Cobalt (17 page)

Valentine scuffed one heel against the pavement. “No,” he said slowly. “I think you're out of your mind. What do you mean, ‘To take people's minds off Jeff King'? You're the only one in town who even remembers that man's name. That was ages ago. We're into our second generation of tourists since the Garden of Evil party.” He scuffed his heel again, and wagged his head from side to side. “But give me your report in the morning anyway.”

When Valentine had moved on, Clarisse left the bench and went around the side of the courthouse to the police station.

T
HE FOLLOWING morning Clarisse sat at the kitchen table on Kiley Court, removing pastries from a waxed bag. She had gone to the bakery in exchange for Matteo's having made coffee for them. Clarisse wore a white sundress scattershot with tiny semaphore flags. Matteo wore a pair of white painter's pants and a pale blue air force shirt with epaulettes.

He was raising the pot to pour their first cups when Valentine's tread was heard on the stairs. An unfamiliar step clattered along behind him.

“This is my favorite part,” said Clarisse.

“What?” asked Matteo.

“Seeing who Valentine picked up the night before. Let's make bets. I bet five dollars he's not over five six, I bet he's got a mustache, I bet he's got short hair—curly but probably permed—and I bet he's got a first name that begins with a vowel.”

Matteo brought the coffee to the table and seated himself. Valentine appeared, wearing gym shorts, and a recent coating of talcum powder over his burn. Just behind him was a short, mustached, curly-haired man.

Valentine's eyes were heavy-lidded. “Clarisse,” he said perfunctorily, “this is my friend Russ. Russ, Clarisse. Matteo, this is my friend Russ. Russ, Matteo.”

“Get out your wallet,” said Clarisse to Matteo.

“You were wrong about the vowel,” Matteo pointed out.

Valentine pointed out a chair for Russ. Russ seated himself with a little
ouch
and a grimace.

Clarisse smiled broadly at him.

“Do you live in Provincetown?” she asked.

“I'm from Providence, Rhode Island,” he said. He wore tangerine drawstring pants and a green cotton shirt cut like that of a hospital orderly. He stuck his hand down the back of his pants and rubbed.

Valentine wandered blearily around the kitchen. “What am I looking for?” he asked no one in particular.

“Two cups,” suggested Clarisse. He went to get them.

Russ continued to rub himself vigorously. Matteo looked at him askance, and sipped at his coffee.

“Did you hurt yourself?” asked Clarisse, with another smile.

Russ cast a glance of annoyance at Valentine. “I don't know
what
I'm supposed to tell Joe.”

“Who's Joe?” asked Clarisse.

Valentine, having poured the coffee, brought the cups to the table. “Joe is Russ's lover,” explained Valentine.

“I don't know
what
I'm going to tell him,” Russ repeated petulantly.

“About what?” asked Clarisse curiously.

“About
this
.” Russ stood up, turned around, and quickly lowered his drawstring pants. On his left buttock was a long purple bruise, shot through with broken capillaries.

Matteo scraped his chair around and faced away from Russ and his injury toward the open door of the kitchen.

“My,” said Clarisse mildly, “how did that happen?”

Valentine smiled.

“He got carried away,” Russ said accusingly.

“Last night hardly falls into the category of ‘carried away.'”

“Well,” said Russ, pulling up his pants and sitting down, “what
am
I supposed to tell Joe.”

“Tell him you fell off the back of a fire truck,” said Clarisse.

Russ looked at her blankly. “This is really serious,” he said after a moment. “Joe is going to think I came to Provincetown and got involved in S and M.”

Valentine rolled his eyes. Matteo shook his head and got up to pour himself another cup of coffee.

Clarisse smiled more broadly still.

“Try pancake—number five,” she suggested.

“I shouldn't have come here last night,” Russ moaned to Clarisse, whom he thought to be sympathetic because of her smile. “I should have driven straight back to Providence. I called Joe and told him I was staying with my aunt in Truro. I'm going to go back and he's going to see that bruise, and he's going to ask me if my aunt hit me or something.”

“If I hear another word about that bruise…” said Valentine, not entirely under his breath.

“Well, you did it!” cried Russ, turning sharply on Valentine.

Valentine remarked to Matteo, “People with tender skin who don't want to get bruises ought not to scream out, ‘Oh, God! Oh, God! Hit me, hit me!' when they're just about to”—he paused significantly—“have a good time.”

“That was just a figure of speech,” Russ protested.

“I'm late for work,” said Matteo. “See you later, Daniel. Hope you heal, Russ.” He winked at Clarisse and walked out of the kitchen.

“Wait for me,” cried Clarisse. Matteo stopped at the corner of the pool. Clarisse ran upstairs for her bag, and when she came back through the kitchen she said soberly, “Call me later, Val, it's important.” Turning to Russ, she advised, “Give Joe my best, and remember—pancake number five.”

T
HAT NOON, WHEN Valentine opened the doors of the Throne and Scepter, he saw Clarisse across the way signaling him violently through the plate glass window of the Provincetown Crafts Boutique. He waved, smiled, and went back inside. He dialed her number, and by stretching the cord, he could see her pick up the telephone across the way.

“Why didn't you come by here?” she demanded.

“It's taken me this long to get rid of Russ.”

“What's happened to your judgment? I've come to expect better of you.”

“The sunburn went to my brain. I wasn't responsible. So what's up? What couldn't you talk to me about in front of Russ?”

“Not Russ. Matteo. Last night I asked him to let me see the autopsy reports on Jeff King and Ann Richardson.”

Valentine laughed. “What did Matteo say?”

