go away.

  That night Meredith and Claire lay in bed watching the pattern of headlights from the occasional car out on the road make its way across the ceiling. It was very late, but neither of them was asleep.

  “Claire,” said Meredith, her voice small in the darkness.

  “Yes, Meredith?”

  “Do you believe in God? I mean, do you think that there’s anything after death?”

  Claire exhaled heavily. “I don’t know, Meredith; sometimes I think there is, but . . . well, other times I really don’t. I don’t know what to think.”

  Meredith propped herself up on one elbow. “Is this it?” she whispered into the darkness. “Are we just a compilation of—of cells and atoms?”

  Claire rubbed her forehead and pushed back the thoughts of sleep that were crowding her. “I don’t know, Meredith.”

  “I mean, what about altruism and love and all that stuff? What about consciousness, for Christ’s sake?”

  Claire turned her head to look out the window, where a thin pink dawn was just beginning to flower in the eastern sky. “You’re asking the questions that men have asked for centuries . . . I don’t think anyone really has the answer.”

  “And if there is something else, then it can’t just be in us; it has to be in everything . . . no wonder the Church wanted to ban the teaching of evolution; it’s the biggest evidence against us having souls. I mean, who can imagine a cockroach having a soul?”

  “Franz Kafka, for one,” Claire said.


  “Very funny.”

  There was a pause and Claire could hear the wind outside whipping the tree branches until they rattled against the windowpanes.

  “Do you believe in evil?” Meredith whispered.

  “You mean do I believe it exists?”

  “Yeah. Do you?”

  Claire took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know, Meredith…”

  “Like a force in the universe, you know? Maybe it’s the equivalent of antimatter . . . if good is matter, then evil is like antimatter.”

  Claire watched a thin slice of pale yellow light break through the gap in the curtains and creep across the opposite wall.

  “I mean, was Robert evil?”

  “What he did was wrong—” Claire began slowly.

  “Good Lord, he tried to kill you! If that’s not evil, what is?”

  The strip of sunlight widened, shining on the metal knobs of the dresser drawers, turning the brass into gold.

  “The devil is an angel, too,” said Claire.

  “Where did you get that?” Meredith’s voice was wary, as it always was when she felt challenged.

  “From one of your books.”

  “Which one?”

  “Miguel Unamuno.”

  Meredith sighed. “Figures. I should’ve known; it sounds like him. He’s a mystic; you can never trust a mystic.” Her voice was sleepy now, and Claire could sense she was sliding into sleep. Pretty soon she was snoring gently, her head thrown back on the pillow as the early-morning sun made its way across the room, falling on her hair, a blaze of orange on the white sheets.

  Claire lay awake in bed trying to remember the feel of Wally’s hands on her body, the touch of his hands upon her breasts, his mouth, soft and moist as a peach, upon her nipples. She imagined him there in the darkness beside her, enveloped by the sweetness of his breath, his chest rising and falling with the calm, steady rhythm of a ship rolling gently on the waves. She always felt safe when he was there, but now as she lay between the cold white sheets of her narrow bed, the memory receded from her into the darkness. She thought of the other sleepers who lay all around her, each alone with his own thoughts, trying to sleep as she was—and knowing what she knew: that someone among them was, in all probability, a murderer.