Slightly Abridged (20 page)
Authors: Ellen Pall
Murray interrupted his narrative as they went into the Copy-Kwik. Juliet's heart skipped a beat on finding that the teenager she had carefully bribed was gone. But his replacement located the poems easily, the originals tidily boxed after being duly photocopied and collated. She paid the bill and left the second set for pickup by Matt McLaurin.
“You don't happen to know him?” she hopefully asked the attendant, a pigtailed woman of twenty or so. Somebody around here must know Matt's story.
But the woman shook her head. “Should I?” she asked.
Juliet and Murray agreed to stop for a quick lunch at a coffee shop down the street before going back to Ada's house. There, Juliet tried chatting with the waitress, thinking she might somehow get a conversation going, learn a bit about Ada or Cindy or McLaurin, anything. But the girl was barely sixteen. Everything she knew, it seemed, she had learned from MTV.
Juliet gave up. They ordered, BLTs for both of them. While they waited, Murray wrapped up his summary of Bert Nilsson's information. On the whole, he had been inclined to feel it would have been no favor to Emma Luth to leave her the orchard. People who
owned large parcels of land in the area were mostly trying to get rid of it, cash it in for whatever it was worth so they could quit paying taxes and move somewhere they could make a living. Giddy-Up Farm, for exampleâthat was a substantial place. The younger GiddysâBert had handled Mr. Giddy Sr.'s estateâhad put the place on the market as soon as Tom inherited. Though they had also moved in, of course. It was a nicer place than they could afford on Tom's salary. And since there was no likelihood of finding a buyer any time soon, they might as well enjoy it while they owned it.
owned large parcels of land in the area were mostly trying to get rid of it, cash it in for whatever it was worth so they could quit paying taxes and move somewhere they could make a living. Giddy-Up Farm, for exampleâthat was a substantial place. The younger GiddysâBert had handled Mr. Giddy Sr.'s estateâhad put the place on the market as soon as Tom inherited. Though they had also moved in, of course. It was a nicer place than they could afford on Tom's salary. And since there was no likelihood of finding a buyer any time soon, they might as well enjoy it while they owned it.
This being all Murray had learned, Juliet reported the dribs and drabs she had wrested from McLaurin, the Flood sisters, and Cindy.
“Quite the pothead, isn't she?” Landis remarked, as she reached the end of her tale.
“Did you get any better sense of Tom?”
“Doesn't trust his wife. When she left for the ladies' room, he checked his watch.”
“People do check their watches. Didn't he say he had to get back to work?”
Landis raised a skeptical eyebrow.
The BLTs arrived, each with a mountain of French fries on the side. Juliet decided to eschew the latter, then ate one, then two, then ten. It had never been entirely clear to her why God invented French fries, since they were so bad for you, yet so delicious. It was a question that, if she had been of a theological bent, she might have pondered with regard to many other eatables as well.
She glanced up from dipping a fry from her dwindling hoard into a puddle of ketchup to find Murray watching her thoughtfully.
“What?”
“Just looking at you,” he said. “You okay? You're not upset about last night?”
“Upset?”
“Yeah. You know.” He smiled a small smile. “It was kind of ⦠sudden.”
Juliet put her French fry down. Upset? Sudden? An alarm bell went off inside her. She tried to silence it but failed. Surely these were the kind of words men used who felt they'd made a mistake.
Fear that Murray was about to try to undo last night, back out of it, treat it as a fluke, made her heart begin to pound. Next thing you knew, he'd say “I'll call you” and not call. Come to think of it, last summer he had said he would phone, then disappeared for a month. Of course, they had not been involved then. That was only a matter of inviting her to see the work in his studio. But maybe he didn't think they were involved now. Men could do that, she knew, barge into your life all smart and tender and passionate, sleep with you, then behave as if it never happened. Juliet had learned that the hard way. And her life was all right these days. Not perfect, but fine. She wasn't about to let someone in who was going to play games with her.
“Why?” she asked. She could feel her face become hard, formal. “Are you upset?”
“No,” he said uneasily. “I was just checking with you.”
Juliet pushed her chair back slightly. “Do you know something about last night that I don't?”
“What should I know?”
“I don't know. Maybe that it will never be repeated? Something like that?”
“How could last night be repeated?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. It wasâ” Murray leaned forward, his voice dropping even as his Brooklyn accent intensified. “It was the first time, Jule. You can't repeat a thing like that.”
“But I mean, that was a peculiar question: Am I upset? Why should I be upset?”
“Take it easy.”
“It isn't easy for me. I don't take these things lightly.”
Now his voice rose. “You think I do?”
“I don't know. Do you?” asked Juliet, apparently forgetting that Murray had inspired her to create the deliberate chastity of Sir James Clendinning. “Why did you tell me to take it easy?”
“I didn't mean to take
that
easy, I meantâOh, for crying out loud, Jule, you know what I meant.”
that
easy, I meantâOh, for crying out loud, Jule, you know what I meant.”
“Do I?”
They glared at each other.
“I hope so,” Murray finally said.
They finished the meal in silence and said little back in the car. At Ada's, Juliet quietly castigated herself for undue prickliness (the man was innocent until proven guilty, for crying out loud) while she sorted through a few drawers of papers she had only glanced at yesterday. Murray opened the cartons stacked on the disused stairs. They were full of hardcover books, mostly English and American plays and poetry in editions published before World War II. Juliet supposed Ada had little money for buying books after that.
