The Hamlet Trap (7 page)

“Nothing. Spotty was in his room. I went down the hall to Uncle Ro's office and he was there, dead.”

“How do you know Spotty was in his room?”

“I don't know.”

“Was your uncle's door open?”

“A little.” She held up her hand to show about three inches.

“Go on.”

“I opened the door and went in and he was on the floor. He was dead. I don't know what I did then.” She shook her head, as if trying to clear a memory, then sighed. “Then you came.”

“Did you touch the doorstop?”

She shook her head.

“You must have stepped over it, or put it in the way yourself. Did you see it?” No.

“You know which doorstop I'm talking about, made out of bronze, about this high?” He indicated twelve inches or so.

“The clown,” she said.

“Yes. It was in the doorway when I got there. Did you move it?”

“I didn't see it.”

“After you saw Mr. Ellis, what did you do? Did you touch him to make sure that he was dead?”

“No. He was dead. I knew he was dead.”

“What did you do?”

“I don't know,” she said faintly. “I can't remember doing anything at all. I was in Spotty's room and Uncle Ro was there and you came.”

“You screamed, Miss Braden. Sport)' heard you. Where were you when you screamed?”

“I didn't know I screamed.”

“And you had to leave the office again because Spotty found you in the hall. Do you remember leaving the office?”

She shook her head.

“Spotty said you were pulling on the doorknob, trying to close the door. The clown doorstop prevented you from closing it.”

Her eyes remained blank, almost unfocused, and again she shook her head.

“Were the lights on?”

“I guess they were. I could see.”

“Did you see which lights were on?”

“No.”

“Did you have to enter the office to see Mr. Ellis?”

“I opened the door and walked in and saw him.”

“Did you step over the doorstop?”

“I don't know.”

He took her over it again and then came back to several points but got nothing more from her. Finally he motioned to his deputy, who had made notes, and he stood up. “Get some rest, Miss Braden. I may have to ask you some more questions later. We think he must have surprised a burglar. Miss Braden, do you think anyone could have mistaken him for Gray Wilmot?”

“No.”

“He was wearing Wilmot's raincoat over his head, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“That's a fairly distinctive raincoat. Not many men here wear them at all.”

“It wasn't on his head. I saw his head. …” She looked at her hands in her lap.

“Yes. Well, it's a possibility, but we think he walked in on a burglary. I'll be going now. Thank you, Miss Braden.”

TEN

“She should have gone
down to the funeral,” Ro said unhappily to Gray, over lunch five days after the murder. The murder was all they thought about, even if no one spoke openly about it. The detectives kept coming around, asking questions, getting in the way, accomplishing nothing except to keep everyone uptight; he knew they could not continue in that state indefinitely, not and put on plays at the same time.

“Maybe I should ask her to start work on the models now, not wait for the auditions.”

Ro shrugged. “Maybe. Not her routine. Doubt that she'd do it.”

“I'm tempted to complain about the sketches, pretend I don't like them, have her do some of them over. Might get a rise out of her, jar her out of this mood.”

“I don't think we ought to play any games with her,” Ro said heavily.

“Yeah, me too.” Gray became silent.

After a long time during which they finished their food and had coffee served, Ro said, “I hear that you and Laura are separating. Sorry.”

“Good Christ! Where'd you hear that?”

“I don't know. No secrets in this town, I'm afraid. Sunshine found out first, I bet.”

“It's been coming for a long time,” Gray said. “She doesn't like it here and hates the weather. She'll probably head back East eventually.”

They both looked out the café windows at sleeting rain that was falling steadily. The weather forecast was for snow by the weekend.

“Well, some like it fine, others hate it. I asked you to come with me today so we can talk about Sunshine's play. I read it—God, I don't even know when. It's okay. Not great, not what I would have picked, but you did a good job with her on the rewrite.”

Gray lifted his coffee cup to hide the small rush of triumph that he knew would show in his expression, but Ro was not looking at him. He was still gazing moodily out the windows, his thoughts on Ginnie.

“Ginnie's mother went crazy, too, when her husband was killed,” Sunshine said to Laura. They were in Laura's kitchen drinking rose hip tea. Laura hated it and wanted coffee, or even a stiff drink, but Sunshine had insisted on brewing her special tea because Laura had a cold and she could cure it, she had said with her gentle smile. “And Ginnie stopped talking for more than a year. So I guess she went crazy, too.”

Laura looked at her in disbelief. “How do you know all that?”

“Shannon tells me. She likes to talk about how it used to be. Sick people are like that, you know? It seems the less future they have the more they live in the past.”

“How did Ginnie's father die?”

“Their house burned down and he died in the fire. Ginnie nearly died, too. Ro saved her life. He's really crazy about her, you know? Maybe that's why. People like people they help more than others.”

Laura sipped the foul tea. Poor Ginnie, she thought. No wonder she was so withdrawn, so… absent. Twice in one lifetime to have violence hit like that. No wonder. She glanced at her watch, then asked, “Sunshine, why did you call me? Is there something you want?”

