A Stranger in My Grave (22 page)

“He has nothing to do with—”

“I want you to call him immediately and tell him he is no longer in your employ. Now I'm going over to my cottage and get some rest. The doctor says I must avoid scenes like this. The next time I see you, I hope the cause of them will have been removed.”

“You think firing Pinata will solve everything?”

“It will be a start. Someone has to start somewhere.”

She walked to the door with brisk, determined steps, but there was a weary stoop to her shoulders that Daisy had never seen before. “I despair,” her mother had said.

Why, it's true
, Daisy thought.
She despairs. How extraordinary to despair on a bright, sunny afternoon with Pinata somewhere in the city.

She looked across the room at the telephone. Its shiny black cord seemed like a lifeline to her. All she had to do was pick up the receiver and dial, and even if she couldn't reach him person­ally, he would get her message through his answering service:
Call me, meet me, I want to see you.

The phone began to ring while the sound of her mother's step was still on the stairs. She crossed the room, forcing herself to walk slowly because she wanted to run.

“Hello?”

“Long distance for Mrs. Daisy Harker.”

“This is Mrs. Harker.”

“Go ahead, ma'am. Your party's on the line.”

Daisy waited, still hoping, though she had no reason to hope, that it was Pinata, that this was his way of reaching her in the event Jim or her mother might be around when he called.

But the voice was a woman's, high-pitched and nervous. “I know I shouldn't be phoning you like this, Mrs. Harker, or maybe I should say Daisy, though it don't seem socially proper to call you Daisy when we never even been introduced yet—”

“Who is this calling, please?”

“Muriel. Your new—new stepmother.” Muriel let out an anx­ious little giggle. “I guess this is kind of a shock to you, picking up the phone and hearing a perfect stranger say she's your stepmother.”

“No. I knew my father had married again.”

“Did he write and tell you?”

“No. I heard it the way I hear everything else about my father—not from him but from somebody else.”

“I'm sorry,” Muriel said in her quick, nervous voice. “I told him to write. I kept reminding him.”

“It's certainly not your fault. You have my best wishes, by the way. I hope you'll both be very happy.”

“Thank you.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“I'm in Miss Wittenburg's apartment across the hall. Miss Wittenburg promised not to listen; she has her fingers in her ears.”

To Daisy it was beginning to sound like an April Fools' joke:
I am your new stepmother—Miss Wittenburg has her fingers in her ears
. . . “Is my father there with you?”

“No. That's why I decided to phone you. I'm worried about him. I shouldn't have let him go off by himself the way he did. Hitchhiking can be dangerous even when you're young and strong and have no outstanding weaknesses. I guess,” Muriel added cau­tiously, “being as you're his daughter, you know he drinks?”

“Yes. I know he drinks.”

“He's been pretty good lately, with me to keep an eye on him.

But today he wouldn't take me along. He said we didn't have the money for bus fare for both of us, so he was going to hitchhike up alone.”

“Do you mean up here, to San Félice?”

“Yes. He wanted to see you. His conscience was bothering him on account of he walked out on you last time when he lost his nerve. Stan has a very strong conscience; it drives him to drink. It's like he always has a bad pain that has to be numbed.”

“I haven't seen him or heard from him,” Daisy said. “Are you sure he intended to come right here to the house?”

“Why, yes. Why, he even mentioned how maybe you'd all have some champagne to celebrate being together again.”

Daisy thought how typical it was of her father:
to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower, to London for the coronation, to San Félice for a champagne celebration.
Her sorrow and anger met and merged in a relationship that weakened them both and conceived a monster child. This child, half formed, tongueless, without a name, lay heavy inside her, refusing to be born, refusing to die.

“Stan wouldn't like me phoning you like this,” Muriel said, “but I just couldn't help it. Last time he was up there, he got involved with that waitress, Nita.”

“Nita?”

“Nita Garcia. That's what he called her.”

