Stone Quarry (30 page)

Suddenly deeply weary, I pulled a chair next to the bed, leaned forward in it. I spoke Tony's name once, twice. His lips moved, without sound; then his eyelids rose slowly. He looked blankly around. "Tony," I said again. With an effort, his eyes found mine.

"Smith." His whisper was almost inaudible.

"Don't talk," I said. "Just listen. I came to tell you it's over. Jimmy didn't kill anyone, Tony. Ginny Sanderson— the little blond girl—Ginny Sanderson killed Wally Gould and Frank Grice killed Ginny Sanderson. Tony, do you understand what I'm saying?"

He moved his head minutely, a nod. "Blood," he whispered. Pain shadowed his face. "All over everything."

"Uh-huh. But Jimmy wasn't involved in any of it. Any of it, Tony. He ran because he was scared. He didn't have the keys and he didn't have the truck. Do you understand?"

"The truck," he whispered. "I was followin' the truck."

"I know, Tony. Don't talk, don't tell me. All right? What Frank told you about Jimmy—he told you about Eve's burglary, right? That night at the bar? He said Jimmy did that, that he could prove it, he could get Jimmy sent away for a long time? It wasn't true.

"Jimmy told you he was going straight. That was true. He's clean, Tony. He had nothing to do with the burglary, he had nothing to do with the murders. Tony, don't talk," I said again, as he tried to speak. His mouth closed; he watched me.

"Grice is dead. Jimmy messed things up a little trying to protect Ginny Sanderson, but it probably would've come out the same anyway. He saved my life, Tony, just like you did.

"Those bullets you took, they were meant for me. From one of Grice's boys." I stood. "That's what I came to say, Tony."

"Smith—"

"No," I said. "I don't want to hear it. Rest. You need to rest, Tony. You'll be all right, but it'll take time." We looked at each other in silence for a few moments. Then I said, "I'll see you, Tony," and I left.

Eve Colgate was waiting in the lobby when I got downstairs, but so was Brinkman.

"I got to talk to you, city boy."

"Jesus, Brinkman, can it wait until tomorrow? I'm a wreck."

"No. Now."

Eve put her hand on my arm. "I'll wait outside. I'm tired of this place." She turned to Brinkman. "I'd appreciate it if you kept it short, Sheriff." She walked out the smoky glass doors.

Brinkman watched her go. "'I'd appreciate it . . .' Shit."

"What the hell do you want, Brinkman?" I sat, exhausted.

"I've been talking to Otis Huttner. He's going to live. He's not even hurt bad."

"Great. Can I go now?"

"He says everything you said is true, except he claims he didn't know a goddamn thing about Lena until after it was over."

"Uh-huh, sure. And?"

"And he says the cop Sanderson bought Grice was Ron MacGregor."

I rubbed my eyes. Flashes of red and yellow played behind my lids.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me that, Smith?"

I thought of saying I didn't know, but I had nothing left for that kind of show. And there was something more important, so I said that instead. "Brinkman, does it have to come out?"

"What the hell are you talking about? I'd've had Grice years ago, except for that bastard! I don't—"

"Brinkman, look. Grice is dead. MacGregor's dead. Any organization Grice built you'll be able to take apart pretty easily now, and it probably doesn't amount to much anyhow.

"But I don't think you're going to get much else out of this. You might get Sanderson for the murder of his wife, but you'll have to drain the quarry pit to find her, and I don't think you'll have enough to go to court on, even if you do that.

"So pretty much it's over. You'll give press interviews and get re-elected. The DA and NYSEG and the Feds, and whoever else wants to, will start investigations into Appleseed Holdings. Sanderson's pet politicians will suddenly lose his phone number. He'll be nobody in this county anymore, but he won't go to jail.

"And Ron MacGregor will get buried, but as a hero, Brinkman. That's what his family thinks. That's what everybody thinks. What the hell good is it going to do anybody, if the truth comes out?"

Brinkman's small eyes fixed on me for a long time. "You're just so goddamn smart, aren't you, city boy? You can just tell what's good for everybody, and how everything oughta work."

"No," I said, standing. "If I were smart, I could make things come out the way they should, instead of being left behind to clean up the mess."

I turned away from him, followed Eve Colgate out the gray glass doors.

In the car I told Eve the story from the beginning. I told her more than I'd told Brinkman, because the paintings were hers; but the part I'd kept from him I kept from her also.

I found myself telling her about MacGregor, though, which was something else I had decided not to talk about. But I needed to talk about it.

