Who Killed Mr. Garland's Mistress? (6 page)

Yes, dispassion. So many of the articles started out identifying Helen as the “cool and attractive Mrs. Fraser,” or “the calm defendant.” She had obviously made an impression on the reporter covering the trial.

Calm, dispassionate, a good seaman—perhaps someone capable of pushing a speedboat through foggy waters time and time again.

She threaded the last reel of film into the reader. The first reference was only months ago and concerned Helen's appearance before the board of pardon. They had reduced her sentence and in two weeks she'd be released.

The last reference was a small news article, tucked so far in the rear of the paper, she almost missed it. She read the article with increasing horror.

YOUTH'S BODY STILL MISSING IN BAY BOATING ACCIDENT

Coast Guard and local authorities have discontinued their search for Jeremiah Murphy, 19, of Baytown, missing since Sunday. Murphy's small boat was discovered by a local fisherman, John Williams of 22 Sunlit Lane, Baytown, floating upside down in the Bay. An intensive search by authorities has failed to come up with the body.

Local Police Chief, Eian Waterman, states that in all probability the body was washed to sea and will probably never be recovered.

Mr. Murphy of Leslie Road was employed by the Marman Company as a die-maker and was unmarried. He gained brief notoriety four years ago when, as a young witness for the State, he testified against his sister, Helen Fraser. Mrs. Fraser was convicted of murdering her husband and sentenced to the State Correctional Center for Women.

The article was dated two weeks after Helen was released.

Mechanically she jotted down the few facts from the article and rewound the film. She put the film back in its box and gathered her material, neatly aligned her notes, and placed them in a folder. The librarian smiled when she returned the film, and robotlike she thanked her.

There was a pay phone in the library lobby and she fought the impulse to call Rob at the office. No hysteria. A frantic call would upset him and destroy the logic of what she'd discovered.

The car was parked overtime directly in front of the library and a yellow parking ticket clung to the windshield. The hours of peering into the viewing machine had dulled her eyes to the bright sun, and she shaded her forehead with her hand.

She drove slowly, deciding as she usually did, to drive home on the side streets rather than face the onrushing herd of the Interstate. In minutes she was in suburban West Hartford.

The houses she passed were remarkably like their own. Dutch Colonial was a favorite style although they were often interspersed with split-levels. The saving grace of the town was that most of its homes had been built before 1946, many trees had been left, and they'd escaped the near nudity of the newer suburbs. The streets were comfortable, the town had settled into an almost staid routine, and of course the schools were excellent.

It was a good place to raise children, they'd convinced themselves, and now she was in time to pick up the children at day camp. She parked easily near the path leading to the park, among the other awaiting mothers. Children began to run down the path toward the waiting cars. Karen smiled as she approached Tavie.

“Hi, Mom. I didn't know you were going to pick us up.”

“I was in the neighborhood, thought I would.”

Little Robby, chased by another boy his age, ran past the car and Karen had to yell out the window for him to stop.

The children were beside themselves with the time she spent with them that afternoon. They played a game of dirty monopoly, all cheating allowed, and the formation of cartels was encouraged. She didn't play nearly as well as Rob, for as soon as she was in a position to drive one child out of the game she reneged and came to his aid. This method of play infuriated little Rob who played a real cutthroat game.

“You guys want to help me make dinner?”

“Yeah.”

They took extra care with the dinner preparations. Together they made a special salad and baked a chocolate cake. Taking the London broil from the refrigerator she laid it neatly on the-cutting board. From the top shelf of the kitchen cabinets she took down the hypodermic syringe a dental student beau had given her years ago. She filled the syringe with good red wine found in the living room bar. As she injected the wine throughout the meat she thought that cooking was the one wifely chore she did well. The house might not be the cleanest on the block, and she wasn't exactly a little animal in bed, but she cooked the best meat in town.

“This is just like somebody's birthday,” little Karen said.

“Well, your father's had to make his own meals while we were in Maine, perhaps he deserves a real fine dinner.”

“Are we ever going back to Maine, Mother?”

“I don't know, Robby. Your father has to discuss the insurance with his broker, we'd have to make arrangements for a new house to be built … there are a lot of details. We won't go back this summer.”

“There's nothing to do in Maine,” said little Karen. “I like going to camp. We have arts and crafts and all sorts of things.”

“Well, good. Maybe it's just as well then.” She tried to laugh and couldn't.

The dinner turned out well. Occasionally Rob looked at her as if expecting some sign or gesture, but she maintained her calm. In fact, she found herself calmer than she had a right to expect.

After dinner, as a special treat for the children, they watched a television mystery. She and Rob sat together on the couch, the children on the floor near the television set. When the credits came on she stood up and took Robby and Karen's hands. “Time for bed. I'll tuck you in.”

“I had a good time today, Mommy,” Karen said. “Even making dinner was fun.”

As she tucked them in bed, Rob tolerated a quick kiss on the forehead, while Karen put her arms around Tavie and hugged her. She held her daughter tightly, and then stepped into the hall, making sure to leave the door open a crack. The morning spent in the library, the afternoon with the children, a meal and activity together; and now an hour or two of quiet with her husband. The alien presence that had destroyed the weave of her summer days in Maine was felt again here, and now she had to prove it.

As she went into the living room she saw Rob leaning against the fireplace, staring off into space.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing really.”

“I know your pensive moods too well.”

“That we're lucky. That we have enough faith in each other to survive Helen, and enough kismet with the gods for you and the children not to be hurt.”

“I spent the morning in the library. In fact I spent yesterday and the day before that in the library and on the phone.”

“Oh?” He looked at her quizzically.

Her folder of notes lay neatly on the mantelpiece. “I want to read this to you.”

“What is it?”

