A Stranger in My Grave (6 page)

“That's a pretty desperate analogy,” Pinata said. “All it amounts to is that you're determined to have your own way no matter what comes of it.”

“I'm not a child demanding a stick of candy.”

No
, Pinata thought,
you're a grown woman demanding a stick of dynamite. You don't like your life or your house. You're afraid to share it with a child. So blow the whole thing sky high and watch the pretty pieces come falling down on your head.

The phone rang again. This time it was Pinata's cleaning woman relaying the news that the roof was leaking in the kitchen and one of the bedrooms and reminding him that she'd warned him last year he was going to have to get a new roof put on.

“Do the best you can. I'll be home at five,” Pinata said, and hung up, feeling depressed. New roofs cost money, and Johnny was having his teeth straightened.
I can't afford a new roof. But Daisy can. If she's determined to blow up her own roof, at least I can catch some of the lumber to build mine.

“All right,” he said, “I'll help you, Mrs. Harker. If I can, and against my better judgment.”

She looked pleased, in a subdued way, as if she didn't want him to see how eager she actually was to begin this new game. “When do we start?”

“I'm tied up for a couple of days.” It was a necessary lie: two days would give him a chance to do some checking up on Daisy, and Daisy a chance to change her mind. “Say Thursday afternoon.”

“I was hoping right away. . .”

“No. Sorry. I have a case.”

“Of jitters?”

“All right, of jitters.”

“And you need time to investigate me, find out how many steps I am in front of the butterfly net? Well, I can't blame you, of course. If some woman came to me and told me the kind of story I've told you, I'd be suspicious, too. The only thing is, there's no need for secrecy. I'm perfectly willing to answer any questions you'd like to ask me: age, weight, education, background, reli­gious preference—”

“No questions,” he said, annoyed. “But it remains Thursday.”

“Very well. Shall I come here to your office?”

“I'll meet you at three o'clock at the front door of the
Monitor-Press
building, if that suits you.”

“Isn't that rather a—conspicuous place to meet?”

“I didn't know this was to be undercover stuff.”

“It isn't really. But why advertise it?”

“Wait a minute, Mrs. Harker,” Pinata said, leaning across the desk. “Let's get this straight. Do you intend to tell your husband and family that you've hired me?”

“I hadn't thought about it. I hadn't even thought about hiring you or anyone else until I noticed the sign on your door. It seemed like fate, in a way.”

“Oh, Mrs. Harker,” Pinata said very sadly.

“It did, it does. It's as if I were guided here.”

“Misguided might be a better word.”

Her gaze was cool and stubborn. “You've done everything pos­sible to talk yourself out of a job. Why?”

“Because I think you're making a mistake. You can't just reconstruct one day, Mrs. Harker. It may turn out to be a whole life.”

“Well?”

“You'll be kicking over quite a few stones. Maybe you won't like what you find underneath them.” He stood up, as if he were the one who intended to leave. “Well, it's your funeral.”

“Wrong tense,” she said. “It
was
my funeral.”

He went with her to the door and opened it. The long, dim hallway smelled of new rain and old wax.

“By the way,” Daisy added casually, as if she hadn't been think­ing about it at all, “did my father give you his Los Angeles address?”

“He gave the police an address when he was arrested. I copied it off the blotter.” He had it written on the inside of a match folder, which he took out of his pocket and handed to Daisy. “1074 Delaney Avenue West. I wouldn't bother trying to reach him there, though, if I were you.”

“Why not?”

“There is no Delaney Avenue in Los Angeles.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“But what reason would he have to lie about it?”

“I don't read minds, palms, or tea leaves. Just street maps. There is no Delaney Avenue in L.A., east or west.”

She was looking at him as if she believed he could have located the missing street if he'd only tried a little harder. “I'll take your word for it, of course.”

“No need to. Any gas station in town will be happy to supply you with a map of Los Angeles so you can check for yourself. While you're at it, you might look up the Harris Electrical Supply warehouse on Figueroa Street. Fielding claims to be working there.”

“Claims?”

“Well, there's no reason to believe he was telling the truth about that, either. I got the impression he's the kind of man who prefers to be left alone except when he needs help.”

“You sound as though you don't like him.”

“I like him fine,” Pinata said with some truth. “But he could be hard to take in big doses.”

“Is he—drinking very heavily?”

“He's drinking, I don't know how much. He told me some news about himself which he may or may not have intended me to pass on to you.”

“What kind of news?”

“He's married again.”

She stared in silence toward the end of the long, dim hall, as if she saw dark, half-familiar shapes moving in the shadows. “Mar­ried. Well, he's not an old man, I have no reason to be surprised. But I am. It doesn't seem real.”

