The Bookwoman's Last Fling (23 page)

He came back into the room and sat on the chair. His eyes were steady now and his voice was clear. He didn't mention the money again, just sat with his hat in his hands and looked at me across the small space between us. “You tell me,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

“Probably all the stuff you can't tell me.”

“Try me.”

I tried him on an easy one. “How well did you actually know her?”

“About as well as you can know anybody,” he said, and I felt my heart pick up.
If only that were true,
I thought.

He twisted the hat in his lap. “You want to know what kind of woman she was?”

“Sure. That'll do for a start.”

“She was the sweetest, loveliest, most wonderful girl…she didn't have a mean bone in her body.” He coughed. “Jesus Christ, I loved her. Still do.”

His eyes were focused on nothing now; he looked like he had gone far away to another place and another time. He stared at the wall and his voice became a soft monotone. “I can't believe she's been gone all these years.”

I didn't move. I barely breathed, just watched his face and his eyes. He said, “No matter what you think you know about love, Janeway, you can forget it. When I was very young I thought I knew what love was. I knew nothing. I had no idea. She was the love of my life. There's never been an hour of any day when I haven't thought of her. I would have died for her, but I couldn't do that. Instead she was the one who died. She died and left us all.”

He covered his face with his left hand. “I've never been the same; never cared much about anything since then. The night she died I got drunk for the first time, and my only really sober moments since then have been when I had to get up to work or when I was tapped and had no money to spend on liquor.”

There had always been a sadness about her, he said. “I don't think she ever drew a truly happy breath after her father died.”

She was her daddy's girl: first, last, always. When old Ritchey died she looked to another old man for what she had lost, but Geiger was a different kettle of fish. Her father had been her window to the world. He had taken her on the grand tour of Europe when she was thirteen; he wanted her to have everything,
except,
apparently, boyfriends. He sent her to private girls' schools, threw lavish parties on her birthday, encouraged her to invite friends her own age…but then the party was over and she was his baby again. The friends winnowed down and disappeared. She was smothered all her life, first by the father who adored her, then by another old man who possessed her. Her father had tried to protect her and only made her insecure and dependent. It doesn't matter how much money you've got if you don't believe in yourself.

“I was her childhood friend long before she ever thought of having a life on the racetrack.” He leaned back in his chair. “I can close my eyes and see her just as she was then.” He didn't move then for a long time. His breathing became shallow and then seemed to stop. I leaned forward and put my hand on his arm. “Rick?”

His eyes flicked open. “My name is Richard Lawrence.”

Candice thought he had a storybook name. Like Lawrence of Arabia, she said, but what she always called him was Ricky. Just a jump away from Tricky Dicky, I thought.

“I never told anybody about her, she was my secret, and she was the only one who ever called me that.”

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,
she called him.

“My father worked in Wall Street,” he said. “My mother was an elegant lady who belonged to clubs and society. Was…is…I have no idea now whether they are alive or dead. At twenty-two I was going to study medicine, and I had two older brothers and a younger sister. Later, when Candice died, I went straight to hell. And when everything in life goes bad, the racetrack is a perfect place to lose yourself.”

He and Candice had a secret friendship in New York State, where they both grew up. Her father would go almost daily into the city on business, and Rick—
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
—would meet Candice there in the woods. “Mr. Ritchey had an estate that sprawled across two hundred acres, about forty miles from the city. He had a driver and a butler and a stable. Not racehorses, not then: polo ponies, hunters, show horses. He was always interested in a fine horse, and if he saw one he liked, he bought it.

“We lived down the road, about half a mile from their gate. One day I saw her picking flowers just inside the gate. She was watched by an old Negro woman who went with her everywhere.

“I spoke to her through the gate. I loved her right away, from the first minute of that first day. You can see what a sloppy romantic I was. Still am. The difference then was, I went around with my head in the clouds. I idealized everything. I haven't done that in a while.

“We talked for five minutes before the old woman came over and chased me away. But after that I looked for her every day. I would walk the half-mile and then up the road to the gate. Sometimes the old woman was there, sometimes not. When I started school I kept hoping I'd see Candice again, and I did, and we talked, but then she was sent away to a girls' academy about eighty miles away. That didn't matter: When I was twelve I would get out on the road two or three times a month and thumb my way there and back. It wasn't until much later, when we were seventeen, that we were able to steal moments and then hours away from her father and take long walks in the woods.”

He blinked and looked at me. “You probably don't believe a word of this.”

“I'm sorry, did I give you that impression?”

“It's not you, it's me. My own words suddenly started sticking in my throat when I realized what a drippy old fart I've become.”

“Hey, stuff happens over the years.”

“Ain't that the damn truth. Stuff happens and a lot of it happened to me. I thought if you knew where I came from it would be easier to swallow. But maybe belief just isn't to be had.”

“I wouldn't say that. Not at all.”

“It's still no excuse for beating a dead horse, so to speak. If I was doing that…”

“…keep doing it,” I said.

