Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow (14 page)

“Mom, he couldn’t have heard through that door,” Emily said. “You’ve just both happened to come up with the same suspect. Weird.”

“No kidding?” he said. “Well—I guess it shows our minds still work the same way.”

“All it shows,” I retorted, keeping my eyes on Emily, “is what a plausible suspect she is. Somebody else realized how many suspicious facts there were, without even knowing all the things
I
know about her.”

“What things?” he asked, but I turned back to the stove and poured the eggs into the skillet, ignoring him.

“Mom’s learned that Perdita Stone has a talent for imitating men’s voices. She used to do it onstage. And she did have reason to accuse her husband of killing their child—”

“Danda!” I heard Archie yell, and Quin answered, “Hi there, sport!” I was laying pieces of cheddar cheese on top of the scrambled eggs and didn’t look until I heard Emily say tensely, “Dad, I wish you wouldn’t do that! He really doesn’t need to fall on his head again.”

I turned around and saw Archie just missing the ceiling while Quin waited for him to land in his arms. Rose and Emily both watched wide-eyed with alarm, but Archie was screaming in delight. Quin caught him and turned him upside down, increasing his hilarity.

“Dad! I said I wish you wouldn’t!” Emily repeated as I dished up the eggs and brought them in to her.

“Oh, come on, baby. A boy needs some roughhousing. You don’t want him to be a little sissy, do you?”

“You and Mom both have this idea that you know what he needs better than I do—it’s enough to drive anybody to distraction!”

I could tell she was pretty near the end of her rope. “You’re right, love,” I said, going over to put an arm around her shoulders. “We should never argue with your way of raising Archie. You’re doing a great job.”

Quin set Archie down and came over to us.

“Yeah, we don’t mean to be critical,” he said. “It’s just hard for two old meddlers like us to mind our own business.”

Our eyes met. I could see he understood how distraught Emily was. She looked up at him, then at me, and a little smile came to her lips. For just a moment we were a unit again, instead of two warring camps.

A dangerous moment. I never should have let “we” and “us” sneak into the conversation. I cut it short by sneering, “Where’s Barbie, then?”

“Who?” he asked.

Emily sat down with a sigh. “Oh, what difference does it make now? It’s what Mom and I have always called Janet. We expected her to be younger and more—well, remember my Barbie dolls?”

“Your mother always hated them,” Quin said slowly.

“Yes, she never wanted me to have them,” Emily agreed. “She only gave in when I convinced her I was becoming a social outcast because I couldn’t do Barbies with my friends. Remember, Mom?” she almost begged me.

I knew she wanted to bring back that moment of rapport, but I just couldn’t do it for her. I turned away abruptly and picked up the phone.

“I’m going to call John Bennett and see if I can talk to him this morning,” I said and started dialling.

But he wasn’t at the station, nor expected back that day. I asked for the detectives in charge of the case and got the same answer.

“Damn!” I banged down the phone.

“Now, calm down,” Quin said in that too-familiar patronizing tone. “We’re going to see the solicitor tomorrow and file a motion for bail—”

“Oh yes, the great Billingsley!” I snapped. “If you ask me, he’s a dud. If we—if everybody waits for him to do something, Peter will spend days and days in jail unnecessarily. Well,” I went on, grabbing up my purse from a chair, “I’m not going to hang around. I’m going to talk to Perdita myself.”

“Mother!” Emily protested, rising from her chair. “That woman is in a very precarious psychological condition. You just can’t go over there and start harassing her, there’s no telling what could result.”

“I’m sorry, dear, but
somebody
has to do something about this, and not next month, or next week, or tomorrow. She’s just crazy—I mean, disturbed enough to break down and confess if she’s presented with—”

“Mother, you can’t do that! You have no idea how to approach someone in her condition. Will you for once listen to me?”

“Why don’t you go too?” Quin said. “You’re the only one who knows how to deal with her, after all you were her therapist.”

“She doesn’t want to see me.” But I could see she was thinking about it, so I chimed in.

“It would be a good use of your expertise. You might get her to open up, and if there’s even the smallest chance of saving Peter, don’t you think you should try?”

