“So, Jack was an
offering
. Like a dead mouse. ‘See what I did for you? He gave you a parking ticket, so here he is, delivered to your doorstep.’ ”
“You think someone is in love with Angel and is showing her that by hurting people who upset her?” Martin raised his eyebrows, the picture of skepti cism.
“It makes a perverted kind of sense,” I said stoutly. “And poor Beverly’s purse being put on the hood of Angel’s car. To underline the fact that the attack was—in Angel’s honor.”
“So, Shelby was hit on the head because he’s her husband?”
“Right.”
“Why wasn’t he killed?”
“Maybe because I turned on the downstairs light?”
Martin nodded slowly, not as if he was in love with my theory, but to indicate he was giving it consideration.
“But what about Arthur?” he asked. “That won’t wash, with Arthur. I don’t think he and Angel have exchanged two words since she moved here.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said smugly, having that instant figured out where Arthur might tie in. “Remember, Arthur had called her in to the police station before he questioned me.”
“So this hypothetical admirer just decided he’d given Angel a hard time?”
“I guess. Actually, Faron Henske interviewed her, not Arthur.”
“Angel,” Martin said slowly, doubt in his voice. “I don’t know, Roe. Angel’s not the stuff dreams are made of.”
“Not
your
dreams. But I’ve seen men just about hang their tongues out when she walks down the street,” I said. “It’s because she’s so strong and sleek, I expect.”
“Hmmm. That’s an interesting theory . . .”
He didn’t believe it for a minute.
“And,” I added, having had a few more thoughts, “the police won’t think of it, I bet, because they’re seeing this as attacks on two policemen. Beverly could’ve been mugged and Shelby could’ve heard a prowler.”
“Roe, the police could be right.”
“Well . . . maybe. But I think I am. I just can’t understand,” I added, as I slid the beige-and-gold-enamel barrette into my hair to hold the waves off my face, “why the police couldn’t find the knife Arthur was stabbed with.”
“They certainly searched us all thoroughly,” Martin said, his voice dry. “Perry Allison had a pocketknife, but it was perfectly clean. I don’t think the wound could have been deep at all, if they suspected a pocketknife could’ve done it.”
“No blood on anyone . . .”
We shook our heads simultaneously at the opacity of the mystery surrounding the parking-lot stabbing of Arthur Smith, police detective.
Martin gave me a kiss and left to go to the hospital, and I finished preparing for church.
As I started a load of clothes in the washer on my way out the door, I reflected that this had been the best morning Martin and I had had in a while; longer than I liked to count up. For the past few months, Martin had been traveling more, had stayed in the office longer hours, had never let more than a day pass without going into the plant. Outside of work hours, the Athletic Club took up more time, and the meetings of all the boards and clubs he’d been asked to join—Community Charity Concern, Rotary, and so on and so on—ate into his lunchtimes and his evenings. I’d been increasingly on my own or thrown into the company of Angel and Shelby, with whom I had little in common, fond as I was of both of them.
As I retrieved my car keys from the hook by the south kitchen door, I realized Martin and I hadn’t gone out together at night, except for four community functions, in maybe three months.
This was not the life the young wife of a handsome, older, wealthy man was supposed to lead, right? He should be hitting all the nightspots flaunting me, right?
I’d heard the stupid phrase “trophy wife” behind my back on more than one occasion, and I thought it offensive and absurd. Of course I was quite a bit younger than Martin, and I was his second wife; but I was no voluptuous bimbo who’d married Martin for money and security. When Martin wanted to establish himself as the alpha male, he tended to challenge another man to racquetball rather than encourage me to wear low-cut dresses.
It might seem—to an outsider—that Martin, to some extent, had lost his taste for me. That our honeymoon was so far over that I was housekeeper and occasional companion to Martin, only. That I’d gone back to work because I was bored and unfulfilled as full-time wife. Or that my married life was sterile because I’d found out I was.
Well, I’d certainly succeeded in ruining my morning, all by myself.
I yanked open the garage door and backed out my lowly car, blotting my tears and listening to country and western music all the way to St. James’s. I pulled into the parking lot at nine-thirty on the dot. Aubrey, our rector, to whom I’d once been nearly engaged, conducted another service in a nearby town at eleven, so we were his early Eucharist.
My eyes were still red, but I powdered over my makeup again to look passable. I could hear the organ playing, so I stuffed my handkerchief and compact back into my purse and slid out of my car. As I slammed the door behind me and began trotting to the church, I heard another car door slam and registered that someone else was even later than I.
Standing at the back of the church, I spotted a familiar head of carefully styled Clairol brown hair. My mother and John Queensland were ensconced in their usual pew in front of the pulpit (John had been having hearing difficulties the past two years). Aubrey, the lay reader, the chalice bearer, and two acolytes were already lined up behind the choir for the procession to the altar. Aubrey and I exchanged fleeting smiles as I scooted past to duck into the next-to-the-back pew, which happened to be empty.
I had no sooner pulled down the kneeler and slid to my sore knees, grimacing with the discomfort, than I became aware of a man falling to his knees beside me.
I finished my belated prayer, shot to my feet, grabbed the hymnbook, and began trying to find my place in the song all the rest of the congregation was singing as the procession went down the central aisle. Suddenly, a hymnbook was thrust in front of my face, open to the correct page. I took it automatically and glanced up.
Dryden was looking down at me, his face unreadable, his eyes expressionless behind his heavy glasses. We exchanged a long look, searching on his part, quite blank on mine, since I hadn’t a thought in my head as to why Dryden would be here in my church juggling a prayer book with a hymnbook in the Episcopalian shuffle. He did not make the mistake of trying to establish a bogus rapport by sharing the hymnbook; but he pulled another one from the rack and joined in the singing with a great deal of enthusiasm.
