Don't Dare a Dame (14 page)

   
She pressed her handkerchief tightly against her mouth. Her usually smooth black bob was tangled and her dress and arms were smudged. After several seconds she nodded.

   
“Yes. Now. I....” Her head turned aimlessly.

   
“I’ve already thanked the man who helped you,” I said. “You can call or stop in when you’re feeling more like yourself again.”

   
The thread of a sigh escaped her.

   
“Yes. Thank you. I’ve — been such a bother.”

   
“You’re not a bother. The men who did this to you are s.o.b.’s. And I’m going to find them and see that they pay for it.”

Sixteen

   
“Corrine, are you able to talk about this?” I asked when she was settled on one of the needlepoint sofas in her own parlor with an afghan tucked around her. In spite of the wrap and most of a glass of sherry, she was shaking.

   
“No.... Yes.... I can. I must.”

   
I wondered if those last four words had been a motto which she’d whispered to herself a thousand times over the years as she struggled to prove herself competent in a world she couldn’t see.

   
“How many were there?” I asked.

   
She almost smiled.

   
“Thank you. For thinking I might be able to answer that. Most people wouldn’t.”

   
“I think you’ve got more on the ball than most people. How many, then?”

   
“Two, I think. Possibly a third who didn’t speak. But maybe I only think there were three because every way I turned—” Her mouth crumpled. “I was so scared—”

   
“Can’t this wait?” pleaded Isobel.

   
Corrine put out her hand.

   
“It’s all right, dearest.”

   
“From the looks of this room, you made them work pretty hard to take you,” I said.

   
“I heard them come in, you see. The front door opening. I thought it might be Corrie coming home early, or Mrs. Blair from next door. So I called, but nobody answered. Then I knew — I knew someone was coming to hurt me.”

   
“So you managed to get to the poker.”

   
She nodded. “Only just when I did, one of them grabbed my wrist. My other wrist, but it hardly mattered. I hit him as hard as I could, but I only had one arm to swing with, and I couldn’t tell how tall he was or what part of him I was hitting. I think I only hit his shoulder. Then one of them slapped me, and they put a sack over my head—”

   
“A sack?” I said, looking up from the notes I was making.

   
Her laugh was short and brittle.

   
“Ironic, isn’t it?”

   
Not only that, but vicious, I thought. Sadistic. The men who’d taken her knew who she was. They’d phoned her sister at home and at work. I’d bet my bottom dollar they also knew Corrine was blind. They hadn’t demanded money for her release. Their only purpose had been to terrify her, and they’d used the sack to add to that terror.

   
“What did they say?”

   
“Hardly anything. It - it meant I couldn’t tell where they were.”

   
While adding to her fear, I thought.

   
“When they first ... when they first got control of me, one shoved his face into mine and asked ‘What did he see?’”

   
“Who?”

   
“I don’t know. That’s what I asked. They jerked me up out of the chair they’d put me in and one of them shook me and asked it again. I said I didn’t understand. That’s when they dragged me out to the car. That was all until just before they shoved me out. One — the same one, I think — said ‘Next time will be worse.’”

   
I struggled against the anger that would make me useless.

   
“Someone’s warning you not to stir up the past,” I said to both of them. “You might be wise to take their advice. This could have nothing to do with your father. It could be connected to Alf. Something he was mixed up in back then, or even recently. I’ve heard he’s tried to borrow money a few times.”

   
“But it could have to do with our father?” Corrine persisted.

   
With anyone else I wouldn’t think twice about lying. It didn’t seem fair to lie to Corrine. I chose my words carefully.

   
“It’s possible,” I admitted. “But even if there is a connection, it won’t bring him back. Even if I could somehow find out Alf killed him, which is what you seem to think, there’s no way of bringing Alf to justice now. ”

   
The two women turned toward each other in that intimate gesture where they shared thoughts wordlessly.

   
“We want to know,” Corrine all but whispered.

   
“Oh, Corrie, I’m not sure—” began Isobel.

   
Corrine extended the palm of her hand. She looked pale. Exhausted. Shrunken in on herself in a way she hadn’t been the first time we met.

   
“Tell us what you’ve learned so far,” she said wearily. “Then we can decide.”

   
I nodded, remembering too late that she couldn’t see.

   
“Before I do, can you remember the name of Alf’s friend? The one you heard him talking to when you were in the tree house?”

   
These were not impulsive women. They thought several moments before shaking their heads.

   
“What about his other friends? First names? Last?”

   
Neither spoke.

   
“I’m sorry,” Isobel said at last. “We - we didn’t really like Alf, so we spent as little time around him as possible. Not because he’d replaced Papa. Because he was loud, and always too, well, hearty and chummy. When he and Mama were first married, he’d fling his arm around our shoulders and squeeze and - and he’d pinch our bottoms.”

