Seven Kinds of Death (16 page)

Toni leaped up and cried, “I did it for you, Marion! You don’t seem to realize that they could arrest you! You’re the first one they picked, and nothing’s happened to make them change their minds. And, yes, it’s presumptuous! I know that. I’ll leave in the morning if you tell me to.”

Ridiculous, she wanted to scream. She was crying like a baby, tears streaming, nose running, her voice choked and thick. Suddenly Marion put her arms around Toni, stroked her hair, saying, “Shh. Shh. There, there.” And she was crying harder than ever.

“Constance won’t hurt you,” she said in her choking voice. “She likes you too much to hurt you. And she’s smart. Let her find out who did it and end all of this. What would we all do if anything happened to you?” It came out in bits and pieces, interrupted by gasps for air, interrupted by shuddering inhalations and exhalations, interrupted by having to blow her nose, and then by hiccups. And all the while Marion held her and stroked her hair, her back.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Marion said finally when Toni came to a stop. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize how upset you were. You’ve been so good, so calm and collected, holding it all back. Let it out, baby. That’s all right. Just let go.”

Toni wept harder. She was not at all sure when the act had stopped, when she lost it, but now she could not seem to control herself at all. She leaned into Marion and let herself be held and babied, and she sobbed.

At the door Charlie tightened his grasp on Constance’s hand, as they stood silently watching. Across the room in the doorway to the television room Max and Johnny were watching, as was Spence Dwyers at the far wall, and Babar sitting on the edge of a chair, her mouth opened slightly. Toni wept; Marion murmured to her, and no one else moved.

How long this had been going on Charlie didn’t know, and how long it might have continued he couldn’t guess.

But it was interrupted at that moment by the sound of boisterous voices behind him.

“You chowderhead! Give it back!”

A boy came running from the studio wing; he was carrying a sketchpad. Behind him a second boy was tearing after him, yelling. They came to a stop when they saw Charlie and Constance. The one in front grinned and said hi, the other one grabbed for the sketchpad, and they both turned and walked back the way they had come. As soon as they reached the turn in the hall, the chase resumed; pounding footsteps thundered on the uncarpeted floor.

Toni had pulled away from Marion at the noise; when she saw Charlie and Constance in the doorway, she turned scarlet, ducked her head, and raced past them, ran up the stairs. In her shorts and tank top, blushing furiously, she looked like a child fleeing punishment.

“Well,” Charlie said then as he and Constance entered the room. “We were passing by, the door was open, and here we are. Hello, all. How’s tricks. Tootles?”

She glared at him and didn’t even glance at Constance. “Too bad you wasted your time. I’m going to bed.”

“What a shame,” Charlie said. “You’ll miss the sheriff. We’ll give him your regards.”

She stopped all motion. “The sheriff is coming? Why? Now what?”

Charlie shrugged. “I guess he’ll tell you when he gets here.” He pretended not to notice that Constance was roaming the room glancing at stacks of books, books on shelves, on tables, some on the floor.

“Will you tell your wife that this isn’t a public library?” Tootles snapped, and sat down again.

“Well, I don’t have to wait up for the sheriff,” Ba Ba said and heaved herself up from the chair; it was not easy for her.

Constance had gone nearly all the way around the room. She smiled at Max and Johnny and walked past them. “Ba Ba,” she said, “are you going to be around all weekend?”

Ba Ba glanced swiftly at Tootles, then at Max. “I don’t know. Why?”

“I might have a party, and I’d really like for you to come.”

“A party! My God, are you insane? A party?”

“Well, a very special party, and for very few people. You’re all invited, of course, and Paul will be as soon as I can reach him.”

“Is that why he’s coming?” Ba Ba asked.

Constance was examining a few books that were holding a pottery bowl. She straightened and said, “So he’s already planning to come? How nice. When?”

“Toni said tomorrow. But if you asked him… did you ask him yet?”

Constance shook her head. “I will when he gets here.”

“Tell her, Max,” Tootles said harshly then. She was sitting stiffly, her fingers drumming the arm of her chair, one foot tapping furiously. “Just tell her what we decided.”

“Well now,” Max said in a placating way, “I don’t think we decided yet, did we? Spence thinks we should hold off—”

“Goddamn it!
I
decided! Constance, get your ass out of my house. You’re fired. And take lover-boy with you! Now!”

