Face on the Wall (18 page)

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Kelly.” Cissie's doleful face brightened. Mary took a picture of her against a background of oaks and beech trees, the pretty woodland beyond the playground on the north side of the school.

After the last class of the day, Cissie had to stay for remedial help in math. She couldn't understand the concept of percent. She sat at her desk, bowed over her workbook, alone in the room with Mrs. Rutledge.

The first problem was impenetrable. “Mr. Green's coffee shop earns $75,000 a year in gross income. If 8 percent goes for rent, 10 percent for part-time help, and 5 percent for supplies, what is Mr. Green's profit from his shop?”

Cissie didn't know where to start. Should she divide eight into seventy-five thousand? Oh, it was too hard. Tears ran down her cheeks.

She looked up as Mrs. Rutledge rose from her chair. “Cissie, I have to make a phone call. Please stay until I come back. I've left my purse in my desk drawer.”

“Okay, Mrs. Rutledge.”

Mrs. Rutledge was gone. The room was silent. No one was passing in the hall.
Mrs. Rutledge's pocketbook was in her desk drawer.

Quietly and carefully, Cissie heaved herself up from her chair. Her camera swung forward, and thumped against her chest. Her heart thumped against the camera.

At once she found the right drawer. The shiny black patent-leather pocketbook was right there in front. Cissie took it out and opened it. An exotic fragrance billowed up around her nose. There was a dusting of pink powder on Mrs. Rutledge's billfold.

Someone snorted with laughter. Cissie gave a small shriek. It was Charlene Cast, looking at her from the doorway.

“I'll tell,” said Charlene.

Bus 2 was nearly empty. A few kids who had been kept after school, like Cissie, sat in front, and three noisy members of the field-hockey team plumped themselves down in the middle. But as usual no one wanted to sit with Cissie. Sunk in gloom, she made her way to the back of the bus.

How was she going to tell her father that her camera was gone? As the bus rumbled in the general direction of her part of town, Cissie bounced up and down, sniffling and trying to think.

Roberta Gast pulled up beside the Hayden Recreation Center in Lexington, where Charlene swam three times a week. Her daughter was waiting for her on the curb.

“Smile, Mummy.”

The camera clicked, recording Roberta's blank face. “For heaven's sake, Charlene, give me some warning next time.”

Grinning, Charlene picked up her swim bag and got into the car. “Look, Mummy,” she said, showing her the camera, “it does everything by itself.”

Roberta pulled away from the curb. “Charlene, where on earth did you get an expensive camera like that?”

“One of the kids in swim class gave it to me.” Charlene smiled smugly. “He likes me.”

“Oho!” Roberta laughed, wondering if she should start worrying about the beginnings of a childish interest in sex. “Is he cute?”

“Oh, no.” Charlene giggled. “He's like really disgusting. You know, really fat and stuff.”

Cissie Aufsesser's father was a judge in the Superior Court of Massachusetts. Her mother was a nurse at Emerson Hospital. Cissie was their only child.

The truth was, Judge Aufsesser was a little disappointed in his daughter, who was not only fat but slow-witted. But he was a reasonably good father, and he pitied her friendlessness. How did kids live through a painful childhood like Cissie's? If only the poor kid would lose a little weight.

His gift of the camera had been an attempt to give her an interest, something that would take her out of herself. After supper on the day Cissie lost her camera to Charlene, he spoke to his daughter with false heartiness. “How's the picture-taking, Cissie? Are you having fun with the camera?”

“Oh—oh, sure, Daddy.”

Judge Aufsesser guessed that something wasn't right. “What sort of pictures have you been taking?”

“Um—oh, just stuff at school.” Puffing, Cissie leaned over and retied her shoes. Her eyes were hidden.

Something was certainly the matter. “Where is it, Cissie?” her father said quietly. “Where's the camera?”

It was the question Cissie had dreaded. “Oh, I'm sorry, Daddy,” she said in a small voice. “I left it at school.”

“Now, Cissie, I told you never to do that. Somebody might steal it.”

Cissie's eyes filled with tears. “I—I'm sorry.” And then she broke down and sobbed. Poor Cissie's life was so painful, the smallest additional misery sent her over the edge.

