Uncivil Seasons (25 page)

The two elderly patients had reconciled their differences and were both quietly watching a game show in which couples clawed their way to the stage for the chance to guess behind which curtain waited the price-tagged paraphernalia of a better life.

Paula was leaning over Charlene, still stroking her hand. Bending down beside them, Cuddy said, “Charlene, listen. Wanting to protect that pig Hudson would be real stupid. Wanting to protect yourself from that pig by freezing us out would be real stupid too. And you’re not stupid. We’re the only ones can help you.”

The red, horrific eyes moved from his face to mine. “Sure,” she hissed, flinching, her lips held still. “Like Shirley.”

Paula explained. “She means a friend of ours seven or eight years ago, and the thing is, Shirley asked the police to help her because her ex wouldn’t leave her alone and said he had a knife and all, and the police told her they couldn’t get into it until Jack
did
something. He had to do it first, is what they said.”

Charlene turned her eyes, acerbic and dry, back to us as Paula added, “Well, what happened was, Jack killed her. She bled to death right there on her floor.”

Cuddy nodded, “Okay, I remember when that happened, Charlene, and if Shirley’d come to me instead of whoever she went to, it
wouldn’t
have happened. But this is different. Understand that. Okay? Now, we can go two ways. One is, you tell us where Luster went, and we lock him up on felonious assault. Two is, you don’t, and we lock you up as a material witness. Both ways, Luster’s not going to be able to get to you.”

She just looked away.

I stepped in front of Cuddy. “Charlene, would you like a cigarette?” She didn’t say no, so I lit one and held it to her lips and moved it away and then back again. Then I said quietly, “You know, we’re not the only ones who want to protect you. It sounds like Preston does too. He’s risking a murder charge for you. I don’t know how much you might have to forgive him for—quite a bit, probably—but it does look as if he’s forgiven you beyond where maybe most men would go. Is that fair? I don’t mean just that you left him. I mean, he must know Luster forced you—I think he did force you—to plant that silverware in the Pope house and then call the station so we’d come out and pick Preston up. But I don’t think you knew what that silverware would mean to us. Because Luster lied to you. You didn’t know the silver was connected with a murder. If he’s told you you’re an accessory, he’s lying. I don’t think you are.”

She kept staring at me as I put the cigarette back to her swollen lips.

I went on, quietly, “And so, maybe it’s not Luster Hudson that’s the better man. You think?”

As I smiled down at her, tears welled over the bruised eyes.

“Charlene.” My voice dropped quieter. “Luster just wasn’t what you thought he’d be. That’s all. Listen. I’ve made the same mistake. God, we all have. But I’m very sorry it had to cost you so much.” I held the cigarette down to her again. “Now, everything’s going to be all right. That’s a promise. And so would you mind if I just ask you this? Will you tell me, do you know where Luster is now?”

I waited, and finally her head shook no, almost too slightly to see.

“Or where he
might
have gone?”

Another no.

I leaned closer. “He called you to come to the motel. And you went because you were afraid not to?”

After a longer wait, her head moved slowly up and down.

“Yes. And you were right to be afraid. Here. Look, would you like a sip of your juice here?” I put out the cigarette and placed my hand behind her head and carefully raised it and held the paper cup to her lips. Her eyes, still filled with the unfallen tears, stayed on mine. “You brought him some clothes to the motel? And what else? The rest of the stolen property?”

Her head moved no in my hand, her eyes frightened.

“You didn’t know what you were bringing?”

Then, after a moment, she struggled to whisper, “A gym bag kind of. Locked. Had to pick it up from somebody.”

“All right,” I told her, nodding. “Thank you. Good. Will you say who?…No? All right. That’s all right.” I let her head back down on the pillow, but kept my hand on her hair. “We’ll put that aside. Charlene, why did Luster beat you? Did you tell him that you’d been talking to us, and that we were looking for him?”

She nodded yes, and I kept on smoothing her hair back from her forehead.

“And did you tell him you were scared maybe he had killed Mrs. Dollard, and that’s why he had the silverware?”

She stared at me, her mouth quivering.

I said, “Were you really with him the night Mrs. Dollard died? It’s all right that you said you were before. Just tell me the truth now, just go on.”

