Shortest Day (30 page)

“Oh,” sobbed Chickie, “he can't die, he just can't.”

“What's the matter?” said Kevin. “You like him better than me?”

Chickie knew he was just kidding. She gave him an affectionate poke, teetered off on her high heels to the elevator, and ascended to the astronomy lab on the eighth floor.

Harley Finch was there, bumbling about. “Too bad about the analemma,” he said, sounding a little smug.

“Too bad?”

“There's a big blot on the negative. See for yourself. He left it drying in the darkroom. One of his last acts,” added Harley, with mortuary relish.

Chickie hurried into the darkroom, turned on the lamp, plucked the negative from the drying line, and held it up to the light. Oh, shit, Harley was right. The suns were there, and the tower of Mem Hall, but there was a big white blotch on the bottom of the film.

Wait a minute. Chickie stared at the blotch. It wasn't altogether formless. She snapped off the darkroom light, laid the negative in the holder on the enlarger stand, slipped a sheet of photographic paper out of an envelope, and adjusted the focus to form an image. Patiently she counted twenty seconds. At last she snatched up the paper and slid it into a pan of developer. Bending over the pan she watched the image darken, and suppressed a squeal of surprise.

The blotch was not a blotch. It was a couple of men on the terrace, and one was heaving the other up on the railing. The two men were a little out of focus, but there was no mistaking who they were.

I
n Cambridge Hospital, Dr. Box asked the whereabouts of the Intensive Care Unit, then took the elevator to the fourth floor. There she was interrogated by the woman at the reception desk.

“You wish to see Mr. Fields? Only family visitors are allowed. He has seen his mother, and no one else.” The receptionist made a face. Arlo's mother had been a disaster. “Are you a relative?”

“I am his great-aunt,” lied Dr. Box, gripping the straps of her briefcases.

“Well, you can wait in the hall if you like. He's in Compartment C. The nurse may let you in, but then again, she may not.”

Dr. Box hurried down the hall and looked through the window of Compartment C.

Ah! There was the boy, flat on his back. His eyes were closed. He was white and still. There were tubes going in and out of him and padded bandages around his neck.

Dr. Box knocked on the window and raised her eyebrows at the nurse, who was hanging a bottle of red liquid on a hook and fastening it into a plastic hose.

The nurse looked at her, distraught, and shook her head, but Dr. Box wasn't having any of
that
. She knocked again,
rat-a-tat-tat
.

Impatiently the nurse came to the door, opened it a crack, and said, “He can't see anyone. He's lost a lot of blood. He's very ill.”

“But I am his great-aunt.”

“I'm
sorry
,” said the nurse, and shut the door.

Dr. Box did not withdraw. She pressed her nose against the window and watched the nurse's every move. At last, with a
Get lost
gesture at Dr. Box, the nurse hurried off to care for another patient.

At once Dr. Box opened the door and nipped inside the compartment. Reaching into one of the bags dangling from her shoulders, she extracted a sprig of holly and approached Arlo's bedside. Gently she laid it on the white sheet over his chest. Then, smiling to herself, she closed her bag and went away.

Arlo opened his eyes.

T
he overworked intensive-care nurse was thoroughly disgusted. The mother of the man whose life they were trying to save had almost killed him by throwing her arms around his neck and starting a small hemorrhage. Then there had been the tired-looking young woman who had spent the entire night in the waiting room, but at least she had shown the courtesy of not trying to push her way in, like the madwoman in the purple hat. Now here was this ridiculous girl in the fuzzy fake-fur coat pounding on the glass, shaking a big envelope, and demanding to be let in.

Heaving a sigh, the nurse put her head out the door and said, “What are you, his second cousin once removed?”

“What?” Chickie Pickett flapped her envelope at the nurse. “He's got to see!”

“I'm sorry,” said the nurse sarcastically, “but he can't see anything. He just happens to be fighting for his life.”

But Arlo lifted his head and croaked at Chickie, “Show me!”

“Oh, the analemma's there, all right,” cried Chickie, pushing past the nurse. “Like it looks just great. But there's this other stuff going on. Look.” She pulled out the print she had made from Arlo's negative. It was still damp, but the picture was sharp and clear, the bright suns in the dark sky, the sunlit tower of Memorial Hall, and the violent action in the foreground. “It's two guys, two guys fighting up there on the porch—you know, the terrace. It's Morgan Bailey, and he's pushing Jeffery Peck over the railing. Sarah's husband, he killed Jeffery Peck! It's right here!”

Arlo focused his eyes on the print for a moment, then dropped his head back and closed his eyes.

“You see?” said the nurse. “I told you. Please leave at once.”

But Arlo lifted his head again, and whispered, “Homer, call Homer Kelly.”

“Homer Kelly? You mean that big guy with, like”—Chickie waggled her fingers excitedly under her chin—“whiskers?”

Arlo summoned a last effort from his vocal cords and wheezed. “Concord, he lives in Concord,” then dropped his head again and closed his eyes.

Chickie leaned her furry bosom over him and kissed him while the furious nurse tugged at her coat.

Afterward the nurse went straight to her supervisor and demanded that visitors to Intensive Care be screened more thoroughly. “What about making them fill out a questionnaire? I mean—God!—I'm supposed to be responsible for saving these people's lives, and you should just
see
what goes on around here.”

“Oh, pooh,” said the supervisor. “Relax, honey. Take a day off. You're working too hard.”

