Death Wears a Beauty Mask and Other Stories (37 page)

Undeterred, I kept on my mission, even recording cats in animal shelters, where I caught the plaintive meows of discarded felines bewildered
by their fate. At the home of a neighbor I secretly caught on tape the contented purring of her cherished pet.

A cacophony of sound, a work of genius. That was the result of my labors.

As I was engaged in my nocturnal wanderings, by day I was also lavishing attention on my grandmother, visiting her at least three times a week, enduring at mealtime the vegetarian regime that was her latest quirk to stay alive until her hundredth birthday. Seen with such frequency, the annoying habits she was developing became increasingly hard to take. She began avoiding my eyes when I spoke to her as though she were aware everything I said was a lie. She also took on a nervous mannerism of pursing then releasing her lips, which gave the impression she was always sucking on a straw.

Grandma lived alone. Her housekeeper, Ana, a kind Jamaican woman, arrived at 9
A.M.
, prepared Grandma's breakfast and lunch, tidied the house, then went home and returned to prepare and serve dinner. Ana was very protective of Grandma. She had already confided to me her distress that Grandma might somehow get trapped in the elevator when she was alone. “You know how when it gets very windy, she gets power failures that can last for hours,” Ana worried. I assured her that I too was troubled by that possibility. Then, I impatiently waited for the weather to cooperate and a good wind storm to come along. It finally happened. The weather report was for heavy winds during the night. That evening I had dinner with Grandma, a particularly difficult dinner, what with the vegetarian menu, Grandma's averted eyes, her twitching mouth and then the dismaying news that she was meeting an architect concerning her idea for building a personal gym. It was clearly time to act.

After dinner, I kissed Grandma good night, went into the kitchen, where Ana was tidying up, then drove away. At that time, I only lived three blocks from Grandma. I parked my car and waved to my next-door neighbor, who was just arriving home. I felt it was
fortuitous that, if necessary, he could testify that he had seen me enter my own modest rental cottage. I waited an hour and then slipped out my back door. It was already dark and chillingly cold, and it was easy to hurry undetected back to Grandma's house. I arrived through the wooded area, checking to be sure that Ana's car was gone. It was, and I slipped across the lawn to the window of the den. As I had expected, I could see Grandma, hunched up on her recliner, an old fur lap robe wrapped around her, watching her favorite television show.

For the next ten minutes she stayed there, then, as I had expected, promptly at nine o'clock, the fur robe dragging behind her, she turned off the television and made her way to the front of the house. In a flash, key in hand, I was at the basement door and inside. As soon as I heard the rumble of the elevator, I threw the switch, plunging the house into silence and darkness.

I crept upstairs, my feet noiseless in my sneakers, my flashlight a thin beam. From the sound of my grandmother's cries for help I could detect that the elevator was only a few feet off the floor. Now for the tricky part. I placed my tape recorder on the vestibule table behind a book I had left for Grandma. I reasoned that Ana, if indeed she noticed it, would think nothing of it being there. I had developed a habit of bringing books and little gifts for Grandma.

And then I turned on the tape. The sound that thundered from it was a litany from cat hell, meowing, clawing, scratching and howling, their shrieks interwoven with the sudden incongruous rattle of purring contentment.

There was absolute silence from the elevator.

Had the recording done its job already? I wondered. It was possible, but I wouldn't know for sure until the morning. The tape was twenty minutes long and would play repeatedly until midnight. I was sure that would be sufficient.

I let myself out of the house and walked home at a quick pace,
bracing against the sharp wind that was now making tree branches bend and dance. Chilled to the bone, I went directly to bed. I confess I could not fall asleep. The mental image of my grandmother's stiffening body inside her elevator kept me from restful slumber. But then as I allowed myself to imagine finally getting my hands on all her money, my frame of mind improved and from dawn till eight o'clock I enjoyed a refreshing slumber.

But then as I began to prepare breakfast, several possibilities occurred to me. Suppose Grandma's face was frozen into a frightened mask? Would that make anyone suspicious? Worse yet, suppose for some reason the recording had not automatically turned off!

My original plan had been to await Ana's phone call, the one that would convey the sad news that Grandma had been trapped in the elevator and must have had a heart attack. At the frightening possibility that the tape just might still be playing, I leapt up from the breakfast table, threw on some clothes and rushed over, arriving as Ana was opening the front door. To my vast relief there was no sound from the recorder.

The morning was overcast, which meant that the vestibule was dark. As Ana greeted me she tried to turn on the light. Then she frowned. “My God, there must have been another power failure.” She turned and made a beeline for the stairs to Grandma's bedroom. I, on the other hand, raced down to the basement and threw the master switch on the panel. The whir of the elevator rewarded me. I rushed up the stairs and was there when Ana yanked open the elevator door. Grandma was on the floor wrapped in her mink fur lap robe. She opened her eyes and blinked up at us. With the fur wrapped around her head, the strands of fur resting on her cheek, for all the world she had the face of a cat. Her mouth pursed in and out as though she were sipping milk. “Grandma . . .” My voice failed. With Ana's help, she was struggling to her feet, her hands on the floor, her back arched to help regain her balance.

