Carrion Comfort (41 page)

“Jimmy Wayne,” said Aaron. “What ever,” said Saul. “Do you really think we should bother your superiors at the embassy and get
real
agents involved and perhaps even let all this come to the attention of David, sick as he is, for some
meshuggener
meeting to discuss some dirty movie or something?”

Aaron’s thin face was beet red. For a second Saul thought the young man was going to cry. “All right, Uncle Saul, you
won’t
tell me anything?”

Saul touched his nephew’s hand again. “I swear to you on your mother’s grave, Moddy, I’ve told you everything that makes sense to me. I’ll be in Washington another day or two. Perhaps I could come over and see you and Deborah again and we could talk. Across the river, isn’t it?”

“Alexandria,” said Aaron. “Yes. What about to night?”

“I have a meeting,” said Saul. “But tomorrow . . . I would love a home-cooked meal.” Saul looked over his shoulder at the three Israelis who now made up the rest of the restaurant’s clientele. “What do we tell them?”

Aaron adjusted his own glasses. “Only Levi knows why we’re here. We were all going out to lunch anyway . . .” Aaron looked fiercely into Saul’s eyes. “Do you know what you’re doing, Uncle Saul?”

“Yes,” said Saul, “I do. And right now I want to do as little as possible, relax a bit over the rest of the vacation, and prepare for January’s classes. Moddy, you wouldn’t have one of them”— Saul cocked his head—“follow me or anything, would you? It might be embarrassing to a certain . . . ah, female colleague I hope to have dinner with to night.”

Aaron grinned. “We couldn’t spare the manpower anyway,” he said.

“Only Levi there has any field status. Harry and Barbara work with me in ciphers.” Both men stood. “Tomorrow, Uncle Saul? Shall I come in to pick you up?”

“No, I have a rental car,” said Saul. “About six?”

“Earlier if you can,” said Aaron. “You’ll have time to play with the twins before dinner.”

“Four-thirty then,” said Saul. “And we will talk?”

“I promise,” said Saul.

The two men walked up the stairs to the area under the dome, hugged, and went their separate ways. Saul stood just inside the gift shop until he saw Harry, Barbara, and the swarthy man named Levi depart together. Then he went slowly upstairs to the Impressionist section.

The girl in the straw hat was still waiting, looking up and out with the slightly startled, slightly puzzled, slightly hurt expression that moved something within Saul. He stood there a long time, thinking about family and about vengeance and about fear. He found himself wondering about his own morality— if not about his sanity— at involving two goyim in what could never be their struggle.

He decided that he would go back to the hotel, take a very long and very hot shower, and read a bit of the Mortimer Adler book. Then, when the rates went down, he would call Charleston, talk to both Natalie and the sheriff if possible. He would tell them that his meeting had gone well; that he knew now that the producer who had died on the flight from Charleston had not been the German colonel who haunted his nightmares. He would admit that he had been under stress recently and let them draw their own conclusions about his analysis of Nina Drayton and the events in Charleston.

Saul was still in front of the painting of the girl in the straw hat and was lost deep in thought when the low voice behind him said, “It’s a very pretty picture, is it not? It seems so sad that the girl who posed for it must be dead and rotted away by now.”

Saul spun around. Francis Harrington stood there, eyes gleaming strangely, freckled face as pale as a death mask. The slack lips jerked upward as if pulled by hooks and strings until a rictal grimace showed a wide expanse of teeth in a terrible simulation of a smile. The arms and hands moved upward as if to embrace or engulf Saul.

“
Guten Tag, mein alte Freund,
” said the thing that had been Francis Harrington. “
Wie geht’s, mein kleiner Bauer?
. . . My favorite little pawn?”

T
he lobby of the hospital held a three-foot silver Christmas tree set in the center of the waiting area. Five empty but brightly wrapped presents were scattered around its base and children had made paper ornaments to hang from the branches. Sunlight painted white and yellow rectangles on the tile floor.

Sheriff Bobby Joe Gentry nodded at the receptionist as he crossed the lobby and headed for the elevators. “Mornin’ and Merry Christmas, Miz Howells,” he called. Gentry punched the elevator button and stood waiting with a large white paper sack in his arms.

