“Uh, no, I guess not . . . I’m going to bed.” Already she could feel the pull of exhaustion on her body, her eyes heavy with fatigue.
“All right. Good night, then,” said Ina Jackson.
“Good bye—and thank you.”
After she hung up, Claire felt dissatisfied and unfulfilled.
Even after she turned off the light, she lay there thinking about Dr. Burdell, lying in his bed at 31 Bond Street, afraid for his own life, waiting for death to come at the hands of a woman who lived under his own roof, staring into the darkness of his bedroom, the only light in the room coming from the gas lamps outside, as he listened to the sound of her footsteps upstairs. Like him, the residents at Ravenscroft lay in their beds at night, listening to the footsteps coming and going down the long hallway, wondering, always wondering, whether or not they belonged to a murderer.
Chapter 14
Claire awoke with the sound of Robert’s voice hissing in her ear, her body frozen in terror. A grey dawn crept slowly up the buildings across the street, casting its pale light on their facades, their windows still dark, no movement behind them. Claire shivered under her thin cotton quilt, and then, throwing off the quilt, sat up and swung her legs out of bed, placing her feet firmly on the parquet floor.
“Time for coffee,” she muttered, trying to erase the memory of Robert’s voice from her ears with the sound of her own.
Ninety minutes later she and Meredith were sitting on the early-morning bus to Woodstock, watching the countryside speed by in reverse of their trip the previous day. As she watched the trees spin by she pondered the nature of time. What if you could turn back the clock and travel backward in time just as easily as you could through space?
The bus pulled into Woodstock ten minutes ahead of schedule. It was Saturday, and Tinker Street looked almost as crowded as the streets of downtown Manhattan had the previous night; on weekends, the crowds in Woodstock thickened, swelled by tourists from surrounding counties as well as the boroughs of New York City.
* * * * *
Liza was waiting as they climbed off the bus. Her friendly round face was sunburned; she looked as though she had spent a lot of the previous day in her garden. In her blue overalls and wooden-soled sandals, she looked as though she had always lived in Woodstock.
“Do you mind if we pick up a few things at the store?” she said as Claire heaved her bag into the trunk of the old Mercedes.
“Not at all,” Claire replied, and they trudged up the hill toward the top of Tinker Street.
“I thought I’d get a couple of fruit pies for everyone tonight,” Liza said as they stood in line at the Well-Bread Loaf. The bakery was crowded, and Meredith fidgeted as they waited their turn.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” she complained.
“Why didn’t you go on the bus?” said Claire.
Meredith made a face. “I hate those bathrooms; they smell awful!”
“All right.” Claire sighed. “We’ll be right back,” she said to Liza, who nodded.
They found a restaurant just down the street, a cozy little Mexican place where the waiter let them use the bathroom. After Meredith was finished, Claire decided to go herself. She didn’t take long, but when she emerged, Meredith was gone. Figuring she had returned to the bakery, Claire walked back up Tinker Street. Liza stood on the corner, a white cardboard cake box in one hand, a loaf of bread in the other.
“Where’s Meredith?” she said as Claire approached her.
“I thought she’d come back to the bakery,” Claire answered, a little arrow of fear forming in her stomach. Under normal circumstances this would be merely annoying, but these were not normal circumstances.
“Maybe she went back to the car,” Liza suggested.
She and Liza walked back down Tinker Street to where the car sat in the municipal lot behind a cluster of shops, but Meredith was nowhere to be seen. They left the groceries in the car and went back out to the street.
There, standing on the corner, waiting to cross the street, was Meredith. She squinted into the sun, which reflected off her hair, smooth and shiny as a bright orange helmet. Standing there in the late-summer sunlight, she looked like a mirage.
“Meredith! What the hell are you doing?” Claire yelled. Meredith turned and saw them, her face blank with astonishment. Claire had seldom seen the girl caught so off guard, and was surprised at how vulnerable she looked. Meredith crossed the street to where they stood.
