A Field of Darkness

by Cornelia Read

  As I started off toward the living room, I realized she’d stuffed a twenty-dollar bill into my jacket pocket, which just killed me.

  Wasn’t the first time. I’d tried refusing, tried handing back whichever bill she’d palmed on me, even tried sneaking them into her purse when she wasn’t looking, but nothing worked. She’d just hide them in my car—tucked into the glove compartment, the ashtray, up under the visor.

  When I asked her to stop, she said, “They give me money, they give you nothing. No problem—I give you instead.”

  “You work for them.”

  “Same they make you work. Just they don’t pay you.”

  It was still crazy.

  Kit and Binty were the first people to see me. He shook my hand heartily with both of his while peering over my head.

  Binty stepped forward, placed her feet in third position, touched my elbow. She looked deep into my eyes, as though steadying herself before imparting great wisdom.

  “Madeline,” she said, smiling, seeking the pearls at her throat with a narrow hand, “dear . . .”

  “Yes?” I gazed back at her—awed by her flawless chignon of Peronista-blonde hair, her navy bouclé suit crisply trimmed in white—hoping desperately she couldn’t see the nail polish dabbed on the runs in my stockings.

  She took a little sip of air, whispered, “. . . there’s dirt on your face,” and then blushed for me, becomingly. Innagadda d’Evita.

  I backed away and snuck out to the downstairs guest-room bath. I scrubbed the offending smear of what turned out to be ashes off my cheek, surrounded by a Deco mural of ocelots, vines, and tropical birds.

  “Jungle Bunny,” I said to my reflection.

  Lapthorne slipped into the bedroom just as I was walking back out.

  “Maddie,” he said, “your mother told me someone else was killed. Who was it? How are you?”

  “It was Kenny,” I said, “the guy you met at the bar.”

  “Shit,” he said. “I am so sorry—”

  His father walked in. “Christ, Lapthorne, they’re starting. Get a damn move on,” he said, and strode out, expecting us both to follow.

  Lapthorne did a little soft-shoe on the gray rug, offered me his arm. “Okay, chère cousine, ready to shuck and jive?”

  We had to grab the last seats, on opposite sides of the room from each other. I was stuck behind a clot of uncles with my shoulder wedged into the curtains, and couldn’t see Reverend Pettit, so I just listened to him intoning Episcopalian niceties with an exquisite lack of passion, the hallmark of our Protestant descendancy, and looked out the window toward the gunmetal water.

  I tried to concentrate on my memories of Dodie, to give her some due as matriarch. My throat tightened and I could sense tears coming on, gave myself shit about not having had the foresight to grab a fistful of toilet paper. But it wasn’t memories of Dodie herself that got me worked up.

  After all, had she been there in person, she would at best have smiled at me and said, “Hello, Skippy, how is New Haven this year?” The only affection of hers I’d ever basked in had been bestowed through breakdowns of her visual or mental acuity.

  It was this absence of memory that got me going: the warmth of other people’s families, and of people like Maria and Kenny, who allowed me glimpses of what it must be like to belong to one, that made me cry. And when I looked away from the window and back around the room, at that gathering of utterly beautiful, exquisitely mannered progeny Dodie was responsible for bringing into the world, it became apparent that not a single one of them would be joining me. I still don’t know whether the flaw in the scenario rested with her, with them, or with me.

  As Pettit intoned a final prayer, I remembered what Maria had said, closed my eyes, and asked Dodie to help me find justice for Kenny, so that I could at least begin to repay my staggering debt to the kindness of strangers.

  CHAPTER 45

  You were very sweet to cry,” said Lapthorne, when we sat down with our plates of turkey slop in the kitchen, no places having been set for us in the land of the grownups.

  “Oh please,” I said, “all I’ve done this week is cry and puke. My father would be proud. I’ve become the poster child for Primal Therapy.”

  “Your father’s only problem is that his daddy was rich and his ma was good lookin’. You’ve had actual reasons to cry and puke—not least him.”

  “It’s not like I was crying for Dodie, and that seems shitty, too. It’s just . . . Kenny, and all the lost opportunity, and I’m sad I never knew her.”

