A Temporary Ghost (The Georgia Lee Maxwell Series, Series 2) (18 page)

Leaving aside sympathy for Missy, I was lucky her plight had put her in a mood to talk. She’d mentioned some “business” Alexander was involved in, and mysterious absences.
Ask Vivien where her son was the night Carey was killed.
If Alexander sneaked off routinely and had somebody covering for him, the essentials of an alibi were already in place. The first chance I had, I’d get back to Missy for more “girl talk.”

Toiling up the hill under the lowering sky, I started to flag. The circuits were overloaded. I was sweating and out of breath. Much as I wanted to beat the rain, I had to stop and rest.

The trees near the road had thinned out, and on my left was a strip of rock-strewn meadow that bordered the bluff. I picked my way across it, searching for a place to sit down. When I didn’t find one, I settled for standing at the edge of the slope to admire the view while wind rushed in my ears and cooled my face and body. Far below, in the checkerboard of vineyards and farms, trees and tile roofs, a group of toy-size men were playing something— soccer, probably— on an open field. Watching them dash to and fro in the fading light, I thought their game would be rained out soon.

I was unaware and totally unprepared when the blow came. Without warning, I felt a powerful, painful thump between my shoulders, jerking my head back while sending my body flying forward. My knees gave, and I careened wildly down the slope, thinking only of keeping my feet under me so I wouldn’t smash headlong on the rocks.

Out of control, I stayed upright until about halfway down, when I lost my footing, fell painfully on my knees, then pitched forward to the ground.

Not being able to breathe, even for an instant or two, is a horrible sensation. I made hideous grunting sounds, and as soon as I could wheeze I scrambled sideways into the shelter of a low scrub oak. Now that I could smell again, I smelled thyme everywhere. I must have crushed a bush of it when I fell. Fragrant and terrified, I peered through oak leaves to the top of the slope, expecting to see Alexander’s menacing figure on the way down to finish me off. I licked my lips and tasted earth, felt grit between my teeth. My knees were killing me, and I gave up surveying the hilltop to inspect them. My favorite white cotton pants were ripped, and I could see that my knees were badly skinned.

This must be how it had happened for Pedro. Except where he went over the bluff was steeper, more lethal. I didn’t know where to run to, wasn’t sure I could run at all. My hands cupped over my injured knees, I stared up at the point where I’d been pushed, as if danger could come only from there. Then I realized that was dumb, and I swiveled my head around fast enough to send pain shooting through my neck. Whiplash. Whiplash, and nobody to sue.

I crouched beneath the oak. I didn’t hear footsteps, but it was hard to hear anything above the noise of the wind. The sky was darkening fast. I couldn’t stay here. I had to get back to Mas Rose.

I pulled myself to my feet, uncertain whether I could walk. I hurt all over, but after a couple of tottering steps I saw that I could. I was afraid of the road, though. Someone could be waiting up there, out of my view, ready to swoop down when I climbed over the top. Better to stay down here and work my way along the slope. The going would be more difficult, but at least I had cover.

Nearly paralyzed with stiffness, I made slow progress at first, hobbling from broom shrub to boulder to scrub oak in a half-crouch, peering cautiously at every moving branch. As time went on and I saw no one I loosened up and went faster. Rain began pattering down. Eventually, human nature being as adaptable as it is, I began to feel natural scurrying along like a crippled animal, across a darkening landscape as foreign to me as the moon.

Now I could see Mas Rose. Yes, I was probably running toward my attacker, but where else could I go? As I had pieced it together, I thought Vivien had told Alexander I was suspicious of him. Instead of meeting poor Missy, he hid out and waited for me. I wouldn’t give him such a good opportunity next time.

With Mas Rose in sight, I felt safe enough to return to the road. Through the increasing drizzle I turned in at the gate. Alexander’s motorcycle was parked beside the shed, a tarp spread over it. I wondered how long Missy had waited at the Relais de la Fontaine. The kitchen was dark, which was unusual, and everything was quiet.

I climbed laboriously up the stairs. I wanted a hot bath. Maybe Marcelle had mercurochrome or something for my knees. I’d skinned them a lot when I was a kid, roller skating. I wasn’t a great skater, and the sidewalks in Luna Beach were cracked and uneven anyway. The stiffening scrapes brought it all back.

