The Deer Leap (15 page)

“I figured he'd have to do something. He was getting pretty bored.”

Blackstone flicked the mouse with his paws all round the
dirt floor of the arbor. The terrier watched and then joined in. It was a game.

“Well?” asked Carrie. “I guess you came out here to ask me questions.”

“If you don't mind. We could go sit down somewhere.”

“I have too much to do to sit.” Noisily, she rattled a cage door, trying to open it, disturbing a badger in its rest.

Jury could feel again the turbulence in the air and wondered if it was his proximity that bothered her. He did not think she wanted, as in the case of the tinker, to go for her gun.

“Okay. I don't want to bother you if you're busy. Maybe later.”

He turned to go.

“No!” One of the crates toppled and she quickly righted it. The gray fox inside ran round in circles. She smoothed her hands down her dress, brushed her hair over her shoulder, and locked her arms across her breasts. “I mean, go ahead and ask.”

Jury smiled. Carrie looked away. “Thank you,” he said, with a bit of a try at formality, respecting the distance she put between them. But he was not sure how to go on with her. Not with that look of woe she tried to let pass for either indifference or patience with uncomprehending adults. “First thing, Carrie: you came on the Crowley boys with Miss Praed's cat with a gun in your hands. You don't deny that, do you?”

Carrie hadn't moved her eyes from his, and not a flicker of denial had crossed her face. She was fingering a very small gold chain around her throat.

Jury felt stupid. It was as if he were back in detective training school trying to get a handle on the ways to question witnesses. All he could bring to mind was the stare. Stare the buggers down. They'll come round.

Carrie stared back.

“You shot that gun at them.” Jury knew she'd shot it into the dirt. But she didn't bother correcting him.

And still, she'd talked to him about the animals. He'd been stupid, taken the wrong path. “Okay. No one ever poured petrol over me and started lighting matches.” Her look shifted like sand. “What'd you have done if they'd gone ahead, Carrie?”

“Shot their kneecaps,” she said, reasonably.

“Constable Pasco would have pulled you in pretty quick for that.”

“I'm used to him.” In an old cage, a finch with a bandaged wing uttered its weak double note. It must have felt there was something worth singing about.

“What's the finch's name?”

“Limerick. Neahle was born there. Before they moved to Belfast.” She opened the cage. “You can come out.” But the bird still sat, swinging gently on its perch. She closed the cage. “It doesn't like strangers. I guess you're going to do something about the shotgun, aren't you?”

Jury smiled. “I suppose if the Baroness wants a game warden, she has a right to one. It's not up to me anyway, is it?”

To that she simply answered, “I can shoot a gun, too. The Baron liked to hunt and used to do target practice on the grounds. Probably shot off a couple of statues' arms.” She put Blackstone back in his cage, along with the mouse.

“Where did
you
learn to shoot?”

“I taught myself. And the Baroness loves to go to Clint Eastwood films. I like the way he holds the gun with both hands.” She paused, considering, chewing at the corner of her mouth. “He's handsome, Clint Eastwood.” She blushed and shrugged it off. “I mean if you like that type. The Baroness claims the Baron looked like him,” she said, hurrying along to cover up her compliment to anyone who might be a policeman. “But I've seen enough pictures of the Baron to know how true
that
is.”

“Would you do me a favor and come sit down on that bench?” Jury nodded beyond the opening to the arbor.

“When I'm finished,” she said crisply.

Jury smiled inwardly. Might as well try to move a Stonehenge monolith as move her. As she went about her business of feeding her animals, he watched her in the filtered light that cast narrow bands of green across the arbor walls and across her face. Paraphrasing the poem, Jury thought:
A green girl in a green shade.
The poet might have been describing Carrie Fleet, much as she might have hated to be thought a pretty figure in an old romance.

W
hen they were finally seated on the stone bench, with the dog Bingo lying underneath, Jury took out his cigarettes.

“You going to smoke?”

“Do you mind?”

“It's not my lungs.”

There was a lengthy silence as Jury smoked and Carrie Fleet meditated. Finally, she said, “For a policeman, you don't talk much.”

