The Hamlet Trap (11 page)

“But why mess it up at all? What for?”

“To hide the fact that there's no blood, maybe?”

“You think she was killed somewhere else and brought here? Killed in a car? Not with that head wound. A heavy object just behind the right ear. Not easy to do in a car.”

“I know. The report suggests that the killer picked up a rock and used that, then tossed it in the river. They didn't find it, obviously, and even if they found a thousand rocks, they'd be pretty well scoured. Try to find a particular one among them. Let's see where this road goes.”

They continued across the bridge into the park itself. The road dead-ended at a small maintenance building. There was a turnaround gravel drive. No one was in sight. The trees in the park were magnificent, huge, beautifully shaped madrones, firs, spruces. An almost vertical cliff that paralleled the river was the park boundary. It was covered with trees and bushes; a path or two seemed to go straight up it.

“You could hide an elephant brigade in here,” Charlie commented.

He began to poke around in bushes that grew lush on the riverbank. He leaned over and came upright again with a three-foot-long, partly decayed branch in his hand. With a guilty look he went to the bank and started to gouge at the soft, muddy earth. It crumbled at a touch. He nodded and tossed the branch into the water and backed away, then looked at his feet. “I could have done it with hardly a drop of mud getting on me.” he said.

They started to walk back to the rented Buick. “Charlie, I really hate this. Why would anyone put the body of a woman in the river? It's… it's too crazy. People know that autopsies determine the time of death and cause. No one these days would expect to fool experts into thinking she drowned or anything.”

“I don't know why,” he said, agreeing with her. Television had educated most people about such things. He looked at his watch. “I have to have something to eat before we tackle Ginnie. How about you?”

FOURTEEN

Ginnie led Constance
and Charlie into her living room. Almost before they were seated, she demanded, “Tell me who hired you. I have a right to know.”

“Ralph Wedekind,” Charlie said. “I thought you did know. He said you did.”

“Who hired him? Was it Peter's family? His parents?”

Constance said, “Does it matter so very much? You could ask Ralph for a lawyer-client contract, you know, to be sure he's working in your interests.”

Ginnie looked taken aback and abruptly sat down on the yellow chair. Constance and Charlie were on the couch.

“Do they do that?” Ginnie asked. “Write out contracts of that sort?”

“Of course, if you want one. I would, in your position. Why not give him a call and tell him you want it.”

“Excuse me,” Ginnie muttered and left them. A moment later they could hear her voice from the kitchen; it was too low to understand the words. She came back. “He said he'd have it in the mail today. Thanks. I didn't think of that.”

“I understand your concern,” Constance said. “For all you know, someone might be trying to close the trap even more.”

“At the theater, what you said about one of us… Do you believe that?”

“If the key's the deciding factor, it has to be one of the people who have the keys,” Charlie said. “May we call you Ginnie? And please call us Charlie and Constance, or else you run into the Mr. Meiklejohn and Ms. Leidl problem. It confuses a hell of a lot of people. They probably all think we're living in sin.”

Her smile was not very pronounced, but it was there flashingly. “Okay.”

“I know you've told everything a million times,” Charlie said. “But not to us. Would you mind going through it all once more?”

She started to speak in a toneless voice and he held up his hand. “You've memorized all that from too much repetition. Let's do it a different way. We'll ask questions, jump about a bit, maybe, and you just say what comes to mind. One word or a paragraph, whatever.”

She was gripping her hands together so hard the knuckles were white. Constance signaled Charlie and said, “Ginnie, it relaxes you if you draw while you talk, doesn't it? Why don't you do that?”

Ginnie looked at her hands and sighed. She got up and crossed the room to the paisley bag she always carried and rummaged in it. Suddenly she dumped everything out on the floor and scattered the items—two sketchbooks, half a dozen or more pencils, a penlight, pens, a paperback book… “It's gone.”

“What's missing?” Charlie asked lazily.

“My other sketchbook, the one I've been using.” She picked up one of the two on the floor and returned to her chair. “I must have left it in Uncle Ro's office, or the rehearsal room.”

Later, Ginnie could not remember which one of them asked which questions, or even what questions they asked specifically, but she had found herself talking about her life with her mother, about going to college, doing graduate work, moving to Ashland.

“After Mother died, Uncle Ro overreacted. I think he was afraid I'd go into a worse depression than I already was in,” she said that afternoon. “He took me to England and France and Italy. He always took me to see big things—cathedrals, Stonehenge, castles, that sort of thing. At first I didn't want to go. I didn't even know him, but he was wise. I know that now. The things he made me look at were all so much bigger than anyone's personal grief. He was wise.”