Charlene’s unhurt hand was kneading the starched white sheet. She looked at Paula and Paula murmured, “Tell him,” and then Charlene’s head turned back to me, and she shook it softly no.

I nodded. “You weren’t with him. All right. Charlene, did Luster Hudson kill Cloris Dollard?”

The tears now spilled over her eyelids and slid down into the bandage. She winced as the salt of the tears touched her broken skin. Finally, her chest moved and she whispered, “He said he didn’t, but I swear he did. The guy gave me the gym bag. Ron Willis.”

Paula squeezed Charlene’s hand. I stepped back and said, “You did the right thing, Charlene. I want to thank you. All right? You rest now, and Paula’ll be here with you.” Paula nodded vigorously. I bent back down to the bed. “And we’ll have an officer right outside this door. Hudson’s never going to hurt you again. I’m giving you my word. Now you go back to sleep. Good night. We’ll leave you alone now.”

Back out in the hall, Cuddy caught up with me near the nurses’ station and said as we went down in the elevator, “My my my. That was fine, Justin.” He gave his low, windy whistle. “Now, why can’t I get a bedside manner like that? You get that from your doctor dad? I almost fell into a trance myself, just looking on. A brain of steel is just not doing the trick for me; what you need in this world is a silver tongue.”

When he returned from calling headquarters, I was slumped down in a sofa in the main lobby lounge. I said, “If I hadn’t been so damn sure, so
blind
, maybe Charlene wouldn’t be up there like that.”

“Well, hey, what about me? Don’t hog all the guilt. You told me to pull her in, remember? And what about
Charlene
? She could have told us about Luster any time she wanted to. Okay, so we find Hudson and see what’s in that bag. And we find Willis. And we don’t know Dollard is out. He sure isn’t out of the running on the Mrs. Cadmean case.”

I said, “I think I can give you the plate numbers for Ron Willis.” I found the piece of paper in my wallet. “WY-2252.”

“You sure you’re not psychic?”

“He tailed me out to C&W and was very interested in my talk with Charlene out there. He knows Hudson. But he may not have any more to do with it than the gym bag transfer.”

“My, you keep busy. Okay, I’ll put in a call.”

“Let’s go over to C&W. He works there.”

“You work too many hours for a man’s already been fired.”

“I haven’t been fired.”

“Well, General, let’s just say, you’re in the cannon and the match’s mighty close to your balls. You took me a little too literally when I advised you to get lonesome. Actually, what you need is some friends in high places. You need to…”

Then I saw the plaid parka spinning in through the main doors. I introduced Cuddy to Alice MacLeod at the information desk. She said the hospital had called the plant to check on Charlene’s insurance. We waited for her while she went up to visit, and then followed her back to the mills. Ron Willis had not shown up for work. Nor did he ever return to his apartment, across the street from which Cuddy and I sat waiting for him in the cold Oldsmobile.

Late that night, while I threw blankets and sheets on my couch, Cuddy started winking his eyes and making
Vs
with his long skinny fingers, as he said, “Well, you are smooth. You want some advice?”

“No.”

“Here it is. Marry her.”

“Who?”

“Red MacLeod.”

“I told you. I just met her. Good Christ, you’re always trying to get everybody married. You and my mother. You go ahead without me, all right? What do you want, a double wedding out in my backyard?”

“Well, hey, wouldn’t that be a sweet thing?” He snapped off his galoshes and slid his feet out of his Hush Puppies loafers. Both his big toes stuck out of holes in his socks. “But let’s hold off ’til the snow’s not so deep. Because I want Briggs to wear some high-heeled sandals. I just love that kind.”

“What in the world makes you think she’s going to marry you?”

Shaking blankets out on the couch, he said, with no smile, “Faith, hope, and that poor lady, Mrs. Cadmean. I asked her. While Briggs was getting on her coat. And she said, yes, as a matter of fact, she had that feeling. Oh, well, okay, I believe her, why not?”

“No reason.”

That night I dreamt again of Joanna. She was going to marry Rowell in the white dress she had died in.

At noon the next day I hurried past Sergeant Hiram Davies at the switchboard while he was looking down at his bologna sandwich; he never went out for lunch, fearful he’d be forced to retire if he left his desk. At the end of the hall I waved in at Cuddy Mangum (eating a loaf-long grinder while talking on the phone), then slipped inside my office and shut the door. Everything was the same there; somehow I’d imagined the room would be redecorated or mossy with cobwebs.

