FIRE AND FOG (19 page)

The excellent quality of Alice's underthings distracted me.
Trousseau,
I thought. More evidence that there really had
been a husband? Lace and ribbons, the finest, sheerest silks and
cottons, all so delicate to the touch. I put aside the apple core,
wiped my fingers on my skirt, and took up an exquisite camisole. It
was of ecru silk and had the tiniest pleats down the front I'd ever
seen, alternating with bands of peach-pink satin ribbon. A spinster
would not buy such a garment for herself, would she? I would not
buy it for myself, probably not even if I were putting together my
own trousseau. It must have been dreadfully expensive, and there
were many others that had cost as much.

Fremont, you are wasting time!
I folded the camisole-
which was like folding a cloud, it was that wispy-and returned it
to the drawer. As I went meticulously through the remaining drawers
of the lingerie chest, I tried not to think about Anson's proposal,
but the trousseauish nature of Alice's belongings had brought it to
the forefront of my mind.

It was interesting, to say the least, that I had not immediately
refused him. The mind has its reasons, I suppose. Such as: Very
likely Anson was right in thinking that he and I would work well
together. Or, if I wanted to keep up my typewriting service, I
doubted he would object. He had said more than once that my desire
to work was one of the things he admired about me. Certainly it was
not easy to find a man who would allow me to continue working; on
the other hand, I had not thought that I would ever marry. . .
.

Enough of that! The lingerie chest had been aptly named, for
there was nothing but lingerie in it. I turned around, scanning the
room and tapping my foot. Where next? I did not currently keep a
journal, but when I had in the past, the notebook had resided on
the table by my bed. The round table next to Alice's bed was
covered with a crocheted cloth in the pineapple pattern, and on it
sat an oil lamp with a rose-colored glass globe, a miniature brass
clock that had wound down, a clear crystal water carafe and
matching glass, and a heart-shaped silver box. I took the lid off
the box; it held a single small key of the sort that might open a
little chest or a tiny drawer. I put the key in my pocket, and as I
did so I had an inspiration.

I have heard that people hide things beneath their mattresses.
That would be a good place to hide a journal, or anything flat. I
flipped back the crocheted spread and lifted the mattress with one
hand while feeling underneath it with the other. No notebook, but
there was certainly something under there. I hefted the mattress
until I got one shoulder beneath it, and then I looked.

Money! Between the mattress and the covering of the bedsprings
was a layer of paper currency in large denominations: twenties,
fifties, and hundred-dollar bills. I hunched farther under the
mattress to get a better look. Actually, there was more than one
layer. There must have been thousands of dollars in Alice's
bed!

I was appalled. "I have plenty of money in the house," Alice had
said-what an understatement! So much money belonged in a bank. My
father is a banker, and I cannot help having picked up an opinion
or two from him. Banks are safe; mattresses are not. But what could
I do? It was not my money.

"Oh, botheration!" I swore, letting the mattress down. I
smoothed the spread and sat on the bed. I felt as if I were sitting
on a powder keg. How could Alice
sleep
on it?

This discovery had not helped my main investigation in the
least. It was just one more thing to worry about when I had enough
already. I should put it out of my mind, not allow all that money
to distract me.

I took the little key out of my pocket and studied it, then
scrutinized the room. Some dressing tables have tiny drawers, but
Alice's did not; its drawers were deep, with no keyholes. The key
would no doubt prove to be a red herring, like everything else I
came across in this bothersome business. I should continue to look
for the journal-or anything else that might tell me more about
Alice and her putative husband-in an orderly manner, room by room,
upstairs and then down. By my reasoning, the study should come
last, because anything in there of significance to Alice's murder
would most likely have been removed along with her body.

At about four o'clock in the afternoon the doorbell rang. Too
early for Anson; I wondered who it might be. I hurried down from
the guest bedroom, which I had just finished turning inside out
with no result.

"Oh dear," I said involuntarily at the sight of a policeman in
uniform on the front steps.

"I'm Stephenson, ma'am," he said, politely touching the brim of
his hat.