"I didn't catch on." I said. "At first he just told me to keep out of his way. He was a cop; that's standard. And he started asking me why I thought Brinkman, with such a grudge on, hadn't been able to get at Grice. I wondered why he was asking me. But he was fishing, looking to see if I'd figured out Grice had protection. And I had, but I wasn't smart enough to see where it was coming from.

"Then suddenly he was ordering me off the case, out of the county, pissed off, as though I'd done something. I guess that was when he found out Grice really was involved and trying to set Jimmy up. He was afraid I'd get too close. He wanted to protect me. And I didn't get it."

"He was a friend of yours," she said. "You trusted him, and he couldn't afford to trust you. What would you have done, if you'd known?"

"I don't know. Honest to God, I don't know."

We rode in silence for a time, back over the route we'd taken last night with Tony. The night seemed very quiet, very dark.

"That little girl," Eve said at last. "Do you think she really did that?"

"Shot Gould? Yes. If Grice had done it hed've been proud. He wouldn't have manufactured a story, at least not for me. Yes, I think that was true."

There was more silence, more narrow, curving road, the smell of damp earth and woodsmoke in the air.

"Eve?"

"Yes?"

"I want to know something. You told me it was none of my business once, but I'm asking again. What's behind your arrangement with your gallery?"

She didn't answer for some time. Finally she said, "You have to have all the pieces, don't you? That's what drives you.”

"That's part of it," I said. "Part of it."

She shifted, turned onto 30. Her driving was smooth and sure, even in my unfamiliar car.

"I told you," she said, "how my husband died. In a car accident. I was driving; we had both been drinking. I didn't tell you why." A pause; then, "Henri had just told me he'd made another woman pregnant."

She didn't look at me. I said, "Someone up here?"

"Yes. He'd been seeing her for over a year. I didn't understand it then, and I don't now. I thought we
had ... I
thought. . . my God, how I loved him!" Her voice quavered. "And so I killed him. I don't think I meant to. I don't think so. But I don't think I'll ever know.

"Henri's daughter was born not long after I got out of the hospital. Her mother, Henri's . . . Henri's mistress . . . she wasn't a tramp. She ran a plant nursery. She was older than I, as Henri was. Smart, kind, and strong.

"She never knew who I was. I used to go to the nursery regularly. My cherry trees are from it. I watched the child grow."

The night had grown foggy as 30 climbed into the hills. I s
hivered slightl
y in the clammy air.

"I tried, through Ulrich, to give her money for the child. She knew it was from Henri's widow; she turned it down. But when the child was ready for school, she found she had a dilemma.

"We had gotten to be friends, of a sort. I don't know if you'll understand that . . ." For the first time, she glanced at me.

I said, "Yes. Yes, I do." In the darkness I couldn't see her eyes.

She nodded, went on. "She wanted the child to be educated well. She told me she had promised the child's father that. She told me—she said she had loved him very much." Eve drew a breath. "But the public schools here were not good. The only nearby private school was Adirondack Preparatory, which at that time was just a finishing school. There was no other place to send her daughter close to home, and she couldn't bear to send her away.

"And at last I had found something I could do. I made arrangements with Ulrich. On my behalf, he met with the trustees at Adirondack Preparatory. In the beginning I endowed chairs. I sponsored scholarships. I donated a new building, for the visual and performing arts.

"Eventually, as happens, my money attracted more money. Other people began sending their daughters there, and giving generously.

"By the time Henri's daughter was ready to enter the fifth grade, Adirondack had changed a great deal. She was sent there on a scholarship; she did quite well. She went on to college, and to medical school. She lives in New York now. I look her up when I go in, an old friend of her mother's.

"I've continued to support the school, and the answer to your question is that that's where my money goes. I'm not alone anymore in this, so now I concentrate my efforts in two areas: I sponsor a number of scholarships, and I underwrite Adirondack's programs in the visual arts."

The road curved, straightened again at a place where, in daylight, the view stretched fifty miles. Now there was only blackness, and distant lights.

"Do you see," she asked, "why I was unhappy with Lydia's prying into this? I knew it was unrelated to the burglary. And I had kept it secret for so long."

"Yes," I said. "I do see. And thank you for telling me. I know it was hard."

She surprised me with a wry smile. "Telling you wasn't as hard as I thought it would be."

I hesitated, said, "Eve? Who chooses the scholarship recipients?"

