Authors: Ellen Pall
Slightly Abridged (24 page)
Juliet Tells a Story
“It's only a day,” Juliet pointed out the next morning. “One day. If
it doesn't pan out, what have we lost?”
it doesn't pan out, what have we lost?”
But Landis continued to look skeptical.
“Go back,” he said. “Tell me your thinking again.”
He padded across the kitchen to pour himself another cup of coffee, then opened the fridge to get the milk. He was wearing the black Levis he had had on last night. Just those. In the morning light, augmented by the otherworldy glare from inside the refrigerator, he looked wonderful. All the same, Julietâwho felt she had shown heroic tact and maturity in not waking him at two in the morningâhad to suppress an impulse to throw the newspaper across the room at him.
Instead, with what patience she could muster, she began to explain again.
“Okay, here's what I realized last night. Harriette Wilson was a decent womanâa decent prostitute, let's sayâuntil she met William Rochfort. She slept with men for money, but she didn't tell their secrets. It was her love for Rochfort that changed the balance. For him, to keep him, because he needed money, she became a blackmailer. So, in a similar way, I think Tom Giddy became a murderer to keep Cindy.
“Now, look again at âLandmine.'”
As Murray reseated himself at the table, she thrust the poem before him.
“âHe sips his coffee, turns it in his hand,'” she read aloud, pointing at the line. “Turning his cup in his hand. Who does that? Think about it, think about the refreshments in the parlor after Ada's memorial. Try to see Tom Giddy in your mind's eye. That's what he kept doing, revolving his cup between sips. It's a habit he has. This is Tom in the poem. Andâ”
“Excuse me, you noticed Tom Giddy revolves his cup? This is the kind of thing you keep your eye on?”
“It's a mannerism,” Juliet bristled. “I'm a novelist. I collect them.” Omitting to mention that she had also stolen Tom's name for her novel, she resumed her explanation. “Look here, Ada calls him a âman unmanned.' She means he's losing Cindy; she said as much to me the first time we met. But he's not a bad man. He's a good man. See the second line? He starts by reminding her she's not immortalââall flesh is grass'âthen tells her to consider how much good she could do before she dies by selling, how many jobs Wildernessland would bring to an area that needs jobs desperately. Finally, he loses patience and snaps at her, âyou'd be rich, for crying out loud, you could have whatever you want.' But all she wants is what she's got. That's their problem.
“And here at the very end is what's so sinister, what I couldn't quite get hold of mentally at first. Look at the last two lines.
“See, âLandmine' is a villanelle. That's a very specific form. A villanelle consists of six stanzas: five triplets, then a quatrain. They all share only two rhymes, and two of the lines get recycled through the whole poem. The first line of the poemâthink of that as the first refrainâgets repeated at the end of the second triplet. The third line of the poemâcall that the second refrainâis also repeated, at the end of the third triplet. Then the first refrain appears again, as the end of the fourth triplet. And the fifth triplet ends with the second
refrain. They're interleaved, like double-Dutch jump rope.
refrain. They're interleaved, like double-Dutch jump rope.
“But here's the catch: The last stanza, the quatrain, should close with both refrains repeated in the order they came in: the first refrain, then the second refrain. End of poem.
“But in the last stanza of âLandmine,' the second refrain comes first. The poem should end with the speaker's affirmation that the land belongs to her. The last two lines should read, âHe sips his coffee, turns it in his hand / This is my place, this was my father's land.' But instead, Ada reversed the refrains, ending with her visitor turning his coffee cup and thinking. He hasn't given up. He's meditating his next move. He gets the last word, not her.”
Murray took a sip of his own coffee. Then he asked, “And this meansâ?”
“Well, it's ominous, isn't it? She knew he hadn't finished with her. This could have been a poem about how one person successfully turned back the force of change. Instead, it's a poem about two people who can't see eye to eye.”
Murray grunted. “Explain to me how exactly Tom Giddy turned murderer?”
Juliet hesitated. She hadn't yet figured out the answer to this. So far, all she had was what E. M. Forster would call “story,” a narrative of events arranged in their time sequence. The king died and then the queen died. Murray was asking for plot, causality: The king died, and then the queen died of grief, as Forster had it. She would have to fill in a few gaps to forge a persuasive chain of motive and action. But what else was imagination for?