"Yes, I remember you." I laced my fingers together- they were
suddenly ice cold. "You may as well tell me quickly what I've done
wrong now, and get it over with."

He looked over first one shoulder and then the other, up the
street and down, before asking: "May I come in?"

I would have liked to decline but didn't see how I could. I
stepped back from the door without saying yes or no, and Stephenson
entered, politely removing his hat. After a brief hesitation, he
went into my office and sat in the client'schair beside the desk. I
sat in my usual place, which gave me a bit of much-needed
confidence.

As Stephenson did not seem inclined to begin the conversation, I
asked, "Do you have a rank, a title to go with Stephenson?"

He gave an aw-shucks grin, raising one shoulder. At that moment
he looked painfully young. "They just call me the Rookie, because
that's what I am. I guess you wonder what I'm doing here."

"Yes, but I would still like to know how properly to address
you. / can't very well call you the Rookie."

"Oh, yeah, well, you can call me just plain Officer Stephenson,
or you can call me Wish. My real name's Aloysius. Awful, isn't
it?"

In spite of his uniform and my recently found fear of the
police, I felt a smile play with my lips. "Wish. I like it. I shall
call you Wish, then, unless Sergeant Franks is around. You may call
me by my first name, which is Fremont."

"I remember, Miss Fremont."

"Not
Miss,
just Fremont."

"Fremont." He grinned, then immediately sobered. "If the
sergeant knew I was here, he'd skin me alive. Get me thrown off the
force, I guess."

"So why are you here, Wish?"

He ran a skinny finger inside his tight collar and craned his
neck a bit before answering. "I'm on my own time, I just got off
duty. It's like this. I believed you, Miss, I mean Fremont. You
know, the other night, about your housemate."

I let out a long, deep breath with great relief, as if, without
knowing, I'd been holding it ever since then. "Thank you,
Wish."

"It's just the sergeant, I mean Sergeant Franks-there's other
sergeants and so on that are different-he can be kinda hard. He
takes against people sometimes, that's just how he is. Never can
see any reason for him to do that, myself, but then I'm just the
Rookie. It's not my place to apologize for him, but anyway, I do.
You just mustn't tell him I did."

"Your apology is accepted, and you needn't worry about me saying
anything to the sergeant. I fully intend never to see him
again."

Wish rocked his lean body forward, rubbing the heels of his
palms against his kneecaps. "Any new developments? About Alice
Lasley, I mean?"

He had a good memory, this young man. I would have bet a penny
to a pound that Franks could not recall her name. "No. It's very
frustrating. I'm staying on in the house for now, in the hope that
I may be able to find something here. So far, I've found nothing
the least bit enlightening."

"How about you? Anybody bothering you?"

"No, and in a way that's worth remarking." I wondered how much I
dared tell him. My instinct was to trust Wish Stephenson; in
particular, I was vastly tempted to tell him about the money under
the mattress, as that was for me a burdensome secret indeed. But I
dared not. He might mistake my intention, interpret it as a bribe,
report it to his sergeant. Then I would be in an even worse
pickle!

"I don't quite take your meaning," Stephenson said.

I made a mental note of that educated turn of phrase. "Before
Alice was killed, she often complained of hearing someone in the
house, usually when I was not home. I didn't believe her, much to
my later dismay. Alice was a nervous type, the kind who makes a
fuss over nothing."

"Like the Boy Who Cried Wolf."

"Exactly. She also said she often felt as if someone were
watching her, and I sometimes felt the same, but I thought it was
my imagination. Now, since her death, this house has been perfectly
peaceful."

"Sounds to me like whoever did it got what he wanted. Including
her, dead."

The awful bluntness of his words made me shiver. "I suppose so.
I just want to know who did it, and why."

Wish rose to his feet-a motion that he accomplished in a coltish
manner, as if he were not entirely in control of his long arms and
legs. "I'm sorry, Miss Jones, but Sergeant Franks was right about
one thing. Unless we find a body, or the bones even, we can't do
anything. How long do you plan to stay in this house?"

"I haven't decided. I'm still trying to find out if there are
any relatives to take it over. It's difficult. Alice does not
appear to have left records of any kind. They
must
be here.
I just haven't found them yet."

