The Listening Walls (10 page)

11.

It was cold
and late, and ghosts of fog were prowling the streets of the city, but Miss Burton didn't notice the time or the weather. She hurried along the sidewalk, pro­pelled by fright, guided by instinct. Her handbag, con­taining the dancing shoes and the bottle of cologne, hung heavy from her shoulder and knocked against one hip as she moved.

From his parked car Dodd saw her turn the corner to­ward Market Street. He made no attempt to follow her since he was sure of her intention. He had planted the intention himself, deliberately, and watched it grow in her transparent eyes the way a botanist watches a seed grow between two layers of glass.

With a final flip of her yellow coat Miss Burton disap­peared around the corner of Woolworth's and Dodd was left pondering some second and third thoughts about the advisability of dragging her into the case. She was a nice girl. He didn't like to use her, but business was busi­ness. If Rupert Kellogg was innocent of any wrongdo­ing, he deserved to be warned about Brandon's suspicions and operations. If he was guilty, a warning might jolt him into action. So far he'd done nothing but sit tight and tell stories, some thin, some tall. Brandon himself was certainly not admitting the whole truth. No living woman could be as flawless as Amy.

Dodd turned on the ignition of the little Volkswagen. He was tired and depressed. For the first time since en­tering the case he had the feeling that Brandon might be right about his sister. Wherever and whenever Amy was found, she wouldn't be found alive.

The house was dark. Miss Burton had never seen it at night, wrapped in fog, and she was not sure it was the right place until she went up on the veranda and saw the bronze nameplate on the door, Rupert H. Kellogg. A few hours ago the sight of the name would have given her a pleasant little thrill. Now it seemed strange, without any relation to the man who owned it. She pressed the door chime and waited, shivering with cold and fear and self- doubt.
What am, I doing here? What will I say to him? How can I act calm as if nothing had happened, as if Dodd had never told me those terrible things?

Take care of yourself,
Dodd had said.
A woman has disappeared, don't make it two.

She turned her head quickly and peered through the fog at the street, hoping for a moment that Dodd had followed her. But there were no cars parked along the curb, and no one was walking along the street or waiting under a lamppost. She was alone. She could enter this house and never be seen again and no one would be able to say, “Yes, I noticed her, a small woman in a yellow coat, shortly after eleven o'clock—she went in and never came out. . . .”

The hall light splashed through the window and she reared back as if someone had thrown it at her like acid. Panting, she leaned against a pillar and watched the door slowly open.

“Why, Miss Burton,” Rupert said. “What are you do­ing here?”

“I—I don't—know.”

“Is anything the matter?”

‘‘ Ev—everything.''

“You haven't been drinking, have you?”

“No. I never drink. I'm a M-M-Methodist.”

“Well, that's very interesting,” he said wearily, “but I hope you didn't come all the way out here at this time of night to tell me you're a Methodist.”

She pressed against the pillar, her teeth chattering like castanets. She wanted to run away but she was both afraid for him and afraid of him, and the double fear im­mobilized her.

“Miss Burton?”

“I—I was just passing by and I thought I'd—drop in and say hello. I didn't realize how—late it was. I'm sorry to have bothered you. I'd—better be going.”

“You'd better not be going,” he said sharply. “You'd better be coming in and telling me about it.”

“About—what?”

“Whatever it is that's making you act like this.” He opened the door wider, and waited. “Come on.”

“I can't. It wouldn't be proper.”

“All right, I'll call you a cab.”

“No! I mean, I don't want a cab.”

“You can't stand here all night, can you?”

She shook her head and her limp, blond curls fell over her eyes so that she looked like a little old lady peering out at him through a lace curtain. He wondered what was going on behind the lace curtain.

He said, “You're cold.”

“I know.”

“You'd better come inside and get warm.”

“Yes. All right.”

He closed the door behind her and led her down the hall to the den. An unscreened fire was burning in the grate, its flames reflected in the silver box on the coffee table. He saw her glance at the box, but briefly and with­out interest. There was no danger here. She couldn't possibly know anything about the box.

“Sit down, Miss Burton.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, what's troubling you?”

“I—well, I went to dancing class tonight at the Kent Academy. I always do on Thursdays. Not that I'm a good dancer or anything, it's just a way of passing time and meeting people. Usually the people are O.K., nothing special but O.K. Nothing sneaky about them, I mean. If you meet someone there and he says he's an engineer, that's what he is, an engineer. So you're not suspicious, I mean.”

She hadn't intended to tell him about the dancing classes for fear he would laugh at her, but the words just came tumbling out of her mouth like blown bubbles. He didn't laugh at her, though. He seemed very grave and interested.

“Go on, Miss Burton.”

“Well, tonight I met this man. He's a terrible man. He said things, suggested things.”

“I'm sure you know how to deal with improper sug­gestions, Miss Burton.”

She flushed and looked down at her hands. “They weren't suggestions like the kind you mean. They were about you. And Mrs. Kellogg.”

“Who was the man?”

“His name's Dodd. He's a private detective. Oh, he didn't let on he was a private detective. He tried to palm himself off as a new student, but I have this friend at the Academy, he's a lawyer . . .”

“What did this man Dodd say about Mrs. Kellogg?”

“That she was missing. Under mysterious circum­stances.”

“She is not missing. She is in New York.”