He laughed and I found, to my very great surprise, that I liked him.

He took a deep breath.

Said, “You're easier to talk to than I thought you'd be.”

“That's because I'm interested now.”

“Well, there isn't much more. Then you can ask whatever you want and I'll try to answer. But this is a long reach back through an alcoholic haze. At times I almost believe I can reach out and touch her…I can recall every moment like it was yesterday.”

He said, “I'm going on the wagon. I've said it before, but this time I swear…I swear.”

But that wasn't what I wanted to hear, he said. About Candice…and what he knew…

They never had what could be called a love affair; he was always terrified of touching her and spoiling what they did have. It was idyllic. They were best friends always, so she did have another friend her age.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

“Mr. Ritchey believed that boys only wanted one thing from a girl.
‘If he finds out about you, he'll send me away,'
she said.

“But I would never touch her. Even if I could, I couldn't.”

There came a time when he knew he could. “But I didn't.”

She was a grown woman. “But I had to use restraint.”

Still they would meet quietly: he would come to her; wherever she was he would get there and they would walk and talk of things far away. “Those were the best years, the only years. Everything before then was childhood nonsense, everything afterward…

“There was nothing afterward.”

He coughed. “How can I tell you about her father?”

Picture a man who loved his only child so much that he became terrified of everything most people would call the best things in life. “I know he never meant to lock her away from the world…he
had
to, like he was compelled to hold her close and never let her be touched by anything or anybody. This affected her in a real and profound way. She became extremely dependent. In time, I was her only friend, and nobody knew about us.

“I was so sure we would eventually marry, and I was determined I would never touch her until then. Today that sounds silly, but that's how I was. I would rise up and save her from that insular world old Ritchey had consigned her to. But then he died suddenly and she married Geiger. I had a funny reaction to that, I almost expected it.
It's okay, he's just another old man,
I thought.
Let him have her for a year or two; this too will pass.
But it didn't pass. Who would ever think that old bastard would outlive her?”

“And when she married Geiger, you followed them.”

“As far as I could. To the racetrack at least, and I saw her there, and sometimes we talked, and in time
this
became my life. I moved west from New York to Bay Meadows and Golden Gate and the fairs, wherever he went, I could always get some kind of half-assed walking job to tide me over. And I waited for him to die, and he never did.”

“What about her mother?”

“Candice never knew her. She died years ago.”

I waited but he seemed to have run out of steam, so I prompted him.

“Did you know about her peanut allergy?”

“You couldn't know her and not know that.”

“Which may have been another reason for Ritchey to have his paranoia.”

“It scared the hell out of him, with good reason.”

“Do you think she just got careless?”

“Not a chance. She was way smarter than that.”

“Then what?”

“Maybe she killed herself.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I know she was very unhappy after her dad died. She once told me, ‘I never should've got married.' But if you're asking for my opinion, no, she wouldn't do that.”

“Then what did happen?”

He shrugged. “Some awful mistake…”

“Or somebody did it to her.”

He gave a mighty shudder and sat shivering for most of a minute. “Nobody could do that,” he said. “Who the hell would do such a thing?”

“We don't know who was around her then. At least I don't.”

“I mean, why would
any
body…”

“Don't think of it that way. Think of motives and see if a face pops up.”

He furrowed his brow, then shook his head. “I can't imagine any motives.”

I ran the list of murder motives through my mind. “There aren't that many. Jealousy, revenge, money, a threat to somebody…” I stared into his eyes and said, “Books.”

His eyes opened wide. “Man, that's just crazy. I mean, fuckin'
books
?”

“Same as money, except it's peculiar to certain people. And got a lot more sex appeal.”

“Books,” he said, shaking his head.

“Surely you knew about her books.”

“Well, yeah. I know she had some nice stuff…”

“What an unwashed schlemiel might consider a real fortune.”

“An unwashed schlemiel.” He smiled wryly. “That would be me.”

“Somebody who truly coveted her books.” I thought about the most extreme cases of bibliomania. “There's only one thing wrong with that idea. Most of the books are still there.”

“Still where?”

“Back in Idaho. There are some significant missing titles there.”

“You mean somebody took them?”

“Looks like it.”

“Jesus,” he said.

“Does any of this make sense to you? I mean, why would a thief take certain titles and leave other, more valuable, titles right in plain sight on the same shelf?”

He shook his head.

“It's like he didn't know what he was after. Not even enough to cherry-pick 'em.”

“And you think this, whoever he was…k-k…oh Christ, you think he
killed
her?”

I shrugged. “It may be weak but it's the best motive I've come up with.”

He shook his head in disbelief. Said nothing for several moments. Then slowly his eyes came up to meet mine. “Where do you come into this?”

“Her daughter has asked me to find out about her.”

“Her daughter,” he said numbly.

“Sharon.” I nodded. “Do you want to meet her?”

He looked horrified. “Jeez, I don't know. Oh, man, I don't think so.”

“Maybe she can help you put away some ghosts.”

“Or maybe not. Might just make things worse.”