“I'm pretty sure he was telling the truth.”

“Who is the woman?”

“He didn't say anything about her.”

“Not even her name?”

“I presume,” Pinata said dryly, “that her name is Mrs. Fielding.”

“I meant—oh, it doesn't matter. I'm glad he's married again. I hope she's a good woman.” She sounded not too glad, even less hopeful. “At least someone else is responsible for him now. Some stranger has lifted the load off my shoulders, and I'm grateful to her. I wish them both good luck. If you see him or hear from him, please tell him that for me, will you?”

“I don't expect to see or hear from him.”

“My father does some rather unexpected things.”

So do you, Daisy baby,
Pinata thought.
Maybe you and Daddy have more in common than you'd like to admit.

He walked her down the hall.

The rain had seeped under the front door of the building, and the welcome mat made a squishing sound when Daisy stepped out on it.

She told Jim that night all about her father's surprise appear­ance in town: the Sunday night phone call from the jail which Mrs. Fielding had deliberately kept secret, the second call the next afternoon from Pinata's office, the meeting which hadn't taken place because Fielding had run away. She gave Jim every detail except the one he would have been most interested in, the fact that she'd hired an investigator about whom she knew noth­ing more than his name.

“So your father got married again,” Jim said, lighting his pipe. “Well, you can't quarrel with that, surely. It may be the best thing that ever happened to him. You should be very pleased.”

“I am.”

“It will be much better for him, having a life of his own.”

“When has he ever had anything else?”

“Don't be bitter about it,” Jim said, forcing patience into his voice. Daisy's combination of loyalty and resentment toward her father irritated him. He himself didn't think much or care much about Fielding, not even to the extent of begrudging him the money he cost. He considered, in fact, that the money was well spent if it kept Fielding at a distance. Los Angeles was a hundred miles away, not much of a distance. He hoped, for Daisy's sake, that Fielding would take a dislike to the city, the smog, the traf­fic, or living conditions, and head back to the East Coast or the Middle West. Jim knew, better than Daisy, how difficult it was to handle old family knots when they no longer held anything together and were too frayed to be retied.

The last time he'd seen his father-in-law was five years ago, when he'd gone to Chicago on a business trip. The two men met at the Town House, and the evening started well, with Fielding going out of his way to be charming and Jim out of his to be charmed. But by ten o'clock Fielding was drunk and blubbering about how Daisy baby had never had a real father: “You take good care of my little girl, you hear? Poor little Daisy baby. You take good care of her, you goddamn stuffed shirt.” Later, Fielding was poured into a taxicab by a couple of waiters, and Jim put three twenty-dollar bills in the pocket of his understuffed shirt.

Well, I've taken good care of her,
Jim thought now,
within my lim­its anyway. I haven't made a move without first thinking of her welfare. And sometimes the decisions have been almost impossibly difficult, like the business about Juanita. She never mentions Juanita. The corner of her mind where the girl lies has been sealed off like a tomb.

His pipe had gone out. He relit it, and its hoarse wheezing brought back the memory of Fielding's voice: “You take good care of my little girl... you goddamn stuffed shirt.”

6

This letter may never reach you, Daisy. If it doesn't, I will know why. . . .

 

Two
days later
, on Wednesday afternoon, Jim Harker arrived home for dinner an hour earlier than usual. Daisy's car was miss­ing from the garage, and the mail was still in the postbox. It meant that Daisy had been away since noon, when the mail arrived. The house seemed lifeless without her, in spite of the noise of Stella vacuuming the downstairs and singing bits of sad songs in a loud, cheerful voice.

He sorted the mail on the dining-room table, and was surprised to come across a bill from Adam Burnett for services rendered Mrs. James Harker, February 9, $2.50.

The bill was surprising in several ways: that Daisy had been to see Adam without telling him about it, that the fee was so small, less than minimal for a lawyer's, and that the timing was unusual. It had been sent directly after Daisy's visit instead of being postponed until the end of the month like ordinary bills for professional services. He concluded, after some thought, that sending the bill was Adam's way of informing him about Daisy's visit without actually breaking any code of ethics involving the confidences of a client.

It wasn't quite five o'clock, so he called Adam at his office. “Mr. Burnett, please. Jim Harker speaking.”

“Just one second, Mr. Harker. Mr. Burnett's on his way out, but I think I can catch him. Hold on.”

After a minute Adam said, “Hello, Jim.”

“I received your bill today.”

“Oh yes.” Adam sounded embarrassed. “I wasn't going to send you any, but Daisy insisted.”