She threw me another glance, said, "There's a panel. They have certain criteria. Occasionally I recommend someone. I don't abuse my position and my candidates are never turned down. Why?"

"MacGregor's girls go to Adirondack," I said. "His arrangement with Grice was paying their tuition. That's what it was all about, his girls."

Eve said, "And you want me to make sure they can continue? You want to do that for him, even now?"

"Especially now. It's what he sold his soul for."

We spoke very little after that, as we covered the dark miles. I lit a cigarette and stared out the window and thought about Eve educating two generations of girls, other people's daughters, helping them to see so much, and so clearly, that in the end a nursery woman's daughter becomes a doctor, and a wild fifteen-year-old can identify, with certainty, unsigned canvases no one has ever seen before.

Chapter 22

Eve unlocked my cabin door, came in long enough to turn the light on in the front room. Her eyes fell on the piano, which gleamed softly. "I am sorry," she said, "that you won't let me hear you play." She smiled her small smile, studied me. "I imagine you're quite good."

"No. I'm not."

She smiled again, didn't answer.

Her eyes swept over the room, came back to me. "Are you sure you'll be all right?"

"Yes," I said. "Now that I'm here."

"Then I'll leave you here. Do you want me to come in the morning with your car?"

"No. I'll find my way over tomorrow. Thank you, Eve."

She took my hand, held it a moment. Then she turned and left.

I worked my way out of my jacket, found a glass and the bourbon bottle. I needed music, and I knew what I wanted: ensembled playing. Music made when people know each other, can anticipate and understand each other. I put on Beethoven, the Archduke Trio. I stretched out on the couch, sipped at the bourbon, felt the music flow around me. The soloistic, separate parts of the trio wove, danced, glided forward and back, created together what none of them was, alone.

It was an illusion, but it was beautiful.

I slept until one the next afternoon. Sometimes after the music was over and the bourbon was gone Id made my way into bed, and after that I was aware of nothing except the strange, sad images of my dreams.

When I awoke I was aching and stiff. My head hurt, but not as badly as the day before, not as badly as I'd expected. I stumbled to the outer room, clicked on the hot water, built a fire, put the kettle on. The day was gray again, silent, but with an expectation in the air.

I put bourbon in the coffee and made the coffee strong. After it was gone I showered, tried to soothe my aching shoulders under the rhythm of the pounding heat. I shaved, inspected in the mirror the shiner ringing my left eye, blood under the skin from the bullet that might have killed me. I was a mess. You could read the week's accumulation of trouble on my face.

Still, I didn't have to wait long on 30 before a pickup, heading south, stopped for me. Antonelli's was north of my place, and Eve Colgate's house north of that, but before I did what I needed to do today I had to eat.

"Thanks," I said as I climbed into the truck. "I wasn't sure anybody would stop for someone who looks like this."

The driver, a big, unshaven man, laughed a big, friendly laugh. "You kiddin'? Safest guy in the world to be with is a guy who's finished makin' trouble for someone else."

We shared a smoke and some idle talk about the nearness of spring. He let me off at the Eagle's Nest, a small, shiny diner that still had most of its original aerodynamic chrome.

At the counter I ordered steak and eggs, homefries, toast, and coffee. I took the first mug of coffee to the phone, called the hospital. I asked them how Tony was and they told me he was better, out of danger now. Then I asked for Lydia's room.

The phone rang five times and I was about to give up when a groggy voice answered in slurred Chinese.

"English," I said. "It's me."

"Oh, goody, it's you," she said. "Where are you?"

"At a diner, having breakfast. How do you feel?"

"Sleepy, and I have a huge headache. Is this what it's like when you have a hangover?"

"No, a hangover's worse because you know it's your own fault, too. Listen, I'll be up to see you later. I just wanted to know how you were."

"I can't wait. Bill, is Jimmy all right?"

"He wasn't hurt. I haven't seen him since yesterday, but he's okay. Go back to sleep."

"Wait. You don't really have Eve's paintings, do you?"

"No. That was for Grice. It was all I could think of. But now I know where they are. I'm going to get them after I eat."

"You do? Where are they?"

"I'll tell you about it when I come up," I said, and I knew I would. The part I hadn't told anyone, I would tell Lydia. "Hey, Lydia?" "Umm?"

"You want me to call your mother, tell her what happened?"

She sighed, but just before the sigh I thought I heard a stifled giggle. "You," she said, "are an idiot."

"Yeah," I said, "I know. I'll see you later."