  “Not knowing her is why you were the only person in that room who isn’t grateful she’s dead,” he said.

  “It’s not even Dodie,” I said, “it’s all of them. I mean, don’t you look around and wonder what happened? They had everything—the best education, connections—they were handsome and smart and charming and war heroes and they frittered it all away. The reverse Midas touch . . . it’s like looking at a herd of failed Kennedys.”

  “Maddie, they wouldn’t stoop to accept a blowjob from a Kennedy.”

  “And I’m sure that keeps Caroline and Teddy lying awake nights,” I said.

  He laughed. “I’m just saying that they don’t even know they failed. They’re all too busy thinking how great it is that they can dump this place while there’s still just enough money to pay the taxes on it. Do you know it took forty grand just to heat it, every winter? For one old woman who hasn’t known what year it was since Truman. As far as they’re concerned, Dodie should’ve died with Jake. It’s all they can do not to break out the champagne.”

  I thought about that for a minute. “So that’s how come we’re the only cousins here? Not even Skippy?”

  “I don’t know about the rest of them,” he said. “I came for you.”

  And before I could answer that, the pantry door swung open and Aunt Julie came in.

  “Come upstairs with your fairy godmother, Madeline,” she said, twinkling her fingers and smiling at me. “I have shoes for you!”

  Lapthorne stood, well trained, and they kissed cheeks.

  “Hullo, Lappy, dear—your mother is wondering what became of you,” she said.

  “Must go dance attendance, then,” he said, clicking his heels and bowing. “Maddie, you’ll be at Bonwit’s? I want to get caught up on everything else and share some thoughts. Lovely to see you, Cousin Julie,” and he was gone.

  “So that’s nice you’re getting to know your cousin,” said Julie, as we walked into Dodie’s dove-gray bedroom. “Have you been having fun?”

  Mom and Julie were not the closest of siblings, perhaps because Julie stayed married to a guy with a job, so there wasn’t a lot they had in common. At any rate, I didn’t expect her to know what had been going on in my life lately. Of all the relatives in Mom’s generation, though, she had taken the most interest in me, besides which she was fun to party with and was in fact my godmother.

  “I think Lapthorne is great,” I said. “I just can’t figure out what his parents did to deserve him. Binty couldn’t wait to tell me I looked like shit.”

  “Oh, Kit and Binty are fine, Maddie, for goodness’ sakes. Very nice. You probably call her that awful name behind her back, like your Uncle Hunt? It’s just too ooky . . . I can’t even say it.”

  “Ice Cunt?” I said, grinning at her.

  “How can you even let that word out of your mouth, you awful child!” she said, but I’d made her laugh.

  Julie opened the door to Dodie’s dressing room, then pushed one of the old light buttons—black for off, mother-of-pearl for on—and led me into her closet.

  “Your feet are really this big?” she said, looking at the dozen pairs of slippers on the shelves.

  “Tens,” I answered.

  “My God, bigger than Clementine’s. Well, I guess you even look like Dodie, don’t you, in a certain way? You’re the only one who does, of the girls. Her cheekbones, lucky you,” she said, sucking her face in and making fish lips at me.

  “That’s
attractive,” I said.

  “Well, you lucked out in the footwear department, my dear niece,” she said, waving her hand at the shoes. They were in every color, with piping and little bows to contrast—navy with green, red with black, white with baby blue, a rainbowed silk with lavender, and even black patent, pressed into mock crocodile. I reached for the latter and tried them on.

  “Like a glove,” I said. The soles felt amazing—full of Marshmallow Fluff.

  “A very expensive glove,” she said. “I’m sorry they don’t fit your old aunt.”

  “Oh for God’s sake, Julie, why don’t you buy yourself a pair? You guys are rich.”

  “You must be in sorry shape to think we’re rich,” she said, laughing.

  “Okay, maybe not the Sultan of Brunei or anything, but you’re, like, normal.”

  At that, she started laughing so hard I had to help her into a chair. When she’d wiped the tears from her eyes, she asked me what I planned to do with my footwear largesse.