“I didn't know until now that she'd been to see you.”

“Oh?”

“What did she have in mind?”

“Come now, Jim, that's for Daisy to tell you, not me.”

“You addressed the bill to me, so I presume you wanted me to know she'd consulted you.”

“Well, yes. I thought it would be preferable if you were cognizant...”

“No lawyer talk, please,” Jim said in a sharp, tense voice. “Did she come to you about—about a divorce?”

“Good Lord, no. What gave you such a crazy idea?”

“That's the usual reason women consult lawyers, isn't it?”

“As a matter of fact, no. Women make wills, sign contracts, fill out tax forms—”

“Stop beating around the bush.”

“All right,” Adam said cautiously. “I met Daisy by accident on the street early Monday afternoon. She seemed bewildered and anxious to talk. So we talked. I'd like to think that I gave her some good advice and that she took it.”

“Was it concerning a dream she had about a certain day four years ago?”

“Yes.”

“And she didn't mention a divorce?”

“Why, no. Where did you get this worm in your wig about a divorce? There was absolutely nothing in Daisy's attitude to indi­cate she was contemplating such a move. Besides, she couldn't get one in California. She has no grounds.”

“You're forgetting, Adam.”

“That was a long time ago,” Adam said quickly. “What's the matter with you and Daisy anyway? A more lugubrious pair—”

“Nothing was the matter until she had this damned dream on Sunday night. Things have been going smoothly. We've been married eight years, and I honestly think this last year has been the best. Daisy has finally adjusted to the fact that she can't have children—maybe not adjusted, but at least reconciled—and she's looking forward eagerly to the one we're going to adopt. At least she had been, until this dream business cropped up. She hasn't mentioned our prospective child for three days now. You've had eight children, and you know how much preparation and talking and planning goes on ahead of time. I'm confused by her sudden lack of interest. Perhaps she doesn't want a child after all. If she doesn't, if she's changed her mind, God knows it wouldn't be fair for us to adopt one.”

“Nonsense. Of course she wants a child.” Adam spoke firmly, although he had no real convictions on the subject. Daisy, like most other women, had always puzzled him and always would. It seemed reasonable to suppose that she would want children, but she might have some deep, unspoken revulsion against adopting one. “The dream has confused her, Jim. Be patient. Play along with her.”

“That might do more harm than good.”

“I don't think so. In fact, I'm convinced this deathday business of hers will come to a dead end.”

“How so?”

“There's no place else for it to go. She's attempting the impossible.”

“Why are you so certain it's impossible?”

“Because I've been trying the same thing,” Adam said. “The idea intrigued me, picking a day at random out of the past and reconstructing it. If it had been simply a matter of recalling a business appointment, I would have consulted my desk diary. But this was purely personal. Anyway, on Monday night, after the kids were in bed, Fran and I tried it. To make sure our choice of date was absolute chance, we picked it, blindfolded, from a set of calendars in the almanac. Now, Fran not only has a memory like an elephant, she also keeps a pretty complete record of the
kids: baby books, report cards, artwork, and so on. But we didn't get to first base. I predict Daisy will have a similar experience. It's the kind of thing that sounds easy but isn't. After Daisy runs into a few blind alleys, she'll lose interest and give up. So let her run. Or better still, run with her.”

“How?”

“Try remembering her day yourself, whatever day it was. I've forgotten.”

“If you didn't get to first base, how do you expect me to?”

“I don't expect you to. Just play along. Step up to the plate and swing.”

“I don't think Daisy would be fooled,” Jim said dryly. “Perhaps it would be better if I distracted her attention, took her on a trip, something like that.”

“A trip might be fine.”

“I have to go up north this weekend anyway to look at a parcel of land in Marin County. I'll take Daisy along. She's always liked San Francisco.”

He spoke to Daisy about it that night after dinner, describing the trip, lunch at Cambria Pines, a stopover at Carmel, dinner at Amelio's, a play at the Curran or the Alcazar, and afterwards a drink and floor show at the Hungry I. She looked at him as if he were proposing a trip to the moon in a rocket earned with Rice Krispies box tops.

Her refusal was sharp and direct, with no hint of her usual hesitance. “I can't go.”

“Why not?”

“I have something important to attend to.”

“Such as?”

“I'm doing—research.”

“Research?” He repeated the word as if it tasted foreign to his tongue. “I tried to phone you this afternoon three or four times. You were out again. You've been out every afternoon this week.”

“There have only been three afternoons in the week so far.”

“Even so.”

“Your meals are on time,” Daisy said. “Your house is well kept.”