“Oh, hello,” she said, trying to regain her composure.
“You scared us half to death! What do you mean by pulling something like this?” Claire scolded.
Meredith gazed at her with icy dignity, and her usual expression of amused scorn returned to her face. “I had an errand to perform.”
“Then you should have asked me!”
Meredith rolled her eyes and let her whole body slump in exasperation. “I was afraid you’d say no.”
“Where were you?” said Liza.
“At the library.”
“The library?”
“I went on-line with the library computer and connected to the New York Public Library. Then I just looked up what I wanted and printed it out.”
“Wow,” said Liza. “They just let you do that?”
“I made it clear it was important.”
“Woodstock must have a good library,” said Liza, “if you can do all that.”
“It’s not bad,” Meredith replied, “for a small town. Better than the one in West Hartford, anyway.”
“So what did you find out?” said Claire.
“Check this out,” Meredith said, handing the paper she was holding to Claire. The headline read TROUBLE BREWING IN THE BALKANS. The byline was Dorian Gray. Meredith pointed at it. “Look here. She talks about this little village in Bosnia; you think it might be Tahir’s village?”
“There are a lot of villages in Bosnia,” Claire answered. “I suppose it’s possible, but I wouldn’t think it’s likely. But listen Meredith: don’t you ever go off again without permission, or—”
“What? You’ll send me back to Connecticut?” Meredith said derisively.
“In a minute,” Claire snapped. “Yes, I will.”
This seemed to give the girl something to consider, because she was very quiet after that, sitting silently in the backseat of the car, her hands folded in her lap.
On the drive up to Ravenscroft, Claire noticed Liza seemed preoccupied about something. She stared out the window and sighed a lot, and when Claire spoke to her, it was a moment before Liza heard her. When she did answer, she seemed faraway, as if it were an effort for her to concentrate on what Claire was saying. This was so unlike her friend that Claire made up her mind to ask Liza what was going on.
When they pulled into the driveway to Ravenscroft’s parking lot, Meredith leaped out of the backseat.
“I’ll take the bags upstairs!” she said cheerfully, throwing her knapsack over her shoulder. There wasn’t much to carry, only a light overnight case for Claire and Meredith’s knapsack.
“Okay,” Claire called after her. “I’ll see you inside.” As Meredith skipped up the steps to the house, Claire turned to Liza. “You want to talk?”
Liza hesitated and then sighed. “Is it that obvious?”
“Well, you’re not very good at hiding your feelings, let’s put it that way.”
The uniformed policemen nodded to them from their patrol car as Liza and Claire passed them on the way to the house. A box of doughnuts sat between them on the front seat. The front porch was deserted and Liza settled herself in one of the director’s chairs.
“What is it?” said Claire. “What’s wrong?”
Liza’s big friendly face crumpled. She looked deflated, like a balloon slowly losing air. “It’s Sherry. We—we had a fight. We’re kind of . . . on the rocks, I guess you might say.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Claire. She wondered if Liza knew that she had overheard them fighting a few nights ago.
“Right. Camille’s a flirt,” Claire pointed out.
Liza smiled sadly. “True. But I’m not in love with Camille. The thing is, Sherry’s always assured me that the age difference between us doesn’t matter to her, but I worry about it anyway.”
“Just how much difference is there?”
“Sixteen years.”
Claire shook her head. “Yeah, that’s a lot. But if it really doesn’t matter to her—”
“That’s the thing. She says it doesn’t, but then I get insecure when I think she’s flirting with someone, and I get—well, possessive, I guess. That’s what Sherry says, anyway.”
“So what happens now?”
“Well, last night she slept in the big house—in Terry’s old room, actually.”
“Really?”
Liza smiled. “Yeah. I would have been scared to sleep in there . . . I’m not sure why. But you know Sherry; she’s not afraid of anything.” She made no attempt to disguise the admiration in her voice, and Liza felt sorry for her old friend.