  “I thought I’d wear them to exotic places they’ve never been before. You know, like work,” which set both of us off all over again.

  “You are not allowed to make me laugh, Madeline Dare,” she said. “It’s a goddamn funeral, for chrissake.”

  “Okay, so here’s a serious question,” I said. “Why won’t Dodie be buried here, in the cemetery? After all the work she put into it . . . the roses.”

  “It was in her will,” said Julie. “She told everyone she wanted to be cremated. Have her ashes scattered at Camp.”

  “Why?”

  “She never explained. I always thought it was because these weren’t her people. She wasn’t born here. But I heard once that she’d said if she couldn’t be next to Jake in the ground, she wanted to be in water. The way he was.”

  “Gonna be cold up there,” I said. “Lake’s probably frozen.”

  “Well then, they’ll just have to shoot at the ice until the urn falls through, won’t they?” she said.

  Julie got up and started loading all the Belgians into a box. “Now take these down the back stairs to the kitchen, so Binty doesn’t make fun of you, and then come back in and have a booze.”

  I told her I would, but when I got down to the kitchen and started to open the swinging door, I could hear Kit’s baritone swamping all the other voices.

  “Cute story . . . cute story . . .” he said, always the cue for an anecdote about how a friend of his had dropped dead recently on a golf course or while nailing a mistress. I wasn’t in the mood for any of the people in that room, so I turned around and kept going right on out the servants’ entrance.

  I thought I’d go back into the woods, but Lapthorne was leaning against his car, waiting for me.

  “Running away from home, little girl?” he asked, grinning.

  “Just really didn’t want to get into the whole gin-and-tonic scene with everybody, especially Mom and Uncle Bonny.”

  “I must agree. Even around here we don’t need Binty, Bonny, and Bunny in the same room.”

  “Bibbity bobbity boo,” I said, shifting the box of shoes on my hip and eyeing the gleaming Porsche. “Can I drive?”

  He took the box from me and threw it into the back seat, then motioned for me to get behind the wheel. I hit seventy in second gear before we even got off Centre Island, slowing down before we passed Burwell behind his usual tree. We went to the Long Island Expressway and back, not talking, just listening to way-early Stones on the tape deck: “Route 66” and “King Bee” and “Not Fade Away.”

  The wheel felt wider across but thinner in my hands, compared to the Rabbit’s, and the car took corners flat and heavy no matter how fast I came into them, with speed left over to accelerate out every time. I knew there wouldn’t be food at Bonwit’s, except for gelled Tetrazzini Mom would no doubt “liberate” and tell us she was saving for lunch next Tuesday, so we grabbed beer and slices in Bayville to bring back.

  When we got there, Mom and Bonwit weren’t home yet, so I did a doughnut in the bottom of his driveway, throwing up gravel like a water-skier, and when we got out I broke our radio silence by saying, “If I had that car I think I’d never be unhappy again.”

  “Oh, you’re enough like me, Maddie,” said Lapthorne. “You’d find a way.”

  It was getting dark and colder, so I led him down to the sunporch at the far end of the house and lit a big fire. The flames danced off every windowpane around us, and it was warm close in, but our backs were still cold so I brought blankets down from the third floor after we’d eaten our pizza and thrown the greasy papers into the grate.

  When we finished our beers, Lapthorne broke out a silver flask of Scotch and took a drink before handing it to me.

  “Do you always have to sneak around, here?” he asked.

  “It depends on how much of a masochist you are,” I said. “His kids have the run of the place, but if we brought friends home from school, he’d ask them over dinner if they’d ever tried lighting their own farts. If anybody phoned for us, he’d pretend to be an Azorean receptionist at an abortionist’s office and then hang up on them.”

  Lapthorne laughed and I passed the flask back to him.

  “And, see, that’s the worst part,” I said. “If you try to describe it, he just sounds charming and unconventional, and we sound like peevish little shits. Plus, of course, the place is so goddamn beautiful you feel ridiculous being pissed off—you can’t ever forget all the starving children in Armenia who’d give their eyeteeth for some of your lukewarm pork and beans on the terrace. Still, there are compensations . . .”

