The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (34 page)

I dropped my hat and stick on the bed and laid
my overcoat beside them. Then I drew out a cigar and waited until he fumbled
for a match and helped me to a light. His hand shook so violently that he had
hard going for a moment and muttered angrily at himself. Then I slowly exhaled
a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling, and waited.

Charlie was Celia’s junior by five years, but
seeing him then it struck me that he looked a dozen years older. His hair was
the same pale blond, almost colorless so that it was hard to tell if it was
graying or not. But his cheeks wore a fine, silvery stubble, and there were
huge blue-black pouches under his eyes. And where Celia was braced against a
rigid and uncompromising backbone, Charlie sagged, standing or sitting, as if
he were on the verge of falling forward. He stared at me and tugged uncertainly
at the limp mustache that dropped past the corners of his mouth.

“You know what I wanted to see you about, don’t
you?” he said.

“I can imagine,” I said, “but I’d rather have
you tell me.”

“I’ll put it to you straight,” he said. “It’s
Celia. I want to see her get what’s coming to her. Not jail. I want the law to
take her and kill her, and I want to be there to watch it.”

A large ash dropped to the floor, and I ground
it carefully into the rug with my foot. I said, “You were at the inquest,
Charlie; you saw what happened. Celia’s cleared, and unless additional evidence
can be produced, she stays cleared.”

“Evidence! My God, what more evidence does anyone
need! They were arguing hammer and tongs at the top of the stairs. Celia just
grabbed Jessie and threw her down to the bottom and killed her. That’s murder,
isn’t it? Just the same as if she used a gun or poison or whatever she would
have used if the stairs weren’t handy?”

I sat down wearily in the old leather-bound
armchair there and studied the new ash that was forming on my cigar. “Let me
show it to you from the legal angle,” I said, and the monotone of my voice must
have made it sound like a well-memorized formula. “First, there were no
witnesses.”

“I heard Jessie scream and I heard her fall,”
he said doggedly, “and when I ran out and found her there, I heard Celia slam
her door shut right then. She pushed Jessie and then scuttered like a rat to be
out of the way.”

“But you didn’t see anything. And since Celia
claims that she wasn’t on the scene, there were no witnesses. In other words,
Celia’s story cancels out your story, and since you weren’t an eyewitness you
can’t very well make a murder out of what might have been an accident.”

He slowly shook his head.

“You don’t believe that,” he said. “You don’t
really believe that. Because if you do, you can get out now and never come near
me again.”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe; I’m showing
you the legal aspects of the case. What about motivation? What did Celia have
to gain from Jessie’s death? Certainly there’s no money or property involved;
she’s as financially independent as you are.”

Charlie sat down on the edge of his bed and
leaned toward me with his hands resting on his knees. “No,” he whispered, “there’s
no money or property in it.”

I spread my arms helplessly. “You see?”

“But you know what it is,” he said. “It’s me.
First, it was the old lady with her heart trouble any time I tried to call my
soul my own. Then, when she died and I thought I was free, it was Celia. From
the time I got up in the morning until I went to bed at night, it was Celia
every step of the way. She never had a husband or a baby—but she had me!”

I said quietly, “She’s your sister, Charlie.
She loves you,” and he laughed that same unpleasant, short laugh.

“She loves me like ivy loves a tree. When I
think back now, I still can’t see how she did it, but she would just look at me
a certain way and all the strength would go out of me. And it was like that
until I met Jessie… I remember the day I brought Jessie home, and told Celia we
were married. She swallowed it, but that look was in her eyes the same as it
must have be
e
n when she pushed Jessie
down those stairs.”

I said, “But you admitted at the inquest that
you never saw her threaten Jessie or do anything to hurt her.”

“Of course I never
saw!
But when Jessie would go around sick to her heart every day and not say a word,
or cry in bed every night and not tell me why, I knew damn well what was going
on. You know what Jessie was like. She wasn’t so smart or pretty, but she was
good-hearted as the day was long, and she was crazy about me. And when she
started losing all that sparkle in her after only a month, I knew why. I talked
to her and I talked to Celia, and both of them just shook their heads. All I
could do was go around in circles, but when it happened, when I saw Jessie
lying there, it didn’t surprise me. Maybe that sounds queer, but it didn’t
surprise me at all.”

“I don’t think it surprised anyone who knows
Celia,” I said, “but you can’t make a case out of that.”

He beat his fist against his knee and rocked
from side to side. “What can I do?” he said. “That’s what I need you for—to
tell me what to do. All my life I never got around to doing anything because of
her. That’s what she’s banking on now—that I won’t do anything, and that she’ll
get away with it. Then after a while, things’ll settle down, and we’ll be right
back where we started from.”

I said, “Charlie, you’re getting yourself all
worked up to no end.”

He stood up and stared at the door, and then at
me. “But I can do something,” he whispered. “Do you know what?”

He waited with the bright expectancy of one who
has asked a clever riddle that he knows will stump the listener. I stood up
facing him, and shook my head slowly. “No,” I said. “Whatever you’re thinking,
put it out of your mind.”

“Don’t mix me up,” he said. “You know you can
get away with murder if you’re as smart as Celia. Don’t you think I’m as smart
as Celia?”

I caught his shoulders tightly. “For God’s
sake, Charlie,” I said, “don’t start talking like that.”

