A Will To Murder (2 page)

“I thought so.  What are you writing?”

Before Bradley could reply, Maxwell re-entered, walked over to the computer, and raised the packaged cartridge to his lips.  One hard blow sent a cloud of dust into Smith’s face.  “When was the last time you cleaned your goddamned apartment?”

“Months ago,” replied Bradley, fanning dust away.

Silently, Maxwell opened the package and replaced the cartridge.  “There.  The nasty old printer is fixed.  Now you can use it.”

“Since I’ve finished writing, I’ll just borrow yours.  Where’s the on/off switch?”

Eric gave Wendy a pained look.  “What are you writing?” he growled.

“It’s a reply to a lawyer.”  

“One of your boyfriends suing?”

“Hey, don’t be so catty.  You see, this really cool thing happened.  I’m going to be meeting my family!”

Maxwell frowned.  “I thought you didn’t have any living relatives, except maybe your father.  What’s a lawyer got to do with it?”

“He’s asked me to come.”

“Who are they?”

“Who are who?”

“The people you’re meeting.”

“My family.  I just told you that.”

Sternly, Eric said, “Name of subjects mentioned in letter, and their exact relationship to you.  Name of lawyer, plus purpose of letter sent.  Place of meeting indicated, and reason for meeting.”

“God, I just told you all that.  I’m going to be meeting these people called the Boyles.  Their lawyer, Douglas Hamilton, has sent me a letter saying a relative of mine called James Elmont Boyle has died and he has requested that I be present at the reading of Mr. Boyle’s will, at the estate of Rollingwood, in Chichiteaux, Vermont, this Monday.”

“I’ve heard about James Boyle,” Wendy said.  “He died only a couple of days ago.  How are you related to him?”

“According to this letter he’s on my Grandmother Smith’s side of the family.”

“This must be quite a shock for you, then,” said Eric in a milder tone.

“I’m really excited!  They even live in a house that has a
name
.  I’ll bet they’re rich.  Do you think I’ll receive an inheritance?  I don’t think the lawyer would have invited me unless James Boyle left me something.”

“How are you getting there?” Maxwell asked.

“Don’t worry.  I’m writing the lawyer that I’m bringing a guest.  I’m sure they’ll have room for you.”

“Wait a second.  What do I have to do with this?”  The hard edge had returned to Eric’s voice.

“I’ve told the lawyer you’re coming along.”

“You did.  And why did you say that?”

“So you can drive me there.”

“Can’t you ride your motorcycle?”

“It died.  It dissolved into a puff of rust.”

Eric stared silently.  Smith, sensing this was a delicate moment, studied the computer screen.

“I, am not coming with you.  Furthermore, you are not borrowing my car.  I need it myself.”

Bradley wrinkled his nose.  “Then how am I going to get there?”

Maxwell stalked over to the couch, sat down, and studied the back of his hand.  “There must be suitable bus routes through Chichiteaux,” he said coldly.

“No, there aren’t.  I checked.”  Smith turned on the printer.  “And I can’t take a taxi all the way there.  That’d be a thousand dollars.”  He looked down at the tabletop.

Eric took a deep breath, conscious that Wendy was observing him.  “You could rent a car,” he suggested.

“It’s too expensive.  I’m kinda broke.”

The letter began to print.  Maxwell’s face flushed.  “Can’t you borrow someone else’s car?”

“My friends need theirs.  You can send in your column via email, you know.”  Bradley still didn’t raise his head.

“I think you should take him,” said Wendy.  “He really doesn’t have any way to get there, and this is important.”

“It’s just that I object to foisting myself off on a bunch of strangers.”

“If I write them and they don’t care, will you do it?” said Bradley.

Maxwell ground his teeth a little.  “If they okay--”

“Great!  I’ll tell them!”  Smith snatched the letter out of the printer and was gone, the door slamming behind him.  Eric regarded the door glumly, then turned to Wendy.  As Bradley had instructed, she kissed him hard.  He startled right off the couch.

Chapter 3

“Whoever played that filthy joke on Father ought to go to jail!” Rose Cummings fumed as she entered the mall’s card and gift shop.  “He’d had a heart attack only two months before!”  Rose, who was James’ elder daughter, was an excitable, bleached-looking woman of forty.

Bert, her husband, followed her inside the store.  He was elephantine and pot-bellied, hunched forward as usual.  Rose had insisted he wear his good shoes, although Bert had refused to give in about his plaid shirt.  He was damned if he was going to dress up further for old man Boyle.  “How was anyone to know your father could out-bigot Hitler?  No one could have guessed that rap music would give him a coronary.  Would you hurry up and buy that stationary?  We’ve got a long drive to your dad’s house.”