Quin saluted my cunning with a thumbs-up, behind her. I pretended not to see it.

“You’re right,” she finally said, “I can’t let you go to her on your own, and I know you will. Just wait while I get dressed.”

I was hoping Quin would leave, but he only raised my blood pressure higher by sitting down and starting to eat my rejected scrambled eggs. I wanted to put the plate in his face, but instead I went into the nursery, where I listened while Archie played his nursery rhymes for a quarter of an hour. When Emily came to get me, dressed in one of her dark power suits, with her long hair bundled up behind her head, I knew she was serious about the coming interview. She had put on her professional-therapist persona.

Unfortunately, we were not going to do it alone. Quin fell into step on the other side of her, and the three of us climbed St. Aldate’s looking, to any passing pedestrian, like a nice American family. There was nothing I could do about it except to keep my eyes straight ahead and my mind on the goal of clearing Peter. I could put up with anything, even Quin, for that.

Wish me good speed;

For I am going into a wilderness

Where I shall find nor path nor friendly clue

To be my guide.

—John Webster,
Duchess of Malfi

C
ows, by God. Only in England would you see cows grazing on a college campus,” Quin said as I led him and Emily down the Broad Walk beside Christ Church Meadow.

“I’m impressed,” he went on. “You really know your Oxford. How did you find out about this shortcut?”

When I pretended not to hear, Emily said with some irritation, “Mother, will you please just be polite and answer him?”

“Look, Emily,” I began, and then gave up. It wasn’t worth quarreling over. I wouldn’t turn my eyes toward him, but I answered shortly, “Geoffrey Pidgeon showed it to me.”

“Huh. I didn’t know you were so friendly with that guy,” he said.

“There’s a lot you don’t know.”

After that we continued in silence until Addison’s Walk, when he exclaimed, “Cows at one end and deer at the other! And it’s not exactly an agriculture college, is it?” That actually got a small giggle from Emily, and I was glad to hear it. He’d always been able to make her laugh.

The blinds were drawn on the downstairs windows at Perdita Stone’s house. There was no light coming through, and a full milk bottle stood uncollected on the doorstep. After knocking for almost ten minutes, we had to conclude she was either asleep or not at home.

“There’s no car in the driveway,” I remarked.

“They never had a car,” Emily reminded me. “Why didn’t we call first? Or at least bring
my
car. That walk was exhausting, and all for nothing.”

“You need to get more exercise,” I told her and immediately regretted it as I heard her taking a deep breath preparatory to defending her lifestyle.

“There must be a back door,” Quin cut in quickly. “Let’s go knock on it. Maybe she’s in the back of the house.”

We went around into a neglected yard and knocked again, with no more success. I noticed an open window, low enough to look through, and I leaned toward it from the doorstep and called, “Mrs. Stone, are you in there? It’s Catherine Penny. I’m—I have something really interesting to show you.”

“What?” Emily asked, and I shrugged, holding out my empty hands. It had seemed like a good lure to get her to open the door. But there was no sound inside.

I gave the window a push and it went up farther. “I’m going inside,” I informed them, getting ready to launch myself from the step.

Sounds of consternation arose behind me. “Mother, don’t even think of sneaking into that house!” Emily ordered, and Quin barked, “That’s breaking and entering, you know.”

“Don’t be silly,” I retorted as I got one leg over the windowsill.

I grabbed the sides of the window and pulled myself up with some difficulty until I was sitting with my legs inside while he continued to fume: “It’s not going to help anybody to have you in jail too!” and she threatened, “Mother, I’m leaving. Do you hear me? I’m not going to be a party to criminal behavior!”

I slid down slowly until my feet were on the kitchen floor, then went and flipped the latch on the door and opened it.

“You can come in or not,” I said to her, “but I’m not going to neglect a chance like this to find evidence.”

“Get out of there, Kit,” Quin said urgently. “Stop and think for once. If you’re right and that woman’s a crazy killer, do you really want to surprise her in there?”

That gave me pause for a few seconds, long enough for Emily to add, “And if she’s not there, she might come back at any time and find you searching her house!”

“Then why don’t you wait out there, and shout if you see her coming?” I turned away to begin my investigations before she could give me an argument.

