Sins Out of School (15 page)

“They went even less well than I had feared. Amanda resented my being there and went into a tirade, in front of Miriam. I won't go into the whole thing. It's too painful. But she threw me out of the house.”

“That's twice, now, isn't it?” Alan took an experimental sip and put the cup down. Still too hot. “And once at the chapel. So are you ready to give up, yet?”

“Almost. I really am almost ready to drop it, leave it to the police. But, Alan, there's one thing that keeps eating at me.”

“The child.”

Alan knows me rather well. “Yes, the child. I'm worried about her, and I feel sorry for her. She's become the parent, here. You should have seen her just now, trying to calm her mother down. It was pathetic. But there's more.” I sipped the tea myself. Too hot. Alan waited.

“Alan, I think that Amanda thinks Miriam did it.” There. I'd said it. Now let the chips fall where they might.

“Yes,” he said. “Ahh,” he said, testing the tea again, “just right. Yes, I knew there was something you weren't telling me. I thought that might be it.”

“You mean—you thought of Miriam—”

“My dear, she was there. I'm a policeman. I've seen nearly everything over the course of my career, and never rule out any possibility. Of course I thought of her.”

“Then that means Derek—”

“Derek, too, has almost certainly thought of her. We haven't discussed it.”

I tried to digest this. If the police suspected Miriam, as well as her mother … “They haven't done anything about it. Questioned Miriam, I mean, or anything like that.”

“Oh, they've talked to her, of course. I doubt she knew she was being questioned. We
are
trained for this sort of thing, you know, love. A policewoman—they always use women with children—will have made conversation with Miriam, subtly extracted her story of what happened that night. Evidently they found nothing particularly alarming. Now suppose you tell me why you think she did it.”

“I didn't say I think so. I said her mother thinks so.”

“Very well. Tell me what evidence you have of the mother's belief.”

Alan can, at times, sound very much like a police report. “It isn't anything that can be called evidence. A facial expression, a tone of voice—those aren't evidence. All I really know is that Amanda is terrified for Miriam. And it shows the most when Miriam goes around making remarks about how wicked Daddy was, and how much better off they are now that he's gone.”

“I see.” Alan pursed his lips and ran a hand down the back of his head. “That's why you've been so eager to get Miriam out of town.”

I swallowed hard. Here was the really sticky point. I very much didn't want to admit to Alan that I was trying to hide things from the police, but if honesty was my new policy, I had to. “There are other reasons, but that's the main one, yes. I was afraid—”

“You were afraid the police would see what you have seen.”

I nodded.

“And that they would then do what?”

I sipped tea, lukewarm by now. “Question Miriam, frighten her—oh, all right, arrest her, even. And she's only nine, and so—so—” My chin wobbled.

“Have you considered that Miriam might be acting the way she is, saying the things she is saying, because she, in turn, is afraid that her mother is the murderer?”

I poured out more tea, not because I wanted it, but to give me time to get my voice in order. “No, to be honest. I thought—if you'd seen them together—”

“One of the first things a good detective learns,” said Alan, tenting his fingers in his lecturing position, “is that people under strain act in certain predictable ways. One is that they close their ranks. They tell unimportant lies in an attempt to protect others. Those lies muddy the water considerably, because although good policemen can tell when people are lying, they don't usually know what they're lying about, or whether the lies are material to the case. It isn't at all uncommon, for example, for a husband and wife to suspect each other of a crime, and lie to protect each other. Once the police get on to what's happening, of course, the two suspicions cancel each other out and we're back where we started.”

“Then you think—what, exactly?”

“About who killed John Doyle? I have no idea. About your problem? That it's probably less of a problem than it appears. You say Miriam has been trying to protect her mother, trying to calm her down? Why do you think she's doing that?”

“Well, because—oh. I see. You think it's because she wants to stop her mother from saying too much. And that means Miriam thinks Amanda did it. And that means Miriam didn't.” It was all somewhat muddled, but Alan nodded.

“I think it's very possible.”

“Then—then I'm completely confused. Where do I go from here? Give up the whole thing?”

“Do you want to? You're under no obligation, and you've been thoroughly snubbed by the whole Doyle family.”

“I think they'd rather think of themselves as the Blake family. Or maybe not, come to think of it. Heavens, how awful it must be to have no family to belong to. Very lost and alone.” I was dithering, I knew, stalling while I tried to come to a decision.

Or maybe not. Maybe the thought that had come unbidden to my mind, of how lost and alone Amanda must feel, was a part of the decision making.

“I think,” I said after a pause, “that the first thing I am going to do is write Amanda a note. She won't let me in to talk to her, I'm sure, but I can drop a note in her mailbox and hope she reads it, or Gillian does. If you're right, there's a good deal of misunderstanding between Miriam and Amanda, and maybe I can help clear it up by spelling out what we've just talked about. And then, no matter what happens with Amanda, I think I'll go on talking to people and trying to help ferret out the truth. That little girl is terribly unhappy, and somebody sensible has to help her. I'll start with the bank where Doyle worked, I think.”

“Good.” Alan picked up his cup, looked at it with distaste, and put it down again. “Feel better now?”

“I always do when I've talked things over with you.” I put my hand in his in an unspoken apology for my lack of trust, and he squeezed it in understanding.

