“What’s the matter?” Jamie asked.
“It’s Scarlett.”
“What about her?”
“She’s gone and killed herself,” Larry said, and his voice broke.
Two state troopers — both of them tall and strapping — were in the Kreuger living room when Jamie got there. The local police had just left, Lester told Jamie, shaking his hand at the front door, and then went on to relate how he had discovered the body in the woods while he was walking his dogs, and how he hadn’t known who she was, knew she was a local kid he’d seen around, but didn’t know her name. He’d run back up the hill to his house, and called the cops from the phone in the den, and then went back down to the logging road with them. In a little pink evening bag attached to a belt around her waist, they found a driver’s license identifying her as Scarlett Kreuger. “The thing that got me,” he said, “was her shoe was off, on the left foot, the shoe was off. That would have been the definitive shot. Bring the camera in tight on the foot and the shotgun lying beside it on the wet leaves. That would have defined it, Jamie. If we were doing it for television, I mean, where we can’t show the actual violence.”
Across the room, Jamie could hear the droning voice of one of the troopers. Larry looked up from where he was sitting on the couch, and signaled to him. Jamie walked across to him, aware of the whisper of his loafers on the thick carpet. Larry took his hand. “Glad you could come,” he said. “Sit down, these gentlemen were just asking some questions.”
“Melanie all right?”
“Yes, fine,” Larry said, nodding.
“Connie’s on her way over.”
“Fine,” Larry said. He’d been crying. His eyes were red, the lids puffed and swollen. But there were no tears on his face now; only a numbed and bewildered look. In the kitchen, Jamie could hear the hushed voices of consoling women.
“You were saying she went to this party at the country club last night,” one of the troopers prompted. Blue eyes. Blond hair at the sideburns. Pad open. Big gun holstered at his side; Jamie had heard that in some states the troopers used .357 Magnums, put a hole in a man the size of a sewer lid. He did not yet know that the jagged exit wound at the back of Scarlett’s head measured some six inches in diameter.
“Yes,” Larry said. “An engagement party. At the country club.”
“Which country club would that be, sir? The one here in Rutledge, or the...”
“The Talmadge Club.”
“Over near the university?”
“Yes.”
“Did she go alone, sir?”
“No.”
“Went with someone?”
“Yes.”
“A boy?”
“Yes, but not...”
“Would you know his name, sir?”
“Scotty Klein. Dr. Klein’s son.”
“Live here in Rutledge?”
“Yes. The Kleins are good friends of ours.”
“Came here to pick her up, did he? This... uh...” The trooper consulted his pad. “Scotty Klein, was it?”
“Yes, Scotty.”
“What time was that?”
“When he picked her up?”
“Yes.”
“About seven-thirty. But...”
“This her steady boyfriend or something?”
“No, no, nothing like that. Rusty Klein, that’s the...”
“Thought you said it was Scotty.”
“Yes, but this is the daughter. Rusty. She and my... daughter were in the same graduating class. The class of ’69. They all went together, you see. Rusty and... Scarlett, my daughter... and the Klein boy.”
“Oh, I see. So it wasn’t just the two of them.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“It was the two Klein kids and your daughter.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“How old is she, sir, your daughter?”
“Eighteen. She’ll be nineteen in...” He hesitated. He looked helplessly at Jamie. “She would have been... would have been nineteen next month.”
“And the Klein kids?”
“Rusty is my daughter’s age. I don’t know how old Scotty is. Younger, I know. I think he’s a senior at Lafayette.”
“Was it the Klein boy who was driving?”
“Yes.”
“Would you know what kind of car, sir?”
“What difference does any of this make?” Larry asked in his mild southern voice. “My daughter killed herself. You saw her lying on the ground there, you know she put that shotgun in her mouth and blew the back of her head off. The shotgun is mine, it was in the garage, on pegs there in the garage, wall pegs, she took the gun and shot herself with it, so why do you want to know what kind of car Scotty Klein was driving, what possible difference in the world can it make now what kind of car Scotty was driving?”
“Well, in case he... you see, sir, in something like this...”
“They dropped her off here at the house,” Larry said wearily. “At two in the morning. I heard the car in the driveway, I heard Scarlett calling good night to them, I heard the car leaving, I heard her coming in the house.”
“Then the Klein kids couldn’t have had anything to...”
“No, nothing at all.”
“I’m sorry, sir. We have to...”
“I understand.”
“After your daughter got home, did you hear her go out again?”
“No.”
“Did you see her or talk to her?”
“She put on the radio in the living room...”
“This was at two in the morning?”
“Yes. A rock-and-roll station. I called down for her to cut it down a bit. She said, ‘Okay, Dad,’ and lowered the volume and... and... we... we didn’t say anything else after that.”
“Didn’t hear her leave the house or anything?”
“No.”
“Did you know she was gone? I mean, this morning when you got up, did you...?”
“Not until the police came here. The Rutledge police. To... to ask if I’d come down to the... the old logging road near the reservoir... and... and... identify the body.”
“I’m sorry about all this, sir.”
“Yes.”
“Real sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“We’ll leave you now, sir. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m sorry.”
The state troopers filed out of the room. Lester Blair closed the front door behind them, and then asked Jamie if he wanted a drink or anything. As discoverer of the body, he had obviously taken a proprietary interest. Jamie looked at his watch. It was still only ten-thirty in the morning; the call from Larry seemed to have come hours ago. He declined the drink, and Lester went out to the kitchen.
“I’m sorry I had to interrupt your weekend this way,” Larry said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jamie said, and found himself putting his arm awkwardly around Larry’s shoulders.
“You were the only one I could think of,” Larry said. “Because of the way Scarlett felt about you. How close you were.”
Jamie looked at him, not understanding.
“Your joking with her all the time, she got such a boot out of that, Jamie. Your asking her if she was just home from Atlanta, she always repeated that to me. And if we were having a party or anything, she always asked me was Mr. Croft coming. Made me envious sometimes, the way she admired you. Do you remember the story you had in one of those magazines last year, I forget which magazine it was, Jamie, you’ll have to forgive me, but it was about these runaway kids in the Village, do you remember it?”
“Yes, I remember it,” Jamie said.
“Read that story cover to cover, pointed out each and every picture to me. She was art editor of the school’s magazine you know, and later president of the Photography Club, which was when she became so deeply interested in your work. But it was as a man and a father she admired you most, and that was because Lissie was such a fine person and Scarlett loved her to death. Wanted to be just like Lissie in everything she did. Tried to dress like Lissie, combed her hair like Lissie’s, would’ve changed places with Lissie in a minute if a way could’ve been devised. I guess that’s why I called you first, Jamie. I guess I figured that as a father you... you might understand what I was feeling, what I’m feeling now for... for my little girl.”