Constance scanned the room, paying no attention to Tootles. Then she saw a book with a red dustjacket in the chair Ba Ba had just left. Unhurriedly she moved toward the chair. Charlie was still near the doorway, watching her with a faint grin. He saw the book now, she knew; neither of them mentioned it.

She picked up the book and sat in the chair regarding Tootles. She glanced at the spine of the book, a fantasy romance, and then put it down on the table by the chair. She glanced at Charlie with an expression that told him it was the wrong book; neither of them would have been able to say how she communicated this, but the message was sent and received.

“You know. Tootles,” she said calmly then, “I doubt they’ll arrest you, after all. Several things have turned up that seem to rule against it. So if you want us to leave, naturally, that’s your choice. But my party is really my business. Tomorrow night sounds good. In our motel. It will be a little cramped, but not too bad. I’ll have to set a time after I see Paul, find a time that will be possible for everyone. Ba Ba, is nine too early, too late?”

“But I haven’t even accepted,” Ba Ba said indignantly. “And if Marion thinks it’s a bad idea, so do I.”

“But Tootles plans to be there,” Constance said easily. “Don’t you?” She turned her pale eyes on Tootles, who stared back at her with anger and resentment. The silence held for a second, another; neither woman shifted her position. Finally Tootles looked away.

“Not there. Here. After dinner. Nine thirty,” she said harshly.

Constance nodded, and then turned her gaze to Charlie to see that his face had become wooden, his eyes flat black, not reflecting any light at all, like two little dull stones. She had seen that expression many times when he confronted a suspect, or a particularly distasteful crime; until now she had never seen it directed at her.

They all looked past Charlie then as gravel was crunched in the driveway in front of the house. Moments later the sheriff and two deputies appeared at the door. One of the things he had done after leaving them, apparently, was to get a proper search warrant.

He was super efficient that night, almost to the point of being rude. “Ms. Leeds was carrying a book with a red jacket when she arrived here,” he said, producing the warrant. “She put the book on the table in the foyer. Did any of you see it after that? Did you move it?”

“What book?” Tootles asked. “I don’t know what in hell you’re talking about now.”

“Who might have cleared off that table?” he asked.

“Jesus!” Tootles cried. “I don’t know! Ask Alice Weber!”

He nodded. “I will.”

Ba Ba lowered herself into a chair, and then turned to look at Constance with horror. “You thought I had it, didn’t you? My book there. You thought that was it!”

“Good God,” Johnny muttered. “Dad, this is the last straw. I’m going home. We can finish up in the morning.”

He went back into the television room, and one of the deputies followed him and began his search there. Johnny put papers together, stuffed them into his briefcase, and started out.

“If you don’t mind,” the sheriff said. He reached for the briefcase, and after a slight hesitation Johnny handed it over. Gruenwald looked inside, gave it back, and motioned to the second deputy, who walked out with Johnny.

No one else in the room moved or spoke as the sheriff’s men continued to search. Gruenwald stayed in the living room until one of the deputies called him to the foyer. He moved the few steps to the foyer, then turned and said, “Ms. Leidl, would you mind?”

Constance got up to join him, acutely aware of the eyes that were watching her every motion. The book the deputy had was orange-red, too thin, too tall. She shook her head.

The fourth time she was called, she hesitated, then slowly nodded. “I think so,” she said. The book was a collection of Byron’s poems.

Gruenwald opened the book, and began to riffle through the pages. A piece of paper fell out. It was notebook paper folded in half. They watched it fall; he picked it up gingerly with a pair of tweezers as if it might explode, and very carefully he opened it, using the tweezers and his pen, not getting fingerprints on it. On the paper was what appeared to be a map of Tootles’s property, and the condominiums across the road from her retreat. Constance felt Charlie near her and glanced at him, but he was gazing fixedly at the paper.

Gruenwald slid the book and paper into an evidence envelope, and said, “It was in the studio mixed in with a bunch of magazines.” He nodded to the deputy. “Nice going.” Then he went to the doorway to the living room. “Thank you, Mrs. Buell, Mr. Buell. We’ll be leaving now. Sorry to have bothered you again.” He nodded to Charlie and Constance and left.

“Well,” Tootles said. “Son of a bitch, what the hell is going on? Can anyone tell me that?”

Max took her hand and held it, and asked Constance, “You saw her with the book?”

“Yes. I remembered earlier this evening. She had it with her when she came.”