I hung up, went back to the counter, where my breakfast was waiting. I ate, filled with immense gratitude toward chickens and cows, offering a prayer of thanks for grease and salt. The homefries especially were almost unbearably good, burned in the pan, flecked with onions and peppers.

Finally finished, I lit a cigarette and worked the room, found somebody who was headed north on 30. He turned out to be a weekender, like me, and as we sped past my driveway and the empty parking lot at Antonelli's we talked about the city and, again, the approach of spring.

He dropped me on 30; I caught another ride into Central Bridge, walked the mile and a half to Eve's house. It felt good to walk, even in the dullness of a late winter day that made the promise of spring seem like just another damn lie you'd let yourself be suckered, again, into believing.

I was halfway up the drive when Leo came charging around from the back, barking, growling, yipping, and wagging all at once. I gave him the jelly doughnut I'd brought from the Eagle's Nest, scratched his ears, looked up to see Eve standing on the porch.

"Hi," she smiled. "How are you?"

"Much better, thanks."

"Come in. There's coffee and cake."

I shook my head. "Later, Eve. I want to finish this."

She gave me the keys to her truck and I headed back south. I pulled into the gravel lot at Antonelli's, slowed to a stop close to the door. I let myself in with the keys I had taken from Tony's hospital room.

I was steeled for an eerie silence, a sense of something ended, lost. But inside, the tables were set and a strong smell of garlic and oregano came from the kitchen. The jukebox was playing Charlie Daniels. As the door slammed behind me a voice yelled from the kitchen, "Marie?"

"No," I called back. "Bill."

The kitchen door swung open and Jimmy came through wiping his hands on a towel. "Hey, Mr. S.!" he grinned. "You okay? I called the hospital. They said you went home. What're you doing here?"

"I came to pick something up. What are
you
doing here?"

"Oh," he shrugged. "Well, you know. Tony's gonna be in the hospital a long time. That kind of stuff costs a lot. The hospital, they said Miss Colgate was taking care of everything, but that ain't right. You know? I mean, he's my brother. Hey, you want a drink?" He started to move behind the bar.

"No," I said. "No, thanks. Does Tony know you're doing this?"

"Nah. He don't want to talk to me."

"Did you go up to the hospital?"

"Uh-uh. He'd just tell me to get lost. That's what he always told me. You know."

I knew. I gestured around the bar. "You think you can manage here?"

"Sure. No problem. I called Marie and Ray. And Allies coming in later, to help."

"Alice? Hey, Jimmy, that's great."

"Yeah, well, she says just to help. For Tony. The rest of it, she says we'll have to figure it out."

We stood looking at each other, suddenly awkward. Then Jimmy said, "So—what'd you come to get?"

"Jimmy," I asked, "how much did Lydia tell you yesterday?"

He grinned, a little color seeping into his face. "I was scared, man. Real scared. She just sorta kept talking, you know, until you guys showed up."

"What did she say?"

"Well, about what happened." He told me what Lydia had told him. It was the same story Id given Brinkman: the truth, except for details of what it was Ginny had stolen from Eve Colgate.

And except, of course, for the part Lydia didn't know.

"Well," I said when he was through, "here's what comes next." I pulled a chair out from the nearest table, sank into it. I got a cigarette going before I went on. "That stuff Ginny stole that turned out to be so valuable? It was also big. Too big for her to take home and hide, and she didn't trust Wally with it."

"Wally?"

"Wake up, Jimmy. He's who she left you for. He was a lot closer to Frank than you were, and that's what she wanted."

"Wally?" He
shook his head in disbelief. "Fuckin' Wally?"

"Yeah," I said. "Anyhow, she needed someplace safe to store this stuff for a while."

Light dawned in his eyes. "Here?"

"She had your keys. She must have known about Tony's basement. She probably figured no one would ever notice."

Jimmy flushed. "I told her. About downstairs. I was, like, goofing on Tony one day."

"So she hid it there. And she showed it to Frank Monday night. She’d already told him about it, and he was already figuring the angles. At the very least, he could frame you for the burglary and shake down Tony. That's what the fight was about.

"But when Ginny and Wally took him down here and showed him what they had, he acted cool. He wasn't impressed. Ginny was just a stupid kid, an amateur, he said. He told her to go home, back to daddy."

"She must've hated that, being treated like a kid. Like she wasn't tough."

"She did hate it. She hated it so much she showed how tough she really was by killing Wally, on the spot."

"Yeah," Jimmy muttered. "Yeah, that's what Lydia said. Jesus."

