Death at Charity's Point (26 page)

“About what?”

“George and Harvey. You’ve got it all wrong.”

“So tell me.”

“Okay. Listen. I went up there with George. It was his idea. He held my hand as we climbed up there. And then he took off his jacket and folded it for me to sit on. Always the gentleman. And then he started. He knew who I was, he said. He had an obligation—a moral obligation, he called it. He was all bluster and self-righteousness. He wanted to turn me in. For the crimes of Carla Steinholtz. I tried to tell him that it wasn’t me. He didn’t understand. He tried to grab me, to hurt me. So I had to kick him. Just to get away. Not a mortal blow.”

“And then you pushed him.”

“No. No, I didn’t push him. He grabbed himself, and I said, ‘I’m sorry. But I have to go.’ And he looked up at me with this beatific smile on his poor old face and he walked backwards, all bent over, to the edge of the cliff, and then he just straightened up and let himself go. He just disappeared. No scream. He fell. I didn’t push him.”

“He did kill himself, then. You’re telling me that it was suicide.”

“Yes. I didn’t want him to die. I’m no killer.”

I hesitated. “Rina, is that the truth? It really doesn’t matter, now. You can tell me the truth.”

“That is the truth. In faith.”

“And the note?”

“The note,” she repeated. “At the time, I didn’t know about any note. But it was like George to write a note. Not to explain his suicide. The note was for me. George was not a direct man. He had trouble coming to the point. He avoided confrontations—or at least personal confrontations. He welcomed intellectual ones. So I think this was what he was doing. He asked me to take a stroll on the beach that night. That was okay. We were friends and it was a nice spring night. But his intention, I guess, was to tell me what he knew about Carla Steinholtz, to bring me to justice, as he would have put it. But he didn’t trust himself to say it. Whether it was his diffidence, or…” She hesitated.

“Love,” I said.

“Maybe. Maybe his love. I never suspected love, but maybe that was it. Maybe that’s why he suggested we go to Charity’s Point. Anyway, George thought he might fail to raise the subject with me. We’d take our stroll and exchange pleasantries, and he’d take me home, and he never would say what was on his mind. So he wrote a note. Maybe to slip into my hand as we said good night, or maybe to slide under my door later. So he had it with him. A hedge against his own cowardice.”

“And Win?”

I heard her draw in a quick breath. “What
about
Win?”

“George’s brother.”

“How do you know about him?”

“It’s a long story, Rina. Shall I call you Carla?”

“I’m Rina, now.”

“Okay. There were several things. I’ve been putting them together. When your jaw is wired shut and you can’t move around very well, you have lots of time to put things together. When you and I went to Charity’s Point—that was Win up there, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And he was your lover?”

“Was. Yes.”

“And George knew, didn’t he? And he approved, I think. Until he found out who you were. And then…”

I heard her short laugh. “Yes. George knew. He introduced us. Of course, he didn’t tell me Win’s real name, or that they were brothers. I didn’t learn that until later. After we became lovers.”

“Why did Win go to Ruggles? To visit George?”

“Partly. He and George had been in contact with each other for a long time. They really did care about each other. George sent Win money sometimes. I know he didn’t approve of what Win was doing. He was violently opposed to it philosophically. But he protected Win. Win was in hiding. A fugitive. Like me.” She laughed again.

“I don’t understand,” I mused, “why George wouldn’t have at least told Florence that Win was alive.”

“Their mother? Win wouldn’t let him. Said his mother was better off thinking he was dead than knowing what he had done and how he was living. They argued about it. But George would never have told her without Win’s permission.”

“So you and Win…”

I heard her sigh. “Win is a very attractive man. Smart, worldly, exciting. We—we became close before I knew anything about him except that he was George’s friend. He was just George’s mysterious friend, that’s all. And then he found out about me. I don’t know how. He promised he’d never tell George. And he told me about himself. So we realized we had a lot in common. We had to trust each other, two people hiding from their pasts, so to speak.”

“But George found out anyway.”

“Yes. Harvey’s paper tipped him off. Then he did his research. He was so meticulous about his research. He put it all together. And then when George died—when he stepped off the edge of Charity’s Point—it ended between Win and me. Win blamed me, of course. We stopped being lovers. But we still needed each other, depended on each other, had to trust each other with our secrets. So he stayed around.”

