Naked Once More (35 page)

“By what authority—” Craig began.

“I been deputized,” Bill explained. “Now don’t hassle me, Craig. Only reason you’re here is because Mr. Darcy insisted on having his lawyer present. That’s his right, though a suspicious person might wonder why he’d think it was necessary. All this is is a simple question of identification.”

St. John had recovered himself. “But why me? I scarcely knew the woman.”

“Well, now, that’s the question I was referring to,” Bill said affably. “According to Paul here, that woman is—was—your sister Kathleen.”

St. John’s eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of his head. He opened his mouth; nothing came out but a batrachian croak.

The sound was echoed by Craig. “Are you all—are you crazy? That’s Jan Wilson. Is this—is this one of your filthy publicity stunts, Mrs. Kirby?”

Jacqueline set him straight with a few well-chosen words. The words would have amounted to more than a few if Bill had not intervened. “Now, just calm down, Miz Kirby. I don’t blame you for being upset, but we better all keep our cool or we’re gonna be up to our—uh—keisters in trouble. That reporter—”

“Reporter?” Craig howled. “Oh, no!”

“Oh, yeah.” Bill looked at the cup of tea Jacqueline had given him. “I don’t suppose there’s nothing besides… Well. I don’t know where the bastard came from or what he was doing down here, but he heard Paul say that was Kathleen. We gotta stomp on this thing right now.”

Craig had started to perspire. He took a handkerchief from his pocket. “How?” he asked hoarsely.

“We got two separate problems,” Bill said. “First, how did that woman come to die? Looks like an accident, pure and simple. Bookcase fell; one of the shelves hit her square across the neck.”

Jacqueline started to speak. Bill shook a playful finger at her. “You saw the body before Paul picked it up, Miz Kirby. So did I. She was lying half on her side, twisted. Suppose she was pulling at something on the bookcase and it started to fall; she’d turn and try to get out from under. But she couldn’t move fast, on account of her bad leg. The thing hit her when she was just starting to turn, knocked her forward. That would account for why she wasn’t lying face up.”

He stared challengingly at Jacqueline. She shrugged, and said nothing.

“Now as to who she was,” Bill went on. “Hadn’t been for Paul here, there’d never have been any question about that. But he said it, and that damned reporter heard him say it, and now we gotta settle it, one way or the other. That’s why I—and Bob—figured we’d better get Mr. Darcy over here. He oughtta know his own sister.”

All eyes, except those of Paul Spencer, turned toward St. John. Paul continued to stare at the table top.

St. John’s failure to respond immediately might have been due to shock. He would have been justified in that reaction; but as Jacqueline watched him, she realized that St. John was not overcome by emotion. He was trying to think what to do.

Kathleen’s brother was the least observant of men. After seven years’ absence, he probably wouldn’t recognize her if she walked up to him on the street and bit him. In fact, if he thought he could get away with it, he would probably deny that she was his sister. He had control of her estate now. But he wasn’t being asked to identify a living woman, who could take back her own.…

St. John cleared his throat. “Preposterous,” he mumbled. “Outrageous. How can I possibly…”

They waited for him to go on. Finally Bill said, “Damn it, Darcy, are you saying you don’t know? What the hell kind of—”

“Hold it, Bill,” Craig interrupted. “You’ve put my client in an impossible position. You drag him over here in the middle of the night, give him ten seconds to look at a dead woman, and demand positive ID. That can’t be Kathleen; it’s a lunatic suggestion. But Mr. Darcy isn’t saying anything more at the present time. Can’t you see he’s in a state of shock?”

St. John knew a cue when he heard one. “I think I’m going to faint,” he muttered. “Home… I must go home.…”

Bill gave in; he had very little choice. As Craig escorted his tottering client out of the room, he called after them, “You damn well better persuade him to deny the story, Craig. He’ll have fifty reporters at his door tomorrow if he doesn’t.” He then turned to Paul. “Okay, Spencer. You’re the one who’s responsible for this mess and you’d better start talking. Are you going to stick to that identification? What’s your proof? What do you know about that woman that we don’t know?” Paul simply stared at him, his mouth ajar; Bill grabbed him by the collar and shook him. “Say something, damn it!”

“Stop it, Bill,” Jacqueline said. “Can’t you see he’s the one who is in a state of shock? You aren’t going to get anything coherent out of him tonight. If I may make a suggestion?”