I left the kitchen and went through the hall to the murder scene, the library. The house was so still it felt eerie, and when I heard a footstep behind me I spun around with a pounding heart. It was Quin, shaking his head and frowning at me.

“You’ll never learn to think things over before jumping in, will you?” he said in a stage-whisper.

“Why don’t you go have sex with your girlfriend?” I hissed back. “I don’t need your help!”

“You will if Mrs. Stone shows up with a knife,” he said grimly.

I turned my back on him and started opening the drawers of the desk, rummaging through the things you’d expect to find there—pens and pencils, old receipts, paper clips. I opened the rosewood writing box that sat on the desk and found only bundles of old, yellowed letters tied with red ribbon.

They didn’t look like evidence, so I moved on to the bookshelves on the wall behind, pulling out books at random to look behind them. Some of them were so old and badly preserved, pages fell out and had to be pushed back in. I gave up on them and went to peer up the chimney.

Quin stood in the doorway and watched me, his arms folded. Finally he said, “Kit, don’t you think the police have done all that?”

“Oh, shut up!” I answered imaginatively. I went back to the hall and started up the stairs. With one of his exasperated sighs, he followed me.

She wasn’t in either of the bedrooms, but some sweaters and a long green dress lay on one of the beds. When I went into the room I found the wardrobe door open and nothing but empty hangars inside.

“Looks like she’s skipped town,” Quin said. I opened the drawers of the handsome oak dresser. There were some socks scattered around in the top drawer, but no nightgowns or underwear.

So Perdita had slipped away before she could be questioned. Could she have found out I suspected her? But how could that be, unless someone at High Table last night had guessed it by something I’d done or said, and told her? Geoffrey, of course. And that must mean he knew she’d killed Edgar—why else would she have to escape?

“Had enough?” Quin said. “You know the police picked up any evidence there was, and the lady’s not here to be questioned, so let’s just put our idea in the hands of Billingsley, or your friend Bennett. I’ll bet they’ll want to find her and question her.”

“Oh, so there couldn’t be evidence of her guilt left
after
the murder, after the police got through searching and focused all their attention on Peter? That’s how much you know.”

I took a look in the other bedroom, which appeared to have been Edgar’s, austerely masculine and seemingly untouched since the murder. I poked around, feeling a bit of a shudder as I went through the pockets of the dead man’s jackets in the closet. Eventually I gave it up and went back downstairs, Quin shadowing me all the way.

I really hated to leave empty-handed and let him be right. I gave the study one more chance, and at last, on the telephone table in the corner, I found a notepad with just one notation, scrawled in pencil: 257 lv 11:04 ar 11:28

“Come on, Kit,” I heard Quin saying, “you’re not going to find any—”

“I
have
found something! It’s a train schedule, I think. See that?” I thrust the notepad at him triumphantly, and he looked at it with the first sign of interest he’d shown.

“She could have copied it after calling the National Rail,” he said. “Don’t take that, I’ll write the numbers down and we can show them to the police.”

But I was already going through the telephone book that lay beside the notepad. When I had the number for train information at Oxford station, I dialed it and muttered some choice words under my breath when a recorded voice asked me to wait for the next available assistant.

“Got you on hold, eh?” Quin said with a grin.

They’d got me well and truly on hold. After ten minutes of canned music assaulting my ear, I slammed the receiver down and tore the sheet of paper off the pad.

“Okay, so far we’ve got breaking and entering
and
tampering with evidence,” Quin said to my back as I strode out where Emily stood, biting her lip. On my way I had folded the paper and slipped it into my pocket.

“She’s packed up and gone away,” I told her. “Guess there’s nothing we can do until she turns up again. I’ll go and tell the police about it. I’m sure they can locate her.”

She was immediately relieved. “Yes, that’s the best plan. You don’t know how glad I am she wasn’t in there! I’m going to take the bus back, get my car, and go to the hospital for my ten o’clock group, so you go ahead and ask the police what they think about this. Did you relock the door, Dad?” I heard him saying that he had while I made my way ahead of them to the front gate. “Mom, don’t tell the police you went into her house!” she called after me. “Just say she’s not answering the phone and you’re concerned, so they can—”

“Don’t worry, best beloved!” I called over my shoulder. “I’ll be very discreet.”

