Don't Dare a Dame (2 page)

   
“You realize odds of finding out what happened to someone that long ago would be low, even under the best conditions.”

   
“Yes, of course.”

   
“And those weren’t the best of conditions.”

   
“No.”

   
“We didn’t feel we could ask anyone to look into it while our mother was alive. It would have upset her,” explained Isobel. “She died last year. It’s taken a while to - to sort out—”

   
“Our stepfather challenged her will,” Corrine said bluntly. “Two weeks ago the court finally ruled in our favor.”

   
“It was nothing but spite, Alf wanting this house. Mama left him almost everything else. The business our father owned, investments, a much bigger house. She left modest bequests to Neal and Corrine and me. And she left Corrine this house. Where we grew up.”

   
“She wanted to make sure I was provided for,” Corrine said. She sat erect and determined. “I earn a small income giving voice and piano lessons, which I couldn’t do if I had to rent rooms somewhere. And Mama knew that even apart from my age, few men would be interested in a blind wife.”

   
It robbed me of speech even more than their request to investigate something that happened during the Great Flood.

   
“Miss Vanhorn — Corrine — are you saying that you’re...?”

   
“Blind. Yes.” She looked proud I’d needed to confirm it. “I had measles when I was four.”

   
Her blindness explained why most of the furniture was placed around the edge of the room. I thought of how gracefully she moved. How confidently she’d managed the heavy tea tray. I realized, too, that she hadn’t been looking at something behind me when I arrived. Even now her unseeing eyes were fixed not on me, but a spot just beyond me.

   
“You sure fooled me,” I said awkwardly.

   
In part to recover, I moved to questions I needed answered to help me determine if there was any good reason to start poking around on the sisters’ behalf. As impressed as I was with Corrine, everything I’d learned so far made me suspect this was family grievances turned to imaginings, rather than anything involving an actual crime.

   
“Let’s forget the tussle over this house for a minute,” I said. “What makes you think your father didn’t get swept up in the water and drown? There were plenty who did. I’m pretty sure some were never accounted for.”

   
The sisters looked at each other. Except now I knew that Corrine couldn’t actually see her sister. It didn’t matter. Some invisible link connected them, communicating thoughts.
Who’s going to tell it?
this one asked.

   
“A year or so before Papa disappeared, Alf started hanging around and flirting with Mama,” said Isobel. “Making her laugh. Saying she looked pretty. He even brought her flowers a time or two, and sweets.”

   
“Your father didn’t object?”

   
“He and Alf were second cousins or something like that. I don’t think Papa cared much for Alf, but you know how it is when relatives drop in.”

   
I didn’t, actually. Both my parents had left kith and kin behind in Ireland.

   
“Sometimes, though, Alf would stop by when Papa wasn’t around.” Corrine put in. “One summer — we think it was the summer before Papa disappeared — we were playing in the yard after supper. Neal was off somewhere, so it was just the two of us and our little brother Jem. No sooner was Papa out of sight than here came Alf sauntering down the street like – like he’d been watching!”

   
So far I hadn’t heard anything to suggest murder. To buy me time to think what to say, I ate a bite of cake.

   
“A couple of years after Alf and Mama were married — it was summer again — Alf and this great pal of his who’d stopped in that evening came out in the back yard,” resumed Isobel. “Neal and our stepbrothers George and Franklin had built a big tree house. For days they’d been lording it over us, bragging how it was just for boys and not letting us in it. Corrie had hatched a plan how when everyone else was in bed, we’d climb down the trellis and spend the night in the tree house. We’d have a good laugh at them when they came out and found us there the next morning.”

   
“And you were up in the tree house?” I pictured a blind girl picking her way down a trellis, then climbing a tree.

   
Both women nodded.

   
“It must have been nearly midnight. We’d waited until we were sure everyone was asleep,” said Corrine. “Alf and his friend must have been here in the parlor, talking and drinking. They had a bottle when they came out, and they sounded a bit slurred.”

   
“We think they were discussing whether to make some sort of investment.” Isobel swallowed. “All at once we heard Alf’s pal saying ‘You didn’t mind taking a risk when we saw a chance to feather our nests or to make a widow of the woman you wanted.’ Alf told him to shut up, what if the neighbors heard.”

   
Corrine leaned forward, her cheeks aflame with excitement.

   
“The other man laughed. He said so what? There was no evidence; it had all washed away a long time ago.”

   
“That got us remembering,” Isobel said. “The night Papa went out and didn’t come back. We remembered how scared we were because he’d been gone for hours, and we didn’t know how high the water was going to get here. If it would come into the house. If we’d have to get on the roof. We wouldn’t leave Mama’s side, and all at once there was this pounding. It was Alf, and he was wild-eyed and – and almost chipper at the same time.”

   
“Talking too fast.”

   
“Yes. Asking were we all okay, did we need anything? Acting odd, almost like—”

   
Something crashed somewhere in the house. Something that shattered. The women across from me froze.

   
“The kitchen.” Corrine jumped to her feet. “Someone’s in the kitchen!”

   
Her familiarity with her surroundings still was no match for sight. Isobel, who had both, shot out of the room with me at her heels.