“So what the fuck difference does it make?” Tootles cried. “Jesus Christ, I feel like I’m in a Beckett play. Doesn’t it matter to you that nothing makes sense any more?” She yanked her hand away from Max and jumped up. “I’m going to bed. This is a madhouse, and you’re all loonies. All of you!” She stamped from the room. Ba Ba struggled to her feet and lumbered after her.

Max looked apologetically at Constance and Charlie, and they started for the door. “Our cue,” Charlie said. “Good night. Max. She’ll calm down pretty soon. Just take it easy.”

It wasn’t that she needed help in walking out of the house, across the porch, along the walk to the driveway and their car, Constance thought a few seconds later; she was perfectly capable of walking alone. Just as she was perfectly capable of opening the passenger seat door and sliding into the Volvo. And, she thought grimly, she was also perfectly capable of maintaining a silence just as long as he was. She gazed straight ahead and did not say a word.

SEVENTEEN

In their room, still
distracted, still silent, Charlie put Sheriff Gruenwald’s manila envelope down on the coffee table and regarded it morosely. He picked up the phone to order a large pot of coffee.

Constance watched him adjust pillows, rearrange the light at the end of the sofa, and kick off his shoes before he reached for the envelope. She sat across the table from him. “I don’t think you should come to Tootles’s house tomorrow night,” she said.

He looked up from the papers he had started to sort through. “Why not?”

“You’ll hate it. Besides, it really has nothing to do with the murders. With death yes, but not with murder.”

Charlie put down the papers and leaned forward, with both hands pressed hard on the tabletop. “Do you know what happened over there tonight?” he asked. His voice was low, but there was a biting intensity in the words, in the way he looked at her. When he became this intense, he sounded like a foreigner who had not quite mastered English, had not yet acquired an ease of pronunciation: he clipped the words, exaggerated the vowel sounds, sounded like a stranger.

“What do you mean?”

“That silly girl has placed you in danger,” he said, even more controlled than a moment ago. Anyone from outside would think he was being as casual as the morning weather report, but she knew, and was startled by the subdued vehemence that seemed even more dangerous for being checked so thoroughly.

“And you topped it by telling Tootles she probably won’t be arrested,” he added. “My God, between the two of you, you’re inviting the killer to have just one more go at it.”

She started to respond sharply, but choked her words back and instead considered what he was saying. Toni had said she, Constance, had found out things; and she, Constance, had certainly told Tootles she probably wouldn’t be charged. She bit her lip in exasperation.

Charlie got up to answer the door when a knock sounded. He paid the waiter as Constance made room for the coffee on the table. When they were alone again, she poured for them both.

“You really think it’s someone over there now?”

“I don’t know. But I think anything that’s said over there might as well be broadcast. What are you planning for your party?” Some of the tightness had eased, but he was still too tense.

She looked at the coffee cup she held and said in a low, hesitant voice, “I think Tootles and Ba Ba and Paul fooled around with séances, or crystal balls, or the Ouija, something like that years ago, and Tootles gave Paul her muse. The dates are right, their attitudes about it, everything. His book is filled with it. Anyway, I think… no… I
know
that Toni is going to try to get Paul to pass the muse over to her. And it’s a jealous muse, maybe even a crazy one. Toni’s… she’s too young and too innocent to have that burden shoved off on her.” She watched his expression harden as she spoke, and she heard a sharp edge in her voice as she responded more to his expression than to anything he might say. “I said you would hate it. And I also said I don’t think you should be there. Remember?”

“And I don’t intend to let you be with that crew without me,” he said flatly.

“If you go, will you promise you’ll leave it to me? Not interfere in any way? Just observe?”

He looked at her with his hard flat eyes and slowly shook his head. “No promises. I don’t think you know what you might be letting yourself in for. Why are you doing this? Do you even know why?”

“I was there when Victoria got killed. It seems that I should have been able to do something, but I didn’t. Apparently Victoria was shut out because Paul believes or says he believes that toll has to be paid. I saw Tootles accept the curse and adjust her life to accommodate it. It has to stop. I didn’t do anything to help Victoria, but this time I know what I can do. I don’t think Toni deserves what she’ll be getting.”

“You sound as if you believe in it.”

She shook her head. “I told you before, it doesn’t matter what I believe. It’s what they believe. I said it has nothing to do with the murders, but it has a lot to do with death. It has to stop. Even if none of that’s true, Toni deserves a chance at a real life, one that includes art and love, maybe a family, whatever she chooses. She deserves that much out of life. What if she were Jessica, Charlie?”

