Hanging Hannah (22 page)

“You like that?” she asked him in a scandalized tone.

“Well, yeah, some of it?” he answered defensively. “What does that mean—that there's no future for us?”

She laughed and switched off the radio.

“Hey!”

“Sorry, I should have asked. May I turn off the radio? I want to talk to you.”

“Yes.” He waited, smiling patiently.

“There's one more place I would like to go, please. It's called the Sunnymead Rest Home. It's at the other end of town. I don't know exactly where, but I'm sure we can find it.”

Wordlessly, Greenberg put the car in gear and started through the tunnel of trees.

 

“Victor?” the nurse said cheerfully, pushing open the door to the old man's room. “Victor, some friends of yours are here to see you.”

Greenberg had taken issue with Jane's wanting to lie about who they were, but Jane had insisted that unless they said they were old friends of Mangano's, they probably wouldn't get in to see him.

“Victor?” the nurse repeated, but the white-haired, withered old man in the chair facing the blank TV screen did not move.

Jane looked around the tiny room. Its walls were covered with crucifixes and other religious artifacts.

The nurse beckoned to Jane and Greenberg to come closer. “See, Victor, two old friends of yours came here specially to see you.”

Suddenly, as if awakening from a trance, the old man turned to Jane and smiled a lovely smile, his pale blue eyes rheumy, like those of a loving old dog.

The nurse approached Jane. “He loves having visitors,” she whispered. “His daughter—well, I'm sure you know her—she doesn't come as often as she might. It upsets her that he doesn't know who she is most of the time. But I still think she owes him visits. He is, after all, her father.” She turned to the old man. “Now, Victor, aren't you going to say hello to your friends?” And to Jane, “Don't be upset if he doesn't recognize you—he rarely does.”

Mangano's sweet expression didn't change. He said nothing.

“We've just been to see your daughter,” Jane said, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the nurse frown in slight puzzlement.
Your daughter
, Jane realized, was not how someone who knew Mangano would have referred to her; someone who really knew Mangano would have used her name. But Jane didn't know her name.

The old man's face darkened at the mention of his daughter. The smile vanished, replaced by a distasteful sneer. “She never brings me candy,” he said, and turned to the nurse. “She never brings me candy.” He turned back to Jane and Greenberg, who had come up beside her. “Did you bring me candy?”

“Now, Victor,” the nurse said, stepping a little closer, “you know you're not allowed candy.” She turned to Jane and, shielding her mouth, said, “He's diabetic.”

Jane nodded her understanding. “Victor, I'm afraid I don't have candy. I've just come to talk to you.” She waited until she was sure she had his complete attention. “About Hannah.”

At the sound of the name, Victor Mangano's face changed dramatically. He shot Jane a sharp, shrewd look. “It wasn't her fault!” he shouted at her.

Jane jumped, startled at the old man's outburst. Beside her, Greenberg leaned closer, his face intent.

“It wasn't whose fault?” Jane asked ever so gently, but he didn't seem to hear her. He just kept staring at her, his eyes narrowed to wet slits.

“Victor . . .” Jane went on. “The file, Victor. Why did you take all the papers out?”

Greenberg turned to Jane and gave her a baffled look, but Jane ignored him, for the old man clearly knew exactly what Jane was talking about. The look with which he now regarded her was the look of someone who has been found out.

“Because,” he said, now sounding completely lucid—as if they'd been having a perfectly ordinary conversation, “I couldn't let them blame Hannah for what happened. The children,” he said, leaning toward Jane earnestly, “the poor children. It's never
their
fault.”

“No, it isn't,” Jane agreed. “So you emptied the file so no one would know.”

The old man looked down guiltily.

“You moonlighted at Whiteson?” Jane said. “Extra work cleaning, tidying up . . .”

“Please!” Mangano burst out again. “Please don't tell Mr. Anthony. Mr. Anthony would be mad as hell if he knew. He'd probably fire me. But it was
good
I worked there nights,” the old man insisted, “or how would I have gotten to the file? How could I have kept people from knowing what happened?”

Jane leaned closer. “
What
happened?” she asked, urging him, but to her dismay he visibly sank back into his former state, simply staring.

“What about Agnes?” Jane persisted.

“Jane,” Greenberg said quietly beside her, “I think we should go.”

“No,” Jane said. “Victor, what about Agnes? Was it
her
fault?”

