by Ed Ifkovic
He spoke in a quiet voice. “What did you find?”
“Silence. No Jason, no Martha. The house was empty. I saw that the basket for Millicent’s supper was gone, so I assumed Martha was next door. No Jason, of course. I felt a little foolish. Actually, I felt a lot foolish, but I was only there for a few minutes. I didn’t want to be there when Martha returned, of course—that would mean war—so I hurried out, back to the state forest path, up to Caleb’s Rise, and into my automobile—and out to Greenfield to see Brosnan. It was all very vain and simple-minded and reckless.” Carlotta stared from the Captain, to Stas, to Taylor, to me. “I’m sorry, Edna. I know you think I’m a shallow child, a . . .”
“No matter, Carlotta, what I think. This is a murder case.”
“I didn’t kill my sister,” she proclaimed, in control now, full voiced.
“You didn’t see anyone else around?” Captain Smith asked.
She shook her head. “No one. No. I mean, I probably spotted Eben by his house but maybe not. He’s always outside, it seems. But I wasn’t looking. I just wanted to get out of there. If Martha spotted me, there’d be another row.”
“More than one person has heard you threaten Martha’s life.”
She pooh-poohed that. “Just talk. We are two different sisters living in the same family homestead. We’ve clashed all our lives. We didn’t get along as children. As grown woman we’ve functioned best apart from each other, when I was in New York or Europe. But I never meant I’d kill her. Lord, she threatened me, too, you know.”
“Two witnesses heard you threaten her.”
“Of course. Eben and Stanley.” She laughed. “So many of our battles, Martha’s and mine, were played out in the yard, in the garden. I’m not surprised.”
“Who do you think killed your sister??”
A long silence. “I honestly don’t know, Captain Smith.”
“No guesses?”
“I suppose I am the one that looks most suspicious. But I didn’t do it. Do you believe me, Edna?”
I was thinking of something else, but I roused myself. “Yes, Carlotta, I believe you.”
Carlotta smiled thinly. “Could you convince these men here?”
I was curt. “That’s your job, Carlotta, I’m afraid.”
“I . . .”
“But,” I continued, “I just have one question that’s on my mind.” I saw Stas smile, as though he expected it, and he nodded. “What can you tell us about that car you saw hidden in the bushes on River Road?”
“I thought it was Jason’s.”
“Could it have been his?”
“I don’t know—one black sedan looks like another. Jason drives such a car. Who doesn’t? A Chrysler, maybe. Not a simple Ford. I don’t know. A Studebaker? They’re all alike—unless it’s a Pierce-Arrow.”
“So it probably wasn’t Jason’s,” I concluded. “Unless he’s the murderer. Most likely someone parked the car there, off the road, then walked within Hemlock Ridge to Millicent’s home. Very likely you could have been looking at the means of escape for the murderer, Carlotta. Hide the automobile, slip into the woods, emerge at Millicent’s back entrance. The brick that killed Martha was located in Hemlock Ridge, dropped, maybe, by the murderer on the way back to his automobile.”
“Can you remember anything else about it?” Captain Smith asked.
“I’m sorry, no. It was a black auto. They’re all black, for God’s sake.”
A half hour later, Captain Smith dismissed Carlotta, and Stas told us he’d drive us back to the Inn. Carlotta, relieved to be free of the cramped office, suddenly became vampish, flirtatious, touching the Captain’s hand as she said goodbye. Amazed and annoyed, I strode ahead, talking with Stas about the long day. But the young trooper seemed cold, distant. Not good news for Carlotta, I realized. Looking back at Carlotta, I saw the actress laughing lightly, making a remark about the Captain being in the audience of The Slave to Love. “I was much better in The Farmer’s Daughter,” she was saying.
I shook my head.
When Stas opened the massive double doors of the barracks and the three of us stepped out onto the marble steps, there was a flurry of popping sounds. Flash bulbs blinded us. And in the next minute as we rushed to the cruiser, we had to contend with Roger Emerson gleefully snapping photographs of the celebrated actress and the best-selling novelist leaving state police headquarters. At least, I thought wryly, Carlotta still had plastered on her face that same insipid, make-believe grin. As usual, I looked into the camera with the friendliness of Attila the Hun, the look I reserved for the pesky press.
