The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel (21 page)

T
he house had been dark and silent for hours now. Soundlessly, he swung open the door to the sunporch. He kept its hinges well oiled. Of course, the young fellow upstairs probably wouldn’t have heard it, anyway. The young are sound sleepers. He, on the other hand, could switch from deep sleep to full consciousness in a heartbeat. The barest sound or change of light was enough to jerk him back into wakefulness. Sometimes he felt that he never really slept any more, and he wondered if this was his old body’s protest against wasting any of the little time that was left to him. Why sleep now when someday soon death would put an end to waking? More likely, though, his light sleeping was a habit from the old days, when his life—or at least his freedom—had depended on his vigilance.

He stepped out into the soft darkness of the garden, wondering if he was hearing crickets or if his ears were manufacturing noises to fill the silence. He wished that he still had the night vision of his youth, when he could have read the fine print of a
newspaper by moonlight. Now he’d be doing well to read one at high noon, reading glasses and all. Fortunately, though, he knew where he was going, and the flagstone path kept him from losing his way. No need to switch on the flashlight until he reached the outbuildings. There was a slim chance that someone could be glancing out an upstairs window, and he didn’t want to take any chances on being spotted.

Not that they showed much interest in him, anyhow. He supposed they meant well, though; and if they had written him off as a harmless old man, he had never given them any reason to think otherwise. He wondered what they would say if he really talked about his past, instead of giving them garrulous tales about Model T Fords and Tom Mix movie matinees. He didn’t intend to find out, though. Old age inflicted many indignities on its victims: dimmed vision, impaired hearing, loss of mobility. But to his mind, the worst indignity of all was the lack of privacy and freedom.

His carpet slippers swished against the flagstones, but he barely heard them. He had reached the little cluster of outbuildings now, one hundred yards behind the house. Now he could rest for a moment and catch his breath before he went inside. The new owners had not inspected the outbuildings. Neither had Bill and his crew when they took over. They had been so busy trying to fix up the downstairs that they’d barely noticed there was even a lawn around the house, much less sheds and a garage, so for now he had the place to himself. He patted the flashlight in the pocket of his flannel dressing gown. He would need it in the windowless darkness of the shed.

It had taken him several minutes to work his way across the flagstones to the door of the shed. His bones were brittle
with age, and he could not risk falling in the dark. Another stay in a nursing home would probably finish him off. He hated confinement—always had. Even worse was the prospect of one of the children being summoned. They didn’t want him—nor he them. They were far from Danville, deep into their own busy lives, and they had lost the thread of kinship with him many years before. All right, he had pushed them away. But he didn’t regret it. He was an embarrassment to them now, and he’d be damned if he’d live under house arrest on the charity of one snooty daughter-in-law or the other. Might as well be dead as that.

He pushed open the door to the shed and switched on the flashlight. It looked like a perfectly ordinary storage building, which mostly it was. There were bags of fertilizer stacked against the back wall, with various rakes and other gardening tools hanging from pegs above them, all festooned with cobwebs. The air smelled of loam and must, with a faint whiff of gasoline from the ancient lawn mower. There was nothing clean or new or valuable here. Nothing to make anyone want to linger. And no electric lights to help anyone to investigate the premises.

He turned his attention to the plain wooden wall to the right of the door. It was splintery and unpainted. There was nothing about it to attract anyone’s attention. Unless you knew where to push. Just at shoulder level, about five feet from the back wall. His flashlight wobbled a bit as he tried to find the spot with the beam of light. It was a good join—to his old eyes there was no seam to give away the secret. But he had made this wall himself a long time ago, and he knew where to push.

Tucking the flashlight under his arm, he put both hands flat against the wall and gave it a gentle shove. He was careful
not to push too hard, lest he fall forward and down when the door swung inward. With barely a squeak of protest the door moved, and he let the light play on the flight of crude wooden steps that led to the earth-banked room below. After a moment’s rest to catch his breath again, he shuffled forward and gripped the rough wooden railing to the stairs. He was glad he’d put a railing on the stairs all those years ago. Of course, in those days he could run up and down the steps two at a time, but he’d installed the handrail as a precaution, in case anybody lost his balance carrying heavy objects up or down the stairs. There had certainly been a lot of lifting and carrying heavy objects in those days. Now it was all he could do to get himself and a plastic grocery bag down those ten steps.