Once again Mangano looked at her sharply, his look a knowing one. “We tried to help her, too,” he said, his eyes somewhere far away. “But she ran away.”

“And Elaine?” Jane asked.

Mangano's face softened. “The little one,” he said tenderly. Suddenly he turned on Greenberg. “Did
you
bring me any candy?”

The nurse stepped forward. “I think that's enough visiting,” she said with forced cheerfulness.

Reluctantly, Jane followed Greenberg and the nurse out of the room.

“You lied to me,” the nurse whispered fiercely when they were all out in the corridor. “You're not friends of his. You don't even know him. I oughta call the police.”

“We are the police,” Greenberg said, surprising Jane, and he showed the nurse his badge—quickly enough, Jane noticed, that she would not have realized just what police he was referring to.

“I'm sorry,” the nurse said, respectful now. “You should have just told me at the beginning.”

“No problem,” Greenberg said solemnly.

“Does anyone ever visit him?” Jane asked.

The nurse seemed surprised by this question. “No . . . except for Jenny—that's his daughter. But she only comes once in a while, like I told you.”

They thanked her and left.

 

“Well, you seemed to push a few buttons there,” Greenberg said, guiding the car down I-80, “but all in all, I don't think those last two detours did us any good.”

“On the contrary,” Jane said. She saw Greenberg turn to her, waiting for her to elaborate, but she didn't. Instead she said, “I wonder if Arthur realized that Hannah was mentally retarded.”

Greenberg looked surprised at this sudden change of subject, but went along with it. “I already thought of that,” he said. “As soon as I found out Hannah's identity, I spoke again to Arthur—who, don't forget, is himself mildly retarded. I asked him if he noticed anything ‘different' about the girl. He said she acted ‘kind of girlish,' but he thought she was just teasing him.”

“Teasing him how? Sexually? Or making fun of him?”

“I asked him that, too. He didn't know. Or if he did have any idea, he wouldn't say.”

Jane gazed out at the passing trees. “What earthly reason could Hannah have had for going to Shady Hills?” she wondered aloud, her heart breaking for this poor young woman.

They rode in silence for some time, and then Greenberg, lost in thought, gave a little laugh. “I have to compliment you on your interrogation skills.”

Jane laughed, too. “I'm no detective.”

“But you are. It was you, don't forget, who figured out what happened to your nanny, Marlene.”

Troubled at the memory, Jane nodded in concession.

Greenberg said, “That was when you were seeing Roger Haines.”

“Yes.” Another troubling memory. Roger had been her agency's biggest author. The failure of that relationship had taught her the folly of becoming romantically involved with clients.

“You said you saw Roger and me at Whipped Cream, arguing.” She laughed ruefully. “We did that a lot.”

“I'm glad you're not seeing him anymore.” Greenberg stared straight ahead as he drove. “That day you came to the police station to talk to me about Marlene, I . . . knew you were someone special.”

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“Tell me about your husband,” he said gently.

“Kenneth,” she said, gazing out the window at a jagged outcropping of rock at the side of the highway but seeing Kenneth's handsome face. “He was a wonderful man. I know people say that all the time, but Kenneth really was. He was bright, fun, generous, loving . . . yet he had no idea he was any of these.

“One day about two and a half years ago he went into New York for a meeting with a couple of editors, and after the meeting he was hit by a truck. I . . . I couldn't believe it when they told me. I said, ‘But I just saw him,' which was, of course, a ridiculous thing to say.”

“No, it wasn't,” Greenberg said, and reached over and gently covered Jane's hand on the seat with his own.

“It hurts so bad,” he said, “that you don't think it will ever stop. You don't see how you can go on.”

She looked at him.

Gazing straight ahead at the road, he said, “When I moved to Shady Hills I met a woman—Veronica, her name was—though she liked to be called Ronni. She worked as a hostess at Eleanor's. Maybe you remember her.”

“Yes, I do.”

“We had so much in common. We got engaged, set the wedding a year away so we could do it up right, get our families all involved.” He laughed at the memory, moisture in his eyes. “Then one day when we were . . . when we were making love, I felt something in one of her breasts. A lump. She said it was nothing, but I convinced her to see a doctor.

“Anyway,” he said with a sigh, “the doctors removed the lump, and it was malignant. She went through chemo and radiation, and she was sick as a dog all during it, but then it was over and she was her old self again—almost. There was always this nagging doubt, always this reminder that she would never be completely out of the woods. Always her appointments for tests to make sure it was really gone.”