Just then the screen door swung open and Two Joe strolled onto the porch.
“Speaking of flirts,” Liza murmured under her breath, and Claire laughed.
“Hello, Two Joe,” she said.
“So what if I’m a flirt?” he responded.
“You heard that?” Liza said.
He nodded. “In the deserts of the Southwest, I trained my ears to hear the wings of a hawk overhead.” He shrugged. “It is a skill like any other, and can be developed.”
Meredith came charging out of the house and down the porch steps toward the line of mailboxes across the road. “Anyone get the mail yet?” she sang out as she went.
“I don’t know,” Liza called after her as Two Joe took out a long hunting knife from a sheath around his belt and cut off a branch of the honeysuckle hanging over the porch.
“Hey,” said Claire, “You have one of those, too?”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
“Does Detective Hansom know?” Liza asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Should he?”
Just then Meredith came flying up the stairs. “Hey, look—a letter from Paris!” she cried, displaying the envelope.
“Who’s it for?” said Liza.
“Camille,” Meredith said. “It’s okay; I’ll give it to her.”
“Just a second, let me see that,” said Claire, taking the letter from her. There was no name on the return, only an address on Rue Léopold-Robert. She handed the letter back to Meredith.
“Hmm,” Liza remarked. “The plot thickens?”
“Camille is a lady of mystery,” Two Joe remarked.
“What’s her Indian name?” Meredith asked.
Two Joe scratched his smooth chin. “Let’s see . . . how about Veiled Iris?”
“Ooo, I like it! Veiled Iris,” Meredith repeated.
“That captures her sense of mystery,” said Liza. “You know, I’m not sure I want to know what my Indian name is,” she added with a laugh.
“I like mine!” Meredith chirped. “Lightning Flash—that’s a good one for me.”
“Yes,” Liza replied, still smiling, “it is.”
Just then Sherry emerged from the house, and the temperature on the porch seemed to fall.
“Hi,” she said in a pleasant enough voice, but she avoided Liza’s eyes as she walked down the steps toward the road.
“Meredith already got the mail,” Liza called after her.
Sherry stopped and turned around. “Oh. Anything for me?”
“Uh—nope,” Meredith said, leafing through the pile.
“Okay, thanks,” Sherry answered, and headed in the direction of her studio.
“Well, back to work, I guess,” Two Joe said, and started off toward his studio.
“I wanna talk more about Indian names,” Meredith declared, walking after him.
“Meredith, Two Joe has work to do,” Claire said.
“It’s all right,” he answered. “Come talk to me while I work, Lightning Flash.”
“But—” Claire began, but he stopped her.
“It’s all right, I can concentrate. After all, my work isn’t about words, it’s about images.”
“That’s true,” Liza pointed out. “Did you know Mozart’s wife used to recite poetry to him while he composed?”
“Cool!” said Meredith, taking Two Joe’s arm. “Come on, let’s go!”
Liza watched them leave. “Someone’s got a crush.”
Claire shook her head. “You think? I don’t think of Meredith as having sexual feelings.”
Liza laughed. “Boy! Spoken like a parent; can you say ‘denial’?”
“No, I mean it,” Claire protested. “I really think sexuality isn’t a part of who she is—not yet, anyway. Hey, listen, there’s something I have to tell you,” she added. She went on to tell Liza what she knew about Jack—the book in Peter’s office, the whole thing. Liza agreed that they should tell Detective Hansom.
“It may be of no significance, but we can’t take that chance,” she said.
“Right,” Claire agreed. “It’s weird, though; it feels a little bit like tattling.”
Liza shrugged. “Whatever. Listen, as far as Jack is concerned, I don’t really care. He’s so irritating.”
“Well, that may be,” said Claire, “but—”
She was interrupted by the screen door, which was suddenly flung open. Sherry stood in the doorway, her face flushed under her deep tan.
“Look,” she said, her voice trembling. In her hand she held a small bound book with a blue-and-pink-flowered cover.