“And your mother hadn't told you about him?”

“No. She never talked about anything in the past. Even when we moved from one city to another, she never talked about the last city. I didn't realize how strange that was until years later. It was what I was used to and I accepted it.” A puzzled look crossed her face, left it again. “One time,” she said then, “she said something about the theater here, about Uncle Ro. I had forgotten it until this minute. I had a part in a play at school, a Shakespeare play, and she said she had always wanted to play Shakespeare, and he, her brother, hadn't let her. She said she ended up playing Cressida to his Pandarus anyway.” She shook her head. “I don't know what she meant and she wouldn't say anything else about it.”

“Why wouldn't he let her do Shakespeare, I wonder,” Charlie mused.

“Now I understand that part. He'll never do any Shakespeare because of the Oregon Shakespearean Festival. That's their territory and he wouldn't encroach on it for anything.”

“And that's the only time she mentioned him, or Ashland, any of this past?”

“I can't remember anything else.”

“You and Peter were actually planning on two trips, weren't you? One all-day trip, then back here, and then on to the coast for a few days?”

“Yes.”

“Why weren't you planning to camp out overnight and then go on to the coast?”

“It was rainy.”

“But you camped out other times in the rain.”

She ducked her head and mumbled, “I don't know. He didn't want to this time.”

“Did they impound your car when you got home after being in the woods?”

“Impound? You mean take it away?”

Charlie nodded.

“No, but they had a bunch of men in the garage examining it all afternoon. I think they took mud samples. I know they were all through my daypack.”

“And they didn't find a map. And that made them believe you knew where you had been well enough that you didn't need a map. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

Charlie felt Constance signal and looked at her, waiting for her to pick it up. One time their daughter, Jessica, had demanded to know how he knew when Constance was signaling; she couldn't see anything, she had said indignantly. Charlie had answered, “She tickles me under the left shoulder blade with invisible fingers.” Jessica had flounced out with a disdainful glance. But it was as true as anything else he could have said about it, he thought, watching his wife.

“What would happen,” Constance asked gently, “if you led them to this secret place? How would they desecrate it?”

The lead broke on Ginnie's pencil. “I don't know what you mean.”

“Not mountains, or canyons; there are too many of both, and even if you found steep mountains or deep canyons, they would be very like all the rest, wouldn't they? Something big. Trees. Giant trees? Was that it? Was that what Peter discovered and wanted to share with you, but not camp out among them, not disturb them with fire and tents?”

“How do you know?” Ginnie whispered in fear.

“Well, as I said, not mountains or valleys or canyons. Not an archeological site, because that would have to be disturbed in order to investigate it. And he didn't want to camp out there, just go and look and leave it alone again. That's what you did, isn't it?”

“I slept under the tree.” Her voice was so low it was almost inaudible; her gaze was riveted on Constance as if she could not look away.

“Did you need a map to find the place?”

“I burned it the next morning when I came out again.”

“What would they do to the trees?”

Ginnie finally looked away. “They'd go in with augers and drills and take core samples. Photographers would go in, make a better trail. Maybe they'd make a state park or something, or loggers would take the trees down. People would carve their initials in them, build fires everywhere. …”

“We won't tell, but one day you might have to. You understand that? Could you return there if it becomes necessary?”

“I'm not sure. I think so, but I can't be sure. How did you guess?”

“You were healed there, weren't you? Not completely, perhaps, but the process began there and is continuing, the way the cathedrals and Stonehenge started the process when your mother died. Something bigger than anyone's personal grief, bigger than life, awesome. Something holy. Here it would be a tree, or trees.”

Constance glanced at Charlie; his turn again. She leaned back in her chair.

“Ginnie, exactly what did Laura say to you that day outside the theater?”

“I told you. She was sorry, she wanted to help. …”

Charlie was shaking his head. “Her words. Close your eyes and think of her words. Get the scene back first.”

Obediently she closed her eyes and the minutes dragged before she opened them again. She picked up another pencil and began drawing, evidently paying little or no attention to her hand. It looked eerie to see the pencil moving without supervision. “She said, ‘I don't want to hurt you. I can help you.' and ‘I know you've been hurt very much.' Something else… ‘If there's anything I can do, please let me.'” She became silent, her brow wrinkled in thought, and finally she said, “I can't think of anything else.”

