“Because mother always dreamed about getting the famous identical triplets back together,” said Abbey, “even if only for an afternoon. She had these built—back when we were just little girls—and planned a birthday party for all three of us. But you didn’t come….She sent an invitation but you didn’t come….”
“I guess you had more important things to do down at Yucky D,” said Judith.
Abbey gave Judith a pained look but didn’t say anything. Instead, she turned back to Dorthea and said, “But mother didn’t give up. And neither did I. Every year she had the houses painted and every year I wrote the invitation. The houses still get painted but I stopped sending the invitations a while ago.”
And then they all stared at each other until Dorthea looked at the placard and said, “I don’t want it. You can keep it.” She started to turn.
“Wait!” blurted Abbey. “Please wait. I told you about the playhouse. I need you to tell me something too.”
Dorthea didn’t say anything, but she didn’t leave either.
“Tell me about our father.”
“Abbey! Don’t be stupid!” said Judith.
Dorthea started to laugh until she saw the desperation on Abbey’s face and the embarrassment on Judith’s. It didn’t amount to much, but at least now she had something on them, a little stick, a little knuckle whacker. “What do you want to know?” she asked.
“Is he nice? Does he do nice things for you?”
“Of course. He’s my father ain’t he.”
“Tell me what he does for you.”
“Uh…he fed the ducks with me down in the wash.” This didn’t impress anyone, not even Abbey. She needed to dress things up a bit. “And he brings me a ribbon every pay day….I have over thirty of them.” Abbey smiled.
“You should tell him to bring you some new dresses instead.”
“Shut up Judith!”
Judith looked surprised by Abbey’s outburst, and so did Billy.
“What else?” said Abbey.
“Sometimes he tries to teach me the waltz but he steps on my toes and we fall down and laugh.”
Abbey smiled some more.
“And…and he calls me his girl and takes me to the lunch counter at Woolworths…and stuff like that.” She was running out of lies. “I have to go now.” She took a step back.
“Does he ever talk about us?” asked Abbey.
Dorthea pretended to think it over real good. Then she shook her head and said, “No, he never does. I don’t think he even remembers your names.” And without saying goodbye, she turned and left.
That last part had felt good—Abbey needed some of the perk knocked off her perky face—but it didn’t come close to making up for the licking Dorthea had gotten from that smug, fork-tongued Judith. And from that pompous Billy Newfield, who could now tell his friends that he’d met Dorthea Railer, Judith and Abbey’s sister, and that she looked like a wash woman, and that he’d caught her spying, and had made her stammer like a moron.
This accidental meeting shook Dorthea right down to her warped, secondhand Mary Janes. Thanks to the hateful Billy Newfield, the fantasy that had been her dependable shelter for so long got leveled. From this point on, instead of the Newfields reaching down to pull her up to the heights she deserved, she would dream about slapping away their arrogant hands, throwing them overboard, and pulling herself up and into Sunny Slope’s throne room…if it had one. And the hatred for her sisters that had brought her comfort on so many sleepless nights would change too, turning from a fairly plain hatred into uncontained smoldering contempt.
The real damage caused by this humiliating run-in, though, turned out to be much bigger than a teenager’s fragile ego or petty issues of fantasy and hate. By sheer coincidence, with the insults still fresh and the welts to her pride still stinging, Dorthea stumbled upon a sorry ordeal that might’ve been helped by a calm and thoughtful presence. Unfortunately, she didn’t happen to have those particular commodities just then.
The first sign of trouble came about half way back up the hill when she heard the sound of breaking glass. She stopped, listened for a second, and then started running—toward her father’s volcanic temper, no doubt. She’d tell him the best lie that came to mind and then ride out the storm. She knew the routine. But when she got near the top of the path and heard grunting and groaning and cussing, she knew that things were different this time. It sounded like a fight. She didn’t see her father or anyone else, but she did see toppled boxes and broken bottles lying in the driveway next to the truck, with the dolly lying on top of the whole mess. She dashed across the driveway and crouched behind the big hedge near the back of the truck.
