Who Killed Mr. Garland's Mistress? (5 page)

“Of course, Tavie. And I can't tell you how sorry I am. How sorry we all are over this. It's so hard to rebuild these old houses.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Gorley. I … I haven't even thought that far yet.”

“Well, the important thing is that you and the children are safe.”

“Yes, that's the main thing. I'll be back in a minute.”

“That's perfectly all right. When the excitement dies down I'll take them back to my place. You come too, we can always find room.”

“Thank you.”

As Tavie reached the line of trees she glanced back at the fire and saw that Mrs. Gorley held the children firmly by the hand, far back from the burning building. The figure she was after had gone through the trees and underbrush into the strawberry patch, and Tavie hurried.

It would only take a moment or two to find out if she was creating some strange specter out of an obscured vision. It was probably a house guest who'd taken a wrong turn through lack of familiarity with the island. She broke into a run.

Ahead of her she saw someone weaving around the small bushes. A head turned, saw her, and the figure broke into a run. A dim light from the half-moon covered the field, but it wasn't bright enough to make out the features of the figure fifty yards in front of her. The naval base lay directly ahead.

In a few yards they'd be to the chain-link fence, and Tavie knew that if she cut to the right she could run up the small road, and possibly catch the person at the rusty main gate. Her breath came in gasps as she found the road and ran toward the gate. When she was twenty feet from the gate the figure rushed from behind the bushes and went through ahead of her.

Tavie was gaining. Their running weaved as they both tired. At the drill field the figure abruptly cut to the right and ran into an abandoned barracks building. Tavie stopped in front of the empty building and gasped for breath. The stillness of the night was broken only by the faraway cries of the fire fighters.

A veranda ran the length of the building and she slowly went up the few steps and hesitated in front of a doorway. What was she doing? It could be a madman, or someone with a knife or gun. Certainly someone physically stronger than she. She could be strangled or beaten to death. She could never recall a physical fight with anyone in her life. Withdrawn by nature, even in the early days of school, the girls with a rough propensity had tended to ignore her. Striking another person was alien to her, even spanking children was a brief and distant recollection. Perhaps years ago she'd slapped their hands or the fleshy part of their child's legs for some infraction.

Tavie began to back slowly from the veranda. Her backward-reaching foot went through a floorboard and she fell to her side with a slight groan.

There was a crash and cry from the building. She fought to extricate her foot from the rotten wood. As she got to her feet she saw the figure at the other side of the veranda running jerkily down the stairs.

Tavie's breath came in heaving gasps and she pressed against the side of the building. Her legs were weak and trembling. The adrenalin and lack of fear that had carried her this far now washed away and her fingers grasped the rotten wood behind her.

The night was empty. The moon came from behind clouds, and streaks of light played across the empty drill-field. From a distance she could hear the sound of a powerful inboard boat engine and she slowly edged her way along the shadows until she stood at the tree line near the small cove.

Out in the bay a boat pulled rapidly around the edge of the island and was soon out of sight. Where had the boat come from? Portland, the sea? Thoughts tugged at her, the boat and its familiar lines, the gait of the running figure. What had possessed her to come this far … the fire, the near death of her children … her knees were still weak and she grasped a tree trunk to steady herself.

Slowly she turned and started back toward her home, burning in the night.

CHAPTER THREE

“She burned my poems, Oliver.”

“My dear Octavia, how do you even know it was a she when you didn't see a face?”

“At first it was a nagging thought, but I still have a feeling. I think I understood yesterday on the ride back to Hartford. It was the way she ran. Women run differently than men.”

“I used to think so. However, the last class I taught had several gentlemen who were, shall we say, neuter.”

Oliver Bentley was over seventy now, but his thin face and craggy frame were still vibrant with zest and energy. He was Professor Emeritus of English at Trinity College, and served as the unpaid poetry editor of the Hartford
Register
. It was through her poetry submissions that she'd met him, and he was probably the only man Tavie knew that often wore a cape.

She had spent many hours in Oliver's book-lined study, sitting across from him in a large leather chair and drinking tea. The study was cool, and through the large bay window, ducks could be seen floating placidly on a small pool. The room was tree-shaded and cool, and for the first time in two days Tavie felt relaxed and secure.

In this room she was whole again. The past hours spent in book and poetry discussions, formed a protective mantle that now enveloped them. The trip from Maine faded into a dim recollection of sights and sounds. After the house had collapsed into a pile of smoking debris, she had lain on the Gorley's couch and wept in quiet whimpers. By the next morning, and Rob's arrival, there were no tears left.

“I'm sure you know that I'm worried about you,” Oliver said.

“I'm worried about me, too. This whole thing is so preposterous that it doesn't make much sense.”

“There's a strong probability that there is a logical explanation for everything that happened.”

“I know. But that wasn't a wisp of fog I chased after the fire.”

“What does Rob say about your theory?”

“That he'd check into things.”

“Well, Octavia. Let's examine exactly what happened. Two accidents, the first during a heavy fog, conditions which should have discouraged your going out in that boat. Secondly, a fire in an old building that more than likely had inadequate wiring. A person, someone, perhaps a vandal, stopped to watch the fire. Two harrowing accidents within a week of each other, coming at a time when you were extremely emotionally vulnerable. Remember, you still haven't assimilated the shock you received over Robert.”

“Neurotic and emotionally ill housewife thinks husband's mistress is out to get her—I've thought of that. And yet when I've half convinced myself this is all my own fear, I remember the night of the fire, and running after that woman.”

“Events that occurred after you spent two days listening to a recording of a woman killing her husband. That in itself was a heinous crime, Octavia, but spouses do annihilate each other. Few people calculate, on two occasions, to do in someone they don't even know.”