“For a fifteen-year-old, neither do you.”

She shrugged. “Talking's just a nervous habit.”

Jury smiled. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“No. I'm used to police.”

“I understand you've had one or two talks with Constable Pasco.”

She bent her head and counted on her fingers. “Eight. Though he makes it out to be more like a hundred and eight.”

“That much trouble, is there?”

Now she was gazing at the sky. It was an ice-blue, a frozen-over lake of sky, like her eyes. “Not for me.”

“Just for Pasco.”

Carrie didn't, apparently, think a response necessary.

“You knew Una Quick and her dog. And seem to know everyone else's dogs and cats. What do you think's been going on?”

“Not accidents.”

“Why not?”

She was scuffing the toe of her sneaker in the dirt. “Two dogs and a cat. And two people. That's an awful lot of accidents to happen in a week.”

Of course, she would put the cat and dogs before the people. “Have you any ideas?”

“Maybe.”

“Mind telling me?”

“Maybe.”

Jury looked down at the stub of his cigarette, smiling. “I'd rather question the Queen.”

Her blue eyes widened. “Have you, then? What'd she do?”

“Nothing.” He laughed.

Interest in Scotland Yard evaporating like the wispy smoke of his cigarette, she sighed and turned away. Jury glanced at her profile — quite perfect, but she didn't know it. The child who'd emerged suddenly was hidden again.

“Given the animals, I guess I imagined you'd have done a lot of thinking about it. Because you'd have cared more.”

Still scuffing up dust, she looked away. “Maybe.”

This time, the word caught in her throat, one syllable pulling the other along. She turned back. “It's someone in the village.”

In the act of grinding out his cigarette, Jury stopped, surprised. “Why do you think so?”

“
Because
—” Her tone was loaded with disgust. “—I don't think somebody would come up from London to poison the Potters' cat or Una Quick's dog. And if I find out who —” The tone was grim.

“I suggest you tell the police.”

She just looked at him. Hopeless.

“Have you got a list of suspects, then?”

“Haven't you?”

Jury took out his notebook. “Haven't lived here as long as you. Only got into town yesterday afternoon. Would you mind telling me?”

“Yes, I'd mind.” Shading her eyes with her hand, she looked up at the sky. “Probably going to have frost, and I guess that'll please Mr. Grimsdale to death. He can hardly wait to get hounds out. Going to be a meet in a couple of days.” She sighed. “It's so much
work.”

“What work?”

Her blue eyes glazed his face. “Unstopping earths.”

Jury smiled. “What do you do? Follow the earthstopper when he goes out?”

“Don't have to. I know where they are.” She nodded toward the arbor hut and rough-cut wooden sign nailed to it, on which was printed
Sanctuary.
“That's his fox I've got in there. It's a little sick. I'll let it go in a couple of days.”

“Good God.” Jury laughed. “Can't imagine Grimsdale letting you play nurse.”

“I stole it.” When Jury opened his mouth, she sighed. “Here it comes. Lecture. It was one of those foxes he bags. If you think it's okay to bag foxes and keep them in a kennel, lecture away.”

“No lecture. Does he know?”

“Maybe. But he can't go into my sanctuary. It'd be like trying to drag some thief or someone out of a church.”

“If Grimsdale doesn't try, I'd put it down more to fear of broken kneecaps than God.”

Her smile was small and faded quickly. He had never seen such a determined chin, such an adamantine gaze. Again, she was fingering the gold chain, its links so tiny they were gossamer. Jury wouldn't have thought Carrie to be much concerned
with finery. Part of the necklace was under the jumper, and she drew it out. There was a small ring attached, an amethyst. It was too small to fit her fingers.

“That's very pretty.”

She nodded. “I wish I had eyes that color.”

Jury looked away, smiling. Obviously, she'd seen Polly Praed. “Is it a special ring?”

Carrie held it toward him. “Can you read what's inside? The writing's so small I can hardly make it out. I think my mother gave it to me.”