“The report in the paper said her name was Donelli.”

“It said Stan's name was Foster. That don't make it true.” Muriel's dry little laugh was like a cough of disapproval. “Sure, I'm suspicious—women are—but I can't help thinking he's going to see her again, maybe get in some more trouble. I was hoping— well, that maybe he'd be in touch with you by this time and you could set him straight about associating with the wrong people.”

“He hasn't been in touch,” Daisy said. “And I'm afraid I couldn't set him straight if he were.”

“No. Well. Well, I'm sorry to have bothered you.” She seemed ready to hang up.

Daisy said hurriedly, “Just a minute, Muriel. I wrote my father a special delivery letter on Thursday night asking him an impor­tant question. Was this the reason he suddenly decided to come and see me?”

“I don't know about any special delivery letter.”

“I sent it to the warehouse.”

“He didn't mention it to me. Maybe he never got it. He was reading some other letters from you, though, just before he decided to leave. He kept them in his old suitcase. You know that old suitcase of his that he lugs around full of junk?”

Daisy remembered the suitcase. It was the only thing he'd taken with him when he'd left the apartment in Denver on a winter afternoon: “Daisy baby, I'm going to take a little trip. Don't you stop loving your daddy.” The trip had lasted fifteen years, and she hadn't stopped.

“He was reading a letter of yours,” Muriel said, “when he sud­denly got the blues.”

“How do you know it was from me?”

“Right away he started talking about how he'd failed as a father. Besides,” she added bluntly, “nobody else writes to him.”

“Did he mention what was in the letter?”

“No.”

“Did he put it back in the suitcase?”

“No. I looked right after he left, and it wasn't there, so I guess he took it with him.” Muriel sounded both apologetic and defen­sive. “He doesn't keep the suitcase
locked
, just chained.”

“How did you know what particular letter to look for?”

“It was in a pink envelope.”

Daisy was on the point of saying she didn't use colored sta­tionery when she remembered that a friend of hers had given her some for her birthday several years ago. “What was the address on the envelope?”

“Some hotel in Albuquerque.”

“I see.” The Albuquerque address and the pink stationery dated the letter positively as being written in December of 1955. Her father had moved from Illinois to New Mexico at the end of that year, but he had stayed barely a month. She recalled sending his Christmas presents and check to a hotel in Albuquerque and receiving a postcard from Topeka, Kansas, a couple of weeks later thanking her for the gifts and saying he didn't like New Mexico, it was too dusty. There'd been a doleful quality about the post­card, and the handwriting was shaky, as if he'd been ill or on a drinking spree or, more likely, both.

“Stan will be awful mad about me phoning you like this,” Muriel said nervously. “Maybe you just sort of keep it a secret when you see him?”

“I may not see him. He may not be anywhere near San Félice.”

“But he said—”

“Yes. He said.” He'd said, too, that he was taking a little trip, and the trip had lasted fifteen years. Perhaps he'd started on an­other little trip, and Muriel, as naive as Daisy had been in her early teens, would walk up and down the city streets searching for him in crowds of strangers; she would catch a glimpse of him passing in a speeding car or walking into an elevator just before the door closed. Daisy had seen him a hundred times, but the car was too fast, the face in the crowd too far away, the elevator door too final.

“Well, I'm sorry to have bothered you,” Muriel repeated.

“It was no bother. In fact, I'm very grateful for the information.”

“Stan gave me another number to call in case of emergency, a Mr. Pinata. But I didn't want to call a stranger about—well, about Stan's certain weakness.”

Daisy wondered how many strangers, the length and breadth of the country, knew about Stan's certain weakness and how many more were finding out right now. “Muriel?”

“Yes.”

“Don't worry about anything. I'm going to get in touch with Mr. Pinata. If my father's in town, we'll find him and look after him.”

“Thank you.” There were tears in Muriel's voice. “Thank you ever so much. You're a good girl. Stan's always said you were a real good girl.”