Sunshine smiled. “You're nice to me, not like the others. They don't like me because I scare them too much, but you've been nice. I read your cards again last night. I wanted to tell you.”

“They don't dislike you,” Laura said without conviction. “They're all just very busy.”

“They're scared because of what I might tell them. They're superstitious, all of them.”

“Maybe they just don't believe in the cards, that sort of thing. A lot of people don't. I don't. Not really.”

Sunshine's smile did not falter; her pale, vague eyes examined Laura, then flicked over the room. “You should go away,” she said. “Back home. Real soon.”

Laura felt frozen, immobilized. Finally she whispered, “What do you mean? Why?”

Sunshine stood up and started to gather the various garments she had taken off when she entered. A sweatshirt over the plaid shirt, a jacket over that, a poncho… “You know,” she said with assurance. “The cards said you know, you're the woman of wisdom, and what you know is dangerous unless you go away. I'll leave the tea. Drink some of it every few hours, you know?”

“I don't know what that means,” Laura said and heard a thrum of fear in her own voice.

Sunshine looked at her for a moment, then said softly, “You know. Go away, Laura, real soon, you know?” She picked up her shopping bag; it rattled and clanked.

After Sunshine left, Laura continued to sit at the table. Go away, she told herself. Go away now. Pack up your stuff and leave. It's your car and he won't touch it anyway. She got up and poured the tea down the sink and started a pot of coffee. All she could think of was going away, but not without him, not alone. There had to be a way to get him to leave with her, there had to be. She could burn down the theater, she thought, and she shivered, thinking about Ginnie's father dying in a fire. But it would take something that drastic, that final, she knew.

It snowed several inches on Saturday and on Sunday Laura wrecked the car. She was on her way to the drugstore to get something for her cold, which had worsened considerably. She sat helplessly clutching the wheel when the car went out of control on the icy hill and slid sideways into a tree. She was unhurt, but the car had to be towed to a garage and they said it would be a week before it was repaired. Go away, she thought almost desperately, and now she could not, not for a week. As long as it had been her choice to remain in ash land, she had felt somehow protected, somehow secure, but now with the choice removed, she knew herself to be vulnerable and her fear grew.

On Monday the temperature was sixty-five, the sun was brilliant, and crocuses were blooming as if by magic. Good sign, William told Eric, who nodded, and even smiled faintly. The weather always broke for auditions, Anna Kaminsky told Gray: a good sign for the coming season. A good sign, Ro told Gary Boynton, the shop foreman; an omen of better things to come. A great season was about to begin.

Ginnie wandered into the auditorium to watch the auditions that morning. She sat alone and watched without movement for several hours, then left quietly and went back home. She felt as if she could not get enough sleep anymore. She wanted little to eat, but she kept wanting to be in bed, to be asleep. Like a baby, she thought, and yielded to the urge to go back to bed even though the sun was shining and the air was warm.

She had sent Brenda home the day after, and that night she had sent Uncle Ro home when he said he wanted to sleep on her couch. She did not want anyone in her house, did not want people to bring her things to eat, to try to hold her hand, talk soothingly to her. She wanted them all to leave her alone, not say anything to her, not look at her. She pulled the covers up to her chin and fell instantly into that deep dreamless sleep that she craved.

For the first time since that night, she came awake again after a few hours. She was wide awake all at once, and her stomach ached with hunger. She got up and was surprised to find a big piece of ham in her refrigerator, and cheese, milk, fruit. Uncle Ro? Juanita? She could not remember who had shopped for her. After a few bites of a sandwich, she pushed it aside, but the milk was good, and the cookies she found on her counter. On the end of the table there was a stack of unopened mail, and there was the map that Peter had brought over that night. She drew it across the table and opened it, traced the highlighted trail with her finger. He had wanted to show her something.

She did not go back to sleep. She looked in her workroom at the drawings for the new sets and thought briefly about making the models, then closed the door and went to the living room, where she sat in the yellow chair in the dark and watched the lights of Ashland. There were always a few lights on, and the streetlights were on. Her mind was blank as she watched the pale dawn drown out the artificial lights. It was going to be another perfect day, she thought distantly.

At eight-thirty she stuck her head in Ro's office and asked for a cup of coffee. He bounded to his feet and ran across the room to clasp her against his chest.

“Ginnie! Oh, God, Ginnie girl! Come in, come in!”

She hesitated momentarily, not looking at the floor, unable to look at the floor, afraid to look. Ro had replaced the carpet; there was nothing to see, but she was afraid to look down.

Ro prattled about the auditions, about the new season, how good Gray's promptbooks were, and pretended not to notice her hesitation, her inability to look anywhere except straight ahead. He handed her the coffee and said, “What a mooch!” His voice was hoarse.