“Oh, it's already happened, has it?” said her father sternly. “I told you, Cissie. I told you!”

“No,” wept Cissie, “I didn't leave it at school.”

Her father was relentless, and in a few minutes he had the truth. He knew about Mrs. Rutledge's purse, he knew about the exchange of Cissie's camera for Charlene's silence.

“Don't tell Mrs. Rutledge,” sobbed Cissie. “Oh, please, Daddy, don't tell Mrs. Rutledge.”

“You've got to tell her, Cissie,” said her father. “You've got to talk to Mrs. Rutledge if we're going to do something about that nasty little blackmailer.”

“Blackmailed?”

“Your charming friend, what's her name? Charlene.”

“Oh, but Daddy, you can't. You just can't.”

“Can't I? We'll see about that.”

Cissie trembled at what might happen, but she felt better. Her father was on her side.

Chapter 28

But as nothing remains hidden from God, so this black deed also was to come to light.

The Brothers Grimm, “The Singing Bone”

S
ergeant Kennebunk could not get permission to go to Albany. Homer Kelly refused to take the time to go to Albany. Mary fumed and fussed, but she went by train to Albany, and took a cab from the station to the Regency Hotel.

In fact, Mary was pleased to see Homer take an interest at last in the disappearance of her missing friend Pearl, wife of the abominable Frederick Small and once the golden-haired darling of her seminar on women poets. Something terrible had happened to Pearl: And she wasn't the first of Small's vanished wives. In the Bluebeard story there was a room crammed with their dead bodies. They hung on hooks around the wall, their clotted blood pooling on the floor. Mary was grimly determined to find the room and the wives and the reason for the disappearance of Pearl Small.

But when she walked into the lobby of the hotel she burst out laughing. It had been decorated by a comedian in the style of the 1930s. The leather chairs had a zooming shape, the sofas were outrageously overstuffed. There were designer bellboys too, tall good-looking kids in pleated black trousers, white shirts, and wire-framed glasses, their hair combed straight back. They strode about the lobby carrying gorgeous pieces of luggage—pigskin and gleaming saddle leather—probably stage props, decided Mary.

Sergeant Kennebunk had typed up an official introduction and faxed it to Mary from the Southtown Pharmacy. When she presented it to the clerk at the registration desk, he cooperated at once.

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Kelly, he called to say you were coming.” The clerk was a dapper young man in a jacket with enormous padded shoulders. “What can I do for you?”

Mary showed him the newspaper image of Pearl Small. “I understand she was registered in this hotel for a few days last week. Can you tell me if this is the same woman?”

The clerk studied the picture and shook his head doubtfully. “I don't know. It's hard to say. She was very attractive, with long blond hair.”

Mary opened her mouth to ask if the woman had the air of a fairy princess, then decided against it. “Might I see the room, number 609?”

“Certainly.” The clerk dinged a little bell and raised a white-gloved hand. At once a dashing bellboy appeared at Mary's side. “Please escort Mrs. Kelly to Room 609.”

The bellboy grinned at Mary and led the way to the elevator.
I
can find my own way perfectly well,
thought Mary, but as the bellboy pushed the button for the sixth floor, she felt for her billfold and extracted a dollar.

“This way,” he said graciously, leading the way down the hall. “Uh-oh.” Outside the open door of Room 609 stood a cart laden with cleaning equipment and linen. “Could you please remove this stuff and do another room?” he said grandly to the chambermaid, who was reaching into the cart for a set of sheets.

The chambermaid was a cheerful-looking woman with golden-brown skin and chubby cheeks. “Sure thing,” she said, putting back the sheets.

“No, wait,” said Mary impulsively. She turned to the bellboy, thrust the dollar at him, and said, “Thank you. That's fine.”

He looked surprised, glanced at the dollar, which was apparently inadequate, took it, and vanished with a toss of his cowlick.

Mary turned gratefully to the chambermaid and stretched out her hand. “Good afternoon. My name's Mary Kelly. I'm from Boston.”

The chambermaid beamed at her and shook hands. “Just call me Molly.”