“Are you being arrested for the murder of your sister, Carlotta?” Emerson yelled, as he followed us.
“Leave us alone,” Carlotta pleaded.
“Trooper Wolniak, is Carlotta a suspect?”
Stas didn’t answer.
“Miss Ferber, are you friends with a murderer?”
I stopped, turned. “Mr. Emerson, are you a member of the human race?”
Emerson chortled, rolling side to side, holding his camera against his bulky flesh, his almost androgynous baby’s face bubbly and bright. “May I quote the celebrated authoress?”
As we drove away, he stood there, laughing, his body rolling side to side.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Back at the Inn, dropped off by Stas who thanked us courteously and then drove off, Carlotta was disconsolate, her nerves shattered. She immediately poured herself a huge tumbler of wine, gulped most of it, refilled the glass, and then burst into tears.
“They’re going to arrest me for murder, Edna. Couldn’t you just tell? It was so obvious.”
I nodded. “It doesn’t look good, Carlotta.”
“That’s not what you’re supposed to tell me. Comfort me.”
“No more lies, all right?”
“I told you I was sorry.”
“Well, there is a chance you’ll be taken in. You are the obvious suspect, I’m afraid.”
Carlotta started to wail, covering her face with her hands. Then, as quickly as she started to sob, she stopped, withdrew to an armchair, sank into its cushions, and stared blankly at nothing. For a few minutes she stayed that way, moody, sullen, her face a tapestry of streaked makeup, watery eyes, and dull vacant staring.
“Carlotta.” I was worried. “What is it?”
No answer, as though she’d gone into a trance. The faraway look, glassy eyed, flat, eyes the color of dead night.
“Carlotta,” I implored.
Nothing.
Then she swerved her head toward me, a cryptic smile on her face, eyes alive now with fire. “Henry Fenwick,” she managed to say, slurring the words. “Edna, why didn’t I think of it? He’s a power in the state. He’s going to be governor. He’s a Republican, for heaven’s sake.”
“What?” I was perplexed.
“He can stop this.”
“Of course, he can’t.”
Yes, Henry Fenwick was a local politician, albeit powerful, perhaps a wheeler-dealer in Connecticut State Republican Party circles. But I thought him rather ineffectual, some smiling, simple office holder who would not bother anyone’s maiden aunt, one of those ineffectual politicians swept into office during times when the electorate wanted complacency, not radicalism; humdrum, not change; figurehead and fatherly comfort, not rabble rouser. No Teddy Roosevelt with the Big Stick here. No, just a Warren Gamaliel Harding, good looking and reassuring, a simpleton, harmless, though electable and probably a little electric in his backslapping. Henry Fenwick, the man who told you not to worry—and you believed him.
But Carlotta, animated now, was on the telephone to Henry, her voice whiny. “They’re going to arrest me, Henry. Can you imagine? For murder. Me, Carlotta Small. I know it’s preposterous. Well, I know. But this Captain Smith . . . do you know him? You must, he’s in Danbury. Is he a Republican? Or something? Are they appointed by a governor? And that squirt Wolniak, a smug upstart, a hayseed with manure between his toes. Well, all right. But I can�
�t calm down. Henry, can we come over? Yes, now. I know it’s late. No, it’s just after ten. Edna and I. Just for an hour. Well, wake Peggy up. Or let her sleep. I don’t care. She’s on my side. You are, too, no? Yes, yes.” She hung up the telephone, out of breath. “Edna, we have to go to Henry’s.”
“Carlotta, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Let me decide this. Please, Edna.”
So I found myself an unwilling passenger in the Pierce-Arrow, motoring off through the dark night, Carlotta at the wheel, weaving across the deserted country roads, driving too fast for the black lanes. “Would you kill us, Carlotta?” I screamed. “Slow down.”