Why was he doing this again? he asked himself as he rested on the fifth step. Because the fellas were counting on him, and some of them acted like they didn’t believe he could do it any more. Besides, he had to go on being himself. He’d have died years ago, if he hadn’t.

A
t breakfast the next morning, Elizabeth broke ranks with the sex-segregated seating arrangement and set her tray down at a nearly empty table, across from Hillman Randolph’s cup of black coffee.

The old man sat by himself at one end of the six-person table. At the other end, Clifford Allen and Charles Petress were passing sections of newspaper back and forth as they shoveled in their respective breakfasts. Neither of them looked up to acknowledge her presence. Elizabeth noticed that Clifford, in deference to his sports car body, had limited his morning meal to slices of grapefruit and half a piece of dry toast. As he ate, he eyed each forkful as if he were looking for traces of poison, or worse, butter and sugar. Elizabeth looked down at her own helping of eggs and bacon with a twinge of guilt. She sat down
opposite Hillman Randolph, who did not seem pleased to have company.

“Good morning,” she said, with the best smile she could muster before nine
A.M
. “I thought I’d get out of the rut and talk to someone different at mealtimes for a change. How are you?”

He favored her with his usual scowl. “I don’t sleep well,” he said. “Before my second cup of coffee, I’m not fit company.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Well, at least you won’t talk about how men have ruined your life and made you go insane,” she said. “That’s the usual topic of conversation at the ladies’ table.”

The old man grunted. “Insane is not a word they like people to use around here. Though, of course, I do, whenever I feel like it. However, as to the ladies’ topic of conversation, I thought you’d been singing along on that tune yourself.”

Elizabeth took a deep breath. She had resolved not to think about her own problems for a while, and now to have them tossed back at her as breakfast banter stopped her cold for an instant, but she had taken her pill when she first woke up, so her feelings were packed in cotton wool for the day. “I suppose I have,” she said calmly. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Perhaps the only way to handle a ruthless old investigator would be to give back as good as you got. She was glad she had found something else to think about.

She took a sip of bitter coffee while she considered her opening gambit. After a while she said, “Let’s talk about your past, not mine. You mentioned the other day that Jack Dolan died in a car wreck. Is that where you got your injuries?”

He touched the side of his face with his good hand. “That
was a long time ago,” he said. “Nothing to be gained by rehashing about it.”

“Well, it’s just that I happen to be interested in Jack Dolan,” Elizabeth said, changing her tack.

“Why?”

“I told you. Because my brother bought his house. You saw the photograph the other day in art class, remember?”

“That was Jack Dolan’s house, all right, but since he’s been dead for forty years, none of it matters now. Certainly not to you. Besides, I never talk about my accident.”

“But isn’t that why we’re all here?” asked Elizabeth. “To learn to confront the things we avoid talking about?”

“I don’t know,” said Hillman Randolph. “I came here to keep from eating my gun. If they give me enough happy pills to keep me going, I don’t have to work through squat. As for you, I haven’t noticed you being too eager in group to talk about your problems.”

“I don’t have any problems,” said Elizabeth. “My husband is missing. I’m only here to deal with the stress of that.”

Randolph took a bite of his toast and looked at her reflectively. “So your husband is missing. Do you want to talk about that?”

Elizabeth blinked. “Not particularly. No. I don’t see the point of it.”

“Really?” He grinned at her over his coffee cup. “I thought you were eager to discuss dead men.”

He’s baiting you, Elizabeth told herself. He’s good at it because he was in law enforcement. He interrogated people for a living. Do not take it personally. Do not lose your temper. After a few
more deep breaths, she said carefully, “I wanted to talk about Jack Dolan, who may or may not be dead. You said you knew him.”

“All right, missy. I’ll make a deal with you. Get me some more coffee. Then for as long as it takes me to drink it, I’ll talk about Jack and about how I came to look this way, and you talk about this missing husband you claim to have.”

Elizabeth’s eyebrows rose. “Claim to have?”

“You could be delusional.” He grinned at her. “Could have just made him up. You know, we used to have Mel Gibson’s ex-wife in here.”