“Did you see Sunshine that day?”

“No.”

“Why did you leave at that time?”

She shrugged. “I ate lunch with Uncle Ro and Gray and we walked outside for a minute. Everyone kept talking about how wonderful the weather was, sunny and warm, and I couldn't think of anything to say back to them. I felt as if I had forgotten words, simple everyday words that people use.”

“Where did you walk?”

“Just out back, around the shop, and back in through the stage door. It was just a minute or two.”

“Could Laura have seen you?”

She looked blank, then shrugged again. “I don't know. If she had been anywhere back there, or even on the corner, I guess so.”

“You see the problem, don't you? If she had been going to the theater, why didn't she keep going? Why did she turn around and walk away with you? And where was she all afternoon?”

She looked miserable. She understood what Draker had meant by his questions, implying that she and Laura had spent the rest of the day together, that she had driven Laura to the park and hit her in the head there, pushed her into the river, and then had driven around most of the night terrified.

“Ginnie,” Constance asked then, “what did your mother and Ro argue about? Why wouldn't she talk about him?”

“I don't know.”

“We have to be going now,” Constance said easily. “What you just said reminds me of when I was studying under this bear of a psychology teacher. He hated for the students not to remember word for word every lecture he gave. One day he roared at us: ‘You will remember, do you hear me? You will remember, if not in words, then in sounds. If not in sounds, then in pictures. Your hands will remember even if your head doesn't.'” She smiled. “Why don't you keep that sketchbook here? Just so you won't misplace it at the theater. When can we see you tomorrow?”

“I'll be free after Gray's reading,” she said in a low voice. “Right after lunch?”

“Fine. We'll see you at the reading, too. Get a good sleep, Ginnie.”

In the car Charlie leaned over and kissed Constance. “You're a witch,” he murmured. “And I like it.”

“Is she really in danger?”

“I wish I thought she isn't. She put that sketchbook in her bag, you know. I saw her do it.”

“Me too. I was watching her. It's as close to automatic writing—drawing—as you can get.”

Charlie drove cautiously down the steep hill onto the main street. “We're due at Ro's apartment at six-thirty,” he said. “And it is now five-ten. What I say is let's have a drink.”

“Good thinking. Look, there's Sunshine. Can you endure her for an hour?”

“Might be a good time. Let's nab her and pump her full of liquor and get the lowdown on everyone all at once.” He parked the car and they got out and caught up with Sunshine.

“Hi,” Charlie said. “We're on our way to have a nice quiet drink. Join us?”

“I don't drink anything with alcohol,” she said, smiling. “Or caffeine, you know? You know what alcohol does? It kills liver cells, like radiation.”

“You can have orange juice while we poison our livers,” Charlie said.

“They smoke in bars, don't they? I don't go where people smoke, you know? Smoke is worse than alcohol, you know?”

“There's an ice-cream parlor down the block,” Constance said, and smiled sweetly at Charlie.

“I am not interested in ice cream,” he said emphatically.

Constance took his arm and steered him about. “I wonder how long it's been since I've had a strawberry soda. You know ice cream is full of cholesterol, don't you?” she asked Sunshine.

“They pretend dairy products are bad for you, but they aren't. Not if you exercise. I drink juices and raw milk at home, and herb teas. I can't get raw milk in restaurants. They pretend it's dangerous. Chocolate is bad, but strawberry's all right.”

“I'll have a double chocolate milkshake,” Charlie said grumpily.

Constance squeezed his arm. Actually he had a root beer. If he pretended hard enough, he thought, he might even convince himself it was real beer. He failed to pretend hard enough.

“I really like your play,” Constance said after sipping her soda. It was as good as she remembered, she thought with surprise. So few things were.

“It's a good play,” Sunshine said with her gentle smile in place. “I wanted to write about evil, how it kills everyone it touches, and I had to personify evil in a woman because women are mysterious, you know? Men can be really bad but they aren't mysterious. You always know why they're bad, what they want, but you don't know that about some evil women. You're the High Priestess, you know? And he's the Emperor. I'll read your cards tonight.”

“I'm afraid we won't have time tonight,” Constance said.

“That's all right. I always read them first and if there's anything bad I find it and don't talk about it, you know? I sort of talk around it.”

“Have you read for the theater group?”

“Laura. The others are too superstitious. They're afraid I'll read for the actors and actresses and spook them. When the sun came out last week, they were all smiling and saying it was a good sign and then they say they aren't superstitious.” She laughed softly.