There was an Old Woman (21 page)

“I'd made a start.”

“You said you talked to Clarence Temperley. When?”

“A few days before the inquest.”

“I've got to see that tape, Cath!”

“Sure. All that stuff is in the bottom drawer of my desk at the station. Just tell Robin who you are and he'll set it up for you. I'll call him now. You really think that the tape with Temperley's serious stuff?”

“I won't know until I've seen it, Cath. I'd better get over there.” I finished getting into my things, while McStu and Cath watched.

“I'm staying around for a few days, Ben,” McStu said. “Just to see how things go.” McStu held Cath close as I struggled with the door.

“Benny!” It was Cath and her eyes were wide.

“What is it!”

“You know I had this feeling that we weren't alone? Well, I just remembered where it came from. There were two briefcases in his office. One near his desk and one near the chair I was sitting in. That's what gave me the feeling that I was in the middle of something!”

“You didn't tell me that!” said McStu.

“I just remembered!” she said grabbing his hand. “It was a big, hard-cornered briefcase, battered, old, but with good leather. I remember that I had to move it so that I could sit down.”

“So, it was to the right of the chair?”

“Yeah. That makes the killer right-handed, right?”

“Cath,” McStu interrupted. “This is serious. You're not on TV now.” She made a face at McStu and won a smile in spite of the scolding.

“Any other last moment block-busters?” I asked as I opened the door. Cath and McStu were again occupied with one another as I went across the groaning frozen boards of the porch to the steps.

I was putting my money on the improbability that Cath was herself the killer of Thurleigh Ramsden. This assumption lay outside the realm of evidence and proof; it was little more than a feeling in my bones, a hunch, coupled with the fact that I liked Cath and I didn't much
care for Ramsden dead or alive. It was a perfect set-up for making an ass of myself. I'd better be right about her, I thought, as I fought to open my half-frozen car door.

TWENTY-THREE

As I went up the elevator, it hit me that this was the second time that I'd visited Frank in a hospital room after he'd been banged on the head. The first time was about ten years ago, but I could still remember his huddled form wedged behind my office door, as though it was last night. This second instance was almost forgotten already, although I didn't intend to tell Frank that.

Dr. Frank Bushmill belonged to a fine old Irish family and had brought with him to Grantham one of the better-educated minds. While he worked with feet for a living, it was heads he was interested in. Mine, for instance. He kept telling me about the books I should read and when I made no step to get them, he presented me with copies, sometimes calf-bound and inscribed. He was a particular fan of the Irish writer Flann O'Brien, who had signed all of the books he lent me. In a way Frank was hiding out in Grantham, waiting for the tinkle of a mass bell in his brain that said it's all right to come home. All is forgiven. Frank was one of the saddest gays I'd ever met. He drank too much and he lived on the edge of suicide when the black depression hit him. There weren't many weeks that went by when I didn't at least once find him on the floor
or on his couch in the faded past of an exalted moment. He was an easy drunk to deal with: he didn't get mean or amorous. When he was sober, he was a great fan of Anna Abraham and me. We sometimes went to the movies together.

When I saw that the door was closed, I wondered whether I shouldn't check back with the nursing station. I didn't want to wake him if he was asleep. But I decided to try it and take the consequences. As it turned out, he was in the middle of getting his clothes on. He had managed everything but his shoes when I came in.

“Shut the door behind you, Benny, for God's sake, or we'll have all the orderlies in the place coming in!”

“You must be feeling better,” I observed.

“The fact is, they need the bed, and that's the truth. My X-rays aren't even dry and the little bit of a candy-striper comes in and announces ‘You're out of here!' You're out of here! Just like that. I turn on the child and repeat an ancient Irish curse. ‘Out of here?' says I. ‘How are you!' And she says ‘Give us a kiss' and closes the door behind her. What's the world coming to?”

“How's the lump on your head?”

“It'll do, Benny. I'm not looking to improve on it. 'Twill serve.”

“Did you get a good look at the men who did it?”

“I told you at the time, Benny. Is it you or me who's been hit about the head? Two, maybe three young punks. I gave a description to that fellow Bedrosian. Now try to
cheer me up while I try to remember how to tie up the other shoe.”

“Where do you want me to start? I've been following a woman and got caught in the act by the woman herself. I must be getting old.”

“She was tipped you were behind her, Benny. She was watching out for you.”

“Yeah, it could be that. And it could be that that's what she wants me to believe. I don't think I understand this woman. She's as smart as hell, but she's still worried that her boss might be after her. She thinks he's one of those old-fashioned employers whose interest in his female employees runs into their private lives.”

“This is the way the world ends, Benny, not with accord but assault.”

“That's the way Cath sees it, but I'm not sure she's got it right. I think she's caught some of that show-business paranoia people in television get.”