Through an opening she saw her father standing between the truck and the house. He had a red, knotted-up face and blood dripped from a crack in his bottom lip. “Now I’m gonna teach you a lesson boy,” he said, looking at the ground.
Dorthea saw someone on the grass, lying on his side with his back to her, by the back wheel of the truck. Her father kicked him in the stomach. He groaned. Her father then stepped over the body, limped to the back of the truck, and grabbed the big stick that went with the dolly. Dorthea saw her father clearly then, just as he might’ve seen her if not for his blinding anger, and she knew that he’d lost it worse than ever before.
With club in hand, her father limped back, stood astride the man’s body, and stared down at him with a squinting, determined face. He sucked in a hissing breath through his nose and raised the club above his head. He clenched his jaw and curled his lips and concentrated on the target. And that’s as far as he got.
The man on the ground braced one of his feet against the truck tire and with the other kicked her father’s feet out from under him. His body stiffened and went down like a statue on ice skates. It didn’t surprise Dorthea because the old man was never more than a few swigs of whiskey away from toppling himself. And it didn’t help that he’d been caught completely out of balance—with his hands raised high and heels off the ground. The other man quickly rolled on top and started wailing until her father stopped trying to fight back. Then the man got to his feet and Dorthea briefly saw his face. He didn’t look like a man at all, more of a boy really, around her age, dressed in gray tennis pants that had big grass stains, as did his gray shirt and orange blazer that had the Prospect Park Country Club insignia on the shoulder. He looked familiar.
Whoever it might be, Dorthea figured the ordeal had come to an end, for better or worse, and not much differently than any of the other times her dad had been beaten. Let the young prince of the tennis courts go running to his manservant, and let Dorthea and her father slink back down to Yucky D with another grand day in the books. That’s what she expected, over and done, goodbye and goodnight, but that’s not what happened because her dad hadn’t been the only hothead on the hill that day.
With trembling hands, a red, wet face, and breaths that erupted in fits and spurts, the boy picked up the club from next to her father’s body. He raised it, just as her father had done, but unlike her father, this young, athletic boy knew how to use the club.
After the first blow, he looked down and said, “You don’t teach me man. I teach you.” And then he hit him again and again.
The boy’s body blocked Dorthea’s view, but she figured it ended for her father after the first few blows. But the boy didn’t stop. Dorthea watched in silence. Then the blood started to fly. He kept going. The wet club slipped from his hands. He picked it up and continued the attack. Finally, when he ran out of strength, it came to an end.
He dropped the club, fell to his knees, and lowered his head. Dorthea saw, not more than ten feet away, the side of his blood speckled face, where a stream of tears made a path through the blood and where snot oozed over his lips and down his chin. He cried out loud.
Suddenly his head snapped up and he faced Dorthea. He looked right at her, right through the hedge. She’d been seen. He jumped to his feet and backed away. He fell down but popped right back u
p, like one of those punching bag clowns. He kept backing away, looking at Dorthea, looking at her father’s body. He darted awkwardly over to the body and picked up a hat from the ground. Then, after another look at Dorthea, he turned and ran.
She’d gotten a good look at him and felt his name trying to jump off the tip of her tongue, but still couldn’t quite remember it.
She looked to her right for any sign of her sisters coming up the path and to her left for anyone looking out a window and back at the porch for anyone who might have heard the ruckus and come out of the house. Seeing nobody, she stood up and walked around the hedge to her father, who she found lying on his back. His pleasant face didn’t look so pleasant anymore, but not as bad as she’d expected. After seeing all the blows he’d taken and seeing his blood fly like bad stuff from a bug sprayer, she didn’t expect him to have any face at all. She knelt next to him for a closer look. His mouth was open in a weird way. It kind of reminded her of a squirrel that had been run over by a car: it might look like a squirrel, with all the little squirrel details, but squirrels aren’t supposed to be pasted to the street, flat as a pancake. That’s what his mouth looked like, flat, pasted to his face, smashed open, with all the teeth lined up in a neat row, except for the ones on the right side, both top and bottom, which were bloody and folded into the mouth. The right side of his face looked bad in general, crushed, oozing, a black pulpy mess. She really couldn’t make out much of his right eye in this jumble, but the left one looked remarkably good and was peacefully closed.