Was this man
everywhere?
I couldn’t throw a stick without hitting him.
As we were preparing to listen to the First Reading, he whispered, “I put the Andersons on a plane this morning.”
I nodded curtly and kept my eyes straight forward. I couldn’t think of any good reason why I should be the recipient of this information.
“She said to tell you good-bye, that she appreciated you listening.”
I gave him a quelling look, the look I saved for teenage boys cutting up in the library.
It seemed to work pretty well on Dryden, because he sat through the rest of the service in silence, affording me some much-needed peace. I wondered if he would follow me up the aisle to take communion, but he stayed in the pew.
As we pushed the kneeler up after the final “Amen,” Dryden said quietly, “They’re not coming back. After the incident last night, she’s too afraid.”
I nodded acknowledgment. People were chatting all around us, and so far we weren’t attracting too much attention. I tucked my purse under my arm and opened my mouth to say a firm good-bye.
“I kind of like you,” he said suddenly.
I wondered if the steam coming out of my ears was visible. I took a deep breath to suck my temper back in. “I don’t care,” I said in a low, deadly voice, goaded into absolutely sincere rudeness. I was furious, and I was also terrified that any moment a curious church goer would wander up to be introduced.
Luckily, the rest of the congregation was in line to shake hands with Aubrey, all anxious to get out into the beautiful weather and go home to prepare Sunday dinner. They were also providing a welcome cover of conversational buzz.
My mother was talking to Patty Cloud. The detestable Patty was looking absolutely appropriate, as always. By a
remarkable coincidence
Patty had begun attending St. James’s soon after Mother married John Queensland, who was a lifelong communicant. John was having a back-slapping conversation with one of his golfing cronies.
So I was safe for the moment; but any second now, Mother’d look around and then the questions would begin when she called me later, about why I was sharing a pew with one of the objectionable men she’d met at Bess Burns’s house, and what he was saying to me.
“I got the punching bag out of the airplane for you,” was what he was saying.
I gaped at him.
I finally managed to say, “How did you know?”
“I was watching. With binoculars. From the top of that ridge between the airport and the road. An experiment your reporter friend thought of, huh? Incidentally, we think she’s right; that’s probably how Jack Burns landed in your yard. In that little plane, all the pilot had to do was lean over, open the passenger’s door, bank the plane, and out he went.”
“You were watching,” I said, unable to believe my ears. I recalled my long struggle with the bag going down the hill, the grueling process of getting it into the hangar and up into the plane, how I’d sworn and sweated.
“Yep. That was my job, till my bosses decided Jack’s landing in your yard was incidental. After that they withdrew O’Riley and put me watching the Andersons. But I liked watching you better; I never know what you’re going to do. Getting that bag down the hill was pretty hard.”
“Then why the
hell
didn’t you come help me?”
It was the only thing I could think of to say, and I spun on my heel and stalked off down the aisle, the last to shake Aubrey’s hand. He looked surprised at my expression, which must have been a picture. I said good-bye hastily and hurried out to my car, praying Mother wasn’t waiting for me in the parking lot. I love my mother, but I just wasn’t up to her today.
Somehow Dryden had gotten to his car quicker than I had, and he was pulling out of the parking lot as I unlocked the driver’s door. The car felt oppressively warm and damp inside; I stood by the open door for a minute or two to let the atmosphere clear out.
I needed the time myself. I was stunned and shaken by Dryden’s revelation. The thought of being watched when I thought myself unobserved gave me the cold creeps and a hot anger. Dryden must be good; I could believe I’d never spotted I was being followed, but I could scarcely believe Sally hadn’t suspected.
But then, why on earth would she?
I quickly considered Dryden cast in the role of Angel’s crazy admirer. I had to discard him, though only with great reluctance, after a little reasoning. But Dryden hadn’t met Angel until he’d come out to the house to “interview” me.
At least as far as I knew.
Angel’s past was largely unknown territory to me. Angel was not a great one for talking about herself. I knew she’d grown up in Florida, that she’d met Shelby when he paid a condolence call to her folks. Shelby had been a Vietnam pal not only of Martin, but also of Angel’s much older brother Jimmy Dell. Jimmy Dell had met his Maker after the war and far away from Vietnam, in the mountains of Central America.
Shelby had waited a few years for Angel to grow up, then he’d married her. They’d always been happy together, as far as I could see. Even the day or two Shelby had doubted Angel’s pregnancy was his work had not, in the end, disrupted their relationship.
Maybe somewhere along the way she’d met Dryden. Maybe they’d both been acting cleverly the day I introduced them.
But what would have been the point in that?
Oh, this was all so confusing.
I looked at my watch. Martin had had plenty of time to pack up the invalid and take both Youngbloods home. The funeral wasn’t until two. I turned the key in the ignition and put the car into drive.
Automatically, I turned toward home as I left the parking lot. But after a block, I realized I really didn’t feel like seeing anyone right now. Perhaps I wanted to sulk awhile; maybe roll in a little self-pity. Sometimes I surfaced from my life to look at it in wonderment and irritation and also a certain amount of bafflement. I should have ended up in a house like my mother’s, married to someone like Charlie Gorman, a perfectly nice boy I’d dated in high school. Charlie had always made class vice president; he was the salutatorian; he just missed being handsome. He would have been a good father for, say, two little girls; he’d done well in computers since he’d graduated from college. If I’d married Charlie, I would never have known anyone who died of murder; I would never have seen a dead person. We’d go to Walt Disney World, I dreamed, and we’d camp out . . .