Cummings felt no regret for James.  Nor, he thought, should his wife.  Rose hadn’t spoken to her father since her marriage to Bert eight years ago.  

“Oh, thank God.  They have antacids by the cash register.  I need a few,” Rose fretted.  “And here’s the stationary aisle.”  She had to write thank-yous for all the condolences she had been receiving.

Arthur Cummings, the seven-year-old son of the above, was standing with his nose pressed to the glass of the candy counter, hoping his parents would notice.

“No way, kid,” said Bert, having done so.

Sighing, Arthur strayed down a nicknack aisle.  He bore some resemblance to a newly-hatched chicken, having the same fine, fluffy hair; the same wandering, insensate curiosity; the same slightly dazed expression.  He squinted sometimes and would need glasses in a year or two.

“I have to get something to console Aunt Katherine,” cried Rose, flitting into Arthur’s aisle to look at the porcelain cherubs and shepherd girls.

“Your presence would be better than any this junk,” replied her husband.

“But she loves these sweet little figurines,” Rose protested.

“She’s already got fifty thousand of them.  Then again, maybe getting a cheap tin with pansies on it would make it all right with her about your father.”

“Honey!”

“Sorry,” muttered Bert.  “Would you hurry up?  You still have to get the stationary.”  

 Arthur, meanwhile, had found a stuffed rabbit.  He fingered it, expecting to feel stiff plastic bristles, but the fake fur was very soft.  The insides of its tall ears were checked pink-and-white, and the rabbit had two prominent foreteeth and tortoiseshell glasses.  Its arms and legs stuck out imploringly.

The boy looked around.  No one was in sight except for his father losing patience by the cash register and his mother comparing boxes of bow-tied paper.  So he gave the rabbit a hug.  Nothing serious, he just wanted to see what it felt like.  Then he put the rabbit back on the glass shelf.

A second later Rose was at the cash register.  “We have to buy him that rabbit!” she hissed to her husband.

“What rabbit?” said Cummings, alarmed by this new peril.

“The one he was hugging!  I’ll be back.”

“Hey!” protested Bert.  

“Do you like that rabbit?” Rose asked her son.  Arthur blinked at her a moment.  His parents were always asking him these bizarre questions.  How would he know whether he liked this rabbit or not?  He hadn’t had time to make its acquaintance.  It might not turn out to be someone he even liked.  

“It’s okay.”

“I’ll buy it for you if you like it,” said Rose, ignoring Bert’s piteous groans.

This was a problem for the boy.  The unwritten law of childhood said it was better to have something than not have it, but a stuffed rabbit?  He was too old for stuffed animals.  Also, if any other boy saw him with the rabbit, Arthur would, of course, be eviscerated.

“Okay,” said Arthur, greed winning.

The rabbit was quickly placed next to the cash register.  “Isn’t it cute?” Rose said to her husband.  “It reminds me of someone, though I can’t remember who.”  

Bert studied the animal with nausea, but he knew that arguing with her at this point was useless.

Arthur stood with his nose against the candy counter again, just in case.  He could see peppermint straws, and molasses seafoam candy, which he could eat to the point of mouth sores.  The boy whined plaintively, but his parents didn’t notice.

“Christ!  Are you done?” asked Bert.  “I don’t even know why we’re bothering to go.  He cut you out of the will, so you won’t be inheriting anything.”

“We are going,” said Rose stiffly, clasping her box of stationary to her chest, “to attend my father’s funeral. The will is nothing.”  

“Okay, I’m just an innocent by-attender then, watching the rest of my in-laws get rich.  Are you ready?”

“Oh!  I forgot these!” said Rose, scooping up the entire display box of antacids.

“Christ!  Rosey!  Leave your stomach acid alone!  Let it do its job!  You’re going to starve.”

“You don’t need stomach acid to digest food!” she twittered back fiercely.  “Your intestines just hose it all up.”

Suddenly his mother was handing Arthur the rabbit, and the boy was horrified.  The lady behind the counter hadn’t bagged it!  He was going to have to walk out of the store carrying a stuffed rabbit!  In agony, he followed his parents out, praying no other kids could see him.  Fortunately this wing of the mall was empty on this Thursday morning, and the parking lot was close.  Relieved, the boy considered swinging the rabbit by the ears and bouncing it off a pillar to see what sort of noise it would make, but felt just enough vague benevolence towards his new acquisition to refrain.