He didn’t seem to be breathing. She poked him in the shoulder with her finger. His left eyelid twitched. She poked him again. The eyelid opened and the eyeball swiveled in its socket and looked at her. His chest heaved and she heard grunting sounds, like the sound of someone about to throw up. The heaving grew bigger and the grunting became louder until a gagging cough broke through and sent a wave of blood splashing from his mouth onto his face and neck. He sucked in a monstrous, gurgling breath, coughed it right back out, sucked in another one, and coughed it back out as well. By the third try, it sounded more like drowning than breathing. His tongue moved strangely in and out and all around, like it didn’t recognize the place that used to be his mouth, swishing out pools of blood each time it swept from one side to the other. But still the gurgling continued, and then the grunting and heaving too. His eye bulged, his neck swelled, and he gagged out the blood all over again.
After this, as he desperately gulped air into his mutilated face, he also tried to talk, or so it seemed. In between gasps he pushed out thick, sticky sounds, which might’ve been words or, perhaps, nothing at all. Maybe the word “help.” Or maybe “hurry.” Or “hospital.” She tried to figure it out but didn’t have much luck.
And then it came to her. She’d seen the boy’s picture in the newspaper, holding a trophy, smiling. Bet he didn’t have much of a smile now, thought Dorthea. No siree. Probably still crying like a baby, scared, like he’d been caught red handed…like she’d caught him red handed. Her concentration then got interrupted when her father’s left arm started patting at the ground and at her leg and then her arm, which it latched onto. He squeezed tight and pulled her close to his face. Drops of blood popped from his mouth onto his chin as he forced out some words that Dorthea still didn’t understand. She ripped her arm free and leaned back.
She knew the boy’s name too, both first and last. Wasn’t that interesting? She knew the name of the boy who looked like he’d been caught in the act of murder. He’d done it. All the way. And he knew it. His eyes said it. His body said it. His sobbing said it. But most of all, her father’s dead body said it—even though it wasn’t quite dead just yet. That rich boy had committed murder and nobody in the world knew about it except little old Dorthea Railer.
She reached into the overall pocket on her father’s chest and took out the wadded up hanky.
“I’m gonna make that boy pay, father,” she said as she leaned over and looked at him.
He gasped. She dabbed with the hanky at the blood on his forehead.
“But he’s not gonna pay you, ‘cause that wouldn’t do no good at all.”
She dabbed with the hanky at the blood on his chin.
“He’s gonna pay me.”
She wound up the hanky into a tight ball.
“And you’re gonna be proud of me.”
She forcefully shoved the hanky deep into his gaping mouth. His left hand lurched skyward. She jumped onto his chest, grabbed his arms, and pinned them behind his head. His head rolled from side to side for a few seconds and then stopped. He stared at her. She stared at him.
“I’m gonna do what you told me father. I’m gonna take the things that come my way. And today’s the day I gotta start—otherwise I won’t never do it. I know you understand.”
Then the heaving and grunting started again, but this time she didn’t just see and hear the spasms, she also felt them as she straddled her father’s chest. The first one didn’t do much, but then they grew stronger and louder until it felt like a ride on a rocking horse. When the last wave hit and the blood couldn’t escape from his blocked mouth, his head and shoulders jerked instead. She stayed in the saddle and kept an eye on his face, which now looked like a bulging bag of blood that might pop at any second. Then things became quiet. She still felt some heaving in his chest and saw throbbing in his neck, but it was very faint and seemed to be going away. Finally everything stopped altogether, no sound, no movement. She let go of his arms, pulled the hanky from his mouth, and dropped it onto the grass next to his head. He was dead.