“You will anyway,” Bill muttered, releasing his grip on Paul.

“He should be in the hospital. No visitors. After he’s had time to recover, you may find he’s more cooperative.”

“I want to get this settled right now,” Bill insisted. “He doesn’t believe that’s Kathleen, Jake; he can’t believe it. He’s out of his skull—”

“Precisely. He’s in no state to talk to anyone. And if he refuses to talk, you can’t make him.” Bill glowered at her, and Jacqueline smiled faintly. “Not even with rubber hoses, Bill. Don’t worry about a media avalanche. That reporter will keep his mouth shut; he wants an exclusive. If you can get the question of identification cleared up within the next day or two, people will dismiss anything the
Sludge
prints. It’s that kind of paper.”

“You should know, I guess,” Bill said gloomily. “Oh, shit—excuse me, Jake. Okay, I’ll go along with your suggestion. Let me talk to the sheriff.”

As soon as he had left the room, Jacqueline turned on Paul with none of the womanly tenderness she had demonstrated in front of the others. She took his face between her hands and twisted his head up and around with a force that made his neck crack. Even then his eyes avoided hers, rolling up until only the whites showed.

“Stop it,” Jacqueline hissed. “Don’t play those games with me, I know what you’re doing, and I… Paul, listen. Don’t talk to any more reporters. If you do, I swear to God I’ll persuade Bill to lock you up. You don’t want that, do you?”

“What I want,” said Paul, articulating with cold precision, “is to kill the bastard who did this. It’s high time, wouldn’t you say?”

“Shut up and let me talk! You’ll defeat your own purpose if you blab to the press. Let me—” She broke off, with a growl of frustration, as Bill entered, with reinforcements—several stalwart officers, and a man who was obviously a doctor.

To Bill’s visible surprise and Jacqueline’s profound relief, the reinforcements were not needed. Paul submitted meekly to being examined, and allowed the doctor to give him a shot. He did show all the physical symptoms of profound shock, even though it had not affected him as drastically as he had pretended. As they led him away, he turned his head and stared at Jacqueline. She nodded, as if in answer to an unspoken question, and said, “I’ll come to see you tomorrow, Paul. Just rest and keep quiet.”

“Take him out the back way,” Bill ordered. “That goddamn reporter is still out front, and there’s another one with him. Not to mention half the population of Pine Grove. We better go that way too, Miz Kirby.”

Jacqueline didn’t argue, nor did she object when Bill Hoggenboom went with her. He led her by back ways, through gardens and pastures, and at first neither of them spoke. Then Bill said, “Fence here. Can you—”

“No problem.” She suited the action to the words. Bill followed her, grunting with effort, and Jacqueline tactfully refrained from offering him a hand. “We’ll have to pass the front door of the inn,” she said. “There’s no other way.”

“Is now. I called Tom, told him to unlock that side gate.”

“Smart. But no less than I would have expected of you, Bill.”

“I’m just a small-town cop, Jake. Not even that—an ex-small-town cop.”

He had enough sense of what was proper, though, to address her formally in the presence of the law. Jacqueline appreciated that. “I know one big-city cop who says you handled the investigation of Kathleen’s disappearance very well.”

“That’s nice,” said Bill, without enthusiasm. “If Paul is right, that’s just what it was—disappearance, not death. You didn’t say much back there, Jake. What do you think about all this?”

“I never knew Kathleen. My opinion isn’t worth much.”

“Paul knew her, though. Better than most. Better, maybe, than her own brother.”

“Maybe. What do you think St. John is going to say?”

“Whatever suits his convenience,” Bill said. “Don’t matter. There’ll be an autopsy. That should settle it. Fingerprints, dental records. We’ll find out where she came from, what she was doing seven years ago. Damn it, that can’t be Kathleen Darcy. What bugs me is why Paul should say it is.”

Down darkened back lanes they reached the gate; as Bill had promised, it was unlocked. The lights in the parking lot dazzled their eyes. There was no one there, nor had the padlock on the other gate been tampered with. Jacqueline unlocked it. Bill followed her to her door, and, without comment, entered with her. Still without comment, he tramped stolidly through every room, turning on lights and looking in closets. Jacqueline didn’t ask him why, if Jan’s death had been the accident he claimed, he was so concerned about her safety. They understood one another very well.