I didn't say anything. After a moment Jimmy asked, "Mr. S.? Why did Frank kill her?"

"She was in his way. She had just gotten to be too much trouble."

Jimmy rubbed his hand along his forehead.

Neither of us spoke for a long time. The jukebox moved from Charlie Daniels to Crystal Gayle. Finally Jimmy said, "Where is this—this stuff?"

"In the basement. Come help me with it."

We went down the creaking stairs. The basement still had the same dank smell, the same decades of dust covering things that once mattered to someone. The disturbances made by the finding of Wally Gould were already aging, rounding, fading.

Jimmy found his way to the middle of the room with an unconscious familiarity. He pulled the chain hanging from the bare bulb and in the light I searched the room from where I stood.

I found it immediately, a plywood crate about six by six, partially hidden behind other boxes. It was carefully made, fastened with screws at the corners, and it was practically dust free.

Jimmy and I carried it up, maneuvering carefully through the basement door, past the tables and barstools, out into the lot. I let down the back gate of Eve's truck and we hefted the crate onto the metal bed. My sore shoulders ached, my arms trembled a little as I closed the gate again.

Jimmy had been silent since we'd entered the basement. Now he turned to me, asked, "What's in it?"

"Eve asked me not to tell anyone, Jimmy. I'm sorry."

"No, it's okay. I sort of—I don't want to know, you know?"

I started around to the cab. As I put my hand on the door handle Jimmy said, "Mr. S., I don't get it." He frowned, rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, Tony's gesture.

"Don't get what?" I asked, but as I said it, I knew.

"Frank was framing me for killing Wally, right? And Ginny too? That's what Lydia said."

"That's right."

"But you told that trooper Ginny's body was in the quarry. Why would he, like, ditch her body, if he was setting me up? Is that who came up that night in the rain? To drop her there?" We looked at each other in the dull afternoon light. "Mr. S., that wasn't Frank, was it?"

I looked around me, the gravel lot, the tin sign swinging against the graying sky. The air had gotten colder since I left the cabin; there was a bite to the wind.

And suddenly I thought, tell him. Maybe something can be salvaged out of what happened here, if he knows. And so I told Jimmy what I had kept from everybody else. "No," I said. "That wasn't Frank. That was Tony."

It took him a minute to answer, and when he did his voice was shaky. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Tony'd heard what Frank had to say about you. When I found Gould's body, Tony came down to the basement. He knows every inch of it, every broken piece of trash there. He must've spotted the crate right away, knew it didn't belong. Then your keys, the whole frame. He bought it all.

"Wednesday night he went looking for you. Marie would probably tell us, if we asked. Maybe he closed up early, maybe he just left her in charge. He was on his way to the quarry, I think. I'd told him you were there; I wanted him to know you were safe.

"But he saw your truck, on the road. He followed it. He didn't know it was Frank and Ginny; how would he know that? He thought it was you.

"He followed them to Eve Colgate's shed. He stayed back, to see what was going on. He's lucky he did that; Frank would have killed him. But what he saw was two people going into the shed, one coming out. Remember how dark it was that night, Jimmy, right before it rained.

"The truck drove away, but Tony stayed. Frank must've driven right by Tony's car, never saw him. I checked that road up from the valley. You could pull off and hide in the dark, lots of places.

"Tony went to the shed. The lock had been cut through; it was easy to get in.

"And he found Ginny, in a pool of blood on the floor. Your glove beside her. Your truck driving away.

"He bought this frame, too. Just like the other one."

"He thought I did that?" Jimmy spoke slowly. "Ginny, like that? He thought I did that?"

I waited before I went on.

"He took her body to his car. Her body, and the glove. He tried to clean up the blood, but there was too much. So he did something else: He covered it up. With paint, which Eve—which she stores there. With anything else he could find. That mess in the shed? It was only the floor. The windows weren't broken, the walls weren't scrawled on. Only the floor.

"But just as he started—probably even before he moved the body—I came along. He heard me coming; he couldn't let anyone see. Couldn't let anyone know what you'd done. So he waited, and he hit me, knocked me out."

"No, man," Jimmy said. "Uh-uh. If that was Tony, even if he thought it was me, he'd've told you. You, man. You saved my butt that other time, he knew that."

"I also gave your keys to MacGregor. Tony and I had fought about that. He didn't trust me to protect you, Jimmy. Not when it came to hiding a murder, a fifteen-year-old kid."