Out in the parking lot, Rose took the driver’s seat of the family Camry.  It was a tossup as to which parent was the worse driver.  Bert was a bellower and a flailer, Rose a startler and a jerker.  But it had been decided that Rose’s skittering style was the least likely to get them killed, so she usually drove.

As the car started down the highway, his mother asked, “What are you going to name your rabbit?”

“Frederick.  She’s a girl rabbit,” Arthur replied.

“Jesus fucking CHRIST,” wailed Bert.

“I know a girl called Freddie,” Arthur protested, “she’s in my class at school.  I sort of like Freddie,” he added plaintively, resting his chin between the rabbit’s ears.

“What was that?” asked his father.

“I SAID, I SORT OF LIKE THE NAME FREDERICK.”

“Jesus fucking CHRIST!  Keep your voice down!  Oh, now he’s crying.  What are you crying for, kid, huh?  Huh?”

“You’re picking on Frederick,” sniveled Arthur.

“I am not!  How could I pick on a stuffed animal?  It doesn’t have any feelings!”

“Dear, you know what he means,” said Rose.  “He means that you’re picking on
him
.”

“I know I’m picking on him!  I’m fucking trying to pick on him, dammit!  And stop crying back there, kid, or I’ll take that rabbit away.”

“What do you want Frederick for?” Arthur sobbed.  “You can go get your own rabbit.”

Bert leaned over the back seat.  “Hey!  I’m a grown-up, remember?  Do I look like I’d want a stuffed rabbit?  Huh?  Do I?  Do I?”

“I don’t know!” the boy wailed. “You
might
.”

Bert stared at his son a moment, then put his face in his hands.

After everyone in the car had sulked sufficiently, Rose said,  “If the girl you know is called Freddie, then her full name must be Fredericka.”

“Fredericka?” said Arthur, astounded.  The boy stared hard at his rabbit.  “I still think her name is Frederick,” he said suspiciously.

The car drove on for some time, and Arthur grew bored.  There was nothing to see except trees, fences, brush, and mailboxes at the ends of driveways.  He was glad when they reached the small town of Rockland, only a few miles from Chichiteaux.  As they drove down a street of Victorian residences, the boy said, “Those are pretty houses.”

Bert coughed horribly, but Arthur wasn’t distracted for more than a moment.  “What sort of houses are they?” asked the boy.

“Queen Anne, dear,” said Rose.

“Charles Addams,” said Bert, grinning.

Ignoring her husband, Rose added, “Do you see all the bright colors, honey?  It’s the fashion to paint those old houses in several contrasting colors.  They’re called Painted Ladies.”

“Think your old man has done that?” Cummings asked maliciously.

“Aunt Katy said he’d had the house repainted, but she didn’t tell me what color.”  Rose’s face was apprehensive.

As the car reached an intersection, they noticed an Arby’s on a far corner, and Bert said, “Hey, see that green Lincoln with the New York plates, parked next to that cop car?  I think it’s your sister’s.  You think they stopped here for lunch?”

“Let’s go see.”   

“Now wait a moment,” said Bert,  “we don’t need to meet them this soon.”

“But honey--”

Four people were walking out of the Arby’s.  A man, a woman, and a boy who was shoving a girl in the back.  Arthur’s forehead wrinkled.

“That’s them,” said Bert in a dreadful, gothic tone.

Arthur stared.  He had never seen the Salisburys before.  The lady was his mother’s sister, Jacquelyn, and the man, Uncle Phillip Salisbury.  The nasty-looking boy had to be cousin Richie, and the girl, who was a year younger than her brother, cousin Briarly.

Rose drove into the parking lot and got out of the car.  Cummings groaned and did likewise.  Arthur decided to stay inside the car, like the way you did on safari.  He opened his window to listen.

Jacquelyn had short black hair and glossy red lips.  She wore a scarlet dress, patterned black hose, and was gripping a black purse as shiny as her lipstick.  Arthur thought she was very pretty.

Uncle Phil, who was smoking, wore silver frame glasses with tinted lenses.  He was a lean, dark man in a suit and tie, with grainy skin and a five o’clock shadow.  His uncle was a corporate lawyer, Arthur recalled, and Rose had said the Salisburys were rich.

Briarly Salisbury was blonde, unlike her parents, and red soda blotched her shirt and dyed her mouth.  Arthur remembered that she was supposed to be a year older than himself.  She wore a furious expression because her brother wouldn’t quit pushing her.  Why hadn’t his Aunt and Uncle stopped their son? Arthur wondered.  But he knew that grownups tended not to see things.