“Merry Christmas, Sheriff!” called the seventy-year-old volunteer. “Oh, Sheriff, could I bother you for a second?”

“No bother, ma’am.” Gentry ignored the opening elevator doors and walked over to the woman’s desk. She wore a pastel-green smock that clashed with the darker green of plastic pine boughs on the Formica counter in front of her. Two Silhouette romance novels lay read and discarded near her rolodex. “How can I help you, Miz Howell?” asked Gentry.

The old woman leaned forward and lowered her bifocals so that they hung by their beaded chain. “It’s about that colored woman on four they brought in last night,” she began in an excited whisper that fell just short of sounding conspiratorial.

“Yes’m?”

“Nurse Oleander says that you were sitting up there all night . . . sort of like a guard . . . and that you had a deputy there outside the room this morning when you had to leave . . .”

“That’s Lester,” said Gentry. He shifted the weight of the sack against his shirt. “Lester and I are the only one’s in the sheriff’s office that aren’t married ’n’ all. We tend to hold down the holiday duty.”

“Well, yes,” said Mrs. Howell, thrown off the track a bit, “but we were wondering, Nurse Oleander and I, it being Christmas Eve and morning and everything, well . . . what was this colored girl
charged
with? I mean, I know it may be official business and everything, but it is true that this girl is a suspect in the Mansard House murders and had to be brought in by force?”

Gentry smiled and leaned forward. “Miz Howell, can you keep a secret?”

The receptionist set her thick glasses back in place, pursed her lips, sat very erect, and nodded. “Certainly, Sheriff,” she said. “What ever you tell me won’t go any further than this desk.”

Gentry nodded and leaned over farther to whisper close to her ear. “Ms. Preston is my fiancée. She doesn’t like the idea much so I’ve been keeping her locked up down in my cellar. She tried to up and get away last night while we was out wassailing so I had to whup her one. Lester’s up there holdin’ a gun on her now ’til I get back.”

Gentry looked back once to wink before entering the elevator. Ms. Howell’s posture was as perfect as before, but her glasses had slipped down to the tip of her nose and her mouth hung slightly open.

Natalie looked up as Gentry entered the double room she had all to herself.

“Good mornin’ and Merry Christmas!” he called. He pulled her wheeled tray over and plunked the white sack onto it. “Ho, ho, ho.”

“Merry Christmas,” said Natalie. Her voice was strained and husky. She winced and raised her left hand to her throat.

“Seen the bruises there yet?” asked Gentry, leaning forward to inspect them again himself.

“Yes,” whispered Natalie. “Whoever did that had fingers like Van Cliburn,” said Gentry. “How’s your head?”

Natalie touched the large ban dage on the left side of her head. “What happened?” she asked huskily. “I mean, I remember being choked but not hitting my head . . .”

Gentry began removing white Styrofoam food cartons from the sack. “Doctor been in yet?”

“Not since I’ve been awake.”

“Doc thinks you banged it against the door frame of the car when you were strugglin’ with the fella,” said Gentry. He took the lid off of large Styrofoam cups of steaming coffee and plastic glasses of orange juice. “Just a bruise that bled a little. It was the chokin’ that knocked you out.”

Natalie touched her throat and winced at the memory. “Now I know what it’s like to be strangled,” she whispered with a weak smile.

Gentry shook his head. “Nope. He knocked you out with a choke hold, but it was by shuttin’ blood off to the brain, not by shutting air off. Knew what he was doing. Bit more and there’d’ve been brain damage at the very least. You want an English muffin with your scrambled eggs?”

Natalie stared at the huge breakfast set out before her: coffee, toasted muffins, eggs, bacon, sausage, orange juice, and fruit. “Where on earth did you get all this?” she asked incredulously. “They already brought a breakfast I couldn’t eat . . . a rubber poached egg and weak tea. What restaurant is open on Christmas morning?”

Gentry took his hat off, held it over his heart, and looked hurt. “Restaurant?
Restaurant
? Why, ma’am, this is a Christian God-fearin’ city.

There’s no restaurant open this mornin’ . . .’cept maybe Tom Delphin’s diner out to the Interstate. Tom’s an agnostic. No, Ma’am, this grub comes from yours truly’s kitchen. Now eat up before it all gets cold.”