“Eerr . . . eerr . . .” she sighed.
Or was she saying “Purrrr . . . purrrr”?

“Eerrr, that's the best sleep I've had in years,” Grandma said contentedly.

“Weren't you frightened trapped in there?” Ana asked incredulously.

“Oh, no, I was tired and I just made the best of it. I tried calling out but there was no one to hear me. I decided not to waste my voice.”

The recording had been playing. I had heard it myself.

Grandma was eyeing me. “You look terrible,” she said. “I don't want you worrying about me. Don't you know I'll live to be one hundred? That's my promise to you. So I was stuck in the elevator. The carpet is thick. I lay down and was nice and warm under the robe. In my dreams I was hearing this faint purring sound like water lapping against the shore.”

Afraid I would give myself away, I stumbled downstairs and grabbed my recorder from the table, then realized that in my haste I had knocked a small object off the table. I bent down and picked it up. It was a hearing aid. I started to lay it down and saw there was another one on the table.

Ana was coming down the stairs. “How long has Grandma been wearing hearing aids?” I demanded.

“They're just what I'm coming for. She leaves them on that table every night. She's so vain that I guess she didn't tell you that her hearing has been going steadily downhill and she's practically deaf now. She's been studying lip reading and is quite good at it. Haven't you noticed the way she always looks at your lips when you're talking? She finally got the hearing aids but uses them only for television in the evening and always leaves them right here.”

“She can't hear?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Only a few sounds, deep ones, nothing shrill.”

That happened five years ago. Of course, I immediately destroyed the tape, but in my sleep I hear it playing over and over. It doesn't frighten me. Instead it keeps me company. I don't know why. There's something else that's a little strange. I cannot look at my grandmother's face without seeing the face of a cat. That's because of those whiskers on her cheeks and lips, the odd pursing movements of her mouth, the narrow intense eyes that are always focused on my lips. Also, her bedchamber of choice is now the elevator where, for naps and at night, she curls up on the carpeted floor wrapped in her mink lap robe. Her breathing has even taken on a purring sound.

I can hardly keep my wits about me as I await my inheritance. I do not have the courage to try to precipitate its arrival again. I live with Grandma now, and as time passes, I believe I am beginning to resemble her. The scar on her cheek is directly under her left eye; mine is in the same spot. I have a very light beard and shave infrequently. At times my beard looks just like her whiskers. We have those same narrow green eyes.

My grandmother loves very warm milk. She's taken to pouring it into a saucer to cool it before she laps it up. I tried it and now I like it that way too. It's purr-fect.

MARY HIGGINS CLARK,
#1 international and
New York Times
bestselling author, has written thirty-four suspense novels; four collections of short stories; a historical novel,
Mount Vernon Love Story
; two children's books, including
The Magical Christmas Horse
; and a memoir,
Kitchen Privileges
. She is also the coauthor, with Carol Higgins Clark, of five holiday suspense novels, and the coauthor, with Alafair Burke, of
The Cinderella Murder
. Her books have sold more than 100 million copies in the United States alone.

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B
Y
M
ARY
H
IGGINS
C
LARK

I've Got You Under My Skin

Daddy's Gone A Hunting

The Lost Years

The Magical Christmas Horse
(Illustrated by Wendell Minor)

I'll Walk Alone

The Shadow of Your Smile

Just Take My Heart

Where Are You Now?

Ghost Ship
(Illustrated by Wendell Minor)

I Heard That Song Before

Two Little Girls in Blue

No Place Like Home

Nighttime Is My Time

The Second Time Around

Kitchen Privileges

Mount Vernon Love Story

Silent Night / All Through the Night

Daddy's Little Girl

On the Street Where You Live

Before I Say Good-Bye

We'll Meet Again

All Through the Night

You Belong to Me

Pretend You Don't See Her

My Gal Sunday

Moonlight Becomes You

Silent Night

Let Me Call You Sweetheart

The Lottery Winner

Remember Me

I'll Be Seeing You

All Around Town

Loves Music, Loves to Dance

The Anastasia Syndrome and Other Stories

While My Pretty One Sleeps

Weep No More, My Lady

Stillwatch

A Cry in the Night

The Cradle Will Fall

A Stranger Is Watching

Where Are the Children?

B
Y
M
ARY
H
IGGINS
C
LARK AND
C
AROL
H
IGGINS
C
LARK

Dashing Through the Snow

Santa Cruise

The Christmas Thief

He Sees You When You're Sleeping

Deck the Halls

B
Y
M
ARY
H
IGGINS
C
LARK AND
A
LAFAIR
B
URKE

The Cinderella Murder