AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD (24 page)

“She was working on it at the time,” said Bernard. “Maybe it got reshelved in the wrong place by mistake.”

They began to go through the journals one by one,
opening the pages gingerly, glancing through them for dates.

“1971,” said Snooky. “1972. 1973.”

“1974, 1975, 1976,” said Bernard.

“1977, 1978.”

“September ’79 to November ’80.”

“December ’81 to August ’82. Wait a minute.” A small yellow piece of paper, folded tightly and wedged between the pages of the journal, had fluttered out when Snooky opened it. “What’s this?”

He took it over to the desk and smoothed it out. At the top was printed simply:

MY WILL

I, Gertrude H. Ditmar, do hereby leave all my possessions in the world, including my books, papers, nature journals and whatever share of this house I may own, to the Conservation Society of North America, to be used however they see fit.

It was signed and dated in a flourished script, curiously different from the meticulous writing Gertie used for her scientific observations. It had been witnessed by Irma Ditmar and somebody else whose signature Snooky did not recognize. He glanced up at Bernard. “So now we know how she left it.”

“Yes. Keep on looking.”

They went through all the journals on the shelf one by one. There were more than forty. At the end, Bernard glanced around the room with a puzzled frown. “Where else could it be?” He moved along the bookcase, running his hand meditatively along the shelves. “Let me see …,” he murmured. “Let me see … no. Where else? How about … 
aah!”

He moved over to the bed, its brass knobs gleaming faintly in the lamplight, and opened the drawer of the rickety wooden bedside table. “Here it is.” He took out a large looseleaf notebook. “She must have worked on it in bed
before she went to sleep. Let’s see now. October fourth … October tenth … hmmm … ‘saw a ruffed grouse in the woods on the outskirts of town’ … hmmm … November second … here we are. What day was Bobby killed?”

“I don’t know. Was it the tenth?”

“Yes. November tenth.” Bernard fell silent, absorbed in the pages of the journal.

“Well?” demanded Snooky. “What does it say?”

There was a long silence. Snooky began to feel very cold; a strange creeping kind of coldness, a bitter anticipation. “Well?”

Finally Bernard said slowly, “I don’t think we have to worry about any more murders.”

“Why? You mean … you mean, now that Gertie’s dead?”

“No,” said Bernard. “I mean now that Irma’s dead.”

He turned the page around so Snooky could read. There, in Gertie’s tiny hand, was the following simple entry:

November 10th—was following a rose-breasted grosbeak with my binoculars in the woods on the edge of town this afternoon when I saw Irma shoot Bobby Fuller in the head. She stood over him for a while, then took the gun and left. It was snowing. I imagine he’ll be covered up by now. Good riddance.

And then, at the bottom of the page, almost as an afterthought, Gertie had scrawled,

“I wonder why she did it?”

“She did it,” said Sarah, “because he told her he was breaking the engagement and leaving her for his girlfriend.”

“You knew all along,” said Snooky. He and Bernard had come downstairs to find Sarah in the hallway, looking at them in surprise. They had led her into the living room, where Snooky had showed her the journal entry. Sarah read it without emotion.

Now she shook her head. “No. She told me at the end, in the hospital. She knew she was dying. She had one lucid period while I was sitting with her. Can you blame her for wanting to tell somebody? She said she couldn’t live with what she had done. That’s why she took those pills. She said he was the only man she had ever loved … more than she had loved Hugo, even.”

Snooky sat her down firmly on a plush green Victorian divan, and drew up a chair next to her. “What did she say?”