“Yes, Narcissus with a polluted pool; a cracked mirror gives a bad reflection. You wouldn't be talking about the face on the TV news, now, would you, Benny?”

“Forget I said it. See, I'm losing all my marbles at once. There goes another professional secret.”

“Oh, it's safe with me, my lad. Just think of how many of my patients
you
know about! Bunions by the billions, corns beyond counting. But, Benny, you can't be serious about Cath Bracken's boss? That's Orville Wishart.”

“That's right. So what?”

“Well, Benny. How can I put it delicately? There are those inclined to white wine. Some prefer red. Orv Wishart looks not upon the wine when it is red. No more than I do, if you follow my drift.”

“You mean …?”

“Exactly. For in the end it stingeth like the adder.”

“I think you're giving it a bum rap, Frank, but we all have our prejudices and hang-ups. Most of us prefer red.”

“There you are. There's no accounting for tastes.”

“You're sure about that, Frank?”

“My boy, I'm not given to common gossip. You may take it as common knowledge within a small informed group.”

“He's not maybe a fan of both red and white?”

“The taste for rosé is not well-developed in our friend, Benny. You may take it from me.” Frank got up from the chair, wobbled a little, then straightened himself with a hand on the back of the chair. He glanced at the small mirror on the back of the closet door and gave himself a friendly grin. “Now, may I buy you a coffee?” he said, and we walked out of the room, past the nursing station, to the elevator.

It was close to an hour afterwards that I left Frank sitting in a booth at the Di. I'm not sure what we talked about. His earlier revelation had quite taken over my mind and made things that I thought were facts appear as the shams they were. I could now see why Orv's wife, Antonia, was interested in reclaiming Rupe McLay, the drunken lawyer from the Nag's Head. I could strike off
Orv's amorous interest in Cath as the reason for my being hired by Newby in the first place. But he could still have some other interest in Cath, some reason I couldn't guess at. The more I wondered about this, the more I wanted to talk to Orv.

As I pointed my steps in the direction of the TV station, I began wondering about the three punks who tried to get into my office. What could they have been after? Who put them up to it? Were they hired by whoever got Newby to hire me? I stopped and stared at my reflection in the window of Woolworth's while I worked that one through. What could they think I had? If someone like Orv had hired me through Newby, why didn't he just send for me and make an offer? It was getting murky in my mind; I couldn't work it out. I pulled in my belly, readjusted my belt and continued down the street.

When I arrived at the station, Robin O'Neil was waiting for me. He didn't look too happy about it. “So, you've taken your young protégée to Catherine Bracken, have you? Bypassing your old friend?”

“What protégée, Robin?” Then I remembered the invented cousin I'd used in my last conversation with Robin. His nose was out of joint and he didn't care who knew it. “I've got the tapes you wanted here,” he said as he took me to Cath's desk. There were half a dozen cassettes all neatly labelled. I found the one with Temperley's name on it and handed it to Robin. He said “Follow me!” as though it was a killer curtain line in a play he was directing. I followed and let him play with
the fancy buttons on the electronic gear in an editing alcove.

Soon I was watching a well-lighted Clarence Temperley blinking as the lights were readjusted and the interview got moving. For a while he answered Cath's off-camera questions about Liz Oldridge without adding greatly to my knowledge. The key part of the interview was the following exchange:

Clarence was now looking flustered and confused. There was a shine on his forehead. The interview broke off a few moments later.

“That's all there is on this tape, Benny. You want to see any of the others?”

“No thanks, Robin.” I walked with Robin and watched him put the tapes back in Cath's bottom drawer. He accompanied me to the door, but I thought I might drop in on Orv Wishart for a few minutes and explained as much to Robin, who made some remark about my cousin soon becoming his supervisor and walked back into the TV part of the building. I went up the stairs.

Orv got out of his big chair when I came into his office. “Benny! I didn't think I'd be seeing you again so soon!” He kicked the open door closed as he shook my hand warmly and returned it to me numb. The pain quickly moved up to my shoulder. “Sit down! Sit down! Can I get you some coffee?”

“Yes you may,” I said, recalling the proper use of “can” and “may” from my school days. I took a chair and moved it closer to the desk. Orv went out of the room to delegate someone to prepare the refreshment. Through the open doorway I could see men and women running back and forth with wire-service copy from one office to the next. When Orv returned, he again closed the big white door behind him.

“It won't be a moment,” he said, taking that huge chair, which gasped at his weight. He let the chair swing around, so that I could catch a glimpse of the statue of the canal-builder through the window. He caught me looking and said: “Harlan Ravenswood's father once told me that
his
father had met William Hamilton Merritt, the canal-builder.”

“Really?”

“He was cracking walnuts with a fire-poker. Funny how a thing like that makes history come alive.”