“And was it?” Jane asked, already knowing the answer.

“No. After one of those sets of tests, they told her the cancer had metastasized, that they hadn't gotten all of it. You know the story. The next two years were the longest two years of my life. When she died, she was in my arms, kissing me. She was twenty-six.”

Jane hated to take her hand out from under his, but she had to fish in her bag for tissues, and finding them, she wiped at her eyes.

“I'm so sorry,” she said. “I'm so sorry.” And she put her hand back on his, and they rode like that for a long time, saying nothing.

 

They stopped at a diner in Paterson Greenberg liked for a late lunch.

“What will happen now?” Jane asked, her club sandwich untouched before her.

Greenberg shrugged regretfully. “I'm afraid I'm probably going to have to arrest Ernie Zabriskie.”

Jane's jaw fell and she shook her head vehemently. “But you can't! Stanley, I'm telling you, it's not just because I'm so fond of Louise and this would positively destroy her. It's that I know Ernie. He's no angel, believe me, but I know in my heart he's no killer, either. He couldn't have murdered Hannah.”

“Then who did?” Greenberg asked simply.

Jane had no answer.

She still had no answer late that night as she lay in bed and drifted into a fitful half sleep in which bits of information, troubling things people had said, echoed and connected, combining to form a message: that the answer to who was responsible for hanging Hannah had been presented to her. It was simply up to her to see it.

In the first hours of the morning she sat up, her eyes open wide, her subconscious now before her. And then she shut them again, for now she
had
seen the answer; now she knew the truth about who had killed poor Hannah.

And that truth was too painful to bear.

Jane's head pounded and it was too hot in her room. She'd slept badly, had never really fallen completely asleep. She rolled over and stared at the ceiling, pondering what to do with the burden of her terrible knowledge.

At that moment, Winky shot into the room and across the wooden floor, her feet scampering so fast they skidded on the area rug. She jumped onto the bed, landing smack in the middle of Jane's belly, and just as quickly bounded off again, rocketing to the dresser, darting to the window, and then back to the door and out to the hallway.

“Winky!” came Florence's voice. “Come back, my girl! I'm sorry, I will not use it again!”

Frowning, Jane got out of bed, put on her robe, and went out to the hall to see what was going on. Winky was nowhere in sight, but Florence stood at the bottom of the stairs. She wore a pretty violet dress that Jane knew was one of Florence's church dresses. Florence belonged to the same church as Jane and Nick—St. John's Episcopal Church on Renton Avenue—though Jane wasn't as conscientious about attending services as Florence was.

“I'm so sorry, missus, it is all my fault. I forgot about the hand cream. I should have just thrown it out when you told me what the vet said, but I do like it, and my mother sent it to me.”

Jane was about to tell her it was all right, that she should just put the hand cream away somewhere where she wouldn't use it accidentally, but Florence had already turned toward the kitchen. “I will throw it away right now, missus. I will do it just now.”

Watching Florence bustling across the foyer toward the kitchen, Jane abruptly stopped. “You're going to church . . .” she said, more thinking aloud than speaking to Florence.

Florence turned, smiling. “Yes, missus.”

“And the church bazaar is today, isn't it?”

“Yes,” Florence said, her eyes wide, “and you'd better not forget that, or a certain little someone”—she tilted her head toward the family room—”will be greatly disappointed.”

“You're going?”

“Absolutely. I have made six of my coconut cakes to donate to the bake sale.”

“How nice,” Jane said vaguely.

Florence continued to the kitchen, and Jane walked down the stairs and followed. As Jane entered the kitchen, Nick appeared from the family room. “I'm hungry. Can I have some cereal?”

“
May
I have some cereal.” Jane got out the Cheerios and milk. “Florence,” she said, getting down a bowl from the cupboard and pouring the cereal into it, “I meant to thank you for taking care of Nick yesterday while I was in Connecticut. Don't let me forget to pay you extra for that.”

“Will do, missus.” Florence smiled appreciatively. Then her face grew troubled. “Have the police come any closer to finding who killed that poor woman?” Then she remembered Nick was sitting there and covered her mouth with her hand.

“Florence, it's no big deal,” Nick said casually, his mouth full of Cheerios. Some milk ran down his chin and suddenly Winky appeared on the chair beside him. “Here, Wink, lick this off,” he said, leaning toward her, and she happily obliged, her tongue flicking his chin. He giggled.

