Vanish in an Instant (3 page)

She said, not trying to hide her resentment, “Where were you when it happened, Paul?”

“Right here at home. In bed.”

“You knew she was out.”

“She'd been going out a great deal lately.”

“Didn't you care?”

“Of course I cared. Unfortunately, I have to make a living. I can't afford to follow Virginia around picking up the pieces.” He went over to the built-in bar in the south corner of the room. “Have a nightcap with me.”

“No, thanks. I—those stains on her clothes, they're blood?”

“Yes.”

“Whose blood?”

“His. Margolis'.”

“How can they tell?”

“There are lab tests to determine whether blood is hu­man and what type it is.”

“Well. Well, anyway, I'm glad it's not hers.” She hesi­tated, glancing at the paper and away again, as if she would have liked to read the report for herself but was afraid to. “She wasn't hurt?”

“No. She was drunk.”

“
Drunk
?”

“Yes.” He poured some bourbon into a glass and added water. Then he held the glass up to the light as if he was searching for microbes in a test tube. “A police patrol car picked her up. They found her wandering around about a quarter of a mile from Margolis' cottage. It was snowing very hard; she must have lost her way.”

“Wandering around in the snow with only that light coat and those thin shoes—oh God, I can't bear it.”

“You'll have to,” he said quietly. “Virginia's depending on you.”

“I know, I know she is. Tell me—the rest.”

“There isn't much. Margolis' body had been discovered by that time because something had gone wrong with the fireplace in the cottage. There was a lot of smoke, some­one reported it, and the highway patrol found Margolis inside dead, stabbed with his own knife. He'd been liv­ing in the cottage which is just outside the city limits be­cause his own house was closed. His wife is in Peru on a holiday.”

“His wife. He was married.”

“Yes.”

“There were—children?”

“Two.”

“Drunk,” Mrs. Hamilton whispered. “And out with a married man. There must be some mistake, surely, surely there is.”

“No. I saw her myself. The Sheriff called me about three o'clock this morning and told me she was being held and why. I wired you immediately, and then I went down to the county jail where they'd taken her. She was still drunk, didn't even recognize me. Or pretended not to. How can you tell, with Virginia, what's real and what isn't?”

“
I
can tell.”

“Can you?” He sipped at his drink. “The sheriff and a couple of deputies were there trying to get a statement from her. They didn't get one, of course. I told them it was silly to go on questioning anyone in her condition, so they let her go back to bed.”

“In a cell? With thieves and prostitutes and . . .”

“She was alone. The cell—
room
, rather, was clean. I saw it. And the matron, or deputy, I think they called her, seemed a decent young woman. The surroundings aren't quite what Virginia is used to, but she's not suffering. Don't worry about that part of it.”

“You don't appear to be worrying at all.”

“I've done nothing but worry, for a long time.” He hesi­tated, looking at her across the room as if wondering how much of the truth she wanted to hear. “You may as well know now—Virginia will tell you, if I don't—that this first year of our marriage has been bad. The worst year of my life, and maybe the worst in Virginia's too.”

Mrs. Hamilton's face looked crushed, like paper in a fist. “Why didn't someone
tell
me? Virginia wrote to me, Carney wrote. No one said anything. I thought things were going well, that Virginia had settled down with you and was happy, that she was finally happy. Now I find out I've been deceived. She didn't settle down. She's been run­ning around with married men, getting drunk, behaving like a cheap tart. And now this, this final disgrace. I just don't know what to
do
, what to
think
.”

He saw the question in her eyes, and turned away, hold­ing his glass up to the light again.

“I did what I could, hired a lawyer.”

“Yes, but what kind? A man with no experience.”

“He was recommended to me.”

“He's not good enough. Virginia should have the best.”

“She should indeed,” he said dryly. “Unfortunately, I can't afford the best.”

“I can. Money is no object.”

“That money-is-no-object idea is a little old-fashioned, I'm afraid.” He put down his empty glass. “There's another point. If Virginia is innocent, she won't need the best. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go to bed. I have to keep early hours. Carney showed you your room, I sup­pose?”

“Yes.”

“Make yourself at home as much as possible. The house is yours,” he added with a wry little smile. “Mortgage and all. Good night, Mrs. Hamilton.”

“Good night.” She hesitated for a split second before adding, “my boy.”

He went out of the room. She followed him with her eyes; they were perfectly dry now, and hard and gray as granite.

Red-faced farmer
, she thought viciously.

3

In the
summer
the red bricks of the courthouse were covered with dirty ivy and in the winter with dirty snow. The building had been constructed on a large square in what was originally the center of town. But the town had moved westward, abandoned the courthouse like an ugly stepchild, leaving it in the east end to fend for itself among the furniture warehouses and service stations and beer-and-sandwich cafés.

Across the road from the main entrance was a supermar­ket. Meecham parked his car in front of it. Its doors were still closed, though there was activity inside. Along the aisles clerks moved apathetically, slowed by sleep and the depression of a winter morning that was no different from night. Street lamps were still burning, the sky was dark, the air heavy and damp.