Not fair, he wanted to yell. Not fair. And she knew it. Either of them would do whatever was required for their daughter’s sake, but she hadn’t seen Tootles and her little sister in action, and he had. God help him, he had. “Okay,” he said finally. He stood up and reached across the table, took her cup and saucer from her hands and set them down, and then drew her close enough to kiss. “Whatever it is, we’re in it together, remember? I won’t promise to keep still, but God, I’ll try. I most definitely will try.”

“That’s all a guy can do,” she said softly, and this time she kissed him.

She was relieved that the light had come back to his eyes. Where did he go when they turned hard and flat, nonreflective like that? So far away she was afraid that one day no words would bring him back, no hand would reach him, no warmth would restore him to life. A deep shudder passed through her; she had been thinking of him as dead when his eyes became stonelike. And that was almost right, she knew; the warm, human, loving man vanished and left an iceman in his place. She also knew that she was afraid of the iceman, who used to appear more and more often and stay longer each time. The battles in his sleep had been between the two, the iceman and Charlie; nightmares, the tossing and turning, the insomnia he had preferred to dreaming, all battles for possession—Charlie or the iceman. She knew that victory had never been assured, never from the first foray to the day he turned in his city ID, to the present. The iceman waited, would always be waiting. And if that was believing in possession, she thought, then she was a firm believer, after all.

Charlie poured himself more coffee and took out a notebook, looked over a list he had made. “Let’s try the first-things-first on them all,” he said. He had a theory that Constance could tell from a brief meeting exactly what was bugging anyone; nothing she said could shake this idea. He called it her first impressions, first-things-first theory. She sighed dramatically, but did not protest; sometimes useful things came out of it.

“Okay,” he said. “Tootles.”

“Scared to death Max will find out she’d rather teach than do art, and she believes she can’t do art any more.”

Charlie nodded. Part of the game was that he should not express surprise or disbelief until later. “Max,” he said.

“Easy. He thinks she’s a genius and is really afraid she’ll find out that he arranged the tour and then she’ll think it was because he doubts her worth, and thought he had to buy recognition for her. He’s terrified that he’ll lose her.”

Charlie made a noncommittal noise, then said, “Spence.”

“He never stopped loving her,” Constance said, surprising herself. “He would do anything to keep her well, happy, his friend, whatever, to keep the welcome mat out for him. He wants her to be happy with Max.”

“Anything?” he asked softly.

She nodded. “Anything.”

“Paul?”

“Consumed by guilt. And self-doubt. He doesn’t know if he is really talented or not, whether he deserves any success, if he was responsible for Victoria’s death.” She considered this, then added, “He really needs professional help. I don’t know how deep his depressions are, but…” An absent expression settled on her face. She raised her hand slightly, and Charlie leaned back waiting.

After a time she looked at him with a puzzled expression. “You know Victoria really didn’t talk nonsense; that comes from the way Janet interprets what she heard. Right?” She did not wait for his nod. “Checking out a smoke. Something about where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and that became going out for a cigarette. Proposal from a muscleman, Musselman, jock. And then there’s the curious ‘ironic pose’ paraphrase. Remember? Where is the note about what she said?”

She found it in her notebook. “Yes. I wrote her words: ‘Paul’s ironic pose was wearing him down, and making him tired.’ Remember the book she had with her? Byron’s poetry. Charlie, try: Byronic pose, and wearing thin, and tiresome.”

He thought about it, then muttered, “Paul’s Byronic pose is wearing thin and getting tiresome. Maybe. But so what?”

“She saw through him,” Constance said slowly. “His tragic figure was amusing to her because she didn’t believe in it. That’s one of the things that baffled me. Her attitude toward him. Amusement.” Another thought occurred to her and she sighed deeply, almost theatrically. “Eventually, someone is going to have to talk to Janet, try to get the real words she heard.”

They considered this in gloomy silence for another few seconds. “It doesn’t change anything, does it?” she murmured finally, and nodded toward his notebook.

He glanced at the open page. “Johnny?”

She hesitated only a moment. “Afraid of his father. He wants to be his father desperately, I think. Tired of being junior. Ambitious and a bit timid, a bit weak. Away from Max probably he’s altogether different, though.”