   
Running into the kitchen we both nearly stumbled on chunks from a thick white pitcher that matched dishes on a utility table next to the door we’d come through. Like the parlor furnishings, the table was flush to the wall. I flung my arms out to block Corrine as she caught up.

   
“Broken china all over the floor,” I warned quickly. The back door stood open. I headed out.

   
A wooden fence surrounded the back yard. At the far end, on the other side of the fence, a man in a hat was running away. I made for the gate. The lift-latch was oiled, with no trace of rust, but when I flipped it up and pushed, the gate didn’t budge. I put some muscle into the effort. No dice. Either the man had pulled something up to block the gate on the other side — a trash can, probably — or he’d come over the fence. Swearing mentally at the prospect of ruining my stockings, I hiked up my skirt and prepared to climb. A blood-curdling scream behind me froze me in place.

   
I spun back toward the house. Somewhere along the way I’d drawn my Smith & Wesson. As I got closer, I saw Corrine kneeling in the grass beside some bushes.

   
“It’s Giles!” she shrieked. “Merciful lord, someone’s killed him!
Murdered
him! He’s dead! Sweet little Giles is dead!”

Three

   
She cradled a big yellow dog in her lap, a Labrador maybe. Its coat was matted with blood from the slash to the throat that had almost severed its head. Tears drenched her face. Aimless and wild and glistening with red, her hands moved from her mouth to the dog, up to clutch at her head in despair, then back to stroke the shape in front of her.

   
From inside I caught snatches of Isobel phoning the cops.

   
“Please hurry ... intruder....”

   
“He’s dead! Someone’s killed him! Oh, there’s so much blood....” Corrine wailed.

   
She shook uncontrollably. All at once her arms thrust out. They groped. They hunted frantically.

   
“Isobel? Isobel?” she cried in panic.

   
I’d seen worse gore. I’d seen worse loss. Yet witnessing such frightened helplessness in a woman who moments before and against daunting odds had been in control of herself and her world hit me in the gut.

   
“Isobel’s inside,” I said.

   
Corrine shrank away from the sound of my voice.

   
“It’s Maggie,” I soothed. “Maggie Sullivan. I’d come to see you, remember?”

   
She lapsed into sobs and petted her dead dog while my thoughts raced trying to sort it all out. Someone had been listening when the two sisters told me about their suspicions concerning their stepfather. Whoever that was must have killed the dog on the way in, presumably to make sure it didn’t sound an alarm. But how had they managed to get that close? I wondered if it could have been brother Neal.

   
Isobel hurried out of the house.

   
“The police said they’d have someone here as soon as they could,” she said, more to me than to Corrine. She’d had the presence of mind to grab some flour sack towels. “I’m so sorry, dearest,” she murmured as she began to wipe the worst of the gore from her sister.

   
“I’ll have a look around, see what I can find,” I said.

   
Isobel nodded.

   
If anything caught my eye, I’d leave it undisturbed for the cops, but I wanted to make sure I saw it too. Whether this had to do with a man disappearing twenty-six years ago or the recent dispute over property, I had a feeling the Vanhorn sisters needed some help right now. The unnecessary viciousness with which the dog’s throat had been cut bothered me.

   
I’d been catching glimpses of bright blue beyond some old quince bushes that blocked the view on one side of the fence. I moseyed toward it.

   
A head tied up in a kerchief for cleaning bobbed up to greet me.

   
“Is everything all right?” asked the middle-aged woman standing on tiptoe. She sounded concerned rather than nosy. One hand held a wet rag.

   
“Someone killed their dog,” I said. That was enough information for now. “I was here visiting.”

   
“Oh, dear!” said the neighbor. “Poor Corrine! I thought I heard someone screaming. Giles was one of those special dogs, you know. For blind people. She went away for weeks and trained somewhere when she got him. He took her everywhere. On the streetcar.... Who would do such a thing?”

   
“I don’t suppose you saw anyone back here? Or heard anything?”

   
“Sorry, I was inside. Washing windows. I saw Neal come out and drive away when I was doing one of the front bedrooms, but that was quite some time ago.”

   
From the way she said it, she didn’t appear to think Neal might have been involved. We kept on chatting until I heard car doors slam. The cops were here. I headed inside.

***

   
What I encountered in the parlor made my jaw clench.

   
Corrine sat on one of the needlepoint sofas, pale and trembling. There was still a smudge of blood on her chin and the front of her dress was stained. Her hands were kneading a lace-trimmed hanky, tugging so hard the lace, if not the fabric, was likely to rip. Isobel stood protectively at her side with a hand on her shoulder.

   
Two detectives in cheap suits stood nearby. At least one of them was a detective, a blond cop named Boike.

   
The other was the north end of a southbound horse that answered to Fuller. The last I’d heard, he’d been in uniform. He stood spraddled with fists on his hips looking cocky as all get out. The jerk was yelling.

   
“Lady, we’re a homicide unit!” he scolded Isobel. “You got us out here under false pretenses. Claiming there’d been a murder—”

   
“I never said—”

   
“Screaming about all the blood.”

   
“I said we’d had an intruder! And that someone had killed our dog.”