Cobalt (14 page)

“Clarisse,” called her uncle, “what on—”

She extended her arm toward the pool, as a ringmaster might introduce a new act. Hearing exclamations of surprise and dismay on all sides, she dropped into a chair and burst into tears.

Valentine had called the police and they arrived only a couple of minutes after Axel had departed—everyone agreeing that his presence might only further confuse an already complicated household situation. Along with the police came the curiosity-seekers: the staff of Poor Richard's Buttery, inhabitants of neighboring houses, and those who thrill to the sound of a police siren. The White Prince and Clarisse stood guard at the gate, and there probably wasn't one person in all of Provincetown who could withstand their withering looks and sarcasm.

The police were exasperated to learn that Margaret, who had evidently disappeared sometime during the night, had left behind neither her surname nor her address. Noah patiently explained that she had been only a guest of the dead woman, and that the house had been leased for the week to Ann Richardson. Margaret was from Toronto and lived with a woman named Joyce, but that was all anyone knew.

Clarisse had returned home at half past ten, and spoken briefly to the two women, who were swimming in the pool.

Noah and the White Prince had come in at midnight, at which time the women were plainly visible in their own living room, still in bathing suits, smoking. Valentine, returning at half past one, had noted the living room lights still on, but had not seen anyone inside. Although all their bedrooms had windows that overlooked the courtyard, no one had heard a fight, or the noise of Margaret leaving the house with her bags, or the splash of Ann going into the water, or her drowning thrashes.

Ann was fished from the pool by two ambulance attendants and transported unceremoniously away in a gray canvas body bag, to the delighted horror of the twenty-nine persons gathered in Kiley Court. The police, leaving a few minutes later, took with them a towel found draped on a chair, which belonged to none of the survivors and was assumed to be the property of the dead woman; two clear-glass goblets, one empty and the other nearly filled with an unpleasant-looking purplish liquid which Clarisse conjectured to be an abominably sweet wine; and the minuscule roaches of three marijuana cigarettes found in an ashtray in the living room. Noah was asked not to rent out the apartment until the police had returned and made a thorough investigation.

“Well,” said the Prince, who was standing nearby, “she may be dead, but she's still got the place till Saturday noon.”

Clarisse, at the gate, detained the last of the policemen. He was young and smug. “What do you think happened?” she asked.

“Accidental drowning. Too much wine and too much grass and not much judgment.”

“She was a good swimmer,” said Clarisse.

He shrugged. “All right then. It wasn't accidental. It was suicide. Satisfied?”

“No!”

“Look, what do you want? She and her friend that ran off, they were lesbians, weren't they?”

Clarisse nodded.

“Then what happened is: they got drunk, they got stoned, they got in a fight, one skipped out and the other slid under the water.”

“Well,” said Clarisse after a moment, “I've seen it on the late show.”

“Once every summer,” said the policeman with a smirk, “but usually not so early in the season. Usually August. Once they even waited until after Labor Day. When we find this other woman, we'll know for sure. The dead girl was pretty small—she must have been the femme.”

“The
what
?”

“You know: the wife. The feminine one. What was the other girl like? Built like an eighteen-wheel diesel, I'll bet. They all go in pairs like that, you know. One femme and one butch.”

“Have you ever tried writing for
Midnight
?” asked Clarisse. “I'm sure they would find your
aperçus
of gay lifestyles quite interesting.”

He shrugged again and glanced back at the pool. “It's classic. I've seen it at least fifteen times. Listen, tell your landlord he better drain and clean that pool before anybody uses it again.”

“Aren't you going to dust the surface of the water for prints?” asked Clarisse coldly, and latched the gate behind him. She went into Noah's living room where she found Noah and Valentine drinking coffee and exchanging glances of distress. The two men, hastily aroused from their sleep and confronted with death, both looked the worse for wear. Their appearance did not fit at all well with the simple, even cold elegance of Noah's living room.

Clarisse seated herself at the opposite end of the sofa from Valentine, and took the coffee that Noah poured for her.

She related the policeman's theory.

“Ann Richardson didn't strike me as a potential suicide,” remarked Noah. “She was more the victim sort I think.”

“Why do you say she was a victim?” asked Valentine.

“I don't know. I suppose that I look on anybody who drinks that much liquor and smokes that much dope as a kind of victim. Something always seems to happen to people like that, probably because they're never really on top of things. I saw Ann outside at the pool yesterday morning at nine o'clock—and she was smoking grass. At eleven, she was guzzling down screwdrivers.”

“Oh,” said Valentine, “then you mean
accident
victim, not
crime
victim.”

Noah nodded. “This wasn't murder, was it?”

“Where's Margaret?” demanded Clarisse.