She found that she could walk into the office, could drink the coffee, but she had nothing to say, nothing at all. She felt as if she had been gone a long time to a very distant place and needed to become oriented once more. Her uncle did not press her; he talked. And in a few minutes she left him.

She watched the auditions all morning, but without interest, without noticing what they said, how they moved.

Ro asked her to join him and Gray for a sandwich during lunch break and she nodded and sat silently while they discussed the progress of the auditions, talked about one or another of the actors, the musical director.

“Ginnie, come out into the sun for a few minutes,” Gray said when it was about time to start the afternoon auditions. “I want to tell you how much I like your drawings. And the sun is fantastic.”

They walked out together, out through the parking lot on the side of the shop, onto the sidewalk and around the building, back to the stage door. Gray talked enthusiastically about her work; she listened. Again she could not find anything to say. Back inside, she searched for some response. “Thank you,” she said in a low voice.

On the corner of Lithia Way and First Street Laura held on to a parking meter, stunned. She had seen them come out from the parking lot, circle the shop, and turn back in toward the theater. Gray had told her the auditions would go on all day, for most of the week probably. She knew this was just the lunch break. But watching them, she had realized what it was that she knew, and she felt weak suddenly. She was ill, feverish, drawn out by the sun in spite of her cold and chills and headache. And now she knew.

She released her grasp of the parking meter and began to walk again, trying to think, trying to decide what she should do. She walked a block, then turned onto Pioneer toward the theater. A lot of people were heading toward it, actors, Eric, William, the woman from the costume department. … As she drew closer to them, one or two spoke to her. Then she saw Ginnie walking toward her. She stopped.

“Ginnie, I wanted to come see you, but Gray said you didn't want company. I wanted to help, at least tell you how sorry I am.”

Ginnie looked uncomfortable, at a loss. She began to walk a little faster. Laura turned and walked with her to the corner.

“If there's anything I can do,” she said, “please let me.” Without thinking she put her hand on Ginnie's arm, then drew it back hurriedly at the look of confused startlement on her face. “I know you've been hurt very much,” she said impulsively. “I don't want to hurt you. I can help you.”

“Thank you,” Ginnie said finally in a stiff, formal tone. She could not soften it; she felt as if she had forgotten how to act with people, how to respond to them, talk to them.

Laura nodded and left her, and Ginnie continued her walk home. All at once it occurred to her that she had to go see what it was that Peter had wanted to show her. She had the map, everything she needed. She had her daypack ready. She walked faster.

Ginnie drove on a well-paved, well-marked road, then one that was potholed with crumbling shoulders, one that had been gravel-covered in some remote past, and finally on a logging road. They all hugged the valleys, wound around creeks, and gradually descended. She was relieved. Going upward would have taken her into a snow zone rather fast. In the valleys it was spring; the creeks were furious white-water torrents with runoff already cascading down the mountains, turning the water gray.

The road was little more than a track; she drove very slowly and began to worry about a spot where she could turn around. It was not a good road to back out on. Peter's map showed the road ending at a waterfall, she reminded herself. He had been here less than a month ago; he had found a place to stop, a place where he could turn his car. She drove on.

All at once she came to the waterfall and a rocky, flat area large enough for several cars. She turned the car to head back out, then switched off the engine. The voice of the waterfall sounded everywhere, echoing from the valley, from the trees, everything at once. It was not very loud, just everywhere, almost intelligible. She walked to the edge and looked down. It was only about eight feet of fall over the rocky outcropping, but the mountainside continued downward steeply here, making a chasm, and across it there was a wall of trees that seemed to rise straight up. She could make out the silver ribbon of another stream tumbling down. It was lost among the trees, then visible again lower, then vanished altogether. The tiny streams were carving away at the mountain, carrying the mountain to the sea grain by grain.

She continued to stand without motion for a long time before she went back to the car and got out the map. Turn left here and go on by foot along the crest of this ridge until it begins to climb, then turn left again, downward. Peter was good with maps, with trails that she could not even distinguish as trails; he had been here within the month, she thought again. The trail was here. She pulled out her daypack and put it on, locked her car, and started to look for the trail. A three-mile hike, he had said. That was nothing. He had had her out on ten-mile hikes, eight-mile hikes, all-day hikes. Three miles was nothing.

Miraculously, the trail was visible, even to her. Not a well-marked trail, not leveled and smoothed, but visible. She wanted nothing more than that. The sound of the waterfall faded so gradually that she did not know how long the woods had been silent when she became aware of the silence. It was a deep silence, as if it had been undisturbed for eons; all the echoes of all past noises here had had time to die. She walked carefully, reluctant to break that silence with rustlings, with snapping of twigs, or even the sound of her breathing. The woods were so thick that no undergrowth survived in the perpetual shadows, the needles so thick that their resiliency made walking almost effortless. The trail was not hard to follow, but she knew that was because she was still on the ridge; when she left it there would be no falling ground on both sides to keep her oriented. He had found the trail, she told herself; it was there. Then she saw where she should turn.