“Thank you . . . Sheriff,” said Natalie. “But I can’t eat all this . . .”

“Not supposed to,” said Gentry. “This is my breakfast too. Here’s the pepper.”

“But my throat . . .”

“Doc says it’ll be sore for a while, but it’ll work OK for eating. Eat up.” Natalie opened her mouth, said nothing, and picked up her fork instead.

Gentry removed a small transistor radio from the sack and set it on the table. Most of the FM stations carried Christmas music. He found a classical station playing Handel’s
Messiah
and let the music soar.

Natalie appeared to be enjoying her scrambled egg. She took a sip of hot coffee and said, “This is excellent, Sheriff. What about Lester?”

“He’s not always best described as excellent,” said Gentry. “No, I mean is he still here?”

“Nope,” said Gentry. “He’s back at the station ’til noon. Then Stewart comes in to relieve him. Don’t worry, Lester has had breakfast already.”

“Good coffee,” said Natalie. She looked at Gentry over the clutter of Styrofoam containers. “Lester said that you spent the night here.”

Gentry managed to combine a gesture in which he removed his hat and shrugged at the same time. “Darn eggs get cold even when I pack ’em in these stupid Styrofoam things,” he said.

“Did you think he . . . whoever it was . . . would come back?” asked Natalie.

“Not especially,” said Gentry, “but we didn’t have too much time to talk before they gave you the shot last night. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have somebody here to chat with you when you woke up.”

“So you spent Christmas Eve in a hospital chair,” said Natalie. Gentry grinned at her. “What the heck. It’s more fun than watching Mr. Magoo as Scrooge for the twentieth year.”

“How did you find me so fast last night?” asked Natalie, her voice still husky but not as strained as before.

“Well, we’d agreed to get together, after all,” said Gentry. “When you weren’t home and my answerin’ machine didn’t have a message on it, I just sort of drove by the Fuller place on the way home. I knew you had a habit of checking it out.”

“But you didn’t see my assailant?”

“Nope. Just you in the front seat, sort of hunkered over holding a bloodied camera.”

Natalie shook her head. “I still don’t remember hitting him with the camera,” she said. “I was trying to reach Dad’s gun.”

“Mmmm, that reminds me,” said Gentry. He walked over to the green sheriff’s jacket he had hung on a chair and removed the .32 automatic from a pocket and set it on the far end of the tray table near Natalie’s orange juice. “I put the safety back on,” he said. “It’s still loaded.”

Natalie lifted a wedge of toast but did not bite into it. “Who
was
it?” Gentry shook his head. “You say he was white?”

“Yes. I only saw his nose . . . a bit of cheek . . . and his eyes, but I’m sure he was white . . .”

“Age?”

“I’m not sure. I had the sense he was about your age . . . early thirties maybe.”

“Do you remember anything you didn’t tell me last night?” asked Gentry.

“No, I don’t think so,” said Natalie. “He was in the car when I ran back to it. He must have been on the floor in the back . . .” Natalie put down the toast and shivered.

“He broke the overhead light in your car,” said Gentry, finishing the last of his scrambled eggs. “That’s why it didn’t come on when you opened the door on the driver’s side. You say you saw a light on the second floor of the Fuller house?”

“Yes. Not the hall light or in her bedroom. Perhaps from the guest room up there. I could see it through the gaps in the shutters.”

“Here, finish up,” said Gentry, pushing the small plate of bacon toward her. “Did you know that the electricity was turned off in the Fuller house?”

Natalie’s eyebrows went up. “No,” she said. “Probably was a flashlight,” said Gentry, “Maybe one of those big electric lanterns.”

“Then you believe me?”

Gentry was closing up his Styrofoam containers and tossing them in the wastebasket nearby. He paused to stare at her. “Why wouldn’t I believe you? You didn’t put those marks on your throat all by yourself.”

“But why would anyone try to kill me?” asked Natalie in a voice smaller than her sore throat demanded.

Gentry packed up the dishes and containers in front of her. “Uh-uh,” he said. “Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t tryin’ to kill you. He wanted to
hurt
you . . .”

“He succeeded there,” said Natalie, gingerly touching her throat and ban daged head.