"Well"-he put on his hat, giving a little tug at the brim to set
it in place-"if I can be of any help, call the station and ask for
me by my real name, Aloysius Stephenson. They'll think you're my
mother because she's the only one calls me Aloysius. She calls the
station a lot. I think it's mostly that she just likes to use the
telephone."

I smiled. "That must be difficult for you."

"Yeah, it is. They tease me something terrible."

I saw Wish Stephenson out and closed the door with a smile still
on my face. Wish: I could not have said why, but the nickname
suited him. His brief visit had gone a long way toward restoring my
faith in the police. As no doubt he had intended it should. Had he
been sent? Or had he come, as he said, on his own?

I wondered if I would ever be able to trust people again.

For two days I typed in the mornings and searched the
house-fruitlessly-in the afternoons. The evenings I spent with
Anson. He conducted himself circumspectly for the most part, but
had flashes of impatience that were understandable. "Soon," I told
him, "I will let you know my decision soon."

At around eleven on the morning of the third day, I finished
The Great San Francisco Quake.
It came out to one hundred
and ten pages, short for a book, and not particularly well written.
No doubt it would be a great success anyway, if, as the author
hoped, it was the first on our disaster. I stacked the pages in a
neat pile on the corner of my desk, then plunked a paperweight on
top of them for good measure. The writer would be pleased and so
was I- I wanted that bonus.

He came in due course, paid me the bonus, and left all smiles
with a promise of more work to come.
Now what?
I thought,
but I knew what. Dragging my heels, I went down the hall to the one
room I had not yet searched: the study. I did not like to go in
there. Every time I did, I saw Alice's body again, with the broad
band of scarlet at her throat, grotesquely wavering in the
lamplight.

I could not do it. Suddenly I was swamped by an overwhelming
need to get out of Alice's house. Where I might go, what I might
do, were not the issue; I just had to go.

Because it was a typically cool and foggy early summer day, I
went to my room for the aubergine cape, and while I was there had
an inspiration: I should practice shooting my new pistol!

The place I had in mind to do it would make a good outing. I put
the pistol and a handful of bullets tied up in a handkerchief into
my bag, then changed into my most comfortable shoes, for I would be
doing a lot of walking. I tucked a wool scarf into my bag for good
measure.

Alternately walking and streetcar-riding, I made my way to the
northwest corner of the city, an area called Seacliff. There are a
few grand houses here, but mostly it is wild. I kept walking north,
looking for the path that would take me along the cliff's edge. I
had been here once before, with Michael. With Golden Gate Park now
so full of people, this was the only place I could think of where I
might practice with my pistol safely and undisturbed.

Aha! I found the path, which led through cypress trees bent by
the wind and choked with dense undergrowth, all full of greeny
dark. It was, not to put too fine a point upon it, spooky. Quite a
delicious sort of spookiness.

The ocean crashed on unseen rocks not far away. Droplets of
thick mist bathed my face, and the wind whipped my hair. I paused
to tie the wool scarf around my head. A foghorn gave out a low,
hollow moan. The nearness of the sea sent a thrill rippling through
me, and I quickened my steps.

I came out of the trees and a fog-shrouded vista opened up
before me, all in shades of gray and silvery white. Oh, it was
magnificent! The sea-smell alone transported me. If there is a God,
then surely He lives in the ocean, not in the sky; surely those
great rolling, foaming waves are the horses He rides, and He sleeps
in the vasty deep amidst dreaming whales.

Exulting, I walked along the cliff's edge toward Land's End. The
wind tore at me; I did not care. I let go my plan to practice with
the pistol, for I could not be bothered with anything so mundane.
Again and again the crashing surf sent its spray high into the air,
higher than my head. Mile Rock was out there, nothing on it but a
lighthouse. I could not see it for the fog, but I well remembered
the sunny day when Michael, sailing his boat the
Katya,
had
taken me near it. That was the day I first saw Michael Archer as a
man, strong and in the fullness of his prime, not merely an
elegant, rather bookish older neighbor.