Jury squinted at the initial C and the tiny words
from Mother.
He knew she only wanted confirmation, or to share some knowledge that he doubted she herself had. “That's what it says, all right. Do you remember her?”

She shook her head, put the ring back under the jumper.

End of subject.

They sat there for a minute, and Jury said, “It would be helpful to know who's going round killing off the animal population.”

“And the people,” she said calmly. “Una Quick and Mrs. MacBride. I wouldn't be surprised if there's more.” Her face turned once again to the sky, as if it were her main concern. “Frost.”

A
manda Crowley was wearing whipcord trousers and a tweed jacket. Jury wondered if she was always scenting, like Sebastian Grimsdale and hounds, for the cold and the frost that foretold the hunt. The Crowley cottage reminded him a little of a rather fancy tack room. It smelled of polish and horses.

It was the first thing she mentioned after the most abrupt of social interchanges. “Hunt starts soon, too bad the boys aren't here.” Then she looked about her, as if mildly surprised by their absence.

“Too bad, yes. They've gone back to school, I understand.”

“Just two days ago. They'd been on a brief holiday . . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Been sent down, you mean,
thought Jury.

“I really haven't much time, Superintendent. I'm expected at Gun Lodge in a few minutes. Can't imagine why you're here, anyway.”

Again, he smiled, betraying in Amanda a response she no doubt resented. She fell for it. She pulled down the jumper
beneath the jacket and ran her hand, like a comb, over her smoothed-back hair. The body was thin and the hair silvery; still, she would have been attractive except for the creases about the mouth that suggested a crotchety temperament.

“I was wondering how well you knew Sally MacBride.” Jury held out his packet of cigarettes.

She took one and rolled it between her fingers for a few seconds, then accepted his match. There was another brief silence. “Scarcely at all. It's a dreadful thing to happen. Poor John.”

Amanda crossed her legs. From thigh to ankle, in the tight trousers, it was clear they were well-shaped but taut, like the rest of her. She reminded Jury a little of the riding crop she had absently plucked from the table and was running up and down her leg.

Nicely Freudian, he thought. He wondered how she got on with Grimsdale. “What's ‘scarcely at all' mean, Mrs. Crowley? That you spoke to her only to say ‘hello,' or ‘nice morning'?”

“Well, of
course,
I chatted with her. I often go to the Deer Leap. Don't we all?”

Jury shrugged, rested his chin on his hand, and said, “I don't know, do I?” The tone was mild. No belligerence, except for what she might infer.

“I don't understand all of this. Why are you asking about Sally?”

“What about Una Quick? Now, you
did
know her rather well?”

The little lines around her mouth seemed etched in acid.
“Everyone
knew Una Quick. And I
still
am asking you what's this all about?” She flicked her wrist, looking at the watch with its sensible leather strap, as if she'd give him another one-half minute.

“Gossip,” said Jury.

Her eyes narrowed. “I am
not
a gossip, Superintendent. I've better things to do.”

“Didn't say you were. But I'd imagine Una Quick was, especially running the post-office stores as she did.” Jury looked around the room. Wood-paneled, a couple of saddles — one on a mock-up of a tailor's horse — riding crops, boots, even two brass ones guarding each side of the small fireplace. The glass out of which she'd been drinking was etched with stirrups. “In three days, two accidents. And that's not even mentioning the dogs and the cat. Fatal. Doesn't that make you wonder?”

Her eyes, stone-gray and stone-hard, regarded him. “No, it doesn't. Una had a bad heart; Sally had the misfortune to get trapped in that playhouse.” She had the grace to shiver, rubbing her arms up and down. “Probably the wind banged the door shut. Awful to be claustrophobic —”

“You knew she was?”

“Everyone
knew she was. Was on a train that stalled in the tube and she fainted. Had to sleep with a light on, that sort of thing.”

“Don't you think it strange that Mrs. MacBride would be going out to Neahle's playhouse at night?”

Her smile was knowing. “An assignation, perhaps, Superintendent?”

Not much sympathy was being wasted on the dead woman, certainly. “With whom?”