Punish Me with Kisses (23 page)

"Here's yours, dear, here's
his
—" She held up her father's stocking as if she wanted to keep it as far away from her body as she could, "—here's mine, and here is
hers
." Penny looked and felt a needle press against her heart. It was Suzie's stocking. The name Susan had been beautifully stitched onto it in a script she recognized as coming from her mother's hand. "Poor thing, poor dear," her mother sighed. "We shouldn't keep this any longer I suppose. We really should dispose of all her things, once and for all, don't you think?"

She stuffed Suzie's stocking into a pocket of her dress, and then it seemed as if everything became sane again—they chose a star for the top of the tree, and Mrs.
Berring
talked about Christmas cookies and Christmas punch, and how she thought she could handle a cup or two of that, and maybe even some eggnog, though she knew she really shouldn't drink.

"Of course, mother." Penny put her arm around her shoulders. "Of course you can handle an eggnog or two, or you could have a virgin eggnog, like a Virgin Mary—how about that?"

"Oh, Penny, you're the only one."

The only one who trusted her, or who was nice to her, or who wasn't in her father's pay? Penny wasn't sure what she meant exactly, but she guessed all three, and then she felt as though she might begin to cry and wanted to run away.

"I'll tell Mrs. McIver to have one of the men bring these things down when the tree arrives. Come." She stood up. "We have something now to do ourselves." Penny followed as they left the attic, retraced their way down the hail, down two flights of stairs to the main floor, then through the kitchen and down the cellar stairs. She couldn't imagine what they were going to do down in the cellar, but she followed meekly, sad and curious, and anxious, too.

"See
that
?" Mrs.
Berring
pointed at the wine cellar. "He's got it padlocked. Afraid I'll get my hands on some of his precious Burgundies. Afraid I'll drink them to the dregs." There was a new note in her voice now. Anger had replaced the confidential whispering of the attic, and Penny became worried for she saw they were moving toward the furnace room.

"Your father's a dangerous man, Penny. Take care of yourself.
Beware
." And then, as they entered the furnace room where two old-fashioned coal furnaces blazed away, her mother began her tirade.

"
Dangerous
. Very
dangerous
. And
slippery
, too. Imagine—trying to get me to turn over control. He's got control anyway, he runs the damn company like he owns it, even if he doesn't, you know. I called a lawyer. He told me: 'Don't sign anything. Don't give up anything.' 'But what if they force me?' I asked. He said they couldn't, it'd be invalid, that they couldn't get me to sign over anything unless I was represented by counsel, so that was that. I told your father, told him to his face. You should have seen him. He turned purple. Then he started to whisper the way he always does when he gets mad. 'How dare you call a lawyer?' he demanded to know. Dare!
Dare
! What the hell did he mean—how did I
dare
? 'It's
mine
,' I told him. 'My father left the shares to
me
. How easily you've forgotten. Howard Chapman was my
father
. 'But what if something happens to me? The shares would go to you, of course, and then they'd be after you—you'd be their victim, because all he wants is power. He's not content just to run everything. He has to own it,
all
of it.
God damn!
"

She moved forward then, moved so quickly Penny couldn't hold her back, moved between the two great furnaces, picked up an iron poker that was hanging there, and used it to unlatch and pull open one of the furnace doors. She stepped back then, in the face of the fire and heat, and suddenly she looked mad to Penny, crazed, like her father when she'd watched him burn trash that time in Maine, but maybe even crazier, like a madwoman, the flames dancing in her eyes, her flesh orange, reflecting the fire. And then she reached into her pocket, pulled out the stocking, Suzie's Christmas stocking, and flung it into the furnace. The two of them watched it incinerate, shrivel in an instant to ash. Her mother pushed the poker viciously at the furnace door and slammed it shut.

"Well, that's the end of that," she cried. "That's the end of the Christmas stocking of that miserable little
slut
."

Penny was horrified, gasped at the wild expression on her mother's face, but almost immediately her mother became docile, her body sagged, and Penny had to guide her up the stairs. She turned her over to Mrs. McIver who said it was time for Mrs.
Berring's
nap.

"Is she always like this?" Penny asked while she was waiting for her cab. Mrs. McIver gave her a quizzical look as if she weren't sure what Penny meant.

"She seems so normal, then suddenly these strange personalities appear."

"She's been excited about your coming out. She's tired now, and overwrought."

"At least she was consistent when she was drinking."

Mrs. McIver shrugged. "That's an illusion. Family members often say things like that. The alcohol just covers things up. She was drinking herself to death."

O
n the train, riding back to the city, Penny thought about the afternoon. It had been the most painful visit she could remember. To see her mother like this, to see the range of her disturbance, her hatred for her husband, the loathing and the ways she coped with it, the blandness interrupted by the conspiratorial smile, interrupted in turn by open rage, and then that cry as she'd thrown the stocking into the furnace—all the hurt of Suzie's death was in that cry, she thought, all the mourning, the sense of loss, bound up in that act, as if she could exorcise Suzie and the horror of her murder by burning up a sentimental reminder and calling her a "slut."

What a sham
, she thought, as the train pounded back into the city, through Harlem, past tenements which she knew had no heat, were full of roaches and rats, where people lived huddled six, eight, God knew how many to a room.
They envy us, rich white people out in Greenwich and Scarsdale and Westport, but they have love and soul and body warmth, and we're just cold and cursed with madness and filled with cruelty and pain.

