Philly Stakes, page 6
I wandered toward Wanamaker’s men’s department. The big shopping problem was, of course, none else than Mackenzie. It was important to find the absolutely right gift for our first Christmas. Something loving—but not so intensely so that it produced a fight-or-flight response. Something that meant a great deal—but not too much. Something much more in focus than we were.
My headache increased in the damp wind, but through its little lightning strikes of pain flipped a mental catalogue of menswear. Men’s gift options were limited, expensive and subtle. What’s the male equivalent of good, but noncommittal costume jewelry? C.K. wasn’t of the gold chain, pinky ring or cuff links variety, and tie clips didn’t say much.
He had a good wallet. He didn’t wear cologne.
All dress shirts look alike, and didn’t you have to measure arms and necks, anyway?
Belts, braces, socks, even cashmere; handkerchiefs, even of the finest weave, were impossibly boring—or overpriced.
Men’s games were an obvious choice. Things that clicked, whirred, shifted gears and went from zero to a thousand in a second. Prizes for the testosterone set. And out of my price range.
Robes were nice, but his mother gave him one every year. He didn’t wear pajamas.
Ties were the ultimate cartoon-strip gift. Besides, every man I’ve known fixates on one pattern—paisleys, amoebas at play, tiny ducks. Mackenzie was a stripe man. Debating green stripes vs. blue seemed a major nonevent and surely receiving the final choice would be the same.
I found a cable-knit sweater the color of his eyes, but it cost too much. I touched it, loved it, imagined it warming and cozying his flesh, and it still cost too much. If only I had learned to knit like everybody else.
When I found myself fondling a soap-on-a-rope, I knew I needed a break.
I felt better as soon as I left the land of slacks and socks and was surrounded by the soaring central court, nine stories of gilded columns, and shoppers who looked much less impatient and discouraged than I. There was something permanent and comforting in the old, space-wasting, extravagant architecture. It gave a benediction to shopping as did the rich Bach cantata that poured out of the massive pipe organ, flooding the court and sanctifying our purchases.
I gravitated toward the enormous bronze eagle, the city’s designated meeting place.
And bumped, literally, into a very startled Laura Clausen.
“I’m sorry!” she said after a moment. “I didn’t see you. I was…thinking.”
We stood there awkwardly. I, too, apologized for not paying attention, then finally asked a potentially rude but real question. “Are you…shopping?” I didn’t expect her to rend her clothes or keen, but still, it seemed odd to be in John Wanamaker’s less than twenty-four hours after her father was incinerated.
“No.” Her voice was tiny and fearful, and I was sorry I’d asked. “My mother—I had to walk her to the doctor.” She looked at her watch. “She’ll be a while, so I came here.” She shrugged. “Sometimes I think better when there are lots of people I don’t know around.” I saw a flicker of the Save me terror, and then it disappeared.
“I got your message,” I said. “I’m not in any rush.”
She shrugged again. Here she was in the heart of the great emporium, completely out of style in her baggy Doris Day good-girl togs. The essence of innocence, and so small. She was delicately made, fragile, peering out of enormous dark eyes with such intensity that I felt guilty for all I didn’t know or have to offer.
“I called you back a few minutes ago,” she said, “to say never mind. That first message, well, it was just a mood. Now I’m okay.”
She definitely wasn’t. “Then how about a soda, or coffee?” I said.
She checked her watch again, and reluctantly agreed.
* * *
“I’m sorry about your father.” We were across the street, on stools at Woolworth’s. I love the aroma of five-and-dimes—pressed powder, hot-dog casings, goldfish and laminated menus.
Laura acknowledged my condolences with a twist of her mouth. She had a milk shake. I had black coffee. Saving calories for the madcap whirl of holiday parties the magazines promised me.
Laura seemed engrossed in tracing lines down the side of her water glass.
I leaped in, both feet first. “Laura, maybe this is a dumb time for it, but I wanted to talk about your paper. About Icarus—about Auden’s poem.”
