The Master Butcher's Singing Club (36 page)

Mazarine didn’t move once she found a still place inside of herself. What should she feel, she wondered, knowing it was odd that Franz’s presence in this house should leave her so indifferent. She couldn’t muster the correct gratitude for his return, if that’s what it was. He hadn’t said so. She couldn’t feel gladness, nor could she feel the proper anger. Her friends had said, “Don’t you just hate him now?” But she hadn’t. She’d felt patient, even when her first grief turned to the lassitude of despair, and she had shrugged off their avid sympathy. After she’d lain with her cheek against him on that November afternoon, and turned once, twice, and kissed him there long and smooth and slow, she had to erase him from her mind. She had bricked up all thoughts of Franz in a cold little room. He was nothing. Because the next thing she knew, he was with Betty. If she thought of those afternoons underneath the pine, she’d die of the shame of his abandoning her. So even though he stood right here, right now, she couldn’t really see him. Things were utterly changed, weren’t they? Shouldn’t they be? She poked up the fire and stood there, watching him for signs that would tell her what she should do.

There was no word spoken. Nothing but the fire’s simple crackle. As he warmed, Franz became increasingly unnerved by the dead silence, and once he felt capable of leaving he said, “Thanks,” in a subdued voice. Mazarine walked with him, the few steps to the door. As he reached out to open it, he asked in a low voice, “Do you want me to come back?”

The no came out automatically, her voice a white scratch on the tiny syllable.

* * *

JUST IN TIME
, everyone agreed, the snow began to fall. It came in picture-postcard flakes that sifted down straight through a windless day. Everyone came out of doors, exclaiming with pleasure. The children caught flakes on their tongues and planned great doings, dug tunnels in the drifts, fought snowball wars. At last the sleds could be used. The Christmas trees had a backdrop. The carols and the church nativity scenes made sense. The wind so rarely stills on the plains that the singular piling of light flakes was a marvel. Fence posts grew caps. Tree branches were outlined and pine trees were dressed in puffy shawls. The people of Argus went out walking just to marvel at the odd shapes that the new snow gave everyday objects as it landed gently and stuck atop automobiles, doghouses, trash bins, bleak grape arbors, the statue in front of the courthouse, steps, and ornate railings. Argus suddenly looked sweet and amusing, like a village in an old fairy tale.

Clarisse, emerging from the back of the funeral parlor, had this very thought as she buried her hands in a knitted fleece muff and walked home. She thought of the house made of gingerbread, deep in the forest, the roof made of iced ladyfingers trimmed with sugar gum drops. She thought of the quaint Swiss hut pictured on the tin of chocolate she’d bought for herself. When she got home, she decided, she would treat herself to a great pot of cocoa. She would scald the milk and drizzle sugar into it, then shave the chocolate into the pan and stir until it melted. There might even be enough cream left in the bottle she’d bought at Waldvogel’s, from Delphine, to whip for a fancy topping. The question she now confronted was whether she should ask Delphine to join her, and maybe bring along some extra cream. She reached her house. Suddenly, there was more to think of. In the new snow leading up to her front door, there were tracks, great and solid tracks, a man’s tracks. And there he was, waiting on her porch.

AT LAST
, on the strength of his associations, and after dogged application and reapplication to Judge Zumbrugge, Sheriff Hock had obtained a warrant permitting him to search the home of Clarisse Strub. He was a very neat man, meticulous and fussy about his surroundings.
His house was immaculate; everything he owned was stored and filed, his clothing was neatly folded in his dresser or hung in his dusted closet. He kept his badge, well polished, in a small wooden bowl just beside his bed. He could have told anyone whether such a thing as a red tubular gleaming glass bead was wedged into the crack of the floor of his closet. He would have noticed. In contrast, Clarisse saved her precision for her calling and let her house go, kept her rooms in a state of feminine disarray. After Delphine had removed the dress from her closet, some time ago, she had swept the floor. But she hadn’t examined the cracks between the boards with a powerful lamp and a shrewd, scanning eye, the way Sheriff Hock did now.

“This won’t take long,” he said to Clarisse with a firm and even kind formality. “I apologize for discommoding you and impinging on your privacy.”

“With all due respect to your office,” said Clarisse, in despair, “go to hell.”

“I’ve been there,” Sheriff Hock said, looking up at her with deadening simplicity. “You put me there, Clarisse.”