“The proof of my thesis … of what I felt happened, and now know happened. Here's how it goes …”

He listened to her soberly. Once, part way through her recitation he got up and made himself another drink, another time he looked at her oddly. She tried to be as methodical as possible, to present a logical facade that was convincing enough to persuade. She finished, restacked the papers neatly and looked over at him.

“Well,” she said. “What do you think?”

He twirled his glass thoughtfully. “I think you and I should go away for a vacation—alone.”

She was piqued. “What does that mean?”

“It means forget it.”

“It's all there, Rob. You've heard all the evidence. I'm not making these things up. They've been checked and verified.”

“There's no motive for anyone to do those insane things.”

“She's in love with you—or what she calls love.”

“Nonsense.”

“You had an affair.”

“She'd been in prison a long time and I was … well, I explained that to you.”

“Did she ever say or intimate she was in love with you?”

“That doesn't necessarily mean anything.”

“Did you tell her you'd marry her.”

“No, of course not.”

“You must have said something, given some indication … something to give her this idea.”

“It's your idea, not necessarily hers.”

“What did you say, Rob? What did you say that could possibly have been misconstrued on her part?”

“Only that if things were different …”

“Different?”

“That if I'd met her ten or fifteen years ago …”

“You said that …?”

He paused. “Well, no. I said if things were different we might have married. I meant fifteen years ago.”

“My God, do you realize what she thinks you meant by different?”

“She knows I'd never leave you and the children.”

“Yes, she knows that. Rob, I think she killed her brother.”

“She told me about that, he drowned in a boating accident.”

“The same way I might have.”

“She wasn't even in Connecticut when her brother died. Don't you think the police would have considered that possibility? She had special permission from her parole officer to go to California for a week. Tavie, she was in California when it happened.”

“A batch of coincidences can fit into a neat puzzle.”

“Our place in Maine is on an island, people spend a good deal of time in boats. If an accident were to happen, more than likely it would occur in a boat. If an accident were to happen in Hartford the odds are it would be an auto wreck.”

“That's a pleasant thought.”

“You wouldn't be suspicious if someone ran into your car.”

“I might if they turned around and came back for a second go-round.”

He shook his head several times in dissent. “No way. It's not her cup of tea, she couldn't do it.”

“She did once before.”

“We've been over that. That was a marital situation with a man and woman exposed to each other daily for years. The cutting edges became so abrasive that something had to happen. She's a rough cookie in a lot of ways, Tavie. Helen is the kind of person who gets what she wants, who strikes out with a singleness of purpose to grab life. That's why her first husband drove her bananas. He was a routine, methodical sort of person going nowhere in life, and that's one thing she couldn't take.”

“I bet she even changes her own flat tire.”

“Hell, she'd turn the car on its side if she had to.” Faint color moved upwards from his neck and he rubbed his hand across his forehead. “I'm sorry, Tavie, I didn't mean to compare.”

Tavie knew how often she'd called him at work, or awakened him early in the morning to perform some household task. These small intrusions were her unconscious way of asking for affirmation. The method perpetuated itself over the years until her helplessness became a thread in the fabric of their whole relationship.

“Rob, I'll give you my word, I'll read scads of books on auto mechanics, after we go to the police.”

“The police? Why?”

“She's trying to kill me. And she doesn't seem to care if she kills the children with me. It's all there, Rob. It couldn't be any clearer.”

“Wait a cotton-pickin' minute. People in Hartford, Connecticut, don't go around killing whole families.”

“You can't see.”

“Look at it, you don't have anything. To begin with, it's true a boat ran you down. Perhaps, and it's only a perhaps, because you're certainly not a qualified expert on nautical matters, perhaps a similar craft was rented to a woman. The name was different and the description is vague. According to the August records of Connecticut Casualty Company, that day Helen was in New York City delivering copy. The copy was delivered, and the agency people positively identify Helen. What do you have left? The possibility that if she ran like hell, she could have gone to New York by plane, delivered the copy, caught a plane to Portland in time to rent a boat, and run you down. Next, our house did burn down. The fire marshall thinks it's defective wiring, but in your wild imagination it's set by some dark stranger that you chase through the night. God God, Tavie, you've never chased a stray cat.”

“You had an affair with her.”

“And if I don't admit to that?”

“It's on the tape.”

“The tape is burned.”

“Then you wouldn't admit to it?”

“I would, Tavie. I would broadcast it to the world, it's not something that I'm proud of, but I would if it would help. But don't you see? You don't have anything to give to the police.”

“I'm as positive of this as anything in my life.”

“If you hadn't heard the tale end of that tape before the boating accident, would you have thought anything?”

“No. I would have agreed that it was some nut.”

“And you wouldn't have chased your unknown apparition after the fire.”

“Perhaps not. I also might have been dead that night if I hadn't been having nightmares. Rob, we've got to go to the police.”

“They'll think we're nuts. And you know Helen won't admit to anything. Assume for the sake of argument that the police take the charge seriously enough to investigate. Helen proves she was in New York that day, and her name isn't on any flight manifest to Portland, Maine.”

“Anyone can give a false name to an airline.”

“That's negative, Tav. Evidence is hard fact. Now, go along with my thinking a moment. Helen denies everything. She'd have to admit to seeing me, to my doing the book on her experience—and that's it. The cops chalk the whole thing up to a jealous wife.”

“There's the boat and fire incident.”

“No one saw what happened in the middle of the bay. You could have capsized the boat yourself.”

“Rob, good God!”

“I'm not saying you did, Tavie. But it could have happened that way. And as for the fire, you know the results of the fire marshall's study. No one else on the island saw the person you' claim to have chased. Mrs. Gorley says that you were gone for a few minutes and were extremely upset when you returned. Everyone chalks that up to anyone's normal reaction to the fire.”