S
he and Jared had planned to go to a movie that night. She'd told him which train she'd be on, and he met her, as arranged at Grand Central. But she was so depressed about the afternoon that they decided to go back uptown and spend the evening at home. It was dark as their taxi sped up Park Avenue, and though she wanted to explain it to him, describe the afternoon in all its gruesome detail, she found it difficult. She was stuck on that image of Suzie's Christmas stocking shriveling in the furnace; she could focus only on that, and on her mother's exclamation: "slut!"

"It was like
everything
was burning up," she said. "Of course she's been dead for more than three years, but in her diary she seemed to come alive again, and then watching that stocking go up in flames and hearing mother speak of her like that—it was like she was dead this time for good."

They got out at Eightieth, he put his arm around her, and they walked the remaining half block to the house. The heat was on in the building and the lobby was as pungent as ever with the smell of cats. He got his key out as they mounted the stairs, but then, when they reached the apartment door, they both stood still in shock. The door was open a couple of inches, and the "
unpickable
" locks she'd paid a hundred fifty dollars for were drilled out. At the sight of that, the broken locks, the metal filings on the floor, she began to tremble.

"
Shhh
." Jared brought his finger to his mouth. "I'd better go in first and check." She nodded, knowing how dangerous it could be to confront burglars in the act. He appeared half a minute later. "All clear, but you're not going to like the mess."

She followed him in to find every single thing she owned in disarray. Every book was tumbled out of the bookcases, every plate and glass had been swept off of every kitchen shelf, every drawer had been turned over and emptied, the mattress was upside down, the rugs were pulled out, and the cushion of her window seat, the treasured cushion upon which she'd passed so many happy hours, had been ripped open with a knife. She felt violated.

"Fucking addicts," Jared said. "Funny—the TV and stereo are still here. And your typewriter. That's the kind of stuff they like to take."

Penny stared at the mess, moving carefully from room to room. It seemed to her that, somehow, everything was wrong.

"I don't know why they bothered," Jared said, pointing at the cushion. "Pure hostility, I guess. We could call the police but it won't do any good. Funny they didn't take the TV."

A thought flashed into her mind. "Maybe they were looking for the diary."

"Oh, come on. That's a lot of crap."

She pulled it out of her purse. "I took it with me to read on the train. Maybe there's something in it. They wanted to get it, see what we've found out."

"You're crazy. You're so hung up on that thing you think everyone else is, too. What do you mean 'They were after it?' Who exactly is this 'they'?"

She asked herself the same thing. She wasn't sure, didn't know whom she meant. But she was sure the break-in wasn't the work of appliance thieves. Her apartment had been ransacked. Whoever had broken in had made a search.

"There's something in here," she said, clutching the diary.

"Babe—" He took her hand. "No one knows about the diary. We're the only ones. Even if there is something there's just the two of us, and Cynthia, of course. But she doesn't even know we got it, so what you're saying doesn't make much sense."

"Then why is everything still here? My Nikon. My jewelry."

He shrugged. "Maybe they were scared or something. Maybe they heard a noise, got scared and ran." He started picking things up while trying to calm her, but she was dialing the phone before he noticed she'd walked away.

"Who—?"

"
Shhh
." she said. It was ringing now at the other end.

"The police won't give a shit. There's nothing stolen."

She motioned for him to shut up. "Hi. Cynthia. This is Penny. Yeah—there's something important I have to know."

She knew right away there was something; she could tell by the way Cynthia paused. There was a shyness, an embarrassment in her voice. No, she'd never told anybody about the diary before, but yes, there was something, and she'd been meaning to call Penny about it, had wanted to call her but had put it off, and was a little embarrassed about it actually.

"What, Cynthia? Just tell me what you're talking about." Jared had stopped trying to wrestle the mattress back into place and was standing in the center of the bedroom watching while she listened to Cynthia explain.

"Couple days after we talked these two guys came around. Very polite, you know, middle-aged, sort of
uncley
types, and they flashed these IDs, private investigators' cards. Said they were looking into the
Berring
case. Said they knew you'd been to see me, and then you'd left town suddenly, had driven up to Maine. Asked if I had any idea why you might have left like that, whether it was connected to our talk."

"And so you told them about the diary, right?
Right
?"

"Yeah, I did. But then I pooh-poohed the whole thing. I guess I should have kept my mouth shut, but they were so nice and everything that I thought, well, you know—what's the harm" She paused. "I would have called you, but then I sort of felt ashamed. I don't know how deeply this thing goes. I'm really sorry, Child. Hope I haven't screwed you up."

"Never mind,
Cin
," she said. "It's OK. Really OK."

It hit her then, even before she replaced the phone. It all came together, everything, like the blocks in one of those mind-twisting puzzles when they suddenly fall into place and the puzzle is revealed and you could kick yourself for not having seen it all before. Middle-aged private investigators—that sounded like retired cops, the sort who staff out corporate security departments, like the security department at Chapman. Her mother saying Tucker had called her father and told him she'd been up in Maine. Her father telling her the day they'd played squash that his people had Jared under surveillance, which meant, of course, that they were watching her as well. And now this break-in just when she'd be away in Greenwich. It was so pat, so obvious, the events so neatly linked. They'd learned about the diary from Cynthia; they knew she'd gone to Maine to get it; they knew from Tucker she'd only spent fifteen minutes in the
poolhouse
. So they knew she had it now. All they had to do was wait until she left for Greenwich, then break in, find it, find out what it said.