“Henry is my salvation. Why haven’t I thought of it before?”
“Carlotta, slow down.”
She grinned. “He’s, well, my salvation.”
But Henry, opening the door of his Colonial, dark save for one small threshold lamp and a side lamp in the sitting room, looked none too happy to be disturbed at the late hour. It was after eleven when we tooled into his manicured front yard, on a street of newish Tudors and Federals and Dutch Colonials, all closed up now, their comfortable inhabitants safe in their beds. Henry had clearly been asleep, I surmised, given the droopy look of his eyes and his unshaven chin. He’d thrown on a smoking jacket, burgundy brocade with flecks of interwoven gold, over wrinkled trousers and a rumpled dress shirt. New slippers on his feet. New, I thought, idly. Everyone’s slippers are threadbare, lived in. “Carlotta, Edna,” he said in a foggy voice. “Come in.”
I apologized for the hour. Carlotta did not.
Carlotta leaned forward to be kissed.
“Henry, it’s horrible.” She burst out crying, then stopped.
He looked over his shoulder. “Sit down, please. I didn’t wake Peggy. She took a mild sedative earlier. You know, she has those migraines, dating back to her days at Sarah Lawrence, and she only vaguely heard the telephone.”
“No matter.” Carlotta moved past him and settled into a chair. She let out a whoosh sound that reminded me of a child expelling air from a carnival balloon, and then she started to sob again, huge sloppy gulps that, for once, struck me as real and out of control. “They’re going to arrest me, Henry. Me. Carlotta Small. For Martha’s murder. Can you imagine?” All these many words were difficult to get out, given the gasping and wheezing and gurgling, but Henry and I waited, staring into the beautiful face.
Henry waxed logical. “Based on what concrete evidence?”
“None, absolutely none.”
“Edna,” Henry turned to me. “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you,” Carlotta began, but was soon awash in fresh torrents of sobbing. Henry waited. She closed her eyes, and said nothing.
My voice was clearly louder than Henry liked because he kept glancing toward a stairwell, but said nothing. Quickly, I summarized the events of the evening, the interview at the barracks headquarters. Through it all, Henry sat, hands folded in his lap, nodding, thinking.
Finally, he spoke. “It doesn’t seem to me that they are going to arrest you, Carlotta. At least from what I’ve heard. They’re asking questions.”
“Of course, they are.”
A little frustrated, stifling a yawn. “They’re doing their job. They’re talking to everyone who knows—knew Martha. They have to. They talked to me and Peggy. Everyone. And with you being the sister, well . . .”
Carlotta, steely eyed, not crying now. “You don’t think I can read people, Henry? I’m an actress. I read people. There are no other suspects. None. So who do you think? They have to arrest someone, so why not a well-known actress? Why not burn me at the stake? Joan of Arc of Rawley’s Depot. Why not?”
An edge to his voice. “I think you may be a little too melodramatic here, Carlotta. From what Edna said, it seems . . .”
“I don’t care what Edna said,” she yelled. Henry and I jumped, and I felt a little foolish.
“For heaven’s sake, Carlotta, quiet down.”
I knew this was going nowhere. I gazed around the large parlor. A room with overstuffed sofas and bookcases filled with porcelain knickknacks. No books, I saw. Not good. The art gracing the walls depicted scenes out of America’s wars—Old Ironsides, Civil War battles, Bunker Hill—a panorama of clash and siege.
“Henry,” Carlotta pleaded, leaning in. “You have to help me. You have to use our political clout. You can squelch this.”
“Political clout?”
“When you ran for selectman, who campaigned with you? Who got the press to take you seriously? Years back. Now you are a force to be reckoned with.”
He shook his head. “You exaggerate my power. Being State Republican Chairman doesn’t translate to . . .”
“But you are going to be governor.”
He sighed. “I’m not governor yet.”
“Are you saying you won’t help me, Henry?” Incredulous, lips open, a sudden spasm of dry smoker’s cough. She fumbled for her cigarette case, extracted one and lit it, exhaled the blue-black smoke.