He pulled out of my hands and went staggering
back against the wall. His eyes were bright, and his teeth showed behind his
drawn lips. “What should I do?” he cried. “Forget everything now that Jessie is
dead and buried? Sit here until Celia gets tired of being afraid of me and
kills me too?”

My years and girth had betrayed me in that
little tussle with him, and I found myself short of dignity and breath. “I’ll
tell you one thing,” I said. “You haven’t been out of this house since the
inquest. It’s about time you got out, if only to walk the streets and look
around you.”

“And have everybody laugh at me as I go!”

“Try it,” I said, “and see. Al Sharp said that
some of your friends would be at his bar and grill tonight, and he’d like to
see you there. That’s my
advice—
for whatever it’s worth.”

“It’s not worth anything,” said Celia. The door
had been opened, and she stood there rigid, her eyes narrowed against the light
in the room. Charlie turned toward her, the muscles of his jaw knotting and
unknotting.

“Celia,” he said, “I told you never to come
into this room!”

Her face remained impassive. “I’m not
in
it. I came to tell you that your dinner is ready.”

He took a menacing step toward her. “Did you
have your ear at that door long enough to hear everything I said? Or should I
repeat it for you?”

“I heard an ungodly and filthy thing,” she said
quietly, “an invitation to drink and roister while this house is in mourning. I
think I have every right to object to that.”

He looked at her incredulously and had to
struggle for words. “Celia,” he said, “tell me you don’t mean that! Only the
blackest hypocrite alive or someone insane could say what you’ve just said, and
mean it.”

That struck a spark in her. “Insane!” she
cried.
“You
dare use that word? Locked in your room, talking
to yourself, thinking heaven knows what!” She turned to me suddenly. “You’ve
talked to him. You ought to know. Is it possible that—”

“He is as sane as you, Celia,” I said heavily.

“Then he should know that one doesn’t drink in salloons
at a time like this. How could you ask him to do it?”

She flung the question at me with such an air
of malicious triumph that I completely forgot myself. “If you weren’t preparing
to throw out Jessie’s belongings, Celia, I would take that question seriously!”

It was a reckless thing to say, and I had
instant cause to regret it. Before I could move, Charlie was past me and had
Celia’s arms pinned in a paralyzing grip.

“Did you dare go into her room?” he raged,
shaking her savagely. “Tell me!” And then, getting an immediate answer from the
panic in her face, he dropped her arms as if they were red hot, and stood there
sagging, with his head bowed.

Celia reached out a placating hand toward him. “Charlie,”
she whimpered, “don’t you see? Having her things around bothers you. I only
wanted to help you.”

“Where are her things?”

“By the stairs, Charlie. Everything is there.”

He started down the hallway, and with the sound
of his uncertain footsteps moving away I could feel my heartbeat slowing down
to its normal tempo. Celia turned to look at me, and there was such a raging
hated in her face that I knew only a desperate need to get out of that house at
once. I took my things from the bed and started past her, but she barred the
door.

“Do you see what you’ve done?” she whispered
hoarsely. “Now I will have to pack them all over again. It tires me, but I will
have to pack them all over again
—
just because of you.”

“That is entirely up to you, Celia,” I said
coldly.

“You,” she said. “You old fool. It should have
been you along with her when I—”

I dropped my stick sharply on her shoulder and
could feel her wince under it. “As your lawyer, Celia,” I said, “I advise you
to exercise your tongue only during your sleep, when you can’t be held
accountable for what you say.”

She said no more, but I made sure she stayed
safely in front of me until I was out in the street again.

From the Boerum house to Al Sharp’s Bar and
Grill was only a few minutes’ walk, and I made it in good time, grateful for
the sting of the clear winter air in my face. Al was alone behind the bar,
busily polishing glasses, and when he saw me enter he greeted me cheerfully. “Merry
Christmas, counsellor,” he said.

“Same to you,” I said, and watched him place a
comfortable-looking bottle and a pair of glasses on the bar.

“You’re regular as the seasons, counsellor,”
said Al, pouring out two stiff ones. “I was expecting you along right about
now.”

We drank to each other, and Al leaned
confidingly on the bar. “Just come from there?”

“Yes,” I said.

“See Charlie?”

“And Celia,” I said.

“Well,” said Al, “that’s nothing exceptional. I’ve
seen her too when she comes by to do some shopping. Runs along with her head
down and that black shawl over it like she was being chased by something. I
guess she is, at that.”

“I guess she is,” I said.

“But Charlie, he’s the one. Never see him
around at all. Did you tell him I’d like to see him some time?”

“Yes,” I said. “I told him.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. Celia said it was wrong for him to
come here while he was in mourning.”

Al whistled softly and expressively, and
twirled a forefinger at his forehead. “Tell me,” he said, “do you think it’s
safe for them to be alone together like they are? I mean, the way things stand,
and the way Charlie feels, there could be another case of trouble there.”

“It looked like it for a while tonight,” I said.
“But it blew over.”

“Until next time,” said
Al.

“I’ll be there,” I said.

Al looked at me and shook his head. “Nothing
changes in that house,” he said. “Nothing at all. That’s why you can figure out
all the answers in advance. That’s how I knew you’d be standing here right
about now talking to me about it.”