After he had gone, with a curt “Good night,” she slumped into the nearest chair. Every bone and muscle in her body ached with an exhaustion that was not physical but emotional. She wanted to go to bed and pull the covers over her head. Or get drunk. Or, best of all, get drunk, go to bed and pull the covers over her head. But the night was not over. For her, the real work was just beginning.

A cold shower refreshed her body and was uncomfortable enough to restore her brain to its normal critical view of the world. She put on a warm robe and went back downstairs. While she was filling the coffee maker, the phone rang.

Mollie’s voice was so shrill with hysteria, Jacqueline hardly recognized it. “Thank God you’re all right! I was so worried.…”

“I was just about to call you,” Jacqueline said. “But there was no need to worry about me; I was just… just an innocent bystander.” She was glad Mollie couldn’t see the expression on her face, or comprehend the meaning of that slight pause.

She told Mollie about her car, which Bill had promised to have returned in the morning, adding, “You should be in bed, Mollie, this isn’t good for you, or the baby. Let Tom deal with the press. Are they there?”

“Yes, they just came in. They wanted Tom to open the bar, and they keep asking where you are—”

“Let Tom deal with them,” Jacqueline repeated. “And don’t worry about me, I can handle them.”

She had to say it several more times, with increasing emphasis, before Mollie agreed to do as she asked.

That was one of the calls she had intended to make. But she had not been able to ask any of the questions she had wanted to ask; Mollie was in no state for coherent conversation. Humming irritably, Jacqueline filled a cup and went back to the telephone. “ ‘Now what is love I pray thee say, / It is a pretty, shady way.…’ ”

At first the switchboard at Willowland didn’t answer. Jacqueline tapped her fingers impatiently on the table and glared at the clock. It was only a little after midnight, for God’s sake. “ ‘It is a thing will soon decay,/ Then take…’ Hello? Hello? Let me speak to Mr. Stokes.”

A sleepy, resentful voice informed her that the switchboard closed at twelve. Their guests wanted peace and rest, that was why they had come.…

It wasn’t the word “emergency” that got Jacqueline through to Booton. It was the word “police.”

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” said Jacqueline, hoping nothing of the kind.

“Oh, it’s you. I was reading in bed, as a matter of fact. Nice of you to call. I’m feeling much better. This place is just what the doctor ordered, nice and quiet, wonderful food—and plenty of it.… Boring, though. A few more days and I’ll be ready to get back to work.”

“I’m so glad you are recovering,” Jacqueline said, with poisonous sweetness. “I hope you won’t have a setback when you hear the news.”

“You’re having trouble with the outline?”

“No, dahling, nothing so simple. I felt I ought to warn you in advance, so you won’t have a stroke when you see the next issue of the
Sludge.
”

“God damn it, Jacqueline! What have you done now?”

She told him.

The silence was so prolonged she allowed herself to cherish the hope that Little Boots had fainted, or fallen into a fit. Finally he muttered, “That guy must be nuts. Oh, God… Let me think a minute. How are we going to handle this? If I come rushing to Pine Grove, the press will assume… Maybe you’d better leave town. Yes, that would be best. Get the hell out of there first thing in the morning. Don’t come here, some damn reporter might follow you, and—”

“There’s a woman dead, Booton,” Jacqueline said sharply. “Is that all you can think about, your precious publicity problems?”

“Well, damn it, I’m sorry; but I didn’t even know her.”

“But you knew Kathleen. Doesn’t the possibility that she might have been alive and in hiding all these years stir a tiny quiver of emotion?”

Booton groaned. “For God’s sake, Jacqueline, don’t do this to me. Not in the middle of the night, at any rate. Of course I’d be moved, if I believed that wild story were true. I don’t believe it. Kathleen would never… At least I can’t believe she would… Give me some time to think about it.”

“All right, Bootsie. I admit it’s a startling bit of news to have dumped on you without warning. I’ll call you.… Aaaah!”

Boots echoed her shriek. “What? What? What’s happening?”

Jacqueline got her breath back. “Hold on a minute, Boots. There’s somebody… something… looking in the window.”

Twin globes of glowing, phosphorescent green hung disembodied in the dark. The sight was startling enough to have shaken Jacqueline’s composure even if her nerves had not been reduced to frayed tatters. She got up and went to the window, followed by muted squawks of distress and inquiry from the discarded telephone.