“But I don’t think Mel Gibson has an ex-wi—Oh. I see what you mean.” She sighed. The clock said 8:45. In less than half an hour the day schedule would begin, routing them to therapy sessions, doctors visits, and other commitments of time. This might be her best chance to talk to him. Later, he might change his mind. She thought of Matt Pennington and his ECT sessions. If Mr. Randolph happened to be scheduled for ECT, he might not even remember later. “All right,” she said. “You’re on. I’ll talk to you about my husband. I’ll even show you a picture of him, if that will convince you he’s real.… No, I suppose it wouldn’t. I’m sure ‘Mrs. Gibson’ had lots of photos of Mel.”

Mr. Randolph nodded. “Sally Ann? She sure did. Thanks to
People
magazine. It’s a deal, then. We’ll talk. You go first.”

“Is this an investigator’s trick?” Elizabeth glared across the table at the old man, unconvinced by his look of studied innocence. “Somehow, sir, I don’t trust you. I think we should do this in turns, so that nobody welshes on the agreement.”

“I could give you my word,” said Hillman Randolph with a trace of a smile.

“Mr. Randolph, we’re both certifiably crazy. Our word is useless these days. Now put up or shut up.”

“All right.” His eyes twinkled. He actually seemed pleased at her shrewdness. He pointed to his empty cup. “Coffee?”

With a sigh of resignation, Elizabeth went to the beverage table and refilled both mugs of coffee. She set them down with a thump on the table between them, and sat with folded arms and a look of exasperation, waiting to see if the old man would keep his word.

He tasted his coffee. “Question for question then,” he said. “I’ll ask first. Tell me about your husband.”

“His name is …” She had vowed to keep saying is. Her use of the present tense was an expression of hope, or perhaps of defiance. She would not give up. “… Cameron Dawson. He’s tall and thin with brown eyes and light brown hair. He has an offbeat sense of humor, and he played football—actually, it’s soccer to us—at university.”

Elizabeth paused to see if her answer was sufficient, but Hillman Randolph nodded for her to go on. She found that she wanted to. For weeks now people had looked embarrassed when she tried to talk about Cameron. They would always change the subject or stop her reminiscences with platitudes. She found herself glad that someone actually wanted to hear her talk about her missing husband.

“Cameron is a marine biologist from Scotland,” she said. “He was raised in Edinburgh, and he has a younger brother named Ian. We’ve been married nearly two years. We had a lovely Scottish-themed wedding at my aunt’s house in Georgia, and on our honeymoon we attended the Queen’s garden party at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.” She looked around. Richard
Petress and Clifford Allen had vanished, leaving behind on the table a crumpled pile of newspaper pages. Most of the other people in the cafeteria were going back for last cups of coffee now. Their trays were pushed aside, ready to be returned to the kitchen. “My turn, Mr. Randolph,” Elizabeth said, before he could take another sip of coffee. “When did you know Jack Dolan?”

He shrugged. “A lifetime ago. Early nineteen fifties, near Danville, Virginia. He’d made a small fortune in the Forties. That’s when he built that big house of his. Since he was a farm boy who had no heritage to speak of and even less education, a lot of us wondered how he had managed to become so prosperous. Certain sections of the government thought he might bear watching.”

Elizabeth gasped. “Jack Dolan was a gangster?”

“Is that your next question? It isn’t your turn.”

“I’m sorry. I merely want you to clarify your answer about how you came to know him.”

“I was one of those government agents assigned to keep an eye on him. I think it’s my turn for a question now.”

“Go ahead.”

“All right. So, how did you meet this biologist fellow?”

Elizabeth took a sip of cold coffee. “Cameron came to Virginia on a visiting professorship. He was doing seal research. On his first weekend here his hosts decided to take him to the Highland Games. It was very silly of them, really, because the Highland Games is to Scotland what the rodeo is to most of America these days—that is, a historical footnote. But they meant well. Anyhow, to be polite, he went to the games, and I was there with the Chattan Confederation, which is the clan
the MacPhersons belong to. I had charge of the bobcat for the weekend. ‘Touch not the cat’ is our motto.” She smiled, thinking of happy memories for the first time in many weeks. “Cameron was Clan Chattan, too, but he didn’t know it. He was hopeless on Scottish folkways. His idea of Scottish music is Sheena Easton, not bagpipes.”