Sarah twiddled unhappily with her hair. “It was late one night, in the hospital. She woke up and started to talk. I don’t know if she knew it was me sitting there, or a nurse, or Gertie. It didn’t seem to matter. She rambled on for over
an hour, but what I gathered was that right after they announced their engagement, Bobby told her he was leaving her for this other woman, I don’t know her name. Irma took it pretty calmly but arranged to meet him for a final talk the next day, in the woods on the edge of town. She went to Roger’s house that morning at a time when she knew he would be out and Dwayne would be downstairs in his darkroom. She knew where the gun was kept, of course. Roger had taught her to handle it years before, and she had picked it up quickly—a little too quickly for his comfort, actually. She took the gun from the closet, loaded it, and left in the car to meet Bobby. I don’t know how she explained the gun—I guess she said she was going to try her hand at a little hunting—but they talked it over, and she couldn’t convince him to stay with her. He said he was in love with someone else. Well, Irma went a little crazy. She said she felt dizzy and sat down, and when he turned away for a minute, she took the gun and shot him. She stood there for a while over his body, and then left and got in her car and came home. She said she didn’t know what happened to the gun; she must have thrown it down on the way to the car. She had been careful to wear gloves when she handled the gun, so there were no fingerprints. With the snow and everything, when the police found the body the next day, there was no evidence that anyone else had been with him.”

“And certainly nobody would think of her in connection with his death,” said Snooky.

“No. Even though she admitted she had been out that day. She told the police she had gone shopping. And she did do some shopping, on the way home from the woods. She went into Harry’s and bought some green beans, and got some chicken from the supermarket and some bread from the bakery. Then she came home and helped me make dinner. She said her mind was working very clearly by then, and she saw how important it was that she act normally. So she and Gertie and I had dinner, and she went to bed early. I never knew a thing.”

“And when the news came about Bobby—”

“Well, that’s when she had her collapse. Up until then, I think she was denying what she had done. And I don’t think she had realized beforehand that the rest of the family would be under suspicion. That’s why she held to the idea of a hunting accident. She realized very early on that nobody suspected her, that nobody even knew about the secret girlfriend, that the girlfriend hadn’t gone to the police with her story, and that she’d have to do something to protect the rest of us.”

“But Gertie knew.”

Sarah nodded. “Gertie knew.” She motioned toward the journal. “Gertie saw it happen. Gertie and her trusty binoculars.”

“Do you think Roger and Dwayne have figured it out?”

“No, I don’t think so. I didn’t know until Irma told me herself, and it would be impossible for either of them to think that she did it. It was so out of character for her. A crime of passion.” Sarah smiled faintly. “You don’t think of a woman of nearly seventy as committing a crime of passion, but that’s what it was. She said that when Bobby told her he was leaving her, she got so angry that all she wanted to do was kill him.”

“And she did.”

“Yes. She did.” Sarah paused. “After that, she had her good days and her bad days, but she never really got over the shock. Some days she said she could put it out of her mind and think of it as a hunting accident, a terrible tragic accident that could have happened to anybody. But some days she couldn’t. And so on one of those days she took an overdose of medication. It was there by her bed, and she said she had been thinking about it for a long time.”

Bernard nodded. “The police will have to be told.”

“You tell them, then. I’m not having any more to do with that detective.”

“Snooky can tell him,” said Bernard. “He and Detective Bentley appear to be old friends by now.”

“I don’t see why I have to do it,” said Snooky. “It’s not a
pleasant thing talking to Bentley under the best of circumstances. Why can’t you tell him?”

“I would, but I can’t,” said Bernard. “I’m going to be busy.”

“Busy? Doing what?”

“Doing something I’ve looked forward to for a very long time.”

Snooky looked at him quizzically. “Really? What’s that?”

“Packing to leave.”

Snooky dropped Bernard off at the cabin and took the road to Wolfingham. On his way to the police station, he made one short stop. He parked his car on the main street, put his keys in his pocket, and, whistling, walked a few blocks until he found what he was looking for. It was a small store with a red-and-white striped barber pole outside.

He went in and said to the woman behind the counter, “Is Diane here today?”

“Yes. Do you have an appointment?”

“It’s not for a haircut. I’d like to talk to her for a moment.”

The woman looked him over critically. “You could use a haircut.”

“Thank you very much. Another time, perhaps. Is she here?”

“Downstairs.”

Snooky went down the steps to a small salon, bright with mirrors, where a gaggle of women were sitting. Diane Caldwell was there, a cigarette in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other.

“You should wear your hair this way, really,” she was saying. “Up. It’s the newest style. You don’t have to cut it, just curl it under like this and fasten it with a—
oh!”