“. . . and to
scare
you.”

“Ditto there,” said Natalie. She looked around. “God, I hate hospitals.”

“And there was what he said,” said Gentry. “Tell me again.”

Natalie closed her eyes. “You want to find the woman? Look in Germantown.”

“Say it again,” urged Gentry. “Try to put it in the same tone, the same phrasing as you heard it.”

Natalie repeated it in a flat, emotionless tone. “That’s it?” said Gentry. “No accent or dialect?”

“Not really,” said Natalie. “Very flat. Rather like a radio announcer giving the weather on an FM station.”

“Not a local sound,” said Gentry. “No.”

“A Yankee dialect maybe?” asked Gentry. He repeated the phrase with a New York accent so pronounced and accurate that Natalie laughed out loud in spite of her sore throat.

“No,” she said. “New En gland? German? New Jersey—Jewish-American?” asked Gentry and performed flawlessly in all three dialects.

“No,” laughed Natalie. “You’re good,” she said. “No, it was just . . . flat.”

“How about tone and pitch?”

“Deep, but not nearly as deep as yours” said Natalie. “Sort of a soft baritone.”

“Could it have been a woman?” asked Gentry.

Natalie blinked. She thought of the glimpse in the mirror, red already clotting her vision— the thin face, slash of cheek, slate eyes. She thought of the strength of the arms and hands.
It could have been a woman
, she thought.
A very powerful woman.
“No,” she said aloud. “It’s just a feeling, but it
felt
like a man’s attack, if you know what I mean. Not that I’ve been attacked by men before. And it wasn’t sexual or anything . . .” She stopped, flustered.

“I know what you mean,” said Gentry. “Anyway, that’s another clue that whoever he was, he wasn’t trying to kill you. People usually don’t give messages to someone they’re in the act of murdering.”

“Message to whom?” said Natalie. “Maybe ‘warning’ is a better word,” suggested Gentry. “Anyway the attack went into the log as a random assault and possible attempted rape. I could hardly label it a robbery attempt since he didn’t take your purse or anything.” He cleared away everything except their coffee cups and pulled a short thermos out of the depleted white sack. “Feel up to a little more coffee?”

Natalie hesitated. “Sure,” she finally said and pushed her cup toward him. “This stuff usually makes me very jittery, but it seems to be counteracting the effects of that shot they gave me last night.”

“Besides,” said Gentry, pouring coffee for both of them, “it’s Christmas.” They sat awhile listening to the triumphant conclusion of
Messiah.

When it was finished and the announcer was discussing the program, Natalie said, “I didn’t really have to stay here last night, did I?”

“You had a pretty bad trauma,” said Gentry. “You’d been unconscious for at least ten minutes. Your scalp took eight stitches from where you hit the shoulder harness clip.”

“But I could have gone home, right?”

“Probably,” said Gentry. “But I didn’t want you to. It wouldn’t have been a good idea for you to stay alone, you weren’t in any shape to deal with a suggestion to come to my place, and I didn’t want to spend Christmas Eve sitting in my unmarked car outside your house. Besides, you
should
have stayed overnight for observation. Even the doc said so.”

“I would have come to your place,” Natalie said softly. There was no hint of coquettishness in her voice. “I’m scared,” she said simply.

Gentry nodded. “Yeah.” He finished his coffee. “I am too. I’m not even sure why, but I’ve got a feeling we’re neck deep in something we don’t understand.”

“So you still believe Saul’s story?”

“I’d feel better if we’d heard from him since he left six days ago,” said Gentry. “But we don’t have to buy every part of his story to know that something’s going on around us.”

“Do you think you’ll catch whoever attacked me last night?” asked Natalie. Suddenly tired, she lay back on the pillows and adjusted the bed to a more upright position.

“Not if we depend on fingerprints or forensic stuff,” said Gentry. “We’re checkin’ into the blood on the Nikon, but that won’t tell us much. The only way we’re going to find out is by continuing some sort of investigation.”

“Or waiting for the guy to come after me again,” said Natalie. “Uh-uh,” said Gentry. “I don’t think so. I think they delivered their message.”

“ ‘You want to find the woman? Look in Germantown,’ ” intoned Natalie. “The woman would be Melanie Fuller?”