“Don't take everything my father says too seriously.”

“He really meant it. And I do, too. I'm ever so grateful for all the things you've done for him. I don't mean just the money. Having somebody who really cares about him, that's what's important.”

Oh yes, I care,
Daisy thought bitterly when she'd hung up.
I still love Daddy after his little trip of fifteen years. And if he's in town, I'll find him. I'll get to the elevator door before it closes; the speeding car will be stopped by a red light, a policeman, a flat tire; the face in the crowd will be his.

The wind had increased, and the air was filled with the rush of birds and flying leaves, and the scratching of the tea tree against the window sounded like the paws of a dozen animals.

Daisy sat with the phone in her hands, shivering, as if there were no glass between her and the cold wind. She could barely dial Pinata's number, and when she was told he wasn't in, she wanted to scream at the girl on the other end of the line and accuse her of bungling or fraud.

She took a deep breath to steady herself. “When do you expect him?”

“This is his answering service. He left word that he'd be in his office at seven. He'll check in for his calls before that, though. Is there any message?”

“Tell him to call...” She stopped, dubious about leaving her name, even more dubious about Pinata phoning the house when her mother or Jim might be present. “I'll meet him at his office at seven.”

“What name shall I put on that?”

“Just say it's about a tombstone.”

16

Shame—it is my daily bread. No wonder the flesh is falling off my bones. . . .

 

Jim had been
waiting at the dock for nearly an hour when Adam Burnett finally showed up. He came running along the seawall, moving heavily but quietly in his sailing sneakers.

“Sorry I'm late. I was delayed.”

“Obviously.”

“Don't get sore. I couldn't help it.” The lawyer sat down beside Jim on the seawall. “The sail's off, anyway. They've raised a smallcraft warning at the end of the wharf.”

“Well, I suppose I might as well go home, then.”

“No, you'd better wait a minute.”

“What for?”

Although there was no one within hearing distance, Adam kept his voice low. “I had a phone call half an hour ago from Mrs. Rosario. Juanita's back in town. What's worse, so is Fielding.”

“Fielding? Daisy's father?”

“What's worse still, the two of them are together.”

“But they don't even know each other.”

“Well, they're getting acquainted in a hurry, if Mrs. Rosario can be believed.”

“It just doesn't make sense,” Jim said in a bewildered voice. “Fielding had nothing to do with the—the arrangements.”

“Mrs. Rosario somehow got the impression that you—or I—sent him to spy on her.”

“I haven't seen Fielding for years.”

“And I never have. I pointed these facts out to her, but she was pretty excited, almost incoherent toward the end. She insisted I swear on the soul of her dead brother that I had nothing to do with Fielding's going to her house.” Adam squinted out at the whitecaps, multiplying under the wind. “Know anything about a dead brother?”

“No.”

“His name was Carlos, apparently.”

“I said I knew nothing about a dead brother, didn't I?”

“Well, don't get waspish. I was just asking.”

“You asked twice,” Jim said curtly. “That's once too often. My relationship with Mrs. Rosario has been brief and impersonal. You should be aware of that better than anyone.”

“Impersonal isn't quite the word, surely?”

“As far as I'm concerned, it is. I wouldn't recognize her if I met her on the street.”

A fishing boat was coming into port, her catch measurable by the squat of her stern and the number of gulls quarreling in her wake, trying to snatch pieces of fish from each other's beaks.

“What does she want?” Jim said. “More money?”

“Money wasn't mentioned. Apparently there'd been some vio­lence when Fielding was at the house, though he didn't have any­thing to do with it as far as I was able to make out. Mrs. Rosario was upset and needed reassurance.”

“You gave it to her, I hope?”

“Oh, certainly. I swore on the soul of her dead brother. Whom you don't know.”

“Whom I don't know. As I have now stated three times. Why the persistence, Adam?”

