Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes (8 page)

I thought of Judy's comment about her daydreams; apparently her mother had similarly eased her pain.

“After a while,” Lis went on, “you begin to accept the other inmates and they begin to accept you. It doesn't matter that for the most part they're badly educated and poor, or that some are just plain insane. They become your family, because they're all you have. And to them it doesn't matter that you've had advantages they haven't. They become proud of you, in fact. ‘That's my college-lady friend,' one woman would tell her visitors. As I grew older, the younger ones saw me as a surrogate parent and would tell me their troubles or their mad fantasies. Some of them called me Mom, and in a strange way, I liked that.”

She paused, then added in a softer tone. “You can become adapted to anything, I guess, but there was one time of day when I always hurt. Early evening was my favorite time of day before. A time of peace and hope. After I went to prison it became the loneliest, saddest time, because I knew there would never be any hope again. I cried in the early evening, before the wells dried up and I stopped crying for good.”

The simple words touched me deeply, all the more so because she'd spoken in a manner that did not ask for sympathy:
This is how it was; this is why I am as I am
. No more.

“There's hope now,” I said.

“No, it's too late for me. But not for Judy.”

“Then for Judy's sake let's get started on this.” I took my notebook from my bag. “I've done some preliminary checking, but I haven't been able to located most of the people who were connected with your case. How about Joseph Stameroff? What are my chances of talking with him?”

“Not very good, I'm afraid.”

“Is there any possibility he could be behind the graffiti and phone calls?”

She considered, then shook her head. “He wouldn't do that to Judy. To me, perhaps, but not to her.”

“I'll ask her to work on him, then. Maybe she can persuade him to discuss the case with me. Now, Leonard Eyestone—I'll call his office first thing tomorrow and try to set up an appointment. And this Louise Wingfield, the friend of Cordy who testified about the note—I've heard of her. Society matron, got a big divorce settlement about fifteen years ago, took back her maiden name. Since then she's used the money to establish a foundation that aids minority kids. I've got a connection who may be able to persuade her to see me. What about your attorney?”

“Harry Moylan? He's been dead for years.”

“Why a public defender, anyway?”

“He was all I could afford.”

“Surely on your husband's salary—”

“My husband was an alcoholic, Miss McCone. The first item in an alcoholic's budget is liquor. Most months we could barely meet our expenses.”

“And the Institute didn't offer to help?”

“They were only too glad to wash their hands of me. My alleged crime placed their government contracts in jeopardy. Russell Eyestone was a cold man. If you speak with Leonard, you'll find he's much like his father.”

“And your family—did you appeal to them?”

“There would have been no point in that. Years before, I'd quarreled with them over Vincent's drinking and bad treatment of me. Once I was arrested, they broke off whatever tenuous contact we had.”

There was no bitterness in her tone, no regret; the years in prison had dried those emotions up, too. “Okay,” I said, “what about the Sheridans, the couple who were at your house the night Judy found Cordy's ring?”

“I have no idea what happened to Bob and Jane. For all I know, they might be dead.”

“Are there any other Institute staff members I should speak with?”

“Most were older than Vincent and I, and have died.”

“Domestic help at the estate?”

“Dead or scattered. I can't imagine how you could locate any of them.”

I closed my unused notebook and turned to a more sensitive topic. “Mrs. Benedict—”

“Please—Lis. I'm not used to formality.”

“Lis,” I agreed, “if you'll return the favor. Now I need to ask you a few questions that may make you think I doubt your account of the night of the murder. I don't want you to take offense; I'm doing it only for purposes of clarification.”

“All right.”

“Was food poisoning the real reason you didn't attend the banquet for Dulles?”

“I was ill, yes.”

“And the stains Judy saw on your clothing—were they actually ink?”

“I was a calligrapher, and working on a project involving red ink.”

“You were doing calligraphy even though you were too ill to attend a banquet for the secretary of state?”

“I felt better by then.”

“Where were you working on this project?”

“Where . . .?”

“Judy testified that you returned to the house form
somewhere
with stains in your dress.”

“Judy was mistaken. A child awakened by a noise is easily confused.”

“What sort of noise?”

“Why, almost any kind.”

“No—I mean, Judy, specifically, that night.”

“I . . . don't know.”

“But she'd been awakened—”

“And saw me downstairs with stains on my dress and assumed I'd been outside. I usually did my calligraphy work on the big table in the library.”

“I see. And so far as you know, there was no one on the estate that night but you and Judy.”

“. . . That's right.”

I didn't like what her reaction to the series of questions had told me. Most people can't entirely mask a lie. They betray themselves with physical gestures, changes in posture and voice level, innumerable small signs. In Lis's case it was a faint tic at the right corner of her mouth. No matter how candidly she met my eyes, she couldn't control that, and the questions about Judy seeing the stains on her dress had especially aggravated it.

Lis was hiding something, but what? What could have been—still
was
—so important that she would have died in the gas chamber in order to keep it secret?

As I studied her, she lowered her eyes, pleating the fabric of her cape between her fingers.

After a moment I asked. “Can you think of anyone else I should talk with?”

“No.”

“Was there a friend you confided in?”

“About what?”

“Your husband's affair with Cordy McKittridge. Your feeling toward her.”

She rose suddenly and moved toward the cliff's edge. Uneasy again, I followed. She stopped a safe distance, however, facing southwest toward the Golden Gate. Beyond the rust-red towers of the bridge a bank of fog hovered, ready to reclaim the city once darkness fell.

Lis said, “From here I can see almost every place except where it happened.”

“Maybe that's just as well.”

“I don't think so. I have to face the nightmare if I'm going to go through with the mock trial.”

“But not by looking at Seacliff and brooding. You wouldn't recognize much, anyway; it's all changed.”

“You're probably right.”