She hadn’t done anything wrong, she told herself. The man had been as good as dead, anyone could’ve seen that. She’d moved the hands of the clock up a few minutes, that’s all. And really, it had been the kind thing to do, seeing how he’d been suffering. That’s what it had been, an act of kindness.
She slid to the grass next to her father’s body, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. And when she opened her eyes a few seconds later, what did she see but a bright orange sunburst shining down from the heavens above. Specifically, she saw the carved sunburst on Sunny Slope Manor’s gable. It was a sign. She had proven herself worthy and now had the blessing to prove it.
She stood up, took a deep breath, and screamed bloody murder.
Chapter 5
Prospect Park instantly became reacquainted with Baby Dorthea. Of course she wasn’t a baby any longer. Or innocent like a baby either. In fact, it seemed the little tyke had grown up to be a murderer. And in the stifling Indian summer of 1932, she arrived at just the perfect time; few things, it seemed, refresh a sweltering population better than gossip about a cold-blooded murderer, especially a homegrown one.
The good people eagerly devoured details of the crime from their afternoon newspapers and then chewed on them some more as they sat on their front porches in the cool of the evening. In the morning, they went shopping early to beat the heat, picking up fresh bread and fresh tittle-tattle from the baker, which they took across the street to the beauty parlor and shared with the lady in the chair on the left and then again with the lady on the right. On the way home, they stopped at the butcher for a Sunday roast and a pound of blather. In the business office, at the barbershop, and on the golf course, the manly scuttlebutt flowed as well, just more slowly, escorted by solemn nods and sorrowful frowns. Otherwise it seemed too much like gossip, which men didn’t do.
The police didn’t come out and say that Dorthea knocked off her old man but everyone else did. How could it be otherwise? She’d had blood on her hands, blood on her dress, and admittedly had been the last person to see him alive. And who else on the hill cared to waste their time murdering Jeb Railer? No one, that’s who, except another Railer who happened to be on the hill with him. Two guttersnipes, one battered and dead, the other blood-stained and alive, case closed, string her up.
But not too fast, because the good people still wanted to talk about it, sometimes politely, in polite company, and sometimes
whispered confidentially to those who didn’t easily blush. Dorthea might’ve been only sixteen, but she was a looker. It didn’t take Scotland Yard to know that much. And while sordid details of the sexual variety hadn’t been found floating on the surface, speculating about what might be found just below the surface proved to be pleasantly entertaining. Maybe her mesmerizing slate-gray eyes had opened doors that dear old dad wanted closed. Maybe the brassy little thing had decided to throw off the ratty clothes and the rotten name and make hay with her spotless white complexion and coal black hair. And when dad got in the way, she clubbed him to death. Or had her lover do it. No! A lover you say? On the hill? It couldn’t be! Could it?
The murder weapon, which had been found practically at her feet, also became a favorite topic of conversation. Sure, the old whiskey runner got knocked off, but he put his last drops of blood to good use, capturing the murderer’s fingerprints on the gooey club and then hardening them into an incriminating scarlet record. They said that the club prominently displayed the prints of every one of the killer’s fingers.
But they didn’t belong to Dorthea. And Judith and Abigail, daughters of a duchess, confirmed her story that she’d been with them almost up to the time she started screaming. Eventually, these details seemed to convince the police of Dorthea’s innocence, but not anyone else. Not that the good people didn’t have a high regard for fingerprints and alibis and evidence. They just had a higher regard for speculation and conjecture and rumor, especially when it involved a juicy tomato like Dorthea Railer.
So the police and the district attorney sat on their hands and did nothing. But who really cared? It had never been a crime that cried out for that kind of justice. A rabble-rousing drunkard had been killed. Sad, but not exactly a tragic loss for the community. From day one it had been more about entertainment than indignation, more about the court of public opinion than the court of law. And that high court didn’t need an arrest to render its verdict. Dorthea was guilty. Guilty of murder. If not that, then guilty of probably being guilty. Most certainly guilty of looking guilty. Case closed.
Tea Cups & Tiger Claws Page 7