I walked into my bedroom. It was dark, and I could hear rain through the open windows. A white figure stood by my worktable. It moved toward me, and I started to scream.

LONG DURESS

The figure cried out, “It’s Blanche!”

Of course it was Blanche. I sagged against the wall and felt for the light switch. When I flipped it, I saw her standing by my table, eyes wide. She was wearing a cream-colored raincoat. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” she gasped.

“For God’s sake,” I said dully.

She continued in a rush, “I know you hate it! Just go ahead and tell me so!”

“Hate it?” I walked to my bed and sat down. Bending my knees was excruciating.

When she came nearer I saw spots of water in her raincoat. “Have you been out?” I asked.

“I went to look for you. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I went to the gate and looked up and down the road. Then I came in here to wait. You had to come back sometime.” Her face was drawn and tense. “You had to come back, if I waited long enough.”

Now it dawned on me. She was talking about
The Book of Betrayal.
“I read it, Blanche. I thought it was— remarkable.”

She blinked. “You did?”

“Yes. Extraordinary.”

“Oh— ” She swallowed. I saw tension drain away, leaving her limp. “I was sure you’d hate it,” she breathed.

“I certainly didn’t. I think it shows a lot of promise.”

She sat down beside me on the bed, smoothing her raincoat over her knees, color returning to her face. I congratulated myself for being truthful
and
making her feel good. Outside, the rain rushed down.

After savoring my comments she said, “What part did you like best?”

She hadn’t even noticed that I was tattered, disheveled, and in pain. My knees would have to wait, anyway, because here was my chance. “I thought the last section was especially effective.” I limped to the table for the notebook and returned to sit beside her. When I found the place I read aloud:

“I steal a key to a forbidden door

And find out, in a place I shouldn’t be

Something that would bring harm to one I love

As well as giving dreadful pain to me.

If I keep silent under long duress

Can my refusal ever to confess

Absolve me of the taking of the key?”

Against the background noise of the rain, the words sounded eerily powerful. Blanche was obviously moved. “Yes,” she whispered.

“That passage sounds real,” I said. I plunged. “It really happened, didn’t it?”

She looked stunned. “How—why do you think that?”

I had to be on the right track. “The tone changed. It’s less academic. It feels true.”

Her hair, pulled back by the tortoiseshell combs, swung lank and damp as she shook her head.

“It
is
true, isn’t it?”

She wouldn’t look at me. “I can’t talk about it.” Her voice was tight and thin.

“I think you want to, Blanche. That’s why you let me read it, isn’t it?”

“I can’t.”

“Do you think it’s better to jump off a cliff at Les Baux? It isn’t.”

She clutched the neck of her raincoat as if desperate for air. “Yes, it is! Anything is better than going on like this!”

“Then stop tormenting yourself!”

It was a long time before she spoke again. “Didn’t you read the poem? It says, ‘Can my refusal ever to confess—’ ”

“ ‘Absolve me of the taking of the key’,” I finished. “Bernart didn’t answer, but I will. The answer is no. You took the key. You saw what you saw. Nothing can change that. Nothing.”

I didn’t have many arguments left. “Look. Whatever happened, you made a poem out of it. You used it. You mastered it, Blanche.”

At last, she looked at me. She’d probably never thought of herself as mastering anything. Belatedly, she took in my torn pants and scratches and scrapes. “What happened to you?”

A decision was made inside me without my conscious volition. I took her by the shoulders to keep her eyes on mine. “Somebody pushed me over the bluff.”

She knew what it meant. “Who?”

“I didn’t see who did it.”

I saw pain in her eyes.
“Why?”

“You know why. Because the person who killed Carey isn’t going to stop.”

Giving each word all the weight I could, I said, “If you know something, tell me now. I don’t want to die for your mother’s memoirs.”

Blanche closed her eyes. Rain was blowing in, the curtains billowing. She twitched her shoulders. I let her go, and she got up and closed the windows. When she returned, all expression had drained from her face, and she looked withered and old. Without emotion she said, “The key I stole was to Ross’s apartment. I took it out of my mother’s bag.”

“The night Carey was killed?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” I was trying to be gentle, but it didn’t matter. She was beyond my reach.