“She kept raving about him, and I'm curious, that's all. How does a dead brother fit into the arrangements we made about Juanita?”

“The woman's obviously unstable.”

“I agree. But I wonder how unstable.”

Jim got up and stretched his arms. “Well, I'll leave you to your wonderings. I must get home. Daisy will think we've both drowned.”

“I don't believe,” Adam said carefully, “that Daisy is thinking about us at all.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Just before I left the house, I had a phone call from Ada Fielding. She asked me to tell you that Daisy had hired a detec­tive a few days ago, a man named Pinata.”

“Oh, for God's sake.”

“Mrs. Fielding thinks you ought to do something about it.”

“She does, eh?” Jim's face was grim and weary. “Such as what?”

“I gather she meant unhire him. After all, it's your money he's getting.” Adam paused, watching the fishing boat as it tied up to the dock, wishing he were on it. “There's more if you want to hear it.”

“I'm not sure I do.”

“You'd better listen anyway. Daisy's meeting this man at his office tonight at seven o'clock. She promised Fielding's new wife that she and Pinata would go looking for Fielding.”

“Fielding's new wife? How the hell did she come into it?”

“She was worried about Fielding getting into trouble and phoned Daisy from Los Angeles.”

“What's it all about anyway?”

“I was hoping that you'd tell me.”

Jim shook his head. “I can't. I have no idea how Fielding got involved in this thing, if he is involved. As for his wife, I didn't know of her existence until Daisy informed me this week. I'm at a complete loss, I tell you.”

“You tell me, yes.”

“Your tone suggests disbelief.”

“Let's put it this way. It's better to lie to your wife than to your lawyer.”

“I play it safe,” Jim said, “by not lying to either.”

“What about the girl?”

“I told Daisy all about that when it happened—names and everything—and she took it very calmly. She seems to have for­gotten now, and that's not my fault. I told her.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because it was the reasonable, the honorable, thing to do.”

“It may have been honorable as all get-out,” Adam said with a cryptic little smile. “But reasonable, no.”

“She'd have found out sooner or later anyway.”

“Your logic reminds me of the first time I took my brother-in-law sailing. It was a brisk day, we were going along at a nice clip with just the right angle of heel, but Tom was so afraid we'd tip that he jumped overboard and swam to shore. I know you don't enjoy sailing much, so you probably think Tom did the sensible thing. It wasn't, though. It was both silly and danger­ous. He almost didn't make it to shore, and of course, the boat didn't tip.”

“She'd have found out eventually,” Jim repeated.

“How? The girl left town and remarried. She'd have nothing to gain by talking. As for the mother, all arrangements were made by me. You were never brought into it except as a name. I don't want to pry”—he leaned over to remove a pebble caught in the tread of his sneakers—”but I've often wondered why you didn't let me take the case into court, especially since you never intended to keep it secret from Daisy.”

“I couldn't afford the scandal.”

“But I'm sure we could have won it.”

“The scandal would still be there. Besides, the child was—and is—mine. Would you ask me to perjure myself?”

“Of course not. But the girl's reputation alone would certainly have cast doubt on the legitimacy of her claim.”

“In other words, I should have stayed on the boat until it tipped?”

“It didn't tip,” Adam said.

“Well, this one would have.”

“You didn't wait around to find out. You jumped overboard.”

“Oh, stop it, Adam. It happened. It happened a long time ago. Why go into it all over again now?”

“Do you remember exactly how long ago it happened?”

“No. I try not to think about it.”

“It was four years ago. To be precise, it was on December 2, 1955, that I made the first payment to Mrs. Rosario in my office. I looked it up before I left.” He pulled the hood of his sea jacket over his head. “You'd better go home and have a talk with Daisy.”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“Well, I'll see you later. I want to stay down and make sure everything's tight and tidy on the sloop. I don't like the size of those swells. Sorry we missed our sail, by the way.”

“I'm not. I didn't want to go anyway.”