  “Such as?”

  “The milkman has good dope,” I said, “and we’re the last house on his route.”

  I lay down on my belly, facing the fire, and propped my chin on my hands.

  “I’m only sorry,” I said, “that I never brought Kenny down here. He would have held his own. But then he probably never would have spoken to me again. People think you’ve betrayed them if they’ve known you as broke and then find out your mother lives someplace like this.”

  “Kenny struck me as the kind of guy who would have seen through that,” he said. “I imagine you meant a lot to him.”

  “And look how I repaid the favor,” I said.

  “You really think that?”

  I looked over at him, lying on his side and leaning on an elbow, his long legs stretched toward the fire, the blanket arranged around his shoulders like a mantle. “Yes,” I said. “I really think that. If it wasn’t for me, he’d be alive right now, and Sembles, too. I think somehow bringing everything up around Simon has led to two deaths, and I think if I don’t figure out what the hell is going on, that there’ll be more. Kenny told me to look more closely at Simon, and he told me I was right about not going to the cops. There’s a connection there, and I’m damned if I’m smart enough to see what it is.”

  “You’re plenty smart enough,” he said. “You just need a little more opportunity to garner information, and you shouldn’t have to do this on your own anymore. We should both talk to Simon.”

  “Ted—my boss, real asshole—told me I had to bring Simon up to Camp. Have him get a few rolls of the place for that Adirondacks article I’m supposed to write. I mean, in the middle of a goddamn funeral.”

  “I think it’s a great idea.”

  “Oh please.”

  “No, really. I think what we need is to get Simon up to Camp. It’s perfect,” he said. “He’s obviously the key to the thing, somehow. And I can’t let you do this alone anymore. Too dangerous.”

  “In the middle of the funeral?”

  “Invite him up there to take some snaps when everybody’s left . . . maybe Monday or Tuesday. I’ll pay the per diem freight.”

  They’d made it a corporation. Cousins with dough had divided up shares years ago, paid annual dues to cover the upkeep and taxes. Served on the board. Even then they parceled out time to one another at the rate of five hundred bucks a day. So the per diem to keep the place open throu
gh Monday or Tuesday . . . well, it was generous of him.

  “That’s tremendously kind,” I said, “but what good will it do us to have Simon at Camp?”

  “The place has a way of opening people up, I’ve found,” he said, then grinned, and added, “chicks especially.”

  “Like I’m sure you need so much help in that department. But Simon’s not a chick.”

  “I’m just saying that Camp has a formidable effect on people. If you want to find out what Simon’s part is in this, you need to get him alone, and there’s not a better place to do that than the Adirondacks.”

  I looked at the fire. “I’m starting to think he’s the killer, Lappy. I mean, you want to be in the middle of woods with a violent psycho? I’ve gotten too many people hurt with this.”

  “So, your entire paper will know he’s up with us on assignment. Why would he do anything? He’d get slammed.”

  “He’s been acting really freaky lately. Temperamental, pissy with everybody. Complete shift in his personality. He might be getting into what they call ‘decompensating.’ He knows I’m looking into these murders. He must feel threatened. It’s just too dangerous.”

  “Maddie,” he said, “what’s he going to do? We know where all the guns are, and he doesn’t. Safe as milk.”

  “Look, he’ll still be in Syracuse when this is over. We can talk to him there, with more people around. I’ll bring you to the paper. Right now he doesn’t think I suspect him of anything specific. I refused to bring him up to Camp and I haven’t talked to anyone else about it. If I suddenly change my mind, he’ll know something’s up. I’m not putting you in danger, or Ellis. You’re bringing her, right?”

  “Since you’re married,” he said with a grin, “I suppose she’ll have to do.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I took a big gulp of the Scotch. I’m sure whatever he’d have was good, but the stuff always tasted like nail polish remover to me.

  “L’Chaim,” I said. I finished off the flask and pulled a couple of pillows down off the wicker sofa. The fire was so warm, and the blankets were so cozy, that I was asleep in a flash.