   
She looked down at her hands, her face flaming. I gave her some time to recover.

   
“One more thing before I tell you what I’ve learned,” I said. “Have you ever heard the name Cy Warren? Cyrus?”

   
Isobel looked puzzled by this new direction.

   
“Didn’t he run for City Council? Something like that?”

   
“Ran and was elected.”

   
“Does he have some connection to this?” asked Corrine. The weariness in her voice was unmistakable.

   
“I don’t know,” I said. “Here’s what I’ve learned so far. At the time of the flood, there was a place called Dillon’s Drugs on Percy Street. Alf worked there. In fact he was part owner.”

   
Corrine gasped and gave her hands a clap.

   
“I knew it!” she said, her excitement reviving her if only briefly. “Go on. Is there anything else?”

   
“The drugstore burned down the day your dad disappeared. The other owner died in the fire. Alf got what was left, which from what other shop owners in the area told about their places, can’t have been much. Most moved out. Only one old lady remembered Alf and she didn’t like him.”

   
At any rate she was the only one who admitted knowing him, I amended silently.

   
“Oh, this is wonderful!” Corrine smiled. “That must be where he was headed. Can you find out more, do you think?”

   
“I’m not sure.”

   
Half of me wanted to keep digging, mostly because I was sure I’d gotten the run-around from Cy Warren, and maybe one or two others. And because someone had been more than willing to ruin me to achieve their own purposes.

   
The other half was reluctant to expose these two women to further attacks.

   
Isobel rose and started to pace with jerky steps. “For heaven’s sake, Corrie, what’s the point? As Maggie pointed out, Alf’s dead now. We can’t do anything.”

   
“If someone is trying to scare us, then there must be something to learn,” her sister said stubbornly.

   
“It could have nothing to do with your father,” I repeated. “Someone may think you know something you don’t.”

   
Isobel came to a stop behind her sister. Frustration overflowed. She drove the sides of her fists down onto the top of the sofa.

   
“Listen to what she’s saying, Corrine! We may learn nothing — and what if those awful men come back?”

   
Corrine didn’t answer at first. Her mouth hardened.

   
“Neal forgot Alf’s shotgun when he collected his things Sunday. I know where the shells are. I know how to load it. I’ll sit here, facing the door, and if I hear anyone coming in, I’ll shoot. It won’t matter that I can’t see them. I can’t miss.”

   
Isobel was too horrified to speak. It took some time before I could.

   
“What if it’s your nice neighbor lady, stopping in to check on you?” I asked.

   
“She’d call out to let me know who it was. She always does.”

   
“And what if she called out just as you were pulling the trigger?”

   
Corrine was silent. Her sister was still shaken.

   
“Please, Corrie! I’ve already told you that you could come to work with me—”

   
“And sit all day being useless? Have everyone pity me when you have to take my arm and guide me whenever I need to use the restroom?”

   
“No—”

   
“What about your church—” I began.

   
“No! I’m not going to be an object of pity. I can — I can—”

   
All at once she wilted. Tears squeezed noiselessly from her eyes.

   
“I’ll go to the institution. The home for people like me,” she said brokenly.

   
I heard her sister stifle a small cry. Corrine turned her face toward me. The tears slid out faster now. She extended a hand to me, pleading.

   
“Please. If I do that so I’m not a - a liability, will you keep investigating?”

Seventeen

   
My hands seemed welded to the wheel as I drove north on Brown from the Vanhorn house. I was furious that someone had humiliated a woman who’d fought so hard to be independent. Killing her dog. Then coming back to abduct her and mock her with a bag over her head.

   
I was going to find that someone.

   
I’d promised.

   
Maybe giving in to Corrine wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, but I was fairly certain it had been right. Nature had robbed her of her sight. I wasn’t going to let someone rob her of her dignity.

   
The problem was, Isobel had argued vehemently against her sister taking refuge in a home for the blind even temporarily. Though she didn’t say as much, I suspected she thought it might prove the final blow to Corrine’s self-confidence. She was no doubt right, but letting Corrine remain where she was meant Corrine might again be used as a pawn to stop the very investigation she wanted.

   
The trauma of the abduction, and her need to escape into the oblivion of sleep, had begun to make the unfortunate woman intractable. No, she wouldn’t have a bodyguard, even though I knew a couple of good ones. She cut off any mention of the police, whom I privately thought unlikely to help since she’d been neither assaulted or robbed. She wouldn’t let Isobel ask for another day off work, which was probably good if Isobel wanted to keep her job.

   
Finally Corrine was persuaded to let the neighbor woman stay with her the following day. The problem with that solution was that the neighbor might also be subjected to any violence which occured.

   
Surely, I reasoned, the hoodlums who’d abducted Corrine would wait for a few days before they tried anything else. They’d wait to see whether their scare tactics had put an end to my questions.