Gibbon's Decline and Fall (6 page)

Stace's eyes overflowed. “Do I want to be married to some lab rat who forgets I'm even around?”

She fled to the bathroom, drowning her sniffles in running water and muttered imprecations.

Frowning, Carolyn took up her comb, separated her hair into plaits, and began braiding, disturbed by this evidence of unusual irritation. Ordinarily Stace had Hal's sunny disposition. And Luce wasn't the kind of man to risk a relationship lightly. It had to be his work obsessing him. Lifework was like that; it did obsess. Hal's work with the Bureau had, until he'd retired; then country life had taken its place. Carolyn's love affair with the law had. Until suddenly it hadn't anymore.

Lips tight, she set the memory aside. After a time Stace returned, shiny-faced.

“I didn't come out here to talk about Luce and me,” she said angrily as she plumped herself into the chair once more. “I didn't come to ask advice about my personal life. I don't want advice about it. I don't even want to think about it. What I really came for was to ask a favor.”

“What do you need?”

“Actually, it's not for me.”

“Who's it for?”

“Lolly Ashaler.”

Carolyn frowned. The name was teasingly familiar. She'd heard it somewhere. Television. Morning news?

“The baby,” Stace prodded. “In the Dumpster.”

Oh, right. Now she remembered. “You mean the mother of the baby in the Dumpster.”

“In a manner of speaking. You know my boss?”

“Dr. Belmont.” The psychologist with whom Stace was serving her internship.

“Right. She does expert-witness stuff, profiles of criminal types, omniscience in action, all that kind of thing for the district attorney's office.…”

Carolyn felt a momentary gulp of the spirit, an enormous hesitation, as though for one split instant the world had stopped. She made herself say the name: “For Jake Jagger?”

“Right. El Taco Grande, himself. Rumor has it he's going to get into politics, maybe run for governor.”

Darkness. A red glow. Carolyn had shut her eyes not to see. Would shut her ears not to hear, if she could. What was that sign Mediterranean people made, to avert the evil eye? That's what she needed. A way of recoiling, so as not to think about Jagger! Jagger, who had married Carolyn's friend, Helen. Jagger, who would end up killing Helen, as he may well have killed her sister Greta.

She took a deep, calming breath.

Stace was looking across the room, not noticing. “Anyhow, Jagger's office sent Dr. Belmont out to the prison to check out Lolly Ashaler, and she took me along as witness and to run the tape recorder.”

Carolyn forced Jagger's wolf-grin image out of her mind and tried to concentrate on Lolly Ashaler. “I see.”

Rather surprisingly, she did remember seeing: about a month ago on the evening news. It had been Channel umph. The one that touted its ability to be on the scene, and always was, ready at airtime with some talking head blurting breathless irrelevancies before a usually unidentifiable locale, indisputably there, wherever “there” was. The beginning of the Lolly Ashaler story had differed from the usual. Less persona, more cinema verité: movement, sound, an adequacy of chill light. A March afternoon left over from winter. Cops with their collars up, breaths steaming. A paved area backed by
graffiti-smeared walls, the camera moving past a stained mattress and the decomposed corpse of a recliner, then on to a Dumpster gaping like an ogre's maw to spew a paper-wrapped bloody mess and the head of a dead newborn. The head was the only phony-looking thing in the picture: waxen and doll-like.

Uncharacteristically, the reporter had stayed out of it and let the pitiable speak for itself, but the TV station hadn't stayed on the journalistic high ground. All the reporters had plunged at once into avid melodrama, baying on the trail, issuing updates with glittering eyes in hushed and horrified tones as the police searched for the mother. The Mother. Then the mother who had abandoned. Then the mother who had killed. The father wasn't mentioned, an omission that Carolyn had noted at the time. All in all, a distasteful mess.

Carolyn frowned as she started another braid. “As I recall, the girl's so-called friends or neighbors ratted on her. Which put an end to the hoo-raw for the nonce. The circus sort of died down.”

“Actually, it was back in the news last night.”

“I must have missed it.”

“You didn't miss much. That noxious blond reporter, Bonnie something, the one with the eyes? She put a panel together, what she called a cross section of the local public.”

Carolyn made a face. “Did they talk about sending a message?”