I cut through the deer park again, but then turned right and got myself on Broad Street, alternately jogging and race-walking past Wren’s golden Sheldonian Theatre, the incomparable Blackwell’s bookstore, the ornate blue gates of Trinity College, and Debenham’s glass entrance doors, until I emerged into Hythe Bridge Street and the ugly modern buildings around the railroad station. It wasn’t an easy walk, because Oxford’s sidewalks are always crowded with pedestrians, all following different traffic laws. I had finally learned that the English walk, as well as drive, on the left, but Americans and other foreigners keep to the right, so there is a lot of last-minute swerving to avoid collisions. You might even be forced to step off the curb, sometimes right into the path of a speeding bicycle. I was quite proud to have covered that distance so quickly without being upended by some bewildered tourist. It was always heartening to see evidence that I wasn’t yet ready to start pricing rocking chairs.

I entered the train station feeling strong and fit, quite capable of carrying out the risky plan I’d evolved on the way. Then as I headed toward the information booth, from the corner of my eye I saw Quin standing by a rank of telephones, watching me while he spoke into a receiver. I started toward the booth again, but before I reached it he was beside me.

“I already asked them,” he said. “The two-fifty-seven is the train to Manchester, and the next one leaves in ten minutes from track twelve.”

“What are you
doing
here?” I demanded. “I don’t
want
you here.”

“I knew you’d go looking for Perdita Stone on your own, so I flagged a cab. You didn’t fool me with that stuff about putting it in the hands of the police. Emily doesn’t understand how your mind works, but I do. I’m not going to let you go into danger alone.”

“What makes you think you have anything to say about it?”

He held up a couple of slips of paper. “Two tickets to Manchester. Come on.”

“But why would she want to go there? I never heard that she—does that train make any stops on the way there?”

“Don’t know. You think she was heading for someplace between here and there?”

I didn’t answer him but went over to the information booth, where I had to wait five minutes or so behind a turbaned Sikh having trouble understanding the train schedule. When I finally put my question to the attendant, he started rattling off a list of town names. I thanked him hurriedly and bought my own ticket for the third name on the list—Tyneford.

Quin was right at my shoulder as I trotted toward track twelve. “You think she’s gone to this Tyneford?” he said. “What’s there? Why are we—”

“
We
aren’t doing anything!” I snapped, turning on him as we reached the train. “For the last and final time, leave me alone!”

But he was right behind me going up the steps into the train, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it, except maybe turn around and kick him.

“Look, I want to clear Peter as much as you do,” he said. “I called Janet and told her I’m following a lead and won’t be back for a few hours. She’ll just have to live with it. I’m not going to let you go after some nut alone. And
you’ll
have to live with that.”

“Don’t tell me what I have to do,” I said automatically, but I’d given up.

The train was surprisingly crowded. Maybe people commuted to Manchester at this time in the morning, at any rate all the seats were filled and people were standing with their hands wrapped around straps hanging from the ceiling. I got hold of one of these, but an older man, complete with bowler hat and furled umbrella, rose from a nearby front-facing seat and gestured for me to take it. Strong and capable though I like to think myself, I was touched by the old-fashioned gesture and sat down thankfully. I hadn’t been looking forward to standing for half an hour or so on a swaying train after tramping all those miles through Oxford.

Quin took a strap and stood over me. His very presence made me feel like running somewhere, anywhere, just escaping. For thirty years that presence had been the most comforting thing in my life, never really thought about, just a necessity that would always be there, like dinner or a roof over my head. Now it made me edgy, angry, almost afraid. I caught a faint whiff of the scent of pipe tobacco that always hung around him, evocative of thousands of moments I wouldn’t let myself remember.

He said nothing but kept his eyes on me. At the first stop, just outside Oxford, the fellow in the side-facing seat in front of mine got up and left the train. Quin took the seat, of course. Now we were pretty much face-to-face. I stared out the window determinedly, watching stone walls, power lines, and tracks slide by faster and faster. I thought I knew how a rabbit must feel with its leg caught in a trap.