Both women watched in horror.

Jane stepped forward. “Winky!”

The cat scampered off the chair and out of the room.

“Nicholas! Don't you ever let me see you doing that again. And what do you mean, it's no big deal? A person
died
.”

He shrugged. “I know it, Mom. I found her, remember?”

“I do remember,” she said, troubled at the memory. “All the more reason why you of all people should take this matter a little more seriously.” She realized that by the end of this speech she was yelling and that she was breathing hard. Nick stared at her, brows lowered.

“Mom, you don't have to get so upset about it.”

“Missus?” Florence approached her. “Are you . . . all right?”

“Yes, I'm fine. I—Never mind.” Jane gave Nick a last disapproving look, then turned to Florence. “In answer to your question, yes, I'm pleased to tell you that the police have found a very important clue, something the murderer left behind at the place where the young woman was living.” She watched Florence closely as she spoke.

Florence was watching her, too. “A clue? What clue is that?”

“I really can't say.”

“I had not heard that the police had found the place where the young woman was living,” Florence said.

“Oh, yes,” Jane said, knowing she was overstepping her authority—and betraying Greenberg's confidence—by revealing this. “They've found a vital clue to the killer's identity.”

“Really?” Florence said.

“Wow,” Nick said. “Do you know where this place is, Mom?”

“No,” Jane replied, “not exactly. But I do know that for now, everything must be left exactly as it was found, in order not to disturb the evidence.”

”Well.” Florence, looking preoccupied, grabbed her purse from the counter. “On that note, I must run to Mass. I will see you both at the bazaar, yes?”

“Yes.” Jane, smiling, watched her leave. “Nick, how would you like to play at Aaron's this morning?”

“Okay,” he said with a shrug, and headed for the family room.

“Good.” Jane found Aaron's number in the little directory she kept by the phone and dialed. Aaron's mother, a consistently bouncy woman named Eloise, answered.

“How are you, Jane? Gorgeous day.”

“Yes, it is indeed. Eloise, I was wondering if you could do me a favor. There's something I have to do this morning—kind of an emergency—and Florence has gone to church. Could Nick play with Aaron at your house?”

“Of course! We just love Nicholas. Aaron!” she hollered. “Nick's coming over.”

“Cool!” came Aaron's response in the background.

“Great,” Jane said. “Thanks.”

“No prob! In fact, Jane, I was planning to take Aaron to the bazaar around lunchtime and would be thrilled to take Nick, too.”

“Even better. I'm going too, after my errands. I'll meet up with you there.”

“Perfect. Jane, I hope everything's all right. . . .”

“Fine,” Jane assured her. “Just something I've got to do.”

Jane hung up, her smile vanishing, and looked around the kitchen thoughtfully. She walked to the sink and opened the cupboards on each side. Then, shaking her head, she knelt down and opened the cabinet under the sink. There she rummaged among bottles of dishwashing liquid and piles of sponges, still not finding what she was looking for. She stood up again.

“Nick,” she called. “Do you know where Florence keeps her hand cream?”

He appeared in the doorway. “The
bad
hand cream? She said she was going to throw it away.”

“And did she?”

“Yeah, I saw her toss it in here.” He crossed to the wastebasket and lifted off the lid. “See?” he said, pointing to the white glass jar lying atop the trash.

“Good,” she said, and smiled. “Just making sure. You know how crazy it makes poor Wink.”

He nodded, looking a little confused, and returned to the TV.

The minute he was out of sight, Jane grabbed the jar from the trash. Too late she realized that Winky was standing only a few feet away; seeing the jar, she let out a yowl and shot from the room.

Jane picked up her bag from the counter, opened it, and dropped the jar of hand cream inside. She thought for a moment, then returned to the cabinet under the sink and withdrew a pair of yellow latex dishwashing gloves. She dropped them into her bag, too, and placed the bag back on the floor by the door.

She walked into the family room. “Brush your teeth and comb your hair, sweetie, while I take a fast shower and get dressed. Then I'll drive you to Aaron's.”

 

Jane pulled up in front of Aaron's house.

“Have fun. I'll see you at the bazaar.”

Before closing the car door, Nick paused and peered in at her. “Mom, do you know you're acting really weird?”

Why was she always so transparent? Or was it only with Nick? She gave him a wide-eyed smile, all innocence. “Why, what do you mean, darling?”

“Mom,” he said, looking at her shrewdly, “where are you going now?”