“Oh, very definitely. They want to send a strong message.”

“The media are into messages lately. Were they for public stoning? Or should she just wear a scarlet letter
M?
”

“They were talking about that woman a few years back. The one who drowned her kids. Poor Lolly.”

“What is it you want me to do for poor Lolly?”

“Defend her,” said Stace, looking at her feet.

Carolyn's face went blank. She felt it sag and close, like an old door with a loose top hinge. “The court will appoint an attorney for her, Stace.”

“Her court-appointed attorney came up to us outside the jail to talk to Belmont, very buddy-buddy and insider-like. He thinks they ought to tank her tomorrow and set her clock for the year 3000. For God's sake, Mother, he was wearing an Army of God button.”

Carolyn's lips pursed, and she clenched her teeth. A part
of the American Alliance, the Army of God was a national religio-political coalition, nominally Christian, which had brought under its wing most of the factions who considered themselves traditional. Certainly an Army of God stalwart would be the worst possible defender for Lolly Ashaler. In the eyes of the Army, the girl was damned for half a dozen reasons already!

Carolyn muttered, “The girl, Lolly … she can ask for someone else.”

Stace gestured angrily with her brush. “I know that. You know that. She's just turned fifteen, for God's sake. She's so dumb she doesn't know what's happening, much less what her rights are.”

“I'm retired, Stace. Three years now.” Since spending time with Hal had become more important than anything else. Or, as she occasionally accused herself, since daily confrontations with evil had become too much to bear. Which was it? Perhaps both.

“You're still a member of the bar. You're still licensed to practice.”

“You must have a reason for asking me.” She wound the finished braid into a coronet, tucking the ends between the coils.

“I don't want to prejudice you with my reasons. Just talk to her, all right? I told her … I told her you would.”

Carolyn wanted to say no. Not. Not go up against cock-o'-the-walk Jagger, with his prancy feet and his rooster stance and his dead eyes. Jagger, who was married to her friend, Helen, and how was Helen managing to survive? Or was she? God help her. Carolyn ground her teeth audibly.

“Mom?”

“Stace, if Jagger is prosecuting, I'd be the worst person to defend her. I lost the Wilson case to Jagger. I blame myself for what happened to Greta Wilson.” She blamed herself for believing in decency, for being blind to how far some people were willing to go to win. She blamed herself for leading Greta Wilson like a lamb to the slaughter.

“Her sister Helen didn't blame you, Mom. Her folks didn't blame you.”

No, Helen hadn't blamed her. But, then, Helen had been married to Jagger long enough to know what he was like. If only she had told her sister Greta, or if she'd told Carolyn!

Reading the line of her mother's tightened jaw, Stace fell
silent, and Carolyn turned back to her mirror, retrieving a handful of tortoiseshell hairpins in trembling fingers and anchoring her hair, one pin for each slow, calculated breath.

“Great-grandma's hairpins,” said Stace, changing the subject, letting the matter cool. “When did you start using those?”

Carolyn paused, one hairpin halfway in. When had she? “I guess it was when I looked in the mirror and saw my grandmother's face.” The non-Crespin grandma. The fondly remembered grandma.

“Well, still, Mom—tortoiseshell?” Her tone was a reproof.

Carolyn shook her head. “The turtle responsible for these pins is a long time dead. My not using the pins won't bring turtles back.”

Stace replied doubtfully, “I suppose that's true. Like ivory piano keys. It doesn't bring back elephants to junk all pianos.” She stood up, thrusting her hands into the shallow pockets of her jacket, thereby dislodging several envelopes that spilled to the floor as she scrambled to recover them. “I forgot. I stopped at your mailbox for your mail.”

Carolyn frowned, holding out her hand. “Mail? On Sunday?”

“Mom, it's Monday.”

“Is it?” Of course it was, if Stace said so. Lord, she was getting senile. What was it Faye used to call it? Halfheimer's Disease, or CRS—Can't Remember Shit. She was forgetting all kinds of things. People's names. Places she'd been.

“There's a letter from Louisiana, from Sister Agnes.”

“Her RSVP, probably,” murmured Carolyn, sorting out the envelopes and ripping the smallest one open with her nail file. The brief note bore no pious superscription and the fewest possible words.