“I didn’t mean to.” Tears started into her eyes. She held them back, then let go. Maybe, if he felt sorry for her, he’d leave. “I don’t want you to feel badly—”

“Then,” said Hock, setting down his lamp with a surge of unruly hope, turning toward her, “you must feel something.”

Clarisse stared at him, paralyzed, hearing fuzzy noises as though wires in her brain had just crossed.

“For me,” he pursued.

“I’ve always felt that we could be friends.” Clarisse felt her voice rising, higher, higher, toward a shriek. She tried to take a deep breath. She got some air, but a red tide was choking her. Sheriff Hock shook his head with sorrowing gravity and aimed his beam back at the floor. Clarisse watched him, thoughts swirling. Of course, he’d find a bead, a thread, a bit of cloth, something to implicate her. Then he’d have her cornered and she’d have to decide between him and a murder charge, wouldn’t she?

“Leave,” said Clarisse. “This is my room. Get out of here.”

Hock rose and though he didn’t move toward her she felt his energy, a menacing and self-righteous energy, surge at her in a wave. She stepped back. With a small, pursed smile and a low, disarming whistle, Hock turned away. Arms folded, lips set, Clarisse leaned in the doorway of her bedroom and watched the awful, strained, cheap, twill material that stretched across the buttocks of the kneeling sheriff. His belt cut into his belly. Above that, his torso filled his shirt in a way that made it look like it was wadded with heavy quilting, not flesh. But there was flesh beneath, a body, make no mistake about that! A body that had decided it owned her. Clarisse let her thoughts go.
Why not just murther ‘m
. . . . It would be so simple to slip a knife beneath those padded ribs. Her fingers shook slightly on the door frame.

“Please go away,” she whispered, and when he didn’t respond she said something that her mother used to say. “Don’t make me lose my temper.”

Hock glanced up at her. “Oh? What will happen then?” His voice was pleasant and indulgent.

“I don’t know,” she turned aside. “I have never lost my temper before.”

What would she do with him? Stuff him in her closet? Run away? Let him rot? She would have to disappear. Here it was the holiday season, her favorite time of the year, and really not a good time for her to leave Argus. She’d always enjoyed the bitter blue air of Midnight Mass, walking to the church, and it seemed unfair that she should be forced to miss out on a ritual that had been hers since childhood. Her fingers were still shaking so she flexed and rubbed her hands to still them. She watched the sheriff root through her underthings with a delicate hand that made her feel more perused and invaded than if he’d flung her panties due north.

She had to contain herself, had to control the jolting of her heart, but the awful sense of outrage was too rich a soil. Instant, snaky, quick-growing weeds were bolting up inside her. She wrung her hands together, suddenly giving way. Catching hold of herself again, she calmly left the sight of the sheriff in her bedroom, and she walked down the stairs. She kept her hand on the railing, so as not to trip. Why should
she be the one to trip and fall? Perhaps he would trip, Sheriff Hock. She imagined his huge bulk slipping and windmilling down the first flight, breaking in two pieces at the landing, and then in quarters at the bottom like a china pig. She almost laughed at the sight. The picture lightened her frame of mind. Maybe she’d step outdoors, have a rare smoke to calm herself. After all, what was there to find? The dress was gone—dug up and disposed of in a clever way. She congratulated herself, and then she thought of how, once ripped by Hock, the damn thing dripped beads. She remembered the broken threads, the thousands of broken threads, and there was suddenly an icy little whirl in her chest.

Clarisse walked rigidly down the steps to where she kept her cigarettes—in the kitchen, on a shelf, in a little airtight can right above the knives. And the knives, she stored them safely in a drawer where knives should always be kept—safe from little hands. Hers were the only little hands in the house. Suddenly she found that instead of removing a cigarette from the can, she was opening the drawer. Then she was examining her favorite knife, a long, slender carving knife. It was a beautiful, tempered blade with a slight curve to it. Clarisse tested the blade with her thumb, then removed a small whetstone from the drawer. Sharpening the blade was routine—she kept her knives very keen. She tested the edge again and it still drew no blood. She paused a moment, then leaned into the work and made the blade edgier yet. As she was sharpening the knife to a whisper, she thought how it was a shame that so many people—even her best friend, Delphine, and Sheriff Hock, for certain—underestimated her. She wouldn’t kill him, of course, but she could scare him off. He’d have to leave and once he was gone she’d bolt the doors. She’d get a lawyer, not one in Zumbrugge’s pocket. A real lawyer. Maybe one from Minneapolis. She’d tell all to her uncle, though she was ashamed. Together they’d make certain that a Strub was not threatened and chased around and made to endure invasions of personal underwear drawers. She would have to burn every slip, bra, and panty he had touched, Sheriff Hock, and they were nice things. She spent a lot of money on slips, especially, real silk.

