Читать онлайн "A Woman’s Eye [collection]" - Графтон Сью - RuLit

With which I was out the door, leaving him to his blood pressure.

I retrieved my ear from our parking lot and took off for Clarksvale, Ninety miles upstate, I didn’t stop to pack up anything. I could buy a toothbrush. Borrow everything else from Aunt Priscilla or Aunt George.

I stopped at Aunt Priscilla’s house-it was on the way into town. After ejaculations of surprise, I told her, “I’m here to cover the big story. Finding human bones at Quichiquois,”

“I’ll call George. She’ll want to hear about this.”

Aunt George was over to Aunt Priscilla’s in a trice. She must be well in her sixties now and just as spry and as domineering as ever. As that summer of Elektra.

“You think it’s Elektra,” she said after I’d given her a rundown on the news story.

I did think so. I’d always thought that she had never left the lake. But couldn’t let myself say it back then. Didn’t want it to be so.

“Aunt George, you come uptown with me,” I invited. “You know all these local officials. In case they try to freeze me out. I want the story.”

“You’ll get it.” She did not doubt. She was too accustomed to getting what she wanted from the town fathers.

As we came out on Aunt Priscilla’s porch she asked, “Is that your car?” nodding to where it stood in the driveway.

“We’ll walk,” she told me, just as she always said ten, almost eleven, years ago. “Easier than trying to park. Talk to more people anyhow,”

And there were plenty of people out on Main Street. Gossiping. Gawking. And there was Claude, near the bank, his father’s bank. Also Aunt Georgie’s.

He greeted us Claude-like. “Good morning, Aunt George, Hello, Emmy. You haven’t been to Clarksvale for a long time.” He was still a whey-face, but he had some assurance now. He had been appointed an attorney with the county.

Aunt Priscilla had kept me informed of all Clarksvale news. She wrote me every week.

Claude and I shook hands. As visitors do.

Aunt Georgie said to us, “I’m going on down to the courthouse.” Where she could gather information.

Claude said, “You’re here about the bones.”

I showed him my newspaper card. “It was on the AP wire this morning.”

“We sent the bones to the lab in Albany. Two weeks ago. They’re on the way back here now. With the report.”

I was reluctant but I asked. “Do you know…”

“Yes.” He said almost to himself, “The director informed me. I inquired…” It took a moment or so before he could continue. But he said it without inflection. “They are male bones. The bones of a young man probably in his twenties. The skull has been bashed.”

I only half asked. “They were found under the promontory, the one called High Peak.”

“There is a ledge, an open cave. The bones were there. Nothing left of clothing.”

“No leather? A belt? A wallet?”

“Not after ten years. Pumas take refuge there if a winter storm interrupts their hunting. Sometimes there are bears.”

I didn’t want to say it but I had to. “She killed him.”

“We don’t know that.”

“She loved him. He was going away. She couldn’t let him go.”

“If she did, we will never know,” Claude said. “She cannot be brought back to trial. Not without evidence. Even if she is found.”

“She was carrying his child. He was leaving her and their child.”

Somewhere there is a little girl, near ten years old. Straight as a lance. Long dark hair hanging down her back. Or a sandy little boy. Agile. Scrawny but muscular. Strong.

“She loved him.” I kept repeating it. Not for Claude. For myself.

Claude said, “I don’t think she planned it. I don’t think she intended it. I think it was by accident.”

In a rage, she struck him. There were some sizable rocks on the promontory. There would be some in the cave. And kept striking him until he was gone. Before she knew what she was doing.

He broke the strand of beads trying to get away from her. She must have had a rock. He was stronger. If it had been possible to get away from her, he could have stopped her.

“I hope you won’t mention her in your story. Why torment her further? She’ll always live with this. An agony of loss.”

He had loved Voss. The way he’d never love anyone else. Nothing homosexual about it. A teenage boy’s hero-worship of his hero.

“I won’t. There may be gossip but it will come to nothing. There aren’t many who really knew her.” And I hesitated. “Gammer…”

“Everyone knows Gammer makes up tall tales.”

We were left with a pause of silence, each in his own thoughts. Then Claude said, “Shall we go down to the courthouse? It’s time for them to get here with the report. You can call your paper from my office.”

Together we walked the half block. On the way he said, “I’m going to be married this spring. To Willa. Do you remember Willa?”

“She was one of Katty’s very best friends.”

“We’ll have a church wedding. Bridesmaids, attendants. All the frills. Willa wants it. We’ll send you an invitation. I hope you’ll be able to come. Katty’s coming from Maryland.”

Katty’s husband is in government.

It occurred to him. “You’re not married?”

“Not yet. I’m a career woman. I’m younger than Katty and her friends.”

“That’s right,” he recalled. “You were just a little girl. You sat on the bench with me and we watched Voss.”

“That’s right,” I echoed. I closed my eyes and I could see him, “He was a wonderful dancer.”

Maybe to keep from tears, he laughed. “You tried to teach me to dance.”

I laughed for the same reason. “You had two left feet.”

So we went into the courthouse to hear the full report on the tones. Just another happening.

But I did not tell Claude that I would give up the story. I wouldn’t mention Elektra. Not unless someone else did. But I would try to find her, I’m an investigative reporter. I have to know the entire story.

Copyrights