Dear Carolyn, it seems ages since I've seen you all! Tell Ophy I am bringing oysters for all of us, especially for her, and for you. Love, Aggie
. Enclosed with the invitation was a printed leaflet extolling the virtues of the contaminant-free and succulent oysters, ranch grown at the Abbey of St. Clare. Carolyn was a pig when it came to oysters. Ophy loved them, but there hadn't been any edible on the East Coast for several years and might not be ever again.

Stace asked curiously, “So Aggie is coming this year? She missed last year, didn't she?”

“She did. The abbess, Reverend Mother Elias, had died at age ninety something, and until a new one was elected, none of the sisters could get permission to do anything or go anywhere.”

Stace leaned across her mother's shoulder to look at the framed photograph on the dressing table: the DFC, camping it up in costume, outside the kitchen door. “How long ago was this?”

“Your dad took that picture when I hosted the 1994 meeting. Six years ago.”

“Why are you all dressed up like that?”

Carolyn laughed. “We'd just remodeled the kitchen, and Sophy insisted we should have a dedication. She said the kitchen was as close as people in our culture ever got to the sacred hearth, so we ought to dedicate it as holy ground.”

Stace, still peering at the photo, said, “That explains the drums, rattles, and panpipes, I guess. Why feathers?”

Carolyn cocked her head, remembering Sophy's explanation. “Symbolic, I think. Birds build nests. Humans build homes.”

“What did you do?”

“Actually, it was rather fun. We did some chanting in what Sophy said was her native tongue. We did some drumming, Sophy burned incense and sprinkled the room with attar of this and essence of that, and we planted some herbs in a special container on the kitchen windowsill. Sophy brought the soil and the pot and the seeds, all blessed, she said. I never asked by whom.”

“Is that the little herb garden? The pretty green trough with the wavy glaze?”

“Rosemary, parsley, and thyme, in an emerald pot, yes. I don't know why they've outlived every other houseplant I've ever had, but they have. Maybe they really were blessed. Anyhow, we ended the ceremony with a festive meal, and we all drank champagne.”

“Why haven't I ever met the rest of them?” Stace asked plaintively. “I only know Aunt Bettiann.”

“Times we met here, I think you were always off at camp or school or something.”

“So tell me about the others.”

Carolyn ran her fingers across the costumed images, then set a fingertip on the oval-faced, olive-skinned image at the left, tassels of red flicker feathers dangling over her ears. “This
is Jessamine Iolantha Ortiz-Oneil. Her mother is Japanese, her father is Hispanic, she's a scientist married to a politician, a professional Irishman: all charm and no damn good. Patrick. They used to live in San Francisco. They moved to Utah in ninety-eight, when Bio-Tech went there, and she's still up to her neck in genetic research.”

“This is the sculptor?” Stace asked, pointing to a sleek, dark-skinned woman with cornrowed and beaded hair decked with a long upright wing feather. “The one you say could have been an opera singer.”

“Yes, that's Faye Whittier. She has a studio in the mountains outside Denver. She isn't doing her hair like that now. Last time I saw her, a few weeks ago, she was back to the way I first knew her, with a very short natural cut. She can wear it like that, she has a gorgeous head.”

“Is she married?”

“Never. I guess you'd call Faye an evangelical lesbian. In my untutored opinion she's a very great artist. She's recently been commissioned to do a huge fountain for a new trade center in Europe, and she wants me to model for her. Don't laugh. She has in mind some kind of heavy-bottomed earth-mother figure, no doubt.”

“I wouldn't laugh. I think you're very sculptural.”

“Not a quality I would ever have claimed for myself! I'm worried about Faye. She didn't look well last time I saw her.”

“And the skinny one beating the tom-tom? She looks like a lemur.”

“She does, a little. It's the huge eyes behind the big glasses. Ophelia Weisman Gheist, M.D. We always called her Ophy. She married Simon Gheist, the journalist. They wanted children but were never able to have any. It's a pity, she'd be a great mom. She's still in New York City, trying to save lives in that battle zone she calls a hospital.”

“And this gorgeous one with the panpipes is Sophy.” The pictured face was serene beneath her finger, the dark hair smooth as silk. “Indian, wasn't she?”