Cruel and Unusual - Cornwell Patricia - Страница 19

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• 19/73
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“Ten-fo'.”

Marino gave him Jennifer Deighton's number and then turned on the fax machine. Momentarily, it began a series of rings, beeps, and other complaints.

“That answer your question?”

Marino asked me.

“It answers one question, but not the most important question,” I said.

The name of the neighbor across the street who had notified the police was Myra Clary. I accompanied Marino to her small aluminum sided house with its plastic Santa lit up on the front lawn and lights strung in the boxwoods. Marino barely had rung the bell when the front door opened and Mrs. Clary invited us in without asking who we were. It occurred to me that she probably had watched our approach from a window.

She showed us into a dismal living room where we found her husband huddled by the electric fire, lap robe over his spindly legs, his vacuous stare fixed on a man lathering up with deodorant soap on television. The pitiful custodial care of the years manifested itself everywhere. Upholstery was threadbare and soiled where human flesh had made repeated contact with it. Wood was cloudy from layers of wax, prints on walls yellowed behind dusty glass. The oily smell of a million meals cooked in the kitchen and eaten on TV trays permeated the air.

Marino explained why we were here as Mrs. Clary moved about nervously, plucking newspapers off the couch, turning down the television, and carrying dirty dinner plates into the kitchen. Her husband did not venture forth from his interior world, his head trembling on its stalklike neck. Parkinson's disease is when the machine shakes violently just before it conks out, as if it knows what is ahead and protests the only way it can.

“Nope, we don't need a thing,” Marino said when Mrs. Clary offered us food and drink. “Sit down and try to relax. I know this has been a tough day for you.”

“They said she was in her car breathing in those fumes. Oh, my,” she said. “I saw how smoky the window was, looked like the garage had been on fire. I knew the worst right then.”

“Who's they?” Marino asked.

“The police. After I called, I was watching for them. When they pulled up, I went straight over to see if Jenny was all right.”

Mrs. Clary could not sit still in the wing chair across from the couch where Marino and I had settled. Her gray hair had strayed out of the bun on top of her head, face as wrinkled as a dried apple, eyes hungry for information and bright with fear.

“I know you already talked to the police earlier,” Marino said, moving the ashtray loser. “But I want you to go through it chapter and verse for us, beginning with when you saw Jennifer Deighton last.”

“I saw her the other day -”

Marino interrupted. “Which day?”

“Friday. I remember the phone rang and I went to the kitchen to answer it and saw her through the window. She was pulling into her driveway.”

“Did she always park her car in the garage?” I asked.

“She always did.”

“What about yesterday?” Marino inquired. “You see her or her car yesterday?”

“No, I didn't. But I went out to get the mail. It was late, tends to be that way this time of year. Three, four o'clock and still no mail. I guess it was dose to five-thirty, maybe a little later, when I remembered to check the mailbox again. It was getting dark and I noticed smoke coming out of Jenny's chimney.”

“You sure about that?” Marino asked.

She nodded. “Oh, yes. I remembered went through my mind it was a good night for a fire. But fires were always Jimmy's job. He never showed me how, you see. When he was good at something, that was his. So I quit on the fires and had the electric log put in.”

Jimmy Clary was looking at her. I wondered if he knew what she was saying.

“I like to cook,” she went on. “This time of year I do a lot of baking. I make sugar cakes and give them to the neighbors. Yesterday I wanted to drop one by for Jenny, but I like to call first. It's hard to tell when someone's in, especially when they keep their car in a garage. And you leave a cake on the doormat and one of the dogs around here gets it. So I tried her and got that machine. All day I tried and she didn't answer, and to tell you the truth, I was a little worried.”

“Why?” I asked. “Did she have health problems, any sort of problems you were aware of?”

“Bad cholesterol. Way over two hundred's what's she told me once. Plus high blood pressure, which she said ran in the family.”

I had not seen any prescription drugs in Jennifer Deighton's house.

“Do you know who her doctor was?” I asked.

“I can't recall. But Jenny believed in natural cures. She told me when she felt poorly she'd meditate.”

“Sounds like the two of you were pretty close,” Marino said.

Mrs. Clary was plucking at her skirt, hands like hyperactive children. “I'm here all day except when I go to the store.”

She glanced at her husband, who was staring at the TV again. “Now and then I'd go see her, you know, just being neighborly, maybe to drop by something I'd been cooking.”

“Was she a friendly sort?” Marino asked. “She have a lot of visitors?”

“Well, you know she worked out of the house. I think she handled most of her business over the phone. But occasionally I'd see people going in.”

“Anybody you knew?”

“Not that I recall.”

“You notice anybody coming by to see her last night?” Marino asked.

“I didn't notice.”

“What about when you went out to get your mail and saw the smoke coming out of her chimney? You get any sense she might have had company?”

“I didn't see a car. Nothing to make me think she had company.”

Jimmy Clary had drifted off to sleep. He was drooling.

“You said she worked at home,” I said. “Do you have any idea what she did?”

Mrs. Clary fixed wide eyes on me. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I know what folks said.”

“And what was that?” I asked.

She pressed her lips together and shook her head.

“Mrs. Clary,” Marino said. “Anything you could tell us might help. I know you want to help.”

“There's a Methodist church two blocks away. You can see it. The steeple's lit up at night, has been ever since they built the church three or four years ago.”

“I saw the church when I was driving in,” Marino replied. “What's that got to do -”

“Well,” she cut in, “Jenny moved here, I guess it was early September. And I've never been able to figure it out The steeple light. You watch when you're driving home. Of course…” She paused, her face disappointed. “Maybe it won't do it anymore.”

“Do what?” Marino asked.

“Go out and then come back on. The strangest thing I've ever seen. It's lit up one minute, and then you look out your window again and it's dark like the church isn't there. Then next thing you know, you look out again and the steeple's lit up just like it's always been. I've timed it. On for a minute, then off for two, on again for three. Sometimes it will burn for an hour. No pattern to it at all.”

“What does this have to do with Jennifer Deighton?” I asked.

“I remember it was not long after she moved in, just weeks before Jimmy had hi stroke. It was a cool night so he was building a fire. I was in the kitchen doing dishes and could see the steeple out the window lit up like it always was. And he came in to get himself a drink, and I said, 'You know what the Bible says about being drunk with the Spirit and not with wine. 'And he said, 'I'm not drinking wine. I'm drinking bourbon. The Bible's never said a word about bourbon.' Then, right while he was standing there the steeple went dark. It was like the church vanished into thin air. I said, 'There you have it. The Word of the Lord. That's his opinion about you and your bourbon.' “He laughed like I was the craziest thing, but he never touched another drop. Every night he'd stand in front of the window over the kitchen sink watching. One minute the steeple would be lit up, then it would be dark. I let Jimmy think it was God's doing - anything to keep him off the bottle. The church never behaved like that before Miss Deighton moved across the street.”

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