He ran his finger down his list, and she said, “There’s still Toni.” He looked at her, waiting. He had not included Toni because he had seen no reason to do so; she had been accounted for from four thirty on the day Victoria was killed. He had not included Babar because murder was just too damn physical for her. She would more likely talk someone to death.

“Toni would do anything almost to get what she thinks Paul has, the muse, the wild talent. She thinks she’s nothing without it,” Constance said. She shuddered. “What a terrible desire, to want something you believe will kill people you love. What a terrible price she’s willing to pay. Or else, she doesn’t really believe it would bring her suffering,” she added thoughtfully. She turned her gaze to Charlie and asked, “When do we start to realize the bill will come due, really and truly it will? She doesn’t believe it yet. I don’t think she believes she’ll ever be in love.”

This had gone off in altogether the wrong direction, he thought grumpily. He did not want to talk about this “gift” or “curse.” He did not want to talk about suffering artists or about art and its price tag. He snapped his notebook shut. “Good stuff, all of it,” he said then, forcing a grin. “Now, to work. You want to do Gruenwald’s reports in any systematic way, or just dive in for now?” They just dived in.

By twelve Constance’s vision was starting to blur, and for no good purpose, she thought glumly as she got up to walk around the room, to stretch. Everything she was reading she had heard already; absolutely nothing was new, nothing had not been brought up, discussed, dismissed. She stood at the window and watched the western sky flare with distant lightning that was closer now than it had been half an hour ago. She began to hope their silly cats were indoors. Sometimes the cat door jammed. But the Mitchum boys would be watching out for them, she told herself, and still hoped the cats were inside. Poor Candy was terrified of storms, and Ashcan would be a wreck. Anything out of the ordinary threw him into a panic; their absence for so many days would make him feel he had been deserted forever, and now a storm to verify that the gods were indeed after him. And Brutus, she thought with resignation, would become a monster if he was locked out during a storm. He would make life hell for the other two cats if the storm wasn’t already doing it.

She didn’t even know if there was a storm in New York, she told herself then, and turned away from the window to see Charlie staring off into nothing with a fixed, distant expression. Lightning flashed again, closer, this time followed very quickly by a rumble of thunder. Moving in, she thought. Charlie apparently had not noticed.

She took her seat again, continuing to watch him, saying nothing. She hoped he wouldn’t decide to go for a walk. Sometimes he did when he was in this phase, thinking something through from every possible angle, and then over again, and again, finding and answering the questions, the problems, the sticky points.

A new streak of lightning was so bright that it glared in the room and this time the thunder was simultaneous. Charlie blinked and glanced at the window. “Tell me again about finding Victoria’s body,” he said. “Start with entering the building.”

She began, but now the thunder and lightning, and gusty wind driving rain hard against the windows made talk impossible. She reached for his hand and drew him up. “Watch,” she said, pulling him closer to the windows, but not too close. Her mother had always said.
Don’t draw attention to yourself during a thunderstorm.

“It’s going to storm,” he said.

She laughed and put her arm around his waist; he put his hand on her back, let it slide down to rest on her buttock, and they stood and watched the storm build. It was a tornado-spawning storm, she thought, as the wind blew harder in violent bursts, then died down and blew even harder moments later.

“We could go down to the bar,” Charlie said, and she knew he was thinking tornado weather, too. At that moment the lights flickered, flickered again, and went out. “We definitely will go down to the bar,” Charlie said then. He had no intention of being on the seventh floor with a blackout, no elevators, and just one nut with a match trying to find the stairs. On the other hand, he knew precisely where the stairs were. He always checked out the stairs, the fire extinguishing system, and usually he was not happy with what he found, but at least he knew how to get out.

He held her hand and they left the room and entered the absolute darkness of the hall where already voices were asking where the stairs were, what happened to the lights, did anyone have a match…

Charlie had his little penlight, and down the hallway two flashlights started dueling. He saw that one was being held by a kid, nine, ten years old, and that it was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle flashlight; he grinned and tugged Constance by the hand. Let the kid save the universe, he thought, opening the door to the stairs.

The lounge was dimly lighted by candles, and was much nicer this way than it had been before. The problem would be the air conditioning, Charlie knew, but it was not a problem just yet. He saw Constance to a booth and then went to get them both an Irish coffee. The coffee, he said, because it could be a long night and in a little while the coffee would be cold without electricity to keep it heated, and the Irish because what the hell, it could be a long night.