“Okay, try this,” she began. “From what Caroline Walsh told us, we know Cindy Lang was a girl who liked money, wanted money. Before they got married, Tom Giddy must have looked to her like a ticket to bigger and better things. He was older, well-liked, solid job, prospects of taking over his boss's business, and good-looking to boot. Plus, his folks had propertyâa large farm, 250 acres. Someday, Tom would inherit.
“But time goes by, money is scarce, and Tom's boss changes his mind. Tom's still a grease monkey. His parents die, he and Cindy inherit, but they can't unload the place. Tom's hair starts to fall out, and Cindy's still stuck in Espyville. She starts catting around, he knows itâeverything's going to pieces. But he still worships her, you can see thatâyou could see that, couldn't you?” she asked.
“Mm.”
“And she doesn't have the time of day for him. So how is he going to keep her?”
She leaned forward excitedly. “See, this is where it's so like Harriette Wilson and Rochfort. Only with the sexes reversed. Tom is a decent guy desperately in love with a woman who isn't, a woman with big ideas, expensive tastes, and no qualms about taking what she wants if she can get it. How is he going to keep her? He can't make himself younger, can't become another man. And that's when opportunity knocks. Suddenly, if only Ada will cooperate, Tom can get a lot of money. And as long as he has money to spend, it's a good bet Cindy won't leave him.
“Only Ada won't cooperate. She loves her place and she wants to leave it to Free Earth. She's just rewritten her will to ensure that. With all the fooling around, all the marrying she's done in her life, she still thinks of Frederick Asquith as her great loveâand Frederick, she believes, died because of industrial pollution.
“So Tom starts thinkingâor maybe Cindy starts him thinkingâDid you ever read Dostoyevsky's
The Gambler?
” she broke off.
The Gambler?
” she broke off.
“Yeah, I did. I like Dostoyevsky.”
“Do you?”
Juliet smiled an open smile of pleasure, all thought of murder momentarily forgotten as she learned this delightful fact about her new lover.
“Me, too. EspeciallyâNo, we'd better talk about that another time. My point is that in
The Gambler,
the heroine, the sought-after Paulina asks the narrator if he would kill for her. She's teasing him.
She knows he's completely besotted with her, and she enjoys toying with him this way. She's a cat, and Cindy is, too. So it may be that she goaded Tom to kill Ada. Or it may be that Tom just says to himself, âAda's an old, old lady. She's down to the dregs of life. So what if I spare her the last few months?' He'll take out the boring part, like abridging a book. His need for Ada to die is greater than her own to live. And he realizesâanybody would realize who grew up in Espyvilleâthat if Claudia Lunceford inherited, she'd dump the farm in a minute. He doesn't evenâ”
The Gambler,
the heroine, the sought-after Paulina asks the narrator if he would kill for her. She's teasing him.
She knows he's completely besotted with her, and she enjoys toying with him this way. She's a cat, and Cindy is, too. So it may be that she goaded Tom to kill Ada. Or it may be that Tom just says to himself, âAda's an old, old lady. She's down to the dregs of life. So what if I spare her the last few months?' He'll take out the boring part, like abridging a book. His need for Ada to die is greater than her own to live. And he realizesâanybody would realize who grew up in Espyvilleâthat if Claudia Lunceford inherited, she'd dump the farm in a minute. He doesn't evenâ”
“Wait a minute. Claudia Lunceford was never going to inherit.”
“Yeah, but who knew that? Bert Nilsson, and maybe the Luncefords themselves. But who else? Anyone would assume Claudia would inheritâ”
“No, just a minute. Ten seconds ago, you said anyone would know if Claudia inherited, she'd dump the farm in a minute. Everyone knew there was bad blood.”
“Yeah, but Ada had no other heir, so who else would she leave the place to?” said Juliet. “But okay, for the sake of argument, let's figure Tom just didn't know. Could be anyone. He'd still figure that anyone, whoever it was who inherited, would be glad to sell it off for a small fortune. And, in fact, almost anyone would. All he had to do was get rid of Ada Caffrey. But he had to do it fast, because Fairground's offer to buy wasn't open forever.”