She emptied two of the cartons and refilled one of them with photos, theatrical ephemera, and personal letters to take home to New York. Zsa-Zsa and Marilyn stalked around, rubbing themselves along her legs and the sides of the cartons. Except for a fuller litter box, their lives since yesterday appeared to have been uneventful. Carefully, Juliet lifted the set of Browning and the possible first editions and stacked them into the second emptied carton. The remaining books and papers she would donate to the library in Gloversville.
At length, “Ready?” Murray asked.
At a nod from Juliet, he put on his coat, then hefted the two cartons they were taking and carried them out. Juliet petted the cats good-bye and locked the door. Murray was starting the Jaguar as she arrived. He backed out, then pulled over by the Giddys' mailbox,
where Juliet hopped out to leave the key. They had hardly spoken since the contretemps in the coffee shop.
where Juliet hopped out to leave the key. They had hardly spoken since the contretemps in the coffee shop.
Returning to the car, Juliet said stiffly, “The Luncefords live on Partridge Lane.” She opened a local map they had bought at a gas station and directed him. As he drove, she felt herself sink deeper and deeper into self-disgust. How ridiculous to turn Murray's kind, casual question as to whether she was okay into a pretext for discord. Suzy was right. Juliet claimed to long for intimacy, but panicked at its approach.
“It must be the Cape Cod on the corner,” Murray said, cruising slowly down a tidy block not far from the Candlewick. His Brooklyn accent was on thickâa distancing mechanism, she thought. “Want me to come with you?”
The Luncefords were fairly wealthy, if this was their neighborhood, Juliet reflected. Certainly no money had come from Mrs. Lunceford's side of the family. Steve Lunceford must have tightened a lot of braces.
“I'll go myself,” she said, then slipped out of the car. As Murray popped the trunk, she took out the Browning set, feeling ashamed of the way she had jumped on him, but also incapable of explaining or even apologizing. For one thing, she could not fi
gure out how to explain without referring to the question of whether or not he had another lover, or many loversâa question she had not yet dared to ask.
gure out how to explain without referring to the question of whether or not he had another lover, or many loversâa question she had not yet dared to ask.The Luncefords' street number was tacked to their front door in handsome brass numerals, and their doorbell sounded two low, elegant notes. Juliet stood in the porch light, dancing in the cold. Half a minute went by, then a whole minute more. The windows were blazing, but Sunday dinner or not, it seemed no one was going to answer. It was dusk; Murray and Juliet would have to leave town soon, especially since he was on duty tomorrow. She had turned away from the door and was going down the steps when she heard
a knock on the glass pane alongside the door and turned to see a carefully groomed face peering suspiciously out at her.
a knock on the glass pane alongside the door and turned to see a carefully groomed face peering suspiciously out at her.
After a moment the door opened a few inches, then was stopped by a chain. The guarded face appeared in the crack. “Yes?”
Juliet identified herself. “I'm sorry to barge in like this, butâAre you Claudia Lunceford?”
The door closed, then opened fully. Mrs. Lunceford reluctantly allowed her visitor to advance a few feet into the vestibule, just far enough so she could close the door and keep the cold outside.
Juliet explained her errand. She listened, but heard no happy hum of family conversation from another room. On the other hand, the house was large; the family might be closed into a den in the back. The vestibule was small but thickly carpeted and freshly painted; a convex circular mirror in a gilt frame on one wall reflected the mahogany coatrack across from it. Mrs. Lunceford, Juliet noticed with interest, wore a white silk shirt, a narrow blue wool skirt, sheer stockings, and low heels with her spotless red-and-white-checked apron. Her hair was combed back smoothly from her face into an impressive chignon. She was about fifty, Juliet supposed. In her small frame and large green eyes there was a hint of family resemblance to Ada, but she wore hers with a difference that entirely changed the style of person she was. Mrs. Lunceford was, if Juliet had to classify her, a fussbudget.
“I appreciate your thinking of me with regard to the Browning,” she said, in tones that reversed her meaning, “but, as I believe I have already told you, I have no wish to receive anything that belonged to my aunt.”
“You must have been so shocked to hear of her sudden death,” Juliet said sympathetically, as if this putative shock would account for the other's lack of interest in Ada's belongings. Mrs. Lunceford had neither asked her in nor invited her even to put the books down, but Juliet was determined to stay and talk until she was positively thrown out.
“Nothing Ada Case did could ever shock me,” Mrs. Lunceford assured her.
“Still, to be murdered ⦔
“I wouldn't say being murdered was something that Ada did. Presumably, it was done
to
her.”
to
her.”
Something in her tone suggested that if Ada had caused herself to be murdered, that would have reflected better taste, more appropriate judgment.
“I understand you had good reason to dislike your aunt. But the Browning belonged to a Charles Jongewaard CaseâI imagine that was your great-grandfather?”
“Miss Bodine, if it was in her house, I don't want it. Now, if you'll forgive me, I really must say good night. I have something on the stove.”
So saying, Mrs. Lunceford opened the door again and more or less pushed Juliet out into the near dark.
She returned to the street, asked Murray to pop the trunk again, and slid into the car thoughtfully. Murray had “Proud Mary” blasting from the radio.
“Not interested, huh?” he said, referring to the rejected books, as she fastened her seat belt. He turned the radio down.
“No. But I think she'd make a crackerjack murderer,” Juliet replied. They pulled away from the curb. “Not with her own hands, of course. She's very small, like Ada. But she would make a dandy Lady Macbeth.”
“Was Dr. Lunceford at home?”
“Not that I could tell. But I didn't get far enough inside. She wasn't exactly cordial.”
“Welcome to detective work. Want to head home?” They had checked out of the Candlewick this morning (though “checked out” seemed a misnomer for the informal business of handing Caroline Walsh a couple of twenties).
“I guess so.” She added halfheartedly, “Do you want me to drive?”
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