She did a sequence of softly spastic body motions that seemed to translate into: Yeah, great, who cares, so what?
“It…troubled me,” I said. “There’s a great tension, a—”
“It isn’t good?”
“It’s marvelous. Exceptional. The best in the class.” She looked relieved, then slumped over her milk-shake straw.
I spoke slowly, picking my way carefully between the words. “But I had the feeling you were talking about more than Icarus.”
She sipped. “I’d better go,” she murmured.
I looked at my watch. Five thirty-five. I took a chance. I was sure it was the sort of doctor’s appointment that has a set time. Like a fifty-minute hour. “Doesn’t she have fifteen more minutes?”
Laura pursed her lips.
“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” I said. “But sometimes it helps to talk to someone.”
Deep in my brain, I heard a voice from the past. “You’re their teacher,” my department chair had said the first day I arrived at Philly Prep. “Not their friend, not their pal, not their psychiatrist. You won’t serve them well if you ever forget that.” I still didn’t know if you could so neatly slice up the many roles of a teacher, but I knew I had been treading out of bounds, so I backed off. We would share a fifteen-minute respite, then go our separate ways.
“I’ll talk to my mother’s shrink.” She sounded defiant and frightened. “He’d like my dreams, wouldn’t he? You’ve seen them. The safe murders. The fires. He’d eat them up.”
So much for proper professional reserve. Laura was being deliberately provocative, obviously in need of a reaction. “You still have those dreams?”
“I think so.”
I busied myself with a second cup of coffee, stirring in sweetener, and I made what I hoped was a wordless but sympathetic and encouraging sound.
“I’m not always sure if I’m asleep.” She sounded in a dream state at the moment. “So are they dreams, or what?”
“Everybody has daydreams.” But of course, that wasn’t what she was talking about. She was talking about wide-eyed nightmares. Insanity.
She picked up her purse and stood.
“Laura—where can I reach you? We could talk more. I’m not trying to be your psychiatrist. I just want you to understand that you aren’t out there alone.”
She stood behind the row of stools, staring down at a ring she wore. It had a tiny blue stone. She twirled it around and around her finger. “I did it, you know.” She was barely audible.
No. I won’t listen. I refuse to hear.
“It wasn’t an accident. I killed him. I’m not sorry, either.”
My mouth pursed, and a soft windy noise came out, but no words.
“The other time, they say it was an accident, but it wasn’t. I let it burn.”
“What happened last night is terrible, very sad, but why think you had anything…” She was pulling further and further inside herself. And yet she stood there, testing whether I’d follow her lead.
“Why?” I asked again. “What do you think you did?”
I hadn’t followed her lead at all. Instead, I’d taken the wrong path through the maze and dead-ended. She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.”
I thought about Daedalus and Icarus. “Then tell me,” I said. “Who is Daedalus? What did he do to you?” In the silence that followed my question, I became aware of the impossible contradictions between our conversation and our surroundings. We were talking about a possible murder while a nasal voice on the loudspeaker announced a special on artificial snow.
Laura turned away. I paid the bill and followed her through tinsel-edged aisles. She paused in cosmetics, oddly transfixed. I remembered how soothing, how promising Woolworth’s nail-polish display had been to me in my teens, symbolizing the infinite possibilities of womanhood and promising that with the right lacquer came the right life. But I had never been grappling with Laura’s kind of problems.
“Maybe you had one of those dreams,” I said.
She shook her head. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” She examined a shrieking red bottle. Her own nails were unpolished.
“What’s your aunt’s name?”
“Alma.” She held fluorescent purple polish to the light, as if it were a gemstone.
“Alma Clausen?”
“Leary. My mom’s sister.” She was so small and frail. “My dad doesn’t—didn’t—have any relatives. Except for me, I guess. Lot of good it did him.”
“It was an accident!” I insisted. “Why even think you had a part in it? It’s not in you—it’s not who you are!”