CHAPTER 39

Then woe is me
,

Poor child for thee!

And ever mourn and say
,

For thy parting

Nor say nor sing
,

By, by, lullay, lullay!

“The Coventry Carol”

A
fter her long night of drowsing in the waiting room of the Intensive Care Unit at Cambridge Hospital, Sarah was still painfully alarmed, and no one had set her mind at ease. She did not go home. Instead she ate breakfast in the Square, then went back to Memorial Hall to work with the Old Master.

Walt was taking Arlo's place. No one could be a better substitute, but he had to learn all of Saint George's lines, and he had to be told where to stand and how to move from place to place. Joan Hill was there to measure him for a new costume and whip it up in a hurry for the Sunday-afternoon performance. Homer Kelly had to leave a student conference a little early, in order to practice the resurrection scene with Walt and the Doctor and the Fool, but of course the student was grateful. She snatched up her notebook and charged out of the building.

Mary came in as she ran out. The student shouted, “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Kelly,” and Mary laughed and wished her a happy new year.

Homer looked at his wife soberly. “Any news?”

She shook her head. “Nobody seems to know.”

Solemnly they made their way upstairs and pushed through the thick horde of people in the corridor, and entered the great hall. But before Sarah Bailey could start her last-minute rehearsal, another crisis erupted.

“Hey, Sarah,” said Kevin Barnes, “where's Morgan?” Kevin was dressed in his white trousers and red sash, and his bells jingled at his knees. In only twenty minutes the Morris men were supposed to go onstage for the first time. From the corridor Sarah could hear the pandemonium of twelve hundred people talking and calling to friends across the hall, and the noise of excited children and then the diminishing of the racket as everyone began pouring into Sanders Theatre.

Sarah didn't know where Morgan was. She had been afraid to go home. Her world had burst into fragments, she had found her treasure and lost it, and she was overwhelmed by the sense of continuing tragedy. “Find someone else,” she said quickly. “There must be someone. Hurry, hurry.”

“Well, Jesus,” said Kevin, “who else is there?” He wandered off, feeling hopeless, but at once he ran into an old friend, Buck Zemowski, and his troubles were over. Buck had been the original Father Christmas before he came down with the flu, before Sarah dragooned Homer Kelly to take his place.

Grinning, Kevin brought him back to Sarah. “Guess what? We're in luck. Buck's the best Morris dancer in Boston.”

Buck smiled modestly and demonstrated his prowess by leaping into the air and coming down with a crash.

“Well, that's wonderful,” said Sarah.

“Come on, Buck, we'll get you decked out.”

As it turned out, Morgan Bailey's clogs were a trifle small for Buck, but he suffered good-naturedly through the exertions of the afternoon, then went home and soaked his sore feet in a pan of soapy water.

“W
here have you been?” said Morgan.

Sarah was too tired to make the obvious retort, “Well, where have
you
been?” She closed the door and went directly to Morgan's desk and opened the drawer.

The whetstone was missing. The middle drawer of Morgan's desk was neat, as usual, with everything in its own space—the sharpened pencils, the drafting tools, the calculator, the rolls of tape, the protractor and triangles, the collection of household tools, the hammer, the pliers, the screwdriver. But the little compartment reserved for Morgan's whetstone was empty.

Behind her back she could feel him watching her. Lately he was always watching her, he never took his eyes off her. Sometimes she wanted to scream at him to look at something else.
Look at your geese, look at your ducks, look at the great auk. Stop looking at Sarah Bailey
.

“What do you want in my desk?” said Morgan softly.

Silently Sarah looked at him. Then she turned back to the desk to pick up the ringing phone, aware that Morgan was reaching at the same time for the one that hung on the wall.

“Mrs. Bailey?”

“This is Sarah Bailey.”

“Sergeant Hasty here, Cambridge Police. I wonder if you know anything about a certain letter, which I would like to read to you.”

Sarah stared at the map of bird migration that hung over Morgan's desk, while Sergeant Hasty cleared his throat and read the words passed along to him by the pathologist at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“The first part is in pencil, and it goes like this.” In a monotone Hasty read it aloud—“
Darling, Meet me at three o'clock? I love you
. And it's signed,
Sarah
. And there's a word at the bottom.” Sergeant Hasty's voice flattened still further as he read the postscript: “
Passionately!
”

Sarah did not turn around, but she could feel Morgan's eyes on her back. “How—” she began. “I mean, where did the letter come from?”

“Wait a minute, there's more. This part is typed—
Jeffery, make it tomorrow in the astronomy lab
. Now, tell me, Mrs. Bailey, do you know anything about this letter?”

Yes, of course she knew something about the letter. She knew everything about the letter. It was the note she had written to Morgan last week. And there in front of her on Morgan's desk was the typewriter with which he must have added the rest. Somehow he had delivered it to Jeffery Peck, and then he had met Jeffery in the Science Center and tossed him over the railing.

“Mrs. Bailey, are you still there?”

“Yes, yes, I'm here.” Dizzily Sarah leaned on the desk as everything fell into place, revelation beyond revelation, the waters opening to expose the drowned sailors at the bottom of the sea. Henry Shady and the murdering wheels of Morgan's car, Tom Cobb and the candy wrappers in the wastebasket, Jeffery Peck and the letter that summoned him to his death, Arlo Field and the whetstone that sharpened Morgan's sword.