Everything was the same with the case, too. Neither Luster Hudson nor Ron Willis had yet been found. Preston Pope was still in custody. Rowell Dollard still was not. But when the grand jury met again on Monday, they seemed likely now to decide Rowell should be charged. There was simply too much evidence. Foremost was the letter to me. It was indisputably in Joanna Cadmean’s handwriting. The Liberty coin found in Cloris Dollard’s diary was indisputably the same model that Bogue had been shown by Bainton Ames that long-ago summer night. Ken Moize, who had asked me this morning to come to his office, also told me the coroner had ruled out accidental death for Mrs. Cadmean—judging that the balcony rail was too high for her to have fallen over unintentionally, especially on crutches, moving slowly. Between the other two possibilities—homicide or suicide—the coroner had elected not to choose. I said that one thing troubled me: why had she, so indifferent to her beauty, been so beautifully dressed that night if she weren’t expecting anyone?

“So what? Maybe she gussied up for Mangum.” Ken Moize, an eagerly earnest native Midwesterner, had his helmet on, and an exalted look; he was prancing to joust just as soon as someone handed him a long enough lance and a wide enough shield. Moize had wanted me in his office by ten to give him a full briefing on my investigation of Bainton Ames’s death, as well as any theories I had about Cloris Dollard’s and Joanna Cadmean’s. With his tape recorder spinning, it felt a little less lonesome off the deep end.

I’d had a number of other phone calls this morning after I’d come back from the diner and my third breakfast with Alice. Ratcher Phelps had called. Rowell Dollard had called. Both wanted to see me. The third call was from Lawry Whetstone, whose secretary I’d asked to tell him to get in touch. He said, small world, that I wanted to see him, because he wanted to see me. Lawry didn’t say what he wanted to see me about, but I assumed I knew—he wanted to accuse me of having an affair with his wife. And so we agreed to meet at my office at 1:30; my office was more convenient for him since he was eating downtown, and more comfortable for me since I didn’t want this talk to happen in my house. I didn’t want it to happen at all. I’d been expecting his accusation for months, and worrying about it, and feeling guilty about it, and imagining how I was going to respond to it. But the call had never come.

And now, just when it was clear to me that Susan and I were no more real together than mannequins embracing in a store window, just when I had begun worrying and feeling guilty and imagining how I was going to get
Susan
to admit we didn’t care enough about each other to risk the waste and hurt—now here came Lawry’s call. Now the secret was out, shame wriggling me up on the scaffold even as the scars of the
A
were fading from my breast. As Lawry hung up, I found myself in a twitch of resentment—like the thief arrested on his way to return the stolen goods. For more than a year Susan had refused to leave her husband for me; now what was I going to do if, instead of demanding that I leave her alone, he announced that he was getting a divorce, and Susan was mine?

So, not much liking myself, I defiantly walked into my office and waited. I had no idea what style of confrontation to expect. Lawry and I had, of course, met; we’d even played tennis. But I avoided him: if I saw him in the club locker room, I’d go home without changing my clothes; if I saw him at a cocktail party, I’d keep to the other side of the crowd. This was to be our first and probably our last private conversation.

Lawry Whetstone surprised me. Sleek and Florida-blond and cruise-tan as his wife, he breezed in and sat down on my black wood chair and comfortably rubbed the pastel checks of his wool jacket against the
LUX EX VERITAS
insignia on its back. He had a great deal of rich hair, close-trimmed in back, and a deep dimple in the middle of his chin. His weak feature was a bobbed nose too short for his face, and he had a habit of pulling on it as if he could make it longer. He crossed his legs, looked briefly at his suede boot, and then briefly at me, and said, “How about this snow? Wouldn’t you love to go cross-country skiing? Ever tried that? Sorry you couldn’t make lunch. This new Italian place in the Monmouth Building, I’ve got to say, it was great. Some smart people are starting to do some smart things downtown. About time, right?”

I nodded. I was trying not to smoke. I was just waiting.

Lawry glanced appreciatively at his cashmere coat, which hung from my coatrack. “So maybe they’ll turn old Hillston around,” he said. “Look at what’s happened in Richmond and Baltimore. Why not Hillston, right? Tear out all this old junk.”