Her slight but definite emphasis on the word
your
made it sound to Jim as though she were disclaiming any further share or interest in the house, as if she had, in some obscure sense, moved out. “It's
our
house, Daisy.”

“Very well, our house. It's well kept, isn't it?”

“Of course.”

“Then why should it bother you if I go out during the after­noon while you're at work?”

“It doesn't bother me. It concerns me. Not your going out, your attitude.”

“What's the matter with my attitude?”

“A week ago you wouldn't have asked that, especially not in that particular tone, as if you were challenging me to knock a chip off your shoulder. . . . Daisy, what's happening to us?”

“Nothing.” She knew what was happening, though; what had, in fact, already happened. She had stepped out of her usual role, had changed lines and costumes, and now the director was agi­tated because he no longer knew what play he was directing.
Poor Jim,
she thought, and reached over and took his hand. “Nothing,” she said again.

They were sitting side by side on the davenport. The house was very quiet. The rain had stopped temporarily, Stella had gone home after surviving another day in the country, and Mrs. Field­ing was at a concert with a friend. Prince, the collie, was sleeping in front of the fireplace, where he always slept in bad weather. Even though there was no fire in the grate, he liked the remem­bered warmth of other fires.

“Be fair, Daisy,” Jim said, pressing her hand. “I'm not one of these heavy husbands who wants his wife to have no interests outside himself. Haven't I always encouraged your activities?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then? What have you been doing, Daisy?”

“Walking around.”

“In all this rain?”

“Yes.”

“Walking around where?”

“The old neighborhood on Laurel Street.”

“But why?”

“That was where we were living when I”—
when I died
—”when it happened.”

His mouth looked as though she'd reached up and pinched it. “Did you imagine that what happened was still there, like a piece of furniture we forgot to bring along?”

“In a sense it's still there.”

“Well, in that case, why didn't you walk up to the door and inquire? Why didn't you ask the occupants if they'd mind if you searched the attic for a lost day?”

“There was no one at home.”

“Oh, for God's sake, you mean you actually
tried
to get in?”

“I rang the doorbell. No one answered.”

“Thank heaven for small mercies. What would you have said if someone had answered?”

“Just that I used to live there once and would like to see the house again.”

“Rather than have you make such an exhibition of yourself,” he said coldly, “I'll buy the house back for you. Then you can spend all your afternoons there, you can search every nook and cranny of the damn place, examine every piece of junk you find.”

She had withdrawn her hand from his. For a while the contact had been like a bridge between them, but the bridge had washed away in the bitter flood of his irony. “I'm not looking for—junk. I don't intend making an exhibition of myself either. I went back because I thought that if I found myself in the same situation as before, I might remember something valuable.”

“Valuable? The golden moment of your death, perhaps? Isn't that just a little morbid? When did you fall in love with the idea of dying?”

She got up and crossed the room as if trying to get beyond the range of his sarcasm. The movement warned him that he was going too far, and he changed his tone.

“Are you so bored with your life, Daisy? Do you consider the past four years a living death? Is that what your dream means?”

“No.”

“I think so.”

“It's not your dream.”

The dog had awakened and was moving his eyes back and forth, from Daisy to Jim and back to Daisy, like a spectator at a tennis match.

“I don't want to quarrel,” Daisy said. “It upsets the dog.”

“It upsets the—oh, for Pete's sake. All right, all right, we won't quarrel. Can't have the dog getting upset. It's O.K., though, if the rest of us are reduced to gibbering idiocy. We're just people, we don't deserve any better.”

She was petting the dog's head in a soothing, reassuring way, her touch telling him that everything was fine, his eyes and ears were liars, not to be taken seriously.

I should play along with her,
Jim thought.
That was Adam's advice. God knows, my own approach doesn't work.
“So you went back to Laurel Street,” he said finally, “and walked around.”

“Yes.”

“Any results?”

“This quarrel with you,” she said with bitterness. “That's all.”

“You didn't remember anything?”

“Nothing that would pinpoint the actual day.”

“I suppose you realize how unlikely it is that you'll ever succeed in pinpointing it?”

“Yes.”

“But you intend to keep on trying?”

“Yes.”

“Over my objections?”

“Yes, if you won't change your mind.” She was quiet a moment, and her hand had paused on the dog's neck. “I remembered the winter. Perhaps that's a start. As soon as I saw the jasmine bushes on the south side of the house, I recalled that that was the year of the big frost when we lost all the jasmines. At least I thought we'd lost them, they looked so dead. But in the spring they all came to life again.”
I didn't, though. The jasmines were tougher than I. There was no spring for me that year, no new leaves, no little buds.
“That's a start, isn't it, remembering the winter?”