There's an old joke about the man who, late one night, finds himself with a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. Rummaging in the trunk, he discovers that there's no jack. He remembers passing a farmhouse not too far back, so he sets out to borrow a jack. But as he walks down the dark, lonely road he gets to thinking. He'll have to begin by apologizing for waking the farmer at midnight. The man may well be surly about it. He might even demand a deposit for the jack. Maybe he has dogs, who won't be exactly happy about a caller at that hour. Gosh, the motorist thinks, I'll really have to be careful. Maybe this isn't worth it. The farmer might even think I'm a burglar, come to rob the place. Good grief, maybe he's the sort of man who'll come to the door with a shotgun, the sort who'll shoot first and ask questions later.

By the time the motorist reaches the farmhouse, he's so belligerent that he hammers angrily on the door with both fists. When the inoffensive, yawning farmer opens it, the motorist shakes his fist, yells, “Keep your damn jack!” and runs off.

Someday, I hoped, I might learn a lesson from that little story, and stop writing my own scenarios for nice, reasonable people like my husband.

J
ANE,
my usual fount of Sherebury information, told me that John Doyle had worked for the local branch of the Westminster Bank. Alan and I do our banking at Barclay's. That was unfortunate, in a way, because I had no easy excuse for stopping in at the other bank. However, I could always be thinking about changing banks, couldn't I? Or opening a separate account in my own name, or something. I can tell quite convincing lies in a good cause.

First, though, I had to write that note to Amanda, and I had to write it carefully. It had to be direct and completely clear, but tactful. That's not an easy combination. I went through several drafts before I had one I thought would do, and even then I wasn't completely satisfied. I read it over before putting it in an envelope.

Dear Mrs. Doyle,

I'm truly sorry I've offended you, but I remain worried about you and your daughter. If what I think I have observed is true, you and Miriam each believe the other might have had something to do with your husband's death. This, of course, means that neither of you is culpable. I urge you to speak frankly to your daughter about this. She is an intelligent child and would, I think, react better to an open discussion of the matter than to any sort of secrecy.

I realize that you are not pleased with my efforts to be of help to you. Certainly I have not gone about these efforts in the best way, but please believe that my intentions are good, and my motive a real concern for Miriam's well-being. She's a sweet little girl.

I will respect your wishes and not intrude any further upon your privacy, but I hope that, if there is any way I may be of use to you or Miriam, you will allow me to do so.

I shook my head over it. It sounded stuffy and way too formal, but it would have to do. It said what needed to be said, and was the best I could come up with. I signed it, put it in an envelope, and wrote “Mrs. Doyle” on the outside. I didn't seal it. If Gillian saw it first and wanted to check it out before giving it to her sister, so much the better. I stood very low in both their opinions at this point, but I thought Gillian might be willing to give me a little more credit than Amanda would. Of course, if Gillian was the killer, then all bets were off, but I couldn't think of a way to cover that base, at least not right now. One thing at a time.

At any rate, I'd tried. I drove to Amanda's house and stuck the envelope through the letter slot without knocking, and then got back in the car rather quickly, feeling like a prankster. I didn't look to see if I was being observed from a window. I didn't want to know.

There was no point in trying to find a parking place near the bank. On a Monday morning, that was going to be next to impossible. I went home, told Alan where I was going, and put on a flowery hat before I set out to walk. I have found that when people see a gray-haired woman in a silly hat, they tend to dismiss her as a harmless crank. The image can be useful.

English banks differ in many respects from their American counterparts, or at least from the way things were in America when I lived there. The paperwork is somewhat more cumbersome, for one thing, and the atmosphere more intimidating. English banks still separate the tellers from the public with ceiling-high glass walls. One speaks into small holes or microphones, and the actual transactions take place in sliding metal drawers.

But banks in both countries share one problem. They pay their junior employees, tellers and the like, so little that the turnover is high. Fresh-faced children of around twenty appear at the windows of my bank, remain there for a few visits, and then are replaced by clones. There is a seemingly endless supply of them, even in a small town like Sherebury. Most of them are bored silly by the job, and they're gone so fast that it's impossible to develop a personal relationship with any of them.

That makes a spot of deception easier.

I walked into Westminster Bank. Westminster is one of those huge banks with branches all over England, and, for all I know, Scotland and Wales as well. Our branch was quite small, appropriately, given the size of the town. There were three visible employees when I walked in, one dealing with an impatient string of customers at his window, the others doing, at the two other windows, whatever mysterious things bank tellers do. When I'm waiting in line, I always assume they're doing busywork on purpose to avoid moving things along.

One of them was at the Bureau de Change window, which had no customers at the moment. We get our share, in Sherebury, of foreign tourists who need to buy pounds sterling with their dollars and yen and, now, Euros, but early December isn't high-tourist season. I stepped up brightly to the window. The clerk whipped his task away into a drawer (it looked suspiciously like the
Times
crossword puzzle) and said, “May I help you, madam?” His tone clearly indicated his devout hope that he wouldn't have to.

I put on my best American accent, which has faded somewhat after my years of English residence, and said, “I sure hope so. I need to talk to somebody about a loan.”

The clerk brightened, his hopes fulfilled. “I'm sorry, madam. This is the Bureau de Change.”

“Oh. I thought it was a bank.”

He smirked. “It
is
a bank, madam. This window is the Bureau—is where you would change your dollars for pounds. You'd need to speak with Mr. Johnson.”

I beamed. “Oh, good. Can you show me where to find him? I get just scared stiff in banks, and especially English banks.”