His logic hung in the room. If what she thought was true, she faced an incalculable evil. Her life had been removed and distant from things evil. It was difficult for her to have empathy for the victims of far-off Asian wars or massive airline tragedies. The newspaper accounts of violence and murder were a distant passing parade acted out by people far removed from her life.

Her life had contained no tragedy, and no violent death within her memory. When she was a small child an older brother had died in World War II, but his face was an indistinct blur. His death, which had so affected her father, held little import for her. Her father had died of natural causes at a respectable old age, and her mother still lived.

Strange, since the largest portion of her life had been spent with books. How many hundreds of tales had she read about death, destruction, and the labyrinth of the human mind? Oliver often talked of catharsis in art. And yet the Germans had produced magnificent art of all kinds. Hitler had started adult life as a painter, Mao as a poet, Stalin as a priest.

They had been silent for a long while and she saw that Oliver was looking at her steadily. “I'm becoming very obsessive, aren't I, Oliver?”

“I'm not quite sure.”

She laughed. “Now, you're supposed to tell me in your most professorial tone that I'm a neurotic housewife.”

“I learned after my first year of teaching that I couldn't shout to the class that a certain poem was beautiful. I can't tell you to become obsessively unobsessive. Prove yourself wrong, or are you afraid to?”

“Rob doesn't believe a word of it.”

“You have taken three coincidental events and constructed a remarkable edifice of calculated murder. It's more than possible that you're completely wrong, but you haven't done a thing to prove that to yourself.”

“Inaction is the story of my life. You think I'm wrong?”

“I think you could be.”

“Then the rational thing to do would be to look into it.”

“Exactly. Prove it to yourself. In all likelihood you'll find that what you suggest is impossible. Think of the details, if you find one that doesn't fit …”

“Oh, Oliver, I can't.”

“That's up to you. If not, go see a marriage counselor, write a poem.”

“It's all so silly. I should probably take a few tranquilizers instead.” The dread she'd felt these last few days seeped into this book-lined study and filled her with tension. “I've spent half my life in libraries, I suppose a few more hours won't be wasted.” She stood up with new resolve. “All right, Oliver. I'll do it. I'll find out how wrong I am.”

Her back hurt from bending into the viewer of the microfilm reader at the public library. She straightened up and looked at her notes. In schoolgirl fashion she'd approached her project in the same manner as she would have prepared a term paper on Beowulf. She thumbed through the pages.

Her first approach had been the possibility of transportation for Helen from Hartford to New York, to Portland, and back to Hartford within the available time span. She picked up the page and read it through again.

TRANSPORTATION

Problem: Is it possible for the subject to leave Hartford, Connecticut at 8:45 AM, travel to New York; to Portland, Maine, and back to Hartford by 6 PM? Adequate time must be available in Portland to accomplish the rental of a boat for a period of not less than two hours.

Answer: If subject left Connecticut Casualty at 8:45 AM and walked to the parking lot, she could be in her car and on her way to the airport by 8:50. Driving time to the airport at that time of day (and she had timed the trip herself on two separate mornings) was twenty-seven minutes. Using the car-check service she could be in the airport, prepared to board a plane at 9:30 AM.

Eastern Airlines flight 226 left for La Guardia Airport at 9:40 and arrived in New York nineteen minutes later. Taxi time to 345 Madison Avenue was thirty minutes. If the taxi waited as she delivered the copy she could be back in the airport by 11:20.

The 11:30 to Boston and the 1 PM to Portland. That would put her in Portland near the docks at 1:30.

American Airlines flight 957 left Portland for Hartford at four-thirty. It was possible to be back in downtown Hartford by six.

It had taken some persuasion to get the airlines to check their manifests and in the end it had proved nothing. Each of the necessary flights had women passengers, but no reservations in Helen's name. That was her starting point, and in the end it had provided little concrete evidence. It was possible to make the trip, but then again it might be possible to make a trip to Key West, Florida, and back in the same allotted time.

The next group of notes contained a list of marinas and a map drawn to scale. She had estimated that the speedboat couldn't have traveled more than twenty miles an hour in fog conditions, and she plotted a circle from a point between Ruby and Handle Islands as far as the time span allowed.

In checking the Maine phone directories for all the towns and cities included in her circle, she had compiled a list of thirty-two marinas. Most of those she called either didn't rent boats, or hadn't rented boats that day. Eight had rented various types of motorboats. Morey's Marina, in South Portland, recognized her description of the speedboat and a check of their records indicated that it had been rented to a Mrs. Garfield that day. Their description of the woman was somewhat vague as she had worn a large floppy hat and sunglasses. They did remember her large security deposit, and the fact that when she pulled into the bay she seemed extremely competent in her seamanship.

That discovery left her momentarily jubilant. The pieces did fit. She wasn't possessed by some neurotic obsession. Reality quickly returned with the realization of the unimportance of her discoveries.

Tavie bent over the microfilm reader and began to turn the film for the account of the final day in Helen Fraser's trial. The trial was well covered. The
Register
had assigned a full-time reporter to the case, and each day's testimony was reported.

The basic facts of the case were similar to Helen's tapes and what Rob had told her. During the early days of the trial, and during the opening statement, the defense had tried to establish that Helen was at her mother's, that the murder could have been the work of an intruder. It was the last day of the prosecution when Helen's brother appeared. What Helen had said on the tapes was right, if he hadn't testified there would have been no way to absolutely place her in the house at the time of the murder.

Immediately after the brother's appearance the defense asked for a conference in Chambers. Early in the afternoon they reversed their plea, and pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

There were now only two Fraser references left in the newspaper files. Because of its date, she assumed that one was Helen's appearance before the board of pardon, the other mystified her. She thought about what she'd read so far. There was a thread here, a similarity between the dispassionate voice on the tape and the reportorial accounts of Helen on trial.