She wished she had the red dress. She’d felt invincible that time she
put it on and wore it to the wake underneath a somber black coat. That dress had given her the courage to accept that her father was gone. The rustle of blood-red beads had assisted her in saying good-bye to him. The knife wavered. The unholy nerve of Hock to corner her at her own father’s wake! Maybe, if only he hadn’t put his mouth on her, she wouldn’t have slugged him so hard. He had tried to take away the purity of her own grief, and no one knew better than she what a sacred and precious thing true grief was. He pretended he was comforting her. Well, maybe he actually believed that! Carefully, she straightened the blade and made certain she hadn’t put a small nick in the edge. But it was persnickety sharp now. She thought of Delphine, then of the Scottish play,
a black primer for my quailing heart
. She’d lost fear. She gave the knife an extra razor’s edge, imagining that it was by now so sharp the sheriff might not feel it, at first.

When she entered her own bedroom, and told him to leave again, she gave him fair warning. She kept the knife behind her back, but said, with only the slightest tremor in her voice, “I’m warning you, Sheriff Hock. If you don’t leave, I’ll have to hurt you.”

He stood. He had the nerve to smile at her, and then to try to engage her in a long look, to penetrate her defenses.

“I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down,” he said gently. “I warned you, too.”

He gave a small laugh, his lips budding modestly. “Why not me, Clarisse? There’s nothing unacceptable about me, I have a good job, prestigious even. I do not drink.
I
do not sleep with other women and I never will. Take a look at yourself. You’re pretty as an angel, but you’re an undertaker. Men are scared off by your line of work. Not me.”

Hock held his arms out, and his smile was feral, his eyes filled with an ignorant and innocent greed. When Clarisse did not step toward him, he dropped his arms slowly. He reached into his pocket and plucked out a piece of paper with one red glass bead folded into it.

“I found it here,” he said. “State’s evidence.”

“State’s evidence? Oh, for God sake’s, don’t be ridiculous. Let me see that.” Clarisse snatched at the paper with her free hand.

“Uh, uh, uh,” he gave an awful, playful croon. Then he tucked the bead back into the paper, folded the paper into the breast pocket of his shirt, opened his arms, and lunged.

Her arm thrust forward on its own.

He didn’t know what had happened, not at first. He turned away in shock, and in turning he even did some of the work for her. He wrenched around so that she could see in her mind’s eye the keen blade slide along inside of him, lopping apart viscera. The stuff that spilled out inside of him would kill him, but much too slowly. Quick is better, she thought, and she reacted only to her thoughts, which remained steady and rational. She had to use the knife as a saw. Fast as she could, she cut right across his midsection as he threw up his hand and tried to struggle away. She bobbed side to side without letting go the wooden handle. She had to use both hands and avoid his flailing clutch. He was tougher than she’d thought, but through her work she had developed a shocking strength in her grip. How very surprised he was to see the knife move along his belly with such speed, parting the threads of his shirt. Absurd phrases formed in her head. Her thoughts were strange and far away. He is distinctly not pleased! He was, she saw, extremely troubled at this unexpected development. His brows knit and he seemed unable to say a word. Just stared at her, mystified. He did not expect this, after all, and she had some sympathy—surprises were not for her, either, and this was a very big one.

“Sit down,” she said, her voice neutral and informative. “It won’t take long.”

He thumped backward, rattling her closet door on its hinges, soaking her silken slips and puddling blood in her shoes. Quickly, she snatched her favorites from beneath him. With a grim satisfaction she saw, too, that he had used his pocketknife to pry another red glass bead from a crack in the floor. So much for that! She plucked the bead up, showed it to him, opened her mouth and swallowed it. He looked very dull now, even stupid. After a while, checking his pulse, she felt it slow to a terminal pump and then with clinical care she watched the pupils of his eyes become stuck and unresponsive. Nobody home, she finally
said. She realized she’d hardly breathed. Standing, she put one hand on her chest and the other on her abdomen, drew in new air from the lowest point of her midsection, just like in voice class. Thought of hiding him. But what was the point, anyway, of standing him up in her closet? That would hardly do the trick for long. She threw a tantrum—tears and wild, sobbing groans that she could hear from a place outside herself. The noises she made filled the room, alarming her. Shut up now, she counseled, or you’ll never stop. She crossed the hall to draw herself a bath.