“He said no. Then I said, ‘It's customary for the person who found the body to initial the medical examiner's report.'”

“And he said?”

“He said, ‘You must think I'm a real idiot.'”

“And you said?”

“I said, ‘Matteo, if you let me look at those reports, I'll… I'll
go to bed with you
!'”

“Like you have for the past six nights and last Monday afternoon?”

“Don't belittle a woman who has just traded her body for vital information.”

“What
was
the information?”

“Most of it was technical stuff, and measurements in centimeters—”

“That could be interesting.”

“But the main thing was that Jeff King was stocking a drugstore in his stomach. All sorts of things.”

“But it wasn't the drugs that killed him, was it?”

“No, and it wasn't the bump on his head either. It was definitely strangulation. The time of death was placed between two and ten A.M.”

“What!”

“That's what the medical examiner has in the report, despite the fact that the police have my sworn testimony pinning the time down to between three-thirty when I saw him jump into the bay and a quarter to five when I found him on the beach.”

“I guess the coroner likes to give himself a little leeway.”

“I'd prefer accuracy. Makes you wonder about the rest of the report.”

“What about Ann?”

“That was drugs. Angel dust and MDA—and lots of it. She mixed it with the wine and drank it.”

“Not much doubt of suicide there. What's that phrase, Lovelace?
I told you so
.”

“We can't be sure until Margaret shows up.”

“If we knew her last name…”

“
Nobody
knows her last name.”

“Do you think your uncle might be holding back?”

“No! If Noah knew, don't you think he'd tell? I'm sure he doesn't like the idea of tenants taking death-dives in his pool.”

“How does he feel about ex-lovers taking death-swims in the bay? When are you going to sit down and clear the air a little?”

“As a matter of fact, Mr. Valentine, I'm taking my lunch hour at Kiley Court this afternoon. I will seduce Noah into intimacy over cold avocado salad.”

“You never fix avocado salad for me.”

“But I do make polite conversation with your battered boyfriends…”

When she got to Kiley Court, Clarisse skirted the empty swimming pool, and opened the screen door of Noah's apartment. The interior was quiet and cool. The noon sunlight, filtered through the vines that covered the windows, spangled the newly laid hall carpet. She padded down the passage toward the kitchen but stopped short before the double doors to the front parlor. In an oval mirror on the unwindowed wall of the room she caught the image of Noah sitting, with his back to her, at his desk. He apparently had not heard her enter.

His posture—tense on the edge of the chair—was so uncharacteristic of Noah's usual physical ease that Clarisse remained as she was, observing. Noah suddenly raised his head and glanced into the mirror. Clarisse snapped back out of the way. She dared not look into it again—knowing that if she could see him, he could also see her.

Clarisse realized, with a mixture of amusement and distress, that she was spying on her uncle. She briefly considered the morality and the embarrassing possibility of discovery—then once more peered into the mirror.

Noah sat back suddenly on the chair, and the alteration of his position allowed Clarisse to see that he had been reading a letter. He folded the single typed sheet, and slipped it into a fresh white envelope, the flap of which he licked and sealed. The envelope in which the letter had arrived lay atop the desk. He ripped this in two, and slid the pieces into his back pocket. He tapped the plain white envelope twice with his forefinger, and then lifted the blotter and placed it beneath. He carefully realigned the blotter, ran his hand over it to see whether the bulk of the envelope could be felt beneath, then stood and walked directly toward the hall.

Clarisse panicked. She turned on her heel, slapped her hand against the screen door so that it opened and slammed with a bang, dropped to her knees and frantically patted the carpet with her outstretched hands.

“Clarisse!”

She tossed her hair back and looked up over her shoulder at her uncle standing behind her. She squinted one eye.

“Oh, hello,” she said and went back to patting the carpet.

“What are you doing here? Oh, that's right—we're supposed to have lunch…did you lose a contact?”

“I tripped on the doorstep and it popped out. I know it's right here somewhere.”

“Don't let me step on it,” Noah said, retreating carefully into the living room. Clarisse continued to pat the surface of the hall runner. Noah said, “Listen, do you mind if we put off today? Angel needs me at the restaurant. High-level decision making.”

“No,” said Clarisse looking up with a fake squint. “Of course not.”

“Well, then I'd better go upstairs and get ready. I'll leave you to this. I'd help, but I'm afraid…”

She waved him away. “I'm used to it.”

Noah went up the stairs. As Clarisse looked after him, she could see the outline of the torn envelope in his pocket. She listened to his footfalls' progress down the upstairs hallway.

Clarisse knew that she should leave the house; instead she got to her feet, slipped out of her sandals, and crept into the parlor on the balls of her feet. She took out the envelope and with a letter opener unsealed the still-damp flap. Inside was a single-page letter from the office of Calvin Lark, the lawyer in Boston who represented not only the rental agency where Clarisse had worked but her uncle as well. The letter of intent was addressed to Noah Lovelace and explained in paralegal terms that, following Noah's instructions, Calvin Lark would alter the names of the beneficiaries of his will and several insurance policies. The name of Jeffrey Martin King would be excised from all documents, to be replaced with that of Clarisse Lovelace. She slipped the letter into a fresh envelope, sealed the flap, and shoved it back under the blotter.

She softly left the house, crossed the courtyard, and entered her own kitchen. She made some fresh coffee, prepared herself a salad, and began to reflect on the revelation that she had taken the place of Jeff King as her uncle's principal heir.

C
LARISSE WAS LATE in opening up the Provincetown Crafts Boutique. She stood before the door and fumbled in her bag for the keys. The door swung open to reveal Beatrice standing there smiling.