“What would you have me do?”
“Call Captain Smith. You know, squeeze him. Threaten.”
Henry sat back, looked at me with helplessness. I caught his eye, and did not care for the look in those pale gray eyes: enervated, hesitant. This was, I concluded, ultimately a weak man.
There was movement on the stairwell, and a bedraggled Peggy walked down, holding the rail, moving like a specter. We waited, all three of us, expectant, as though this were a dramatic Broadway entrance, pivotal to the plot, a spoken line that, delivered, could move the play into climax. But Peggy, no actress and just sleep-stricken, could barely hold herself erect. “My Lord,” she stammered, “the screaming in the night. Why this midnight madness?”
It was a funny line, I concluded, alliteration that had nothing to do with the eleven o’clock hour.
“Peggy, go back to bed.”
“I’m awake now,” she snapped. She stumbled across the room and toppled, literally, into an easy chair. Head encased in a grandmother’s sleep bonnet, blotches of ungainly cold cream smeared under her eyelids, clad in a crisp silk kimono under a flowing but shabby flannel wrap, she seemed a contradiction: the delicate Japanese butterfly caught in a craggy cocoon.
She opened her eyes. “Edna, why are you here?”
Henry told her the story, a version so truncated that Carlotta winced. None of this, Carlotta seemed to be indicating, was to be done in less than three full acts, sans intermission.
Peggy, jolted awake by the story, was as unhappy as Henry. “I’m not following much of this,” she said, her voice arch. She turned to her husband. “Henry, you’re not involved with law enforcement. You can’t step in and . . .”
Henry and his wife exchanged glances. “Of course.” Henry turned to Carlotta. “Carlotta, why don’t we wait and see what transpires?”
Carlotta was piqued. “I know what’ll transpire. I’m not a simpleton.”
“But, Carlotta,” Peggy began, “I don’t understand. You lied to the police. You went back there at the time of the murder, or around then? Why didn’t you just tell them? Especially if you’re innocent.”
The “especially if” words obviously rankled, and Carlotta looked to me, who, in my facile summarizing of events, had purposely omitted the suspicions about Jason and Martha. Now, resigned and a little desperate, Carlotta filled in the empty spaces, talking of her fears and jealously and panic. To Henry: “Henry, did you know anything about Jason being involved with Martha?”
He shook his head. “Carlotta, I don’t see Jason socially. We’re not friends. I see him around town now and then, and we nod. How would I know?”
But Carlotta’s anger was rising now. “But you knew about his affair with Martha years back, after Jason and I divorced.”
Henry hesitated. “Well, yes. Everyone did. You did. You told everyone after Jason admitted it to you. Carlotta, that’s all you talked about for a while. I think you confronted Martha who, you said, gloated .
. .”
“She always gloated over her conquests.”
“But that was then—a long, long time ago.”
“But he was back—and sneaking around.”
“You don’t now that.”
“And you don’t know that it’s not true, do you?” she demanded, not being reasonable.
He shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
I was startled by Carlotta’s fury, especially as it was directed at the simpering Henry. “Martha, Martha, Martha,” she said now. Then, a cynical chuckle. “The schoolmarm as vamp. Theda Bara dressed up à la Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.”
“Really, Carlotta,” Peggy grumbled. “To speak of the dead that way.”
“Don’t make excuses for me. We all know . . .”
I interrupted. “If I may?” They looked at me, waiting. “I’m having a problem here, really. I cannot seem to get a real picture of Martha in my head, God bless her soul. Carlotta, you, and some others”—I thought of Millicent Wright—“present me with one distinct snapshot of Martha, some femme fatale, but my limited sense of her from others, like Peter and Julia, is of a caring, conservative woman.”
Carlotta scoffed. “Really, Edna. Mostly men present that view. She was a woman whose, well . . . urges broke the seams of the whalebone stays of her corset, if I might be so crude.”
“For heaven’s sake, Carlotta.” Henry rushed his words. “You sister is dead.”
“And you think that I don’t know that?”
“But to hurt her reputation now?”