“Of course it is,” she said. “Everybody knows how I am. He certainly did. I wanted to do it. I thought about it all the time. And I did it. That’s how I am.” She looked at her watch again. “I have to go. My mom—she’s pretty wobbly.” She put down the polish and walked out of the store.
I hurried behind, then walked beside her. Tiny strings of lights glimmered against the branches of the trees on Broad Street. They reminded me of last night, of the lights along the river, of the twinkling candles all over Clausen’s house. “Laura—why did you call me today?”
“I was going to tell you before the police. I don’t know why. Then it seemed dumb. I changed my mind, but look how it turned out—I told you anyway. Things I imagine have a way of happening for real, like I said.” Her nose and cheeks were ruddy with the cold.
“Please,” I said. “Don’t tell anybody else. There is no reason, nothing to be gained from it. Tell your mother’s doctor if you have to talk about it. I think you’re hysterical, Laura, or feeling guilty about the quarrel last night, or feelings you’ve had. Accidents happen, and they remain accidents even if you imagined them, or thought about them. Don’t put yourself in jeopardy. Please?”
She looked puzzled. She also looked exhausted. We paused at the corner near a thin Salvation Army Santa ringing his bell. “She’s in there,” she said.
I had to negotiate further. “Before you say anything to anyone official, call me. Talk to Detective Mackenzie.”
She shook her head. “Who’s that?”
I did some calculations. Mackenzie’s investigations at Philly Prep had been eight months ago, in April, before Laura enrolled. Longer ago than I realized until this moment. A long time to tread water with a man. I shelved that thought for another, more appropriate, time. “A good friend. He could advise you how to proceed. Okay? Promise?”
She nodded. Not because of my persuasiveness, I was sure. Not because of her own common sense or natural self-protectiveness. She was simply too tired to do anything but agree and go retrieve her mother.
I hadn’t gotten a single thing on this expedition except Laura’s dubious promise, but I had no energy left to find anything beyond my way home.
* * *
I listened to my messages while I heated soup, and Macavity, not sure if something he considered delicious might be brewing, hugged my ankles like fur leg warmers. First I heard Laura’s retraction, the one she’d mentioned.
Then Mackenzie. “Doesn’t look good for tonight,” he said. “There’s a new lead.” He did not sound thrilled. “Probably as useless as the last few thousand.” He’d been working on a particularly revolting homicide involving a John Doe found, bit by bit, in several dumpsters in Oak Lane. I heard him sigh slowly, with feeling. Well, a night alone avoided further ethical dilemmas. I didn’t want to talk about whether Laura was an arsonist, whether her compositions meant anything, what she had told me today. By tomorrow, it would all be over, declared an unfortunate accident, and we’d all live happily ever after.
“And a postscript,” he said. “An update for your ears only. We are trying to keep it out of the news for a while.” I wished I hadn’t learned to work the machine, because I was suddenly sure I didn’t want to hear what came next. “There’s no ash in Clausen’s throat.”
I turned off the burner and left my soup. Macavity stalked back to his own dinner.
“Which means he wasn’t breathin’ by the time of the fire. So it wasn’t a cigarette killed him, which is good news for the tobacco lobby.” He took a deep breath and then continued. “Unfortunately, not so good for us. Tests bein’ as slow as they are, compounded by holiday schedules, and such, we’re gonna have a while to ponder the little but nagging question of what, and who, did in Santa.”
Five
SATURDAY WAS THE SORT OF MORNING THAT MAKES ME WISH I COULD PAINT, or at least be in a better mood. Knife-edged winter light slanted across the living room and lit it from within. I tried to warm myself in a beam, but I still felt chilly and gray.
Alexander Clausen had probably been murdered. Unless he had a conveniently timed heart attack while smoking, pulled down the Christmas tree, ran to the sofa and died before the cigarette ignited the boughs—he was murdered.
Laura Clausen insisted she had murdered him.
I was pretty sure that I alone knew both these things. What I didn’t know was what to do about them.