Meecham crossed the road. He felt sluggish, and wished he could have stayed in bed until it was light.

In front of the courthouse a thirty-foot Christmas tree had been put up and four county prisoners were stringing it with colored lights under the direction of a deputy. The deputy wore fuzzy orange ear-muffs, and he kept stamping his feet rhythmically, either to keep warm or because there was nothing else to do.

When Meecham approached, all four of the prisoners stopped work to look at him, as they stopped to look at nearly everyone who passed, realizing that they had plenty of time and nothing to lose by a delay.

“Speed it up a little, eh, fellows?” The deputy whacked his hands together. “What's the matter, you paralyzed or something, Joe?”

Joe looked down from the top of the ladder and laughed, showing his upper teeth filled at the gum-line with gold. “How'd you like to be inside with a nice rum toddy, Huggins? Mmm?”

“I never touch the stuff,” Huggins said. “Morning, Mee­cham.”

Meecham nodded. “Morning.”

“Up early catching worms?”

“That's right.”

Huggins jerked his thumb at the ladder. “Me, I'm trying to inject the spirit of Christmas into these bums.”

Three of the men laughed. The fourth spat into the snow.

Meecham went inside. The steam had been turned on full force and the old-fashioned radiators were clanking like ghosts rattling their chains. Meecham was sweating before he reached the middle of the corridor, and the pas­sages from his nose to his throat felt hot and dry as if he'd been breathing fire.

The main corridor smelled of wood and fresh wax, but when he descended the stairs on the left a new smell rose to overpower the others, the smell of disinfectant.

The door lettered County Sheriff was open. Meecham walked into the anteroom and sat down in one of the straight chairs that were lined up against the wall like mute and motionless prisoners. The anteroom was empty, though a man's coat and hat were hanging on a rack in the corner, and the final inch of a cigarette was smoldering in an ash tray on the scarred wooden counter. Meecham looked at the cigarette but made no move to put it out.

The door of the Sheriff's private office banged open suddenly and Cordwink himself came out. He was a tall man, match-thin, with gray hair that was clipped short to disguise its curl. His eyelashes curled too, giving his cold eyes a false appearance of naivete. He had fifty years of hard living behind him, but they didn't show except when he was tired or when he'd had a quarrel with his wife over money or one of the kids.

“What are you doing around so early?” Cordwink said.

“I wanted to be the first to wish you a Merry Christmas.”

“You bright young lawyers, you keep me all the time in stitches. Yah.” He scowled at the cigarette smoldering in the ash tray. “What the hell you trying to do, burn the place down?”

“It's not my . . .”

“That's about the only way you'll get your client out of here.”

“Oh?” Meecham lit a cigarette and used the burnt match to crush out the burning remnants of tobacco in the ash tray. “Have you dug up any new information?”

“I should tell you?” Cordwink laughed. “You bloody lawyers can do your own sleuthing.”

“Kind of sour this morning, aren't you, Sheriff?”

“I'm in a sour business, I meet sour people, so I'm sour. So?”

“So you didn't get a statement from Mrs. Barkeley.”

“Sure I got a statement.”

“Such as?”

“Such as that I'm an illiterate buffoon of canine paren­tage.”

Meecham grinned.

“That strikes you as humorous, eh, Meecham?”

“Moderately.”

“Well, it so happens that I graduated from the Univer­sity of Wisconsin, class of ‘22.”

“Funny, I thought you were a Harvard man. You act and talk like a . . .”

“You bright young lawyers kill me.” He grunted. “Yah. Well, I don't care if she makes a statement or not. We have her.”

“Maybe.”

“Even you ought to be smart enough to see that. You'd better start combing the books for some fancy self-defense items. Make sure you get a nice stupid jury, then razz the cops, turn on the tears, quote the Bible—yah! Makes me sick. What a way to make a living, obstructing justice.”

“I've heard the theme song before, Sheriff. Let's skip the second chorus.”

“You think I'm off-key, eh?”

“Sure you are.”

Cordwink pressed a buzzer on the counter. “You won't get away with a self-defense plea. There isn't a mark on the girl, no cut, no bruise, not a scratch.”

“I don't have to prove that the danger to her person was objectively real and imminent, only that she thought, and had reason to think, that it was real and imminent.”

“You're not in court yet, so can the jargon. Makes me sick.”

The Sheriff pressed the buzzer again and a moment later a young woman in a green dress came into the room blithely swinging a ring of keys.

She greeted Meecham with a show of fine white teeth. “You again, Mr. Meecham.”

“Right.”

“You ought to just move in.” She switched the smile on Cordwink. “Isn't that right, Sheriff?”

“Righter than you think,” Cordwink said. “If justice was done, the place would be crawling with lawyers.” He started toward his office. “Show the gentleman into Mrs. Barkeley's boudoir, Miss Jennings.”

“Okeydoke.” Cordwink slammed his door and Miss Jen­nings added, in a stage whisper, “My, aren't we short-tem­pered this morning.”

“Must be the weather.”