“And then Harvey found out.”

“Ah, poor Harvey. Not such a dumb beast. He figured it out from that paper of his. The same way George did.”

“Because I encouraged him to work on it some more,” I said.

“Blame yourself, then,” said Rina.

“Not likely,” I said. “So then Win took care of that little problem for you.”

“Yes. Win took care of it. For me.”

“And when I became a problem…”

“Yes.” She paused. “But you didn’t answer my question. How did you know about Win?”

It was my turn to laugh. “George had an address book. In the back of it was a list of numbers. Nonsense numbers, they looked like. I didn’t know what to make of them. Actually, I didn’t know if I should
try
to make anything of them. Then Florence—George’s mother—showed me a couple of postcards. She said they were from Win. She insisted he was still alive. I didn’t believe it, but while I was recovering from my injuries these past weeks I had a flash. I checked. Do you know the zip code of Ketchikan, Alaska, or Pittsburg, New Hampshire? That’s what George’s list of numbers was—post office boxes and zip codes. Where he could reach Win. They matched the places Win sent postcards from. George even kept a zip code directory in his room. He and Win were communicating all that time.”

“That book. He couldn’t find it.”

“Who? What do you mean?”

“Win. He went to your apartment. He couldn’t find it. You hid it well.”

I laughed. “No, I didn’t hide it. I left it in my jacket when I took it to the cleaners.” I stopped. “He locked my doors.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” I thought for a moment. “That was the night—the first night—on the beach…”

I heard her sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“Calculated. To keep me away from my apartment. So he could search it.”

“Yes.”

“How did he know I had it?”

“Me. I saw you take it. The day you were in George’s room.”

“Right,” I said. “Of course.” I paused, thinking. “For a while I thought it was just you who killed George and Harvey. Until we were up there. You saved my life. He would have thrown me over.”

“Yes, he would have.”

I tried to sort out the half-formed thoughts that swirled around in my head.

“Tell me where Alexander Binh fits into it.”

“Binh? Nowhere. Matter of fact, I always thought he was the one I had to worry about, that he’d be the one to find out about me, the way he would look at you as though he could see right into your mind. He always made me feel exposed. I really think he knew that I—that I had a secret.”

“That’s funny,” I said. “He made me feel the same way. Except I didn’t have any secret.”

“Everybody has a secret,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” I said. I paused. “Okay, then, what about Cap Spender? I know he fits into this somewhere. One of Win’s recruits?”

“I said Win came to Ruggles to visit George. That was only part of the reason. Win is a true believer. He’s always trying to find converts—disciples to help him spread the word. One day he got a look at Cap in that weird costume he wears and I guess he figured he’d found another soul brother.”

“Even though Cap antagonized George every chance he got?”

“Yes. As I said, George didn’t even try to change Win’s ideas. And he couldn’t change what he did. Win took Cap under his wing, and Cap started trying to convert the other kids. He was good at it, too.”

“And the night Harvey died?”

“When we learned that Harvey had found out about me, Win said he had to die. That was how he said it. ‘The boy must die.’ It wasn’t my idea.”

“But you didn’t try to talk him out of it.”

I heard her sigh. “He told me there was no other way. I couldn’t think of another way. Anyway, Cap and Harvey had had that fight. So it was easy. Cap lured Harvey off the campus, on the pretext of having it out. They were supposed to meet at this place off the highway.”

“Except,” I inserted, “Win was there instead of Spender.”

“Yes.”

“And in the same fashion, you lured me to Charity’s Point because you suspected I knew too much.”

“It was your idea to go there,” she said quickly.

“But it was your idea that we go to the beach.”

She paused. “Yes.”

“And Win was waiting for us there.”

“Yes.”

“Rina,” I said, “why didn’t you let Win kill me?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe I should have.” I waited, sensing she had more to say. “Why did you take me to the top of Charity’s Point?”

“I don’t know.”

“You were giving me a chance, weren’t you? You thought I’d—you thought I had killed George and you thought I had killed Harvey, and you went up there with me anyway. Why?”

“Same reason you didn’t let Win kill me, I guess.”

“Good,” she said. “That’s good.”