“I was in love with Ross. I have been since I first met him. Now I know it’s hopeless, but then— I thought if we could be together, even for a short while, it would work out somehow.” She smiled bleakly at her past stupidity. “My mother had made me go out for the evening, but she was staying home to talk to Carey. It was a perfect opportunity.”

“Did Ross know you were coming?”

“No. He wouldn’t have let me. I went on my own.”

“What happened?”

Her face was stiff, her eyes dry and hard. “I took a taxi downtown, like I said before, only I went to Ross’s place on Broome Street instead of the theater. It’s a loft building. My mother had keys to both the outside door and Ross’s front door on a special, separate ring. I let myself in. I didn’t see anybody, and nobody saw me.”

She fell silent. “Go on,” I said.

She shrugged. “That’s all. Ross wasn’t there. I waited and waited, sort of like waiting for you just now, but he never came. It isn’t what I saw, it’s what I didn’t see. He wasn’t at his place that night, and neither was my mother.”

There, in one pulverizing blast, went Vivien’s alibi. Vivien hadn’t spent the evening with Ross at Ross’s loft, because Blanche had been at Ross’s loft alone, waiting for a dream lover who never appeared. “When did you leave?”

“It got late enough for the movie to be over. I had to go home. When I got there, it was like I told you before— Carey dead, the police arriving. When they asked me where I’d been, I said to the movies. I didn’t want my mother to know— what I’d really done, what I’d had in mind.”

“And the keys?”

“I slipped them back in her bag the first chance I got. It wasn’t hard. No harder than it had been to steal them. At first, she wouldn’t say where she’d been. But when she started to say she was at Ross’s, I knew I had to stick to my story. I could never tell the truth.”

“ ‘If I keep silent under long duress’,” I said.

“That’s right. Only now I haven’t.”

“Blanche—”

She stood up and walked to the door,
The Book of Betrayal
in her hand. “I’ll always hate myself for this, and I’ll always hate you,” she said. She walked out.

THE ATTIC ROOM

It was my turn to cry. I cried wet, gulping, racking sobs while I took a bath and cleaned my abrasions. Where did I belong in
The Book of Betrayal?
Where do you rank confidantes who betray you by forcing you to betray? Or was Blanche throwing suspicion on Vivien deliberately, to get back at her for real or imagined wrongs? Or was I trying to cast Blanche as a villain to relieve my own guilt for what I’d done to her?

The glossy, seamless facade of the Carey Howard murder case was shattered. Vivien had no alibi. Neither did Ross. Which didn’t mean either of them had killed Carey, but it opened the question. I brushed my hair and held a cold cloth against my swollen eyes.

I got dressed, hoping my pants legs were so loose they wouldn’t chafe my abrasions. Still quaky, I went downstairs to look for Marcelle. A light was on in the living room. When I passed by I heard Vivien and Alexander talking in low tones.

Marcelle was standing on the back stoop, shaking water from a black umbrella. She had on a plastic rainbonnet and a blue raincoat. She looked at me closely and said, “Are you ill, Madame?”

So I looked as bad as I’d feared. “I had a fall. It’s not serious. Marcelle”— I hadn’t thought how to phrase this— “Can you tell me who was around here this afternoon? Who went out and who stayed in?”

She looked puzzled, but quickly shook her head. “I was away myself, visiting my mother. Dinner will be late.”

“Oh.” So vanished my best hope of finding out who’d pushed me. Marcelle was the only member of the household likely to know where all the others were. “Thanks,” I said, and left her taking off her raincoat, her face furrowed with concern.

Vivien and Alexander were still talking in the living room. The inflections were those of deep and intense discussion. Here I was, hobbling around in physical and mental anguish while the jerk who’d probably pushed me sat in cozy, safe conversation with his doting mom.

Hot, satisfying, empowering anger pulsed through me. Upstairs, I didn’t go back to my room, but turned in the opposite direction— past Ross’s and Vivien’s doors to the far end of the hall, where a wooden staircase led to Alexander’s attic bedroom. My motive was pure hostility. If I could be pushed down a bluff, jerked around, played for a fool, I didn’t have to abide by the rules either. If I wanted to know what somebody was up to, I’d toss his room while he was downstairs talking with his mother. To hell with propriety and fair play.