“What is it?” said Liza.
Sherry held up the book reverently, as though she were holding a sacred text. “It’s Maya’s diary.”
Chapter 15
“Where on earth did you find it?” Liza asked.
“It was tucked away behind a little false cubbyhole in the closet. It’s no wonder the cops didn’t find it . . . the only reason I stumbled on it was that I tripped trying to find the closet light and fell forward—and I caught myself and the wall caved in.”
“Wow, this house has more secrets than I thought,” Liza said.
“I bet Terry cut the hole himself,” Claire suggested.
Liza looked surprised. “Really? Why?”
Claire shook her head. “I don’t know . . . I just got the feeling he was the kind of obsessive person who would do something like that.”
Liza called Detective Hansom right away, but before he arrived, she and Claire had plenty of time to peruse the later entries, the ones written just before Maya’s death. When Meredith heard they had found the diary, she came dashing in from Two Joe’s studio.
“Cool!” she said, running up the porch steps. “Can I see?”
Though there was nothing conclusive, there was one intriguing entry written the day after Claire arrived. Whatcan I do? I know about him but who can I tell? Worse, I think he knows I know; I see it in his eyes, the entry read.
“So that means the killer was a man!” Meredith observed after reading it over Claire’s shoulder.
“Not necessarily,” Claire corrected her. “This may not be about the person who killed her.”
“Yeah, right—and I’m Madonna,” Meredith scoffed, throwing herself on the musty daybed.
“It’s true,” Liza agreed. “We can’t necessarily conclude Maya wrote this about her killer.”
But we know one thing for sure: Terry did steal her journal,” Sherry pointed out.
“Yeah,” said Meredith. “So the murderer guessed right when he—or she—killed Terry: he did have Maya’s diary.”
“But the murderer never got his hands on it . . . I wonder if he knew what was in it?” said Sherry.
“From the looks of it, nothing very conclusive,” Claire pointed out. “Certainly nothing worth killing someone over.”
Liza shook her head. “Whoever this is, one thing is for sure: they’re pretty ruthless.”
No one disagreed with that.
Detective Hansom arrived before long, and when he saw the journal, he shook his head. “I’ll be damned . . . where did you say you found it?”
Sherry told him the whole story, and he listened carefully, asking a few pertinent questions along the way. Then, after a trip upstairs to inspect the closet he slipped the diary carefully into a small plastic bag, tipped his hat, and turned to go.
“You going to dust it for fingerprints?” Meredith said.
He nodded “Probably won’t do much good, but it’s standard procedure.”
“Wait a minute,” Claire said as he was halfway down the steps. “I have something to tell you.”
“Yes?”
She proceeded to tell him about Jack Mulligan, the book with his photograph in it, the nom de plume, everything.
“Good Lord,” he said when she finished. “We’ve run an FBI check on everyone, but nothing came up for Mulligan. I’ll have to try this alias—what did you say it was?”
“Klaus Heiligen. I’ve got the book upstairs, if you want to see it.”
“Yes, of course; thanks.”
She ran up to her room and returned with the book. “Here you go,” she said, handing it to him.
“Thanks. Thanks a lot,” he said, laying a big bony hand briefly on her shoulder.
“You’re welcome,” she said earnestly, but even so, she felt a little bit like a tattletale.
Later, she and Meredith sat on the porch with Two Joe watching the sun go down behind the trees. Meredith was going on and on about the workings of the criminal mind, but Claire just wanted to watch the sunset. Finally, she had had enough.
“Look, Meredith, do you mind if we just watch the sunset for a while?”
“Oh, that’s right. I’m sorry, I forgot,” Meredith said, looking sheepish.
“Forgot what?” said Two Joe.
Meredith sighed and picked at a bug bite on her knee. “Claire was nearly strangled to death by a man . . . well, he was her boyfriend at the time.”
Who Killed Dorian Gray? Page 18