“Now what are you going to do?”

“Do? I’m going to live. Go on living. What else is there?”

“All those crimes. Those bombs. The Sewing Circle. My God, Rina. You can’t just go on living as if there were none of that.”

“That was Carla,” she said in a small voice. “Not Rina. Those were my salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood. I’m Rina now. Not Carla. That was ten years ago. A different person.”

“Are you?”

I heard her sigh. “Yes. Yes, I am a different person. People change. When that bomb went off, when my friends were killed, it killed all that anger in me. I was supposed to be with them. But I went out for bananas and beer for us. I was in the store a few blocks away when I heard the explosion, and I just walked out and that was the end of the Sewing Circle. I saw all at once the absurdity, the futility of it. We used to pretend we had a philosophy, and that the establishment—that’s what we called everybody who was working in some constructive, functional way, you know—the establishment was the enemy. School, parents, not just the government. And that violence was the only way. Dumb little college girls reading their Marx. But when that bomb went off, when I heard that horrible explosion, and I knew that Melissa and Evelyn and Barbara and Monica were in there, not some nameless establishment types—that’s when it suddenly became clear to me. So I became Rina.”

“Just like that.”

“Yes. Just like that. Everyone figured I’d been killed along with my friends. Well, in a way I was. I stayed in New York. Best place in the world to disappear in. I modeled my feet for a while. Then I came to Ruggles. I just wanted to teach and be Rina Prescott. That’s all I wanted.”

I didn’t speak. I had nothing more to say.

“Adieu, then,” she said after a long moment. “You’ll not hear from me again. Dry sorrow drinks our blood.”

I touched the button on the telephone with my forefinger and disconnected myself from her.

A week or so after Rina’s phone call, I was at my desk trying to catch up on my correspondence when my phone buzzed.

“Yes, Julie?”

“Two gentlemen to see you, Brady.”

“They have an appointment?”

“They’re FBI.”

“Aha! Well, send them in, then.”

Mr. Sousa and Mr. Olanoff shook hands formally with me and sat side by side on my sofa. Each carried a thin, dark-leathered briefcase which he balanced on his knees. Mr. Olanoff seemed to be the spokesman. He was a tall, balding man with elusive, smoky eyes and an angular beak of a nose. Mr. Sousa sat tensely, burning me with his dark eyes, his mouth hidden beneath an enormous black mustache.

“We understand you have some knowledge of Carla Steinholtz and Winchester Gresham, Mr. Coyne,” said Olanoff.

I nodded. “I’ve told the police everything I know.”

“Everything?” I felt Sousa’s eyes.

I hesitated. “Yes. Everything.”

“We want those two, Mr. Coyne.” Olanoff’s lips, I noticed, barely moved when he spoke. “We think you know where they are.”

I looked from one to the other. They were both staring steadily at me. “I have no idea where they are,” I said, looking from one to the other as I spoke. “They nearly killed me, as you must know. She called me the other night. I told the police that, too. I don’t know any more than I’ve told. Don’t you think I want you to find them?”

“No, Mr. Coyne. We don’t think you do. Your relationship with Steinholtz is hardly a professional one.”

“
Was
,” I said. “Before I knew about her, we were friends.” Olanoff’s eyebrows twitched when I said that. “I’m a lawyer,” I continued. “I know what has to be done. It’s as I said. I don’t know anything else.”

Sousa leaned forward, his black eyes glowing. His teeth appeared beneath that mustache. He reminded me of a Northern Pike I reeled right up to the boat once on Lake Champlain before it grinned at me and bit through the twenty-pound leader. “Why
didn’t
they kill you?” said Sousa.

I laughed. “They came goddamn close, don’t you think? I spent nearly a week in Intensive Care, another two sucking milkshakes through a straw. I still don’t walk very well.”

“They killed the other two,” persisted Sousa. “They could have killed you. Right?”

“Sure. I guess so. They didn’t need to,” I said. “They got away.”

“Exactly,” said Olanoff. “That’s the point. They got away. Because they knew you’d cover for them. Gresham’s mother is your client. Steinholtz was your playmate.”

I stared from one to the other. “Look,” I said. “I don’t think I like what you’re implying here. You think I
helped
them? You think this was some kind of setup?”