“As a matter of fact, I didn't want to ask you, either.”

“So Daisy arranged it.”

“Yes.”

“Daisy's getting to be quite an arranger.” Jim turned abruptly and walked toward the parking lot.

But he was not thinking of Daisy as he climbed into his car. He was thinking of the boat that hadn't tipped, and of the man who'd jumped overboard and almost hadn't made it to shore. A silly and dangerous thing, Adam had called it. Sometimes, though, silly and dangerous things were necessary. Sometimes people didn't jump; they were pushed.

She pretended, in case any of the fishermen or the dockhands were observing her, that she was standing against the wall of the harbormaster's office for shelter from the wind. She made a show of being cold—shivering, pulling up her coat collar, rub­bing her hands together—until, as time passed, the show became real and the coldness penetrated every tissue of her body.

She watched the two of them talking on the seawall fifty yards away. They looked as though they might have been discussing the weather, but Daisy knew it couldn't have been the weather when Jim suddenly turned and walked away in a peculiarly abrupt man­ner, as if he and Adam had been quarreling. She waited until Jim got into his car. Then she started running toward Adam, who was going down the floating ramp to the mooring slips.

“Adam.”

He turned and came back up the ramp to the guardrail, sway­ing with the movement of the waves. “Hello, Daisy. You missed Jim by a couple of minutes. He just left.”

“That's too bad.” There was nothing in her voice to indicate how long she had waited for Jim to leave.

“I may be able to catch him for you.”

“Oh no, don't bother.”

“He told me he was going home.”

“I'll see him there, then,” Daisy said. “You didn't stay out very long, did you?”

“We didn't get out at all. The storm warnings are up.”

“That's a pity.”

“Jim didn't seem to mind,” Adam said dryly. “By the way, next time you arrange a sailing partner for me, make it someone who likes water, will you?”

“I'll try.” Daisy leaned against the guardrail and looked down at the crabs scuttling around the rocks as if they were trying to find the biggest and safest one to weather out the storm. “Since you couldn't sail, what did you and Jim do?”

“We talked.”

“About me?”

“Certainly. We always talk about you. I ask Jim how you are, and he tells me.”

“Well, how am I? I'd like Jim's version of the state of my health, mental and otherwise.”

Adam's smile was imperturbable. “Obviously, you're a little cranky today. That's my version, not Jim's.”

“Did he tell you his plans for our anniversary?”

“We discussed a great many—”

“He's made some lovely plans, only I'm not supposed to know about them.”

“Only you do.”

“Oh yes. Word gets around. I must say you've kept the secret from me very well, considering the fact that you must have been the first to know.”

“Keeping secrets,” Adam said coolly, “is part of my job.”

“How large is it going to be, my surprise, I mean?”

“Large enough but not too large.”

“And the style?”

“The style will be stylish. Naturally.”

“And you haven't the faintest notion what I am talking about, have you?”

He took her arm. “Come on, I'll buy you a cup of coffee at the Yacht Club.”

“No.”

“You don't have to snap at me. What's the matter with you today?”

“I'm glad you asked. I intended to tell you anyway. I found some check stubs this afternoon in Jim's desk. They indicate that he's been paying you $200 a month for some time.”

“Well?”

“I asked my mother about it, and she claimed the money was for some acreage Jim was buying from you to build a mountain cabin on. I gather she was lying?”

“She may have been lying,” Adam said with a shrug. “Or she may actually believe it's the truth.”

“It isn't, of course.”

“No.”

“What was that money for, Adam?”

“To pay for the support of Jim's child by another woman.” He deliberately looked away from her as he spoke because he didn't want to see the pain and shock in her face. “You were told about it at the time, Daisy. Don't you remember?”

“Jim's—child. How funny that sounds. So f-funny.” She was clutching the guardrail as if she were afraid she was going to fling herself into the sea against her own will. “Was it—is it a boy or a girl?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't
know?
Haven't you even asked him?”