Murray sat back, his hands around his mug, and smiled at her.
“What?”
“I was just thinking how pretty you are when you exercise your intellect.”
There was a silence, during which Juliet asked herself what was so urgent about all this murder stuff, anyhow. She was still deliberating when Murray spoke again.
“So, go on, what's keeping you?”
“Oh.” Juliet shook herself mentally. “So Tom thinks: I'll kill
her. He makes up his mind and starts to think about how. A man his size, he and his wife help Ada with errands, they even have the key to her placeâtechnically, there's no problem! But he must not get caught. So he thinks. Poison her? Pretend there was a break-in, some demented teenagers like the ones Caroline told us about? Smother her in her bed; make it look like she died in her sleep?
her. He makes up his mind and starts to think about how. A man his size, he and his wife help Ada with errands, they even have the key to her placeâtechnically, there's no problem! But he must not get caught. So he thinks. Poison her? Pretend there was a break-in, some demented teenagers like the ones Caroline told us about? Smother her in her bed; make it look like she died in her sleep?
“But would it look like that? Could a doctor tell it was murder? Tom doesn't know. He's still puzzling out the ways and meansâor maybe he and Lady Macbeth are putting their heads togetherâwhen Ada announces she's going down to New York City and could they watch her house and feed the cats.
“Drat! At first they're annoyedâor Tom's annoyed. This is a kink in his plans.
“But then he realizes it could be a great advantage. If he kills Ada in Espyville, no matter how, and there's any sort of criminal investigationâwell, there he is. He and Cindy. They're the neighbors. They had access. And, eventually, once her legatee agrees to sell to Fairground, it's going to be pretty obvious they had motive.
“But if he kills her in New York Cityâah, what a golden opportunity! In New York there are millions of suspects. All he has to do is intercept her there and do away with her.” Juliet paused to take a swallow of tea.
“So he goes to his hunting cabin to think about it,” Murray filled in.
“No, of course he doesn't go to his hunting cabin to think about it. He goes to his hunting cabin to have a good alibi. And he arrangesâor Cindy arrangesâthe nephew and niece as an alibi for her.”
“By persuading his sister to have surgery?” Murray stood up, poured himself some more coffee, and came back to the table.
“That was a lucky break. But they'd have come up with something else if they had toâsent Cindy on a trip someplace.”
“And at his convenient cabin in the backwoods of the Adirondack Park, Tom parks his pickup in the driveway to deceive the neighbor into thinking he's there, then calls a limo to drive him to Manhattan?”
She rolled her eyes. “All right, I haven't quite figured out how he got here. We know his truck was there on Friday afternoon. But maybe he had an accomplice.”
“Must have been a really trustworthy one.”
“Maybe Cindy dashed up and took him. After all, he didn't need a ride to Manhattan. Just to a bus depot or the train station.”
“Every hour of Cindy Giddy's day is accounted for. She was at a children's birthday party from ten till two. And the cabin is forty miles from them. How'd she get there and back?”
“Okay, I said I haven't quite figured this out. I don't know how he got here. But he could do it. Once you're on the highway, it's only a couple of hours. He could easily come down and go back that same Friday.”
“In a blizzard?”
“That's what so nice about the train.”
Murray neither agreed nor argued. Instead, he swung his legs to the side of his chair and invited her to come sit on his lap. Despite the extreme distraction this presented, she obliged.
There followed a brief interlude during which nothing of purpose to a murder investigation was said, and which therefore will not be of much interest to the reader.
Afterward, “So, keep going,” Murray said. “How is our making a flying visit up to Espyville going to crack this case?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Juliet's voice was sleepy. Her head was on his shoulder. They had moved to her living room, and were lying in close proximity on a deep couch covered in dark red velvet.
“Well, I imagine you noticed how Cindy Giddy was looking at you up there,” she said.
“No. How was that?”
Juliet lifted her head to look at him. “Like you were a lollipop she wanted to lick. Oh, come on, Landis, don't tell me you weren't aware of that.”
“Okay, let's grant something like that. Now what?”
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