“I told you, to do errands.”

“What errands?”

Her patience was running out. Besides, she had to get done what she had to get done. “That's my business,” she said, all attempts at innocence abandoned. “Now please close the door. I'd walk you up to the house, but I'm in a hurry. I won't leave till you go in.”

“Okay!” he said, slammed the door, and ran up the front path to the house. When Eloise had opened the door and waved, Jane drove off.

Grimly determined, she drove down Oakmont Avenue and onto Packer Road, which she followed into the village center. Here she turned onto Plunkett Lane. She passed the gate to Hydrangea House and kept on going. Finally, the road ended at Hadley Pond. She stopped, grabbed her bag, and got out.

It was a beautiful warm Sunday morning, the kind of morning when people might be walking in the woods or fishing in the pond. She hoped not. She found the beginning of the path between the two pines and started along it, watching for people, listening. She saw no one, heard only the singing of the birds in the high canopy of foliage.

She still had seen no one when she reached the wall of rock, squeezed between the bushes, and stooped to enter the cave.

In the daytime it was easy to see without artificial light. Nothing appeared to have been touched since Greenberg had brought her there. With a grim sigh, she knelt and opened her bag. She withdrew the latex gloves and put them on. Then she took out Florence's jar of hand cream, twisted open the lid, and scooped out a dollop of the white cream with two gloved fingers.

She began directly to her left, with a wax-paper wrapper that might once have contained a sandwich. Very carefully, she smeared the paper with a thin layer of hand cream. Then she replaced the wrapper exactly where she had found it.

She repeated this process with every item in the cave, moving methodically around clockwise so as not to miss anything; each item received a thin layer of hand cream and was replaced. Though Jane guessed that the whole process had taken more than twenty minutes, when she was finished she was confident she had overlooked nothing—not the Coke cans, the bits of plastic wrap and aluminum foil. The last item to which she applied the hand cream was Louise's Irish Chain quilt. That took longer, of course, because it was large, and Jane didn't want to miss any part of it.

This done, she took one last look around the cave, frowned at the thought of what would now undoubtedly happen, and hurried out, looking all around to make sure she was still alone before starting back along the path to her car.

At the corner of Plunkett Lane and Packer Road, Jane pulled up to a trash receptacle, got out, and discarded the gloves and the hand cream. Then she drove home.

When she entered the house, the light on the answering machine was blinking. It was Greenberg.

“Jane.” He sounded angry. “Call me. Immediately.”

She did.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” he demanded.

“What do you mean?”

“Telling people we've found a ‘vital clue' to the killer's identity in the cave. We agreed you wouldn't even tell anyone I'd
shown
you that cave. What vital clue? People all over town are buzzing about it.”

She smiled; it was working. “First of all, Stanley, I never said it was a cave; I said only ‘the place where the woman was living in the woods.' Only the killer knows it's a cave. And as for there being a vital clue, there is one—now.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

She decided simply not to answer that question.

“Jane, I don't understand this. What,” he repeated, “do you think you're doing?”

“Flushing out a murderer,” she said softly, then added quickly, “I'll see you at the bazaar.”

She had no sooner hung up than the phone rang. It was Daniel.

“You going to the bazaar?” he asked brightly. “Laura and I are heading over now.”

“Good. Yes, I'm going.”

“Any word from Goddess?”

“No,” Jane answered fretfully, and told him about her meeting with Carl Hamner, Goddess's father.

“On another front, though,” she said, “the murder of the girl in the woods may very well be close to being solved.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Apparently the police have found a vital clue the killer left where the girl was living in the woods. Ooh, I'd better get cleaned up. See you at the church.”

She did wash her face, applied a little makeup, made sure there were no leaves in her hair, washed her hands to make sure they bore no traces of the hand cream. Then, shortly before noon, she went in search of Winky.

“There you are, Wink,” she said, finding the cat curled up in the middle of her bed. Gently she scooped her up and carried her downstairs; then, to the dismay of Winky, who never went outside, Jane carried her out to the car and deposited her on the backseat.

“Mwaaaah!” Winky protested in bafflement as Jane pulled out onto Lilac Way and down the hill, taking Grange Road to Packer and then onto Renton Avenue. Halfway down the street on the right, the church came into view. The bazaar was already bustling—rows of colorful booths with multicolored flags fluttering in the breeze, people talking and laughing as they walked up and down the aisles.