“You know, I think it is, Mr. Meecham. Personally, the weather never bothers me. I rise above it. When winter comes can spring be far behind?”

“You have something there.”

“Shakespeare. I adore poetry.”

“Good, good.” He followed her down the corridor. “How is Mrs. Barkeley?”

“She had a good sleep and a big breakfast. I think she's finally over her hangover. My, it was a beaut.” She un­locked the door at the end of the corridor and held it open for Meecham to go through first. “She borrowed my lip­stick. That's a good sign.”

“Maybe. But I don't know of what.”

“Oh, you're just cynical. So many people are cynical. My mother often says to me, Mollie dear, you were born smil­ing and you'll probably go out smiling.”

Meecham shuddered. “Lucky girl.”

“Yes, I am lucky. I simply can't
help
looking at the cheer­ful side.”

“Good for you.”

The women's section of the cell-block was empty except for Virginia. Miss Jennings unlocked the door. “Here's that man again, Mrs. Barkeley.”

Virginia was sitting on her narrow cot reading, or pre­tending to read, a magazine. She was wearing the yellow wool dress and brown sandals that Meecham had brought to her the previous afternoon, and her black hair was brushed carefully back from her high forehead. She had used Miss Jennings' lipstick to advantage, painting her mouth fuller and wider than it actually was. In the light of the single overhead bulb her flesh looked smooth and cold as marble. Meecham found it impossible to imagine what emotions she was feeling, or what was going on be­hind her remote and beautiful eyes.

She raised her head and gave him a long unfriendly stare that reminded him of Mrs. Hamilton, though there was no physical resemblance between the mother and daughter.

“Good morning, Mrs. Barkeley.”

“Why don't you get me out of here?” she said flatly.

“I'm trying.”

He stepped inside and Miss Jennings closed the door behind him but didn't lock it. She retired to the end of the room and sat down on a bench near the exit door. She hummed a few bars of music, very casually, to indicate to Meecham and Virginia that she had no intention of eaves­dropping.
I'll take the high road
. . .

“She sings,” Virginia said. “She whistles. She quoted poetry. She's so cheerful it drives me crazy. You've got to get me
out
of here.”

“I'm trying.”

“You said that before.”

“Now I'm repeating it. Mind if I sit down?”

“I don't care.”

He sat down at the foot of the cot. “How's your hang­over?”

“It's all right. But they've got fleas or something in here. I have more of those red welts all over my ankles. Did you remember to bring the DDT?”

“Sure.” He took the small bottle of DDT out of his over­coat pocket and gave it to her.

She read the label, frowning. “It's only two percent.”

“I couldn't get it any stronger.”

“You could.”

“All right, but I didn't.”

“What were you afraid of, that I'd drink it in remorse or something?”

“It occurred to me,” Meecham said. “Now don't get ex­cited. Your mother will be here soon.”

“When?”

“Nine-thirty.”

“Do I—do I look all right?”

“You look fine. Very pretty, in fact.”

“Don't say that. I know I'm not pretty.”

Meecham smiled. “We disagree about so many things, let's not disagree about that. Where did you get the cock­eyed idea that you're not pretty?”

“I know I'm not. We won't discuss it.”

“All right.” He offered her a cigarette and she shook her head in refusal. “Let's discuss Cordwink. Give him a statement today and you'll be out . . .”

“I wouldn't give him the time of day.”

“Why not?”

Her lips tightened. “I know what I'm doing. If I refuse to tell Cordwink anything, he won't have anything to trip me up with later on.”

“That argument is sound but rather limited.”

“Besides, now that my mother's here, she'll handle every­thing.”

“Oh?”

“Wait and see.”

“Your mother,” Meecham said dryly, “is undoubtedly a strong and persevering woman, but she can't handle an entire sheriff's department.”

She looked at him stubbornly. “She
believes
in me.”

“I don't care if she thinks you're Queen of the May, a mother's faith isn't enough to go to court on.”

“I won't be going to court.”

“No?”

“I'm not guilty. I didn't kill him.” She raised her voice. “Hear that, Miss Big Ears? I didn't kill Margolis.”

Miss Jennings began to hum again:
And you'll take the low road
.

“Well, that's something anyway,” Meecham said. “A de­nial. Can you back it up?”

“That's all I'm saying right now.”

“Why?”

“Because it
is
.”

“Because you don't remember,” Meecham said. “Accord­ing to the lab report your blood alcohol was 2.23.”

“What does that mean?”

“You were loaded.”

Virginia's cheeks turned slightly pink. “Does my mother know that?”

“She must, by this time.”

“She'll be furious. She's a teetotaler.” She said it very seriously, as if the crime of which she was accused was not murder but drinking.

“So you won't give Cordwink a statement.”

“I can't. Don't you understand? I can't tell him I don't remember anything, he'll throw the book at me.”

“He may anyway.”

She bit her lower lip. “I admit I was a little high Satur­day night.”

“You were quite stupendously drunk, Mrs. Barkeley. You weren't a little high.”

“Well, stop repeating it!” she cried. “Why did you come here anyway? I don't need you to tell me what to do.”