So I took up residence in that shaft of sunlight and drank coffee, giving inspiration time to reach me. Three cups later, I was wired, but the caffeine connections sputtered and failed before reaching my brain. I had no idea what to do. I needed a second opinion. More accurately, I needed a first.
Sasha’s answering-machine message was infuriating. “I’m off doing something so marvelous,” she said, “it would make you sick with jealousy to hear about it, so don’t even ask. Instead, leave your—”
I hung up. Just as well. Sasha is empathetic, quirky and bright, but apt to sacrifice discretion for the sake of a good story.
I didn’t have anyone to tell. I was alone with my questions and caffeinated bloodstream.
So I housecleaned. Cleanliness is not next to godliness in my book. It is, in fact, way down below world peace and brotherhood, lagging behind courtesy and compassion. And trailing even small civilities. But while cleaning was not an inspired option, it was virtuous and full of motion and purpose. I could fool myself that I was getting somewhere as I pulled furniture away from walls, books off shelves, cans out of kitchen cabinets and impressive mold growths off refrigerator containers.
But disposing of sprouted carrots and dust bunnies couldn’t help Laura. I needed to talk to her.
I looked up Aunt Alma. There were enough Learys to populate a hamlet, but none were Alma. No initial A, either, that feminine disguise which is about as protective and as transparent as the emperor’s new clothes. I wondered if C.K. Mackenzie got lots of phone calls from heavy breathers and peddlers of obscene dreams.
I was determined to find Laura, so I began Leary-dialing. One after another. Alphabetically. The Learys, I learned, were a mixed group. There were cordial Learys, snarling Learys, Learys who were out promptly on this last Saturday before Christmas and slugabed Learys who were not overjoyed by my wake-up call.
Midway through the alphabet, I found an amused Leary. “Alma?” Kevin Leary asked. “She’s Zack’s wife, not mine. Who’s this?”
“Amanda Pepper, and I’m trying to reach—”
“Amanda. Amanda. Slips my mind where we met.”
“Actually, you—” My finger ran down the list of Learys until it found Zachary.
“But how could you confuse us? Zack’s hair is much thinner, didn’t you notice?” He chuckled again. “After all,” he said, with the pacing of a man fondling a favorite threadbare joke, “I’m the baby. Zack’s three minutes older, and it shows.”
My turn to laugh politely. I wasn’t sure how many other twin jokes he had in waiting. I spoke quickly, confirming the number I saw in the directory, thanked him profusely and sincerely, because getting to the Z’s on my own would have meant another hour and lots more snarls.
Alma Leary sounded both protective and suspicious when she told me that Laura was out, taking one of her walks. “You’re her teacher?” she said. It provoked a rush of words in the background, a “just a second,” from Alma and the transfer of the receiver.
“Miss Pepper?” She was out of breath. “This is Alice Clausen. Laura said she—I guess she told you where we were—she isn’t here now. Is there a problem?”
Her husband was dead. Her daughter was convinced she herself had done him in. Alice and her daughter were homeless.
Was there a problem?
Before I could respond, she heard the echo of her own words. “I mean,” she said, still sounding like someone who’d just finished a marathon, “besides the…the problem.”
“I wanted to offer condolences and to see how you and Laura are doing. This is such a terrible time for you both.” I was afraid to say much, unsure whether Alice Clausen knew of her daughter’s homicidal claims.
“Yes,” she agreed, panting. Either she was jogging in place or dangerously anxious. “I’m sorry she isn’t…I…” She left an auditory parenthesis that needed filling.
“Mrs. Clausen, is there anything I could—”
“Alice,” she said.
I wasn’t interested in the nuances of social address at the moment. However, I started over. “Alice, I’m concerned. Can I be of any—”
“Would it be out of line—could I possibly…”
“Ummmm?”
“Could we—could we talk? In person? Would it be too much of a—you were so kind Parents’ Night, at school.” All that I remembered of her visit were her repeated apologies for her husband’s being out of town. “Is that—would that be—am I being—”
“That’d be fine. Is today good for you?”