“I told him that. But he just smiled—he has the nasti­est smile, like a camel's—and said New York was a big place with a lot of people in it but he didn't think one of them was Mrs. Kellogg.” Before the warmth of the fire Miss Burton's suspicions of Rupert were evaporating like fog under the heat of the sun. “If I were you I'd sue him for slander. It's a free country but people can't go around saying anything in their heads when it does harm to other people.”

“Well, don't get excited.”

“I'm not excited. I'm good and mad. I said to him, ‘Listen, you keyhole cop. Mr. Kellogg's the finest man in this city, and if Mrs. Kellogg is missing it's not his fault, it's hers, and why don't you put the blame on the right person?' And he said, as a matter of fact, he'd been think­ing along those same lines himself.”

She waited, expecting his approval and his gratitude for her support. What she had no reason to expect was his quiet, malevolent whisper: “You imbecile.”

Her face crumpled under the surprise attack. “What—what did I do?”

“What didn't you do!”

“But I was only sticking up for you, I was only try­ing . . . .”

“You tried. All right. Let's leave it like that.”

“I don't understand,” she wailed. “What did I say wrong?”

“Probably everything.” He went over to the window, lengthening the time and space between them so that he might have a chance to regain control of himself, and, consequently, of her. He had no doubt of her loyalty. But what was loyalty? Would it break under pressure, bend under heat? How much of the truth would it take?

He could see her reflection in the window, her eyes wide with bewilderment and pain:
What did I do?
She looked young and simple. He knew she was neither.

“I'm sorry, Miss Burton,” he said, addressing her re­flection because it was easier to lie to a reflection. “I had no right to speak roughly to you.”

“You did so have a right,” she said faintly. “If I did something wrong, even if I didn't mean to, you've got a perfect right to check me up. Only I still don't under­stand just what I . . .”

“You will, someday. For the moment we'd better both forget it.”

“But how can I stop doing something if I don't know what I did?”

He closed his eyes for a moment. He was too weary to talk, to think, to plan, but he realized that he couldn't allow her to leave without some explanation or instruction.
It would be all right if she remained as she was now, contrite, meek, low in energy. But what of the dif­ference in her after a night's rest, a time to think, a good breakfast?

He could visualize her bouncing into the office in the morning (with some of the loyalty rubbed off like fuzz off a peach) and greeting Borowitz with the news: “Guess what, Borowitz? Last night I met a real private detective and he was asking me all kinds of questions about the boss's wife disappearing.” And Borowitz, who was by nature and habit a gossip, would relay it to his girlfriend, and the girl friend to her family, and within days it would cover the city, spread by mouth like a mor­bid virus. The initial carrier must be stopped. It no longer mattered how.

“Miss Burton, I have great faith in your discretion, as well as your loyalty and good will. I depend on them.” He despised the false tone, the false words. They wouldn't even have fooled the little dog Mack, but Miss Burton was breathing them in like oxygen. “I am going to take you into my confidence, knowing you'll respect it.”

“Oh, I will. My goodness, I certainly will.”

“My wife
is
missing, in the sense that I'm not sure where she is. I've told people she is in New York because I had a letter from her postmarked New York and be­cause I have to tell them something.”

“Why doesn't she let you know where she is?”

“It was part of our agreement before she left. For lack of a better term, call it a trial separation. We were to let each other strictly alone for a period of time. Unfortu­nately, my brother-in-law, Mr. Brandon, doesn't believe in letting anyone alone. He hired a private detective to look for Amy. Well, I hope he finds her, not for her sake or mine, but for Mr. Brandon's. He's making a terrible fool of himself. His wife knows it and has tried to stop him. Failing that, she came and told me all about it.”

“Was that the day she came to the office all dressed up?”

Rupert nodded. “Somewhere along the line Mr. Bran­don picked up the idea that I wanted to get rid of my wife because I'm interested in another woman.” He turned to face her. She was leaning forward in the chair, tense and excited, like a child listening to a fairy tale. “Do you know who the woman is, Miss Burton?”

“Why no. Why, my goodness . . .”

“You.”

Her mouth fell open so that he could see the silver fillings in her bottom row of teeth.
Silver,
he thought.
Silver box. I must get rid of the silver box. First, I must get rid of her.

He said, patiently, sympathetically, “I'm sorry this comes as a shock to you, Miss Burton. It did to me, too.”

She had dropped back into the chair, pale and limp. “That—that awful man. To say, even to
think,
such a terrible thing—trying to ruin my good name . . .”

“Not yours. Mine.”

“And all these years I've been a good Methodist, never even thinking about carnal things!” But even as she spoke the words, she knew they were not true. Rupert popped up too often in her mind, in her dreams, as fa­ther, as son, as lover. Perhaps he knew. Perhaps he could read it in her eyes. She covered her face with her hands and repeated in a high muffled voice, “Always a g-g-good Methodist.”

“Of course. Of course you are.”

“I—just because I touch up my hair. Nothing in the Bible says you can't change the color of your hair. I went to the minister and asked him. I always ask the minister for advice when I'm worried.”

He looked down at her stonily, without compassion, seeing her not as a woman but as a threat, an unexploded bomb whose firing pin had to be removed with the most meticulous care. “Are you worried now, Miss Burton?”

“Worried to death.”

“Does that mean you intend to talk this over with your minister?”

“I don't know. He's a very wise . . .”

“This is a delicate situation, Miss Burton. Undoubt­edly your minister is a man of wisdom and good will, but are you sure you want still another person to hear the rumor?”

“What do you mean,
still another?”