“Diane.”

She looked frightened. Her lips, Snooky noticed in a detached way, were bright purple today. Her nails were a matching purple and her cheeks were pink. “Yes?”

“Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure.” She glanced at the women around her. “Ummm … upstairs. There’s more room upstairs.”

They went up to the main floor, their images chasing after them in the mirror-lined walls, and stood near the door, where they could not be overheard. There were several customers in the store, and the room was loud with music, conversation and laughter.

“So then my husband said to me …”

“We went to Phoenix last year, what weather, I never in my life …”

“I hurt my thumb and I couldn’t blow-dry for an entire month. I’m telling you, darling, it was
awful.
My hair looked like a rat’s nest …”

“Diane.”

“Yeah, I’m listening. What is it?”

He told her.

She listened to his story in silence. At the end, she stubbed out her cigarette in a nearby ashtray. “I see.”

“He was going to leave her for you.”

“Uh-huh.”

They were silent. Around them swirled the unrelated conversations of other lives. Diane appeared to be deep in thought, her magenta lips pursed together.

“He loved me best, the bastard.”

Snooky nodded.

“I told you he loved me best.”

“Yes. You did.”

“Thank you for coming.”

They shook hands, and she went back downstairs. The woman behind the counter said something as she passed. Diane threw back her head and, with a return of her old spirit, said, “None of your beeswax, Charlene!”

———

Bernard packed his suitcases with a great sense of joy and relief. He trundled them out to the car and stood waiting, shivering in the cold, for Maya. During the past few days Snooky had outdone himself as a host. One excellent gustatory experience had followed another, until now, at last, it was time to leave. Even Maya agreed that they had been away too long.

“You’re right, sweetheart,” she had said the night before, in bed. “Now that I know Snooky’s safe, I can leave.”

“Snooky’s always safe. The shadow of death passes over his head.”

“I certainly hope so. Why are you so grouchy?”

Bernard moved restlessly under the covers. “Misty’s taking up too much room under here. I don’t care if she is cold, I’m tired of having her in bed with us.”

“Put her out, then. She can sleep near the fire.”

Misty looked at him in horrified reproach as he dumped her over the side. She resignedly padded off to sleep, as Maya had predicted, near the warm embers of the hearth. “That’s better.”

“Why, look, darling, we’re alone,” said Maya, and edged closer to him. Bernard felt his contentment grow and expand in a joyful bubble as he gathered her into his arms.

Now he stood shivering as Maya and Snooky came out of the cabin arm in arm. They were laughing, heads thrown back, the same laugh, the same pose. Like twins, Bernard reflected sourly. The good twin and her evil twin. Snooky was carrying Misty in his other arm. He dumped her in the back seat of the car, where she sat drooling with anticipatory nausea at the trip.

“There she is. She looks a little green already, Bernard. If I were you, I’d drive fast, or stop often, or both. She doesn’t look to me like she’s going to make it.”

“Misty hates to travel.”

“Like her owner.”

“Yes.”

“Well, thank you for coming. May I say it’s been wonderful
working my fingers to the bone for the two of you. You are the perfect guests—almost as perfect as I am.”

“We’re not in your league, Snooks,” said Maya, giving him a motherly peck on the cheek. “But then, of course, we haven’t had the kind of practice you have.”

“Take care of yourselves. Have a safe trip home.”

Bernard opened the door for Maya, then went around and got in the driver’s seat. “Just one thing, Snooky,” he said, leaning out the window.

“Yes?”

“Try to give us a running start before you get in your car and come visit us, all right?”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I already have other plans. Sarah and I are heading north in a week or so. I have friends in Canada, you know.”

This came as no surprise. Snooky had a seemingly infinite network of friends spread out over the continental United States, Canada and Mexico, all of whom appeared to be delighted to see him on a moment’s notice.

Maya lifted an eyebrow. “You and Sarah?”

“Yes. She’s forgiven me for searching through Gertie’s belongings. And the Wuxlers are coming back soon to claim their cabin.”

“Have a good time,” said Bernard, withdrawing his head like a turtle into the recesses of the car.