“Lis, I asked you a question. Did you tell anyone about your feelings toward Cordy?”

She continued to stare at the cityscape. After a moment she said, “I spoke of Cordy McKittridge to two people, and two people only—my husband and my daughter.”

“And what did you say?”

She turned candid aquamarine eyes on me. This time there was no evidence of the facial tic. “I told them that I wished Cordy were dead. I sad I would gladly cut her heart out.”

“What kind of woman would say a thing like that to her ten-year-old daughter?” I asked Jack.

He shrugged, clearly troubled.

We were seated on the sofa in his office at a little after nine on Monday morning. The worktable was still strewn with papers, but they looked as if they hadn't been touched since yesterday. I was on my third cup of coffee; he'd downed at least that many and still seemed half asleep.

“Dammit!” I pounded the arm of the sofa with my fist and only succeeded in hurting myself. “She didn't even act as if she thought she'd done anything wrong.”

“Don't get all riled up,” he told me absently.

“How do you expect me not to? I should have trusted my initial instincts and stayed the hell out of this. How on earth can you justify this . . . farce?”

Jack stood and poured himself yet another mug of coffee from the percolator on a side table. “I happen to believe in her innocence. I don't feel called upon to make a character judgment, as you seem to.”

“And you also happen to be in love with her daughter.”

“True.”

“When's the mock trial?”

“It's not calendared yet. The Historical Tribunal considers this an important issue, since the defendant is still living. They're trying to assemble an impressive jury.” Jack's expression turned sour; I knew he didn't care for the Tribunal's publicity-hungry organizer, a retired attorney names James Wald.

“Going to turn it into a media circus, are they?”

“Not if Rudy Valle has anything to say about it.” John “Rudy” Valle was the superior court judge who presided over the Tribunal's sessions. “Valle's a brilliant jurist and an amateur historian. He takes the proceedings very seriously.”

“And the jury—where do they get them?”

“They're volunteers selected from a permanent roster. Most're legal experts, historians, journalists, crime writers. The trial's conducted pretty much like an actual one, except the witnesses are also volunteers—many with acting experience—who've been briefed on the fact their testimony is to cover.”

“So whatever I find out in my research will be told to them, and they'll act the parts of the various people who participated in the real trial?”

“Essentially.”

“What if a real witness wanted to play himself or herself; would they allow it?”

“You're thinking of Judy and Lis. We've talked about it, but I'm not sure it's a good idea. The Tribunal, particularly James Wald, would love it, of course.”

I tried to imagine the proceedings. I'd often had to testify in both civil and criminal cases; even during occasional moments of courtroom levity, I was aware of an underlying seriousness. But in a mock trial—didn't the word “mock” imply a certain level of frivolity?

I said, “It sounds like half theatrical production and half trial. Only in this case, they'll be fiddling around with Judy's and Lis's lives—”

There was a resounding thump against the rear wall of the building. Jack and I exchanged alarmed glances. When I looked at the window, a blue-and-white striped cap appeared; the cheery face of one of the painters followed. He grinned idiotically at us and waggled his eyebrows.

I got up, stalked over there, and yanked the blinds shut.

“God! Ever since they started, it's been like a bad Marx Brothers comedy around here.” Returning to the sofa, I added. “What I was trying to say before we were interrupted is that I'm not terribly comfortable with the idea of a mock trial. I can't shake the idea that it's a silly exercise that could have serious repercussions.”

There was a horrendous crash overhead. Jack tipped his head back and glared at the ceiling. “Now we've got to listen to that! Goddamn manipulative little bitch and her skylights!”

The outburst was totally uncharacteristic of him. I stared, speechless.

“Sorry,” he said, “I know you're fond of Rae. I like her, too. It's just that I think she takes unfair advantage.”

“Rae's like a lot of people who've had unhappy childhoods: she's making up for it by stepping on toes.”

“Well, I wish she'd hurry up and even the score and cut it out. To get back to what we were talking about, let me ask you this: did you ever suspect that I might be aiming at something more than a mock trial?”

I frowned. “Lis said—”

“I know—she's history. And I also know she's deathly afraid of going back into a real court of law. I don't blame her. But maybe if you come up with new evidence . . . That's why I wanted so badly for you to investigate. If anyone can find out what actually happened back then, it's you.”

Big compliment; heavy burden to carry. “You flatter me.”

Jack's phone buzzed. He crossed to the worktable, spoke, then held the receiver out. “For you, Ted.”

Ted said, “I've got a message for you from somebody named Alison. You're to meet with Louise Wingate at Project Helping Hands On Sixteenth Street at ten-thirty.”

“Thanks.” I replaced the receiver and turned to Jack. “Someone I know who works in the nonprofit sector talked to the friend of McKittridge who testified about finding the note; she's arranged an appointment for me. I was afraid Wingfield would refuse to discuss the case, but apparently she's open to it.”

“I doubt you'll find that people are hostile after all these years.

“Somebody's hostile, Jack. If you want proof, just take a look at the front of Judy's house.”

Project Helping Hands occupied a storefront in the grubby heart of the Mission. It had once been a bookstore-and-café; the bar still held steaming urns and towers of Styrofoam cups. Young men and women, most of them Hispanic, sat at the tables toward the front, drinking coffee, talking reading. The nearby shelves housed a jumbled of assortment of pamphlets, used textbooks, college and trade school catalogs, and nearly every self-help manual ever written.

The rear of the space was broken up into cubicles for counselors and administrators, and in one of them I found Louise Wingfield. She was a tall, vigorous woman dressed in black jeans and a soft, much-washed chambray shift; her gray hair was stylishly short, and her fingers were stained with ink and nicotine. As she waved me into a wooden chair wedged between her desk and the cubicle's flimsy wall, she spoke into the phone, jabbing at the air for emphasis.