Valentine sighed in exasperation. “It's too early to play
Clue
, Lovelace. That cop may have had an unenlightened attitude, but he may just be right. Remember Ann and Margaret weren't real lovers, they were only P'town lovers—they both had women back home. Maybe Ann had too much grass and too much liquor and too much romance, and tried to force Margaret into making a commitment. Margaret said no, Ann said get out. Margaret got out, and Ann started to look for coins at the bottom of the pool.”

“What if it was murder?” asked Clarisse.

“A swimming pool surrounded on three sides by an inhabited house is hardly ideal as a scene for a crime,” said Valentine. “If it had been a deliberate drowning there would have been a commotion, but nobody heard any splashing or anything else last night. There would have been at least one scream, but we didn't hear that either.”

“We don't even know if she drowned!” cried Clarisse.

“You're impossible in the morning,” said Valentine.

“I mean, don't you two think it's a bit odd that two people have died in this town since Saturday night, both of them gay, both of them found in the water, and both presented themselves first for
my
inspection?”

“And both of them had only one vowel in their first names,” said Valentine. “Make something of that.”

Though her inclination was to return to bed for the remainder of the day, meditating on the insecurity of human life, Clarisse was advised by both Valentine and Noah to go into work. She did so, and for the first time was actually pleased by the number of customers who, for short periods of time, kept her from conjuring up visions of Ann's face in the water. When Valentine brought her lunch, she shut the door and turned the OPEN sign around to read CLOSED. They pushed aside some fishermen and clowns, and spread the plates and sandwiches and drinks.

“I was sharp with you this morning,” apologized Valentine.

“Yes, you were,” said Clarisse, and no more was said. “Tell me, how did you end up with Axel last night? We saw them go off arm in arm.”

“Unfortunately, Mount St. DeVoto erupted again at the door of the A-House. Axel left, and he was the first person I saw when you left me at Back Street. He was in sore need of consolation, liquor, and cuddling. I saw to it that he got all three.”

“I didn't know he had come home with you. No wall-banging to announce the presence of a second party in your room.”

“We fell right asleep. All he needed by that point was a couple of arms around him. You know, you could probably use a dose of consolation, liquor, and cuddling too.”

“I'm getting it,” said Clarisse. “Tonight. It's my date with Matteo.”

“Can I give you a piece of advice?”

“If you do, I pour the Perrier over your head.”

Valentine shrugged. “I'll risk anything for your welfare. If you want to snag that cop for a summer fling, don't talk shop. Don't ask about the progress of the investigations. Don't ask him if they've located Margaret of Toronto. Don't ask him if he can sneak you in for a second gander at Ann's body.”

Clarisse poured the water over Valentine's head.

But she took his advice. That evening Clarisse and Matteo had dinner at Ciro and Sal's, and then drove to nearby Truro. They sat and talked on the edge of the sand cliffs, and then returned to Kiley Court where Clarisse expressed a desire to show Matteo how her percale sheets worked. Not once that evening did either of them mention the murder of Jeff King, or Ann's suicide. And it was only when Matteo lay sleeping with his head pressed against her breast and the room was quite dark that Clarisse thought of the naked man she had seen the night before in the courtyard; the man who had dressed in the alley, and who might not have been a dream after all.

A
WEEK TO THE DAY after Ann Richardson's death, Valentine lay on an oversized emerald-green beach towel on the slanting strip of sand between the Boatslip and the Bay. Like all the other men on towels around him, he had not got enough sleep the night before, and now—despite the din of a dozen portable radios, each tuned to a different station—dozed under the late morning sun, trying at once for recuperation and a tan. The man on the next towel, getting up, inadvertently kicked sand in Daniel's face. Valentine rose groggily on his elbows and stared drowsily out over the sun-speckled water. Beside him were a bottle of Bain de Soleil, half a pack of Luckys, and the paperback edition, generously smudged with oil, of
No Orchids for Miss Blandish
.

He yawned, looked about him to see whether the configuration of sunbathers had much altered itself (it hadn't), then lighted a cigarette. He buried the match in the sand. He yawned again, and guessed the time to be about quarter past twelve. Craning to see the watch on the arm of the man behind him, he found himself correct within two minutes.

The music at the Boatslip, begun at a low volume half an hour before, had edged louder. It did something to cover the cacophony of the radios. Holding his head back with the cigarette in his mouth pointing straight up into the air, Valentine squeezed lotion from the bottle and rubbed it over his chest and arms. The unpleasantness of that sensation cleared his mind.

He exchanged a polite smile with a man sitting four towels down in the grid of bathers, and wondered if he knew him (no), if he wanted to know him (possibly), and if he would be worth the trouble of polite conversation, assignation, and follow-up (probably not). He turned back and spread more lotion on his legs. Clarisse, he considered, overestimated his libido.